PBW ethics, opinions please.

[tesco samoa]

IT is possible. and used by many players.

I do not think it is a 'gamy thing'

I like it

[Fyron]

What I do not like about retrofitting mothballed ships is that some people exploit it with retroseries builds to avoid part of their costs (the maintenance). Retroseries building should be really expensive, and mothballing can cut down the costs paid if the series is a long one.

[rextorres]

Well, one of the advantages to retroseries bldg is that your ship can collect experience while in the retroseries process instead of the ship being in the build que - so strategically it probably wouldn't make sense to mothball anyway.

[ January 12, 2003, 23:00: Message edited by: rextorres ]

[tbontob]

Tesco Samoa and Fyron

So, it is possible. And exploitable.

Your comments seem to imply that this may be one of the 'grey' areas which may be improper to exploit.

I am just a newbie on this, but my thoughts are there is a difference between unethical conduct and an aspect of the game that may not be possible or practical in real life but is possible in the game.

Like hacking the code or playing two empires in the same game is clearly unethical.

In real life a mothballed ship cannot be upgraded. If you upgrade it, it can no longer be mothballed.

Yet the game allows both to co-exist.

Personally, I do not think it is unethical to exploit something in a game that is impossible in real life.

If we do not like it, we can ask for a code change or declare it illegal for use in a game.

The latter clearly presents some problems as discovery of the infraction will take some time if ever, and the damage has been done to some of the empires.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by tbontob:
In real life a mothballed ship cannot be upgraded. If you upgrade it, it can no longer be mothballed.

Why exactly? There is absolutely no reason to why it would be necessary to pay a full crew to man a ship at combat readiness while you are ripping out its guts and entirely replacing.

Personally, I do not think it is unethical to exploit something in a game that is impossible in real life.

Then we should also not be flying around between star systems in the game, and should never build a single starship.

[tbontob]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
[QB]

quote:

---

Originally posted by tbontob:
In real life a mothballed ship cannot be upgraded. If you upgrade it, it can no longer be mothballed.

Why exactly? There is absolutely no reason to why it would be necessary to pay a full crew to man a ship at combat readiness while you are ripping out its guts and entirely replacing.
QB]

---

Hi Graeme

Mothball is defined in my dictionary as
1. a ball made formerly of camphor---Oops wrong mothball

Let's try again
1. To deactivate (as a ship) and prevent deterioration chiefly by dehumidification.
2. To withdraw from use or service and keep in reserve.

My understanding of mothballing is that basically the ship is sealed off. If so, you cannot upgrade a ship and still have it sealed off.

As to paying a crew for being in combat readiness, take the Bismark as an example. It was built, and then IIRC went on sea trials in the Baltic for about a year to train its crew. Only then did it venture into the Atlantic.

The sea trials were important because in its first battle, it sunk the battleship Hood which was the pride of the British fleet and damaged the Prince of Wales.

Pretty good for a novice ship.

So, if we want to be really accurate, I guess we could build the spaceship, and then have the ship hang around the planet for a year while its crew are being trained (to the basic minimum) and only then venture out into deep space.

[tesco samoa]

I agree. The ship is mothballed and not crewed.

It still takes a turn to unmothball the ship and costs resources.

I just feel it is logical to build tons and tons of ships and if you cannot afford to keep them around mothball them.

A classic example of this would be fighting two different types of races.

Race a is organic and constantly builds ships with organic armor maxed out
Race b is a missle / fighter / psychic race.

You build BB ships with crews and Armor skipping weapons to fight Race A.

You build PDC and Master computer and quick fire DF weapons ships to fight Race B

Your At war with Race A so you moth ball your Race B attack ships and build ships to Race A.

Mean while you have just researched MC 2 so you upgrade your mothballed ships... ANd every time you get an up grade you upgrade those ships.

After a while Race A and you agree on a treaty so you mothball about 75% of your fleet and unmothball 25% of your Race B fleet.

Then you just keep building ships for both fleets, mothballing those you cannot afford to keep around and upgrading them when you need to.

That my friend is how to use the mothball and retrofit to its proper use.

It also allows you to max out your spending.

Warning.

Make sure you have enough resources stored to unmothball ships when you need them. And then some extras to have them go about 4 to 5 turns while continueing to build at current rates.

[Fyron]

Yes Tesco, I already knew that. That use of retrofitting mothballed ships is not a problem. The problem is when people abuse it with retroseries builds to avoid a big chunk of the costs of the retroseries.

[tbontob]

T.S.

I can see your point although I have never tried it.

If you want an instant fleet (well, as instant as is possible), unmothballing and retrofitting will get you a fleet faster than any other method.

All you need is a lot of ships with repair facilities hanging about and the resources to absorb the additional 50% cost (30% to gut the old component plus 20% to install the new components) as well as the cost of the components themselves.

Very expensive as you say. But then it may be cheaper than having a smaller fleet hanging around doing nothing.

[tbontob]

T.S. I think I may have missed the main thrust of your point.

And that is retrofitting while the ship is mothballed, thus avoiding maintenance costs.