PBW ethics, opinions please.

[Wanderer]

Whoa. Did the Shrapnel Games site fall over yesterday or something? I couldn't get on the forum. Two days of thinking coalesced into one post - sorry if it's a bit of a large one.

Gryphin said:
Gamey?
Ok, nobody thought "acidentaly on purpose" sending mis information to my advesary or his partner was Gamey.
How about asking his Partner with whom I had a trade agreement with for,
Tech I alwready had in exchange for tech I did not have.
This was via emial not the in game trade system.
It was my hope that this information would get back to his Partner, (my advesary). In theory my advesary would then design his ships on what he eroniously thought I had.
Was this espionage, a waste of email or a Gamey tactic?

No - that's sneaky, devious and a bit of a long shot! Nice idea.

In my view 'gamey' is playing the game to maximum efficiency rather than maximum reality, without exploiting a bug (ooh, where to draw the line?). In Counter-Strike (duh, why am I bringing this up?) running around jumping up and down like a fool is 'gamey' - it's unrealistic but it makes you harder to hit. Plus it annoys people (me included) like crazy. The simple fact is that people learn how to play the game rather than how to do the thing the game simulates (could I fly a plane after several hours of playing some years-old flight sim?).

If you were a real leader of a race that's just discovered how to colonise other worlds, would you really order your scientists to research 'physics' up to 'level 2' in order to be able to research 'phased polaron beams' (imagine I've crooked my little finger to my mouth a la Dr Evil from Austin Powers)???

Originally posted by tbontob:
Wanderer

Another part of your posting.....
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Generally though, in real life mothballed ships are put in mothballs prior to being scrapped (the only exception I can think of is the American battleships mothballed then put back into action for the Gulf War), so it's hard to judge how this should be handled.
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The Americans mothballed a number of WWII battleships. Some were used for the VietNam War and as you say in the Gulf war. They would be 50 years old at the time of the Gulf War.

I may be wrong about this, but if the ships were not sealed, I would think they would be too rusted to be unmothballed for the Gulf War.

Yes, they would surely have to have received occasional maintenance to keep them from decaying beyond use. Not necessarily 'sealed off' though - the outer hull would eventually rust if not cared for (replacing the zinc blocks every now and again???).

A fairly simple example: One of my housemates has gone on a long holiday to Australia. One of my other housemates has his car keys and occasionally runs the engine for a few minutes to keep it in order (and to prevent the pipes from freezing in the recent Arctic weather we've been having). You could say the car was mothballed, but not sealed off!

Perhaps you should still pay maintenance on mothballed ships, but at a much reduced rate.

Could it be that the situation you are describing is of ships being put into reserve and then when they have deteriorated, they are scrapped?

Probably. The British put large chunks of their navy into reserve/training formations/mothballs prior to scrapping them post-WWII. Irritatingly, we've preserved The Victory (Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar) and The Warrior (the first ironclad [that wasn't French ]) but the only ship to survive WWII was the Belfast (only a light cruiser, now moored on The Thames). I understand the Americans have kept a lot more, partly as floating monuments. Why we couldn't have kept the Warspite (fought in both world wars, excellent service record) I don't know. Actually, I do know. Money. *!�%$�ds.

To return to the point, were the American battleships retro-fitted with Tomahawk missile launchers to fight in the Gulf? I can't remember.

Originally posted by tbontob:
Wanderer

A part of your posting...
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I believe the Last Turkish battleship had a crew of 2 for several years (an old captain and his dog!) before the government decided to scrap it.
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What rank did the dog have? And did it have a salary?

Damn. Just found the right book and it turns out the 'captain' was no more than a petty officer. I doubt his mate was ranked any higher than an able seadog...

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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I'd like the training to be more important, perhaps by raising the amount of experience you can get, raising the amount you can get from training etc. This would mean ships raced into combat would be at a great disadvantage against those carefully brought up to full battle readiness. It would probably really hurt the AI, though.

Umm... training is of extreme importance as it is. Untrained ships get 40% penalties against trained ships. That is a huge gap to overcome.

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Aye, I guess so. I ought to put my strategies back to maximum range rather than point blank to fight the AI shouldn't I? I always think 20% is too little, forgetting it's actually a 40% effect when you combine attack and defence bonuses.

But then the number of times an AI attack has been foiled by my construction of a new ship on the turn they've attacked... it seems wrong for a ship to go straight from the yard to beating off an enemy attack without much sweat.

I just think there should be more (yes more) emphasis on creating, moulding and husbanding a fleet. I'd also love it if the fleet experience had some bearing on how ships manoevered during strategic combat...

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"it takes the Navy three years to build a ship but three centuries to build a tradition"

"You want the moon on a stick"

[Fyron]

Aye, I guess so. I ought to put my strategies back to maximum range rather than point blank to fight the AI shouldn't I? I always think 20% is too little, forgetting it's actually a 40% effect when you combine attack and defence bonuses

No, it is +40% attack and +40% defense because you train ships and fleets to 20%. So, it is an 80% bonus against an untrained fleet.

[tesco samoa]

what do they say

Great minds think alike....

or is it

idiots never differ

Sorry

Ment to say TDB than TDM

[Cheeze]

Wanderer, just to add to your post.

Even if the Turkish guy was a petty officer, as long as he was in command of the ship he is "the Captain".

When the old WWII battleships were brought out of mothballs (the New Jersey was one), they were refit with superior combat radar and targeting systems, communications, the engineering was upgraded somewhat, the Phoenix CIWS was installed, and yes Tomahawks were added in time to the weapon complement. Someone found out that those 16-inch guns were quite useful in the age of missile weaponry. This is a good example of mothballing old warships and bringing them back in with retrofitting.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Cheeze:
Wanderer, just to add to your post.

Even if the Turkish guy was a petty officer, as long as he was in command of the ship he is "the Captain".

When on a ship you command, as a Naval officer, you are indeed "Captain _____".

When going aboard another vessel, or being introduced while at an offshore place (say, an officer's club, or an Embassy, or whatever), youw ould be (for example) "Lieutenant _____, commanding the _______".

If you hold the ACTUAL, direct, rnak of captain, and go aboard a ship you do NOT command, you are given a "courtesy promotion" to the rank of Commodore. Why?

So that when, in a crisis, someone shouts out "Captain!" ... everyone knows who's being spoken to. The captain of THAT ship, and not the guest who happens to hold the -rank- of captain.

Or so this landlubber has been given to understand things, at any rate.

[ January 15, 2003, 07:03: Message edited by: Pax ]

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Gozra:
I have read this thread from stem to stern and I have yet to hear of anything as Gamey. Therefore I am doubling the prize to 20 Galatic Credits.

You might as well raise it to a couple billion. Because if you see nothing wrong with the tactic SumariaProgrammer mentioned then clearly you are someone who thinks anything and everything is OK in the game.

[Gozra]

Originally posted by DavidG:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gozra:
I have read this thread from stem to stern and I have yet to hear of anything as Gamey. Therefore I am doubling the prize to 20 Galatic Credits.

You might as well raise it to a couple billion. Because if you see nothing wrong with the tactic SumariaProgrammer mentioned then clearly you are someone who thinks anything and everything is OK in the game.

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I am unable to find this reference.
And I do think if its allowed by the game you can do it. But I also think Gentlebeings rules for playing the game should be followed. For instance I agree with GEO that no trading should limited so as to make the game more interesting.

[couslee]

I believe he is refrencing the post made, where a player traded an un visited system for an AI home planet. That was very gamey imo. I also think retro-series building is gamey. the 50% max is there for game balance reasons, and to prevent abuse (retro-series sphereworlds). Doing a retro-series bypasses a game design. retro fitting while in mothball does not. big difference. retro-series building is gamey imo.

Taking advantage of a stupid AI is also gamey, IE trading an unvisited system for a homeworld. The gamey part is in the thought of even attempting this, not in the fact the AI was stupid enough to agree to it.

Those that think it is not gamey, are of the same class of people that think nothing is a crime if you don't get caught. All I say to that, is know who your entering into a MP game with. If you accept a game challange from people that feel anything goes, then don't complain later that they lived up to their reputation. or, try and be more cheezy than they are. Hacking game files is blantant cheating, and if done will suceed in noone playing a game with you again. I am talking about questionable tactics, not outright cheating.

send the credits to [email protected]. thank you.

[Fyron]

Retro-series building can possibly double the cost of building the ship. It is balanced already.

[Wardad]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Retro-series building can possibly double the cost of building the ship. It is balanced already.

Very true.

Also in war when maximum effort is needed, are the guys in the repair garages and shops allowed to sit idle for lack of repair work?
No Way!!! They and their tools will be put to work somehow on the new stuff even if the ineffiency raise the costs.