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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 09:30   #1
Beeblbrox
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PA did NOT get Hacked Barrow - it Owns! I'm the one who got Owned - it ROCKS!

Security 274 A covert operation was attempted by Max 20 characters (5:2:5), but our agents were able to stop them from doing any harm.
Covert 274 6 agents hacked into our systems and managed to get away with 224298 Metal, 224298 Crystal and 224298 Eonium. Our alertness has been raised.
Covert 270 8 agents hacked into our systems and managed to get away with 339369 Metal, 253360 Crystal and 251891 Eonium. Our alertness has been raised.
Covert 270 6 agents hacked into our systems and managed to get away with 259199 Metal, 259199 Crystal and 259199 Eonium. Our alertness has been raised.
Security 266 A covert operation was attempted by Max 20 characters (5:2:5), but our agents were able to stop them from doing any harm.
Covert 266 6 agents hacked into our systems and managed to get away with 276924 Metal, 276924 Crystal and 276924 Eonium. Our alertness has been raised.


OK, I had been AFK for a few days. I had approx 150 roids and over 3 mil of each res in the bank. Then this guy with 3 roids comes along and does a covop - gets shedloads of res for F.A. effort and risk. It was just chance I decided to come back online just after the 4th tick of his Ownage of me and spent all my remaining res in a hurry to stop it going on any more.

It is funny - but more than that - I think its EXCELLENT that this can happen. A 3 roid player taking down a 150 roid player with minimum effort - I call it SKILL. And it's all GOOD. It makes the game a game of different dimensions - all the ones complaining are the 24/7 power players who think that roids/ships/bashing is all that should ever count. Nuts to the lot of you - I got 0wned and I enjoyed it

Max20characters deserves his points for a good play - GIVE THEM BACK TO HIM.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 10:07   #2
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The issue is the lack of balance.

Of course, when someone pulls away from the rest of the universe by capping immense numbers of roids, we won't have an update THEN.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 10:21   #3
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Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
The issue is the lack of balance.

Of course, when someone pulls away from the rest of the universe by capping immense numbers of roids, we won't have an update THEN.
How is this situation unbalanced? (no sarcasm)
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 10:29   #4
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Hmmmz

On reading the thread further it seems that it was a defence that gave him massive score for losing a few ships, and not so much the covops.

Well this is an amazing coincidence also it seems.

If anybody read the suggestions forum a few rounds back you may remember I made a few suggestions like full alliance integration (that got some notice), and interestingly enough, a detailed suggestion for a skill score system. And, peculiarly enough, it involved a split score system, except I called 'value' - 'power score', and and 'score' - 'skill score'. It was based on relative fleet values in combat, and was designed to move away from score being based on amassing ships and roids to getting score for making kills skillfully. Is any of this beginning to sound familiar?

If that isn't enough to convince, I would like to note that I pointed out that one of the loopholes of my progressive scoring for relative fleet strengths/kills/losses was suiciding small fleets against larger ones - and I also added a caveat to prevent this from happening in my formula. A cap.

I had a long and attritious argument with one particular chap about the merits of my system, and along the way it was refined to meet the few points where the system fell down, although he still maintained it wasn't the way to go.

I was extremely happy to see that PaX seemed to have adopted something I had suggested a while ago, and was content to think it was mere coincidence. However, as the system seems more and more like it was lifted from my suggestion, I am now largely concerned that 1) credit where credits due? 2) If you are going to implement a system that is 75% based on my suggestion, some discussion with me might have been appropriate, to avoid falling into this pitfall I knew about? And had a remedy to?

As at the time my suggestion didn't seem like it was going anywhere with anyone except one particular dogged naysayer, I deleted my local copies of the suggestion when I 'quit' PA after round 8. Although as everyone here knows, quitting PA is like like quitting smoking, you only need to have one puff and you're back in the club

Well, anyway - as it happens a PA friend who is involved in making a PA clone was interested in my suggestion after it had died, and I offered to re-write as much as I could remember from memory - the basic formula was fairly straight-forward after all. In case anyone is interested, I'll post it after this post - I havent yet been involved in a PA combat, and am not as up-to-speed on the details of PA as I used to be, so I would be interested to know how closely my suggestion actually is to the one in play now. So for all you PA numbers Gurus out there, if you have a few hours between ticks, let me know eh?

Just one quick note before I sign off. A friend of mine has raised another problem with the new score system. He attacked someone (alone) whos planet has more value than him. He got there, but the defender ran away and left only a few ships there. He killed the ships, but because the fight (fleet for fleet) was unbalanced, he LOST score. If you merely implement my system formula without my cowards clause THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WILL HAPPEN, and is happening a lot to people and is p*ssing ppl of. For heavens sake, if you're going to use my system, use it right! Read on...
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 10:30   #5
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The Skill Score,

by Beeblbrox

'...because Challenger Tanks shooting Robin Reliants just isn't fair play'

### NOTE - I have yet to detail the points lost (or even gained) for losing ships. Bear with me.

Basically rates a player on the difficulty and skill of their combats rather than 'bashing ability'. The simple upshot of this system is that people can see who are skillful and who are bashers - and then sit back and see what the Universe does to them ;-)

Essentially:

K = power value of ship/roid killed/capped/stunned
P = total fleet power of the Player AND ALL his allies
E = total fleet power of the Enemy AND ALL his allies
X = difficulty multiplier

Players gets skill score for each kill/stun/cap based on this formula:

K * (100 + ((100/(P/(P-E))) * -X))%

What this formula basically says, the power difference between fleets, expressed as a percentage of the players sides fleet power, multiplied by the difficulty percentage, is added to the value of the ship kill - meaning that if the balance of power is in your favour this percentage actually reduces the value of your kill, or if you are outgunned the percentage will be a positive addition to the base 100%, therefore increasing the value of your kill.



Simple Example:

Difficulty multiplier of 2

Player1 total fleet strength (with allies) = 80
Player2 total fleet strength (with allies) = 120

Player1 kills 1 Player2 ship of power value 10
Player2 kills 1 Player1 ship of power value 10


Player1 Scores:

10 * (100 + ((100/(80/(80-120))) * -2))%

= 10 * (100 + ((100/(80/(-40))) * -2))%
# -40 is the fleet power difference in relation to Player1

= 10 * (100 + ((100/(-2)) * -2))%
# working towards a percentage expression

= 10 * (100 + ((-50) * -2))%
# -50 is the fleet power difference expressed as a percentage of Player1s fleet power

= 10 * (100 + 100)%
# the second 100 is the ship kill value modifier, or Score modifier (adjusted by the difficulty) for Player 1

= 10 * 200%
# the Score modifier is added to the base 100%, then applied to the ship power value

= Player 1 scores 20 points for killing the ship (double for each kill basically)




Player2 Scores:

10 * (100 + ((100/(120/(120-80))) * -2))%

= 10 * (100 + ((100/(120/(40))) * -2))%
# +40 is the fleet power difference in relation to Player2

= 10 * (100 + ((100/(3)) * -2))%
# working towards a percentage expression

= 10 * (100 + ((33.3) * -2))%
# +33.3 is the fleet power difference expressed as a percentage of Player2s fleet power

= 10 * (100 + -66.6)%
# -66.6% is the ship kill value modifier, or Score modifier (adjusted by the difficulty) for Player 2

= 10 * 33.3%
# the Score modifier is added to the base 100%, then applied to the ship power value

= Player 1 scores 3 points for killing the ship (rounded down)


Note: Depending on the value of the difficulty modifier, once the higher power fleet reaches a certain size above the opponent fleet the final %multiplier value will become negative (in the above example of Difficulty modifier value of 2 the final score modifier will become negative once the enemy fleet power is <50% of a players fleet power).

I don't know if this is mathematically correct, but it should be dealt with as the larger fleet scoring negative points for killing ships (i.e. losing points) - However this loss can never become => ship killed power value due to the nature of the algorithm. If actually losing points for killing ships no matter how obscene the bashing is too unpalatable it should be easy to cap the score multiplier to 0% (no points lost/won) in code.

It is important to be aware that Score multiplier and Difficulty multiplier are two seperate elements - the Difficulty multiplier is a constant that is set by the game admins to make bashing more/less easy, the Score multiplier is a result of the formula that is determined in each combat through the formula and is applied to the ship killed value.



Extreme Example: What happens to Bashers

Difficulty multiplier of 2

Player1 total fleet strength (with allies) = 80
Player2 total fleet strength (with allies) = 400

Player1 kills 1 Player2 ship of power value 10
Player2 kills 20 Player1 ships of a total power value 50



Player1 (being bashed) Scores:

10 * (100 + ((100/(80/(80-400))) * -2))%

= 10 * (100 + ((100/(80/(-320))) * -2))%
# -320 is the fleet power difference in relation to Player1

= 10 * (100 + ((100/(-0.25)) * -2))%
# working towards a percentage expression

= 10 * (100 + ((-400) * -2))%
# -400 is the fleet power difference expressed as a percentage of Player1s fleet power

= 10 * (100 + 800)%
# the 800 the ship kill value modifier, or Score modifier (adjusted by the difficulty) for Player 1

= 10 * 900%
# the Score modifier is added to the base 100%, then applied to the ship power value

= Player 1 scores 90 points for killing the ship (nice - but is it enough to make up for being bashed?)




Player2 (the basher) Scores:

50 * (100 + ((100/(400/(400-80))) * -2))%

= 50 * (100 + ((100/(400/(320))) * -2))%
# +320 is the fleet power difference in relation to Player2

= 50 * (100 + ((100/(1.25)) * -2))%
# working towards a percentage expression

= 50 * (100 + ((80) * -2))%
# +80 is the fleet power difference expressed as a percentage of Player2s fleet power

= 50 * (100 + -160)%
# -160% is the ship kill value modifier, or Score modifier (adjusted by the difficulty) for Player 2

= 50 * -60%
# the Score modifier is added to the base 100%, then applied to the ship power value

= Player 1 scores -30 points for killing the ships (not too terrible, but if this is all he ever does hes going to be permanently in a negative Skill score)








NOTES:

Roids:
A value should be determined for roid capping should be applied as they have no fleet power value. I'd suggest 1000 per roid to start with.

Freezing/Capping:
Capping a ship is more difficult than killing it, so perhaps a final additional multiplier of 1.5 or whatever is deemed appropriate should apply. Vice Versa freezing is much much easier, and if I remember correctly from my stat tables (http://www.jasonarcher.co.uk) its about 5 times easier roughly, so a final additional modifier of 0.2 would be appropriate.

Loopholes:
There are a few loopholes that allow exploitation, and these can be closed with 3 or 4 simple caveats.

Clause 1: Cowards Clause
Somebody running away from a fight and leaving the enemy to cap roids with 0 opposition will cause the enemy to lose points for capping undefended roids. Therefore the defending planets total fleet power is used as a minimum for the defenders total fleet power *regardless* of whether there is actually any ships there or not.


Clause 2:
There are 2 or 3 more clauses for exploitation, but I have as yet to remember them. There are very very few however, I remember that as the original thread was argued to death for a long time by one persistent detractor. I will update the document as and when I remember them.



SUGGESTIONS:
This system has a great deal of scope for mucking around with certain situations, e.g. a heroics or kamikazee bonus could be applied to people standing up to impossible odds - simply by giving their own difficulty modifier a boost for that combat - try giving the Player being bashed a difficulty modifier of -10 instead of -2 and his 1 small victory is much more appealing.

Different races could have different difficulty modifiers to add more flavour to them.

Don't forget the difficulty modifier doesnt have to be a whole integer.

You could introduce a whole new attribute for ships, their kill value, rather than using their power rating. This makes the idea of super-capital ships / flagships an interesting idea to explore (e.g. each race has 1 flagship that has a huge kill value)

I havent even begun to figure out what would happen with a Difficulty modifier < 1

Last edited by Beeblbrox; 25 Sep 2003 at 11:01.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 10:37   #6
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Yes all these features are great, its great that someone who plays for 20 mins a day can complete with the uber active people, yes yes great. </sarcasm>

(general comment not relating to gerbie)
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 10:54   #7
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In particular regard to Max20's massive score gain for losing ships, it was more likely he actually gained a massive score multiplier for the few ships he did kill, rather than gaining points for losing ships - which is perfectly possible in the formula. Also, people losing large score for small losses is also perfectly possible, if the 'points lost for losing ships' which I haven't documented is applied. From memory here it is:

Apply the oppenents score multiplier to the value of the ships you lost. Then subtract this value from your score.

As you can see, if you are being bashed, this means you can end up actually gaining up to 99.99(recurring)% of the value of your ships killed in score - as you are subtracting a negative. It is capped at less than 100% though, as your fleet value can never be 100% smaller than the enemy.

BUT

As there is NO LIMIT on how much larger in percentage terms a fleet can be to the enemy, you can in theory end up with gaining 100,000% value of the ships killed score if you manage to shoot a few down. So you can gain LOTS.

*THEREFORE*
If you apply the ships lost formula for this - there is NO LIMIT on how much percentage value is applied to the value of the larger fleets ship loss adjustor. Hence massive losses when you lose only a few ships while bashing the enemy.

In my original suggestion I think I suggested an arbitrary +500% maximum cap on the score modifier. There is no lower cap requirement as I have noted you *cannot* have a modifier <= -100%

And given that Spinner has mentioned a missing limit...

So there you go. Is any of this sounding familiar to you?

Last edited by Beeblbrox; 25 Sep 2003 at 11:40.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 10:58   #8
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Quote:
Originally posted by Banned
How is this situation unbalanced? (no sarcasm)
i think it's a bit unbalanced.
We have a protection top-down (players shown in orange)
We should have one bottom-up too ...
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 10:58   #9
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Quote:
Originally posted by Ado
Yes all these features are great, its great that someone who plays for 20 mins a day can complete with the uber active people, yes yes great. </sarcasm>

(general comment not relating to gerbie)
Under the old game, I'd agree. But now I'll just laugh at the uber active people who are obviously wasting their time instead of thinking.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 11:09   #10
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Quote:
Originally posted by SpaceLegend
i think it's a bit unbalanced.
We have a protection top-down (players shown in orange)
We should have one bottom-up too ...

LOLLLLLLLL



first everyone is complaining about the limit that is put in place, cuz they can't bash small players anymore and now the small ppl can hit them back they suddenly need protection aswell......hypocrites
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 11:17   #11
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How is it skill that a 3 roid player can covert op a 150 roid player ? Surely if anything it's quite the opposite, there's no thought into fleet compositions or tactics, all he's doing is clicking a button, very skillful.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 11:33   #12
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So the concept of the element of surprise is not skillful? The concept of deceiving the enemy into thinking you are weak, powerless? Taking a route of research and construction that nobody took seriously? Finding a chump like me who went away and saved up bags of resources because he didn't go into vacation?

This all deserves as much recognition as someone who is chained to their computer 24 hours a day amassing ships and roids, if not more so.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 11:37   #13
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Besides as I have mentioned it tuns out that the largest score boost was due to "PaX's" (cough cough) skill score system loophole.

Additionally, I'd like to think that this now means people will take Covert Operations a lot more seriously now - I haven't got far enough to find out if there are measures/constructions for counter-espionage, but I imagine there are, and I bet your last Eonium roid everyone is desperately scrambling for the research/construction buttons now.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 12:09   #14
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Quote:
Originally posted by Beeblbrox
Besides as I have mentioned it tuns out that the largest score boost was due to "PaX's" (cough cough) skill score system loophole.

Additionally, I'd like to think that this now means people will take Covert Operations a lot more seriously now - I haven't got far enough to find out if there are measures/constructions for counter-espionage, but I imagine there are, and I bet your last Eonium roid everyone is desperately scrambling for the research/construction buttons now.
There are counter-espionage measures...they're just nicely uneffective. Have been since beta.
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Quote:
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LCH is too far away, now they are the same roid amout as 1up

Last edited by AzureWrath; 25 Sep 2003 at 12:38.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 12:27   #15
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Quote:
Originally posted by Beeblbrox
So the concept of the element of surprise is not skillful? The concept of deceiving the enemy into thinking you are weak, powerless? Taking a route of research and construction that nobody took seriously? Finding a chump like me who went away and saved up bags of resources because he didn't go into vacation?
LOL your talking sh*t there is no deception involved, you ARE weak and powerless and doing (as hicks said) clicking a button and damaging a bigger player when normally you wouldnt have the opertunity. Its something thats added to the game to artifically slant the playfield in the n00bs favour.. nothing more nothing less.

Quote:


This all deserves as much recognition as someone who is chained to their computer 24 hours a day amassing ships and roids, if not more so.

Im not even going to answer that, your obviously not a gamer as anyone who comes out with a statement must be a idiot. Soemone who is dedicated, knows stats, is active and you say that a opertunist deserves as much recognition ?

Is that like classing a buisness man and lottery winner in the same league ?
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 12:29   #16
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hicks
How is it skill that a 3 roid player can covert op a 150 roid player ? Surely if anything it's quite the opposite, there's no thought into fleet compositions or tactics, all he's doing is clicking a button, very skillful.
He was obviously smart (or skillful, if you prefer that approach) enough to realize that getting 150 roids was a waste of time.

I'm sure people in round 2 felt the same way.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 12:36   #17
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Quote:
Originally posted by Ado
LOL your talking sh*t there is no deception involved, you ARE weak and powerless and doing (as hicks said) clicking a button and damaging a bigger player when normally you wouldnt have the opertunity. Its something thats added to the game to artifically slant the playfield in the n00bs favour.. nothing more nothing less.
Afaik Gerbie is the only one using this tactic, or atleast the only person using it effectively with 3 roids. He isnt a n00b. At the start of the round he discussed his tactic with the gal and everyon ereplied in amasement wondering wtf he was doing but it seems he out smarted everyone. It took skill to think up this idea and play PA in a way that hasnt been possible before, everyone else was stuck in the old style of playing while Gerbie used the new features to his advantage.

He isnt a n00b and he isnt weak or powerless, he is just playing the game with different tactics.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 12:42   #18
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It took skill to think up this idea

nah just doing the same as in beta
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 12:48   #19
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Quote:
Originally posted by JC
Afaik Gerbie is the only one using this tactic, or atleast the only person using it effectively with 3 roids. He isnt a n00b. At the start of the round he discussed his tactic with the gal and everyon ereplied in amasement wondering wtf he was doing but it seems he out smarted everyone. It took skill to think up this idea and play PA in a way that hasnt been possible before, everyone else was stuck in the old style of playing while Gerbie used the new features to his advantage.

He isnt a n00b and he isnt weak or powerless, he is just playing the game with different tactics.
You misunderstood me, I accept that he isnt a n00b and he used it as a valid tactic and tbh I agree with that. But a side effect is that a n00b player who would otherwise not stand a chance can suessfully attack a large active player and get something.

I dont agree and never will agree with spinners artificial slanting of the game to favour n00bs.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 12:50   #20
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Quote:
Originally posted by Ado
LOL your talking sh*t there is no deception involved, you ARE weak and powerless and doing (as hicks said) clicking a button and damaging a bigger player when normally you wouldnt have the opertunity. Its something thats added to the game to artifically slant the playfield in the n00bs favour.. nothing more nothing less.


Gosh I love how quickly some people descend to slanging matches. I hope this weak and powerless chap demonstrates how weak and powerless he is by sabotaging your constructions, research, and income one day so you can come back here and tell me just how weak and powerless he was.


Quote:
Im not even going to answer that, your obviously not a gamer as anyone who comes out with a statement must be a idiot. Soemone who is dedicated, knows stats, is active and you say that a opertunist deserves as much recognition ?

Is that like classing a buisness man and lottery winner in the same league ?
I AM going to answer your statement, even though your insults are unprovoked. This guy isn't a lottery winner - it was a carefully planned tactic that he carried out from the start of the game. FYI 90% of businesses fail in the first 2 years, he happens to be a succesful businessman as he had a strategy he executed from the outset and carried out marvelously.

As for me not being a gamer... I've spent more hours gaming than you've been alive mate - from the first 'Space Invaders' machines arriving in amusement arcades (where I got a job because I spent so much time there when i was your age), to countless hours teaching fools who challenge me at Civ/SMAC etc. who their daddy is. Strategy has nothing to do with idling countless hours on IRC smarming your way up an alliance heirarchy until you have a large pool of peons who will blow you just for talking to them, and everything to do with enjoying a stimulating challenge to the grey substance you clearly lack.

Anyway, this is all detracting from the main point my esteemed peon has clearly not the whit to comprehend - the skill scoring system (which is where Gerbie said he actually got most of his score anyway) for combats. Cov Ops has it's place but as has been clearly argued in Barrows thread will probably not be enough to keep you at no1 for the duration of the game. I am largely concerned whether any number cruncher out there can tell me if the new system bears much relation to my old suggestion as outlined.

Nuff said

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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 14:09   #21
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Beelbrox, just as you suggested, it was the fact that he killed ships which would normally equal to 0.6k score that gave him the massive score bonus. The attacker was 100x bigger than him, so he got his score mulpitplied with 100 = 60k score, for killing 3 ships ;-) while losing 9, but vs a much much bigger player, so hte score loss wasnt much to mention.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 15:25   #22
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Quote:
Originally posted by Beeblbrox
Hmmmz

On reading the thread further it seems that it was a defence that gave him massive score for losing a few ships, and not so much the covops.

Well this is an amazing coincidence also it seems.

If anybody read the suggestions forum a few rounds back you may remember I made a few suggestions like full alliance integration (that got some notice), and interestingly enough, a detailed suggestion for a skill score system. And, peculiarly enough, it involved a split score system, except I called 'value' - 'power score', and and 'score' - 'skill score'. It was based on relative fleet values in combat, and was designed to move away from score being based on amassing ships and roids to getting score for making kills skillfully. Is any of this beginning to sound familiar?
Hm, I seem to recall that thread.
Quote:
If that isn't enough to convince, I would like to note that I pointed out that one of the loopholes of my progressive scoring for relative fleet strengths/kills/losses was suiciding small fleets against larger ones - and I also added a caveat to prevent this from happening in my formula. A cap.
Well, that puts you one up on Spinner. He never paid much attention to the Suggestions forum though, so he probably never saw your caveat.
Quote:
I had a long and attritious argument with one particular chap about the merits of my system, and along the way it was refined to meet the few points where the system fell down, although he still maintained it wasn't the way to go.
Various sorts of scoring schemes have been suggested in the past. I think the "skill" or "honor" based schemes all have one significant weakness: you will have hundreds or thousands of players looking for "flaws" in the formulas in order to exploit them. If the formulas aren't 100% rock solid, then you'll have players gaining score in ways that were never imagined nor intended (and will be regarded as either clever or cheap (or both)); and then they'll probably have to start tweaking the formulas and/or the round turns into a farce.

Spinner's previous attempt at "honor" scoring was the R4 roid cap formula, which favored small attackers over large attackers. Players quickly realized that small "friendly" attackers could piggyback larger "hostile" attackers and the majority of roids would be lost to "friends" rather than to "enemies." Spinner may have thought that by not documenting the PAX formulas he could prevent players from finding and exploiting the flaws. If so, he was wrong about that too.

So while I think it would possible to produce a solid honor- or skill-based scoring system, I don't think Spinner is the one to do it. His obsession with secrecy and post-beta tweaks would tend to sabotage any such effort.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 15:59   #23
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hicks
How is it skill that a 3 roid player can covert op a 150 roid player ? Surely if anything it's quite the opposite, there's no thought into fleet compositions or tactics, all he's doing is clicking a button, very skillful.
Was it ever skill that a 10 million player could bash a 2 million player and take his roids ? Off course not.

True, easy coverts ops are not much a matter of skill and mayby they could be tweaked a bit still (not much though) to lower the stealth level a bit more after an attempt but frankly there is hardly anything that requires real skill if you know how to do it already.

But advantage of the covert ops hacking is that a new player can relativly quickly gain a lot of resources to boost his value. And it also slow down the bigger players which is also good. So mayby not a skillfull tool but at least a very usefull addition to the game.

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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 17:44   #24
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Quote:
Originally posted by Al_zz
Was it ever skill that a 10 million player could bash a 2 million player and take his roids ? Off course not.
There was a skill in composing a decent fleet to do the job and sending the right ships to get a good cap. As opposed to the no brainer of clicking a button.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 17:52   #25
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Quote:
Originally posted by Al_zz
Was it ever skill that a 10 million player could bash a 2 million player and take his roids ? Off course not.
This is a bit of a silly argument seeing as we all start off exactly the same. I suppose you could blame luck but that makes some people really, reallly, really lucky.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 23:26   #26
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Quote:
Originally posted by SpaceLegend
i think it's a bit unbalanced.
We have a protection top-down (players shown in orange)
We should have one bottom-up too ...
when the limit to who could be hit was first introduced I complained about not being able to
1. Roid small people that attacked you and lost their fleet.
2. Launch counters at small people that were attacking your galmate
3. Retaliate on the 20 small people that ganged up on you

And now it seems we have to add another...

4. Bomb the person that's opping you back to the stoneage.
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Unread 25 Sep 2003, 23:49   #27
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Quote:
Originally posted by Chax
when the limit to who could be hit was first introduced I complained about not being able to
1. Roid small people that attacked you and lost their fleet.
2. Launch counters at small people that were attacking your galmate
3. Retaliate on the 20 small people that ganged up on you

And now it seems we have to add another...

4. Bomb the person that's opping you back to the stoneage.

A player that attacks you or your galaxy should automatically lose his "noob" protection. Spinner would never implement it, but I gotta say it's pretty stupid, when somebody attacks you, and you cannot hit them back. Logic is nowhere to be found. It's like a small annoying dog bites you in the leg, but because of honour, you cannot kick it )... Makes perfect sense.

Covert ops is another stupidity from Spinner, and it is absurd to see people say there is skill involved. It is also illogical that honour should prevent you from killing the rats that are eating your supplies...
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Unread 26 Sep 2003, 00:07   #28
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kåre Willoch
....
I bet you were one of those who always tags "Honor and some other mumbo jumbo", while all you wanna do is kick the damn annoying "dog" !
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Unread 26 Sep 2003, 01:18   #29
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kåre Willoch
Covert ops is another stupidity from Spinner, and it is absurd to see people say there is skill involved. It is also illogical that honour should prevent you from killing the rats that are eating your supplies...
As far as I can tell the complaints against covert ops are:

1. it requires no skill
2. you can't stop it often enough, and even if you do there's no reward
3. you can't hurt them back

What I like about covert ops is that it offers a way to play the game which doesn't mean you need to attack between 1-6am (european time). My suggestion - which is pretty raw and unthought out atm - is a race tailored to the casual player. Rather than a planet they opt to be guerilla fighters (or space pirates perhaps ) who chose to steal resources rather than go through the boring process of mining asteroids. Their objective is never to engage with a planet's full force, but to do hit and run attacks - though of course their gains would be proportional. I'd envisage their ships as small and fast, possibly cloaked or stolen to avoid detection. (Maybe renegade xandathri/zikonians rather than a new race). This is basically covert ops extended beyond research/coords/press a button to include production of ships, time taken to train agents, then to scan/infiltrate enemy planets for info before finally launching stealing or sabotage missions.
Balance would be introduced by the very real risk of detection - depending on measures in place at the planet - and therefore the risk of meeting a much larger force than intended. Failure might also mean capture of some of their operatives, with appropriate repercussions - eg discovery of their production ships/training centres/amp stations which would also be vulnerable to attack.

What I am trying for here is a race that can be played for fun ... that will never make the T10 but can have the satisfaction of succesful attacks against larger planets without being limited to the standard 'successful' launch times. The size of their attacks would be limited on a scale with the planet, too large a force would almost certainly be discovered, meaning complete failure of the mission and loss of all concerned. Unlike current covert ops, planets discovering an attack against them will be rewarded with score for the ship/agent kills - plus follow on destruction of production ships/amps etc if appropriate.

Ok, flame away.
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Unread 26 Sep 2003, 05:04   #30
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I should have signed up a Covert Op planet.

Then gotten some friends to do likewise and use our Covert Op group to fk over top players for fun.
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Unread 26 Sep 2003, 08:50   #31
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People are used to their hard-effort lack of skill methods working and they don't like it now that there are multiple ways to have an impact.

IRL the assassin or saboteur has always been able to have a massive impact against larger forces, why should a war game be different.

Skill? I always said the skill was in picking the target and then what you do after you launched. There was no skill in fleet composition as mostly people had/have predominantly 1 class of ships.

Convert ops has even more skill in picking the target. Beeblebrox got nailed cos he was away, I'm sure effort went into finding him and it wasn't random. There is also finding the way to most appropriately damage a target.

I was attacked yesterday by a pure BS fleet, my brother is running a covert ops planet. He started destroying the guys ships 4 at a go and as his fleet was pure CR/BS this was pretty devastating for a while. Eventualy the guy gets wise and builds a stack of fighters - he's off the hook for a while. This wasn't random, we tried something that would only work on that particular victim and worked well, that's skill.

Gerbie went a high risk strategy. Fact is everyone who plays a coop planet plays a paid-up planet just like everyone else and is entitled to have some impact on the game. No way is their influence as great as a T20 guy with a huge fleet but it seems to bug some people that they can do anything at all. Well guys wake up to strategy and to a slightly more complex game system.
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