Planetarion Forums - Vintage old comedy documents on your computer

Deffeh · 27 Apr 2003, 21:43

Doing a couple of english essays, i got bored and started reading some of my old essays. Some were of course terrible and embarrassing. Some were genuinly funny. Some were genuinly great.

But i found one that stood out that i compiled almost four years ago now that made me laugh.

Apology.txt
------------

Dear <head of the department>, <teacher that you owe an apology to>, and the entire <department you pissed off> department staff,

I am sorry for my actions on the, <date> this <day you did the deed> in your <classroom/hall/wherever it was>. My actions were irresponsible, unsatisfactory and certainly not those of someone hoping to become a senior pupil in <your school>. I can only express my deepest regret for the incident and hope that you accept my apology. I can assure you that no harm was meant towards yourself, or anyone. I am also confident that I speak for <whoever else is in trouble with you> that such an incident shall never happen again, and because of our own stupidity, we may have placed our positions in the <subject whoever the person who caught you teaches> course in jepodary. I understand that my actions were inappropriate for such an environment, and nothing like this shall ever happen again. Once again, sorry.

Yours Sincerely

<name>.

----------------

This document got me out of all those nasty situations involving "write me a cringy letter of apology". And i didnt feel like my pride was being hurt by sucking up because i gave them the same letter time and time again.

Anyway, what vintage comedy gold lies in your documents folders?

IRC logs are not applicable.

Belgarath The Sorcerer · 27 Apr 2003, 21:59

I don't have any old essay's on my pc...it's been a long time since I had to do any of that nonesense.

I have a .doc with 1000 terms for male masturbation in, a .doc with the full text of The Ancient Mariner, a .doc with Pi to 10000 digits (I got those from this very board when they used to get posted in their completeness to annoy Messiah), a 10mb .doc of jokes I've collected over the last 3 years or so, a .doc of quotes from the matrix, nodrogs quitting post from mid round 2, Poe's Quote the Raven, a .txt file from when #tpe got un k-lined...

there's quite a lot of stuff, most of relevant to me, but in general I suppose most of you wouldn't find it all amusing, however, there is this amusing parody of a song, which comes from Round 3

Note: I did not write it, nor do I know who did.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of round 4... build spiders.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, spiders would be IT.

The long term benefits of spiders have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your roids. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your roids until they have faded. But trust me, in 2 weeks you’ll look back at memories of your planet and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous it was having roids.

You are NOT as 1337 as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to scan a planet with a million wave jammers. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Attack one planet every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s fleets, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on tarantulas; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember defences you receive, forget the attacks; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old battle reports, throw away your old news scans.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your planet. The most interesting people I know didn’t know after 3 rounds what they wanted to do with their planets, some of the most interesting people I know still don’t.

Init plenty of crystal.

Be kind to your allies, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll ally, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll NAP, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll reach the top 100, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken whilst you get roided by NoS. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your attacks are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your fleet, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Flame. Even if you have nowhere to do it but on your politics board.

Read the rules, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT scan top 10 planets, they will only make you feel worthless.

Get to know your PDS, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your alliance HC; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that alliances come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the bigger you get, the more you need the alliances you had when you were small.

Attack a top ten player once, but recall before they wipe out your fleet; Defend an enemy once, but recall just before the battle tick.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, your posts will be flamed, alliances will crumble, you too will get roided, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young the flames were reasonable, your galaxy defended you and alliances respected their NAPs.

Respect your NAPs.

Don’t expect anyone else to defend you. Maybe you have PDS, maybe you'll have a l33t fleet; but you never know when either one might be gone.

Don’t mess too much with your roid ratios, or by the time you reach the top 10, you'll get roided out of the top 100.

Be careful whose planets you farm, but, be patient with those who let you. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the spiders.

Kurashima · 27 Apr 2003, 22:04

Woody (Da Woodsta) wrote that.

Genuinely funny individual (and top bloke) that he is.

Proteus · 27 Apr 2003, 22:06

Quote:

Originally posted by Belgarath The Sorcerer
a .doc with the full text of The Ancient Mariner, a .doc with Pi to 10000 digits

I have the complete works of JRR Tolkien and Pi to a million digits

Embroglio · 27 Apr 2003, 22:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Kurashima
Woody (Da Woodsta) wrote that.

I cant figure out where thats adapted from..?

Proteus · 27 Apr 2003, 22:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Embroglio
I cant figure out where thats adapted from..?

Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen), Baz Lurhman

Embroglio · 27 Apr 2003, 22:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Proteus
Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen), Baz Lurhman

Aha! Now I remember it, was that song. Thought it was from a film or something.

Deffeh · 27 Apr 2003, 23:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Belgarath The Sorcerer
nodrogs quitting post from mid round 2, [/i]

was that the

"now syn sid is a man i greatly respect"

speech?

Tobe · 28 Apr 2003, 13:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Proteus
Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen), Baz Lurhman

didnt nodrog do a parody of that, or was that someone else

Sub · 28 Apr 2003, 20:26

Oh you tit.

1 Aug 2003, 11:22

Quote:

Originally posted by Kurashima
Woody (Da Woodsta) wrote that.

Genuinely funny individual (and top bloke) that he is.

/me licks Kurashima.

Structural Integrity · 1 Aug 2003, 12:11

Nodrog will hate me for this...

BTW, I chose battleships anyway cause I was a n00b back then

Quote:

The Opinions and comments in this column do not necessarly reflect those of Fifth Season or its employees

BATTLESHIPS V TARANTULAS
Nov 30 2000 1:43PM

The most complete, thorough article that you will read ANYWHERE about these 2 ships. I would advise everyone to read this before making their choice if you are even remotely serious about planetarion.

This is around the time that everyone has to make the hardest decision in Planetarion this round. "Do I go for Battleships or Tarantulas?"
Well, ive been wondering all round what one to go for, so yesterday I actually sat down for quite a long time, analysing the stats.
Here is what I came up with (NOTE, there is a LOT of theory and number crunching contained within this article. If you are just wanting a quick answer what is best, then this guide is not for you. This guide is aimed at the more experienced player, who is prepared to analyse stats heavily. However, there is nothing in here too advanced for a newer player who is prepared to think hard, as I have explained all the theory I used)
For the purpose of this article, I am going to be using the term Resource Cost(RC). This is the cost in resources used to produce the ship. Also, I will be rounding values off. This rounding is not significant enough to affect any of the conclusions, so all values can be treated as absolute.
I will also assume that everyone chose Jumpgates over military scans. If you never, then I can only offer you my pity.

BATTLESHIPS

The first thing to not about battleships is their awesome destructive potential. However, they are also fairly expensive. 1 battleship has a RC of 74000. This makes them as expensive as roughly 10 War Frigates (This comparison will be based on War Frigates, as they are the only other reasonably powerful ship with the same target class as Battleships)
Now, lets look at some battle stats :-

10 War Frigates will kill 10 Interceptors a tick, 11.5 Spiders, 5 Daggers, or 1.8 Astropods.
1 Battleship will kill 20 Interceptors, 25 Spiders, 10 Daggers or 3.4 Astropods.

Therefore, Battleships are TWICE as powerful as the equivalent value of War Frigates. This makes them ship that does the most damage per unit of cost in the entire game. However, there are 2 problems with Battleships

1) The travel time. The extra 1 hour is CRUCIAL. Giving your target an extra hour to get defence can cause your fleet to take significantly more casualties than it would otherwise. If you plan on quick roid raids, then you can forget about using battleships. And, since you will have a lot of resources tied down in your Battleships, you are likely to have a lot less war frigates than a Tarantula player. Therefore, your fleet may be too weak to travel without its Battleships, on 8 hour ETA. This makes roiding a significant problem
2) Fuel cost. Eonium is going to be scare later on, due to the incredible difficulty of stealing E roids. 1 Battleship has TWICE the fuel cost of 10 war frigates. I don't know just how significant this will be, as im not sure just how scare E will be.

3) Battleships die FAR too easily. It is too easy to look at the table, see the 200 armour and assume that they are indestructible. In reality, this could not be further from the truth.

Battleships are targeted by Destroyers and Ion Turrets. Lets look at how many of each kill a Battleship

13 Destroyers (RC-208000)
20 Ion Turrets (RC-190000)

Now, compare this to the 10 War Frigates :-

12 War Cruisers (RC-312000)
54 Plasma Turrets (RC-324000)

Therefore, Battleships die almost TWICE as easily as the equivalent value of War Frigates.

In conclusion, Battleships have ENORMOUS damage potential. However, the fact that they die so easily, coupled with the speed, makes them very impractical. Yes, they are AMAZING at killing ships, but the question you have to ask is "Do I even want to kill ships?". Strange as it may sound, roughly 90% of the attack you will make are for roids alone. Killing the enemy fleet is pointless, as it reduces their score, thus limiting the amount of pods you are able to send and still get your 20%. Also, the ease which Battleships die means that you will lose more score on a roid raid than you would sending frigates alone. This makes Battleships almost totally useless for attacking.
They seem to be a good defensive ship stat wise. However, the 9hr ETA means that they are likely to miss the first tick of any battle. This limits their effectiveness as a defensive ships
Throw in the HUGE fuel cost as well, and it becomes clear that battleships are very impractical in almost all circumstances. Yes, in isolation with a quick glance they look awesome, but compared to the 10 War Frigates, they are always going to come of second best.

TARANTULAS
First, the generic value - 1 Tarantula has an RC of 18500. However, it takes 16000 crystal to produce. This ENORMOUS amount of crystal required to build one is a fairly massive blow against them already. To make up for this huge expenditure, they had better be incredibly good indeed. So are they?
Well, in one word, Yes. Lets look at the stats.

1 Tarantula freezes :-

2.5 War Frigates (RC-17500)
2 War Cruisers (RC-52000)
2.3 Destroyers (RC-37000)
0.6 Battleships (RC-44500)

The only thing to say about this is... WOW. Even assuming they are going to be targeting War Frigates most of the time, they still freeze their own value of SC. As they will be hitting destroyers, cruisers and Battleships as well, it is not unreasonable to say that a Tarantula will freeze an amount of ships with a valued greater. This value alone means nothing, so I will compare it to some other ships.

Battleship - kills approx 1/3 of its cost per tick
War Frigates - kills approx 1/6 of its cost per tick

Most other ships kill with a ratio of about 1/6 of the cost. Therefore, Tarantulas are INCREDIBLY useful in combat, being the only ship in planetarion that can neutralize ships with a RC value greater than its own. I would have no problems whatsoever with basing my fleet solely around Tarantulas, if it wasn't for one thing.

They die FAR too easily to Ghosts (yes, even more easily than battleships). And Ion Turrets.

1 Tarantula is killed by :-

7.4 Ghosts (RC-59200)
7.1 Plasma Turrets (RC-42500)

Battleships are killed by 2.5x their RC. Most other ships are killed by 4x. their SC/RC. Tarantulas are killed by about 2.5x their RC as well. However, to have to remember that 90% of a Tarantula's cost is crystal. As crystal is a lot rarer than metal, it is INCREDIBLY inefficient to have a ship that is almost pure crystal to die at the same rate as one that is almost pure metal.

In conclusion, Tarantulas are EXCELLENT. Most ppl will be operating on a metal-crystal ratio of about 2.5/3 to 1. As most ships cost about 4x as much metal as crystal, there is going to be a LOT of excess crystal lying around. There is no better way to spend this than on Tarantulas.
When you are out roiding, the objective is to lose as little ships as possible. The amazing efficiency of the Tarantula means that they can shut down entire fleets of war frigates with ease. However, if your target has a significant amount of Ghosts or Plasma Turrets, your Tarantulas will die easily. Therefore, it is important to scan, and make sure you pick targets without these. Mass fleets of Tarantulas aren't going to kill much, but they are going to get you the roids that you need to build your War Frigate/War Cruiser fleets. The fact that they are made mainly from left over crystal means that building large fleets of them will not significantly affect your War Frigate production.
Basically, Tarantulas are superior to Battleships in every single way. Most inexperienced players will go for Battleships as they "HAVE 80 GUNS AND DON'T DIE!!!!!!!!1112". I hope that this article has dispelled this Battleship myth.

{c}Nodrog 2000

If you have any questions/suggestions/comments, email me at [email protected]

Fifth_teletubbie · 1 Aug 2003, 12:25

I actually agreed with Nodrog at the time, though my reasoning was a lot simpler than his.

I simply reasoned that a battleship does something which can also be done by another ship (the warfrig), whilst a Tarantula did something no other ship could do.
Hence, if you didnt choose Tarants, you deprived yourself of a tactical option in the game.

Of course in hindsight we were both wrong :/

warrmr · 1 Aug 2003, 18:31

does any 1 have that copy of the parady that was made in abotu rnd 3. i think it was posted by sundays8pm

he even recorded it and the backing music was the boom town rats (cant remember the name of the song)

Deffeh · 1 Aug 2003, 19:06

Quote:

Originally posted by Fifth_teletubbie
I actually agreed with Nodrog at the time, though my reasoning was a lot simpler than his.

I simply reasoned that a battleship does something which can also be done by another ship (the warfrig), whilst a Tarantula did something no other ship could do.
Hence, if you didnt choose Tarants, you deprived yourself of a tactical option in the game.

Of course in hindsight we were both wrong :/

100% same reasoning as me

Costa · 1 Aug 2003, 19:15

http://www.thegamingcommunity.net/news.html

good old round 4

i was planet 1

Bongdage · 2 Aug 2003, 05:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Costa
http://www.thegamingcommunity.net/news.html

good old round 4

i was planet 1

you do mean r6 dont you?

Dead_Meat · 2 Aug 2003, 11:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Fifth_teletubbie
I actually agreed with Nodrog at the time, though my reasoning was a lot simpler than his.

I simply reasoned that a battleship does something which can also be done by another ship (the warfrig), whilst a Tarantula did something no other ship could do.
Hence, if you didnt choose Tarants, you deprived yourself of a tactical option in the game.

Of course in hindsight we were both wrong :/

KEEP IT TO PD, GEEKS !

Ragnarak · 2 Aug 2003, 11:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Dead_Meat
KEEP IT TO PD, GEEKS !

you just had to make an appearance as soon as you saw the word old didn't you?

roadrunner_0 · 2 Aug 2003, 12:26

you know, i tihnk i went tara's because of that thar' article :/