Something long overdue: increasing Ship Stat quality

[Patrikc]

In the last 20 rounds I've seen many people doing stats. Some good. Some bad. Stats varied greatly, too! From what I could tell, these people simply volunteered or submitted their stats to Appocomaster, who'd choose one to be put into Beta for further testing.

As I said, some were good, some were bad. Some looked very interesting from the start, others were obviously flawed without having to open a bcalc to see. I myself have had the priviledge twice, once with a good result, the other was quite unbalanced. Now, mistakes happen, calculations can be off. However, for a game where the rounds last 7 to 10 weeks, I find it unacceptable that after so many rounds, there still isn't a (better) protocol to improve the quality of the stats. There are at least 500 people playing this game, investing time and effort, and I find it almost insulting to their commitment that so little has been done to guarantee a (more) fun round.

Therefore, I suggest that the 'shipstat procedure' is done more openly and transparently, and that more people (I mean you!) are involved in selecting interesting and fun stats.
Every round, close to or just after the end, everyone that wishes to submit a set do so to Appocomaster (or another person on PATeam) including notes. He(/she) would do a preselection if there are a lot of submissions, and then put those up on the forums for debate and criticism, where the designers can defend them. After ample time, PATeam will decide which set to use, based on reception.


I expect these measures to improve the general quality of stats through competition, perhaps even ensure we don't get stuck with crappy stats for 7+ weeks.