magic9mushroom wrote on Tue, 27 May 2014 06:11

Any kind of torpedoes or missiles (WHY DOES EVERYONE MISSPELL THAT WORD) can utilise the exploit.

I do NOT misspell. Missiles are missiles to me - be it torpedoes, or capital ship missiles. Heck, why don't you all save yourselves some confusion and refer to them collectively as "projectiles"?

As for your comments that just any kind of missile can trigger the exploit - yes, but the more powerful the missile is, the bigger the stack need to be for the bug to really show. As I have shown in one of my previous post, a single Alpha torpedo starts being buggy when shooting at a Battleship, while Beta torpedo becomes buggy when shooting at a Nubian. Against a large stack of Nubians, even Jihad missiles (which I have seen still being used in late periods of some games) can be buggy. In the light of what Neil and others said about limits resulting from battle board overload and target list overload, you'll rarely see gross occurences of exploiting the 0,2% minimum damage bug. Limiting the most basic missiles prevents the exploit from being really excessive, and makes it more expensive to the player wishing to exploit, as he'll have to pay more Ironium to build so many missile-armed ships. Besides, unless his 100 missile fleets are accompanied by a large stack of beam "decoy" that can soak up beam damage from the large Nubian stack, he risks losing all these ships (and resources put into them) if you divide your large stack into, say, three or four.

While we're at it, dividing large fleets, although it remains a very useful tactical option, is something I rarely see in games - most players stick to one large "killer" design-o-rama. Maybe I'm not observant enough. Just maybe.

magic9mushroom wrote on Tue, 27 May 2014 06:11

Situation: Players A and B are SDs. B has a higher player number than A. A has a Super Mine Layer in contested space. B is attempting to kill A's minelayer with a pursuing fleet. There is a nearby minefield belonging to A, which is wholly contained in a minefield belonging to B.

Come to think of it, I'd never allow another SD plant minefields within my own Standard minefields. But that's just me, I guess.

magic9mushroom wrote on Tue, 27 May 2014 06:11

A wants to have A's Super Mine Layer duck into A's own minefield and detonate it to kill the ships chasing it (it will survive a detonation from B's minefield IF B decides to detonate it, and B may not). Unfortunately, this legitimate tactic will cause Exploding Minefield Dodge if B does detonate the minefield. If the simple rule of "don't leave minelayers in stacked exploding fields" is enforced, A is in fact denied a tactical option that B could have chosen were their positions reversed.

Again, ducking into your own field which is still in the "danger zone" is not good enough in my book. True, the SML can survive the minefield detonation, but that doesn't really matter. Also, I cannot agree with that my rule would allow player B to do the same thing that's denied to player A - if the rule applies, it applies to all players. Both player A and player B cannot enter areas where two standard minefields overlap.