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I would not consider it cheating if my opponent did so. He actually has better option ... dump cargo battle plan.

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And I strongly recommend that they didn't get catched

[Updated on: Sat, 11 June 2005 09:46]

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I agree these two things do not compare at all...

First what we talk about here is not a "bug". The game especially warn that "you got n ships of this desing and these will be destroyed if you delete the design". So the game was made to do it this way. Strange that deleted design is made to wanish but that is No bug.

Getting minerals off enemy planet is not too easy (or cheap) operation and you are limited by cargo there. You got to invest into it some resources, time and planning. Also it costs you whole design slot so you got to plan it very carefully. SS is prt that excels in using its design slots up fast.

I would probably invest into some stealth minelayers etc. to ease the retreat operation. It is certainly better than any plan involving throw-away designs.

Uploading all hundred mega tons of defending fleet scrap into bombers when defenses are taken down cost you nothing just a few clicks and nothing limits it. Thats certainly a bug ... game makers forgot to check and refuse a upload task if receiving end has no enough cargo space available.

[Updated on: Sat, 11 June 2005 08:44]

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crr65536 wrote on Sun, 12 June 2005 06:56

It is the issue of minerals "vanishing" that I consider a bug. It seems to me that minerals aren't supposed to vanish, except by natural decay or by spending them of ships or other things.

Wrong. If you unload cargo into deep space spot it vanishes. This way the minerals disappear too. I have sometimes accidentally unloaded minerals into space and I have sometimes as SS jettisoned stolen germanium into deep space since its just bit too far to home and i need cargo hold for new thefts. I take i have cheated by your new laws that minerals may never disappear?

Quote:

Whether it is easy to exploit doesn't not change whether it is a bug, feature, cheat, or whatever. The freepop hack might be difficult to exploit (have to find the memory storing the # of colonists transfered), but that doesn't make it any less of a cheat.

What does hacking have to do with all of it? With hacking game executables, files and/or memory one may do lot of things ... freepop is just one wellknown example. Who cares how lot of real life time money and whatever it all takes ... it is clearly dirty.

I thought i explained how that "exploit" is worthless, so does not compare with your examples of ugly cheats. Too difficult and expensive (in game years/resources) to use it in practice gamewise.

Comparable exploit to SS design destroying is maybe worthless stuff profitable scrapping bug. Scrap sole chaff (6kt minerals) into deep space will result with up to 30kt minerals salvage. Split up 100 of them when scrapping and you get over 1000kt minerals in 100 deep space salvages. There is 512 fleet slots whereas you got only 16 design slots. I suspect i never see that or other silly trick done in practice... but if i see it just give me better feeling when destroying that players empire.

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Well I just did a test where I dumped 42000kT of Boranium in deep space and ...

yes it did just disappear. I had been under the impression that it left something similar to salvage that decays at the same rate. Okay - minerals can disappear .

My mentioning the hack was in response to your comment, where it seemed to me you were saying that it wasn't an cheat, not only because minerals can disappear, but also because it would be hard to take advantage of. My point was that just because something is hard to take advantage of, doesn't mean it isn't a cheat if it can unbalance the game.

At any rate, since minerals can in fact disappear (besides just decay, MT exchange, etc.), I now see nothing wrong with this.

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crr65536 wrote on Sun, 12 June 2005 13:11

At any rate, since minerals can in fact disappear (besides just decay, MT exchange, etc.), I now see nothing wrong with this.

Yes, there is no law of preservation of minerals in the Stars universe!

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Hi!

PricklyPea wrote on Sun, 12 June 2005 19:39

Yes, there is no law of preservation of minerals in the Stars universe!

But it should be. Look, when ships are destroyed 1/3 of their cargo adds to a hull salvage. If freighters have "dump cargo" order and they are attacked they (in all the haste to survive) dump cargo, and ALL that dumped cargo remains as salvage. BUT if they perform the usuall regular unload, that cargo DISAPEARS . I'd say that's a bug and should be mentioned in the proper section.

(Added)Tne "Destroy cargo" should be another unload option.
BR, Iztok

[Updated on: Sun, 03 July 2005 09:21]

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Maybe it was intentional there. I have also dumped useless boranium into deep space near my HW as AR. Applying realism ... if some megatons of stuff is sprayed out into ly*ly square then it must be quite hard to pick it up again? However playwise it might be better if it was made not so easy to make minerals disappear.

"Dump cargo" battle order is anyway worded wrong. "It is cargo i ordered to dump ... not passengers."

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I would imagine a ship blowing up would scatter its remains as much as the dumped cargo is scattered, from the "realistic" point of view - however one could argue that a ship's salvage would be relatively close whereas when dumping cargo in deep space the crew is actively trying to make it unretrievable.

At the risk of going woefully off-topic, why do you dump your excess Boranium? It seems like it would be more trouble than to just leave it there. Or is it the case that you hit another one of Stars's built-in power-of-two limits ?

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Yes... overall i agree that if Freestars is made with more careful minerals counting it hurts no one.

As for AR... When AR is too strong then game is over. Usually i play in games that are not over yet. Being ready to go (temporarily) away from all possible attack targets is part of my strategy with such (not too strong) AR. Why to leave any possible trophy? HW is most logical attack target of AR. About 20 scanner ships can spot stealth attacks against HW (so miners get away). About 20 fleets of 50 freighters can spread most of the HW fountain minerals. If there is something still left i dump it. Clean floor.

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Kotk wrote on Sat, 02 July 2005 23:01

"Dump cargo" battle order is anyway worded wrong. "It is cargo i ordered to dump ... not passengers."

Only minerals get dumped when you check the "Dump cargo" box, not cols, not even when in orbit of a planet of yours IIRC ...

mch

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crr65536 wrote on Sun, 03 July 2005 07:36

I would imagine a ship blowing up would scatter its remains as much as the dumped cargo is scattered, from the "realistic" point of view - however one could argue that a ship's salvage would be relatively close whereas when dumping cargo in deep space the crew is actively trying to make it unretrievable.

I don't look at the dump cargo order that way, it's not to make the minerals unretrievable. The reason why you do it is to give the freighters a chance to escape (lighter means more moves) and if they _do_ survive you can pick your cargo up again and run away!

That's why instead of just dumping the cargo the ships in fact detach their entire cargo holds/pods, so the minerals stay within a "package" and are easy to pick up again, they don't get scattered in the vacuum ... that's the opposite of "unloading" into deep space, when doing that the cargo holds just get emptied and the minerals disappear into deepspace ...

Sure if the enemy brings transports than he might be the one picking up the cargo pods before you do. But if you don't dump the cargo he'll get your full mineral load anyway (IIRC cargo is entirely put into the salvage, not just a part of it), so with the "dump cargo" order your ships at least have a chance of getting away and possibly picking up the cargo the next turn.

mch

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Micha wrote on Mon, 04 July 2005 03:32

The reason why you do it is to give the freighters a chance to escape (lighter means more moves) and if they _do_ survive you can pick your cargo up again and run away!

I always wondered whether cargo affected battle board movement but never got round to testing it. I always assumed not.

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