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Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Fri, 20 June 2008 04:42 Go to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
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I've been playing a shareware version of stars 2.0 up until 2 days ago, and having downloaded the new stars 2.7, I have to say I'm a little out of my depth. So here's a few questions about changes that have been made:

1. Initiative - I'm guessing initiative is used to calculate which ships do what when. Am I right?

2. Accuracy - Obvious really, but new to me.

3. The Magno Pulse and Magno Needle - what happened? I rather liked the fact that they damaged everything nearby...ok I can see how they could be annoying, but still...

4. Infinite minerals - Back in my day, each planet only had a limited amount of each mineral that you could mine, and after that it was expand or die.

The last two are more like why did it get changed rather than what is it. Everything else new I've worked out and am very impressed with. Can you guess what I'm going to do while I wait for a reply? Damn I love this game so much...

The goat whats YOU.

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Fri, 20 June 2008 05:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adacore is currently offline Adacore

 
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 I'm a relative newbie myself, so some of the others can probably provide better answers (and although I've been playing Stars! on and off for over 5 years, I never played any version prior to 2.6):

1. Initiative determines the order in which weapons are fired. Weapon slot initiative is equal to the sum of the weapon initiative and the ship hull initiative - highest init fires first. The movement order is determined by ship weight (with a small random modifier)

2. Accuracy is indeed reasonably obvious on the face of it, however it gets considerably more complicated when computers and jammers are added into the mix. Basically capital missiles are more powerful but need high computing and are bad against high jamming, while torpedos are less powerful but are much harder to jam.

3. I have no idea what the magno pulse and magno needle were, but what you're describing sounds like it might be similar to the minigun/gatling weapons in Stars! 2.6/2.7, so maybe it was just renamed.

4. Planets have mineral concentrations which gradually decrease - once it gets down to a low concentration then the mining is incredibly slow. It never goes below 1, so yes you can always mine some minerals, but this effectively limits the amount of useful minerals to a finite quantity. Except on homeworlds, where the minimum concentration is 30, so you can always mine at a reasonable rate. The actual quantity of minerals in a planet can be calculated per the info in this article by Jason Cawley.

Hope that helps.

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Fri, 20 June 2008 06:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
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I see...thanks, that makes things a lot clearer. I'm glad there's still some kind of limit on resources.

Also, I think you're right, the Magno Needle was similar to the gattling gun in that it damaged everything between the attacker and the target. Magno pulse send out a shockwave which damaged all ships within a certain number of sectors.

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Fri, 20 June 2008 08:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
m.a@stars is currently offline m.a@stars

 
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beanspoon wrote on Fri, 20 June 2008 12:06

the Magno Needle was similar to the gattling gun in that it damaged everything between the attacker and the target. Magno pulse send out a shockwave which damaged all ships within a certain number of sectors.

Those sound like interesting weapons to have available, at any rate. Perhaps they were "redesigned" for being too powerful. Twisted Evil

So many Stars, so few Missiles!

In space no one can hear you scheme! Deal

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Fri, 20 June 2008 10:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
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Either for being too powerful or too annoying because there is a chance that one of your own ships could be in the way. Having the shareware version, I only got to try out the Magno Pulse Mk I (whose graphics is now used for the blackjack you might be interested to hear). I think there should be an old times topic for people who want to reminisce about things that have disappeared from the game. I'll make it - where should it be do you reckon?

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Fri, 20 June 2008 20:18 Go to previous messageGo to next message
m.a@stars is currently offline m.a@stars

 
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beanspoon wrote on Fri, 20 June 2008 16:45

Either for being too powerful or too annoying because there is a chance that one of your own ships could be in the way. Having the shareware version, I only got to try out the Magno Pulse Mk I (whose graphics is now used for the blackjack you might be interested to hear). I think there should be an old times topic for people who want to reminisce about things that have disappeared from the game. I'll make it - where should it be do you reckon?

You can use The Bar, or perhaps the Freestars Forum if you're interested in having these back in the new-and-coming opensource versions of the old timewaster. Cool

So many Stars, so few Missiles!

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Sat, 21 June 2008 11:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
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W00t! Will do!

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Sun, 06 July 2008 02:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Coyote is currently offline Coyote

 
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m.a@stars[/email] wrote on Fri, 20 June 2008 17:18]or perhaps the Freestars Forum if you're interested in having these back in the new-and-coming opensource versions of the old timewaster. Cool


I know I am. I remember the old area-effect pulse guns, and would like to see them back. Smile Variety in armament is a good thing.

[Updated on: Sun, 06 July 2008 02:47]

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Sun, 06 July 2008 03:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
m.a@stars is currently offline m.a@stars

 
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Coyote wrote on Sun, 06 July 2008 08:47

I remember the old area-effect pulse guns, and would like to see them back. Smile Variety in armament is a good thing.

I wonder why were they taken out. Were they too unbalancing? Too unwieldy? Sherlock

So many Stars, so few Missiles!

In space no one can hear you scheme! Deal

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Sun, 06 July 2008 03:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adacore is currently offline Adacore

 
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 If the opponent has fast, cheap ships set to maximise damage, wouldn't they end up doing far more damage to your own fleet than the enemy? It would certainly add more tactical depth to battle orders...

[Updated on: Sun, 06 July 2008 03:47]

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Sun, 06 July 2008 17:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
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I'm guessing that's the reason they took them out - because people's ships kept blowing themselves up...but imagine what you could do to chaff... Twisted Evil

Those things had a range of like 3 and the blast radius was 2 so anychaff in range would be utterly wiped out...suck on that chaff

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Sun, 06 July 2008 20:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adacore is currently offline Adacore

 
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 It would just mean keeping the chaff in one big stack - then the pulse wouldn't do any more damage than any other equivalent beam weapon, unless I'm missing something.

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Sun, 06 July 2008 22:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
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 In any case they'd still be more useful than the range-zero weapons that replaced them.

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Mon, 07 July 2008 04:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
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I think this was counted as a beam weapon by the game, so the main pulse did damage like a beam weapon to the stack. Then it does extra damage to all (I think including the targeted) tokens in the blast radius, so it would be even more effective than beam weapons against chaff.

TBH i haven't used the range zero weapons - they may do quite a lot of damage, but they have a limited use (only for really high speed kamakazie ships)

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Mon, 07 July 2008 04:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adacore is currently offline Adacore

 
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 There are very few uses for range-0 weapons that I've heard of in a serious game. The only one that sounds realistic seems to be using them on starbases against enemies that (for some reason, such as very low weapons tech in the early game) universally use range-1 beamer ships.

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Mon, 07 July 2008 08:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Soobie

 
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Adacore wrote on Mon, 07 July 2008 18:21

There are very few uses for range-0 weapons that I've heard of in a serious game. The only one that sounds realistic seems to be using them on starbases against enemies that (for some reason, such as very low weapons tech in the early game) universally use range-1 beamer ships.


I guess if you didn't have Range3 yourself and your enemy is using heavy range1 beamers and you have resources to waste you may vaguely contemplate using a lighter range0 beamer ... and I do mean vague ...

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Mon, 07 July 2008 08:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
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Does anyone actually regularly use them at all then?

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Mon, 07 July 2008 10:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Altruist is currently offline Altruist

 
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beanspoon wrote on Mon, 07 July 2008 14:22

Does anyone actually regularly use them at all then?


For a limited time they are very useful on bases. They are efficient enough that you seldomly need them. This might sound like a contradiction but due to Blackjacks nobody would dare to attack a base with range-1-lasers. The risk to meet Blackjacks ripping apart your range-1-ships is just too big.

On ships they are special circumstance weapons. Sometimes and usually when you are desperate, there might be use for them as a specific counter design.

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Mon, 07 July 2008 10:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adacore is currently offline Adacore

 
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Altruist wrote on Mon, 07 July 2008 10:07

On ships they are special circumstance weapons.


Totally off-topic, but that reminds me - I've still not read Matter (Iain M Banks, latest book in the Culture series), it's sitting on the table next to me waiting for me to finish my current book... I really need to get reading!

[Updated on: Mon, 07 July 2008 10:17]

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Mon, 07 July 2008 10:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
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Altruist wrote on Mon, 07 July 2008 10:07

This might sound like a contradiction but due to Blackjacks nobody would dare to attack a base with range-1-lasers.



Why? As long as you stayed at range 1 blackjacks could do no damage.

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Mon, 07 July 2008 10:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Altruist is currently offline Altruist

 
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beanspoon wrote on Mon, 07 July 2008 16:30

Altruist wrote on Mon, 07 July 2008 10:07

This might sound like a contradiction but due to Blackjacks nobody would dare to attack a base with range-1-lasers.



Why? As long as you stayed at range 1 blackjacks could do no damage.


Remember that on bases all weapons have a +1 range bonus, so Blackjacks have a range of 1 instead of zero.

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Re: Initiative, accuracy, the Magno Pulse and much much more... Mon, 07 July 2008 10:52 Go to previous message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
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I had forgotten that Embarassed

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