| SS-Trick |
Sun, 02 February 2003 05:54  |
|
 Robert |
 | Lt. Junior Grade |
Messages: 393
Registered: November 2002
Location: Dortmund, Germany | |
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i think i have some nice trick, playable with SS only...
the manual says, SS packets are cloaked... i heared that
this is not true... can anybody confirm???
what i have here is something different:
packets are not that powerful, we all know... they cost
minerals, and for large packets you just evacuate and
colonize again...
ok... agreed!
so a race, best PP or AR (early nice en-tech) sends a packet
to a victim's planet... he precalculates the packet's position
for next turn (quite difficult, starscalc does not do it, but
i found a tool on a rushn server... you can also do it by hand).
he tells his SS ally to send a fleet to that position with
wp1 load-order. next turn the victim gets a message that there
is a packet on the way to his planet, but only ... say 10kT.
he will not evacuate. (he does not see the cloaked SS fleet
where the packet is!).
next turn the SS drops the mins back to the packet at wp0,
the packet hits the planet with full mass 
from now on the victim is targeted with lots of packets each
turn, and he will never know if the packet is only 10kT or there
is a 98% cloaked SS fleet hiding the real weight...
evacuate? or not evacuate???
nasty, isnt it???
you can only do it with SS, as all others cant cloak cargo
efficiently...
any comments???
2b v !2b -> ?Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS-Trick |
Sun, 02 February 2003 08:17  |
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SS packets are cloaked as long as you don't overthrow them (throw them above the rating of the driver) - and they're 75% cloaked quel suprise.
As for loading up packets... good idea - the only reason why you won't see it a great deal is the HUGE amount of MM and the margin for error is also very small.
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| Re: SS-Trick |
Sun, 02 February 2003 23:49 |
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| zoid |
 | Ensign |
Messages: 348
Registered: December 2002
Location: Murray, KY - USA | |
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I think it would work, but not as written, and the target of the packet would get one chance to see it's real mass before the subterfuge begins. The trick would require at least 3 yrs of packet travel to impact.
Fling one small packet to get the exact WP coordinates, with one fleet ready to go to those coordinates. Packet appears, fleet goes to the intercept position at WP2, NOT WP1. The reason is that for the ruse to work, the packet must be autoloaded, and you can't target a not-yet existant packet for interception and autoload at WP1.
Turn 1 generated. Now, With the interception fleet at WP2, you launch the REAL packet. The interception fleet sees it at WP1 and targets it for autoload on next turn.
Turn 2 generated, packet is at WP2 and the intercepting fleet now has the bulk of it loaded on his freighters when the players get to look at their turns. The target player sees the same packet as before, but now it's much smaller, and maybe he wonders why he was panicking last turn, but now obviously there's nothing to worry about. Maybe he thinks he must have been sleepier than he realized last night when he did his turn. The packet shell will be the same size as the packet was before it was autoloaded onto the freighters (but only the intercepting player can see that). During that turn, the intercepting player manually loads the minerals back into the packet.
Turn 3 generated, the whole packet hits the target and the player wonders how that little packet he thought was insignificant destroyed his planet. He thinks maybe he was too tired last night when he did his turn and missed something, so maybe he should get more rest in the future before doing his turn. 
Pretty clever if you ask me. I'm just not sure that it's really fair. I think again, this is but one more exploitation of some limitation of the game that would not work in reality. GAMES have to go in turns, but reality does not. In reality the target planet would be watching this packet, and never notice the difference in packet size at tu
...
[Updated on: Sun, 02 February 2003 23:58]
I'M NOT AN EXPERT AND I'M OFTEN PROVEN WRONG. TAKE THAT INTO CONSIDERATION WHEN YOU READ MY POSTS.
Math?  Ummm, sure!  I do FREESTYLE math.Report message to a moderator
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Re: SS-Trick
