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Hard Rocks and Pirates

Fri, 22 January 2010 20:41

GreyMatter

Petty Officer 2nd Class

Messages: 57
Registered: September 2004
Location: USA

Greetings all races!

Following great balancing ideas and successful setups of HardRocks, Glacier, DigIt Thumbsup 2

- here is another one in the same spirit trying to resolve all found issues!
No matter what your skill, style or RL-workload - come on in! We will have some serious fun here Fire bounce

This will be a relatively low-MM game (especially in the beginning) with slow tech and low minerals.
Most battles will involve only a handful of warships on each side.
It will be all about choices: - starting from the race selection, down to the question of collaborating with the Pirates thus getting ahead of the competition but possibly setting yourself up for a nasty Pirate raid later on...

special setup rules
i. 'mineless game setup': This is a game for �mineless� races. Your mine settings must be 5/15/5.

On the other hand, factoryless races are banned. Your factory settings may not be worse than 10/10/10.
The middle number may not be raised, the other two may not be lowered. You are free to make the settings better.

ii. Additional balancing and fun will be provided by host race "The Pirates" which will not expand beyond its initial area(*) and will only fight for hire.
It will be possible to communicate with The Pirates only via in-game message system within the following framework:

- Buy information, special ships, technology in exchange for minerals or planets in your area.
- Bid on Pirate raids against other races every 5-10 years.
- Enlist Pirate support in a critical operation or defense.
Pirate

-if you want to be The Pirate apply below (please intermidiate+ only)

iii. 100% No Dropouts - if you decide you can not continue, want to drop etc. - you simply join The Pirates...
e.g. you transfer race control or become allied with the Pirates and forfeit your claim to victory.
You gain access to various pirate toys/technology and can continue to play yourself or form Pirate Alliance
with another fellow buccaneer but your race can not expand beyond what you have left at the time of going rouge...
However you can wreak havoc in your original starting arm as you see fit otherwise, short of bombing or taking over a player planets...
...unless your pirate bases&planets have been invaded Laughing

)

game play rules
1. Only 1 race per player.
2. ALL players MUST be set to 'enemy'. (except pirates e.g. if you need to get a ship transfer or collaborate during some operation)
3. ALL players MUST have all ships battle orders set to 'attack enemies' or 'attack everyone'
4. No alliances, no NAPs, single player victory only!
5. No Communication between players of any kind! except to the host; Contact The Pirates via ingame messages only.
5a. You can communicate freely with the players on the dark side after you join them...
6. No tech trading - in the sense that races can not setup wolf-lamb or pop-drop sites;
However one can send an observer to the battle or scrap/fight with high tech ships over enemy worlds.
7. Chaff, Splitfleet Dodge, and �Repair after Gating� are allowed!
8. Everything else on the standard Cheats LIST is disallowed. (Includes False Public Player scores, and Exploding Minefield Dodge for SDs)
9. All missile/torp ships must have movement 2 or less.(excludes WM bonus)

=the following rules are being analyzed for inclusion=
10. Limit on total number of mining bots being built - to keep the [war]fleet numbers low and more interesting to fight.

Race designs - general restrictions
1. Weapons MUST be set to expensive.
2. Construction MUST be set to normal or expensive

Race designs - individual restrictions

HE       -  
PP       -  
WM       - 
SS       -  Propulsion Expensive or
         -  60 points to defenses (vote?)

IS       -  Must check LSP,
         -  30 points to defenses (vote?)

IT       -  Must check LSP,CE,GR NOT-check ARM
         -  Construction,Propulsion Expensive.
            200 points to defenses. (vote?)

JOAT     -  Must check LSP. not-check NAS
            150 points to defenses.

CA       -  Must check LSP,UR not-check TT
            180 points to defenses.

SD       -  Must NOT check ARM,NAS
         -  Propulsion Expensive.
         -  No Detonating minefields after first 50 years.
            (Each infraction results in a banned turn, so you can do it with penalty. the ban is applied when found&reported)

AR       -  Must check LSP,CE,GR not-check ARM; (+UR? vote)
         -  Construction,Energy Expensive.
         -  150 points to defenses
         [removing] Can NOT use missiles on StarBases

Game Parameters

15 Players + Pirates/host Sample Distribution Map
I'd like to remap Large/Sparse|Normal to spiral arms galaxy so that no player starts in the corner or center, but have virtually symmetric setup with The Pirates in the dead center.- if you have remapping experience of that sort please let me know!

PRE-SETUP:
Each player race will be grown for a few turns then placed on freighters/colonizers and moved to the outer tip of the spiral arm. The target is 250K people(200K for LSP) plus some minerals from the HW. Also a few scouts and a destroyer will be available at the start.

Player Positions: Distant
AccBBs          : checked
Galaxy Clumping : checked
Slower Tech Adv : checked

All others      : unchecked

Victory: Last race standing
TO turn on the public player scores ONLY: 
   Player exceeds second place by 50%,
   At least 100 years must pass before a winner is declared

Schedule
5 days a week until turn 30, then dropping to 4, 3/week as requested
accelerated gens@ 1-1-2-2-2-2-2 then one turn/generation

Q&A
1. What prt the pirates are?
...Most likely SS to be in the spirit of the game but maybe WM or other depending on the races submitted or host-player preference.

2. You are not providing a list of what can be bought for exactly what price?
...Exactly! the whole point of the Pirate race is to even out some unknown imbalances so the same pirate raider-ship or tech will cost top dogs some fortune or not even available whereas weaker player may even get them for free.

3. Will WM's be able to buy minelayers?
... Rolling Eyes

Uhmm, definitely not at the start, but most probably later on especially if there is some bully pressing WM into a corner Nod

(see #2)

4. You don't say if you can kill the pirate, or if his planets are off limits, or did I miss that?
...Frankly I want this option to be available Shocked

however lets say the consequences for incursion into center zone(or pirate base elsewhere later on) will allow the Pirate(s) to invade the aggressor Laughing

5. If you are not limiting race GR, then LSP is not much of a penalty.
...Right on Matt!, however see the pre-setup(orbital start for all races) and also its another checkbox ticked so any combo of good LRTs will then cost some more to that race in the end. Fire bounce

[Updated on: Mon, 25 January 2010 12:03]