Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » Response to Misza in Stars! Creche Game Forum
| Response to Misza in Stars! Creche Game Forum |
Mon, 05 April 2010 14:30  |
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 vonKreedon |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA | |
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| Quote: |
Note to self (and a rant too): Never ever again join a game where chaff-sweeping is allowed. Sure, classic use of chaff is annoying, but manageable. Chaff sweeping should totally be banned as nonsense - you can openly laugh at enemy defenses - why bother trying to sneak a sweeper ahead of your fleet if you can just crash your 100s of fleets into it, making the list of fleets a mess in the process? This tactic makes minefields practically useless.
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While I understand your frustration I disagree with your assessment in several ways:
1 - "why bother trying to sneak a sweeper ahead of your fleet if you can just crash your 100s of fleets into it": A couple of reasons here. One is that chaff while very cheap are not free and at say 5 resources per chaff that still equals actual money when you have to burn 300 (300x5=1,500/year) of them each over several years, so there is a resource penalty. Also, to avoid triggering the battleboard overload bug, you have to run the chaff past the target planet, meaning that you potentially have less chaff available for absorbing missile fire in the battle. Finally, you want to sweep down the minefields because it is easy to run into the 512 fleet limit when you want to chaff sweep a large/overlapping set of fields.
2 - It doesn't make minefields useless as a practical matter as they still absorb enemy resources, both money and ships, and force your enemy to gather up enough chaff to do the sweeping, which is a good clue for you about where they intend to attack.
3 - The use of chaff to crash sweep is exactly like the Iranian (and others at other times) use of human waves to overcome the extensive Iraqi minefields during the Iran-Iraq war, and so passes the reality check, which is important to me when evaluating these exploitable bugs.
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| Re: Response to Misza in Stars! Creche Game Forum |
Mon, 05 April 2010 16:00  |
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Thank you, vonKreedon, for these words. I want to feel that the death of all those my fellows is a heroic deed rather than act of cheat.
To contribute to discussion I can say that chaff sweep is a saving mean to oppose SD with his laying right after the move ability. Chaff sweep is sweeping right before the move ability. So it equalizes this a bit.
Also chaff sweeping is really expensive, while laying mines is free of charge (yeah the layer itself is not free but layers are not destroyed often).
So I don't think it's a dirt cheat that spoils the gameplay.
I agree however that splitting too much is something irregular and unpleasant.
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| Re: Response to Misza in Stars! Creche Game Forum |
Sun, 11 April 2010 13:43 |
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| Misza |
 | Petty Officer 2nd Class |
Messages: 59
Registered: February 2003
Location: Poland / Wroclaw | |
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I regret you didn't poke me about this thread, so I could respond earlier.
| vonKreedon |
1 - "why bother trying to sneak a sweeper ahead of your fleet if you can just crash your 100s of fleets into it": A couple of reasons here. One is that chaff while very cheap are not free and at say 5 resources per chaff that still equals actual money when you have to burn 300 (300x5=1,500/year) of them each over several years, so there is a resource penalty.
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That's not an enormous expense, especially later in the game, where planets already produce obscene amounts of resources, and minefields do not get much larger.
| vonKreedon |
Also, to avoid triggering the battleboard overload bug, you have to run the chaff past the target planet, meaning that you potentially have less chaff available for absorbing missile fire in the battle.
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Well, in our game, the enemies didn't bother with that and crashed right into the planet. With 100s of fleets in place, I couldn't count how many of each battleship types they had because scrolling the list would take ages.
| vonKreedon |
Finally, you want to sweep down the minefields because it is easy to run into the 512 fleet limit when you want to chaff sweep a large/overlapping set of fields.
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I'm afraid I didn't get your point. Can you rephrase so I understand how is that defending the crash sweeping idea?
| vonKreedon |
2 - It doesn't make minefields useless as a practical matter as they still absorb enemy resources, both money and ships, and force your enemy to gather up enough chaff to do the sweeping, which is a good clue for you about where they intend to attack.
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Not much of a clue. Chaff usually travels with the big fleet. So either I can see them from (literally) a mile away, or they will jump from another planet. Either way, the crash sweep will happen on the same turn that the main fleet attacks, so it's no early warning.
| vonKreedon |
3 - The use of chaff to crash sweep is exactly like the Iranian (and others at other times) use of human waves to overcome the extensive Iraqi minefields during the Iran-Iraq war, and so passes the reality check, which is important to me when evaluating these exploitable bugs.
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Except in that case, you'd first sacrifice the people to clear the minefield and then advance the main attack. In Stars!, the "reality" is that all moves in a given turn happen simultaneously. Technically, they move one at a time, in a specific order, which is exploited by this tactic.
So, a "realistic" equivalent, and acceptable use of this tactic would be to crash-sweep on year N, and move in the main fleet safely on year N+1. Even an SD wouldn't be able to rebuild the minefield in time to prevent the attack, but this would give a warning one can respond to.
Yes, I do realize I'm crying "Not fair! Not fair!", but this is how I feel. I wonder how advanced players cope with this? Because for every strategy, there's a counter-strategy. Unless it's a bug.
"Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."
- Sun Tzu "The Art of War"Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Response to Misza in Stars! Creche Game Forum |
Sun, 11 April 2010 23:37 |
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| vonKreedon |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA | |
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Misz, in response to my saying that chaff sweeping is just like the Iranian human wave sweeping of Iraqi minefields:
| Quote: |
Except in that case, you'd first sacrifice the people to clear the minefield and then advance the main attack. In Stars!, the "reality" is that all moves in a given turn happen simultaneously. Technically, they move one at a time, in a specific order, which is exploited by this tactic.
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No because for chaff sweeping to work you have to sequence the chaff within the offensive. If you fail, which I have done, to have all of your chaff with lower fleet numbers than your assault fleet then you get no benefit from the chaff sweeping. This is just like sending in a human wave with the actual assault troops right behind them.
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| Re: Response to Misza in Stars! Creche Game Forum |
Mon, 12 April 2010 10:57 |
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| Misza wrote on Sun, 11 April 2010 19:43 |
I wonder how advanced players cope with this?
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Some important clues about minefields:
1. Minefileds will NOT stop your enemy but will hopefully slow him down to give you a little bit more time to prepare.
2. Minefields are no 100%-sure barrier but they pose a risk to travel thru this area. In the best case (for the attacker) he is plain lucky and uses the 0.35% chance of getting thru without triggering the mines.
About crash sweeping:
As said above it comes with its own costs, may this be resources or the 512-fleet-limit. Usually battleboard overload is forbidden and when triggered by crash sweeping, the player responsible for it should face sanctions.
Against overlapping minefields crash sweeping gets much more expensive. Overlapping minefields can consist of just plain standard mines but might also include different types of mines or minefields from different players (your allies). But even the most complicated pattern will only raise the cost to clear it or the time to do so. Building all those minelayers comes at a cost, too, sometimes perhaps better used for offensive purposes because "The best defense it usually a good offense."
The combination of crash sweeping and surprise only works within a 1-year-radius around the target planet. A wider band of minefields gives additional warning and needs to be swept or crashed before.
Crash sweeping needs chaff. Kill the chaff. Usually easier said than done especially when the chaff needs to be shot down BEFORE the actual battle happens in orbit of the planet. Kamikaze fleets of chaff-killers might help, cloaked or surprising attacks as well. Winning battles helps the best, of course, but I am assuming that you are the weaker opponent.
Defenses on the planet usually also slow down the enemy.
Crash sweeping is no wonder-weapon. Personally I don't use it but reach a similar result by swarming the enemy planets with minesweepers to make sure that several planets in the path of my attack-fleet can be targeted.
There are usually 2 very different reasons for crash sweeping:
a) Your opponent is economically strong enough that he doesn't care about the costs.
b) Your opponent isn't overwhelmingly strong but must make sure that he has the surprise on his side because he fears to meet your defense fleet. In this case the attacked planet should be of strategic high value, otherwise your opponent wears himself down with the costs connected with crash sweeping.
[Updated on: Mon, 12 April 2010 11:00] Report message to a moderator
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