magic9mushroom wrote on Thu, 22 May 2014 07:32

0.2% minimum damage - Banned
- You may not assemble a collection of fleets at a single location that is capable of firing more than 100 torpedo/missile salvos per round of battle.

This is an excessive limitation... or inaccurate calculation.
100 salvos will only do 20% max damage.
500 salvos are reqd, with each doing 0.2% damage, which leads to a 100% hit to armor.
Thus you need 167 DDs + spare change to take care of any inaccuracies to fully destroy a stack.

Bugs which have been fixed (UR/CE) seem a bit pointless as well (I know it's still in the canonical list)

You also seem to have tripped over yourself in trying to define hard limits for some of the bugs/exploits listed.

In that case I agree. 34 DD's still limiting. Was there a reason to ban all classes of torpedoes/missles? If applied to only alpha and beta torps then that would bring more on board.

Quote:

It is often tactically necessary for a minelayer to duck into its own exploding minefield to kill pursuers. If the entire area is covered in an opposing SD's minefield, the bug is unavoidable without unfairly compromising the options of the lower-number SD. I agree that the exploit is unfair, but allowing the higher-number SD to push the lower-number one around with the threat of the exploit is also unfair.

For starters, a ship pursuing the minelayer with the intent to kill it in battle is most certainly not built using the minelaying hull - these hulls lack weapon slots. Any armed ship entering the detonating minefield is vulnerable no matter which player's field it is.
The only situation I can think of is that two minelayers of the opposing players swamp each other in detonating minefields (this is possible as they don't sweep each other's fields, because they are not armed). The minelayer of the lower number player is immune to detonation (because his own field detonates first), whereas the higher number player's minelayer is not. The obvious solution is this: all minelayers caught in an enemy exploding minefield must attempt to get clear of that field next turn (either by moving away, or by sweeping the opponent's field). If they fail, they must be scrapped next turn. This should not limit the minelayers' ability to maintain their own exploding field (they can add mines to it from anywhere inside the field), and getting out should not be overly difficult (since they can move two warps higher than normal through enemy minefields).

dlrichert wrote on Sun, 25 May 2014 14:52

In that case I agree. 34 DD's still limiting. Was there a reason to ban all classes of torpedoes/missles? If applied to only alpha and beta torps then that would bring more on board.

Any kind of torpedoes or missiles (WHY DOES EVERYONE MISSPELL THAT WORD) can utilise the exploit.

nmid wrote on Sun, 25 May 2014 20:30

magic9mushroom wrote on Thu, 22 May 2014 07:32

0.2% minimum damage - Banned
- You may not assemble a collection of fleets at a single location that is capable of firing more than 100 torpedo/missile salvos per round of battle.

This is an excessive limitation... or inaccurate calculation.
100 salvos will only do 20% max damage.
500 salvos are reqd, with each doing 0.2% damage, which leads to a 100% hit to armor.
Thus you need 167 DDs + spare change to take care of any inaccuracies to fully destroy a stack.

20% per round of shooting. If I use 40 delta-equipped Meta-Morphs (200 salvos/turn) to kill your 100 pre-Warp-10 Heavy Blaster BBs (or take your 5,000 AMP Nubians to 1 HP) with the exploit, is this AOK (they get 3 shots; two while the beamers close, and 1 from the 8 computers giving them initiative)?

Any kind of torpedoes or missiles (WHY DOES EVERYONE MISSPELL THAT WORD) can utilise the exploit.

Situation: Players A and B are SDs. B has a higher player number than A. A has a Super Mine Layer in contested space. B is attempting to kill A's minelayer with a pursuing fleet. There is a nearby minefield belonging to A, which is wholly contained in a minefield belonging to B.

A wants to have A's Super Mine Layer duck into A's own minefield and detonate it to kill the ships chasing it (it will survive a detonation from B's minefield IF B decides to detonate it, and B may not). Unfortunately, this legitimate tactic will cause Exploding Minefield Dodge if B does detonate the minefield. If the simple rule of "don't leave minelayers in stacked exploding fields" is enforced, A is in fact denied a tactical option that B could have chosen were their positions reversed.

Your "obvious solution" doesn't work because A doesn't know whether B will, in fact, detonate the minefield. Knowing that a field exploded last turn implies nothing about whether i

A fleet of 50-100 DDs still only sends 2 salvos (Assuming a shield in that GP slot).

If you gated in 50-100 individual DDs to defend a planet, and they met a stack of larger ships then they would do 20%-40% damage with one salvo (moderated by accuracy of course)

magic9mushroom wrote on Tue, 27 May 2014 06:11

Any kind of torpedoes or missiles (WHY DOES EVERYONE MISSPELL THAT WORD) can utilise the exploit.

I do NOT misspell. Missiles are missiles to me - be it torpedoes, or capital ship missiles. Heck, why don't you all save yourselves some confusion and refer to them collectively as "projectiles"?

As for your comments that just any kind of missile can trigger the exploit - yes, but the more powerful the missile is, the bigger the stack need to be for the bug to really show. As I have shown in one of my previous post, a single Alpha torpedo starts being buggy when shooting at a Battleship, while Beta torpedo becomes buggy when shooting at a Nubian. Against a large stack of Nubians, even Jihad missiles (which I have seen still being used in late periods of some games) can be buggy. In the light of what Neil and others said about limits resulting from battle board overload and target list overload, you'll rarely see gross occurences of exploiting the 0,2% minimum damage bug. Limiting the most basic missiles prevents the exploit from being really excessive, and makes it more expensive to the player wishing to exploit, as he'll have to pay more Ironium to build so many missile-armed ships. Besides, unless his 100 missile fleets are accompanied by a large stack of beam "decoy" that can soak up beam damage from the large Nubian stack, he risks losing all these ships (and resources put into them) if you divide your large stack into, say, three or four.

While we're at it, dividing large fleets, although it remains a very useful tactical option, is something I rarely see in games - most players stick to one large "killer" design-o-rama. Maybe I'm not observant enough. Just maybe.

magic9mushroom wrote on Tue, 27 May 2014 06:11

Situation: Players A and B are SDs. B has a higher player number than A. A has a Super Mine Layer in contested space. B is attempting to kill A's minelayer with a pursuing fleet. There is a nearby minefield belonging to A, which is wholly contained in a minefield belonging to B.

Come to think of it, I'd never allow another SD plant minefields within my own Standard minefields. But that's just me, I guess.

magic9mushroom wrote on Tue, 27 May 2014 06:11

A wants to have A's Super Mine Layer duck into A's own minefield and detonate it to kill the ships chasing it (it will survive a detonation from B's minefield IF B decides to detonate it, and B may not). Unfortunately, this legitimate tactic will cause Exploding Minefield Dodge if B does detonate the minefield. If the simple rule of "don't leave minelayers in stacked exploding fields" is enforced, A is in fact denied a tactical option that B could have chosen were their positions reversed.

Again, ducking into your own field which is still in the "danger zone" is not good enough in my book. True, the SML can survive the minefield detonation, but that doesn't really matter. Also, I cannot agree with that my rule would allow player B to do the same thing that's denied to player A - if the rule applies, it applies to all players. Both player A and player B cannot enter areas where two standard minefields overlap.

Quote:

As for your comments that just any kind of missile can trigger the exploit - yes, but the more powerful the missile is, the bigger the stack need to be for the bug to really show. As I have shown in one of my previous post, a single Alpha torpedo starts being buggy when shooting at a Battleship, while Beta torpedo becomes buggy when shooting at a Nubian. Against a large stack of Nubians, even Jihad missiles (which I have seen still being used in late periods of some games) can be buggy. In the light of what Neil and others said about limits resulting from battle board overload and target list overload, you'll rarely see gross occurences of exploiting the 0,2% minimum damage bug. Limiting the most basic missiles prevents the exploit from being really excessive, and makes it more expensive to the player wishing to exploit, as he'll have to pay more Ironium to build so many missile-armed ships. Besides, unless his 100 missile fleets are accompanied by a large stack of beam "decoy" that can soak up beam damage from the large Nubian stack, he risks losing all these ships (and resources put into them) if you divide your large stack into, say, three or four.

I wonder whether 100 Delta DDs costs more than 1/4 of your 100 Juggernaut BB doomfleet? My "risk" is less than my reward, so it's not a real disincentive.

In any case, this does seem fair, even if it is overly restricting (it bans conduct which cannot possibly result in the bug occurring).

Quote:

magic9mushroom wrote on Tue, 27 May 2014 06:11

No. You just quoted a complete refutation of what you said, so I don't know how else to convince you.

Again, you seem to have missed my point. I commented on the fact that it is the engines that are the source of the UR/CE bug (only their cost changes when the ship is transferred from a +CE player to a -CE/+UR player - they cease to cost half, and are counted at full cost, 90% of which is recovered by the +UR player scrapping them, for a net gain), so I don't understand why you were mentioning "other components" (which don't exhibit such behaviour). I also have noted that the current Stars! version works out this scrapping gain at a 30% discount (which amounts to 0.90*0.7=0,63 - or 2/3rds for a close enough approximation).
Now, scrapping at a starbase nets the +UR player 90% minerals and 70% resources. Scrapping transferred ships cuts this by further 30%, meaning 63% minerals and 49% resources. If the costs of the engine do not exceed twice this difference, then no harm is done - the +UR player has not gained more that he would get if he built and scrapped the ship himself. It's up to the host to work out the numbers and check if this requirement was met.

Okay, I'll walk you through what I'm talking about, since I've stated it twice now and you've accused me of missing your point when in fact you're missing mine.

High-tech player builds old, outdated ships. These ships do not cost the high-tech player very much, because they are miniaturised by his high tech.
High-tech player transfers these ships to low-tech, UR player.
When the low-tech player scraps these ships, they are scrapped for 90% of the (discounted by 30%) mineral cost of the ships under his own, much lower miniaturisation, which can be more than the high-tech player spent to build them (as miniaturisation can go up t

100 delta DDs and 100*20 chaff, we need to not die first.
I suspect that this is about the only time when the AMT would be useful - it's MUCH more expensive in resource terms than other missiles, but by heck is it cheap in minerals, and it's highly accurate.
Chaff + AMT equipped scouts/DDs/frigates
Need silly high bio though

Quote:

In any case, this does seem fair, even if it is overly restricting (it bans conduct which cannot possibly result in the bug occurring).

The benefit is that the restriction is the same for both SD players, although it could be lifted slightly: You can't detonate a minefield which covers a special hull which is also in another SD minefield (Does the detonation check conflict with the possibility of hitting another minefield?)

Quote:

Okay, I'll walk you through what I'm talking about, since I've stated it twice now and you've accused me of missing your point when in fact you're missing mine.

High-tech player builds old, outdated ships. These ships do not cost the high-tech player very much, because they are miniaturised by his high tech.
High-tech player transfers these ships to low-tech, UR player.
When the low-tech player scraps these ships, they are scrapped for 90% of the (discounted by 30%) mineral cost of the ships under his own, much lower miniaturisation, which can be more than the high-tech player spent to build them (as miniaturisation can go up to 75%, the cost the high-tech player pays can be as low as 25% of the "value" of the ships of which the low-tech player receives 63%).
Low-tech player gives minerals back to high-tech player.
Minerals have now been created out of thin air via scrapping, which is the "exploitative" use that we are trying to ban.

This is why I refuse to specifically speak of engines in the rule against this exploit. Because the bug doesn't actually depend on Cheap Engines, simply on varying costs of components and hulls. The exploitative use that is banned is "scrapping ships for more than it cost to build them", and while Cheap Engines is the easiest method to enable this exploit, it is not the only method.

EDIT: There are a couple of other things that can play into this exploit: Bleeding Edge Technology on either side can create massive miniaturisation gulfs with no tech difference (build at 80% BET miniaturisation, scrap at 64% non-BET miniaturisation; alternatively, build at 0% miniaturisation, scrap at Bleeding Edge double-cost). IS/WM weapons premium/discount crops up too; although it's not quite powerful enough on its own, a couple of miniaturisation levels will allow free minerals.

BET double cost, WM/IS weapons cost difference are much more likely to be impacting. Although BET double cost is pretty close to equivalent to CE half cost isn't it? Wouldn't the 30% Transferred flag + 70% recovery bring it down to 90 odd percent of the original cost?
WM get's -25%, IS gets +25% costs: 75%->125% is less than the CE or BET differences.

Although a WM with CE, scrapping to a BET IS????

These are pretty ##### LRTs we're talking about here. We allow the AR mineral fountain - should we allow the UR/BET/CE mineral fountain? Honest question.

(Personally, I still don't think we should allow it. But the question is at least worth asking.)

On the other hand...

These are pretty ##### LRTs we're talking about here. We allow the AR mineral fountain - should we allow the UR/BET/CE mineral fountain? Honest question.

(Personally, I still don't think we should allow it. But the question is at least worth asking.)

This is an easy rule:
If any of your ships survive the detonation of an opponents minefield because of the exploding minefield dodge bug, you must immediately scrap those ships.

Quote:

This is an easy rule:
If any of your ships survive the detonation of an opponents minefield because of the exploding minefield dodge bug, you must immediately scrap those ships.

Even if he could survive the detonation by taking hit from minefield? Harsh rule.

This is an easy rule:
If any of your ships survive the detonation of an opponents minefield because of the exploding minefield dodge bug, you must immediately scrap those ships.

I have other proposition. Let this bug be legal.

"Randomly" is the key word here.
Some simple rule could be helpfull - like: You cannot move ships A if you see B, cause if you move the ship A, you definitely trigger bug.

Quote:

This is an easy rule:
If any of your ships survive the detonation of an opponents minefield because of the exploding minefield dodge bug, you must immediately scrap those ships.

Even if he could survive the detonation by taking hit from minefield? Harsh rule.

The "fairest" is (I think) you can't detonate a minefield over one of your ML hulls which is also in another SD standard minefield.