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Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » New game idea - The nuclear football game (Updated with poll)
Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Fri, 09 July 2004 21:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

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SnakeChomp wrote on Sat, 10 July 2004 02:58

Besides, the order of events in a stars game allows production before fleet battles. Even if you have a first strike fleet in orbit around an overseer planet, the planet would be able to build a new starbase and launch a "nuclear missle" before the fleet in orbit could destroy the starbase.

Only if the fleet in orbit didn't already destroy the base. Wink

Quote:

A minor detail, would it be better for the player to email the overseer race notifying them of the targets they wish to strike, or sending an in game email. Using the in game option delays the strike by a year allowing the enemy another year to contest control for nuclear football fleets thereby preventing the nuclear launch from hapenning. Using in game email does not reflect the actual process of using the nuclear football and launching a nuclear attack, which takes only 5-10 minutes. I'm thinking email is the best option.

If a player makes a request through email you might not be online anymore before the gen to do so. He might be counting on it and have plans that would get ruined ...
For an ingame message you could say that the order is valid if the player indeed controlled the nuclear football in the turn he wrote the message, even if he is no longer in control the turn you receive the message. Or it might just as well require the second year of control.
Of course the situation might be different in the turn you receive the ingame message and the player might want to target a different planet, this would require email since an ingame message will come too late ...

It's up to you as the host to decide what you want ...

Quote:

Another minor detail: Should nuclear football fleets that have "just" arrived in orbit of a planet with a starbase be able to launch a nuclear attack immediately? Or should they forced to remain in orbit around the planet in uncontested control before being able to launch an attack?

I thought the idea that a player would have uncontested control over the fleet? The moment he has that and is in range of a starbase (10ly?) he can give the launch order ...

mch

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Fri, 09 July 2004 21:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
SnakeChomp is currently offline SnakeChomp

 
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Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 21:16

Only if the fleet in orbit didn't already destroy the base. Wink

What do you mean? The order of events page I copied into a text file from the stars village lists Production as step 20 and Fleet battles as step 25, with no mention of fleet battles before production at step 20. Packets launching are included in step 20.

In regards to terraforming. Every 100kt of minerals that strike the planet have a 50% chance of terraforming the target world by 1%, and (it appears) to have a 5% change of permaforming the world by 1%. The world is terraformed towards the launching races ideal value, disregarding the enemies hab settings. The type of mineral effects the range terraformed: Iron terraforms Grav, Bora terraforms Temp, Germ terraforms Rad. This would make it ideal to have thin hab ranges towards the extremes of the hab bars. Unless someone specifically designs their race to have close hab ranges to the overseer, deteraforming should be effective against all races in the game. The hab ranges of the overseer may have to be created after looking at the hab ranges of all races in the game to ensure that deteraforming will be effective.

There is good PP info in this post which is where I got mine.
http://library.southern.edu/sahforum/index.php?t=msg&th= 402&start=0&rid=230

Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 21:16

I thought the idea that a player would have uncontested control over the fleet? The moment he has that and is in range of a starbase (10ly?) he can give the launch order ...

The fleet that the nuclear football follows is a specially designed ship. If one player has this controller ship and the nuclear football fleet (biscuit and football) within 10 light years of a planet with a starbase, they have the capacity to launch a nuclear attack. But, if an enemy also has a controller ship within 10 light years of this same planet, control over the nuclear football fleet is contested, and the player owning the planet does not have the ability to launch an attack. "Controlling" a nuclear football implies you are the only race with a controller ship near the nuclear football fleet.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Fri, 09 July 2004 21:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
LEit is currently offline LEit

 
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Unless there are speed traps mine fields out, it's impossible to prevent some one who is determined from getting a ship to a spot within 200ly of their fleets.

Turn 1, launch 20-40 fleets of 20 chaff at warp 10 towards your target. Turn 2, take one of the fleets that made it and split it all and send it towards where you want it. send the other fleets back, it's unlikely that some one will have the 400 fleets it would take to target every ship. Intercepting the first fleets might work, but only if you know which fleet they'll come from. Also, if they split the parent fleet into 50 and send those 50 to one spot and that fleet can kill the interceptor fleets, then you have to send 70 interceptors to catch them, and will lose 50.

Regular mine fields will increase the cost some, but it's possible to go warp 10 in a std mine field. Heavies are a bit harder. Speed traps will prevent warp 10 travel.



- LEit

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Fri, 09 July 2004 22:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
SnakeChomp is currently offline SnakeChomp

 
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LEit wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 21:51

Unless there are speed traps mine fields out, it's impossible to prevent some one who is determined from getting a ship to a spot within 200ly of their fleets.

Turn 1, launch 20-40 fleets of 20 chaff at warp 10 towards your target. Turn 2, take one of the fleets that made it and split it all and send it towards where you want it. send the other fleets back, it's unlikely that some one will have the 400 fleets it would take to target every ship. Intercepting the first fleets might work, but only if you know which fleet they'll come from. Also, if they split the parent fleet into 50 and send those 50 to one spot and that fleet can kill the interceptor fleets, then you have to send 70 interceptors to catch them, and will lose 50.

Regular mine fields will increase the cost some, but it's possible to go warp 10 in a std mine field. Heavies are a bit harder. Speed traps will prevent warp 10 travel.


Im not sure if I follow your post. I think your saying that someone who wanted to contest control for a nuclear football could simply throw 200+ ships towards the football and that the race controlling the football would have no way to kill them all off?

Hmm, that is an interseting proposition. I could alter some specifications to handle this however.

If any ship of the nuclear football fleet is in orbit around a planet with a starbase, the only way to take control away from the controlling race is to have a controller ship design in the exact same point in space as the nuclear football ship. This would prevent the enemy from throwing 200 ships into orbit around the planet, and would provide a way for the controlling fleet to effectively defend their possession.

If the controller ship that the nuclear football fleet is following is destroyed, and there are no other controller ships within 5 or 10 light years (in space or in orbit of a starbase) of the nuclear football fleet, the fleet returns to an uncontrolled state and travels under its own power.

If the nuclear football fleet is in space and uncontrolled, the first player to have a fleet containing a controller ship in the same position in space as the nuclear football fleet will be in control of that fleet. If more than one race has a controller ship at the same position as the nuclear football fleet, the fleet remains uncontested and will travel under its own power.

Once the nuclear football fleet is controlled, it will chase the controller ship where ever it goes. The controller ship does not need to remain in the same position in space as the nuclear football. The nuclear football can be rendered uncontrolled if another race manages to place one of its own controller ships at the same point in space as the nuclear football fleet. The nuclear football fleet will then follow this new controller fleet. If at any time two races have controllers at the same point in space as the nuclear football fleet, it will be rendered uncontrolled and will wander back towards its origin.

That should fix the issues raised by LEit.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Sat, 10 July 2004 06:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

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SnakeChomp wrote on Sat, 10 July 2004 03:39

SnakeChomp wrote on Sat, 10 July 2004 02:58

Even if you have a first strike fleet in orbit around an overseer planet, the planet would be able to build a new starbase and launch a "nuclear missle" before the fleet in orbit could destroy the starbase. This effectively just creates more work for the overseer race to constantly rebuild starbases.

Micha wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 21:16

Only if the fleet in orbit didn't already destroy the base. Wink

What do you mean? The order of events page I copied into a text file from the stars village lists Production as step 20 and Fleet battles as step 25, with no mention of fleet battles before production at step 20. Packets launching are included in step 20.

What I meant is that when you say "a first strike fleet in orbit around an overseer planet" that I assume that it already took out the base. If it did not take out the base than yes: you can still launch your packet before the base gets destroyed. (production before battle)

However you can't "build a new starbase and launch a nuclear missile" at the same time. It will take a year for the starbase to get finished and one turn later you can launch the packet. The fleet in orbit would kill the base the same turn it's build.
You can't build a base and lauch a packet in the same year ... you can't queue packets are set warp speed if you don't have a massdriver (on your base) in orbit ...

mch

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Sat, 10 July 2004 06:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

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SnakeChomp wrote on Sat, 10 July 2004 03:39

In regards to terraforming. Every 100kt of minerals that strike the planet have a 50% chance of terraforming the target world by 1%, and (it appears) to have a 5% change of permaforming the world by 1%. The world is terraformed towards the launching races ideal value, disregarding the enemies hab settings. The type of mineral effects the range terraformed: Iron terraforms Grav, Bora terraforms Temp, Germ terraforms Rad. This would make it ideal to have thin hab ranges towards the extremes of the hab bars. Unless someone specifically designs their race to have close hab ranges to the overseer, deteraforming should be effective against all races in the game. The hab ranges of the overseer may have to be created after looking at the hab ranges of all races in the game to ensure that deteraforming will be effective.

Thanks for freshing that up for me, it was way back in my head last night, at 3am most of my memory banks were already shut down. Wink

Looking at all race habs before the game is a good idea, or 3 immune for the host race might be a good start anyway. It's not in your summary above but I do think that a PP pushes the habs towards the edge in the ranges for which he is immune. With the highest TT level it could do a lot of shifting. Nod Possibly even making planets red and therefore rendering all but 10 defenses useless. Twisted Evil
The minerals left on the surface are not that much ... so you might use iron or germ anyway ... Mabye let the player controlling the nuclear football decide what mineral to use?

BTW, ban CA. Wink

mch

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Sat, 10 July 2004 16:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
SnakeChomp is currently offline SnakeChomp

 
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Micha wrote on Sat, 10 July 2004 06:22

However you can't "build a new starbase and launch a nuclear missile" at the same time. It will take a year for the starbase to get finished and one turn later you can launch the packet. The fleet in orbit would kill the base the same turn it's build.
You can't build a base and lauch a packet in the same year ... you can't queue packets are set warp speed if you don't have a massdriver (on your base) in orbit ...

Being able to destroy the overseer starbases (from now on reffered to as "nuclear missle silos") actually sounds like an interesting idea. What kind of armorments should I have on the silos though? Any? Its near impossible to kill a well armored starbase in the early game and relatively easy in the end game. I was thinking of using Ultra stations for the silos.

Actually scratch that. I can do a sort of scaling up thing as with the size and number of missles available to be launched by the players as the game progresses. I can start with starbases with jihads for a few years until the players also have jihads and then upgrade to a new missle every so often with better armor.

What turn would most races generally have jihads? I'm thinking I could armor the silos with colloidial phasers until turn 20 and then switch to Juggernaught missles until turn 40 or so and then move on to doomsday missles and then armagedon in another 20 years? Upgrading to comparable armor / shields for the level requirements of the weapon during each jump. I may be completely wrong in my assumptions of how long it takes to actually get these missles for a player in a medium universe, but I would want the silos to be sporting them before the players are. That would make it an actual challenge to take out one of the missle silos. If you know of a better time to upgrade to different armaments please tell me.

I would also firstly use starbases for the missle silos and switch over to ultra stations at probably turn 40. Again if this is out of line with the scaling up of tech in a normal game tell me.

But of couse, allowing the players to attack the overseer race could lead to accidental destruction of the nuclear football fleets. I could always use a seperate race to control the nuclear footballs which is required to be set to friend by everybody at all times and do things that way.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Sat, 10 July 2004 17:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
SnakeChomp is currently offline SnakeChomp

 
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Would you play this game?[ 6 votes ]
1. Yep! 4 / 67%
2. Nope 2 / 33%
3. Maybe if you changed this and this and this... 0 / 0%

Micha wrote on Sat, 10 July 2004 06:36


Looking at all race habs before the game is a good idea, or 3 immune for the host race might be a good start anyway. It's not in your summary above but I do think that a PP pushes the habs towards the edge in the ranges for which he is immune.

Yes it does.

Micha wrote on Sat, 10 July 2004 06:36

The minerals left on the surface are not that much ... so you might use iron or germ anyway ... Mabye let the player controlling the nuclear football decide what mineral to use?

I had basically decided to do that once I found out that pp packets can be used as deterraformers.

Micha wrote on Sat, 10 July 2004 06:36

BTW, ban CA. Wink

Indeed

I'm trying to actually design the overseer race now and its not exactly easy. I need HP / HG / Tri immune AND total terraforming with improved starbases. ROFL There definately isn't enough points to go around. Right now I have tri immune with 7% growth, no mines (5, 15, 5), good factories (15, 9, 20), everything expensive with ener cheap, ISB, TT, Cheap engines, NRSE, OBRM, and I have 26 points left over. I could change energy to expensive which allows me to change factories to (15, 8, 23) with 39 points. I don't think ener absolutely has to be cheap because I can just gen enough turns to get ultra driver 13's before the game begins. I can just use the free tech hack to get high bio, con, max weap, and ener 22. I took as much LRTs as I could to get as many points back as I could due to the tri immuninty being so expensive.

I think I have all my ideas pretty much sorted out. Now its just balancing them and making sure they all work. I can only do so much theoretical thinking about what people can do in regards to unbalancing things so I'm not sure how balanced it can be without actually trying a game.

Heres a summary of everything as of now:
(I assume the game will be in a medium universe, so all of the following numbers and specifics are based on a medium universe with 8 players)

This may help you when reading:
TNFF = "The Nuclear Football Fleet"
TNF = "The Nuclear Football" first ship of the TNFF
TB = "The Biscuit" second ship of the TNFF
TM = "The Master" ship used to acquire control over a TNF or TB.

Game name:
The Coldest War

Description:
There will be 2 "host" races. One being "The Overseer" which is PP and is used to launch "nuclear missles" (mineral packets), and the other is any old random race who will control "The Nuclear Football Fleets". This race will be called "The Owner" from now on.

"The owner" controls two special ship designs called "The Nuclear Football" (TNF) and "The Biscuit" (TB), collectively called "The Nuclear Football Fleet" or TNFF. These ships will fly around Overseer planet clusters which will be distributed evenly throughout the galaxy. Each ship will have a unique name identifying which overseer planet cluster it originated from. TNF and TB will not necessary be flying in the same fleet, so it is possible that they will become separated.

In this medium universe there will be 5 clusters of overseer planets, one in each corner and one in the middle. They will be positioned such that no point in the galaxy is more than 300 ly away from any given cluster. These clusters will each contain 4 overseer planets, each sporting a starbase equipped with 2 ultra driver 13's used to launch nuclear missles.

The purpose of TNFF ships is to provide access to the overseer's "Nuclear Missle Silos" (called silos from now on) which are the mass drivers in the overseers starbases. Access to these mass drivers is provided to the player which "controls" both TNF and TB from a specific cluster. If you have one TNF from one cluster, and a TB from another, you have no access to any of the mass drivers.

"Controlling" a ship from TNFF is achieved as follows. Each race playing in this game will be given a special ship design which will be used to control ships f
...



[Updated on: Sat, 10 July 2004 17:12]

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Tue, 13 July 2004 01:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dogthinkers is currently offline Dogthinkers

 
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[edit] culled my own message, as I think I repeated stuff ppl have already said Wink

[Updated on: Tue, 13 July 2004 01:54]

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Sun, 25 July 2004 20:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
SnakeChomp is currently offline SnakeChomp

 
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It has come to my attention that there is a possibility to exploit the "nuclear missles" in order to gain free substantial mineral deposits, which can be especially useful during the end game. The exploit is as follows:

A player orders a nuclear strike against an unowned planet near or in his own territory. The packets arrive doing no damage to anybody but depositing a rather large dose of minerals onto the planet (during the late game where packets have grown large that is). He then flies in the next year, colonizes, and takes all the minerals off the planet to use for making ships.

To remedy this, I will make sure that "The Master" race (which controls the nuclear football fleets) has complete universal pentrating scanner coverage. Any nuclear strike ordered by a player must be against a (currently) populated planet. Ordering nuclear strikes against your own planets is not allowed. "The Master" race must be set to friend at all times, so the scanners will not be able to be destroyed.

However, it would still be possible to gain free minerals if you properly utilize the nuclear strikes. Namely, simply colonize the planet you just destroyed with a nuke and suck up all its minerals. This is what would happen in any game however. You kill off a planet, you try as hard as you can to suck up its minerals.

A 5000kT packet (which is how big the nuclear missles will probably be near the end of the game) will deposit about 1400kT minerals onto the destination planet. 1400kT of minerals could be useful , especially if its 1400kT iron which you could use to make another Arm missle boat.

I'm not sure if the minerals that the nuclear strikes provide will have a large impact on the balance of the game. The player who lost his planet due to a strike could easily come back soon after and recolonize the planet, therefore gaining the minerals left by the strike. On the other hand the attacking planet could easily colonize the planet and suck it dry of minerals in a year gaining the minerals from the strike. If you plan properly you can benefit from the aftermath of the nuclear strikes.

I haven't played in a large game that reached the mineral crunch stages so I don't know the dynamics of fights over minerals.

On a random side note, could an SS race use the robber baron scanner to steal minerals from the Overseer worlds? Having a starbase in orbit would prevent this right? Is using a robber baron considered a load task? If it is, and the robber baron equipped ship could give a waypoint zero load order above an overseer planet, which is possible if someone had just destroyed a missle silo, there would be nothing the overseer could do to stop the SS race from stealing minerals is there? That might be a problem.

Activity in this thread has died off and yes this is partly an attempt to rally interest around this idea again. I am going to (try) to host this, provided enough people want to play, which could be a slow as 4 for a medium universe. I just have to predict all of the unbalancing issues before hand and have some way to deal with them. Those issues being mainly if the minerals the nuclear strikes bring will unbalance anything, and this new SS robber baron mineral theft I just thought of.

Checking "max minerals" could be a solution to the extra minerals the nuclear strikes bring but I don't know if people would be a fan of having max minerals in a game. I know I'm not. But then again, this isn't your usual game. Thoughts?

p.s. Thanks to Dogthinkers for the "ordering a strike against an unowned planet in your territory to gain free minerals" exploit thingy.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Sun, 25 July 2004 22:27 Go to previous messageGo to next message
multilis is currently offline multilis

 
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Robber barron can steal past starbase I believe.

Having an 'enemy' where you cooperate with supplying missile packets to each other could be profitable for both. Just leave 100 colonists on the planet the turn the packet strikes.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Mon, 26 July 2004 07:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Sinla is currently offline Sinla

 
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SnakeChomp wrote on Mon, 26 July 2004 02:12

On a random side note, could an SS race use the robber baron scanner to steal minerals from the Overseer worlds? Having a starbase in orbit would prevent this right?

Nope. RB's steal right through them.
Quote:


Is using a robber baron considered a load task? If it is, and the robber baron equipped ship could give a waypoint zero load order above an overseer planet, which is possible if someone had just destroyed a missle silo, there would be nothing the overseer could do to stop the SS race from stealing minerals is there? That might be a problem.

What do you mean? Just forbid all players to enter the orbit of the overseer planet. Or set everybody to enemy and have fast Doomsday battleships in orbit Wink



If you can't beat me... Run away...

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Mon, 26 July 2004 10:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
vonKreedon is currently offline vonKreedon

 
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Your worries that the players could gain minerals from the packets is quite rational. One could order a strike at a specific speed and then meet the packet with freighters in deep space and suck the minerals out of the packet.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Mon, 26 July 2004 14:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mlaub is currently offline mlaub

 
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SnakeChomp wrote on Sun, 25 July 2004 19:12


p.s. Thanks to Dogthinkers for the "ordering a strike against an unowned planet in your territory to gain free minerals" exploit thingy.


You do realize that you can intercept packets with freighters, right? A SS would be quite entertaining in this capacity. Or you could use any uncloaked ships to grab packets going near your empire.

The trick is knowing where the packet will be, or could be. It is possible to work this out before hand. The player that does this gets *all* the minerals, not just what's left after impact with a planet...

Just a FYI...

-Matt



Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Tue, 27 July 2004 01:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
SnakeChomp is currently offline SnakeChomp

 
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Sinla wrote on Mon, 26 July 2004 07:33

What do you mean? Just forbid all players to enter the orbit of the overseer planet. Or set everybody to enemy and have fast Doomsday battleships in orbit Wink


The players are allowed to send warships to destroy the overseer starbases (missle silos).

vonKreedon wrote

Your worries that the players could gain minerals from the packets is quite rational. One could order a strike at a specific speed and then meet the packet with freighters in deep space and suck the minerals out of the packet.


I guess the only way to prevent this is to simply watch to see if its happening and make a rule banning this activity. However, I would only ban having the player who is launching the attack from sucking up the minerals. The player who is being attacked is allowed to use freighters to intercept the packets as this funcitons as a "missle defense system" so that the victim player has at least some way to defend themselves from the nuclear strikes. The attacking player would simply have to have fighters close enough to intercept the freighters to prevent this.

mlaub wrote

You do realize that you can intercept packets with freighters, right? A SS would be quite entertaining in this capacity. Or you could use any uncloaked ships to grab packets going near your empire.

The trick is knowing where the packet will be, or could be. It is possible to work this out before hand. The player that does this gets *all* the minerals, not just what's left after impact with a planet...


The packets will be travelling at warp 16 from the outset of the game. Intercepting them will not be entirely easy and will require LOTS of calculations as to where a packet will end up in the time it takes you to travel to it.

It is also worth noting that in a medium universe, nuclear missles will only have to travel for 300ly before hitting any given planet (depending on what overseer planet cluster you use to launch the strike). That provides only one year warning that a packet is about to land which wont be enough time to intercept the packet with freighters.

multilis wrote

Having an 'enemy' where you cooperate with supplying missile packets to each other could be profitable for both. Just leave 100 colonists on the planet the turn the packet strikes.


This could also be a potential issue but I could watch for this with universal penetrating scanner coverage. It requires some more host race upkeep but its worth it.

Of course, the root of the entire problem is the minerals that packets provide. I could just use max minerals for the game which would avoid any mineral woes. Would having max minerals be a problem for anybody?

I could also simply ban using a robber baron to steal minerals from overseer worlds and prevent this from being an issue.

Notes for self:

Additional rules

-Intercepting your own nuclear strikes is strictly forbidden and will be considered an attempt to exploit the nuclear missles for free minerals and will render you subject to punishment or removal from the game.
-"Cooperating" with an "enemy" in order to gain free minerals by repeatedly striking unimportant planets for the sole purpose of gaining minerals is also forbidden and is considered and exploit rendering you subject to punishment or removal from the game.
-Utilizing any aspect of the nuclear strikes for personal gain other than the destruction of your enemy will not be tolerated.
-Use common sense. Don't do anything if the only purpose is personal gain by bending the rules in your favor. I will notice and it will not be tolerated.
-All the players in this game may contact the host (me) via email if they believe any particular player to be exploiting any aspect of the game scenario for personal gains. I will inspect all reports within reason, don't report for no reason as I will ignore you.

Another balance issue: Would allowing players to defend themselves from nuclear strikes by using freighters to suck up packets potentially make the nuclear strikes useless? If a player was determine
...

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Tue, 27 July 2004 10:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mlaub is currently offline mlaub

 
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SnakeChomp wrote on Tue, 27 July 2004 00:38


The packets will be travelling at warp 16 from the outset of the game. Intercepting them will not be entirely easy and will require LOTS of calculations as to where a packet will end up in the time it takes you to travel to it.



Not really, I modified my "Posey" spreadsheet. One of the additions is a packet locator calculator (works for MT's too). It works quite well. Granted, you can't cover every planet, but if you knew what the target was, or can guess, it is a simple matter.

-Matt



Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Tue, 27 July 2004 10:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
multilis is currently offline multilis

 
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Quote:


The packets will be travelling at warp 16 from the outset of the game. Intercepting them will not be entirely easy and will require LOTS of calculations as to where a packet will end up in the time it takes you to travel to it.


I agree with mlaub, it is a known defensive strategy for a warmonger race who lacks good defences to stop the beasts. (and also some micromanagement type SS players) If the player knew the strike that was ordered it would be extremely simple.

Which imo leaves you with making a rule against intercepting packets (I assume would be done) or some other means of nuclear attack like a nubian superfleet with special mysterious trader weapon/bombs granted through special game setup.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Wed, 28 July 2004 16:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
perece

 
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True-Chaos wrote on Fri, 09 July 2004 16:09

And that assumes that you see the W16 packet soon enought to do all that... depending on planet locations you very well could only have a single turn warning.


there is a problem:
Locations of overseer worlds are well-known
locations of my own key planets are also well-known to me.
So.. I can prepare the interceptor freighters, and bring them into "Single year in-space" position of that packets when 1st packet shows up. So 1st time I will need to evacuate, but no one can attack this planet from this Nuke football origin again.
and since it will be only 1 or 2 origins, from which I will be in "one-year in space" range, it's not too hard to defend such way
(one thing to take in account, however, is to escort these interceptors, and/or rotate them)
SMTP /Perece/.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Wed, 28 July 2004 16:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
perece

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 20
Registered: July 2004
Location: Moscow, Russia
Another variant: How about galaxy clumping=on,
and clusters of overseers planets?
5 packets of 1000KT each, directed as whole will make more damage, than one 5000KT packet...
and aslo one more thing
remember of PP's packet terraforming?
if You make overseer's hab extremal, it will also (considering all packets are mixed type) do signsificant de-terraforming
(giving, btw, advantage to CA and tri-immune races)

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Wed, 28 July 2004 21:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
SnakeChomp is currently offline SnakeChomp

 
Petty Officer 1st Class

Messages: 61
Registered: April 2003
Location: Stamford, CT

perece wrote on Wed, 28 July 2004 16:57

Another variant: How about galaxy clumping=on,
and clusters of overseers planets?
5 packets of 1000KT each, directed as whole will make more damage, than one 5000KT packet...
and aslo one more thing
remember of PP's packet terraforming?
if You make overseer's hab extremal, it will also (considering all packets are mixed type) do signsificant de-terraforming
(giving, btw, advantage to CA and tri-immune races)



I know there is alot of information in this thread so it is easy to miss stuff. However, the plan for the overseer clusters is as follows.

The .xy file will be manually altered to create "rings" for the overseer planets. There will be 5 planets per cluster. At the start of the game, only one planet will have a missle silo. As the game progresses, more missle silos will be built, allowing more packets to be flung.

The initial packet size will also be small (1000kT) and will grow to 6000kT as the game progresses.

As for the deterraforming, I am already aware of its effects and have designed the overseer race with tri immune status to have the largest deterraform effect, as the deterraforming happens by pushing all hab values to the edges of immune habs.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Wed, 28 July 2004 21:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
SnakeChomp is currently offline SnakeChomp

 
Petty Officer 1st Class

Messages: 61
Registered: April 2003
Location: Stamford, CT

perece wrote on Wed, 28 July 2004 16:49

there is a problem:
Locations of overseer worlds are well-known
locations of my own key planets are also well-known to me.
So.. I can prepare the interceptor freighters, and bring them into "Single year in-space" position of that packets when 1st packet shows up. So 1st time I will need to evacuate, but no one can attack this planet from this Nuke football origin again.
and since it will be only 1 or 2 origins, from which I will be in "one-year in space" range, it's not too hard to defend such way
(one thing to take in account, however, is to escort these interceptors, and/or rotate them)
SMTP /Perece/.


There will be up to 5 overseer missle silos (starbases) per cluster. You could theoretically simply have enough freighters to cover all possible launch origins, but unless you provide signifigant warship cover they will be prone to attack.

In a medium universe there will also be 5 overseer clusters all of which are capable of attacking your space, but many will provide you with significant lead time to the attack.

Will respond to more after dinner.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Wed, 28 July 2004 23:18 Go to previous messageGo to next message
SnakeChomp is currently offline SnakeChomp

 
Petty Officer 1st Class

Messages: 61
Registered: April 2003
Location: Stamford, CT

Using freighters to render ones self immune to nuclear strikes seems to be enough of an issue as to warrant the following rule.

Additional Rules

-Using freighters to load the minerals out of a nuclear missle is banned and will not be tolerated (blah blah etc).
-Tri-immune race designs are not allowed as they are immune from one of the effects of the nuclear strikes (deterraforming) and gives them an unfair advantage.

I don't know if I have to go as far as to ban tri-immune races, but it would give them parcial immunity to the nuclear strikes by avoiding deterraforming, so I'll ban them for now.

Also, I am not going to be using bombing fleets or warships to replace the nuclear missles. In the end game when the players reach the same tech as the overseer, the players will be able to destroy the overseer bombing fleets and they will become pointless. The idea of having a huge fleet of bombers / nubians instead of packets could be used in a different game with a possible tech cap to make them more effective killing machines. Its just a different type of game, but I will be sticking with packets for now.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Thu, 29 July 2004 00:18 Go to previous messageGo to next message
multilis is currently offline multilis

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 789
Registered: October 2003
Location: Edmonton, Canada
Quote:


In the end game when the players reach the same tech as the overseer, the players will be able to destroy the overseer bombing fleets and they will become pointless.


When initial overseer nubs cost 0, you can build as many as you want. Anyone who could stop a fleet of many thousand super nubs with all the fancy mystery trader toys would have already enough power to have won the game a long time ago...

Or you could make the fleets a little wimpier and make it a victory method similar to defeating the Guardian in MOO.

Each approach to 'football' has its advantages. Bombs also take out factories and mines, (not just a pop dodge) and can be aborted (for example someone else gets control of football or both sides negotiate a mutual abort).

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Thu, 29 July 2004 03:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
perece

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 20
Registered: July 2004
Location: Moscow, Russia
Quote:


Another balance issue: Would allowing players to defend themselves from nuclear strikes by using freighters to suck up packets potentially make the nuclear strikes useless? If a player was determined they could simply build many many many freighters and spend all the time micro-managing them and become immune from nuclear strikes. This could be counteracted by a forsightful attacker who provides fighters to escort the packets to their destination to ward off pesky freighters. Does anybody see this (this being allowing freighter defense) being a problem?


Imagine that freighters can be cloaked.
1st, this gives ability to defend effectively (at least more effectively) against packets, but 2nd it also adds a possibility
to intercept Your own attacks being unnoticed by overseers..
together with robber baron issue, it makes necessary to ban SS at all.

Since player mass drivers are banned also, we have effectively ban PP race also (who will play as PP when he can't use their's main advantage?)

so...
-AR
-CA
-PP
-SS
who will be next?

SMTP /Perece/.

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Re: New game idea - The nuclear football game Thu, 29 July 2004 14:43 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
SnakeChomp is currently offline SnakeChomp

 
Petty Officer 1st Class

Messages: 61
Registered: April 2003
Location: Stamford, CT

perece wrote on Thu, 29 July 2004 03:24

Imagine that freighters can be cloaked.
1st, this gives ability to defend effectively (at least more effectively) against packets, but 2nd it also adds a possibility
to intercept Your own attacks being unnoticed by overseers..
together with robber baron issue, it makes necessary to ban SS at all.


I would notice someone using a robber baron on me. I would think that simply banning the obvious exploit of using a robber baron on overseer planets for free minerals would be enough to keep any decent player from doing so.

It would be harder to keep track of the packets being intercepted by an SS though. I could manually do it by watching to see if the population ont he target planet actually falls, or by looking at the target players turn to verify that the packet actually struck the planet. Its more work for me but it is a non issue.

perece wrote on Thu, 29 July 2004 03:24


Since player mass drivers are banned also, we have effectively ban PP race also (who will play as PP when he can't use their's main advantage?)

so...
-AR
-CA
-PP
-SS
who will be next?



AR, CA, and PP have already been banned by rules in previous posts. There is no real reason to ban SS at this point.

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