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Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue
Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Tue, 27 March 2007 18:28 Go to next message
PaulCr

 
Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P

Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look...

Multiple partial items[ 25 votes ]
1. Yes 0 / 0%
2. No 19 / 76%
3. No, but it's useless anyway 5 / 20%
4. No, everyone already does it 1 / 4%

It's possible to set production queues to almost complete an item and then move it to the end keeping it in the queue until you decide to finish it.
An example use for this might be if you colonised a 7 percent red that you could only improve to -4, complete 3 full terraforms and then 4 almost complete stored in the queue until you complete the required research and complete them all immediately afterwards
You might also want to do it to hide the fact that your creating a battle fleet until the last minute.
Would delibrately manipulating the queue like this be considered cheating, I know it would be if you almost completed items and then upgraded the slot to get the upgraded version cheaply but assuming there were no changes is that ok, I've not seen it discussed anywhere else.
I can't make my mind up whether it should be considered cheating, part of me thinks it shouldn't because it still cost the same amount anyway, part of me thinks it should because you could would never normally be able to complete so many items on a particular turn, ie imagine sending your battle fleet to somebodies planet that is virtually undefended and the turn you get there 20 nubians suddenly appear from it's production queue that you would never expect.
There would be a risk of losing all the production you stored due to a random event but you'd have to be really unlucky.

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Re: Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Tue, 27 March 2007 18:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1
I would not consider this a cheat. Like you say: you pay the full price anyway (minus minituarization because of research in the mean while) ... You don't create soemthing out of nothing, it's something you can do in Real Life ...
As for your "20 nub" example, I suppose the nubs would not be stacked, and if somebody would destroy your base your work would be lost ...

mch

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Re: Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Tue, 27 March 2007 22:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ptolemy is currently offline Ptolemy

 
Commander

Messages: 1008
Registered: September 2003
Location: Finland

I also concurr with Micha. There is nothing wrong with manipulating the production queue in this way. I can almost finish building something, then decide to do other things because I want to finish it later and don't need it now. I generally would not bother with so much effort though - build what I need, when I want it and get it done is easier.

Ptolemy






Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.

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Re: Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Wed, 28 March 2007 06:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
Commander

Messages: 1227
Registered: May 2003
I voted for "useless". From examples you gave it is only maybe giving effect on red case. OTOH deeper yellows give minor effect to the overall wealth ... that way or other. I think it falls into nanomanagement category there. Nod

For surprizing your opponents ... build a stargate instead? What is the difference for your opponent if these were built or gated in. Having 20 partially built nubians takes 20 turns. I have seen wars that last less than 20 turns. Very Happy

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Re: Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Wed, 28 March 2007 08:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
PaulCr

 
Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P

Messages: 187
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Location: An Island that kinda look...
My first thought was for using it on reds or even on a -1 yellow since you can over populate and get some resources from the extra pop but only lose 1% per turn, turn it to a 5% green or below and you much more quickly use pop to over population so you could stack them up until you could reach an high enough figure.
The idea for keeping ships in the queue came about because I'm currently in a game with PPS and the scores have come up, there were surprisingly few escort ships showing up, therefore I'm not worried about a serious attack anytime soon. If I was to now start building ships however it would show in the scores alerting potential victims of my intention to attack and possibly having them start a preemptive one whereas if I was to keep them in a queue I could finish them all in one turn, gate them to a border world and merge them on the next giving much less time for my opponent to respond.
It's also my first game in 6-7 years so I was wondering if the fact that quite a few people have no escort ships at all was because they may have been doing this to reduce the risk of a preemptive attack once the scores did show.

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Re: Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Wed, 28 March 2007 09:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
vonKreedon is currently offline vonKreedon

 
Lieutenant

Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA
I call this queue stashing and have used it several times. It is not very useful while tech is still in flux because your stashed ships are likely to be obsolete by the time you release them from the queue, but it works great in the end game when you are building AMP Nubs. I use it both to surprise an enemy with greater production than recon showed and as Paul notes to manipulate PPS scores.

Where it works particularly well IMO is when one plans to leave an alliance and you want to quickly deploy a large fleet against your former ally, but you don't want to tip your hand to the ally before giving notice. So you start building a Nub at each of your worlds and then building enough chaff and/or other things so that the Nub is just not completed, rinse and repeat for a decade or so, give notice and go to town building Nubs. At the end of your production cycle your release the additional ~10 Nubs/planet that your former ally had no idea you possessed. Now you not only have a larger fleet than it looked like you would have, but you've built your chaff/SFX/freighters/recon ships as well.

I had not considered using this for terra, but that is a great idea.

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Re: Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Wed, 28 March 2007 09:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
PaulCr

 
Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P

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I was intending to use it for terraforming but wanted to check first whether it would be considered cheating to suddenly jump 5-10% on a world that can only nominally do 1% a turn.
Later in the game when I have sufficient pop to afford over populating I may do it on 1% yellows to avoid the extra colonist being wiped out by changing to a small green.
I'm not planning to use it for ship building yet until I have a reasonably stable tech, possibly C9,W10 although more likely C13,W16 and then only have a short 4-5 year period before completing which might give me around 30-40 unexpected ships.

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Re: Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Wed, 28 March 2007 10:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
PaulCr

 
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Stars! V.I.P

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Location: An Island that kinda look...
In reply to Kotk, the original example was delibrately vague to avoid telling the people I'm playing against that despite the fact I've got very few armed ships that I may in future acually have 200 battleships with just one year's warning of them being at their border. I can build bombers without worrying people since they are pretty easy to hide, warships are impossible in a PPS game other than by manipulating the queue. You could temporarily give them to an ally but they would still show in his stats.
In reply to Micha, it would be possible to do in real life but in reality you would complete them since it would be easier to hide completed items then incomplete items. As an analogy, imagine in the real world say Iran having 200 nuclear missile virtually complete but completely undetectable because they hadn't actaually completed them, they then spend a couple of weeks painting 'Death to America' on them and they suddenly appear to the americans. America would attack if they knew about the 200 virtually complete though useless warheads or if they knew about 1 or 2 completed ones but after they've completed 200 they couldn't because Iran could launch them all and wipe them out.


[Updated on: Wed, 28 March 2007 10:40]

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Re: Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Wed, 28 March 2007 11:58 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ptolemy is currently offline Ptolemy

 
Commander

Messages: 1008
Registered: September 2003
Location: Finland

For terraforming, this can be particularly useful. Take the case of a -3% - -5% red planet with 110k pop on it and around 200 rsesources. Generally, you terraform 1% or 2% per year to get it green and, during this time, you are losing a small amount of pop each turn. However, if it turns to a green at anything less than 10%, you are going to lose pop from overpopulation and, this can be substantially higher than the loss on the low red. Stacking almost completed terraforming in the queue and releasing 10% all at once may very well save population.

Ptolemy




Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.

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Re: Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Thu, 29 March 2007 09:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kotk

 
Commander

Messages: 1227
Registered: May 2003
PaulCr wrote on Wed, 28 March 2007 17:26

I can build bombers without worrying people since they are pretty easy to hide, warships are impossible in a PPS game other than by manipulating the queue.

I havent played PPS game for very long time i forgot about it.

Yes, it seems a sly tactic, similar like the "false public score" pop lifting is.

I would not call one a cheater for neither of them but certainly i would use diplomacy to draw attenton to such things. Wink Like in real world, the claims that you have no nuclear weapons ... despite you have hundreds of them 99% complete ... can result with bad reputation at the moment you build them. Nod

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Re: Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Thu, 29 March 2007 10:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
vonKreedon is currently offline vonKreedon

 
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Messages: 610
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Unless I'm badly misremembering, bombers count as Escort Ships, or even Caps if you load a B-52 with Annihilators. I always build bombers very late in my production if I'm trying to avoid spooking my neighbors/targets, and conversely it is bomber production that I really look for in my neighbors/tenuous allies in deciding if I'm about to become a target.

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Re: Cheating? Multiple partially complete items in production queue Thu, 29 March 2007 11:46 Go to previous message
PaulCr

 
Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P

Messages: 187
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Location: An Island that kinda look...
Bombers do show up as escorts ships but you still need quite a few escorts ships even when your not about to launch a war, Bombers are usually outnumbered and therefore can fade into the background noise created by normal escort ships used for defense.
I usually play IT so I can gate bombers to avoid anyone seeing that I actually have built any. Non IT races will probably find it harder to hide them.
The idea of hiding ships in a queue is aimed at avoiding giving notice that I'm preparing to go to war within say 10 years. Unless someone see you building bombers they are much more likely to assume that the slowly increasing number of escort ships is caused by your normal shipbuilding for defense.
Once your ready to go to war you can suddenly release 200 warships so the count suddenly jumps to 300 but by then they have less time to react. If they see the escort ships count going 100,120,140,160... they can be pretty sure you are planning an attack.
Releasing them simultaneously also prevents your enemy seeing the design early, if built gradually they could send a kamikaze ship to see what the design is your actually building.
If your already at war or you know your opponent is expecting it I wouldn't bother to hold up the production since they would be of more use if they were built immediately.


[Updated on: Thu, 29 March 2007 11:52]

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