Topic: Socky's campaign guide VERY LONG

[FPF-DieHard]

  Toten for CHANCELLOR thats what the hairless monkey meant

Hariless?   Are you going to force me to post a picture of my back?

Great idea Scippy, I like it a lot.

[TotensBurntCorpse]

That is why I have been a purponent of shipping lanes.

Planets are low econ and low dv.

Lines of sight between planets and other geographical features such as asteroid hexes / black holes / nebulas are slightly higher in econ but not dv than the planets would be.

eg the planet x and planet y are together worth 200 econ, however the 10 hexes on line of sight between them are worth 400 econ, the remaining 100 hexes around the general area of these two planets are only worth 500 econ

sooo we would have...

each planet about 100 econ
each shippling lane hex about 40 econ
all other hexes are only 5 econ each

soooo it becomes important to keep the shippling lanes clear of wolfpack deepstrikers

it equally becomes important to take specific "routes" thru all the empty space Gook alludes to to build up ur empire,

so the neutral planet W may be 10 hexes distant and depending on the route you advance on you could get either say 10 x 40 econ + 100 for planet for 500 econ OR
say 10 x 5 econ + 100 for planet for 150 econ

Maximization of new econ can in itself become a VC condition that would make deep striking a valid and worth while endevour, both on the new LOS "trade route" as well as the internal to the empire "trade route".

[Bonk]

And if people can't manage to get the DLs working for the current set of campaigns, then they must be certified idiots and should not be permitted to own a computer.  I mean, this isn't rocket science. It's a GUI-based operating system.  Server DLs now include installers that do it all for you, and before these installers, all I ever had to do to play on a download-required server was to swap out the shiplists and fighterlists.  How hard is that?  Copy and paste.  Go back to the home, grandpa.  It's apple sauce time.

   Hear, hear!

As I've suggested in the past, perhaps a thourough and clearly posted tutorial on the use of the windows explorer and winzip would help here. Lots of people like to play games but don't havve the first clue about file management.

I can think of several reasons why multi-ship fleets would be problematic.

First, with the disengagement rule, it FORCES you to fly them. Not everyone likes to.

Second, it increases lag and decreases connection reliability. More bad loads and bugged missions? No freaking thanks.

Third, it benefits different races unequally, as fleet control works much better for some races than others.

Just say NOES to multi ship fleets!

Re: the disengagement rule,a fleet gives you half a chance against a nutter... in fact it nearly eliminates the nutter factor altogether.

It does not increase lag and connection relaibility in my experience, (possibly if the host or any of the player PC are underpowered it may produce lag, but not connection issues). (I have played many games with theree to four players each with three ships no trouble at all...)

It does not benefit different races differently (ie Hydrans ) just don't let the AI control a carrier...

Also, I think I need to clarify for some: when I say SFB style CnC I mean SFB style CnC:
if you want a D5L then you must have two D5s, if you want a carrier you must have an escort... if you want an escort you must have a DN or a carrier, and of course no triple BB or bombardment ship fleets - that is totally illegal according to SFB CnC.

I say SFB style because exact SFB CnC is not possible with SFC's three ship limitation, I think that according to strict SFB CnC no DNs or BBs would be allowed in such small fleets.

It is called "StarFLEET Command" based on "Star FLEET Battles" - the name does not come from the Federation "Starfleet Command" but rather "Star FLEET Battles"... again I emphasise the word FLEET.
FLEET FLEET FLEET FLEET FLEET FLEET, dangnabbit!

I would love to see SFC handle 9 ship fleets instead of just 3, would be closer to SFB...

I'll fly hydran on any server that allows fleets to prove it...

edit: not to mention that fleets will minimise the hex-munching factor...

[Gook]

Toten
As for taking a planet with one ship or whatever it depends what is in the Hex, if there are no ships, bases, or  planets then its easy. Think of the DV value as a unit of combat currency, we can't represent all the minutae of the hexes defences so its represented by a value. Think 19th century Gunboat diplomacy, an armoured cruiser steams into Cassablanca harbour, the city defenceless against the beast does as its told, same with Shanghai, HongKong and a dozen other places, when it move off things may revert. 200 spaniards and 15 horses versus the mighty Inca Nation who would have given odds on the Spaniards. Consider a single shuttle and 21st century earth, it has shields and a phaser , puny by 23rd century standards, but enough to take out earth in its current state of development. Now consider a warp driven Man o War entering a system or series of systems, unlees there is something comparable it is GOD.
What might be considered conceptually difficult to deal with is the sheer number of AI we blow up every campaign, literally Hundreds of ships per player, but it is accepted as it forms part of the currency of conflict and way of representing difficulties encountered in the game.
So I have no difficulty in conceptulising a starship vanishing into the vastness of space (albeit 2 dimensional in this game) and not being spotted, amongst the nebulae, stars, planets, asteroids and above all sheer scale of where it is.

I do on the other hand - ex the Star Trek 6 - Doos vogg a nu REN - who are u over? - klingon listening post to the "covert" enterprise trying to get to rhura pente.  A single fed CA gets nailed as it crosses the border.  So now explain months of deepstriking with a FF to subdue an entire planet???? for example



Wishful thinking on...
Our map should really have been not a hex map but a string map.  What I mean is earth should have been a point on the map.  to get there you had to move from point to point along a string.  each point in the string is a potential combat point.  combat only occurs at the foci points.  empty space is well empty.  no one stops there. no one fights there.

ever notice on ST SW B5 or just about anyother SF show that all ship figting occurs around some geographical location in space, a planet, a star, a nebula etc.  is this for back drop effect or is it that the defenders actually want to defend something tangable and the attackers attack some thing tangleble.

wishful thinking off...

IMHO DSing only makes sense for the above reasons I mentioned, but NOT hex flipping, LOS is needed to flip a hex.  Everything else just plainly doesnt make sense for several reasons...
1) the compliment of a CA cannot garrison a planet
2) the whole point of taking a planet is to secure it, not bomb it back to the stone age
3) empty hexes can be conceptualized to contain critical shippling lines for convoys Econ dependent (it was one point I suggested for IDSL to promote tunneling LOSs)
4) blowing up a base station is a single shot missions and as such it is a defeatable target, hence i support destroyable bases that can be DS killed, BUT now try to garrison/patrol the hex for your empire surrounded by enemy forces who are out for revenge
5) poorly manned races become the carcass to pick over by a strong deep strike force ( I know this one as I did it myself way back when )
6) A basic but lost premise in the game is that the point in taking hexes is to get the econ value for your empire.  Clearing a shipping lane is far different than securing a shipping lane.  Since you bring up other gun boat diplomacy ever hear of the USS panay?  Or understand the difference between the U-Boat war vs the USN Pacific Sub war.  The atlantic had convoys, the pacific did not.  The atlantic was secured, the pacific was not.  Brittish supplies got thru, Japanese supplies went to the bottom.  To me this is DSing at its best, in both oceans subs sank ships, but in one ocean the hex was flipped with LOS on both sides, the other it was not.  The flipped hex was the atlantic between the EMPIREs with the DSer being unable to secure the hex.
7) DSing should allow you to "disrupt" the econ and defence of a hex to render it almost or completely useless to the enemy, cf operation tannerbaum in ww2, but the enemy should be able to regain this control with use of forces.  To be able to convert the hex to friendly control deep inside enemy defence lines is IMHO frankly stupid.
Embassys - Much to our chagrin LB5 does not allow for this right now.  What I mean is that normally each race has at least one hex inside each others domain for supply.  If a base is on this embassy hex it can be deep striked to death, causing severe travel and agony to the losing race.  Which in game terms results in long treks for supplies.  Being able to take this hex doenst make sense also.
9) Free reloads between missions is another beef for me.  Some races cannot do DSing without a handy resupply point.  Other races can operate indefinitely on DSing.  This primarily to me has to do with how much one shot firepower is on the hull vs the AI u draft.  In this line nothing beats a heavily armed droner with heavy missiles, Nothing.  Be it the klink E4D/F5D/D5D/D6D etc, mirak SDF/DF/CD/MDC etc, fed NCD/CAD etc., the stand off fire power vs BPV kileed is retarded and the mission times are equally insane.  At least with fighter/pf ships u eventually lose them in attrition and have to withdraw.  Not so with missile boats.
10) Ok maybe no retreat maybe excessive but maybe a far longer disengagement penalty is in order, say 50 turns.  Think of it as you have to make sure the coast is clear before you begin DSing again as your engines canna take da stain of high warp without some overhauling for extended periods.

In the end, IMHO, you should NOT be allowed to DS a hex to your side.
You should be allowed to DS it to neutrality but no more.

That was done for the scenario, a small ship with half a dozen marines could take out the listening post, most of the SFB scenarios made no sense, they were just vehicles.

1. see examples given, you don't need to garrison, the threat of desrtuction is enough to compel compliance

2. see one above

3. not sure what you do with the rest of space and even a shippling lane isn't wall to wall escorts

4. Again you don't need to the threat of reprisal is enough

5. I don't think we have enough peeps for anything other than 2 sides any more, unless the board is huge and its very long term

6. not until 1943 and the Japs used their subs all wrong too, US did the job properly, but even in the Atlantic ships were still lost until the end, as for DS what about the Royal Oak and scapa Flow? I am familair with WW2

7. Exactly my point if they use forces they should be able to regain control if they don't then no.

8. Not sure what you mean by this, embassies are evacuated on the out break of war. (Beligerant ones)

9. see my comments on number of ships killed and supplies. Your WW2 sub carried say 18 torps, it didn't need more as if each one was a kill that was a fantastic return ratio, we kill thousand of ships per server.

10. the problem is simulating the raider being run down by the fast warship, I have no problem with either solution just not both.

[Gook]

That is why I have been a purponent of shipping lanes.

Planets are low econ and low dv.

Lines of sight between planets and other geographical features such as asteroid hexes / black holes / nebulas are slightly higher in econ but not dv than the planets would be.

eg the planet x and planet y are together worth 200 econ, however the 10 hexes on line of sight between them are worth 400 econ, the remaining 100 hexes around the general area of these two planets are only worth 500 econ

sooo we would have...

each planet about 100 econ
each shippling lane hex about 40 econ
all other hexes are only 5 econ each

soooo it becomes important to keep the shippling lanes clear of wolfpack deepstrikers

it equally becomes important to take specific "routes" thru all the empty space Gook alludes to to build up ur empire,

so the neutral planet W may be 10 hexes distant and depending on the route you advance on you could get either say 10 x 40 econ + 100 for planet for 500 econ OR
say 10 x 5 econ + 100 for planet for 150 econ

Maximization of new econ can in itself become a VC condition that would make deep striking a valid and worth while endevour, both on the new LOS "trade route" as well as the internal to the empire "trade route".

Now we are cooking.

More like this. I like this.

 

[Bonk]

Sorry, but what is DSing?

nm, figured it out... DSing = Deep Striking.

[762_XC]

You just reminded me of 2 more reasons Bonk!

4th, the AI SUCKS and tends to get your extra ships killed and supplies wasted, costing you billions and billions of pp to maintain your crappy fleet, no matter how good you are at fleet control (you mentioned Hydran fleets, which are REALLY good at this, even though I wasn't even thinking of Hydrans with my first post).

5th, the fleet control panel BREAKS and DOES NOT WORK about 20-30% of the time, meaning whatever formation you choose to set for your little sucky-AI controlled fleet will be ignored, making your expensive little fleet borderline WORTHLESS.

fl33tz0rs = teh NOES!!!!!!111!!!!!1!!!1!!

[Bonk]

You just reminded me of 2 more reasons Bonk!

4th, the AI SUCKS and tends to get your extra ships killed and supplies wasted, costing you billions and billions of pp to maintain your crappy fleet, no matter how good you are at fleet control (you mentioned Hydran fleets, which are REALLY good at this, even though I wasn't even thinking of Hydrans with my first post).

5th, the fleet control panel BREAKS and DOES NOT WORK about 20-30% of the time, meaning whatever formation you choose to set for your little sucky-AI controlled fleet will be ignored, making your expensive little fleet borderline WORTHLESS.

fl33tz0rs = teh NOES!!!!!!111!!!!!1!!!1!!

Good points, to address them:

#4 - lower prices, simple.

#5 - can't argue that the fleet formation control only works occasionally, the rest of it does.

I just like the massive carnage and simliarity to SFB, I'm getting bored flying single ships, much more can happen in a battle with fleets - I'll leave it at that. When I play direct tcp/ip games I almost always fly fleets against opponents who enjoy it too, I can always get my fleet fix there. I enjoy creating a good fleet and seeing what my opponent comes up with, much like the ship customisation in SFC3...

[762_XC]

Every time you reply I think of more reasons. 

#6) Fleets make the campaign more defensive oriented. Unlike single ships fleets cannot effectively operate far from supply.

I just gave myself an idea. Allow fleets on a server with sparse planets (like every 30 hexes or more) and destructable bases. See how many planets change hands on THAT server.

Also, if you lose one of your ships in PvP then the disengagment penalty applies.

[Bonk]

Interesting idea, just create a server that does not favour fleets but allow them. I'm game for such a compromise. (I'd want to fly Gorn though... I have some NASTY legal gorn fleets...) What you propose sounds like a fun challenge. One would have to be creative to mount a sucessful attack (which of course would include using easily sustainable single ships or careful use of optimum fleets for offensives far from home without supply... I like the sound of it, I must be sick... lol).

[Lepton]

OK, I'll make fleet suggestions here that I have made before.

1. Require people to fly in fleets, i.e. large class size ships cannot be flown without a human escort.

2. Give fleet control of allied ships to the players via the mission scripts.  EEK missions with fleet control are effectively ready-made free fleets.

And BTW, Gook, despite space being empty, the premise of the game, the hex map, and the DVs is that that space can be defended and is defended ipso de facto.  Whatever listening posts, scanning technologies, or other defense infrastructures need to exist for one to ever have any missions.  I mean, if the enemy weren't detectable, how could you run into them in the vastness of space to be in firing range?  Did you just stumble upon them? Oh, hello, in the midst of hundreds of parsecs, "strangers in the night, exchanging glances, doo bee, doo bee, doo".

Anyway, this is of course alot of conjecture and storytelling.  We've had LOS for awhile and deepstrike rules for awhile and I don't sense any ill-effects due to their presense.  At worst, it telegraphs your intentions, but that would happen as soon as the first hex flipped.  At best, it keeps people from using stratgies that would seem silly in the context of hexes actually having defense values.

[FPF-DieHard]

Interesting idea, just create a server that does not favour fleets but allow them. I'm game for such a compromise. (I'd want to fly Gorn though... I have some NASTY legal gorn fleets...) What you propose sounds like a fun challenge. One would have to be creative to mount a sucessful attack (which of course would include using easily sustainable single ships or careful use of optimum fleets for offensives far from home without supply... I like the sound of it, I must be sick... lol).

I like this to.   Allow fleets but optomize the setupo for single ships . . .

[Corbomite]

I didn't have time to read all of this so forgive me if this has been offered already.

Couldn't we allow a limited number of "fleet" players just by adding the option and a few slots to the FM's? Allow FM's to have the choice of flying one large restricted ship or a fleet of smaller ships (defined to everyone's satisfaction), add a couple slots to the number of "base" FM's and define/restrict the number of each type (single large or smaller multiple) that can be fielded to make sure no race can go too top heavy one way or the other.

[Kroma BaSyl]

I didn't have time to read all of this so forgive me if this has been offered already.

Couldn't we allow a limited number of "fleet" players just by adding the option and a few slots to the FM's? Allow FM's to have the choice of flying one large restricted ship or a fleet of smaller ships (defined to everyone's satisfaction), add a couple slots to the number of "base" FM's and define/restrict the number of each type (single large or smaller multiple) that can be fielded to make sure no race can go too top heavy one way or the other.

That is a frigging great idea. Allow a couple FF/DD squadrons, maybe a CL/CA squadron per side. Transferable FM assignment.

[FPF-DieHard]

I didn't have time to read all of this so forgive me if this has been offered already.

Couldn't we allow a limited number of "fleet" players just by adding the option and a few slots to the FM's? Allow FM's to have the choice of flying one large restricted ship or a fleet of smaller ships (defined to everyone's satisfaction), add a couple slots to the number of "base" FM's and define/restrict the number of each type (single large or smaller multiple) that can be fielded to make sure no race can go too top heavy one way or the other.

That is a frigging great idea. Allow a couple FF/DD squadrons, maybe a CL/CA squadron per side. Transferable FM assignment.

Is this going more in the "elitist" direction that was are trying to avoid?

[Sockfoot]

Heh ... I haven't sat in a captain's chair in two years and I can still make people wet the bed.   

Frankly I don't know what's changed about the D2.  Seems not a lot has changed.  You've got the same problem, just in different wrapping.  The game mechanics are fuxxored so you have to draft a nice thick rule to address the shortcomings of the game mechanics.  Like any law, such a rule is drafted by committee and anything drafted by committee is by definition cumbersome and byzantine.

I've gotten spoiled by the other games I play now.  D2 rules were set up to deal with real or preceived deficiencies in the game mechanics.  The games I play now lack bugs and have a company that actively patches them so the rules are more "conduct" based (i.e. you must Role Play on this server or no swearing etc).  In my humble opinion, what hurt the Dynaverse is it was free, so there was no incentive for Taldren to get the game into a playable form.

I see some old schoolers out there.  They will tell you that nothing got the Dynaverse buzzing like when The Black Mist crew showed up.  And it wasn't all "droning" or "deepstriking".  Lafin and I and Capt. Jeff and I fought some damn tight PvP battles.  I can remember one with Laflin where he came and tracked me down while I was messing around in the backfield there and we slugged it out for 30 minutes or more.

Yeah, if you got beat by me or Squiggy or other Black Mist guys, more than likely we'd tractor your ship and tow you off the map.  It was just our style.  And you could count on us to Self Destruct our ships if some game bug saved them from destruction and we got beat.  Same for guys like Laflin and Jeff.

PvP came with the deep strike raid.  When one hex went red in an ocean of green hexes, believe me everyone knew who it was and they call came running as fast as they could to get a piece of me and my Troopers.  Believe it or not, we had a code of honor.  We fought our way in and we fought our way out.  If you watched the overview map, you could see us taking missions and lowering the DVs of hexes as we went in.  If we got drafted, we fought.  Sometimes we won and got away, sometimes we came home on our shields, but we never rolled over even if it meant taking our lowly G2Cs up against a DNH.

That was the POINT of a deep strike raid.  It made the enemy move to where you wanted them to be instead of where they wanted to be.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is called "strategy".

Yeah that's right.  I flew the G2C on deepstrike raids.  If you don't think that takes a little skill, try it out sometime.  And I flew CLs and CVAs or whatever else tickled my fancy.  Versitility was the hallmark of all my Troopers no matter what race they played.

Back in CW6 some of the most intense PvP you could ever want happened around a planet that Toten nicknamed "The Alamo".  The whole server tottered back and forth for weeks in that area.

CW6 is where Moggy coined the phrase "Gorn Cheese Fleet" and went around with a flotilla of PFs that would darken the skies.  No one cried over it.  And he was strictly a hunter killer unit.  He would go about hunting down enemy players and blowing them up.  No one had to force PvP.  It happened in the normal course of campaigning.

Heh ... and who could forget the LAN games we had during server crashes.  If you think my Black Mist boys couldn't go head to head, you obviously never played them in one of those.

And in case you forgot, I was the guy that flew all the races and posted his findings about each ship and race he flew.

I left because of the shiplist crap.  That was a world class cluster f##k.

Point being that I'm proud that when I logged in and everyone saw my name on the list of active captains, their ears perked up.  They might not have liked what I did, but me and my boys made everyone sit up and pay attention and that made it exciting for everyone.  While I was stealing your planets and bases, it might have sucked, but when it was over, if you fended us off or not, you had to look back and say, "those were some good times."  It gave the game a lot of color and if nothing else, people turned up to stand in line for a chance to get a bite out of me and my guys.  You knew we were out there, you just didn't know where, but you knew we'd turn up eventually and you'd have to deal with us.

If me and my guys made those memories for folks by being merely "hex chewers" then so be it.  What's missing isn't more or less rules.  What's missing is style and flair.

But that's just this old space pirate's opinion and I never expect everyone to agree with me.  I could be wrong after all.  I'm just here to have fun.  Hope you enjoy the ride too.

 

Captain Sockfoot
Commanding the IKV Wendol
Klingon Imperial Navy, Deep Space Fleet
The 69th Space Cavalry, The Black Mist
Order of the Wendigo

Night is falling and the Mist is settling on the field, so be warned.  Sleep with one eye open, young ones, for I am the Thief of Lyra and I and my troopers stalk the eternal night of space.  We're coming soon to a homeworld near you.   

P.S. Squiggy sucks.

[likkerpig]

Shocky!
*burp*
 

[Sockfoot]

<sniff>

Piggy did you forget to wipe your feet before you came inside again?   

[likkerpig]

<sniff>

Piggy did you forget to wipe your feet before you came inside again?   

Nah, just haven't changed my underwear since CW6.
You just visiting Socky or you gonna try it out for a bit?

[Sockfoot]

Just visiting.  Killing time until Blizzard releases World of Warcraft, whenever the hell that will be.