Topic: DOE Flame thread #2: Easy Escorts Everywhere for Everyone (Read 12489 times)

Herr Burt · « **on:** March 11, 2003, 06:24:59 pm »

Wow, I'm still alive. All-righty then, best-beloved, let's talk about escorts.

ESCORTS ARE VITAL FOR DOE

With all the (SFB-style) fighers available in DOE, I've found that escorts are going to be absolutely essential for all navies. We all know that escorts in the past have created lots of controversy and most of us remember why. I've no desire to go back to THAT flame!

But what to do? I'm sticking to my plans to take as many rules server-side rather than player-side as possible, so I've taken a different approach than building a complex set of CnC rules. Rather than restrict access to escorts based upon flagship and rank, I've expanded access to everyone. I have also added several escorts to every hull class of all three fleets.

I WANT AS FEW PLAYER-SIDE RULES AS POSSIBLE

The key to my solution were the Gorn and Romulan escorts. Who wants to fly a Gorn and Romulan escorts as a solo ship? No one with any sense! Taldren's incomplete coding of the Plasma-D weapons system means that Gorn and Romulan escorts trade off most (if not all) of their heavy firepower to gain escort abilities. The key to solving the escort "problem" was making Federation escorts work with the same philosophy as the other two fleets.

Thus, all Escort Ship G-racks have been converted to full defensive loads. In SFB, the G-rack was a single, dual-use missile system that usually carried two reloads of offensive drones and a single reload of defensive drones. If you expected a lot of defensive work, you could alter this ratio. Whatever your ratio, however, you always had to work in *either* offensive or defensive mode for an entire turn. Taldren eased their modeling by giving Fed and Klingon ships with G-racks two weapons systems instead of one, and thus allowed G-rack ships to perform both funcitons simultaneously. Taldren's offensive system came with two reloads and their defensive one with a single reload. I've merged these back into a single system (as in SFB) with a full three defensive loads.

Note again, this is for Escorts Only! So don't get your panties in a knot over the rest of the Fed fleet.

The other change I have made for escorts is deleting things like the Federation NEC (which served on the Fed/Klink border) and instead introducing escorts like the Federation NER, which was the same ship refitted to serve on the Romulan border.

ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND CHEESE
Now everyone's escorts operate the same, and they are freely available at all times. They will be very good at their intended purpose and will be generally poor at any other.

THE ESCORT (NON) RULES:
*If you want escorts, buy as many as you can find! No restriction.
* If you lose your capital ship, don't worry about it! There is no longer any need for a rule that requires you to stay off the front until you are back in a real warship. Any "cheese" arguements have been pre-empted. Feel free to fly as wingman for any friends who need an escort, or do whatever else you like.

THE SOLE CnC RULE
Experimentation with this philosophy over the weekend gave results I was pleased with. It did, however, lead me to the one CnC rule which will be in force during Day of the Eagle. With SFB-style fighters, I feel the following rule is needed: No player may have more than one carrier of any kind within their fleet.

WHAT IS A CARRIER?
A carrier is any ship capable of carrying fighters, and on the Eastern Front this designation should cause no confusion. While drogues are puchased in the fighter interface, they are NOT fighters and do not make their ships carriers. What is a carrier and what is not should be as complicated as a brick, but feel free to toss bricks my way if you are ever feeling confused.

There. Now, back to my flameproof bunker.

-Herr Burt the Hider

DH123 · « **Reply #1 on:** March 11, 2003, 06:44:07 pm »

Is it too late to make this a Vanilla server? AOTK was the cheesiest server I have ever seen. Let's not make future servers worse.

J'inn · « **Reply #2 on:** March 11, 2003, 06:51:42 pm »

<J'inn runs in with his spectating equipment>

Now this is more like it!!

Kroma_BaSyl · « **Reply #3 on:** March 11, 2003, 07:22:20 pm »

Quote:

Is it too late to make this a Vanilla server? AOTK was the cheesiest server I have ever seen. Let's not make future servers worse.

Plenty of whine too. ;-)

Cleaven · « **Reply #4 on:** March 11, 2003, 07:41:56 pm »

Well for a start there aren't enough rules. Where are the advanced rules for co-op missions with carriers executed in the Holdfast between the hours of 12 AM and 6 AM AEST.

Otherwise what's to say except "Bring it on"?

TheMaverick · « **Reply #6 on:** March 11, 2003, 08:33:30 pm »

Here we go again...

Green · « **Reply #7 on:** March 11, 2003, 08:34:56 pm »

HB,

I like the tweaked shiplist. It is, after all, an experiment. 4P worked well, and I hope this one does also. You've provided a run-down (for the most part) for the Rom ships. Can you do the same for the Gorn and Federation?

Please ignore the comments from DH123 who, based upon his Taldren forum join date of 2/27/03, is undoubtedly some n00b who just bought the game and normaly spends his time on the SFC3 Act-B server and wandered over here by mistake.

Sorry DH ... couldn't resist. That plus J'inn paid me.

Cleaven · « **Reply #14 on:** March 11, 2003, 10:27:59 pm »

I believe you mean Richard Cranium.

Kroma_BaSyl · « **Reply #16 on:** March 11, 2003, 10:35:35 pm »

So Rich or whomever you are

, you going to fly those sweet cheese F-14 Tomcats or just leave them in the hanger as a matter of principle.

Makes me almost want to fly fred.

Mog · « **Reply #19 on:** March 12, 2003, 03:12:58 am »

Re fighters: is there going to be any attempt at having SFB fighter complements or is everyone just going to load up with all F14s, or plasmaF Gladiators etc, rather than F14s only being on the CVA, and Roms having a 50/50 split between plasmaF armed fighters and plasmaD armed fighters? Are the Gorn fighters going to be plasma armed or drone armed?

KATChuutRitt · « **Reply #20 on:** March 12, 2003, 04:36:39 am »

Escourts?

I got my Angels, what more escort could I need?

KRolling · « **Reply #23 on:** March 12, 2003, 07:28:06 am »

I want CHEESE!!! I want CHEESE!!! I wa..n..t.....

<runs away>

Mog · « **Reply #24 on:** March 12, 2003, 07:41:39 am »

Renegade, I understand your point, and I know what the answer will be anyway. Just thought the question needed asking anyway. As for fighters with defensive only plasma D, I can think of a good use for them - killing enemy fighters/drones, as theyt were intended to do.

KOTH-Steel Claw · « **Reply #26 on:** March 12, 2003, 08:52:01 am »

::Sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiifffffff:: Ahh, good ol' Smellveta!

DH123 · « **Reply #28 on:** March 12, 2003, 09:07:51 am »

Congrats everyone. We may top AOTK in the amount of cheese!

Laflin · « **Reply #30 on:** March 12, 2003, 09:22:24 am »

I am somewhat apprehensive about these changes - fighters are far more vulnerable to phaser and PlasD than PFs are to phaser/drones. I don't understand the NEC removal, being as the drone is the only real Fed defense against PlasF armed PF. Something tells me that there are going to be a whole lot of unhappy people after a week or so...

Mog · « **Reply #34 on:** March 12, 2003, 09:34:05 am »

Laflin, it's fighters for all races - no PFs, hence the AMD/drone rack change on fed escorts. Escorts are intended to DEFEND friendly ships, not ATTACK enemy ships which is why they are called cheesy :P

Maxillius · « **Reply #39 on:** March 12, 2003, 10:52:16 am »

What race is he replacing with Tholians??? Are they going to be non-player or is it an admin thing?

jimmi7769 · « **Reply #41 on:** March 12, 2003, 11:15:03 am »

Hey Burt, you using any of the carriers from J2??

Damaged · « **Reply #50 on:** March 12, 2003, 03:38:02 pm »

Bravo HB.

Pharoah · « **Reply #51 on:** March 12, 2003, 04:04:40 pm »

Just a quick note. From tests I've run previously, it seems the last patch for EAW made the Plas D nonfunctional as a fighter weapon. You can load it on a fighter, but it never fires.

I just double checked this to be sure.

Thus, no plas D fighters for the Gorn or Roms.

Kroma_BaSyl · « **Reply #52 on:** March 12, 2003, 04:09:21 pm »

Ouch. To bad cause they do work on PFs and are quite effective against fighters. Of course the PFs refuse to use their other heavy weapons against fighters (i.e. Plas-F) and refuse to target mothership if fighters are present.

Marcus Smythe · « **Reply #54 on:** March 12, 2003, 07:04:23 pm »

As for the Fed CVS+... how that ship fares is really going to depend on how we implement fighter distribution. F-18's arent anything to write home about. F-14Ds are evil, wrong, and morally bad.

Ill be flying Fed.

News:

Topic: DOE Flame thread #2: Easy Escorts Everywhere for Everyone (Read 12489 times) var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

Herr Burt

DH123

J'inn

Kroma_BaSyl

Cleaven

DH123

TheMaverick

Green

Cmdr. Krotz

Kroma_BaSyl

Maxillius

DH123

Herr Burt

Rob Cole

Cleaven

FatherTed

Kroma_BaSyl

DH123

FPF_TraceyG

Mog

KATChuutRitt

Maxillius

SPQR Renegade001

KRolling

Mog

jimmi7769

KOTH-Steel Claw

FPF_TraceyG

DH123

Kroma_BaSyl

Laflin

KRolling

Kroma_BaSyl

jimmi7769

Mog

FPF_TraceyG

DH123

Laflin

jimmi7769

Maxillius

Kroma_BaSyl

jimmi7769

DH123

Kroma_BaSyl

Bob Graham

DH123

Laflin

Kroma_BaSyl

KOTH-Steel Claw

DH123

Damaged

Pharoah

Kroma_BaSyl

Cleaven

Marcus Smythe

jimmi7769

KBF-Dogmatix

DH123

JimCasca

Kroma_BaSyl

Topic: DOE Flame thread #2: Easy Escorts Everywhere for Everyone (Read 12489 times)