Topic: So anyone still play?  (Read 89866 times)

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Offline Corbomite

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #100 on: January 13, 2014, 09:46:23 am »
I don't really understand the problem with XP going "EoL". It's not like it will stop working or something. Besides, if you are only using it for a game computer who cares if it gets infected with something. Just wipe, reinstall and load up the files from a saved directory.

Offline Nemesis

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #101 on: January 13, 2014, 10:25:35 am »
I don't really understand the problem with XP going "EoL". It's not like it will stop working or something. Besides, if you are only using it for a game computer who cares if it gets infected with something. Just wipe, reinstall and load up the files from a saved directory.

Install, configure, backup with clonezilla.  Restore from backup as needed. 
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Offline Nemesis

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #102 on: January 13, 2014, 10:27:10 am »
I wonder if it would run under Steam OS and its version of wine?
Do unto others as Frey has done unto you.
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Offline FPF-DieHard

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #103 on: January 13, 2014, 03:07:59 pm »
I don't really understand the problem with XP going "EoL". It's not like it will stop working or something. Besides, if you are only using it for a game computer who cares if it gets infected with something. Just wipe, reinstall and load up the files from a saved directory.

How many people will really do this?
Who'd thunk that Star-castling was the root of all evil . . .


Offline Corbomite

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #104 on: January 13, 2014, 04:49:38 pm »
I don't really understand the problem with XP going "EoL". It's not like it will stop working or something. Besides, if you are only using it for a game computer who cares if it gets infected with something. Just wipe, reinstall and load up the files from a saved directory.

How many people will really do this?


How many people really want to play? Just by asking how many have a viable XP machine right now got some positive response.

Offline Javora

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #105 on: January 13, 2014, 09:18:48 pm »
I have a copy of Win XP around here somewhere.  just not exactly sure where the moment, things got kinda crazy after we moved.  I was really hoping someone with a dual boot system can test that theroy I have.  it would be much easier for me to have this working on my Win 7 box.

Offline KBF-Korgal

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #106 on: January 15, 2014, 06:01:39 pm »
I don't really understand the problem with XP going "EoL". It's not like it will stop working or something. Besides, if you are only using it for a game computer who cares if it gets infected with something. Just wipe, reinstall and load up the files from a saved directory.

How many people will really do this?

Yeah, see, that's just it. I get paid good money to wrestle with ridiculous headaches like that. I'll be damned if I'm gonna do it in my free time. That there are a dozen or so people here who will countenance the effort doesn't render the problem moot -- it is still obstacle enough to dissuade many (most?) people who might actually pick up and play this game.

So, I shall wait patiently, and watch to see if SFC4 reaches a point where my skills might be of use. But I do hope I've done at least something to disabuse you of the notion that "everyone should just get a spare computer and get a copy of XP and install OP and install a custom shiplist and clone it all and reimage it weekly (while preserving palettes, saves, etc.)" is a reasonable solution for all but a few.
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Offline TAnimaL

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #107 on: January 16, 2014, 02:09:30 pm »

Yeah, see, that's just it. I get paid good money to wrestle with ridiculous headaches like that. I'll be damned if I'm gonna do it in my free time. That there are a dozen or so people here who will countenance the effort doesn't render the problem moot -- it is still obstacle enough to dissuade many (most?) people who might actually pick up and play this game.

So, I shall wait patiently, and watch to see if SFC4 reaches a point where my skills might be of use. But I do hope I've done at least something to disabuse you of the notion that "everyone should just get a spare computer and get a copy of XP and install OP and install a custom shiplist and clone it all and reimage it weekly (while preserving palettes, saves, etc.)" is a reasonable solution for all but a few.

I kinda second Korgal here; my own computer skills are enough to keep my XP box running but if too many hardware breakdowns happen it'll die.

Has anyone had any luck running XP in VM on 7 or 8? I have a friend that promised to loan me a copy of XP so I could try that on my brand new 8 box  but he keeps forgetting the disk...

Offline Captain Adam

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #108 on: January 16, 2014, 02:15:37 pm »
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« Last Edit: April 06, 2016, 02:17:27 pm by Captain Adam »

Offline Age

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #109 on: January 17, 2014, 08:41:51 pm »
I am not dramatic just pointong out the facts and OP is balanced only to those who like the way it is only for those who know STB so well.It is best to those who play /ed the board game for the pure Star Trek fan it is not as balanced as it could be.Thee are lots of useless ships in the shiplist and the fighters are no where to be balanced

So it was balanced from people who were good at playing games . . . but not for fanbois who thought Photons should never miss?

Pretty much the truth.

But games, especially PvP games, need to be balanced on what great players can do in the ships.  If you balance from the un-skilled you see massive imbalances when you add skill the the equation.  Sure, Photons hitting through a 2 Shift of EW didn't matter when it was two newbies or AI was involved . . . but give that advantages to Ghish or Fox and it's ridiculous.


Games aren't balanced for the great players but for everyone and you should know that by now playing DDO online.Phasers and photons should use sec instead of turns as it related more to PvP in PC games.Photons Torps like Submarine Torps don't recharge they reload.

It all depends on who you are fighting you maybe great fighting Rom pilots unlike some of us but if this were another game anyone could take them out.

Yes Crim the memories I still owe you a kill.

Offline knightstorm

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #110 on: January 18, 2014, 01:33:15 am »

Photons Torps like Submarine Torps don't recharge they reload.


SFC IS NOT BASED ON CANON STAR TREK!!  The first reference to photon torpedoes as physical objects was in a schematic in TMP.  By then, SFB had already been built around photons as an energy weapon.  As for gameplay balance, we got magic photons.  The do alleviate some of the problems of flying feds in single ship cruiser duels which are the bread and butter of SFC, although I will concede that they make multiple feds, or fed DNs too powerful.  Perhaps some sort of system where the proxy bonus shuts off if one side has more than four photons would have worked better.

Offline Age

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #111 on: January 18, 2014, 02:38:07 am »

Photons Torps like Submarine Torps don't recharge they reload.


SFC IS NOT BASED ON CANON STAR TREK!!  The first reference to photon torpedoes as physical objects was in a schematic in TMP.  By then, SFB had already been built around photons as an energy weapon.  As for gameplay balance, we got magic photons.  The do alleviate some of the problems of flying feds in single ship cruiser duels which are the bread and butter of SFC, although I will concede that they make multiple feds, or fed DNs too powerful.  Perhaps some sort of system where the proxy bonus shuts off if one side has more than four photons would have worked better.
Notice how I said submarine torpedo you don't charge those up much the same as in Star Trek TOS.

Offline knightstorm

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #112 on: January 18, 2014, 03:03:50 am »
It was never specified in TOS.  The mechanism of preparing photon torpedoes to fire wasn't seen until TWOK.

Offline Corbomite

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #113 on: January 18, 2014, 09:18:01 am »
I can't remember where I read it , but I seem to recall that the original concept for the Photon Torpedo called for a small amount of matter and anti-matter to be placed into a magnetic bottle and combined at the point of impact (or proximity) to create an explosion. They never really discussed the delivery system, but it seems likely that some form of mechanism would be required to create and maintain the magnetic bottle until the elements needed to be combined. In this way it is both an energy and conventional weapon.

Offline Captain Adam

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #114 on: January 18, 2014, 09:41:36 am »
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« Last Edit: April 06, 2016, 02:17:02 pm by Captain Adam »

Offline Corbomite

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #115 on: January 18, 2014, 10:46:10 am »
It's from the book The Making of Star Trek. I thought that it was decades ago (long before the internet) that I read that. Here is the relevant passage from Memory Alpha with more info for context:



*The 1968 reference book The Making of Star Trek (page 194), gave this early description of the photon torpedo: "...photon torpedoes, which are energy pods of matter and anti-matter contained and held temporarily separated in a magno-photon force field. These can be used as torpedoes or depth charges, and can be set with electrochemical, proximity, and a variety of other fuses. Photon torpedoes can be fired directly at a target, laid out as a minefield, or scattered in an attacker's path as depth charges." However, the earlier 1967 episode "Obsession" seemed to contradict the whole notion that there was antimatter in these photon torpedoes. In the story, the Enterprise crew attempt to destroy the Dikironium cloud creature by exploding photon torpedoes inside it, when that had no effect, they turn to the most powerful weapon available at that time: an ounce of antimatter to produce a matter-antimatter blast to destroy the creature.

The idea that the photon torpedoes themselves had physical missile-like casing was never confirmed on screen during The Original Series. The idea of distinct "launchers" (or "tubes") for the torpedoes was first introduced in the second season episode, "The Changeling", as "torpedo number 2" was fired instead of just a "torpedo bank being discharged". Even as late as Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Andrew Probert did not envision the photon torpedo to be a capsule, as he says in his 2005 Trekplace interview: "I envisioned them as what we saw during the TV era, they were glowing globs of plasma or some sort of energy. They weren't giant capsules. I envision them as big, glowy, dangerous blobs of... scariness."

Photon torpedoes were definitely weapons with physical missile casings by the time of the 1982 feature film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Furthermore, the special effect of a torpedo launched with a warhead and one launched as a coffin was completely different in the film. The first on-screen connection between photon torpedoes and antimatter came in 1989, in the second season episode "Samaritan Snare" of Star Trek: The Next Generation and it was not established until 1991, in the fourth season episode "Half a Life", that photon torpedoes had in fact deflector shields of their own.*





That example they sight as an indication that there is no anti-matter in a photon because they used anti-matter to kill the cloud creature in Obsession is bogus. They couldn't kill it in space because the creature knew they were attacking it and changed its form to be unharmed by the weapons. On the planet when it went for the bait it had to change to a form that could interact with material objects and was then vulnerable to the explosion.

Offline Age

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #116 on: January 18, 2014, 05:33:57 pm »
It was never specified in TOS.  The mechanism of preparing photon torpedoes to fire wasn't seen until TWOK.
It is just assumbed they would load them in the same way after all they torpedos same as Sub.

Offline Nemesis

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #117 on: January 18, 2014, 05:53:26 pm »
It was never specified in TOS.  The mechanism of preparing photon torpedoes to fire wasn't seen until TWOK.

It is just assumbed they would load them in the same way after all they torpedos same as Sub.

Slow missiles fired on a straight line course?  Ballistic drones in other words.
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Offline knightstorm

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #118 on: January 19, 2014, 09:39:23 am »
It was never specified in TOS.  The mechanism of preparing photon torpedoes to fire wasn't seen until TWOK.
It is just assumbed they would load them in the same way after all they torpedos same as Sub.

They look like balls of light, so before TWOK, everyone assumed that they were energy weapons.

Offline Age

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Re: So anyone still play?
« Reply #119 on: January 19, 2014, 05:49:49 pm »
It was never specified in TOS.  The mechanism of preparing photon torpedoes to fire wasn't seen until TWOK.

It is just assumbed they would load them in the same way after all they torpedos same as Sub.

Slow missiles fired on a straight line course?  Ballistic drones in other words.
They didn't use missles though.

@kightstrom
I took them to be just like torpedos aboard a submarine when I first heard about them way back in 1971 in syndication.