BSE Digest v195 #226 From: kerry@freeside.fc.net (Kerry Harrison) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 00:00:00 +0000 BSE Digest Sunday, 18 June 1995 Volume 195 : Number 226 Welcome to the BSE Digest, the place to discuss all the myriad aspects of life Beyond the Stellar Empire with other denizens of the Greater Periphery. In this issue: + BSE:Colony Turns + Re: BSE:Colony Turns + Re: BSE: QSN PortRude + BSE:Colony Turns -Reply + Re: #1(2) BSE Digest V195 #225 + Re: BSE:Colony Turns + Den of Earth? + Re: BSE:Colony Turns -Reply + Colonies and outposts + BSE:Colony Turns + Re: BSE:Colony Turns + Re: BSE:Colony Turns + Re: BSE:Colony Turns + BSE:Print out Frequency + Re: BSE: Revisionist History + BSE Digest V195 #225 + Re: BSE:Colony Turns + BSE: Re: #1(2) BSE Digest V195 #225 + Space Battle Program + Re: [76311.2317@compuserve.com: BSE:Print out Frequency] See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the bse-list or bse-digest mailing lists. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Geoff Hanna <71552.3003@compuserve.com> Date: 17 Jun 95 04:07:57 EDT Subject: BSE:Colony Turns For what it's worth, I am both a new player and one on a limited budget. If Print Frequencies were increased to 8, I would run three colonies instead of the one I will have at a 4 week frequency. It would cost me more $ per month but not that much and would be well worth the minimal additional cost ($6/mo vs. $9/mo). Trying to run three colonies at current rates would be $18/mo, well out of my budget. I disagree with all of your arguments about game balance. I think a newbie is more severely limited than a veteran as things are now, and a PF extension would help balance it a little. Plus it would give those newbies who want it a lot more fun stuff to do right away instead of having to wait till we're all grown up like you guys. Geoff ------------------------------ From: Richard William Chiang <richc@uclink2.berkeley.edu> Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 01:38:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: BSE:Colony Turns I agree with Chip on this issue. People will be willing a certain amount on colonies. In game terms, a colony is not too tough to create that has something worthwhile about it. By allowing longer printouts, people will be willing to put down more colonies which can only be good for trade. As for the concentration of power issue, this point has some merit. But please remember it goes both ways. A new player is more likely to take a colony over at only $6 every 2 months or so. Also, since it does not take too much to create a colony of decent size (have you seen what new players can get from most affliations for joining?), I do not think concentration of power will be too relevant as most players can get them easily. The final point I have is this. Running a colony is an intergral part of BSE. By making it available to the masses, you are more likely to get more players involved as colonies are key trade and relations in the game. And, of course, the more active players in BSE, the more fun I will have killing there positions (woops. I didn't mean it. Really I didn't :)) Richard ------------------------------ From: Henry4633@aol.com Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 07:45:31 -0400 Subject: Re: BSE: QSN PortRude Mr.Secretary You did go in to heart of the Drell System and Attack a QSN colony Unitredd with the AIS scum. Then we attack WCE Soul Cage . Mr Secretary Fat boy didn't put his 2 cent in there will don't be WCE that the true . 1.Mr.Secretary not ship came by stargate. 2. I can put 46 ship into your home with out a stargate. Mr. Secretary we are both looking out for wellfare of Affiliation.But befor are two Military units engaged in battle. I Lord Asakura Soteki Admiral , Warlox , Samurai of the House Soteki and of Tokugawa clan. to the Ashigaru warrior WCE fight well . Lord Asakura soteki Admiral,Warlox To my Starcaptain and fleet commander take us out ordit go jump. ------------------------------ From: pkrauskopf@FALCON.AL.WPAFB.AF.MIL Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 10:04:33 -0400 Subject: BSE:Colony Turns -Reply >> It would cost me more $ per month but not that much and would be >> well worth the minimal additional cost Here, exactly is my point. THIS is the right way to sucker in a BSE player. Give him a little more value, and he'll sink a little more in. PK ------------------------------ From: RTGames@aol.com Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 10:39:02 -0400 Subject: Re: #1(2) BSE Digest V195 #225 If any ship has insufficent crew in command and/or cargo to move the ship it is derelict. If a ship has no engines and no weapons it is derelict. ------------------------------ From: SBach11@aol.com Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 10:48:50 -0400 Subject: Re: BSE:Colony Turns Chazz, > This would indeed be one possible outcome; and it is possible >it is what has gone before. But that does not mean that it has to >happen the same way this time. Finally, an optimist. I agree. I think your on the right track here. All we really need is some assurances that the ruling would be used for support size colonies and/or outposts and not abused by the large stuff. Perhaps size 3 and below or something like that. I also think a combined printout for ALL the smaller possesions of a player might be a good alternative to lenghtening the PF if maybe thought out more. Well done, Steve M. ------------------------------ From: Jackmyster@aol.com Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 11:10:25 -0400 Subject: Den of Earth? As many of you know, Lord Den of Earth has been less than "easily" available to many of you. It has been reported that he is "missing" from NeverWhere at this time and that another Ataman has been seen w/ the FGZ CP. Much of this are merely rumors, but what is true is that the Ataman appears to have many more things going on at one time than normal and has begun limiting his availablity to many outside of the THC and FGZ. Chris Waco ------------------------------ From: SBach11@aol.com Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 12:24:10 -0400 Subject: Re: BSE:Colony Turns -Reply > Here, exactly is my point. THIS is the right way to sucker in a >BSE >player. Give him a little more value, and he'll sink a little more in. >PK I agree. In fact I am for any cost reduction or increase in value that will promote and keep Newbies in the game. However, when I see a proposal that has such a great potential for abuse by non-newbies I have to say something. We need to look into a different way of accomplishing this that isn't as easy to exploit for the wrong reasons. Chip- I'll respond too your notes in private. Geoff- welcome aboard, This isn't really about not wanting to help new guys. Its about a bad way to attempt it. We simply need to look more into it than this first proposal. Steve M. ------------------------------ From: chazz@cais.cais.com (Charles Meredith) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 13:01:14 -0400 Subject: Colonies and outposts Pete and Thad, Would it make your program simpler if you just got rid of outposts all together? As a trade-off, the colonies would need to be able to have more RTS links and a pointer to the parent colony; but everything dealing with outposts could be eliminated. Would this simplify the program??? Transition Notes To transition, you could convert each of the outposts into a small colony with colonists enough to run the Mines (at 25 morale). (Yeap, resurge the Manhours for mines rule -- but I would keep it down to say one or two. Treat it more like maintianers than operators.) You would have to presto-whamo add structures, LFS for some, and farms or food enough for a couple of months (if you really want to be nice, add Merch, Hosp, and rec complexes enough for 120% of the new population). Also, the RTS links would have to be reestablished as two-way links so that they can maintain the small new colonies. I would give each player the option as to which source they want the colonist to come from -- either their colony or thin air. Printouts Etc Printouts would be handled by the parent colony. For each colony, if the parent colony pointer is not itself, then no printout will ocurr. It will instead be printed out when the parent colony is printed out. Orders sent to the smaller colonies would acrue on the parent colony rather than on the smaller colony. Then printouts could be performed either at intervauls (even if the current PF 4 limit is retained) or at order threasholds of 30 orders. Game Balance Effects Two changes that I plan on proposing with my inputs to the combat system are that each colony under this system would only be able to have one battery. In fact, not counting AMBs and fighter defense batteries, every position in the game would only have one battery! The other change is that when ships and GPs are planet-bound and colonies when on planets, can only fire at and be fired on by ships that orbit over their half of the world. Ships and GPs would be able to specify a location that they geo-sync orbit and then the other half of the world would be blind to them. The default would be a non-geo sync orbit which would allow the ship to scan the entire planet. These two changes will make single colonies much more vunerable and require that kind of colonial support groups be established. What do you think???? ------------------------------ From: "Hendrick,Bill;=9462771" <BHENDRICK@kean.ucs.mun.ca> Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 15:06:36 +0200 (IST) Subject: BSE:Colony Turns To all: I think I will offer my 2 cents worth in this colony turn business. It is human nature to always want more and as far as I can see that is what is happening here. I have browsed through a number of suggestions made by players and being relatively new I could be wrong but I doubt that the GMs are prepared to make the sweeping changes some of you are suggesting. As for more colonies its my experience that if there is one area of need in the game it is hauling and unless these extra colonies are going to be attached to existing colonies this demand for hauling will increase. I have heard some of say that you don't really do much with your colonies. How would you run a second one differently? I think most people would run them the same way. What I am trying to say is I don't think the changes you guys want are coming so either shake things at your present colonies or get rid of the colony and run an extra ship. Just my two cents. Bill ------------------------------ From: "Hendrick,Bill;=9462771" <BHENDRICK@kean.ucs.mun.ca> Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 15:26:04 +0200 (IST) Subject: Re: BSE:Colony Turns Oooooooooooooooooooooops BIG MISTAKE What I meant to say was I don't think the changes you guys want are coming... Sorry Bill ------------------------------ From: ac217@detroit.freenet.org (Chip Charnley) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 14:19:10 -0400 Subject: Re: BSE:Colony Turns >I have heard some of say that you don't really do much >with your colonies. How would you run a second one differently? Bill, Perhaps you are right but, for me, the reason to run more colonies is the new research rules. I personally don't think that the shipping exists to adquately move all the raw materials needed for the new research production. I certainly don't think that it exists to move an additional quantity of manufactured goods. I have one colony that obviously should go research. However, unless I can build a second general/production colony near it to feed it's manufactured products needs, I can't do it. It is also patently clear that large colonies shouldn't be research facilities. However, those that would like to do some research can't do it in a reasonable manner unless they can build a small research colony near that large production colony. Do you see how things will now be done differently or do I need to give a more detailed example? Chip Charnley ------------------------------ From: "Hendrick,Bill;=9462771" <BHENDRICK@kean.ucs.mun.ca> Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 16:11:06 +0200 (IST) Subject: Re: BSE:Colony Turns Chip I understand your situation and I guess that there are other in the same tight situation. However, I don't think everyone is looking at this with the big picture. I can see how it might give advantages to some affs. Take RIP as a perfect example. All it takes is a Class 1 RIP colony to hide a whole fleet of ships. From what I can see its hard enough already to hunt them down. If colonies became easier to own you had better believe that there would be a lot more RIP colonies allowing them to strike out and disappear that much easier from so many more directions. Shipping would be much more dangerous. This is just one example that I have seen no one address. Bill ------------------------------ From: "Richard A. Loutzenheiser" <76311.2317@compuserve.com> Date: 17 Jun 95 19:31:08 EDT Subject: BSE:Print out Frequency Re Chip's replys: If I remember it correctly Chip you quit in 1986 or so. At that time CA's were big ships and if you had four ships you were somebody. By 1990 the whole landscape had changed. Steve Messer (the person you have be discussing this with) was the DTR PD and I was the ISP one. We fought a war, that included just about everybody. (Please everyone don't jump in with history lessons here). I can tell you for a fact that the IMP would not have been able to afford that war if it weren't for the ole fleet turn. We used our large colonies and the newly acquired ability of the EEM to build ships for us, to assemble what a previously been considered astronomically large fleets; as did many of the other races. My point is that small groups of players who were willing to occassionally spend large amounts of money, or who can build one new position a month and then not run it for six more, could extert incredible influence because those positions could remain idle for long periods of time and thereby not cost anything. Now I realize that fleet turns are not part of the current system and that this analogy is not perfect. What I am afraid of is that if colony PF is raised it will lead to the proliferation of even more small research colonies so that those that are willing to write big checks everyone once and a while, or to build a new one every month or so, will gain immense research advantages over the general playership. Under the current system only a wealthy person, such as Wayne <G> just kidding, could afford to do this. I may be wrong, and if you think so I will be happy to continue this discussion. Richard A. Loutzenheiser ------------------------------ From: StephMarte@aol.com Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 20:24:29 -0400 Subject: Re: BSE: Revisionist History >I don't know how Sir Arthur Curry feels about it, but I can't say it >thrills me to hear that you are rewriting history, just because you >didn't like the way it turned out. >If you claim its a fictional work of art in a "what-if" scenario, ok. >But, you can't rewrite history. There's just something wrong with >that. >Am I outta line here? Sir Arthur, any comment? Wayne, I agree if you're going to run a historical variant it makes sense to keep the participants, geographics, and tech as close to the History as possible. It might make sense to pick a period of time in the History where NOTHING happened. Let the scenario provide the history for those years. Kerry's proposed scenario about running the RSN as IMP and doing an IMP-KTR war is re-writing History if you take it seriously. My girlfriend says there's not a serious bone in my body, so I doubt Sir Arthur will foam at the mouth for more than a day. <g> Steve ------------------------------ From: e.shchneider@genie.geis.com Date: Sun, 18 Jun 95 00:28:00 UTC Subject: BSE Digest V195 #225 i just sine up with the myr {i was forced ! <g> i had few other choises, nameless people made me do it i might change later but the x4 on the small starting ships ya get is good to and all i ever wanted was a modified cargo carrier for speed and i nice colonie or two to work on some twisted cool ideas that would add some spice to things} . . lots of people are muttering about raw deals in colonies . . i'm not into make ceramic plates myself but i could easaly see how the possibilatise of this as well as the chances it would bring for hi adventer . . the intire univers could be changed by developments in this feild i for one am a little afraid of what it might mean . . but back to the topic at hand if ya have any good or major colonies that are directionless or ya want to give to new blood who are insainly massacistic i'm ya dude; though it would help if they had good support and protection as i have big big interesting plans. i'm extreamly open and can get along with any one or affill so that'ss not a problem. give me a deitails. :) . i also need a place where i can store stuff if outposts are still going to be used as it gives a starting possition a chance to make a deal having outposts with stuff or a persentage of stuff or something getting collected by others and giving starting players much needed monatairy/resorce support while they go exploring and off their ship . . <g> . . ------------------------------ From: NoaKrieger@aol.com Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 22:31:42 -0400 Subject: Re: BSE:Colony Turns [OOC] May I make a small suggestion? RTG has been very good at requesting input for game changes when they are planning the next release. I've worked for 16 years for a major computer vendor and every sucessful computer company I know, including my own, do the same thing when they are in the process of making new changes. However, it is difficult to address change requests that do not pertain to the proposed next release. Right now, RTG is working on the battle program. I suggest that we, as customers, focus on that enchancement. Please, don't get me wrong! I found the discussion concerning colonies very interesting, personally I would like to see some extension to the maximum turn frequency in order to provide cost savings, but I wouldn't recommend requesting these changes from RTG until they finish their next release of BSE. What I recommend that RTG do is, when the battle program is complete, request input from the players on what the next area of BSE is they should work on. That way they can prioritize enchancements based on the needs / wishes of their customers. What I recommend WE do is urge RTG to continue asking for our input, but provide them input on the current enhancements they are working on and avoid trying to introduce "creeping elegance" into their project plans. Regards, Jim G. ------------------------------ From: LUDENDORF@delphi.com Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 00:29:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: BSE: Re: #1(2) BSE Digest V195 #225 > If any ship has insufficent crew in command and/or cargo to move the ship it > is derelict. If a ship has no engines and no weapons it is derelict. Thad, I can accept this, and work with this. BUT, is this gonna change again next week.... without notice? Also, please update the rules, they say different. Steve ------------------------------ From: "Hendrick,Bill;=9462771" <BHENDRICK@kean.ucs.mun.ca> Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 13:37:37 +0200 (IST) Subject: Space Battle Program [ooc] Jim Words of wisdom. I am not too sure what is being considered, but one thing that I think the new battle program should contain is the choice not to fire on unarmed vessels that whose aff may be on your enemy list. Bill ------------------------------ From: ac217@detroit.freenet.org (Chip Charnley) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1995 15:56:33 -0400 Subject: Re: [76311.2317@compuserve.com: BSE:Print out Frequency] > aWhat I am afraid of is that if colony PF is raised it > will lead to the proliferation of even more small research colonies so that > those that are willing to write big checks everyone once and a while, or to > build a new one every month or so, will gain immense research advantages over > the general playership. Under the current system only a wealthy person, such as > Wayne <G> just kidding, could afford to do this. I may be wrong, and if you > think so I will be happy to continue this discussion. > > Richard A. Loutzenheiser > I don't know about a proliferation of small rsch colonies but, beyond that, this is EXACTLY my point. I WANT to see everyone able to afford this if they want. If only a select few can than the game IS out of balance. We both see the same results we just interpret the impact differently. In your case, a select few will have a research advantage because they can afford to run several research colonies while the majority won't even be able to do significant research. As a result, a small group will get advantages which can be calculated to overcome the KNOWN balance of power as most of the rest of the world is not getting any significant improvements over the current status quo. In my view, everyone CAN do meaningful research. Sure, some people, by spending more $$$ can do MORE research but they don't have a near static baseline to try to overcome with thier research. They will know that there are others out there that can afford to run specialized research colonies and are getting new abilites/items that they know nothing about. The flip side of this is that more research will mean more implementation work for RTG. Too much implementation work will mean that things that have been rsched aren't immediately implemented. All in all, it's not an easy balance to reach. However, I do believe that rsch currently is TOO limited. However, that is only part of the problem as other discussions have pointed out. After much of the discussion here, I have come to a conclusion. To be fair, RTG must implement a minimum fee on every ship in the game. Something on the order of any ship which has had any turns (other than initial set-up) run against it will have a 70TU R&R turn run any time 4 weeks elapses after the last player submitted turn. This will put turn cost on a par with colonies and prevent some of the fleet abuses that several people have been complaining about. Those AFFs with ahips sitting around right now doing nothing can have 3 choices: 1) Any player in the AFF can claim the ship and start paying turn fees for it. 2) The ship can be stripped of everything but minimal space-worthiness items (minimu crew, LFS, and thrust engines) and be disginated as a 0 turn seed ship. or 3) The ships can be stripped for hulls (one time 100% hull reimbursement) and contents be placed back in the building colony. This will mean that each player can only run what he can afford on a continuing basis without being able to have a massive impact on a couple of battles with ships which only run (and cost $$$) those couple of times a year. I don't think that GPs need to have this done with them but am open to others who might think otherwise. (Please don't anyone flame this. I am trying to dialog on this and find something that is implementable by RTG, maintains most everyone's concept of game balance, maintains RTG's cash flow so they stay in business, and allows everyone to pursue their interests in the game at an equal play level.) Chip Charnley ------------------------------ End of BSE Digest V195 #226 *************************** BSE Digest - All items Copyright (c) 1995, by their respective authors, permission is granted to redistribute as long as proper credit is given. To subscribe to BSE Digest, send the command: + subscribe bse-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@fc.net". 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