SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread I

[Coyote]

Maybe it is purely for decorative purposes.

[Siege]

Clearly those trains were built by the cheapest bidder .

[Dark Hellion]

In the darkness something cold and inhuman begins to stir.

Those who join will go unhindered into glory. Those who abstain will be ignored and forgotten. Those who interfere will be annihilated.

Join us in our quest. In a billion years time we shall bloody the nose of the god machine and be burnt into the memory of the Omniverse. Choose: Anonymity and irrelevance or remembrance and utter destruction.

The Emissaries are coming. Harbingers of the wonder and woe that is the Grand Order of the god machine XylyX.

[DarthShady]

Clearly those trains were built by the cheapest bidder .

I hope your ships weren't built by the cheapest bidder too.

Now that we're all starting the introductions, me and Fin have quite an introduction gearing up.

[Steve]

More from me, introducing ESPers. Good and bad. The second post gives an even better glimpse of the bad ones.

And yes, the Ebon Blade were inspired by Goodkind's Mord'Sith, or at least as they were shown in "Legend of the Seeker".

[K. A. Pital]

Hmm, hmm. Maybe I should play. Let me see if I'll have time, all right?

[Steve]

Hmm, hmm. Maybe I should play. Let me see if I'll have time, all right?

Would be cool. Game start is two weeks from now.

[Raj Ahten]

Back into space are we? With the current list of players going in it should be a good game. Pity I can't consider putting my hat in the ring until late August at the earliest. Good luck and have a good time, everyone.

[Steve]

After some thought, I've altered how preferred capital ship building time works.

The general peacetime rate we'd like to see is starship production in the following methods: for ships up to $199 value, a rate of 1 month for every $10 of hull value, not counting trials periods of +50% time. A $100 value ship takes 10 months to build, then add another 5 months for trials and shakedown, a $50 value ship takes 5 months to build and 3 months trials (rounding up from 2.5 months). At the $200 mark, or when a vessel becomes a Superheavy, the general standard shifts to hull type. Superheavies take 2 years to build. Ultraheavies between $350 and $500 take 3 years to build and 1 year for fitting and trials. A hull in the range of $500-$700 takes 4 years of construction and 18 months for fitting and trials. Anything above $700 takes 5 years to build and 2 years of fitting and trials and if you go past $1,000, it's 6 years of building and 3 years fitting/trials.

Opinions?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Looks good to me.

[Kuroji]

Yeah, looks good to me too.

It reminds me though, is there any hard cap on how big the maximum ship value is? I can imagine that you can't really go very far past $1000, but I don't think anyone's actually come up with any ships that are beyond that value. At least, if they have, I haven't seen it on the wiki.

Of course the construction times also mean that if you can spare the ships for a kamikaze mission, you can take out a leviathan and rebuild your fleet four times over by the time another ship that size can get into service.

[Steve]

Ships past $1,000 will get my scrutiny. So far the only "vessels" of that size are the Collector Monoliths, 'Zook has been authorized for such.

Also, I'll frown upon people attempting zerg rushes with overwhelmingly-light ships.

[Norade]

I have $1,000 system defense asteroids, but they are large stationary objects designed to protect a denser than average cluster of space habitats.

[Steve]

Uh, PeZook? 3981? Don't you mean 2981? It's only 3400 at game start.

[PeZook]

No, I meant 3380 I'll fix it up.

[Kuroji]

I was meaning light as a relative term, here. Not a hundred $20 ships, but more like a dozen or more $200 ships.

Of course, if you've got a thousand-dollar ship, either you know you're going to drop it somewhere that it's completely superior, or you're going to have an escort of smaller ships, so you can't quite zerg rush it. I was exaggerating a bit.

[Steve]

Heh.

[KlavoHunter]

Rule 1 of STGODs: There will be lesbians.

[Darkevilme]

Ships past $1,000 will get my scrutiny. So far the only "vessels" of that size are the Collector Monoliths, 'Zook has been authorized for such.

Also, I'll frown upon people attempting zerg rushes with overwhelmingly-light ships.

Just to bring this to your attention then. The Chamarran Juggernaut is 2500 points, but they only have one of them and cannot build more.

[DarthShady]

I myself have 6 World Eater Motherships with a 1000$ value. You can guess what their purpose is.

[Kuroji]

Just to bring this to your attention then. The Chamarran Juggernaut is 2500 points, but they only have one of them and cannot build more.

...I promise I'm not going to zerg rush it, but I just can't help but try to figure out a way to do so...

[Oskuro]

Rule 1 of STGODs: There will be lesbians.

What's the point value of those, exactly?

[Simon_Jester]

Ships past $1,000 will get my scrutiny. So far the only "vessels" of that size are the Collector Monoliths, 'Zook has been authorized for such.

Also, I'll frown upon people attempting zerg rushes with overwhelmingly-light ships.

Let me try to pin down what you mean by "zerg rush." Do you mean the use of massed light ships (say, a huge swarm of 40$ torpedo craft) against enemy heavies? Because I'd think that would be a valid play tactic.

Or do you throwing a huge light-ship force at the enemy, trading your lights for their heavies at an unfavorable exchange ratio, and then taking advantage of the short construction time to rebuild your lost light ships much faster than they can rebuild their heavies? Because that I can see as a rules exploit- someone who tries that should run up against limits like how many light ships they can build at a time.

Rule 1 of STGODs: There will be lesbians.

What's the point value of those, exactly?

I believe they're considered as a force multiplier, not a point-value unit.

[Oskuro]

Or do you throwing a huge light-ship force at the enemy, trading your lights for their heavies at an unfavorable exchange ratio, and then taking advantage of the short construction time to rebuild your lost light ships much faster than they can rebuild their heavies?

I think that's what they mean. If it were up to me, I would allow such tactics from time to time, as long as the player using them not only needs to rebuild the ships, but actually recruit and train pilots for what essentially are suicide missions. That should be played as a hefty rebuild time penalty, not to mention a chance of social uprising.

As for AI or Hive-mind civs, throwing away so many drones would be like cutting your own arm off. You can build a new sword, but without the much more complex to re-create arm to hold it, it is useless.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If people are going for Zerg swarm, then they should expect people to counter zerg swarms with missile spam.

I should point out that even in real life, Arleigh Burkes with Aegis air defence systems can defend even against mass assault of a torpedo boats simply by pumping SM-2s and ESSMs against every ship.