From: markiel@callisto.pas.rochester.edu (Andrew Markiel)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: misconceptions
Keywords: grrrr...  who turned on the burner?
Date: 11 Jan 93 22:23:33 GMT
Organization: U(r) AstroTheory Group

In article <1993Jan11.034756.12920@ncsu.edu> jecoleb@eos.ncsu.edu writes:
>
>hde+@cs.cmu.edu (Herbert Enderton) writes:
>
>> The LPS-defense situation that jecoleb
>>mentions is not a good example, because if your team really is short of
>>armies then it often makes sense to leave them on the planet.  I guess
>>I didn't word the original statement well.
>
>Now, THIS I truly have to wonder about.  I look at it this way--no matter how
>inspired the defense, unless all eight ships are in a tight formation around
>the last planet SOMEONE'S going to creep in and bomb/drop eventually.In such a
>situation I'd rather see Bob with 3 armies and Earth with 4 than Earth with 7.
>If Bob eats his 3 armies when rushed by MUCUS, Earth still has 4.  If MUCUS 
>sneaks in and bombs Earth down to 1 or 2,the armies are still gone, AND you're
>down even farther army-wise than you were in the first case. When I see an LPS
>planet with armies sitting on it, the phrase "free beer!" springs to my mind.
>
It depends. If the other team has a good ogger, then carrying the armies
is a sure loss, because he'll get you eventually (also if there are
many average oggers). On the other hand, if the enemy team is working
together at all, they can probably bomb the planet, and getting the
last planet bombed low is often a ticket to genocide.

Another option, if the oggers are good, is to just take the armies and
beam them down onto some non-agri planet that you can defend (to keep
the enemy from putting more armies down). In this case, you're gambling
that you can get more armies before the enemy planet grows...not great,
but perhaps better than getting the armies killed, and a good gamble
if you have more than 1 planet, or an agri.

>>> 4a)  Running away while carrying armies is better than going for the
>>> planet, trying to drop and dying.       FALSE
>
>>As written I'd mark this as TRUE.  In the followup paragraph you
>>say something about dropping an army before dying or having a
>>chance at success, but those are different questions.
>
>As the wise man said to Mussolini, "Huh?"  
>
>There's nothing more disheartening than a player with 4-5 armies on board
>heading for a planet, noting a defender nearby, saying "Uh-oh, I can't take
>it under pressure, better wait for him to leave", and repeating this circle of
>advance-retreat until someone gives up waiting and oggs him into New Jersey.
>
Well, there are 2 types of netrek players: those who phaser your cloaked
ship, and those who don't. Take planets out from underneath the second
group, and not from the first. If you walk up to someone who knows how
to kill cloakers, you're just handing your armies away for free. One
of the keys to pick-up games is learning who is in which group: I get
as annoyed at teammates who wander past Duck Dodgers cloaked as I do
at teammates who are afraid of ensign bozo. In INL games, you can
usually assume that you're not going to be able to take defended
planets.

Better, if you can't get to a planet that isn't covered, is to get some
oggers to chase you, so that you get a numbers advantage somewhere
else. You can do very well for yourself if you keep the best enemies
busy chasing you around, and if they stop chasing you around, then you
can go try for another planet again. Lather, rinse, repeat. The key
is to force the enemy into spending more effort trying to kill you
than it's worth (which is good advice for starbases too).

>>> 5)  You can be productive and effective without reading messages and acting
>>> on them.     FALSE
>
umm...a lot of the things good players do don't need the message board,
but I think you still need it, just to figure out what your teammates
are thinking about. Things like two people going to bomb a planet, and
they have to decide who is ogging the defender, and who is bombing.
It's often not clear from the situation.

Messages are also good in pick-up games just to find out who on your
team is paying attention. Besides, it's not as much fun (IMHO) if you
don't chat with the people you're playing with.
>--
>     jecoleb@eos.ncsu.edu      \\              To KLH:
>       ---------------------------------------------------

-Grey Elf
markiel@callisto.pas.rochester.edu

ObFlame: could you keep the line length down around 70? Any longer, and
the quoting starts to get really ragged (I had to do some creative
editing above to keep the lines from wrapping around, which makes
some editors unhappy). Thanks.
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek