From: john@chsun1.spc.uchicago.edu (John Van Voorhis)
Subject: Re: Base stats for NBR
Organization: Chapin Hall Center for Children
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 22:53:05 GMT

In article <27575@dog.ee.lbl.gov> envmhs@epb11.lbl.gov (Max H. Sherman) writes:
>In article <62202@mimsy.umd.edu>, leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens) writes:

>|> Offense:  kills/time
	how many times an idiot ogged alone.

>|> Defense:  deaths/time
	how many times you have based against semi-clued or better opponents.

>|> Armies:   armies on board/time
	a) how much time you spend hoarding armies at home, or
	b) how stupid your teammates are in not using your armies

>|> Bombing:  armies killed on board enemies/time 
	huh?

>|> Position: ratio of distance from own home planet to enemy home planet/time
	another measure of opponent cluelessness, any semi-clued team can at least
	push the SB back, if not destroy it, when it gets too far forward.

>|> Repair:   total shield+internal damage repaired/time
	Yet again, a measure of the inability of the opponents to finish off a hurt SB.

	I don't really mean to flame on Leonard, but it is really hard to measure SB skill
and I don't think these stats do the job terribly well. The biggest problem is that the
effectiveness of an SB is intimately related to the quality of her teammates. Thus..

>What about 
>	ARMIES TRANSFERRED TO SHIPS
	How often your teammates wake up to the fact that you have armies, or often	
	they are willing to ferry them to you, rather than trying to take an agri
	with 2 armies. (I've done it once in a DD, but that was some lucky bombing.)

>	Planets taken - planets lost
	Again, this measures how clued your team is while you're in the SB.

>	Time spent with players docked
	This goes way up when you have those clueless newbies who have figured out 
	that they can dock with the SB, but haven't yet figured out what to do next.

>	kills made with players docked
	This starts to sound like something about the SB player, but what are your teammates
	doing docked on you when an enemy is close enough for you to kill them?

>Basically base play is a function of the rest of the team.
>Most of the important things a base does is to support/protect
>the other activities.  Ratio is the dumbest indicator, (at least in
>t-mode) because it gives no indication as to how the base is helping
>the team

	Clearly, I agree with this. I don't think there is a way to really get at
how good a base is from the statistics. I remember one game where I was actually doing
quite well as the base, protecting planets and armies, and doing a lot of tractor/pressor
work helping my teammates survive, and giving up a lot of kills. I think I died with about
15 kills but I had given up almost twice that.
	"Team" stats, like planets taken or lost, will tell whether your base helped or
hurt the team to a certain extent, but what about the base that staves off a genocide, even
she is playing with a bunch of complete twinks? You would have lost planets, but you would be
right to feel that your base play should shove you up a notch in "real" rank.
	I guess it all comes back to why we even have rank, which I won't touch with a
200 point plasma. 

-Alf, the uncontrollable

  --- John Van Voorhis                 |      |\  All I ask is a tall ship,
 Chapin Hall Center, 1155 E 60th St    |     /| \  and a star to steer her by,
 Chicago, IL 60637  (312) 753-5983     |    / |--\  - John Masefield
 john@chsun1.spc.uchicago.edu          |---\______/--------------------------- 
-- 
  --- John Van Voorhis                 |      |\  All I ask is a tall ship,
 Chapin Hall Center, 1155 E 60th St    |     /| \  and a star to steer her by,
 Chicago, IL 60637  (312) 753-5983     |    / |--\  - John Masefield
 john@chsun1.spc.uchicago.edu          |---\______/--------------------------- 
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