From: beorn@elk.Berkeley.EDU (Beorn Johnson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: This weeks xtrek history lesson
Date: 13 Oct 1992 03:06:25 GMT
Organization: UC Berkeley
Distribution: world
Reply-To: beorn@berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: elk.berkeley.edu

Robert Hill (aka Spaceace!) <hill@norman.VI.RI.CMU.EDU>
(in <Bw0wvr.MHF.2@cs.cmu.edu>):
-  Beorn Johnson writes
-  > My main argument against ogging is that it reduces the advantage of
-  > skill (which is obviously one of it's strategic advantages).  I am not
-  > terribly convinced that good ogging requires that much skill.
-  
-  Huh?  Try ogging a good player...just try it.  You're too used to ogging  
-  berkeley twinks...:-) <-READ :-)

Ogging to use up someone's fuel is pretty much as effective as killing
them, because after three or four assaults they will be dry or refueling
in the opposite corner (or dead).  No skill, rotten ratio, but effective.
Also, try to dogfight a good dogfighter.  It's all relative.

-  > Now, if the game were changed, perhaps dogfighting would be the most
-  > important tactic.  Or, with other changes, bombing would be the
-  > most important tactic.  Or even refitting (ala Sturgeon -- ick!) . . .
-  
-  Yes...but we aren't about changing the game.

One of my themes in posting to r.g.n is that the game has been changing
since day one.  The changes have all been to try to preserve the "feel"
of the game.  Once someone trys to exploit a feature and in doing so
changes the "feel" of the game, something is changed to correct it.
This is how we got robots to protect neutral space.  Now that people
are scumming neutral space in a more co-ordinated way, I think something
should be done to stop it.

How many changes have we seen in the past few years?  Det radius,
announcing armies, iggy, all sorts of methods for dealing with
neutral race bombings, LPS timer . . . (I don't know how
long iggy has been around, I never "appreciated" it though).

Now, say I come up with a tactic that ruins ogging.  Someone who
loves the ogging style and who runs a server might very well decide
to change the server to limit my tactic.  They simply have a different
idea of what the right "feel" is.

=  As a side note, bombing is  
-  the most important tactic.

Let's differentiate tactics and strategies.  Bombing gives you little tactical
advantage, but great strategic advantage.  The ultimate strategy is, of
course, the time honored "taking planets" strategy  (but that's obvious,
if I sound snide: my apologies -- I guess I wasn't clear in my original post).

=  By  
-  learning dogfighting skills, it helps you in all facets of the game.   
-  Sitting around and dogfighting is purely useless...which is mostly what  
-  scott does.

I'll agree 100% with the above conclusions . . . I was unaware that Scott
was _just_ dogfighting.  That's another form of "slot scumming", ala pizza
scumming: he's taking up a slot while having fun and preventing the
team from achieving its goal.  I think team play is the "holy grail" of
"feel" for xtrek.		^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


-  Yes...but note, most of the flames came from hector, and he's not from  
-  CMU. The same applies to him, however, since he learned to play as SS  
-  botany bay on bronco.

When I say "CMU" players, I use the term loosely, referring to
people that play at CMU servers and have picked up the CMU set of
biases for the game.  Also, I wasn't just referring to flames at that
point, but the defense of Iggy and other CMU server changes.

-  I don't like server changes intended change the game...no matter what they  
-  are.  

Hurm . . . this seems inconsistent.  You don't mean to say that you
like playing the original xtrek with one ship type, do you?  Factor out
the client/udp/lag issues.  Some changes are good (I didn't like
tractor/pressor originally, but now it's one of my key tools), some
just delay the game (Iggy), and some (like Sturgeon) are completely gonzo . . .




	Beorn
	(aka Snidly)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek