From: hauck@cs.washington.edu (Scott Hauck)
Subject: Re: The problem with Sturgeon
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 07:29:16 GMT

In article <2579@cronos.metaphor.com> polk@Metaphor.COM (Ben Polk) writes:
>I've been playing at Sturgeon quite a bit lately, and having
>a lot of fun there.  It may be a scum pond, but it's a fun
>scum pond.  Unfortuanatly, there is a serious flaw
>in the whole "use kills to upgrade your ship" idea.  No, it's
>not that it encourages all sorts of evil scummy activity (I
>need to modify my ten scum-mandments to include "play at
>Sturgeon".)
>
>The problem is that this is tbe netrek version of a pyramid
>scam.  Only the good players that can get kills and contiue
>to upgrade their ships have fun on this server.  I truely
>pity the new players that come on and face 400 hour bronco/bezier
>admirals flying warp 12 cruisers with 200 shields.  There
>has to be a continual source of kills for people to get these
>kinds of upgrades, and the people that are providing them
>are probably not having much fun.  Of course, as long as they
>want to stay and die, I'll do my best to help them out...

Actually,this is exactly the same problem as other servers - you can't get
plasma unless you're good, and plasma used to be a good source of kills.  You
couldn't take planets unless you get kills, you can't get a starbase until you
get a clue/scum for a while.  The thing is that on other servers, people have
figured out these schemes and learned to deal with them.  Ogging is a great
example - it used to be planet scums ruled, but now ogging helps keep them in
check.

The problem is that people haven't learned how to play on sturgeon - it's
definitely not the same as normal servers.  For example, IMHO bombing o
sturgeon isn't for army control, it's for resource control.  Also, ogging
becomes much more important, and must be much more coordinated.  Someone with
a clue and 10-15 kills is very hard to stop by one player, but a pair of oggers
should be able to deal with them.

There's also a whole strategy to how you choose your upgrades.  What ship you
use as your base, and what sequence of upgrades you choose is very important,
but I don't think there's one good answer - some people will want to upgrade
an AS into the ultimate planet-scum, while others will build a pocket-SB out
of a BB.

BTW, to address the anti-sturgeon flames I'm sure will show up, here goes:
Yes, sturgeon is not netrek.  However, I think it's really important to have
some server out there trying new things.  People have talked a lot about a
ship construction system, but it always gets shelved as too hard to balance.
Well, I feel upgrades on sturgeon may have a very similar effect, and are
relatively reasonable on sturgeon.  Also, I think sturgeon also has in place
a reasonable kill system such that the person who actually deserves the kill
gets it (ie.  you kill A who blows up killing B on his team, you get both
kills).  I think there are lots of ideas born on sturgeon that should die on
sturgeon (the planet resource scheme for example), but it's a good testing
ground for off-the-wall ideas, and it is a lot of fun,

For those who've never played on it, give it a try and keep an open mind.
There's been a good bit of t-mode lately (even wait Q's), and there are some
big names who've been frequenting it (names withheld to protect the guilty).
Don't expect netrek, but if you've got an open mind you might just find an
idea or two you like.

BTW, for any questions on the server, try tsang@cs.washington.edu

Scott Hauck
hauck@cs.washington.edu