From: sjsmith@cs.umd.edu (Stephen Joseph Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: New Server
Summary: Sounds dumb
Date: 15 Sep 92 17:21:20 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Maryland at College Park

In article <srt.716572933@sun-marino> srt@aero.org (Scott R. Turner) writes:
>Site: team-play.cs.ucla.edu
>Port: 2592
>Administrators: srt@aerospace.aero.org,matthew@cs.ucla.edu
>Hours: All, No Borgs
>
>Description:
>
>Team-play is a standard four-race galaxy with various modifications to
>promote team play and to eliminate mindless tactics such as ogging.

Mindless?

People don't ogg just because it beats picking your nose.  People ogg
carriers because they have armies, people ogg people with kills because
they might become carriers, people ogg oggers to protect their starbase
or carriers, etc.

This apparent misunderstanding of Why We Ogg didn't bode well for the
server modifications, so I read on with a growing sense of trepidation.


>During t-mode, each team generates new ships at a rate of 1 every 30
>seconds.  Ships may be stockpiled.  When a player dies, he draws a new
>ship out of the stockpile.  If no ships are available, the player must
>wait until a ship is manufactured.  All standard ship types are always
>available, but normal starbase restrictions also apply.

All right, sounds okay so far, and pretty clear.  Might be interesting
to try this, and see what new strategies come up.  However, I imagine
that an effective strategy would go something like: Make the opponent
die more than you do, until their stockpile is exhausted.  Take their
planets, and leave people around their home planet to resurrection-scum
them every 30 seconds.


>The government is happy to advance every pilot five ships.

??? What does "advance a pilot a ship" mean?  Give him a ship that isn't
in the stockpile?  If so, I'll maybe still buy this... up to this point.


>After
>that, issuing a new ship requires three other pilots from the same
>team to vote "yes" to ship allocation.  When a vote is necessary, a
>message calling for the vote appears in each player's message window,
>requiring a y/n response.  Vote timer elapses in 30 seconds, with no
>response being counted as a "no" vote.

Sounds pretty dumb, spending the whole game entering "yes" so that my
teammates can continue a normal strategy of ogging, or breaking an LPS,
or etc. etc.

Also doesn't seem to fit in with my assumed definition of "advance,"
otherwise, why would people vote against their own teammates?

Then there's the nasty strategy of killing everyone on a team 
simultaneously, leaving fewer than 3 people in the game, so no
voting can occur.


>Voting is in effect only when a wait queue exists.

Huh?  Why, and what does this mean?  Does this mean that if you don't
have a wait queue, everyone can get ships "advanced," whatever that
means?  Or that no one can get ships "advanced"?


>As always, direct any questions to srt@aerospace.aero.org

Why don't you just answer them here in the newsgroup?  Right now, it
seems as if this is a modification that was *not* thought through.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.  And please, please, please, be a 
lot more clear...

Maybe this is a joke, since I get a "Who is team-play.cs.ucla.edu?"

- Gamera
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek