From: fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Frequently Offered Clever Suggestions List
Date: 13 Aug 92 22:58:15 GMT
Reply-To: fadden@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

This is the first "official" posting.  I'll re-post it whenever I'm reading
news and happen to see the other FAQ postings.

For newcomers: I don't post the actual FAQ; please don't ask me for a copy.

-----
rec.games.netrek Frequently Offered Clever Suggestions list

Maintained by Andy McFadden (fadden@uts.amdahl.com)
Revised: 13-Aug-92


The same ideas get proposed over and over by people trying to enhance the
game, and the same discussions come up again and again.  This will try to
stem the flow by presenting old discussion and arguments against the ideas.

This assumes you are familiar with the game itself and some of the vocabulary
(argot) involved (e.g. scum, ogg, LPS, Iggy).  This is NOT intended to be a
capsule summary of rec.games.netrek discussions; it is intended to help
people trying to enhance the game understand why many of the obvious
improvements won't work.  As such, it contains one-sided and occasionally
opinionated material.  I welcome improvements and stronger arguments, but if
you want to debate the value of something I will probably ignore you.


REMEMBER: Netrek is not Star Trek.  Netrek is not reality.  Star Trek is not
reality (despite my earlier assertions to the contrary).  DO NOT suggest
modifications purely to make the game "more realistic".  ONLY consider ideas
which will improve game play.


CONTENTS:

 1) How about team DI?
 2) How about no DI at all (+ changes in general)?
 3) All ships shouldn't fire 8 torps.
 4) Let's make cloakers blind.
 5) Let's allow cloakers to fire.
 6) The DD needs to be improved.
 7) Here's a neat idea for a new ship.
 8) How about a ship design system?
 9) Remove the kill restriction on army carrying.
10) Remove the kill restriction on plasma torps.
11) Get rid of LPSs.
12) Get rid of Iggy!
13) Combine all of the server processes into one.
14) Put the number of armies next to the planet.
15) Highlight ships with kills.
16) Prevent bombing/taking out of T-mode.
17) Stop 3rd race scumming.
18) Add incentives for scout bombing.
19) Protect ships which are fully lagged.
20) Credit kills appropriately
A1) Sturgeon changes


You can skip straight to the one you're interested in (say, chapter 2) by
searching for the regular expression "^2)".


1) How about team DI?

Problem:
Too many rank scums out there for themselves.  Need to add an incentive for
team play, so that they will get more DI if their team does better.

Proposal:
Change the DI structure so that you get points for stuff your teammates do.
Alternatively, change it so that you get points for different "team stuff",
like taking strategically placed planets or killing carriers.

Why not:
Most "team DI" schemes will cause people to switch to the team that's
winning, because that's where the points are.  It is possible right now to
see the players on each team before making the initial team selection; this
would make unfair teams the rule.

Changing the individual values of things is difficult when you consider how
the current DI scheme works.  "DI" is simply the sum of offense, bombing,
and planet ranks, multiplied by the number of hours you have been playing,
and then adjusted according to the global average.  There are no fixed DI
values for doing certain things; just your relationship to the rest of the
people on the server.

Killing people with armies gives you (5*armies) bombing credit, and taking
core planets is worth more than other planets, so the incentives exist;
people are simply unaware of them or feel it is easier to do things the
scum way.


2) How about no DI at all?

Problem:
DI is a mistake.  It is the reason for scumming.

Proposal:
Toss it.  At least toss all the ranks above Captain.

Why not:
Many people like to advance in rank.  DI was developed because the original
Xtrek had nothing but win/loss stats, so ratio scumming was the only way to
look impressive (you think DI is bad... heh).  There are a large number of
Admirals who like having their rank (hey, it took them a long time to get
there), and some of them run servers.  DI is like the electoral voting
system: it's not great, and the world might be better without it, but it's
not going away without a major fight.

Besides which, it's a good way to attract players to new servers.

Any change to DI is simply going to shift scumming one way or the other.
Most arcade games are centered around the accumulation of points; the object
is to do certain things, for which you rewarded.  The idea of Netrek, however,
is to win the game; rank should be just an incidental feature.  However,
there will always be those who see the accumulation of points, rank, or
whatever as the driving goal.

The Holy Grail of DI changing is a system which rewards only non-scum
activities.  However, telling scumming from teamwork requires human
intervention or artificial intelligence in most cases.


3) All ships shouldn't fire 8 torps.

Problem:
The game is unbalanced.  SBs should be able to shoot more torps than others.
Maybe SCs shouldn't be able to shoot as many.

Proposal:
Increase SB torps to 12, or scale all others accordingly.

Why not:
Going to 12 torps requires mods to both client and server.  This will increase
CPU time slightly, and will increase network usage.  You can't just switch
on the ship type, either, because a SB could fire 12 torps and then refit.

Scaling all ships down (so that an SC would fire, say, three torps total)
has been tried on Sturgeon; see appendix A1.

Any change to the ship characteristics is going to be met with a great deal
of resistance.  The game is very carefully balanced, and any changes can
result in drastic changes in the way it's played.


4) Let's make cloakers blind.

Problem:
Cloaking is too powerful.  Ogging is getting out of hand.

Proposal:
Remove certain items from the tac display of a cloaked ship, like enemy
ships, planets, torps, etc.

Why not:
Been done.  Not very popular.  Removing planets makes them hard to take
(you just sit there watching your 'O' flag, hoping that nobody will kill
you because they KNOW you are coming straight in).  Removing torps is bad
for the same reason.

Removing other players to make ogging harder is bad because most players
LIKE ogging.  It's fun.


5) Let's allow cloakers to fire.

Problem:
Now that Star Trek VI is out, cloakers (esp. Kli) should be able to fire.

Proposal:
Allow ships to fire when cloaked, possibly with a higher fuel or wtemp cost.

Why not:
Gimme a break.  Ogging would become trivial without changes to other parts
of the game.  See the Sturgeon changes in Appendix A1.


6) The DD needs to be improved.

Problem:
The DD is weak.  It can't take bomb as well as an SC, and it can't fight as
well as CA.

Proposal:
Give the DD bigger shields, or bigger torps (30 is too small), or more
powerful phasers, and perhaps a bigger fuel tank.

Why not:
As Tom Holub put it (paraphrased), "The CA is weak.  It can't bomb as well
as a DD, and it can't fight as well as a BB."  All ships have their place,
it's just a question of finding the right niche.

Several discussions have raged over rec.games.netrek about what the One True
Use of the DD is.  None have been found.  They can't be used as a big SC
nor as a small CA; they require a different perspective.  I won't offer
them here, but will instead relegate it to the thrice-revised DD Players Guide.

As a side note, the cooling rate on DDs was changed from 6 to 7, allowing
them to go great distances without overheating.  Many players who previously
thought the DD fully worthless now consider it to be valuable in certain
circumstances.  For those of you who are beginning to think that I'm totally
anti-change, let it be known that I sent private e-mail to about ten different
server dieties asking them to make this change, and campaigned long and hard
on rec.games.netrek.

I detest the phrase, "Ship of Lose."  It doesn't even make sense.  Stop it.


7) Here's a neat idea for a new ship.

Problem:
There's a gap in Netrek which really needs to be filled.

Proposal:
I want a new ship X which can do Y and Z.

Why not:
KSU-Galaxy/Chaos servers are a prime example of ship design run amok.  The
GA had huge torps, fast phasers, an incredible refueling rate, and eventually
they even boosted the manuverability on some servers.  As a result, nobody
played anything but GA (there were some DD holdouts, but once you could turn
in GA at a reasonable warp most of those switched over).

You may think your new design will fit perfectly into Netrek.  You're
probably wrong.  Some examples from the past:

- mini-starbase.  Like your normal SB, but less filling.  You'd get a couple
  on a team, or maybe just have them more often.  Two of these together,
  pressoring each other out of danger, would be damn near invincible when
  guarding a repair planet.  It's basically a Super Planet Defender, like
  a BB on steroids, and it really wouldn't add anything new to the game,
  since it's easier to ogg than an SB and slower than a BB.

- fighters.  SBs would launch these, perhaps they'd be robot-controlled.
  Again, neat idea, but so what?  They would either have to occupy a player
  slot (reducing the number of other robots you can have) or require
  modifications to both client and server (which is a Bad Thing).  Again,
  what do they add?  Are they any different from plasma torps with a high
  tracking setting?

- floating fuel platform.  Another pseudo-SB, which looks like an AS but
  has fuel like an SB.  Easy ogg target; what good is it if you have to keep
  it sitting behind your home planet?  One BB can off the thing, so it's
  not even valuable as a distraction.

- ogger ship.  Maybe it uncloaks fast (a la the old Calvin scheme), or it
  does 200 points of damage when it explodes, or it has small torps but a
  big phaser, or whatever.  Anybody who thinks they need this has never been
  ogged by somebody in a CA who knows what they're doing.  This would just
  make Ogging by Idiots that much easier.

- super scout ship.  Strip off most offensive weaponry, make it real fast.
  What's the point?  Try stopping a good SC player, and THEN see if you
  really want to propose this.

Many suggestions like these come from people trying to compensate for
inadequacies in the ships (sounds vaguely Freudian, doesn't it?)  It takes
time and a lot of practice to become a really effective player; even
the lowly SC can be a marvelous dogfighting ship when it's flown by a
skilled player.


8) How about a ship design system?

Problem:
Other games allow you to change the way your ship is set up.  I want to be
able to adjust my ship characteristics according to the way I play.

Proposal:
Allow ship characteristics to be adjusted by the player.

Why not:
This was implemented in a version of the original Xtrek game.  The tendency
was to do things like strip all torpedos, most of the hull, half of the
engines, and all of the cloaking ability from the ship and get phasers which
could do 40 points of damage to ships outside of visual range (but had to
be orbiting a fuel planet to fire more than twice).

Games quickly became ridiculous.  Either your planets were being taken by
someone completely invisible, or you were getting destroyed by ships you
couldn't see.  Nobody bothered dodging, because nobody fired torps.

Any implementation will require carefully balanced limits and a lot of play
time before it would become widespread.  Anyone who wishes to try this will
likely have to set up their own server and then try very hard to attract
players to it.

As a side note, Sturgeon has a feature somewhat like this: predefined ship
upgrades after you get kills.  Unfortunately this can encourage ratio
scumming and runner scumming, because nobody with a nice big fat ship wants
to die.  (It also introduced "upgrade scumming" to the world: repeatedly
killing a second login to get lots of upgrades.)


9) Remove the kill restriction on army carrying.

Problem:
Imposing a restriction based on kills is unrealistic and silly.

Proposal:
Allow any player to carry armies.

Why not:
If you allow this, you remove a big part of the challenge of the game.
Getting a kill and staying alive while trying to move armies around is
one of primary challenges in Netrek.  If anybody can carry armies, then
every player is a potential planet taker, and it's impossible to focus
the defense of your space.

You will also increase the instances of Ensign Fubar scampering about,
picking up armies and dying with them.  This is a Very Bad Thing when your
team is low on armies.  If a player can't get a kill, he probably doesn't
have the skill or experience to take a planet without getting nailed.

(People who need practice taking planets need to practice staying alive first!)

For those who insist on reality, it can be argued that Star Fleet Command
doesn't like to entrust armies with commanders who haven't proven themselves
in battle (especially Kli!)  It has also been suggested that the captains
use the hull fragments of the enemy starships to build crew accommodations
for the armies.


10) Remove the kill restriction on plasma torps.

Problem:
Requiring kills for plasmas is silly.

Proposal:
Allow plasmas for one and all.

Why Not:
While this is a trivial server change (quick alteration to .sysdef), it's
there for a reason, namely that having 8 battleships with plasma torps makes
taking planets impossible.  LPSs would never end.  Chaos servers allowed
infinite plasmas, and plasma-wars became rather common.  So did plasma-
muggings (you can't shoot three incoming plasmas!)  The ping-pong plasmas
made life interesting, but then there's not much point in taking planets
on a Chaos server anyway.

The way things are now, players with 2+ kills can be ogged, which prevents
them from firing more plasmas.

While it's true that the rich become richer (or perhaps the deadly become
more deadly), there's nothing wrong with elitism in Netrek.  It's just a
game.  Deal with it.


11) Get rid of LPSs.

Problem:
LPSs suck.  They're boring and they make my stats hurt.

Proposal:
Various ideas.

Why Not:
The Last Planet Stand is one of the few things in Netrek which absolutely
REQUIRES teamwork.  It is nearly impossible to break an LPS unless the
attackers are organized or the defenders are largely clueless.

A reasonable solution to the Indefinite LPS (one which drags on and on
because all the clued players on the attacking side bailed) is the Bronco
LPS timer.  The attackers get 45 minutes to break it, at which point the
galaxy resets.  There are players who dislike the timer because it encourages
the attackers to slack off ("oh, we'll just wait for the timer, we'll never
break through), but it's proven to be a reasonable compromise.

LPSs are here to stay.  It is possible to come back from one, just as it is
possible to genocide a race.  If you are concerned about the damage to your
stats, then set up your own server, scum your way to admiral, and get on
with life.

There are some ideas floating around about encouraging teams to go for the
genocide, such as resetting the galaxy afterward instead of leaving a
20 planet vs 10 planet setup (whether that's a punishment or a reward
depends on your point of view).


12) Get rid of Iggy!

Problem:
Iggy is nothing but a pain.

Proposal:
Lose him.

Why Not:
Iggy is a Bronco server feature which adds a bit more randomness to the game.
Opinions on Iggy are rather divided, but most everybody seems to have one
(at this point I will plead neutrality so as not to start ANOTHER flame war).

If you really dislike Iggy, either:
- kill him as soon as he shows up,
- ask the server god to remove him, or
- play on servers which don't have him.


13) Combine all of the server processes into one.

Problem:
My workstation can't handle all the context switches.

Proposal:
Merge all the ntserv processes into one, and maybe even combine them with
daemonII, so instead of the Server Union we'd have the Unified Process.

Why Not:
Ray Jones is working on this.  There are advantages and disadvantages to
doing this, not the least of which is that it requires a complete rewrite
of the server, and will work best as a strictly UDP implementation (requiring
a major rewrite of the client code as well).

Among the disadvantages are the possible loss of the shared memory segment
(which kills the traditional tool interface), the need to bring the server
down whenever changes are made, the inability to simply restart failed
components (ex: restartable daemon), changes in CPU load possibly resulting
in lower UNIX process priorities, changes in the way the kernel sees
Netrek (e.g. waiting for I/O), poorer performance on MP machines, the larger
executable will be more likely to be swapped out, etc, etc.

There are a number of advantages, but this file is meant to discourage you,
not entice you.  A reading of the process scheduling chapter in _The Design
and Implementation of 4.3BSD UNIX_ should be required for anyone contemplating
this.


14) Put the number of armies next to the planet.

Problem:
It's annoying to have to hit 'i' all the time to get army counts.

Proposal:
Put the number of armies on each planet next to the planet's bitmap on the
galactic map.

Why Not:
This is the first step down the path to "Netrek for Morons(tm)".  [was it
that or Netrek for Idiots?]  You can see when a planet pops by watching
the galactic map; having ever-increasing army counts staring you in the
face is like having a compass attached to your nose.

It's true that the information is accessible, if somewhat inconvenient.
However, players who aren't paying attention won't see the new army
numbers, and are less likely to react to an army bitmap on the display than
they are to seeing "15" next to Sir.  If you aren't paying attention to
armies, you lose.  There are several places in Netrek where this is the
case.

Netrek rewards vigilance and a keen eye as well as intelligence and fast
reflexes.  Being constantly aware of everything around you is a challenge
beyond the goals of the game itself; it requires the player to improve
himself, and rewards experience.  Doing all but say, "do this next" will
make things too simple, and reduce the sense of accomplishment acquired
from mastery of the game.

There are those who think otherwise.  I'm not presenting their opinions here,
because if you are about to propose this then you share those opinions
already.  Suffice it to say that there is enough disagreement to keep this
from becoming a standard feature of Netrek.


15) Highlight ships with kills.

Problem:
It's too annoying to have to look down at the player list, and relate that
to the people flying around.

Proposal:
Mark players with kills somehow.

Why Not:
This is yet another stepping stone on the path to ButtHeadTrek.  This would
essentially stick a big "Ogg Me" sign on the engines of anybody with a kill.
You don't even have to pay attention to the game to know what you should do
when you encounter a ship with kills.

While this is in the same vein as the army counts, it isn't really
controversial, possibly because the guys who like the army counts also like
to take planets and don't want to get swamped by "stupid oggers."


16) Prevent bombing/taking out of T-mode.

Problem:
Many players either don't know Netrek-etiquette about not messing with
planets outside of T-mode, or they choose to ignore it.

Proposal:
Make the server enforce it.

Why Not:
Actually, I kind of like this one.  Sickdog had a mod where trying to bomb
or drop armies out of t-mode caused you to explode.

The main problem with it is that sometimes its okay to bomb out of t-mode.
If you've got a 2-on-2 "training" session and just want to practice trading
planets, it's annoying to have it blocked.  Making this policy work without
getting in the way generally requires human intervention.  You could do
something fancy, counting how much time has elapsed since t-mode was lost
and take into consideration #of players on a team, etc, etc, but you'd have
to lean on a server diety to get this to happen.

Another problem is that simple implementations don't give you enough warning
(one minute you're dropping, the next BOOM!).  Any solution will have to take
a lot of stuff into account, and so far nobody has stepped forward to provide
something which is widely accepted.


17) Stop 3rd race scumming.

Problem:
When players are unable to break an LPS, or they just want more armies, they
may go over to a race with no players and take some planets.  This happens
often when a 20-on-10 game has slowed to an impenetrable impasse, and the
team with 20 planets decides to reset the galaxy by capturing a 3rd race.
It's also used to draw LPS defenders away from the planet, and make them
try to defend 3rd race space.

Proposal:
Don't allow 3rd race planets to be taken over.

Why Not:
I really hate 3rd-space scumming, but I'll bite my tongue (ouch!) and try
to give some reasons not to propose this.

First of all, it's already been discussed several times, so unless you plan
to undertake a direct-mail campaign to server dieties, forget it.  It's been
a part of Netrek for quite some time, and there are some dedicated 3rd-space
scummers out there.  It's also a viable (if cowardly) alternative to the
genocide timer, especially on servers which don't have the timer.

However, as one slightly opinionated player put it:
>From: tom@soda.berkeley.edu (Tom Holub)
>Subject: Re: 3rd space planet taking
>Date: 11 Aug 92 07:49:12 GMT
>
>People are for it because they are fuckin' WEENIES who don't want to
>play the game.
> -Mojo

If you propose it, you will have support, but you won't get anywhere unless
you're willing to put your back into it.


18) Add incentives for scout bombing.

Problem:
Very few people are willing to SC-bomb because of the drain on stats (too
much time away from taking planets).  Bombing 2 or 3 armies at a time doesn't
really help the bombing stats much; ogging carriers may do more.

Proposal:
Change the amount of bombing credit based on the number of armies sitting
on the planet when bombing began.  So you'd get massive credit for bombing
the last three armies, but not nearly as much for bombing it from 60 to 55.

Alternate proposal:
Start all planets out at 5 or 6 armies.

Why Not:
Both proposals suffer from the fact that average bombing stats have already
been computed on most servers based on the "one army, one vote" scheme
with 30 initial armies on each planet.  Changing the setup mid-stream would
make it nearly impossible to get a 1.0 bombing rating.

It's also highly unlikely that anybody really concerned about rank is going
to do much scout bombing anyway.  Advancing bombing at the expense of
offense and planets is not a good way to scum up to Admiral.

The alternate proposal also affects the ability of a starbase to fill up
with 25 armies at the start of a game.  Overall, the second proposal will
likely have a dramatic impact on the way the first few minutes of a game
are played - something which isn't likely to go over too well with the "old
timers."


19) Protect ships which are fully lagged.

Problem:
When a client becomes seriously lagged, the player usually ends up getting
snuffed by the first bozo who comes within visual range.

Proposal:
Make a server mod so that ghostbusted players are invulnerable until the
connection gets reestablished.

Why Not:
>From: jch+@cs.cmu.edu (Jonathan Hardwick)
>Subject: Re: Playing with lag
>Date: 11 Aug 92 01:24:29 GMT
>
>Last time it came up, one objection I remember is that it would become
>trivial to abuse.  Want to take that last planet?  Lock on, cloak, max
>warp, and then yank the ethernet connector out of your machine.  Wait
>30 seconds while the defenders waste all their fuel on you, and then
>finally realize that you're in Protected Mode.  Stick the ethernet
>connector back in, beam down your armies, genocide the galaxy.
>
>Or if you're worth less when in Protected Mode, just yank the ethernet
>connector whenever death seems inevitable.

Depending on the implementation, you might be able to just hit ^Z and
suspend your process.  When the kernel's TCP buffer fills up it'll look
just like a network storm to the server host.  If all you want to handle
is fully severed clients then you won't be solving the problem; the only
time my client has been severed is when the server goes down (I can't do
the "automatic reconnect" because I'm running through a firewall machine).


20) Credit kills appropriately

Problem:
The person who causes deaths doesn't always get the credit (e.g. F1 fires
torps at R2; R2 dets; F0 dies from the detted torps.  Credit should go to
R2 who did the detting, but currently goes to F1 who fired the torps.)

Proposal:
Implement some fixes to make it work out right.

Why Not:
This is actually a pretty good idea.  It won't affect the game much, and
it makes things fair.  However...

It will change the game.  There were be situations where people who should
have had kills will not got them, and vice versa.  Exact impact on the game
needs to be better understood.

Also, this is a non-trivial modification.  I think Sturgeon II had it (though
it isn't on the list), but exactly WHO gets credit WHEN needs to be clearly
defined.

If you would like to take it upon yourself to define a clear-cut set of rules
AND modify a server, test it, AND THEN provide diffs for the rest of the
world, you will probably see this change happen.  However, it's probably
more than your average server diety wants to deal with.


A1)  Appendix A : Sturgeon II changes

This comes from the motd (Message Of The Day) on sturgeon.cs.washington.edu,
port 2592.  Mail compliments (and complaints/bug reports) to
tsang@cs.washington.edu

-----
This server has a lot of changes.  I shall try to describe all the ones
I can remember making.  There may be a couple more.

(1) Phasers have longer range, but damage does not increase linearly, but
    rather with the square of the range.  They're faster on bigger ships.

(2) Only starbases and battleships can fire a stream of 8 photon torps.
    Cruisers are limited to six, destroyers five, assault ships four,
    and scouts three.  Starbases have fighters too (hit "C" to toggle)

(3) Photon torpedos are identical for all ships, in terms of fuel cost,
    damage, fuse, and weapon temperature.

(4) Phasers do double damage to shields, and photons double damage
    to "hull" (damage points).  Example: 15 point phaser hit to shields
    of 20 will reduce the shields to 0 with the first 10 pts, and do 5
    hull points with the remainder.  Not many ships can take more than
    one torp hit to downed shields.

(5) All ships can fire torps while cloaked, at 5x normal cost (300 x 5)

(6) Cloaking enemies will be revealed for a short time if (a) they get
    hit by a torpedo, (b) they get hit by phasers with their shields up,
    or (c) you detonate your own torpedos, to show them in a radius.

(7) Upgrades.  If you refit to the same ship type, you can "upgrade"
    some aspects of your ship, in return for kills.  If you refit
    to another ship type, you regain your "used up" kills.
    
(8) Plasma torps now "cost" 2.0 kills.  They only take two seconds
    to upgrade.  They are "upgrade 2", and are *not* automatic for
    refits from ships with 2+ kills.

(9) Scouts don't bomb; they strafe.  While this is much less time
    efficient, the advantage is that they can strafe until a planet
    has less than TWO armies.

(A) Planets now have variable resources.  Home planets (Ear, Rom, Kli, Ori)
    are always Fuel/Repair/Agri, and Core planets are always Agri.  Any
    planet with less than 10 armies is Agri; from 10-19 it is Fuel, from
    20-39 Repair, and Fuel/Repair from 40 on up.

(B) Phasers can be fired before they fully recharge.  This costs the same
    amount of fuel, but does less damage.

(C) The base number of kills received is equal to (Hull points of victim) /
    (Your hull points).  Thus, a scout destroyed by a cruiser is only worth
    0.75 kills, while the cruiser is worth 1.33 to the scout.
-----

-- 
fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden)
[ Above opinions are mine, Amdahl has nothing to do with them, etc, etc. ]
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek