HINTS A general assortment of hints, tips, and netrek trivia ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Nov 90 01:11:14 -0500 (EST) From: "Terence M. Chang" To: Bulletin Board Administration Subject: Xtrek Hints [ This time I am using ezmail at 2400. At this baud rate, it's neo-retro. I guess we dialup users are getting stranded by progress. ] This is a list of tips about game play. They start with the ones I suspect the fewest know about, and move towards progressively more obvious ones. Long range (galactic) map ========================= During Tmode, you show up on the enemy's galactic map if and only if you are within 1/3 of a galaxy width of any enemy ship. If you are cloaked, the fraction goes down to 1/7th. There is no way to know whether or not they can see you. This feature was intended enhance the "fog of war," but it basically screws teams that have all of its ships in one place. If you see the enemy team clustering around its starbase, exploit this feature to take planets. Note: if you orbit any planet that you do not own, you will be seen. Note: the status of your mappers (on/off) has no effect with respect to being seen. Conquering the galaxy ===================== The game is over when a race has conquered 3 systems, that is, they own 10 out of 10 planets in 3 quadrants. Note that the enemy can own all of its planets and still lose! If one player distracts the robot (a nontrivial task under Tmode conditions), his teammates can snarf the robot's planets. This is a good strategy to use when you already own 2 systems and the enemy is stubbornly clinging to its last few planets. That neutral quadrant probably already has several planets that don't belong to the robot. Robots ====== A robot appears whenever you *bomb* a planet belonging to an unrepresented race and that planet is in that race's home quadrant. Suppose there are no Klingons, but there are Kli planets outside of Kli space. These planets can be taken normally without creating Guardian. Note: you will be at war with Klis until you die, be careful lest someone else bring in Guardian. If Guardian is already there, he will not leave Kli space unless someone at war with him leads him out. Kli planets outside of Kli space are pretty easy to get; again, you will be at war with the Klis until you die. [ Of course, "hostile" is reversible, "war" is not. ] Taking a planet from a robot-defended team gives you much less DI for the planet than usual. Bombing robot-defended armies gives you normal DI, I think. Note that robots are not summoned when you beam down. Of course, it's wasteful to beam down 58 armies for ONE planet, which leads us to.... Plagues ======= What prevents planets from accumulating 100+ armies? Plagues. Each planet has one every five minutes or so. If there were N armies on the planet and there is a plague, the number is reduced to random number between 1 and N. If you are trying to snarf all of an undefended team's planets, this is how: you should keep an eye on the army count of all of the planets. As you wait, some counts will drop below 10. Beam down on these guys. Morality note: Mucking about with neutral (robot-guarded) planets is way uncool unless you are trying to conquer the galaxy. The more spread out the "planet contention zone" is, the more degenerate the game becomes. Planet takers ============= Why should you go after planet takers? Well, if not to protect your team's planets (a damn good reason by itself), there is an additional incentive for the self-centered: You get bombing credit for 5 times the number of armies shot down. Any AS carrying 10+ armies == 50+ armies bombed == a very juicy target. You can tell when you have killed somebody with armies because you are awarded 1.0 kills for the kill plus 10% of his kills (e.g., 0.3 kills if he had 3), plus 0.1 kills per army dusted. Cloaking ======== DDs and ASs can lurk: they can cloak indefinitely at warp 0 (shields off to improve regen rate). Passive planet defense (orbiting and waiting for aggressors) loses because you cannot see where attackers are amassing, nor how many. Killing starbases ================= A couple tips: to suicide on it, use a BB or AS. Attack the base in pairs, cloaking in and uncloaking simultaneously on opposite sides of the base. If the base isn't well protected, at least one guy should be able to pummel the base (a load of torps, a couple 100+ pt phaser shots, and an exploding ship). Main concept: the SB can attack only one ship at any given time. Having a third ship hover just out of the base's tractor range and spraying torps as a distraction improves the cloaker's odds of getting close. A well protected base is much harder to kill; it's better to exploit the clusteredness of the enemy as described earlier. The Shell Game ============== Does it seem like the enemy knows that you have armies before your teammates know? Try waiting on beaming up until you think you're off of their galactic map. Or get a teammate who has kills to orbit the same planet as you. Then they have to guess who has the armies before I (uh, they) suicide you. Bombing ======= Bombing the enemy might seem like a futile chore; in actuality bombing has a strong effect on the strategic flow of the game. Best ships to use are AS (any time) and SC (planets with 10 or less armies). The AS has a better than typical chance of bombing a planet down to less than 4. Use only AS to bomb when armies are REALLY scarce. Bomb before going after starbase -- there will be a lot of enemies with kills once the SB attack begins, and there will be less people defending planets as well. ========== Well, that should be enough for now. Here endeth the lesson. "Moof!(TM)", Terence ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 17:40:28 -0500 (EST) From: "Jesse T. King" To: Bulletin Board Administration Subject: Re: News from the Persian mmmphf! Ok folks, a lot of people seem to be having a bit of trouble with this tractor/pressor concept, so as a solid veteran I'll hand out some clues.... The following are Weapon Systems Phasers Photon Torpedoes Plasma Torpedoes Tractor Beams Pressor Beams Phasers A direct fire weapon. The Phaser will fire in whichever direction your mouse is. If it comes close enough to an enemy ship it will lock on to it and follow it for the duration of the phaser pulse. The Phaser CAN lock on a cloaked ship. This can be useful if you follow the beam lock-on you may be able to hit it several times consecutively. Phaser damage drops sharply with range. This appears to be an almost inverse-squared ratio so pay attention to range when using phasers. [ jch : it's a linear relationship on standard servers ] Damage: Varies greatly. Goes upwards from SC's to SB's. Fuel: Ranges from ~550 for the SC to ~1100 for the BB. Heat: Continous Phaser fire builds up weapon temp very quickly. SB's should be carefull of this. Photon Torpedoes A missile weapon. Photons fire in whichever direction your mouse is pointing. Rapid fire bursts of torpedoes lose some of their acuracy due to spreading. Damage: SC-25 DD-30 CA-40 BB-40 AS-30 SB-30. [ jch : corrected ] Fuel: Ranges from 200 to 350. Heat: Torpedoes produce very little heat. approx. 2 per torp. Plasma Torpedoes A homing missile weapon. This weapon can only be mounted on DD's, CA's, and BB's. It comes as standard equipment on the SB. Plasmas always fire in the same direction your are facing. Exception: SB's may fire in any direction. To equip your ship with plasmas you must get 2+ kills and refit at your home planet or an SB. Plasmas may be targeted and detonated by phaser fire. Plasma homing systems are not very accurate but they WILL home in on a cloaked ship. Plasmas have a large area of effect. Do not deteonate a Plasma next to your teammate if it might miss anyway, he will take serious damage. Damage: 100+ damage from a direct hit. Fuel: 3000 units. Heat: Plasmas produce up to 30! heat per shot. A starbase under heavy fire should NEVER use plasmas. Tractor/Pressor Beams Tractor/Pressor Beams are a direct fire weapon. T/P Beams lock on the ship closest to the mouse cursor. If this ship is out of range they will not lock. T/P Beams will NOT lock on a cloaked ship. They WILL retain lock if an already Tractored ship cloaks. In order to escape a Tractor Beam you must do better that warp 8. Warp 8 will evenly counter a Tractor. Note that BB's and AS' cannot escape tractors. Damage: None. Fuel: Varies. Heat: T/P Beams do not produce weapon heat. They DO produce engine heat tho'. Hope this post help's those of you who needed a clue. If you have any other questions, post 'em! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jan 91 04:39:06 -0500 (EST) From: "Jesse T. King" To: Bulletin Board Administration Subject: More Weapons Foo... Ok folks, I just spent a couple hours testing the tractor/pressor systems on an independent server with a couple assistants. Here is a list of my findings.... 1. There is NO WAY to T/P beam a cloaked ship! The weapon systems will not even recognize his existance! If you seem to slow down as you are approching an SB then one of two things has happened. 1. He locked his pressors on BEFORE you cloaked. or 2. You've had too much to drink, go to bed. > 2. There is no difference in T/P Beam strength from ship to ship. > Neither do the beams take into account the various ships mass. If a > stationary BB Tbeams a stationary SC they will meet prescisely in the > center. Thus the beams affect both ships equally. [ jch : the text marked with ">" is just plain wrong ] 3. Just as a little point of interest. If a BB is chasing an SB at Warp 8 and the SB is running away at warp 2 and Pbeaming the BB. The BB will only approach at about Warp 1! Of course, the BB can try to counter this effect by Tbeaming the SB... Though at that speed with tractors active, the BB will overheat less than 10 seconds. 4. Another point of interest. If a SB is being Tbeamed by two ships and also moving at Warp 2, it can acheive an effective speed of warp 6. 5. I can't remember (I shouldn't be up this late, you see...), but I don't think the SB's T/Bbeams turned out to be any more powerful than anyone elses. (just much longer range.) 6. As a final note. Breakaway speed to escape Tbeams is lower than I thought, (I forgot to take in the relative speed of the tractoring ship...) it is down around four or so, but if the tractoring ship is chasing you as well, it effectively becomes MUCH higher. Any more comments or errors anyone may have spotted would be appreciated. -Commadore Pendragon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 01:33:29 -0500 (EST) From: "Andrew B. Potratz" To: Bulletin Board Administration Subject: Re: News from the Persian mmmphf! Dont forget: if you have a spread out, which misses, use 'D' to detonate your own torps so you can shoot another stream b4 you get overrun. Usually, your opponent wont even be expecting this! -Drewski ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jan 91 13:10:09 -0500 (EST) From: "Terence M. Chang" To: Bulletin Board Administration Subject: Adjustments. Cc: A question for a.g.x. readers first: Why the increase in suiciding? Just because it's easier/too easy? Or is there a greater awareness of the value of this tactic? I think some adjustment in strategy is required. First, the value of an escort in terms of deterring suiciders is high -- if you have a competent escort. I haven't seen many planet takers asking for assistance... too macho to request help, I guess. Second, whoever takes the planet can no longer stay around to guard it -- the enemy should be trying to ogg him. This means other players have to prevent the freshly taken planet from being overrun. I've tried some new tactics that work well: 1. Non-Ogg: Stay in a fairly quiet/neutral area and rack up kills. I was consistently drawing 2 enemy oggers while doing this. 2. Army-Ogg: Amble down in neutral space down to enemy space with a fast ship. Keep the engines cool. Then bomb. This also draws aggressive players. Ogg whoever rushes in to kill you (you need fuel for this). This way you don't give away kills. 3. Anti-Ogg: Play rescue. Watch for teammates that just got a kill but are hurt. Intercept would-be oggers/scavengers. To be good at this you have to learn how to torp and phaser cloakers. 4. Planet-Moof: Take a planet when they don't expect it. After applying tactic #1 a couple times, enemies will tire of chasing you. Pretend to apply tactic #2 but while carrying armies. None of this require the help of teammates. But if enemy suiciders are bogging the team down, working cooperatively may fix that. Terence ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jan 91 16:05:36 -0500 (EST) From: Kevin Michael Bernatz To: Bulletin Board Administration Subject: Re: Adjustments. First, I'll answer Drewski's question about SB's seeming to Pressure him. If the SBer is a competent person, he ( or she, since Eek's been SBing lately) will move directly away from the cloak. Not only does this force the cloaker to use up more fuel, but it also forces him to move faster ( and therefore dodge worse). This tactic works very well when unescorted, which seems to happen quite a bit to me :-(, though it's more due to my aggressive style. Second, I'd like to welcome Cannonfodder to the ranks, so to speak. And finally, I'll give my opinion on why Ogging is so prevelent now. (I've found myself doing it ALOT). The reason is that I do it is that it is VERY effective way to stop people from taking your planets. I learned all this (maybe too well) from Terence, and Terence only. It has drastically changed the course of many games, and anyone with kills myswell get used to it. I had noticed an increased in Ogging even before the new turn rates were put in. It's just a coincidence that the new turn rates coincided with the increasedd realization of the effectiveness of Ogging. NOTE: I do not endorce Ogging of people without kills, or even with 1 kill unless you KNOW they are going to take a planet. People who do this are the ones who can't dogfight worth shit. If you have 2+ kills, yah better watch out, though :-). If anyone is to blame for this it would be Terence (sorry old chap), but he taught everyone that I know about the effectiveness of killing people with kills. (Afterall, Steve came up with the name Og after Terence suicided on him while playing Orion "Og".) Oh well, just my two cents worth. P.S. Brian (Balinor) did you get Balinor from the Shannara books by Terry Brooks? If so, do you remember who was the Swordmaster, ie. what his name was? Was that Balinor? Thanks Commodore Sun Tzu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jan 91 19:01:31 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Edward Timlin To: Bulletin Board Administration Subject: Re: Adjustments. Whoever originally asked about slowing down when you get close to a base, did you LOCK on it? If you did, you automatically slow to warp 2 on close approach (the lock system acts no different whether it's a ship or a planet). -Robb ------------------------------ To: bb+andrew.games.xtrek@ANDREW.CMU.EDU Subject: strategic tips for beginners (long) Date: Fri, 14 Jun 91 20:37:22 EDT From: Herbert.Enderton@MORIARTY.THEORY.CS.CMU.EDU Now that I've been playing for a few months, I thought I'd jot down some simple strategic ideas that I would tell a player who has learned the interface and how to shoot and dodge, but is still basically flying around aimlessly when not in combat. My own playing style is of course reflected in these comments. Perhaps some of you experienced players will care to add to or correct this list; there's probably a lot I don't know about the game still. Attack planet-takers. Look at the player list to see which enemy players have kills. Look at the galactic map to find one of these ships heading towards one of your planets. Always keep an eye out for cloakers on the galactic map. It's usually more important to kill enemy planet takers than to take planets yourself. Read your messages. Split them up into separate windows. Ideally you should notice right away when a new team or personal message appears. It's really fun when you have a couple of team players that can respond instantly to messages. When the enemy ship is more valuable than your own, close with it. The usual result will be that you both blow up. Valuable ships include those carrying armies, those with kills, those threatening to bomb (especially assault ships), and usually any ship a long way from home. Bomb. This is easy, and very useful. If there are lots of planets with 30+ armies, as in the start of a new game, use an assault ship. Usually the direct approach works fine: fly at maximum warp towards a planet that isn't heavily guarded, cloak, bomb, die, and repeat. If you are heavily damaged, try to get killed by the planet. Limping off to repair is a waste of time. Later in the game, deep-bombing in a scout is fun. It not only kills their armies, it distracts their ships. If you can get two ships chasing you around, that's great. Just keep an eye on your fuel gauge. Use phasors. Learn where the 30 point range is. If your opponent is too good at dodging your torps, e.g. if you're a novice and he's an admiral, you can still hurt him by phasoring him and blowing up in his face, if he lets you get close enough. Phasoring cloakers is great because it also tells you and your teammates exactly where the cloaker is. Beginners are often advised to fly battleships and cruisers, but I think scouts are the simplest to fly. They have wimpy tractors, pressors, and phasors, so pretty much all you have to think about is dodging and torpedoing. Scout torps do less damage but go faster (warp 16 compared to cruiser torp's warp 12), and have a shorter range so you don't need to abort them when you miss. But keep that fuel tank filled, so you can do enough damage when there's an assault ship you need to kill. Always join the side with fewer players. Wait a few seconds before picking a team when you first join, because the numbers fluctuate when people die. The enemy is easiest to kill when he is coming towards you at high speed, so (a) give him a reason to chase you (e.g. bomb) or (b) figure out where he wants to go and get in his way. Don't chase a ship without good reason. When you're ogging a starbase, try to time it so that you come out of cloak and start shooting from one side at the same time as one of your teammates appears from a different angle. (This is hard.) The easiest planets to take are the ones the enemy has just taken. Often one kill (two armies) is enough. Actually the easiest are the independent planets; if you see a "planet destroyed" message in your team message window but the planet is still in bold, it's independent (as you can verify with the `i' key). Things you can (and should) do while cloaked include bombing, beaming down armies, and detonating enemy torps. If you're bombing or taking a planet, cloaking is crucial when there is an enemy ship nearby because it prevents him from tractoring you off the planet, and of course makes it harder for him to shoot you. Don't cloak when approaching or in orbit around one of your own planets without telling your teammates; they might think you're an enemy and drop everything to come waste fuel on you. Set "update galactic map frequently" so you can pinpoint cloakers. Flying around behind the enemy lines is an excellent way to create chaos. This will allow your teammates to bomb and take planets more easily. Even if you don't have kills, if you cloak and approach an enemy planet you can often draw their best defenders to you. Fly at maximum warp when there's somewhere you want to get to (and there almost always should be). In general, don't waste time; if you dawdle your team is effectively playing at a man disadvantage. Pick your targets, especially if you have a fast ship. Don't just fly around looking for a fight. If you engage a ship that is a threat to your team, you can be satisfied even if all you do is damage it or slow it down long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Some players (like me) send a distress call when they are engaging an enemy planet taker and need help killing it. If you see a distress call from a player with no armies, that might be the reason. -- Bert (Commodore Red Shirt) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Jul 91 10:01:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Stephen Alexander Racunas To: Bulletin Board Administration Subject: help: SB Galactic Map is the one true path to greatness. Set Galactic Map updates to "frequently". Click on the Galactic Map to phasor those little ?? symbols. Fire torps at far-away oggers coming at max warp by clicking on the Galactic Map. Watch for armies on the Galactic Map. Watch for enemy invasion fleets on the Galactic Map. Watch the enemy backfield to see if it needs bombed on the Galactic Map. Watch for the cloaked enemy base on the Galactic Map. Look out for teammates in need on the Galactic Map. Watch for the "group ogg" formation on the Galactic Map. The Galactic Map is the Tao of SB'ing Val Ckurai Ender Wiggin ------------------------------ From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: features Date: Sun, 08 Sep 91 04:29:38 GMT Two features of netrek that I just learned this last week, after months playing the game: (1) If you detonate the enemy's torps, they won't hurt your teammates at all. Useful to know when you're escorting a planet-taker. The explosions will hurt you, of course. They also seem to hurt your enemies (other than the guy who fired them?). (2) If you lock on to a player and then he cloaks, you stay locked on. This can be useful if you're moving very slowly (say you're just trying to defend a planet) and he tries to fly circles around you. You turn with him, tracking much better than you can possibly do by looking at the ?? on the galactic map. Phasor straight forward and you've got him. (I learned #1 from Val Ckurai. #2 is my own (re?) discovery.) -- Red Shirt ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: tom@headcrash.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Holub) Subject: Re: Collision in xtrek Date: 16 Oct 91 05:36:29 GMT In article <1991Oct15.233740.31195@m.cs.uiuc.edu> carroll@cs.uiuc.edu (Alan M. Carroll) writes: > >Clusters of ships on a planet? The last time I saw that happen I >doubled my record kills. I really get off on the chain reactions too. Ah, but good players know to use pressors in that situation! Just push against someone on the opposite side of the planet--you go whizzing in opposite directions, and the torps slide harmlessly between you. -Mojo ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 91 11:51:43 -0400 (EDT) From: "John O. Kim" To: Bulletin Board Administration Subject: Flags Hi Everyone, Well, people don't seem to mention that warning flags are very useful in many areas of netrek. Now, what are the flags you say? Well, they are the G, Y, and R symbols under the heading 'Flags'. On the tactical, it comes in different designs of the border. The G (Green) flag has the white border and signals that there are no enemies in or just around your tactical. The Y (Yellow) flag has the gray border is a warning that an enemy is near or just on the border of your tactical. The R (Red) flag is the danger flag has the white dashed border, (the only exception to this is when you enter the game in a new ship where the border is dashed white but the flag is green things return normal as soon as the yellow flag comes up), this flag tells you that there is an enemy in your tactical close enough to attack you. Now, how are these flags useful? Well, the flags can he used in all parts of the game. Planet taking: When in any ship, you gain fuel or lose less fuel uncloaked then cloaked. So since cloaking is really mostly only effective in the tactical, you come in towards a planet that has enemies, you then would look at your border and then start cloaking as SOON as it turns Grey (Yellow Flag). So that's why Andrew has the name Grey Elf :-).. Now if you take an undefended planet take it uncloaked which saves you fuel (Unless you are a DD or a AS, then it doesn't matter). If you are a planet taker you are a DEFINITE ogg target. So to help then you suddenly see the Dashed borders (Red flag) come up. You are being ogged and just cloak and run. Bombing: Bombing in the beginning of the game is crucial to the game and bombing as many planets in one trip is important. So the flags are a great way to approaching a planet to be bombed. There are times I would of been able to bomb another planet if I had the fuel to cloak onto the planet instead of being exposed a killed instantly. Bomb the planet uncloaked in the white border (Green flag) and then cloak if the border changes the enemy might pass without noticing. Now with the fuel you have and hopefully not too damaged ship you go bomb the next planet. When I am highly damaged bombing I always try to kill an enemy nearby so I don't give up kills and I take someone with me. Ogging: Ahh the art of ogging. Maybe Terence would write (the Exxon Valdez Guide to Ogging)? Anyway, I use the flags when ogging too.. I pinpoint my target and go in at the highest warp possible without losing fuel (Warp 6 on a CA). I then look at my borders and cloak right when it changes to grey (Yellow flag). I then have a good amount of fuel to tractor, phaser, torp... KABOOM!!! Sound familiar guys? :-) :-).... Starbasing: Very helpful in that I am usually always in repair mode in the White border (Green Flag) the reason I am in repair mode is that an SB usually doesn't have a destination to go to so repairing is helpful for survival. The Yellow and Red flags are helpful in getting your attention and getting enemy oggers. Also you can save a few heart attacks and Wtemp when you check to see that there is a cloaker near you and the green flag is up signifying a teammate. That's about it. I hope this is somewhat useful. Rear Adm. Yea Boy!!!!! Admiral Ream'em ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: spot@CS.CMU.EDU (Scott Draves) Subject: questions Date: Mon, 21 Oct 91 07:29:52 GMT [ Tue, 12 Jan 93. Scott asked me to add the following disclaimer to the archive record of his article: nb: i wrote this a long time ago. i still believe that the DD is the best "all-purpose" ship, but i never play one myself. the reason is that though it is very flexible, it is best at none of the *fundamental* tasks at hand (bombing, ogging, taking). today, i play a scout almost exclusively. ] ships: I usually play a DD because I think they are the best all-purpose ship. On a moment's notice, you can do anything: ogg, deep bomb, take planets, or defend planets. I think scouts are certainly superior for deep bombing, AS for initial bombing and defended planets, CA for getting kills (or playing in the 3rd race's space), and BB for point defense. I find their only big disadvantage is lack of fuel. You also have to be more careful about overheating your engines than you would in any other ship, but you should almost always be able to avoid this. Sometimes I'll play a SC even though i'm not bombing because the enemy is doing a good job of bombing, and i want to get to the armies before they do. I'll play a BB when I'm frustrated, and feel like frying those enemy foolish enough to stray into my space. i'm going to post my usual "state machine" as i understand it. i invite criticism and comments. opening moves (still planets with 25+ armies) ============================================= 1) in AS, bomb bomb bomb. goto 1. interrupts: if i am near an enemy bomber, kill it, but don't spend more than 5 or so seconds. if there are only 1 or 2 planets with 25+ armies, and i have teammates who appear to be taking care of them, and i have 2 kills, then commence mid-game play. mid game (everything between opening and end-game) ================================================== 1) in a DD, ogg enemies with 2 (sometimes even 1) or more kills. repeat until there are none, or my team has lots of spare armies. goto 2. 2) still in DD, get a kill. if there are any "weak" (3 or less armies) enemy planets, get armies and try to take it. If not, get another kill, then start taking planets. keep taking planets until i die. goto 1. interrupts: if i appear at the home world in either SC or DD, and there is a bomber, go kill it. if there is a front-line agri that needs defense, do that until it pops. if someone needs help taking a planet, do that, unless i'm trying to take planets myself. note: if the enemy has more planets than we do, spend more time ogging. their end game (enemy has only core planets or less) ==================================================== 1) in an AS, get a kill or 2. goto 2. 2) get armies, get help, bribe tc2i (a doughnut usu works), take a planet. goto 1. interrupts: if teammate requests escort, do that unless also carrying or about to carry. then suggest coordination. if they have a planet that can be bombed, do that. if any enemy carries, ogg (use DD or CA). our end game (we have only core planets or less) ================================================ (3 or fewer planets) in a BB, guard a planet. leave armies on the planet. (4 or 5 planets) ogg everything. overriding principle: your life has very little value. spend it freely. Commodore Mergatroid ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1991 02:17:05 -0500 From: Hugh Moore Subject: Re: Clueless definition >I define clueless in a different manner. I say someone is clueless when >they do things that I think are foolish. This can consist of letting >someone bomb a planet under you, or take it. It can be missing a phaser >lock. Unfortunately, remote players suffer in these aspects of the >game, thus to me, many of them appear quite clueless even if they know >the game very well. Also, not everyone that does something that is >clueless is necessarily clueless. There are a lot of levels of clue. The most clueless players phasor empty space, shoot at teamates, don't notice cloakers, and frequently fly as wierd speeds for no reason. They are normally found at the home planet, drifting. Slightly less clueless players, don't read team bboards, die with lots of armies all the time, tractor the SB off of repair planets, and give away free kills by flying to the front and diing. They are often seen near the front. Those with a clue, do well in dogfights, take planets when there are lots of armies, and often hang arround the SB to get kills or use it's firepower. They often read messages, and will even follow advice. They good players constantly read messages, and watch the galactice map. They Ogg when they are told about a carrier, and take the right planet at the right time. They eventually make Admiral. The hotshots know who is carrying on the other team, read and write team messages, bomb when they have nothing else to do, change speeds all the time when dogfighting, protect planets, Ogg Oggers, leave crippled ships for team-mates, and RUN everywhere. They need to go their homework, or they won't be back next semester. ZZnew guy ------------------------------ From: minar@reed.edu (Nelson Minar) Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Subject: Re: Servers for Netlag Date: 16 Nov 91 02:18:05 GMT Well, with all the complaining about net lag, I want to say one thing, net lag does not necessarily make you play badly. I've been playing with netlag (uphill, in the snow) most of my xtrek career, from reed.edu over to bronco. 300 ms ping time, 10% packet loss, and you have to go through about 4 hops of the NSFnet backbone from hell. We're a 56k baud link, so when someone at reed does an ftp or news comes in via nntp, I lose. I usually play at 3 updates a second, generally actually *get* 2, with some stretches of nothing. I honestly can't think of much worse lag in North America. Even so, I still made commander on bronco, and I like to think I generally help my team. The major thing lag will do to you is make it hard to dogfight. My win/loss ratio is terrible - .8 or so. I finally realized that there's almost no point in trying to dodge. When I think to I'll just do random direction changes hoping to make it harder for my opponent to aim. I also only fly battleships, for which dodging isn't crucial. Tractor, phasertorptorptorptorp BOOM. *If* you get the updates in that are necessary to fire those four torps. The other thing you won't be able to do effectively with lag is take planets that are guarded. Planet taking is largely an issue of dodging, of knowing to sit right out of orbit until the dolts defending it shoot all their torps. You don't have that option with lag, as you can't move nimbly. Most of the time you end up dying with 5+ armies. But there are many things you *can* do. Flying escort for teammates is relatively easy. The main point there is to be in the way of the torps and take out the attacker. Not hard to do with lag. Defense of an area of space or a planet is sort of easy, too. The key is to drive your opponents off and/or distract them long enough for someone else to kill them. Again, you don't need great net connections to do it. I've recently started playing on bezier (where I made Captain! Yay! Don't think I'll go any higher though, I just wont scum the DI) where the ping time is about 150ms, and I don't have to go too far into the NSFnet. I must admit to enjoying playing there more. The clue level is lower, but being able to actually fly ASs and SCs is fun. Dream Voyager -- __ minar@reed.edu \/ Report all obscene mail to your potsmaster. ------------------------------ From: tom@bigbang.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Holub) Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Subject: Re: Storing armies... Date: 19 Nov 91 06:40:47 GMT In article <42963@mimsy.umd.edu> jerryw@cs.umd.edu (Jerry Wieber) writes: >Sure is. I think that there should be 2x DI for taking one of the last >four planets, and 3x DI for taking the opposing team's home planet *or* >a genocide planet. The home planet DI bonus in particular could create >some heroics akin to the Dolittle bombing raid on Tokyo. Surprise, surprise, there *is* a 2xDI bonus for home worlds, and an extra planet bonus for the genocide planet (which makes 3xDI). I think the DI system is necessarily flawed. There have been a number of attempts to reform it, and all have failed (except in adding a few minor perks like 5 armies bombing credit per army when you kill someone carrying). I think this is not a coincidence; the DI system works well enough as it is. No, it's not perfect, but there will always be ways around it. -Mojo ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: Games for non-t-mode Date: Tue, 19 Nov 91 20:15:29 GMT Games to play when it's not "t mode" (1) One-on-one dogfights. The main problem is that runner-scumming gives one a huge tactical advantage, so this leads to insults and arguments. Another problem is with third parties interfering. (2) N on M fights, i.e. unstructured fly around shooting at the other team, playing for ratio or bragging rights or something. This has the same problem with runner scumming. There's also sometimes a problem with peace declarations. Generally if the action is in Fed space, it's more fun if the Feds are declared hostile to everybody, so everyone can fuel at their planets. (3) Two on one fights, where the one is "allowed" to run. I.e. the one player is content just to live, and the two have to work together to trap and kill him. This can be kind of fun. (4) Starbase ogging. Get four people on one side so somebody can check out the starbase, then everybody switches to another team to og it. Well, maybe one escort stays behind. The base should move far enough forward that it is in serious danger. (5) King of the Hill. This is my personal favorite. Designate some fuel planet near the center as "the hill", and whoever is closest to it at a given time is King (or Queen). We had a really fun King of El Nath game on bronco last week. If too many people declare peace with each other it gets kind of lame. The owner of the planet should not be at peace with any other race because everybody is going to want to be able to refuel there. Other than that, anything goes: cloaking, runner-scumming, starbases, whatever. It's also fun just one-on-one. (6) Push 'em back, push 'em back, waaaaay back. Two teams. Where the "front" is indicates who is winning. This makes the most sense if everybody stays kind of near the line between the two home planets, and is kind of ill-defined when there are players behind the enemyf front lines. (7) "Planet-taker" versus defender. One version for two players: designate two adjacent planets as targets. The planet-taker wins by orbiting either of them for three seconds. The defender wins by killing the planet taker (even if the defender is also killed). I haven't really play-tested this one. Depending on the players it might be fun with just one target planet. Could be fun with more players too. (8) Border patrol. Imagine a line between two adjacent planets. One player wins just by crossing the line and surviving. The defender tries to stop this. I haven't play-tested this at all, maybe it's lame. (9) "Puck". I forget who came up with this idea, I think somebody on the Pitt server. Set up a dummy player named Puck (in a scout perhaps) at peace with everybody. Everybody declares peace with Puck. The goal is to tow Puck to your home planet. In the one game I played on bronco, Puck often died from nearby explosions. (10) Robot-bashing. Bomb just to create a Guardian robot, and then kill it. Or take a planet on bronco or rwd4 to generate Terminators and kill those. (11) Ogger versus survivor. A one-on-one "dogfight" where the ogger wins by killing (mutual destruction is satisfactory), and the survivor just by living, i.e. he runner-scums. It might make sense to limit the area that the survivor is allowed to roam in, or to give the survivor a goal of touching some planets. -- Pinback, heir to the Spican throne ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: terence@bronco.ece.cmu.edu (Terence Chang) Subject: Re: DI Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1991 20:39:14 GMT Yeah, it is, along with double credit for taking a core world. Core worlds are in all caps in the map below (see ntserv/planets.h): R-TAU R-Eri K-CAS K-POL R-ALD K-And R-ROM R-DRA K-Cyg K-KLI R-Hyd R-Sir K-SCO K-Lyr R-Ind R-Reg K-Lal K-Pli R-Cap K-Mir F-Org O-El O-Cas F-Rig F-Can O-Spi F-Cet O-PRO F-Alp O-ANT F-ALT F-EAR F-Bet O-Pol O-ORI O-Arc F-VEG F-DEN O-Her O-URS Also, for the person asking about showgalaxy: ships are shown as R0/?0 (uncloaked/cloaked) when their PFSEEN flag is set, r0/-0 otherwise. If the server is configured with HIDDEN=1 (distribution default I believe), then ships appear on their enemies' galactic map only when PFSEEN (always, if orbiting a planet not owned by the orbiter, else if uncloaked, within 1/3rd of the galaxy of an enemy, 1/7th cloaked). Terence ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: How to avoid hurting your own team in last planet stands Date: Thu, 28 Nov 91 22:09:17 GMT Recently I've been on some bad teams that got reduced to their last couple of planets and on some of these occassions we've been genocided despite my efforts. I've noticed my teammates doing some things which I think are worse than useless, mistakes that actually hurt our team more than playing down a player would. (1) Cloaking near our planets. I can only sometimes figure out which cloakers are enemies and which are on our team. Cloaked ogging is certainly an important tactic for the defender, and if you're moving away from Earth at high speed I can safely assume you're on our side, but be careful. Somtimes someone on my team will go to pick up armies while cloaked, and they look exactly like a bomber when they do this. (2) Orbiting our planets too much. I certainly want my team to be near our planets, and the orbit-a-fuel-planet-and-fire-constantly technique is useful, but be careful, because a crowd of Feds on Earth (say) is very vulnerable to chain-reaction explosions. And two is a crowd. If you are in a crowd, have the common decency to detonate any torpedos that you can't dodge. There have been times when I've been unable to orbit a planet to pick up or put down armies simply because there's a teammate orbiting the planet, getting hit by torpedos and threatening to explode. The other problem with crowding around a planet is it obscures any enemy cloakers that manage to get on the planet. (3) Stealing armies. It's incredibly aggravating when somebody picks up the only army or armies your team has, doesn't pay attention to messages saying to bring it back, and dies with it or wastes it on a planet you can't take. The hard-won profit of all your careful guarding can be thrown away by one stupid player. (4) Bombing planets we ask not to bomb except in an assault ship. An assault ship has a chance (20% or so) of bombing a planet to just 1 army. If your team has just 2 free armies available, by trying an assault ship bomb on each of the planets you're interested in taking, there's hope of taking one. Sometimes you have to wait for the planet you want to pop before you have any chance of taking it. Unfortunately I don't think I've been on a team bad enough to get reduced to 1 or 2 planets but good enough to read their team messages and forbear bombing those enticing enemy-owned core planets. Even more than #3 this is a case where one bad player can ruin a team's chances. (5) Giving away kills. This is always a problem, but can be especially pronounced when the good fighters are hanging back defending the planets and the bad ones are blithely flying into streams of torpedos. (6) Arguing with teammates and getting them upset. I'm certainly guilty of this much of the time. When I start to lose, and my teammates start doing stupid things such as the ones on this list, I get upset, tell them to "stop doing X", and then they either ignore me, question why, argue with me, or reply with abusive messages, any of which makes me more upset. It's difficult to play well while angry or upset, and impossible to play well while typing messages. (7) Sometimes I count on somebody to do the obvious thing, and they don't. Like there might be two players staying near a planet, and I assume that they'll shoot at the incoming cloaker, so I do something else. Now if you want to actually be helpful, not merely avoid being harmful, the main things are to dodge torpedos and to shoot nearby enemies, especially cloakers. Beyond that, there are lots of useful roles, e.g. ogger, defender of one planet, scout deep-bomber, assault ship nearby-planet bomber, space control fighter, planet taker, and flexible respond-where-needed defender. Sorry if this all sounds critical and negative. Most likely the readers of this newsgroup aren't likely to make these mistakes too often anyway. I'm mainly posting this by way of explaining why I get upset and send nasty messages during the game sometimes, something that I really should never do. -- Red Shirt ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: Re: How to avoid hurting your own team in last planet stands Date: Thu, 05 Dec 91 22:14:43 GMT Suppose we're down to two planets and I send a message saying "don't bomb Earth" (because I plan to assault-ship bomb it and hope to take it with just two armies). I implied in a previous message that I'd get annoyed when this suggestion is ignored, questioned, argued over, or rejected. A couple of people have sent me mail pointing out that I really shouldn't get upset if someone asks "why?". And I agree, I shouldn't. And usually I don't, although I'm usually in a pretty foul mood if I and my team have screwed up badly enough to be down to two planets. On the other hand, I may choose not to take the time to explain my reasons during the game, because in my experience this takes a few minutes, and if I and the person I'm explaining it to are typing messages for a few minutes we'll probably get genocided. So I apologize to all the people whose messages I brush off. The other thing that I should have mentioned is what type of response DOESN'T annoy me (other than "ok"). "I disagree, we can discuss it later" is fine. Or in the case where I might ask you to do X, "I don't want to do X, I'm doing Y" is a fine response. E.g. "Sorry, I don't want to bomb, I just want to fly around blowing people up." That's a sentiment I can understand. "Chill out, Bert, your messages are getting on my nerves" seems like a useful message to send too. And "Why?" is fine. While I'm on the subject of messages, I'll explain some of the abbreviations I use. "2" means R2 is an important target, usually because he carries armies. (Note that in this case I'm likely ogging R2 myself, so MAYBE you needn't worry). "get 2" means R2 is an important target, and I'm not killing him myself. Exclamation marks indicate urgency and/or frustration. "2 has 5" means R2 has at least 5 armies. I also use "R2+5". "R2++" means (I think) that R2 just picked up armies. "R2 reg" means R2 appears to be going for Regulus, carrying armies. "reg" means I think someone is about to attack Regulus, so go defend it. "trying dra" means I'm going to try to take Draconis. It doesn't necessarily mean that I want escort. "clear hyd" means please kill the enemies guarding Hydrae, so I can take it. A single distress call is just for your information, usually to let you know that I have armies. Multiple distress calls mean "come quickly, I need help", usually because I'm out of fuel. "W" or "E" means I have weapon or engine burnout. Any other good abbreviations we should know about? --Bert ------------------------------ From: tom@avalanche.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Holub) Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Subject: Re: Questions, questions. Date: 14 Dec 91 01:48:19 GMT In article <615@news.duke.edu> jhammond@acpub.duke.edu (John Kirk Hammond) writes: ) )1) What is the value of detting torps? They seem to still damage the ) ship, so why risk blowing up torps that wouldn't hit you anyway... ) The only reason I can see for detting torps is too protect ) somebody for some reason or another. If you get them at max range, they don't do much damage. It's useful if you're sitting on a planet and won't be able to accelerate enough to get away from them. It's also useful when fighting small ships with fast (but wimpy) torps, since SC and DD torps will do piddling damage if you get them at max range. )2) I had always thought that cloaking had 2 main disadvantages, those ) being no weapons and no shields. However, after cloaking, one can ) activate shields w/ 's'...why? Cloaking doesn't affect shields one way or the other. Only weapons and tractors. )3) If there is a nice juicy agri in neutral territory, is it ) "allowed" to take that planet, even though the planet is not owned ) by any participating team (except for the robot who shows up)? It's pretty rude, but it's been done. )4) What do the terms FR and FRKO mean when one inspects a planet? They indicate which teams can see the planet information--if it says 'FR', then the Feds and Roms can see the information, Klis and Oris will see just a '?' -Mojo ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: Re: Questions, questions. Date: Fri, 13 Dec 91 21:13:06 GMT Some minor corrections and additions to the information about detonating other's torpedos: All ships have the same detonate radius, 1600. That's twice the orbit radius. Torpedos that explode by hitting somebody do damage to everybody nearby except the person that fired them. Torpedos detonated by someone explode doing damage to everyone except the firer and teammates of the detter. (I just made those words up, hope you don't mind.) The damage from a torpedo ranges linearly from full damage when it's at 350 or closer (that's approximately your shield radius?) down to 0 at 2000. So if you detonate a torpedo at maximum range (1600) it does 24.2% damage. Pressing the det key costs 100 fuel and weapon temperature 2, even if there is nothing to det. So don't hold it down. Detonating other's torpedos has gained popularity and is now considered a very important tactic. When I first started playing, the old-timers told me that detting was almost always a bad idea. In fact there's a comment in the source code that says "Experienced players never detonate other player's torps." It's definitely tricky to use well. My favorite uses are: (1) to get the first torp or two in a stream (2) in a crowd, and (3) when taking a planet. The trick is to make the snap decision to detonate or not, because if you wait until there are torps near you (like the ones you're just barely dodging), then you mustn't det. I also tend to detonate more SC and AS torps, because at warp 16 they're hard to dodge, and those ships don't have much fuel. E.g. if I'm an AS beaming down armies on an enemy planet, and an enemy AS is firing at me, I can detonate all the torps his fuel tank gives him and live (barely), without even raising my shields. -- Red Shirt p.s. good questions! ------------------------------ From: rwd+@CS.CMU.EDU (Randall Dean) Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Subject: Re: Hard times for borg author Date: Tue, 17 Dec 91 04:15:44 GMT Torps on rwd4: Implement vector torps (real vector torps) and than decide you dont like them and remove the direction changing component leaving the speed change component. Decide that scouts are to Godlike and cap the speed at warp 20. Now you have torps during robot hours on rwd4 -rwd ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1991 16:47:12 -0500 From: John Andrew Markiel Subject: Re: Starbases... Charles Swiger writes in a previous message: >One thing clueful players will do when they are killed is take out a >scoutship and fly to the starbase at maximum warp, then refit to the >ship they want to be in. For example, they can get to the front line at >warp 12, refit, and be able to fight the enemy in a battleship. A *lot* of people believe this, but I've always considered this one of the great folklore stories of netrek. Actually, unless your SB is _waay_ far up, you can probably do just as well by joining in as the ship you want and flying at max warp to the base. I've found you really don't save that much time by doing the scout thing, unless you want a battleship. Plus, starting out with the ship you want gives you 3 advantages: 1) If, along the way, you see something to do, you don't have to go all the way to your base to get your ship before doing whatever you want to do. I'm big on being prepared for anything at anytime. Notice that this opinion is colored by my known distaste for scouts, especially in offensive roles (I don't think scouts og very well). 2) You avoid the 6 seconds where you are a helpless grenade sitting on top of your base. Refitting on a base deep in enemy territory is a tricky and dangerous thing, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to do this when it's not necessary. 3) Very often, if your base is far enough forward to make the scout trick worthwhile, there's so much combat going on around the base that you may have to wait a minute or more before it's safe to dock on the base. In this case you would have been much better off just starting with the ship you wanted in the first place. I've tried this trick some, and I always found myself stuck in a scout wishing I'd taken my cruiser to start with. It might be worthwhile if you wanted a battleship, and the front was very far forward. But I've always found myself better off just taking either a cruiser or destroyer to the front at maxwarp, and then refitting if I found both opportunity and reason. For example, After getting kills I'll often hop on quickly and get my assault ship to go after a planet. But too often you just can't count on your base being available for refits at any time. Just my humble opinion, -Grey Elf ------------------------------ From: leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens) Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Subject: Team play with starbases Date: 3 Feb 92 14:05:11 GMT I have been borg basing it a bit on rwd4 lately, often against a remarkably lack of clue. (151 kills == someone has no clue) I have noticed both friendly and enemy play that reveals that people have not pondered enough what is going on. Here are a few tips for people to use when playing with a starbase in the game. First, a few tips for the enemy: o Don't ogg the enemy base without coordination The base is more powerful than you. You will die. And unless he is near to your home planet, he will be FULLY repaired before you get back to give him another kill. UNLESS you coordinate with at least two other people on your team, forget it. o Avoid the enemy base, unless there is a reason not to. The way to kill bases is to lure them too far away from their home planet, then to ogg like crazy. The way to lure them forward is simply to avoid them... you are faster than they are. They cannot kill you unless you ask for it by going to them. And there is almost always something better for you to be doing than trying to ogg bases. Scout bomb. Take a planet that is just off the base's screen. Ogg enemies with kills that are not lurking near the base. IMO, the only time you should go near an enemy base is to ogg it or an important enemy planet-taker (who admittedly are often found near bases...) Now some tips for my pals: o Use a base to free scout chasers As soon as a side is down to about two or three planets with the typical 30 or so armies on them after the initial bombing surge, it is time to enter a base. Bases can pick up as many as 25 armies, and need no kills to do so. Armies in a base are far safer than armies on planets, and do not need players constantly guarding them. This frees up those players that would otherwise be fruitlessly chasing AS and scouts to do other things. Thus, anytime your base has indicated he is more or less full of armies, do NOT bother to pursue scouts. Get kills and take planets, content in the knowledge that with those scouts in your rear lines bombing the occasional army or two, you have a numerical advantage over the other enemy ships. o Use your base to conceal army movement Netrek is *not* a game about ships, but planets and armies. Clueless and/or angry people may be content to dogfight aimlessly, but persons of clue only dogfight with a purpose, and they often do other things. They scout bomb, for one, which has been previously stressed on this newsgroup. But they also watch enemy players beam up armies, and then announce that fact to their team, and then try to ogg the carrier. This trait is even more pronounced in a borg game; every pig borg, and also apparently all sunborgs have the capability to report to their rider exactly who has picked up armies and how many. Regardless of whether you are cloaked or in range. Therefore, you *will* be ogged... Unless you Use Your Starbase. The server does NOT (to my knowledge) report the PF_BEAM flags for people beaming from/to bases. And of course you cannot see the number of armies in an enemy base even with a borg. Thus, it is usually far better to get your armies from a base than from a planet. (Of course if the base is nowhere near a planet with armies, go ahead and grab them.) There have been numerous occasions over the weekend where I have approached a planet with armies on it at the same time as one of my side's planet takers, only to have them take the armies and get ogged. Summary: don't make life easy for the enemy. Get armies from your base preferentially. Also, a *real* useful thing to do when you have one kill and feel generous is ferry armies to your base. Yet another positive action that earns no DI. (People with 2+ kills should be taking planets.) Seems like a good tactic might to be to (obviously) pick up armies, drop them on your base, and then wait for oggers to come and give you additional kills. (Use a BB for this.) o Use your base to refit/refuel/repair -- smartly Your base is exactly like your home planet -- you refuel, refit and repair much faster there than just sitting around. (I believe that you actually repair there even faster than on a repair planet -- any gurus out there to confirm/deny this?) So, when you are hurt or out of fuel, consider your base just as you might consider a planet. But remember: unlike a planet, a base can die. Especially if you blow up on him/her. Therefore, if battle is hot or looks to get hot nearby, do NOT dock. Go somewhere else. Flash if you need help; a base can help you even without docking; see below. o Your base can help you take planets -- even if you only have one kill Often people with one kill try to get a second before moving into planet-taking mode. This is not always necessary -- if the planet you are targeting is next to your base and not to near the enemy homeworld. Go to your base, possibly get into an AS, and quickly ferry armies from the base to the planet. (Tell the base what you are doing, of course.) The base can pressor you to the planet and tractor you back to speed the process... you can even take agris this way. Remember: to take a planet it is only necessary to get armies there faster than it pops. o Your base can save your ass Bases have big tractors and pressors. Good bases use them. Your base can sometimes pressor or tractor you out of the way of a torp stream. Be prepared for this. Your base can also tractor you entirely out of a battle, if you are too injured to fly fast -- but this is unlikely unless he/she *knows* you are injured. Signal to your base if you need help, by flashing your shields up and down three or five times. Bases can also det for you, since they can absorb lots of damage. (They take 600 internal, and have 500 shields.) If the base values you, he may decide to tractor you in and protect you even in a pitched battle. (Hint: I personally will do all sorts of things for my side's planet takers while basing.) A base is great cover to take a planet behind. Or even near. Enemies tend to avoid bases unless they are explicitly trying to attack them. o You can save your base's ass Bases will inevitably take a big ogg or two, often far from their home planet. You will know this because (a) they will give a distress call showing substantial damage, and (b) the enemy will mass to try and annihilate them. Now, if your base is carrying precious armies, or you need it for other reasons, try to help it live. Here are some useful things to do. Get between the oggers and the base, and try to kill them before they get there. Or, put yourself in a position to tow the base. (That is, about 1/2 screen away from the base in the direction of the home planet. Be prepared to accelerate when you notice the pull of the tractor.) Or, get between the base and the oggers in a BB or AS (ideally) and det enemy torps that may hit the base. This last tactic I have very rarely seen but it is ever so helpful to a base. Kill-ratio? I *am* talking about team play here... -Wreck ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: Attacking armies Date: Tue, 11 Feb 92 17:08:55 GMT Crack Pot's team demonstrated something to me in our CMU-league tourney game last Saturday, something that is perhaps obvious but which didn't crystallize as a strategic concept for me until after the game. The idea is this: one of the two easiest times to kill a planet-taker is when he's beaming up armies. The other is of course when he's beaming them down. In both cases he's vulnerable because he's not moving, and because you know something about his location. In all the time I've been playing, defense has focused mainly on the beam-down phase -- we try to hustle over to get within shooting range of the planet we think he's going to try to take. But Crack Pot's team, MUCUS PIG in particular, was very successful at attacking us at the beam-up point. This strategy has some advantages over the more usual strategy of attacking at the beam-down point: (1) You know which planet or planets he might beam up from: those with armies. If Eri pops to 7, you (the Fed) can just go there, without even having to know who on their team might want to pick up armies. (If nobody does, you might get to bomb, unless there's somebody waiting there to kill bombers.) (2) If he retreats from your attack, you get to eliminate the armies by bombing. A planet-taker with armies just needs to stay alive; a planet-taker without armies has to think about protecting the armies on the planet as well. (3) Anybody on his team that comes to help is typically moving "backwards", i.e. away from the front. E.g. if a Romulan needs escort just to pick up armies from Eri, that means there are two Romulan ships that aren't helping in terms of space control. On the other hand a Romulan escort to clear Organia is doing the natural space control thing, namely fly south and blow people up. (4) There's a reasonable chance that someone going to pick up armies has just returned from battle (where he scummed his kills) and won't have much fuel. The disadvantage is that it's tough for the Feds to get ships all the way up to some place like Eri, without running out of fuel or getting crippled, while the Roms can get help there relatively quickly. I've left out two other ways to prevent the enemy from taking planets: scout bombing and mid-air ogging (i.e. ogging the carrier when he's en route). Scout bombing is great, but against a really good team, most of the armies that pop get protected. Good players look at the galactic map to see where the armies are, both theirs and the enemies, because in a high-level game this determines 90% of the game strategy. There will always be someone going to bomb any planet of yours that pops, so it makes sense to go there to scum a kill off the bomber (and with luck, save the armies in the process). Just look at the armies, and you can predict which way most good players will fly. So to eliminate their armies you typically need to send some firepower to the planet, because your little cloaked scout is going to get blown away. And if you can og a good carrier midway between Rom and Organia, when his team is escorting him, you're better than I. That's got to be the hardest way of all to eliminate their armies. (Not that I won't give it the old college try). I think the galaxy will be a more dangerous place for ships that want to pick up armies. -- Bert (Red Shirt) P.S. The one skill I pride myself on, besides dodging torpedos, is noticing instantly when planets pop. I can usually lock onto a planet that pops and push the max-warp key within half a second of its popping. ------------------------------ From: sfd@ocf.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Drellishak) Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Subject: Orders for sfop Date: 15 Feb 92 07:46:27 GMT Orders for sfop, as of 2-15-92 I run the server on bezier.berkeley.edu, and I'm the author of sfop, the robot which often runs there on robot nights. Since sfop is pretty single minded most of the time, and not much of a team player, I modified it so that players on its team can send it messages. Here is the currently available list of commands: - order patrol [planet] Causes the robot to patrol the named planet (you only need enough of the planet's name to uniquely identify it). It will orbit the planet, attacking anyone who comes near, until it dies. Then it reverts to hostility. - order take Returns sfop to normal hostility (planet-taking in its own good time) mode. This will override any of the previous commands. - order take [planet] Overrides the standard planet-choosing algorithm. If you notice that sfop is going to take a planet, and you're making a run at the enemy's home planet, you can order sfop to make a simultaneous attack (be aware that it may hesitate quite a bit before diving in). Note that this command doesn't force sfop into planet-taking mode, but simple affects its choice of planet when it decides it's ready to take one. Use the "order take" command to put it in planet- taking mode. - order map [planet] *or* order touch [planet] sfop will try to touch the named planet until your team has info on it, then it returns to hostility. - order bomb [planet] sfop will try to bomb the named planet until it is down to 4 or less, then it returns to hostility. - order escort [player] [planet] sfop will preceed the named player (either a unique part of the players name, or the player number), attacking enemies who come nearby, so that the player can take the specified planet. Just as the planet comes on the edge of the escorted player's screen, sfop will run ahead and clear off the planet -- it's a good idea to slow down a little so you don't get caught in the crossfire. sfop returns to hostility when the planet is taken, or when the player dies. - order ogg [player] sfop will do its best to hunt down the named player and kill him. It'll keep trying until the person dies, even if it dies, so this is a good way to tell sfop to harass a starbase. When the player dies (whether or not sfop killed him), sfop returns to hostility. - order report *or* order r sfop will report its status. This includes shields, damage, type of ship, and number of armies. Most importantly, though, it tells you what sfop is doing. If you're going to send an order to sfop, check his status first -- if it's doing anything besides "TAKING", assume that someone else on your team has already sent it an order. Hopefully, this will cut down on tugs-of-war about what sfop should do next. Only players on the same team can send messages to sfop (others will be ignored). Because there were about 4 people ordering it around one night, sfop now only takes orders from people with Commander rank (or above). Also, sfop will tell you to try again later if it's currently doing something it considers important (like carrying armies). With all these functions, be patient. It may seem to you that sfop is taking forever to ogg a player. Don't re-order it to do so. If you got the confirmation message the first time, sfop is working on it. The only other possibility is that somebody else overrode your order. If sfop is doing something too slow for your taste, do it yourself. Also, sfop now responds to the Industry Standard " " messsage. Actually, it responds to any message which ends with five spaces, even if is has other text, because I'm lazy. Sue me. I greatly appreciate comments and suggestions about this command facility. Scott Drellishak ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: The value of assault ships in last planet stands Date: Tue, 25 Feb 92 02:10:18 GMT After a brief argument via the message window that certainly harmed my team tonight, I thought I'd explain a strategy I like for defending the last planet. It's simple. You take an assault ship and orbit the planet (which must have fuel), firing continuously at all nearby enemies (especially the cloakers), and detting any torps that will hit you. When no enemy is in range, you go into repair mode. Why an assault ship? (1) With an adequate fuel supply, their torpedos are the BEST. They go warp 16, do 30 points each, and have a longer range than any other ship's. (Yes, they go off the screen. You can orbit Draconis and kill ships near Sirius; that's about where the torps peter out.) True, cruiser and battleship torps do 40 points each, but they're slower (warp 12), so if the same proportion of torpedos hit, all three ships deliver the same amount of torpedo-damage-per-second for any given distance. (Mulitply torp damage times speed). And with warp 16 torps you can expect to hit more often. (2) When the planet pops, you want an assault ships to carry the armies, not only because it's the best ship for beaming down armies (if you det often while beaming down it will take a lot of torps to blow you up, even with no shields), but because it can bomb a planet from 5 armies to 1 or 2 fairly often (40% chance). Also with one kill you can pick up three armies, which is almost always enough to take a second planet. I'm not saying that everybody on the defending team should be an assault ship. A BB with plasma, waiting an inch away from the planet and dodging slowly will be a more reliable planet-defender. But you've got to have at least one assault ship on your team if you want to have much chance of retaking a second or third planet. The orbit-the-planet trick has a couple of dangers. First of all, you can't dodge very well like that, so one good escort can easily take you out. Secondly, you might obscure an enemy cloaker, should you be careless enough to let one get by you. But most importantly, unless you religiously detonate any torps that will hit you, you present a danger to any of your teammates who might want to orbit the planet. Remember that any torps that hit you will damage everybody nearby (except the person that fired them). If you det them, they will not hurt your teammates at all, and won't hurt you nearly as much. If you explode from detting so much, that will hurt your nearby teammates too, but it's not as nearly bad as letting torpedos explode on you. The other point I want to make about last planet stands is what to do when your planet pops. Before it pops, it's reasonable to have some people out trying to ogg, some people bombing (preferably anybody too lagged or too unskilled to be able to shoot a cloaker), and just a couple reliable defenders back at the planet as goalkeepers. But when it pops, everybody on the opposing team becomes a threat, not just those with a kill, and also you may need to control the space around the planet well enough that one of you can pick up the armies without getting ogged to death. This typically requires the entire team to be there. (I'm kind of assuming that a team in a last-planet stand is inferior to their attackers.) And then you then want to bomb the nearby candidate-second-planets intelligently. So if you're out ogging and your planet pops to 6 or more, I recommend dying and coming back in to assault-ship-bomb candidate planets (or non-assault-ship-bomb them to precisely 5), or else to intercept oggers and det torps in order to save your planet-taker. -- Red Shirt ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1992 23:49:30 -0500 From: Thomas Omar Smith Subject: Re: The value of assault ships in last planet stands I'm underwhelmed by Red Shirts strategy. Here's why. 1) During a last planet stand, the last thing you want is to have someone orbitting the planet in anything unless they are repairing or refueling. The more people on a planet, the higher the odds of a chain reaction. This means that one well timed ogg can often destroy 3 or 4 defenders, making a planet grab much easier. Having a ship that is regularly orbitting increases the odds of this. 2) At extreme range, the dispersion of torpedos makes significant damage from an assault ship spread improbable. At shorter range, a Battleship can do more damage and has much stronger tractors/pressors. Since the main goal in most planetary defenses is to stop cloakers, the higher phaser damage from the battleship is far more significant than the assault ships faster torpedoes. 3) A battleship or cruiser can leave the planet and fight if it has to far better than an assault ship. This increases the odds of both personal and team survival when a cloaker does get through. 4) A battleship with shields takes almost as much damage as an assault ship with shields, and takes it in shields longer. Therefore, in a crunch the battleship can often get the armies off the planet more quickly and safely than an assault ship. 5) An assault ship with kills is a much more likely target than a battleship with kills. And if oggers are attacking, the battleship has much better odds of fending them off. Again, this increases the armies chances for survival. 6) While orbitting a planet, its difficult to place 8 torpedos into someone. its easy to place 2 or 3 and have the rest det when the player starts detting. The orbitting ship therefore is no safer. From the battles I've been in, its much better to put a few battleships near the planet and have them crush anything that gets remotely close while the rest of the team oggs enemies with kills and bombs. This keeps the planet safe and keeps the enemy from having large numbers of people who can carry armies. Once you reach that state, you can target the dangers and eliminate them until your planet pops. Then have someone grab the armies while someone else in an assault ship clears a target. And have everyone guard the ship with armies. Tom the non hacker ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1992 16:25:48 -0500 From: Kevin Michael Bernatz Subject: Sun Tzu's Guide To Tourneys Greetings all, After hearing about the CMU 1 vs UPenn Tourney on Saturday, I figured a post was in order. For all you captains out there, with the only exceptions MAYBE being Berkeley, I'd advise paying attention and asking questions to n.a.g.x before starting your tourneys. I'm doing this solely so that CMU doesn't have a total walk to the finals.....no, that's not arrogance, they genocided Upenn in ~10 minutes yesterday with ping times of around ~30 for them. This is by no means a reflection on UPenn's skill level, but rather their inexperience in Tourney settings....the same reason the CMU All-Stars were able to (with the help of horrendous lag for UCB) genocide Berkeley. Ok, here goes.... Initial 5 ~ 10 Minutes: The optimal (and currently popular strategy) is to have 7 Assault Ships and 1 SB. As Roms, the SB picks 25 armies off Tau and then protects Rom and Drac. As Feds, the SB picks off Alp or Alt depending on which is NOT agri (or if neither are, whichever he appears closest to). The Fed SB then protects Earth and the other of {Alt, Alp}. The current strategy that my team has been trying is to have 6 AS's, 1 BB and 1 SB. The BB protects the two planets the SB will protect while the SB is picking armies off the 3rd planet. This BB player has to be a good cloak phaser, and a good planet taker since he will usually get the first kills of the game. For the bombing part, have your 6-7 bombers know what planet they are assigned to bomb. An alternate method is to assign halves, and let the players use commen sense while bombing (ie. If there is a cloak on Ceti, fly by and go bomb Beta). There have been 2 tourneys where the enemy SB was killed before bombing began, but both of the teams that did that lost...you can use your own judgement on that one. Mid-Game: The team that does the best job of protecting it's own armies will usually win. This includes preventing scout bombing AS WELL as escorting planet takers. In this part of the game, the SB should continue to sit by Rom and Drac (using Romulan examples from now on) and NEVER move forward. NO BASE CAN (ah, SHOULD) LIVE IN A TOURNEY SETTING EVEN REMOTELY NEAR THE FRONT LINE!! If you move your base near the front line against a CMU team, I guarentee that it will die...no matter who it is. Again, this is not arrogance but rather experience from blowing up Balton again and again in tourneys (and he's head and shoulders above the rest of us base players here at CMU.. like a 90 ratio with over 100 SB deaths). Each person should have a clearly defined role, and if unable to fulfill that role, be able to recieve help from the "freelancers". Generally, each team will have 1-2 (2 being more popular today) full time scout bombers. These bombers can also double as assistant oggers, which you should also have a few of. Planet scum are necessary, as well as escorts. NOTE: Don't try to define roles too distictly....Netrek is a game that has to be played by the flow of the tide.......you need to be able to switch from one task to another at the spur of the moment. When people pick up armies they should ALWAYS announce it! If they don't seriously consider kicking them off the team.............. (well, maybe just not letting them play the rest of the game if you have subs available). The SB should just protect armies until it is completely out, at which point it should either sacrifice itself or simply turn the base in to get a real ship :). A SB with no armies is a detriment to a team.....which brings us to the next topic... Ogging SB's: When the enemy continually has armies (due to bad scout bombing on your part), and you KNOW the SB is carrying it is generally time to ogg it. YOU MUST TIME THIS RIGHT! You don't want to use more than 2 waves to kill the SB, and you MUST watch enemy planet takers during this time. You must also be able to judge your teams coordination and lethality to determine if they even have a chance to kill the base (this is location dependent, since a Romulan base at Romulus is a hard kill...but definitely not imposible). Expect to lose at least 1-2 planets and fall behind in bombing while killing there base....you must be able to overcome this or ogging the base is the wrong tactic. End Game: When the timer gets down to 30 minutes left, you should consider hoarding armies on a base for a last push. This is a tactic usually only used if your behind, but I've seen it down with even games and has turned the tide occasionally. At this point it is VERY VERY important to escort your planet takers here. You should also consider stepping up the scout bombing to prevent the enemy's from accumulating them. Even if you are down 3-4 planets at this point, as long as you are careful and protect your base, you have a chance of coming back. Notes: ALWAYS hard kill planets if able. It is much harder to stop two 1 kill planet takers, then a single 2 kill planet taker. If you have 1 kill ALWAYS carry armies...well, depending on how well you can survive. If you don't pick up armies, they'll just get bombed anyways most likely. When against mega oggers, use scouts to drop armies 2 at a time. -KB ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: Re: Sun Tzu's Guide To Tourneys Date: Mon, 24 Feb 92 04:10:20 GMT A few random comments, none of which is important: The opening is important; the first bombing wave often eliminates about 150 armies per side, and this a significant fraction (perhaps 1/4) of all the armies that will ever exist in the game. But I guess there are many good opening strategies other than the one Sun Tzu suggests. I'd be kind of disappointed if everybody uses the same old defend-75-armies-with-the-base strategy. Some of the tricks that work in average pick-up games don't work in tourney games. When everybody is good, you can't get free kills by picking on the ensigns. Lobbing torpedos from a distance is usually a waste of fuel. Runner-scum dogfighters may find themselves completely ignored. It gets harder to keep track of the key enemy players, because they're all key. And you'd better get a phaser on that cloaker if you want to have much chance of killing him. The pace of a tourney game is much faster. Players are usually flying to some planet at maximum warp, whether to take it, bomb it, defend it, pick up armies, or even just to refuel (though some players prefer to die rather than take the time to refuel). Planet takers will probably want to commandeer an escort or two, and this had better not take very much time to set up, because the planet that looks open now may not be open ten seconds from now, and anyway the planet taker may not live that long. Establishing roles for the players is helpful. There's so much going on that it's hard to figure out where to fly, so I like pick one region of the galaxy to concentrate on. But certainly one must be flexible, alert, opportunistic, and sneaky. Be sure to show up early. If the game is scheduled to begin at 9:00, it begins whether you have your full team there or not. -- Red Shirt ------------------------------ From: tom@ocf.berkeley.edu (Tom Holub) Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Subject: Re: Addendum to playing-sc guide Date: 6 Mar 92 13:00:46 GMT tjones%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Ray Jones) writes: )> hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) writes: )> [...] )>Often when scout-ogging you end up out of fuel, but still alive near the )>target (e.g. if he cloaks). In this case get on top of the target, and hope )>to use your explosion to kill him. If his teammates are so kind as to fire )>torpedos at you, these will hurt him too, especially if you can detonate them )>on top of him. ) ) I don't understand exactly what you mean by "detonate them on top of him." )I thought detting others' torps had no effect on anyone but you. Not true! Detted torps do not hurt your teammates or the person who fired them, but they DO hurt the teammates of the person who fired them. One more reason to det when escorting planet takers... -Mojo ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: learn something new every day Date: Wed, 11 Mar 92 17:37:03 GMT A few facts about the game which I didn't learn until recently: (1) If you tractor a ship which is docked to a starbase, it undocks. (2) You aim tractor beams by putting your mouse near the ship, not just pointing in the right direction as with phasers. So you can reach over a ship to tractor one on the other side. (3) You can use tractors or pressors the instant you hit the key to uncloak, before you're able to fire. (4) A good time to declare war is after you are in orbit around a planet you want to bomb and have hit the bomb key. That way you will bomb during the 10 second control lock-up. A fun way to use facts 1-3 is to ogg a ship docked to the far side of a starbase, tractoring it directly on top of the starbase as you uncloak and smash into both of them, detting their torps so they will damage each other. -- Red Shirt ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: Re: converted to scout bombing... Date: Fri, 13 Mar 92 23:20:54 GMT Regarding the advice to novices to deep-bomb in a scout all the time, I said the same thing last summer. But I don't know, flying a fragile ship at high speed through traffic requires experience and fast reflexes, and also I'm not sure the novice will enjoy bombing a few armies as much as blowing ships up. I guess I'd just advise people to fly whatever ship they want, but always go to planets with armies. Too many people fly towards enemy ships; that's how to die. Just go to the armies, whether it's their armies and you want to bomb, or your own armies if you have a kill or think you can get one by intercepting (not chasing!) a bomber. And of course you should dodge torps, phaser lots, and shove torps at anybody that charges you. That's all you need to do to be a good player. -- Red Shirt ------------------------------ From: rjones@scratchy.dsd.es.com (Ray Jones - Perp) Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Subject: Re: Neutral planets in enemy space: conquer or ignore? Date: 25 Mar 92 21:21:07 GMT In article <1992Mar25.170201.2408@dsd.es.com>, rjones@scratchy.dsd.es.com (Ray Jones - Perp) writes: > First, unless there are three defenders, it >gives you no credit. Sorry, it does give credit. It does not give credit for core planets or bombing unless there are three players on the team that owns the planet. > If it is a core planet, you get credit for >another planet. > > If it is the last planet of a certain race, you >get credit for another. This is true whether or not here are three defenders. > So if you take the last planet, and it's a core >planet, and there are three defenders, you get credit >for three planets. ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: spot@CS.CMU.EDU (Scott Draves) Subject: Re: The Oracle Speaks on Xtrek/Netrek Date: Thu, 26 Mar 92 07:04:32 GMT >>>>> On 26 Mar 92 06:20:12 GMT, paulsen@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Brian Paulsen ) said: Brian> Seriously, who really knows the DI/ratings requirement for Brian> promotion with guests, and what are the time limits needed. guests move up at 5x normal. other than that, it's the same. ------------------------------ Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek From: terence@bronco.ece.cmu.edu (Terence Chang) Subject: Re: tips for playing with lag? Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1992 19:58:25 GMT In article <1992Mar26.173048.137621@cs.cmu.edu> hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) writes: >Does anybody have any good tips for how to play effectively when you have >moderately bad net lag? Some basic ones: - Set the client to 2 or 1 updates/sec. Yes, it's playable like this; try it on a local server to get used to it. I never use anything faster than 3 updates (mostly habit). - Inform your teammates that you're lagged. Do not bitch and moan about it, it's not going to change things. Quit out if your link becomes unplayable. - For TCP-only servers, occasionally ping it. Look at packet loss rate and maximum response time. Lost packets really hurt. - Play at weird hours of the day when the people in your time zone and the server's time zone who clog the network with legitimate traffice are asleep. - As a test, I hold down the torp key, and see how many torps come out on average in typical combat situations: 8: I connected to the local server by mistake 6-7: Quite playable, no adjustments necessary 4-5: A bit sticky. Avoid close quarters combat and dense clusters of other ships. 2-3: Pretty bad. I'll be doing newbie impersonations. 1: Haven't seen anything this bad. 0: Server is probably dead. >Do you actually lead with your phasers? If there's a consistent delay, yes. Since phasers are direction sensitive, accuracy improves if the target stays at constant angle with respect to the phaserer -- such as when flying straight at the target or straight away -- best done when phaser locked on a cloaker or when attacking a ship out of fuel. >When ogging, do you tend more to lock on to the enemy and go straight at him? This would improve the accuracy of torps and phasers, as long as the enemy doesn't dodge. But ogging with lag is difficult -- you can't fire torps that fast, and as soon as too many torps are flying around onscreen your connection degrades. >How do you survive being ogged by a small fast ship driven by a non-lagged >enemy? Same as usual, except that nimbly sidestepping torp streams isn't as easy to do. Pressoring, cloaking, detting, phasering, running -- stuff that doesn't require a rapid sequence of commands and/or rapid feedback. Terence ------------------------------ From: leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens) Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Subject: Re: tips for playing with lag? Date: 27 Mar 92 09:05:07 GMT Herbert Enderton writes: >Does anybody have any good tips for how to play effectively when you have >moderately bad net lag? Yeah, I learned to play on remote servers. The first to remember about lag is that you really don't *have* to play netrek... 'Q' is your little friend. Play late at night and on weekends. Or get a UDP client and play on bronco. If you feel you must play, know your limitations. Stick to roles that allow you to avoid combat as much as possible. If you are giving away kills right and left, you are a liability to your team. >Do you actually lead with your phasers? Yes! This need not be a conscious thing, though. It is the way you train yourself to fight. Once we finally got harvey going here, I noticed that I was continually missing my phaser shots -- I was slightly leading all of them. Expect to miss most phaser shots, especially if you are at a reasonable range, as you ought to be. There is no way to correct for unpredictable lag -- if you get a netburp at the wrong time, you miss, plain and simple. One trick I use when phasering lagged is to fly parallel to the enemy as I click for a phaser shot. (More generally, move in such a way so that you maintain a constant relative direction.) This way the phaser shot becomes less time critical. >Do you sometimes raise shields, detonate, and turn, without ever >seeing torpedos? Well, I raise my shields and turn, sure. You need a *lot* more time to dodge shots, so you need to be further from an enemy than you normally would. Close, spray, phaser, turn away, pray. If the enemy does not fire, fine. Otherwise, you will hopefully have obtained enough time by running to avoid most of the fire. Also, if you do get crippled, you end up in a less dangerous position. I almost never det enemy torps when lagged, for a simple reason. Detting is *extremely* time-critical; that is, if your det request gets lagged for even a few tenths of a second, it will likely kill you because the torps are no longer in the 1/4 damage range but all around you instead. All you people who just got UDP clients or a local server should reconsider detting as a combat option. It is really very useful. >What keys do you press when you've just gotten frozen? Shield up; turn away from the enemy. Hit cruise speed or max warp. Then send a few zig-zag turns until it becomes plain that this is more than just a second or two, and you are either dead by now or completely out of danger. Once this becomes true, I recommend having a read news process in another window... waiting for a ghostbust to end can be very frustrating. >When ogging, do you tend more to lock on to the enemy and go straight >at him? Ogging? What's that? :) A lagged player should generally not be ogging. >Do you play different ships when lagged as opposed to local? Why? I tend to play BB's and scouts more, CA's less, and never SB's. (I never play DD's in any case; they suck.) Scouts are the perfect ship for lagged players -- they are great at running away. If you feel you must get into combat, you need the extra damage, fuel and greater hitting power of the BB; you are unmaneuverable in any case. >How do you survive being ogged... You don't, if the ogger is local and clued. For this reason, plus the fact that getting kills is really hard in the first place, lagged players make terrible planet takers. >What types of roles do you find you can effectively play when lagged? Scout bomber, planet defender, escort (to some degree). You can do anything that does not require dodging and aiming. You can dogfight to a degree in a BB, but try to stay near a fuel planet. You will need lots of fuel in order to fire enough to get enough lucky hits to kill people. >What do you do as an escort? Die... :) Get between the planet and the enemy; try to keep opposing players away by liberal use of torpedos. Det streams that will hit the planet. As far as helping on guarded planet assaults, get in an AS and draw fire. Get 1/2 screen from the planet and dodge, cloaked. -Wreck ------------------------------ From: fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden) Newsgroups: alt.games.xtrek Subject: Random bit of detail Date: 30 Mar 92 23:57:46 GMT You can get multiple hosers by hitting '*' several times quickly... the server lag while it exec()s the process is nonzero. If the server is sluggish you can get 3 or 4. ------------------------------ From: paulsen@widget.seas.upenn.edu (Admiral deathstar) Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Subject: Re: Do people blink on the galactic map when beaming? Date: 16 Apr 92 22:56:41 GMT nelson@reed.edu (Nelson Minar) writes: >For a long time now I've thought the standard bronco client (at least >in monochrome) when playing on bronco will make ships blink on the >galactic map when they are beaming up or down, and/or bombing. People do in fact blink when beaming. When they do not beam up armies, the ship is drawn normally over the planet. However, when the army number on the planet changes (such as during beaming), the planet is redrawn. The next update, the ship is again redrawn over the planet. This gives rise to the blink effect. It is actually quite obvious when someone is beaming if you can watch the galactic map. Watch over a friend's shoulder some time as they play, you will easily see the blinking. >Am I hallucinating? It seems to work. You aren't hallucinating. Just watch the map for blinking not for changes in army numbers. You'll catch the army carriers all the time. It's hard to do during combat, though. Brian ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1992 22:04:01 -0400 From: "Timothy C. Worsley" Subject: Re: UDP client bug >The nice thing is that you get to see your >torps hit, so you stick around long enough to >see what kind of damage you've inflicted. >Otherwise you return to the menu right after >you finish exploding. In fact, you only continue to see your opponents if they would be visible to your team on the long-range scanner without you. I have often been left watching a screen full of torps looking to see if some of them will explode on an invisible hull, or even make the nothingness explode. ZZnew guy ------------------------------ From: tom@ocf.berkeley.edu (Tom Holub) Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Subject: Re: wais server Date: 23 Apr 92 10:49:44 GMT takekosh@aludra.usc.edu (Tetsu Takekoshi) writes: )what are the F,R and K flags you see on some planets' info windows? )i originally thought they were (F)uel and (R)epair (no clue abt the K) )but now i am confused Good question; I didn't know for the longest time. Those flags indicate which teams have information on that planet; if there's no K, the Klingons can't see anything but a "?". -Mojo ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek From: terence@bronco.ece.cmu.edu (Terence Chang) Subject: Re: Scout Bombing and Other Stuff Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 17:03:02 GMT skaven@milton.u.washington.edu (William Gilliland) writes: >My question is this. Even when we were down to LPS, I kept on scoutbombing. >Should I have stopped to help defend in the LPS? If so, when should I have >stopped -- when we were down to 4 planets, or what? The quick answer: use common sense. Watch where the enemies are picking up their armies from. Ask yourself if the armies you're bombing are affecting them adversely in some way: 1. Forcing them to retreat further from the front to get armies 2. Making them visible on your teams' galactic maps when they normally wouldn't be (i.e., by being the scout "forward observer"). 3. Forcing them to waste time dogfighting/chasing you (assuming you're not a squashable scout). 4. Forcing them to actually wait for pops/compete with each other for armies (not likely if they have 15+ planets). If you're bombing armies in a quadrant that enemy ships don't even enter, the answers are probably no/no/no/no. The idea behind scout bombing is not to bomb for the sake of bombing. It's to make life harder on your enemies. >I'm going to keep playing bronco... having to go up against tough players may >be bad for the ratios but its great experience... thats how I got good at >Street Fighter II. I never knew most of the things a scout could do until >I played one for (groan) 8 hours... Yep, blood, sweat, and dead mouse buttons. The diehard experience. :) Terence ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: Re: Scout Bombing and Other Stuff Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 18:17:56 GMT skaven@milton.u.washington.edu (William Gilliland) writes: |> My question is this. Even when we were down to LPS, I kept on scoutbombing. |> Should I have stopped to help defend in the LPS? If so, when should I have |> stopped -- when we were down to 4 planets, or what? Opinions differ, but I think it's reasonable to keep scout bombing right up until genocide. You can't be everywhere, so if you set yourself a duty like this, be content to stick to it even while your team loses. However, keep in mind the real goal of bombing in such circumstances: to help prevent them from taking your last planet(s). They will probably always have a few armies (i.e. enough to genocide you) no matter what you do, so the main idea is to make sure that they have to travel a long ways to pick them up after they get a kill. So your priority should be to flatten the fuel and repair planets between the two home worlds, because those are the most convenient places for them to pick up armies. It's less important to bomb the far reaches where nobody goes anyway (although this is a highly suitable role when you have serious net lag). Also, you want to reduce the number of enemy ships with kills, not increase it. Bombing is my favorite way to og; I just bomb until somebody with a kill comes to try to stop me, then I go for mutual destruction. It's not worth giving up a kill just to bomb a couple armies, unless you think you can keep ALL of their planets flat. If you find yourself giving up kills, adjust your style so you're running away more; even if you get no bombing done, you'll distract some enemies sometimes, and you enable your team to see enemies on the galactic map that are near you. Another consideration is how capable a fighter you are, compared to your teammates, and this is partly dependent on lag. I guess the most crucial roles, the ones that you want good fighters to be handling, are (1) ogging and (2) protecting/using the few armies that your planet produces. Also you want a clueful defender to stay near the planet, someone that will reliably phaser a cloaker. If your team isn't filling these roles, then maybe you'd better stop bombing and do one of them, and hope that you can hold out long enough to get some new teammates. -- Red Shirt ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek From: terence@bronco.ece.cmu.edu (Terence Chang) Subject: Losses that count against your stats Date: Tue, 19 May 1992 22:20:27 GMT [ Bronco shutdown date: Saturday, August 1, 1992 +/- a couple days ] Since people have asked "Does a count against your { starbase | ship } loss stats?", the answer in all cases is: torpedo, plasma, phaser, planetary fire, exploding ship : yes self-destruct, dying daemon, conquer, confused daemon, genocide : no (A confused daemon is one that told you were ghostbusted. A dying daemon was either killed off or crashed.) Terence ------------------------------ From: jerryw@cs.umd.edu (Jerry Wieber) Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Subject: Re: Random bit of info Date: 20 May 92 17:46:05 GMT Lines: 52 > What is the range of detting? Detting range is fixed for all ships. This is easily verified by looking at defs.h: (To get an idea of det range as opposed to other ranges, I left select #define's in....) #define GWIDTH 100000 /* galaxy is 100000 spaces on a side */ #define WARP1 20 /* warp one will move 20 spaces per update */ #define SCALE 40 /* Window will be one pixel for 20 spaces */ #define EXPDIST 350 /* At this range a torp will explode */ #define DAMDIST 2000 /* At this range a torp does damage */ #define SHIPDAMDIST 3000 /* At this range, an exploding ship does damage */ #define PLASDAMDIST 2500 /* At this range, a plasma does damage */ #define DETDIST 1600 /* At this range a torp can be detonated */ #define PHASEDIST 6000 /* At this range a player can do damage with phasers */ from getship.c: shipp->s_detcost = 100; /* assault */ shipp->s_detcost = 100; /* battleship: */ shipp->s_detcost = 100; /* cruiser: */ shipp->s_detcost = 100; /* destroyer: */ shipp->s_detcost = 100; /* scout: */ shipp->s_detcost = 100; /* starbase */ Detting is identical for any given ship. -Jerry ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Date: Thu, 14 May 1992 19:12:59 -0400 From: "Timothy C. Worsley" Subject: Re: Escorting The problem with escorting is that you never know, for certain, what you should do. I remeber a run I had not too long ago where it seemed to me that I did everything wrong. I escorted when I had kills. I came in behind the guy I was escorting. I detted strangely. I got hit by torps. I died without injuring the enemy. While I was writing an appology, the guy I had been escorting finished taking Rom, genociding the Roms. His messages to me descibed my run as "awesome". Here are some general rules of thumb for escorting: 1) Give your passenger some creadit. You don't have to det every torp. Just ones that she can't dodge. 2) In a wide open field, don't kill anyone. Rarely even fire. You will be trying to outrun most random encounters. 3) Try to intecept the real Oggers. If you can get them before they planned to fire torps, you can not only keep you passenger alive, but often stay fit enough to keep guarding her. 4) Lead your passenger. 5) Don't fire torps. Especially, don't fire torps over your passenger. Remeber, she is in charge. Get your phasor lock to let her know where an Ogger is, and let her dicide if the he lives or dies. 6) If you plan to cloak and distract the foe, make him really panic. Going for Sir isn't nearly as effective as going for Rom. 7) If you plan to stay uncloaked, make yourself the best target. Against determined defenders, this may include flying directly over then and diing. 8) Shield flashes mean a lot of things. Most of the time, if an escort flashes shield, it means, "I am really here to escort. I did not show up here randomly.". After that, a passenger will flash for "follow me", or an escort for "OK, I understand". Of course, any time someone flashes, check messages. She may mean something else. ZZnew guy ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek From: terence@bronco.ece.cmu.edu (Terence Chang) Subject: Double genocides vs. comebacks stats for bronco Date: Fri, 22 May 1992 03:30:00 GMT Definitions: ------------ Double genocide: A double genocide is a conquer of the galaxy followed by race A genociding race B followed by race A genociding race C. E.g., from a fresh galaxy, Feds genocide Roms, then Feds genocide Oris. Comeback: A comeback is a conquer of the galaxy followed by race A genociding B followed by race C genociding race A. E.g., from a fresh galaxy, Feds genocide Roms, then Oris genocide Feds. Invalid genocide: A genocide with an insufficient number of planet takers/army bombers participating (sum of both winning and losing sides). The threshold was set arbitrarily at 6. This filters out (approximately) genocides of undefended races and t-mode-less genocides. Invalid genocides are ignored in detecting doubles/ comebacks. Diagonal genocide: A race that validly genocides the race of the diagonally opposite quadrant. Diagonal genocides are ignored in detecting doubles/comebacks. E.g., Feds genocide Klis. Other genocide: After filtering out diagonal and invalid genocides, the genocide sequence did not match a double or comeback. This could be caused by a surrender, a coup, loss of T-mode followed by formulation of new teams, and other cruft. Any subsequent genocides are also marked as "other" until the next conquer. Stats: ------ [ Log file covers 1/4/92 through 5/21/92 ] Genocides: 443 Conquers: 249 Surrenders: 37 Genocide breakdown: Double genocides: 66 (132) <-- 56% Comebacks: 51 (102) <-- 44% Diagonal: ( 16) Invalid: (106) Other: ( 87) ----- Total: 443 Analysis: --------- A lot of cruft in the genocide logs! Weirdness such as Feds genocide Roms followed by Oris genocide Klis. It's not easy to determine when the galaxy has reached a munged state. Lowering the threshold had little effect, but raising the threshold to 8 (meaning more active planet takers and bombers) changed the double/comeback ratio to 69/30 (70%/30%) but invalidated 226 of the genocides. Terence ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek From: terence@bronco.ece.cmu.edu (Terence Chang) Subject: Re: Double genocides vs. comebacks stats for bronco Date: Fri, 22 May 1992 23:36:32 GMT After some thought I realized what the cruft was. I modified my server somewhere during the logging period so that the galaxy was conquered if a race owned three systems *ignoring independent planets*. Under the old system, the Feds might genocide the Roms and then genocide the Klis, but not conquer because of an independent planet in Kli space. So if Klis reenter as Roms and coup, instant LPS. So instead of a second genocide the server jumps straight to conquer. Similar things happen if a surrender follows a genocide. The revised counts: Double: 140 (73%) (66 x 2 + 74 = 206) Comebacks: 51 (27%) (51 x 2 = 102) Diagonal: ( 16) Invalid: ( 106) Other: ( 13) --- Total: 443 Terence ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: Re: Last Planet Stands Date: Wed, 20 May 92 19:29:10 GMT The thing about last planet stands is, the defenders have all these ships near the planet, and the attackers have to come a long way to get there. So if the attackers don't synchronize their attack, they'll always be severely outnumbered at the planet, and with equal skill levels on both sides, they'll seldom take it. But if the attackers synchronize, they can get eight ships in the action at one time (for a brief time, to be sure), and during that time there's some chance of taking the planet. If they keep trying attacks like this, which really don't take that long to set up, the planet will likely fall. But I've seldom seem this kind of syncrhonization. So here are a few words (well, you know me, lots of words) of advice on how I think it can be best achieved: The basic idea is to get everybody ready to charge from diverse angles simultaneously. It's like a base ogg. You don't want to all meet at some planet, because if you all come from the same angle it's too easy for them to stop you. During the set-up time, when you're waiting for your teammates to get up to the striking distance (which is typically about 1/6 galaxy width away from the target), it's essential that you be able to AVOID fights. This is the skill of waiting, to be able to keep your ship healthy and full of fuel, even when there are enemies that want to force a mutual kill. Useful tactics for waiting include pressoring, cloaking, and running. I usually just use a handful of torps on ships that charge me, just to make them slow down. If you can do useful things while you wait, like protecting carriers, faking attack runs (without going into danger), or grabbing nearby armies, more power to you. When enough people are ready (and it might be nice if they send a message like "ready", or else send a message like "fuel" if they look like they're in position but they're not ready), somebody usually gives the "go" signal, and the real action starts. I like to have everybody cloak at this time. This is a nice acknowledgement of the "go" signal, and also serves both to disguise who is carrying and to help avoid premature engagements. It's very important to be able to trap some of the good defending oggers away from the action, and not kill them. So the best time for the charge to start is right when the oggers have come out to get you. Everybody cloaks and blows past them, and perhaps some of the escorts uncloak to pressor them and spray a few torps to slow them down so they can't get back to the planet in time. A good rule of thumb is, once somebody has called "go", don't kill anybody unless they're right at the target planet. Even then, you have to be careful that your army-carrier doesn't get caught in the splatter. The main medium of communication for coordinating such an attack is the galactic map. The attackers can see each other, can judge when enough people are equidistant to the target and apparently ready, and so forth. Distress calls are good too, especially to show that you carry armies. And name the target you're going for, if there's a choice. But too much typing of messages is detrimental. The same ideas work when the defenders have multiple planets. In this case you usually want to attack all of them simultaneously. Be sure not to argue about which planet to "leave for last". Everybody will probably have a pretty good idea which planets are most valuable, but that doesn't mean they'll always attack there first. For one thing they don't want to be too predictable, and for another, the defenders have a lot of say about which planet ends up last too, in the way they distribute their forces. Concentrate on getting synchronization, and let people attack what they want to attack. Similarly, sometimes you have some people who want to og the plasma scums, some who want to beam down armies, some who want to og their base (if they have one), some who want ogg a suspected army-carrier, etc. So long as they all do it at the same time, they'll help each other out, even when going for different goals. -- Red Shirt ------------------------------ From: dansu@ocf.berkeley.edu (Dan Su) Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Subject: Re: Three more game related questions Date: 15 May 92 04:54:08 GMT dvtoft@iastate.edu (Daniel V Toft) writes: >Let's back up a second here. How does a player choose which side of the >planet to begin orbitting on?? I always thought it was kind of random, or >a fluke when my ship "insisted" on beginning orbit on a planet's far side. No, it's never a fluke or random. Yes, you can control it. First, to convince yourself that you can control your planet hook, go to the center of a planet and stay there at warp 0. Now pick a direction and hit warp 1. Immediately hit 'o' for orbit and notice how you seemingly jump onto the side of the planet that you were headed for. This is the basic concept behind the planet hook. Now, in practice you won't bother to slow down to warp 0, of course, since orbiting velocity is warp 2 and you may be under heavy fire. That is, you only need to make sure that you have slowed down to warp 2 to be able to use 'o' to hook. Basically, just dodge some torps as you near the planet and look for a "hole" in the torp stream trajectories so you can hook onto the planet and avoid all of the torps while you beam down armies or bomb. Your mission will become difficult to carry out once there are more than 3 torp streams going through the planet and near impossible if one of the defenders gets a phaser lock on you before you reach the planet. The hardest part in taking a defended planet is to get on it in the first place. If the defenders are orbiting the planet it will make your job easier since it is harder for them to see you on the galactic map. Good defenders will space themselves apart around the planet in a circle and temporarily turn off the show-planet-names and show-resources on their tactical/galactic maps to make it easier for them to "see" you. An easier but less precise method of carrying out a planet hook is to use 'l' to lock on to the planet instead of 'o'. Now, if you're an assault ship, you have to make sure that you are going at warp 4 as you enter the outer radius of the planet before you hit 'l'. The assault ship will automatically slow down to warp 2 by the time you are at the center of the planet and at the last instant you can turn you ship so that it is slightly to the left or slightly to the right of center so you will hook onto that side of the planet. Note that different ships have different deceleration rates so, depending on your ship type, you need to be going at different warp speeds when you hit the planet's radius before you lock on (otherwise you will not be at the center of the planet when you slow down to warp 2). Without the planet hook, you are as good as dead against clueful defenders because they know where you will orbit the planet. The hook will buy you some time in orbiting the planet and you may even be able to take/bomb the planet from right under their noses. (I remember bombing 13 armies from Rom against 5 defenders. I had to lose 2 phaser locks on my way into the planet but once I got inside the planet's radius I was home free. They couldn't hit me for almost a full revolution around the planet :) Oh, and about all this bull about "just try and do that under me", look, nobody is perfect. I have taken agris in a cruiser under clueful defenders (yes, that means you too, CMU). The truth of the matter is that sometimes people have an off-day, or they lose a packet at a critical moment, or they're not paying enough attention, or they're busy typing a message, or they're out of fuel, or their mouse slipped, or they simply miss. Sometimes it's a matter of luck. However, using the planet hook is something that will tip the scales in your favor. Above all, if you fail, don't lose hope. Try again. Your opponents will make a mistake sooner or later :) Good luck and I hope some of you learned something! -Dan Su ------------------------------ From: peyote@umiacs.umd.edu (Gary W. Flake) Date: 6 Jun 92 15:58:21 GMT Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Subject: Re: Problem with Acclereation fix rjones@mips.COM (Ray Jones - Perp) writes: > One problem, however, which someone mentioned >regarding planet locks not behaving the same. >Destroyers (and scouts, too, I think) slow down too >early, and crawl to the planet at warp 2 from about a >ship length away. Here is a patch for redraw.c that >fixes this. Yes, I noticed this a while ago, and I imagine that most scout bombers have as well. The quick fix is to remember that while you are locked on a planet, and your speed decreases, you can still hit a faster warp key for a momentary burst of speed. I use max warp, and don't stop until I'm just about on top of it. Gary, toe-jam, Animal ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek From: hde+@CS.CMU.EDU (Herbert Enderton) Subject: Re: Newbie Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 17:31:29 GMT Michael A Kingzett writes: ... >4) Please add any other tidbits to make me a better player as soon as possible >- and yes I do read and respond to my messages. One fundamental tactic which I don't think is clearly stated in the archives: Strive for something like the following position relative to your enemy: =-O <-- you (moving right) O <-- enemy (moving up) ! I.e. you want him flying at you, so he'll eat your torps, and you want to show him your flank, so that (a) he has a difficult time leading his torps correctly, and (b) you can dodge his torps simply by accelerating or decelerating (as well as by turning). Needless to say you'll only have this ideal position for a moment, so fire a volley of torps right then. Typically you can achieve this position either by "intercepting" an enemy (look to see where he's flying and step into his flight path), or by going some place where the enemy doesn't want you (e.g. bombing his planets) thereby enticing him to charge towards you. -- Red Shirt ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Date: Wed, 13 May 1992 19:49:22 -0400 From: "Timothy C. Worsley" Subject: Re: Strategy---how do you know?? >I would like to get some responses on which roles (sc bomber, ogger, planet >taker, escort) are the most essential. 1) You can not win without taking planets. No team will win without its scums. Even the best Oggers and bombers will let someone slip from time to time, so if everyone on your team is bombing and Ogging, you will lose. 2) That said, it should be noted that more people are trying to take planets than any other said occupation. While highly skilled planet scums are much more dangerous, moderate, or even poor scums can get the job done. A highly skilled player is best used in some other occupation. 3) The pramary advantage of having a skilled player escorting instead of taking planets herself, is that she can escort without kills. So she can spend part of her time Ogging, bombing, etc, and part of it escorting. 4) Unskilled players can SC bomb, but there's no question that skilled players will give away less kills in the process. Unskilled players don't always know when it is OK to give away a kill, and when it isn't. 5) Unskilled players Ogg very badly. >Assume that you can do 1 role, and you are equally good at all roles, and if >you don't do it, it probably won't be done. Which should you do? If you can assume that no one will do any of these, you should quit. Otherwise, you should expect to be in a BB defending Vega, and hoping there's a clue shift. If for some reason the other team is equally unskilled, you should still quit (what's the point?). You should take planets if you insist on playing. >I personally think you should be an ogger first, then bomber, then planet >taker, then escort. In a game with low, but some clue, I would agree with you. This seems to be the order of skill, with the exception of escort. In a high skill game, escort is more important than planet taker (you've got gobs of planet takers who all need escorts). I was in a game tonight where several of the enemies had several kills (like 6 or more). We had to team Ogg them. When drpepper quit out, our life became much easier, even though he didn't take planets, ogg, or bomb. ZZnew guy ------------------------------ From: fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden) Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Subject: Re: How to scum Date: 26 Sep 92 00:05:27 GMT gc2n+@andrew.cmu.edu (Greg K Chung) writes: >BTW -- You don't get a bonus (as far as I can tell) for taking core >planets from a dead race...only the core of the team you're currently >facing. And no, you don't get bonus for retaking your own core. The obligatory pieces of daemonII.c: if (status->tourn && realNumShips(l->pl_owner) < 2 && realNumShips(l->pl_flags & (FED|ROM|ORI|KLI)) < 2) { l->pl_flags |= PLCHEAP; /* Next person to take this planet will */ /* get limited credit */ } l->pl_owner = NOBODY; [...] if (status->tourn && !(l->pl_flags & PLCHEAP)) { j->p_stats.st_tplanets++; status->planets++; if ((l->pl_flags & PLCORE) && !(j->p_team & l->pl_flags) && (realNumShips(ALLTEAM & l->pl_flags)>2)) { j->p_stats.st_tplanets++; status->planets++; } } else { j->p_stats.st_planets++; } English translation: if the planet is marked as "cheap" (i.e. it was knocked independent while defended by <= 2 players), you get nothing. Note that it requires two players on the team which owns it OR two players on the team in whose space it is. So if you're Rom and you scum scum Klingus during a fed vs rom game, you get no credit. However, if the feds take it back or you take it from the feds, you WILL get credit. Anyway. You get the core bonus IF it's a core planet AND it's not in your space AND there are enough players on the team which took it over. So no, you don't get a bonus for retaking your own core. Bottom line: 3rd race scumming doesn't help your tournament stats / DI, though it WILL show up in the 'I' window. However, retaking scummed 3rd race planets DOES help your tournament stats. fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden) ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 16:06:43 -0500 From: "Timothy C. Worsley" Subject: On death and dying On Death and Dying I hear a fair amount about this subject from other good players, but no one has really written anything authoritative on the subject. Nevertheless, death is something that happens to all of us no matter how good, and now matter what our ranks. So it is a subject which deserves some looking into. Why do I want to die? There are a number of reasons to want to die, but they all amount to the same thing -- I am better off in a new ship at home than in my current ship, here. The most obvious reason to feel this way is because your ship is damaged or out of fuel. This is a perfectly legitimate reason. You want to look at your current position and make sure that your ship is not more valuable where is currently is than at home (ie. A crippled empty Cruiser will do more to stop the planet taker than nothing.). However, much of the time, the reason that your are crippled or out of fuel is because you have already attempted your mission and are suffering from the results. In this case, death is often the best option. There are also many times when you are needed at or near the home-world quickly. Perhaps a valuable player is being Ogged there, or the planet is being, or about to be bombed. In many cases, the mission at home is more important than the mission you're on. In this case, also, it is often worth dying. It can often be a tough decision whether to die or not. Try to rank possible missions in terms of how important, and how immediate they are. Once in a while, you are just out in the boonies. There could be an one of a number of reasons for this, but it happens. Normally, it's best to get back is quickly as possible, and that means death. Sometimes you want to die right away just so you don't die later and give kills to the wrong person. Or you may be surrounded and know that you are going to die really soon. Again, there are people who you want to kill you, and those who you don't. That brings up the next question. How do I die? (Seems easy, no? Just turn off shield and det.) Having decided to die, you want to make sure that you do as little damage to your team as possible. So you don't want to give kills to potential planet takers, and you don't want to blow up on team-mates unless they also want to die. The latter is almost always case dependent, so I'll talk about the former. If you can die to a team-mate, DO. This can be very hard. basicly, you have to fly over an out-of-fuel opponent while your team-mate shoots at him. There's about a 50/50 chance that your team-mate will get the kill. This often isn't possible, so don't worry if you can't pull it off. Give your kill to the enemy SB. The plan is so well known that good SBs make a habit out of not killing ships that try this. So you need some tricks to *make* the SB kill you. The most obvious one, is to fly at her firing. Of course, that's so obvious, that she should be expecting it, and presser you away. Therefore, I find that there are 3 things to do to make a SB kill you. First, go into repair mode, or at least slow down enough to gain fuel quickly. The SB will not know how much fuel you have, and may get paranoid. After this, when you turn to attack her, she may decide to kill you after all. Second, try cloaking. A lot of a SB's power comes from its tractors and pressers, so you take a lot away by cloaking. If it pressers you as you cloak, run until you're outside presser range and return. Otherwise, just fly right over it. No base likes that. Third, you can shoot at some of the flunkies who always hang around bases pretending to escort it, but really just trying to get kills. Pick one who has a kill already, because she, more likely to panic and try to bet the base to help her. Just as good a a base to give kills to is a robot. Iggy doesn't exist on all servers, and isn't around all the time on servers that do have him, so it pays to plan ahead and bring in a couple of Guardian-type 'bots. Be at peace with them until you need to die, and then declare hostile. This play doesn't work everywhere, but if you're on the outskirts of neutral space, it is certainly a viable alternative. Enemy or neutral planets make a good graveyard. The disadvantages are that they often take too long, and they require that you get to them. The advantage is that you can bomb them while you're there, and either kill enemy armies, or bring in a 'bot to kill you later. Let kill scums rack it up. If someone has a bunch of kills, it doesn't hurt to give away one more. There is no friend of the about to die like plasma. If it's going to miss, phaser it as it gets close. Scout bombers are not completely safe to give kills to but are better than a lot of people. Normally, they aren't interested in using the kills that they get. On those occasions when they are willing to carry, at least they are no longer bombing. There are times when giving a bomber a kill in order to get her off of bombing is actually a good idea. If you can convince an enemy Ogger to kill you, you're often in good shape. Not only have you gotten them to waste fuel, but, like the bomber, you have tempted them with the option of changing roles. Lots of times, it's hard to get an Ogger to kill you. Be aggressive. Give a kill to a "pure" dogfighter. There are often some bozos around who will never be troubled to pick up armies, letting along deliver them. These guys have the added advantage that they are often crawling all over themselves to kill you. Give a kill to a terrible planet taker. Some people seem to have a knack for not avoiding Oggs. There are some so bad that it's easier to give them kills and then Ogg them than to bomb (Army hotel: Armies go in. They don't come out.). Go for it. Of course, you should then Ogg them, or let your team know that they will soon carry. Give the kill to an incredible hotshot. This sounds silly, but there are some people who will always have kills no matter how hard you try to keep them from getting them. It's not *good* to give them kills, but the worst person to give kills to is someone who is good at planet taking, but is having trouble getting kills tonight. Don't give kills to mediocre players. "With my last breath I spit at thee." As you go down, you might as well make it count. Try to hurt someone who doesn't want to be hurt, kill someone who doesn't want to be killed, or suck the fuel out of someone who your team-mate is Ogging. Often, the best way to die is to Ogg someone -- successfully or not. This is especially true if you have to give your kill to someone who you don't want to have it. Remember that an explotion right on top of someone does 100 point of damage in anything but a SC (which does 75). Take advantage of it. ZZnew "If the torps are going to miss, det them." guy ------------------------------ Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 13:13:28 -0400 From: Kevin Michael Bernatz Subject: Re: beginner UN-luck > I'm getting higher and > higher kills/game ratios every time I uplink. Ok everybody, repeat after me... "Dogfighting is useless... dogfighting is useless....dogfighting is useless" As any good player knows, dogfighting ability