2d spaceship gamer

You know, giving people as much as a 30 second notice with an arena announcement just might shed some more light of a system administrator's professionalism.

And if they DON'T tell anyone, and just revert, everyone's gonna be fine and dandy eh? Personally I have a rather interesting question: when HS goes back on SSC, what will happen to all those accounts who are registered on SSC with the same name but another p!@#$%^&*/email and belonging to a different person.

Summoner: The Summoner is a very good idea, but players should be able to choose NOT to be summoned. Simply implement a command such as ?summon=off/on (on by default, as it is now), so people can opt out of being forcefully pulled to a lanc. Why? Because this is prone to abuse. A saboteur on your team (can't do much about them on pub freqs) can simply pull everyone out of a base and let enemies come in. Another "fun" thing is summoning high-bty people as one is about to rocket into the base 8 Vortex, thus killing the person summoned in a fraction of a second. And while purposefully this probably would count is griefing, enforcing it and pusnishing the consequences is very difficult. Just having this command would remove the danger. Yes, I know, you can say "if you are afraid of teammates, get on a priv freq", but I'm being realistic and realize that often that is not possible or beneficial. By going pub, I can accept the danger of a teammate that's AFK, or leeching for jackpot, or such things, but NOT expecting someone who can single-handedly destroy a whole team. HT Portals: They can be abused, and I seen people do it. As you know, the portals have two stages -- red and blue, red is outgoing and blue is incoming, and whenever the HT-side of the portal is red, the base-side of it is blue, and vice versa, so if both sides have people who want to go in, one side has to wait until the other is done. Well, right now, for some reason, it seems that the base-side ALWAYS has precedence (i.e. as long as someone in the base keeps sitting on the portal, thus requesting to go out, the HT-side will always display an unusable blue portal). I've seen several times when a team purposefully run back and forth in and out of the base-side portal trigger zone, so HS thinks that at all times someone wants to get out, while they never do. As a result, an attacking team simply can't go in, ever, except if someone has a TW p!@#$%^&*/token, and even then its a serious slowdown for a team already sitting at the portal and suddenly realizing the enemy is blocking it on purpose. Solution? Just make it take turns. If, at one case, both sides get requests and one is fullfilled, then the next time there is a conflict the precedence goes to the other side, then the other again, and so on. Rather than always having it on one side. Yea, go ahead, call me a whiner and a crybaby. None of these are critical, but it would be nice if they could be fixed. And yes, I'm also aware of the related token p!@#$%^&* bug, where people with flags abuse the p!@#$%^&* to go back and forth. That too, can be solved by simply limiting the number of hops through the TW to, say, 3 per minute. That's more than enough for regular travel, but cannot be as easily abused.

That's not really an excuse. It's like saying that there's no point enforcing real-life laws because criminals will always find workarounds. We had rep whoring, so we disable fast ship changes and remove the problem. We have brickwarping, so we try to come up with a solution (as in now). If rocket bursting is as serious a problem (which I don't think it is, because a lanc can survive most bursts), then we should find a way to solve that too. Besides, we do not need to make exploiting completely and theoretically impossible -- we just need to make it so dam hard that it's not worth the benefit, and then people will stop it on their own.

Then the following may be a solution that can solve the problem: You already have "intelligent" bricks -- the brickcage, which can smartly change its own size in order to maximize its impact yet stay within the boundary of walls it was dropped between. Make it so when a brick is dropped over a player, then all parts of it are deployed EXCEPT those that would cause the player to warp. The other parts would not be deployed at all (of course you can try intelligently having them warp AROUND the player but not on top of him, but this would increase the chance of judgement errors due to client lag). This solution would make the brick not completely wasted (the parts not intersecting any player at moment of drop are still dropped), and thus no need to reprize it.

Although I do agree that anti-death detracts from gameplay more than it adds. And the repeated reshipping for specials has been discussed elsewhere. Reshipping for specials, another lame, has indeed been mentioned repeatedly, and this is exactly why it was removed in the last update. Learn to differentiate between arguing a point and being a crybaby, Sir.

Brickwarping is probably the lamest and most annoying technique used by flaggers, however, it is so efficient that it often means the difference between victory and defeat, and thus used widely. For those who don't know what brickwarping (bw-ing in short) is, it is getting close or on top of an enemy ship and laying a brick, which causes the ship to be warped to center. Most commonly used by fast rushers against lancasters, to get rid of a turret. Some would say that this is a valid technique, because it requires skill, can be avoided by keeping the lancaster at a distance or having 2 lancasters, and nothing stops the other team from using the same tactics. However, I find that it ruins a large part of the drive behind basing. Most BW victims are attackers, since defenders use bomblines and corners to hide behind, and not nearly as vulnerable to getting brickwarped. In addition, defenders have room to slowly move back if pushed, while attackers don't have that luxury, and, as well, have the increased risk of being flaked (and possibly bw-ed while at it too). Getting a foothold of a base requires momentum, and it is just not fair when a team managed to punch through defenses, only to be brickwarped by a rocketing enemy. Forcing a team to have two lancasters means they have to sacrifice an attacking ship, giving their opponents even more advantage over the already easier task of defending. Keeping the lanc far behind also makes attacking much harder, because it's much slower, and they don't have the chance to put the pressure on the defending team which they need in order to break through. This is made even more lame by the way antideath works, making a ship invisible for a few seconds, during which it is impossible to kill the ship, but nothing stops the ship from rocketing and bricking during those seconds. This pretty much makes ships with antideath able to take out an enemy lancaster, and thus end an entire team's assault, without any effort or much skill. Bricks have a specific purpose, block an attack or trap an enemy ship. While it is not bad in itself to find new uses to existing things, because that's how tactics and countertactics develop, this particular case just goes over the line of both fairness and the dynamics of an attack. Lancasters have very high energy for a reason, and the reason is so they will not be removed easily. Bricking them destroys all point of that defense. A single guy cannot take out a lancaster with a few thors or a short spray of bullets, and neither should one guy with a brick/rocket/antideath be able to single-handedly and momentarily destroy the combined efforts of an entire team. Since HS benefits from the scripting abilities of ASSS, why not just use it to annull the effects of brickwarping? Why not make a script that activates whenever it detects a ship being brickwarped, and when that happens, just warp the ship back to the nearest free spot near the brick. This would remove the effects of brickwarping, while not impeding on any other uses of bricks/rockets/antideath. P.S. Quote of the day: EvilDeed> hu$ STOP BWING EvilDeed> ITS F****G LAME nebulou> HE CANT HELP IT nebulou> HIS DADDY BEAT HIM WITH BRICKS WHEN HE WAS LITTLE

Thank you for your suggestions, I have looked at them and borrowed a number of ideas. During my several weeks of play, I had a chance to explore the various ships, the way they are being played, and their strengths and weaknesses. An annoying (although justified) thing is that you can only have one ship of each kind. Which makes you make some really tough decisions, because many ships can be used in many different roles, and require different configuration. I have analyzed the basic variety of gameplay options: - Duelling and controlled fights (such as tournaments) - Wild center gameplay (including ambushes, vulching, and other such fun stuff) - Turreting (both as driver and as gunner) - Offensive flagging (fast&furious rush) - Defensive flagging (controlled heavy fire, use of bombholes etc) - Anchor flagging - Flag scouting So I have 8 ships, and I need to make best use of them to fullfill all the ranges, or at least all the ranges I'd want to play. By my nature, I'm an inclusionist. I want to have all options available for me, even if that means that some more specific tailoring to a specific task will not get done (a jack of all trades is a master of none). Being the jack, to me, is much more fun though. As I did not yet have time to am!@#$%^&* a large budget, I did not consider the ultra-high-end luxuries such as Antideath, TW pass or fields (ammo too expensive). I also did not consider the beta-stage Armor upgrade yet, because it is buggy and cannot be properly tested. So, here is what I came up with: SHIPS BUILT AND TESTED: Warbird: Flag rusher (primary), dueller (secondary) Being the lightest and most maneuravble of all ships, the Warbird suits perfectly for fast rushing. I have mounted my warbird with Quantum/Ion combo, which gives a good balance of energy management and agility, perfect for navigating narrow bases at high speed. Gun is Pulse Laser, which seems the most effective in terms of dealt damage while controlling energy levels in bases, compared to either plasma cannon or beam array (non-bouncy guns were not even considered). Bombs are Salvo, good when a target is a juicy enemy Lancaster or other capital ship, or when an impromptu hole-shooting is required without time to change to a heavier ship. Sensors include X-Radar (seeing cloaks is an important part of a front-line ship, especially when used as interceptor), and energy scanner (this one is not THAT useful in bases, but can find use when trying to finish off a lanc; it is also very useful when using the ship for it's secondary purpose of a dueller). Utilities are siege pack, tunnel runner, and close combat (gave up second close combat for other options, as I found it is very rare for a warbird to live through using all 3 repels in enemy action; this also saved me the 60k for a converter). Bricks are double bricks. I have tested this build and it seems very agile and robust in bases. While not quite a 1-on-1 match vs heavier ships, it easily wipes out most WB's which use a beam array, as well as most Javelins. Spider: Center fighter, Turreter Building this ship was rather controversial and complex, since there were many possible alternatives to the build I chose, and I had to give up some good features for others. I was looking for a powerful, heavy-damage shredding fighter, and my choices were among the spider and the terrier. This was an outside-only build, not designed to fight in bases, and whichever ship out of the 2 was chosen for it, the OTHER one would then be used as a base defender and support gunner. After lengthy though, the outside role was given to the Spider. While slightly weaker, the spider is more agile, and stands a better chance of fighting in open space. I could have made a mistake in this, as I saw many people use spider as a base ship and terrier as turreter and center fighter, but I don't think this would have made much of a difference, and besides, as you shall read below, I ended up very happy with my choice, as well as (so far) being my favorite ship. My Spider is equipped with the Shredder, which is the core of its power. Regrettably, with this weapon and with the way it is employed, I did not find any suitable bombs, nor mines. I bought HE missile, but might as well have got something else, as I never use it. The reactor/drive combo is Quantum Reactor/Ion Drive, which, as mentioned, seems to be an all-around general-purpose combo. Had I only planned for turret use, I would have likely used either Resonance Sphere or Tokamak, but a large part of its use involves non-turret combat, and I need the agility. For the same reason, I opted against either Overthruster or Retro Rocket, as I needed a good balance of speed and agility in order to engage ships one-on-one. The sensors are Energy scanner (useful for the direct combat role), and Extended sensors (useful for the turreting role, to pick out distant enemies before they come full-speed going for the turret). The utility kit includes Tunnel Runner (for the rockets, very useful (albeit lame) when rushing enemies with the Shredder) and Close Combat x2 (repels very useful, bursts -- not so much). The brick used is Energy Infusion, which is useful however I play -- in direct mode, it helps recover from a head-on clash with the Shredder ablaze, giving me a chance to finish off the enemy or engage another one right away; in turret mode, it is used (right before a rocket) to save me in case my driver dies and I find myself surrounded by a group of very angry turret hunters. I use this ship more than any other, and in both roles, it performs very well. While an intelligent and experienced Warbird, or Javelin, or even Weasel, could use its agility to outmaneuver me and slowly finish me off in ranged fire, the vast majority of center enemies prefer to rush me head-on, and consequently be immediately shredded to pieces without much significant damage to my ship. In case an enemy turns to flee, the rockets, with the forward Shredder trail, do a wonderful job of ripping the ship apart before they even realize what's going on. Much more surprisingly, the ship does exceptionally well as a turret as well, even surp!@#$%^&*ing in its quality more traditional Weasel turrets with long-range Flechette guns, or Plasma Cannons, or Disruptors.. The reason for that is simple, and is based on the difference between what a turret WANTS, and what a turret GETS. In the ideal scenario, the turret would fire upon unsuspecting enemies from afar, chalking them off without being reached. In practice, however, it is highly likely that angry victims will decide to rush the turret, using oh-so-annoying methods as rockets, thors, and EMP bombs. So, while the spread-out always-firing Flechette does a good job at strategic cleansing of space, it simply lacks the firepower to intercept an incoming attack RIGHT NOW. The Shredder, however, does a wonderful job at that. I think that a good turret always needs to have at least one Shredder gunner, simply to protect the turret itself, while the Flechetters/Plasma Cannoners do their kills. And since there is never a shortage of people trying to rush and destroy a high-bounty turret, I found that I usually score more kills then the rest! And, unlike the rest, I do NOT keep my gun in always-firing mode, but use short selective bursts. As a result, my energy, out of a total of 1900 (which, by the way, is very nice for a turret to have), rarely goes down more than 1/3 of the way, in sharp contrast of the spam gunners which thin themselves down to red, and then get killed by a single well-aimed bomb hitting the turret. Lancaster: Flagging Anchor, Turret Driver This was another slightly controversial choice, as while both mentioned roles exclusively require the Lancaster, they need to have somewhat different equipment to be maximally effective in either role. I chose the middle path, equipping the ship in such a way as to be feasibly usable in both roles, albeit with some sacrifices. To start, it would be fair to say there is NO good gun for the Lancaster, as it is not a gunner in any way shape or form. However, the choice of bombs is available, and is importnat. Originally I was impressed with the TacNuke. After starting playing, however, I realized that the refire rate is too slow to effectively control bomblines, and that the cheap and unimpressive, but fast-firing Falcon Missile would do a better job at that. Consequently, out of the choice between a Pulse Laser and a Beam Array, I chose the Pulse Laser simply because it would make the bomb have a higher-level shrapnel. I have used the ZPM/H2 combo, in order to maximize the energy, and then compensate for the lost recharge rate. I lost some agility and speed in the process, but I decided that even for the turret role (and definitely for the basing anchor role) having more energy and recharge outweights extra speed. The sensors are Enhanced (watching for cloaks is obviously very important to an anchor) and Extended (overview the whole base, rather then a chunk of it, is equally important, as is seeing who is going to rush your turret next). The utility packs are Close Combat (mostly for turreting), Tunnel Runner (get to enemy base fast, or run away from turret hunters), and Active Camo (reduce thors aimed at you when holding flags, or sneak inside base and then summon). The brick is Energy Infusion, which was a sacrifice, as I fully realized that having a real brick is often important when retreating from a base attack, and protecting yourself from being bricked out by an enemy rusher. However, the Energy Infusion was very important for the turret role, and could also be needed in case of a thor attack, so I went with that. Finally, despite the heavy price tag on Summoner, given it's huge importance in both basing and turreting, I saved up and bought it). Testing showed this ship to be reasonably well adapted to both the turret and the base anchor roles. The biggest problem was being bricked out, and not having a real brick for defense, but that could be avoided by not rushing too much forward, which is not recommended anyways for an anchor. SHIPS NOT YET BUILT: Terrier -- Base Defender, Support Base Gunner As I mentioned in my write-up on the Spider, the Terrier is left with the role of a heavy base gunner. This is the next ship I plan to built, so I thought out all the little details. It will either be used in a defending semi-stationery role (read bombline bombing), or as a rear-position support during at attack. I plan for it to have the Plasma Cannon (somewhat slow, yet powerful, bouncy, and spread out, perfect to control large sectors of incoming enemies). The bomb will be TacNuke, good for bomblines and wallbombing (which thus benefits from the L3 shrapnel as well). The drive will likely be H2 (another advantage over Spider in this role, which cannot use this item), and the reactor will be a choice between Mezon Capacitor or Tokamak (the ship role does not require very fast speed, but I will have to see just how much does Tokamak actually slow it). A required sensor is Enhanced (X-Radar), with secondary candidate being Extended Sensor (for same reason as to why the Lancaster has it). An absolute-must utility is the Gravity Trap (Antiwarp), as it is all too often as nobody has it when it is needed, and as, unlike a rushing ship, the Terrier will not be in the front lines, it is less likely to be destroyed and the Antiwarp broken. Other options include the standard basing Close Combat, Tunnel Runner, and Siege Pack, I still have to decide which is the most needed). A good brick candidate will be the Cage brick, as I may sometimes require gunning pockets even when overrun by enemies. Shark-- Flag Scouting In this topic, Sharpflame has suggested that a Shark with Nuke Booster makes a wonderful flagger. Maybe he is right, but if so, it must requite some special mastery, as all my attempts to flag had caused it to be ripped to pieces by the slightest enemy fire, and the Nuke Booster makes the turn rate SO bad that it is simply impossible to timely get to an enemy around the corner and brick him out, before being gunned down. I consider trying to replace the Nuke Booster with the Icefire, and see what changes. At the meantime, however, I did find that the very high speed of the ship allows it to be an efficient flag scout, useful when looking for that one hidden flag that stops the game from being won. I have not examined further configuration of this ship in detail yet. Javelin -- Not really sure A lot of people really like Javelins, but I have failed to understand what is so good about them. Sure, they may have the advantage of fast, recoilless bombs, but that seems to be the only good thing about them, couped with a couple rather bad things. When comparing the Javelin to it's closest match, the Warbird, the Javelin has less energy, is less agile, and has single guns as opposed to double, meaning smaller firepower. I'm not really sure what role to give to this ship, as in both rushing and duelling the WB is better, (as proved by my about % win ratio 1-on-1 vs Javelins, but who knows, maybe they all were newbs...), and for base bombing, why not choose a heavier options such as Terrier. Perhaps there is a sweet spot of tactical sniping, for which a Terrier/Spider would be too heavy, and the Warbird would lack the fast bombs. If I find such as use, it will likely be a basing ship. For now, it is sitting on the backburner. If you know any other uses for the Javelin, let me know). Weasel -- Center Killer, Turreter, Turret Hunter Similar to the role I gave to my Spider, but with a more conventional design, armed by Flechette guns. The high agility of the Weasel would (in theory) allow it to evade rushers such as Spiders or Terriers with Shredders, and it has more power and energy than the lighter Warbirds and Javelins. It would also make a good traditional turreter, with large energy reserves and reasonbly good damage from the guns. Finally, it's EMP bombs could prove the bane of enemy turrets. Levi -- Turret Hunter, LamingShip This is another ship I think kinda sucks, because it is just too weak and easily destroyed. It does not really match the required sturdyness of a base bomber, and would not stand a chance in engaging a terrier or spider in open space. On the upside, armed with a salvo and rockets, it could potentially be used to deliver enough consecutive damage to a turret to make it a successful sucide run. And of course, I could also use it the way most people use it, that is, hide in the safe of a store, and bomb people trying to enter it, before hiding in the safe again. So far, there are the ideas I have gathered and conclusions I have made. I'd greatly appreciate feedback on my thoughts, including any omissiong I might have made, or errors in judgement, or alternatives to my choices.

The problem with a "chaos arena" is that everyone will play there except in main. Occasional (weekly or so) events of free experiments by mods are good, but not 24/7

Way this works: You type ?loan X where X is the number if credits you want to loan. You then get those credits. You will have to pay those back, together with interest. The max size of the loan is related to your exp, more exp = bigger allowed loan. A good ratio would be * 10, IE someone with 500 experience could get a max loan of 5000. Interest can either be fixed or related to the size of your loan compared to maximum (max loan = most interest, small loan = small interest). A nice cap would be 25% in case of a maximum possible loan. Interest is added to outstanding debt automatically upon loan taking, and the debt does not grow further. Cannot get another loan until previous one paid fully. This also eliminates people cir!@#$%^&*venting the last rule by taking lots of small loans. Loan payment is automatic and done by subtracting money for each kill you make (or bonus you get for someone else's kill). Subtracted money is 50% until loan is paid out. Player can always repay or reduce loan by ?loanpay X where X is number of credits he wants to pay. Player can always view outstanding debt by typing ?debt. Finally, very important rule: Cannot give money to other players if your balance is below your outstanding loan debt, or that would make your balance below your debt upon transaction completion. This is to prevent people ?loaning money and then sinking it to other accounts. EG Someone with an outstanding debt of $330 and a balance of $200 cannot give any money at all, and someone with a debt of $330 and a balance of $500 cannot give more money than $170. This way, the system cannot be abused. WHY? To let people experiment with new stuff they cant afford, especially newer players, so they wont be stuck with a crap ship and get newbkilled for ages before affording a good one.

Let's talk here about what kind of ship builds you got, and what you use each ship for. For example, you might use a wb for duelling, spider for turreting, terr for center-killing, lanc for hosting turrets and anchoring (duh), shark for base assault, etc. But you may also develop more unconventional ship choices you'd want to share. Also, it would be nice to describe your ship's precise setup. If you can't afford to build a setup you want, describe what your setup would be like IF you had the money, or alternatively describe setups that fall under a particular budget. Explanations and rationale for your choices would be greately appreciated. What is YOUR rig?

Subj. Of course I know my old password and can log in.