Tweaks to the Default Config

Sunday, September 11, 2011

After much discussion (particularly about the cloak failure rate) we have decided to modify the default config to correct 3 of the 4 differences from the original default configuration. This will affect new games created after today.

The changes are as follows:

Cloak Failure rate goes from 1% to 0%.
Structure Decay rate goes from 10 to 1
Ship scan range goes from 350 to 300

Ion storms are set at 4 on Nu and were originally set to 5. We are keeping them at 4.

The documentation has been updated to reflect these changes.

Comments

There are 50 comments - add your comment

peetee - Sunday, September 11, 2011 5:32 PM

Good changes in my opinion.

draven - Sunday, September 11, 2011 5:37 PM

Great!!

deadeye - Sunday, September 11, 2011 6:17 PM

as a pirate and bird player ....+1 :)

lord helmet - Sunday, September 11, 2011 6:33 PM

and another +1 from a Klingon Player ;)

admiral_thrain - Sunday, September 11, 2011 8:34 PM

IMHO: scan range and ion storm +1, others not really necessary. Romulans here...

sakawa - Sunday, September 11, 2011 10:38 PM

Good changes!

Next time have a thought about modifying the Engine-Shield bonus as being told in some threads.

And if you have any doubt just put a poll on the site about it. One player one vote. ;-)

Right now:

Engine-Shield bonus: 0%

Ships do not gain mass in battles depending on their type of engines.

thin lizzy - Monday, September 12, 2011 9:52 AM

i liked the settings before, but also like the new ones. 350 was really a bit far..

nakor - Monday, September 12, 2011 1:38 PM

Wow, didn't know that the scan range of ships was set to 350LY! o_O
I always calculated with 300LY. That could have turned out bad for me...

It's good that is has been set to its original default value now (even if its just for new games)! Thanks! :)

admiral_thrain - Monday, September 12, 2011 1:41 PM

Sakawa - if ES bonus is raised from 0%, I'm the first to quit playing with default rules. It's a hit with a sledgehammer against the face of a Romulan. Trust me... I can tell you why if you point me to the thread where it's discussed.

suntzu - Monday, September 12, 2011 3:55 PM

Well - I like most of the changes, but a cloak failure rate of 0% is a bit too much don't you think? There should be at least a tiny chance of cloak failure. All the races without anti cloak have a problem. 1% is not that much, how about 0.5%? I've never experienced a cloak failure in nu.

bondservant - Monday, September 12, 2011 4:01 PM

Very Good.

jobo - Monday, September 12, 2011 4:06 PM

Hurray! Could we get the decay rate change in all running games as well (hopeful borg here...)

Regards

draven - Monday, September 12, 2011 4:20 PM

"...I've never experienced a cloak failure in nu..."

Obviously you have never played Privateers from turn 45 on, as you would have had more than 100 Meteors and the claock failure would have been not a possibility but a real fact every turn.

Your only doubt when clicking "turn ready" is which is the one that will fail this turn.

rudel - Monday, September 12, 2011 5:20 PM

Very good changes, I always disliked this random effect of cloak failure as I experienced a lot of failures in my Priv and Liz game.

jadefire - Monday, September 12, 2011 5:37 PM

Why is it that this site is not using the original default settings when this site is supposed to be a recreation of the original game?

I can understand that no one playing on this site will come to an agreement as to what settings should be used when it is put to a vote. Therefore would it not be easier to just set all the settings to the original game defaults?

Players went on and on about the cloak failure, and rightfully so. The default is 0%, and to offset that there are a default of 5 ion storms in effect to keep the cloaking races from running around with impunity. So as it stands the cloaking races have now picked up an advantage from the change to the default settings.

So I would have to vote that this site as a faithful recreation of the original game, change all the settings to default. After all who can argue with what Tim Wisseman the creator of the game set as default?

shrambot - Monday, September 12, 2011 9:04 PM

Good changes, thanks.
Had several cloakfails in my only Birdgame here, 1 screw up a plan, the other made one of my Darkwings vulnerable to a Class 4 Ionstorm, which dragged the Ship away.

I agree that the original settings should be respected.
And i never understood why cloaking can fail, but things like towing or de-cloaking have not such a failrate.

== Ionstorms:
started one game with all 4 storms in my corner of the quadrant, heading towards me - so i (Birdmen) had to rely on Resolutes as my first scouts (found my neighbour beeing Privateer, and not cooperative, so i think it was worth it, tho expensive).
After this experince i am somewhat indifferent about 4 vs. 5 Ionstorms, but i do not think the cloaking races have an unfair advantage this way in general; maybe Privateer and Lizard.
On the other hand: keep it original. ;)

== ESB
Never played with it on, so i have to rely on what experienced players say about it; iirc 0% was default.
If i could choose, i would prefer a setting that does not push the weak races further down in the balance.
I think this should be discussed in the forum.

veldan - Monday, September 12, 2011 9:06 PM

Lot's of people, that's why phost is somewhat different from thost, and nuhost will invariably have its own differences from thost.

figak - Monday, September 12, 2011 11:47 PM

*clap*clap*clap*

I couldn't agree more with the changes.

/grumpy on

About bloody time ;)

regicide - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 12:17 AM

What timing getting ready to start my first game. Was not going to go for a cloaker because of cloak fail change. gives me more options :)

capnkill - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 2:39 AM

Excellent! Thanks!

dragondejhi - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 4:42 AM

As a Lizard... I say... Hip hip Hooray!

Of course, I have my own cloak failure rate.. it's called a Loki ;-)

rudel - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 9:17 AM

I do not think that we need to keep everything exactly to the original settings. Tim gave everybody the possibility to tweak the game by using the host conditions.

So it's no big deal to change some things that may feel unbalanced after 20 years. Especially if you think of all the mods and different Hosts out there.

4 Ion Storms is enough. It's not like the cloaking torpedo races are dominating the game.

sakawa - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 5:04 PM

@admiral_thrain Probably this is the thread you were referring to: http://vgaplanets.nu/discussion/how-to-play-engine-shield-bonus-needs-to-be-revi sed

I believe the Shield Bonus on might reduce the distances that the carrier races have with the rest. Those middle ships will have a little chance against carriers to at least open fire once. And since they get cheap fighters will need to put an effort on engines. Not done any calculations though.

@Admin this original thread could be sent by email to every active member since it is a change on the default configuration. Not every one reads the forum. Or on the monthly letter, if there is one soon, or even a tweet since the last one was on may. ;-)

olio - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 5:30 PM

@sakawa
Your beliefs sadly are wrong. Please check the following thread:
http://vgaplanets.nu/discussion/engine-shield-bonus-questions
There are already three rebuttals of Shield Bonus giving chance to middle ships and instead proving that it benefits mostly carrier races. While my evidence is purely based on documents on Donovan's, b a n e has been around for decades.

jadefire - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 5:45 PM

It seems some may not understand my point about the default config. So let me illustrate it a bit better.

We currently can create our own games and set a limited number of options (this mimics the master.bat from the original game) such as map size, distance between home worlds, player slots, ect. Unfortunately it lacks most of the options such as cloak failure rate, shield bonus, ion storms, ect.

Now as put forth in the post 'State of the Nuniverse' http://vgaplanets.nu/post/state-of-the-nuniverse there are plans to expand the game set up options. I do look forward to that time, but until then, all of the players are under the restrictions of the default config for the more vital settings/tweaks that effect game balance.

So what I have been trying to say is would it not be wiser to change the .nu host settings default, avoid long posts about game settings and allow for new VGAP players to learn the basics of the game as it was relased in its original form?

As was said by the development team, the time will come when private games will allow for all the configuration changes that seem to be issues amongst the players.

So in summery, change the game to defaults, avoid the votes to change this or that, and allow the new players to learn the default game settings.

Anonymous - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 7:01 PM

I am glad all those petitions worked. I like.
Now I would like to petition for a large meteor to hit the homeworld of any player that I pull my ambassador from. :)

Vepr - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 7:02 PM

I am glad all those petitions worked. I like.
Now I would like to petition for a large meteor to hit the homeworld of any player that I pull my ambassador from. :)

dungeonmaster - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 7:28 PM

Great changes, I've been advocating for the structure decay rate to change for all borg for many months now. Very pleased!

mjs68508 - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 8:48 AM

vis-a-vis the decay rate:

This really screws the Borg. One of the Borgs advantages is assimilation. This hurts the borg in 2 ways:

1. The borg had the advantage of many clans far from home. Now anyone has that ability. You simply load up a ship with 120+ clans, supplies, and money. You go to a planet, drop 100 clans, build 100 factories and 100 mines, bring up your clans except 1, and move to the next planet. With 120 clans you can make 20 fully functioning planets.

2. Second, the borg didn't have to worry about losing a planet. The huge amount of structures would decay away. Now, attacking the borg is very profitable because you get all those factories and mines.

Borgs now have a huge target painted on them - we don't need a bovine planet. Just attack the borg - 2 planets with 400 factories each is the same as an 8,000,000 bovine planet, and much easier to find.

The first of order of all races in the new games will be to gang rape the borgs.

rudel - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 8:55 AM

In my Borg games I always had issues with Arctic/Desert planets and many dying Borg comrades on those planets. In my oppinion this is more a advantage for the Borg instead of a disadvantage.

And the Borgs should be "gang raped" as soon as possible regardless of this change. ;)

jobo - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 12:58 PM

I agree with Rudel - the borgs win with this change. I usually do not waste the MC and supplies to build a lot of factories on desert/arctic planets, because the decay rate will destroy my factories way to fast. With this change I wouldn't mind spending some 1600 MC's on 400 factories.

And I'll gladly teach a lesson or two to any would be rapist attempting to take over my factories ;)

Regards

dungeonmaster - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 1:43 PM

mjs68508 more borg die to climate than combat in my games. With the fast decay rate your arctic/desert super-planets decay quickly, dwindling to small worlds with minimal effect. In simple terms a planet with 400 factories turns into a planet with 200 factories in 20 turns. Under the standard rules, these new rules, that planet still has 380 factories after 20 turns. It's a big help, I'm very pleased and you will see the benefits, trust us.

rudel - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 2:04 PM

So.. why exactly is a buff for the Borg needed? It's not like they are one of the weak races.. ^^

jobo - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 2:13 PM

The borg already suffers greatly from the fact that not all planets has natives, so I believe this will level the playing field... ehm... or something like that ;)

Regards

dungeonmaster - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 2:49 PM

The borg are a race of extremes, they're extremely strong if they get to grow unfettered, particularly with alliances and extremely weak if contained and alone. I wrote in the forums on this topic, the decay rate won't factor in the former case but in the latter - against the best players in the worst circumstances- it'll factor a lot. In the championship games we'll see what happens, it may not be the borg sitting atop the pile if the other players are wise.

dungeonmaster - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 2:57 PM

The other default which was not changed, though it may be a typo in the NU default config is the lizard ground defence ratio. It should be 10, not 15.
http://vgaplanets.nu/documentation/default-config
I'm playing a team game where I'm the fascist and I will eventually come across the lizard and I fully intend to take his planets through pillage and ground combat. Any chance we could get this modified? Klingons everywhere would rejoice!

suntzu - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 3:02 PM

Considering the huge interest in the default settings and the fact that everybody will have his own favorite choice, I second the above suggestion to use the original 'default' settings for standard games. Later on, private games can be run with arbitrary host settings.

However, I am against changing any settings of running games. People will have planned using the current host settings and the settings shouldn't be changed now.

lord helmet - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 3:08 PM

Yes, but unfortunately the other players often don't stop the Borg before it is too late:
http://vgaplanets.nu/races

I think the Borg musn't complain - who really does that systematically, taking clans away again after building factories and mines? One might consider it in some cases but the advantage of the Borg in getting economically strong planets fast is not touched.

lord helmet - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 3:15 PM

Lizard Ground defence ratio 10:1 - second it. (And I thought all the time my memory played me a trick when I saw the ratio in the nu-docs).
Why change it from original? Don't get it.

coldsteel - Saturday, September 17, 2011 4:06 PM

I have been reading that in the default thost settings, the fed mining rate has a 25 kt floor of minerals for 100 mines. This would make the fed the best miners for low concentration planets.

In my game as the fed I can confirm this is definitely not happening.

Should this be a default setting?

veldan - Saturday, September 17, 2011 4:11 PM

can you post a link to a source on it coldsteel?

coldsteel - Sunday, September 18, 2011 4:22 AM

http://crydee.sai.msu.ru/ftproot/pub/rec/games/unsorted/faqs/VGA-Planets.faq

under "subject: What are the rules for Federation mining of planets?"

although, it appears this may have been for an older version of thost... so maybe this shouldn't actually be a default for nuhost.

veldan - Sunday, September 18, 2011 4:45 AM

Holy crap that's a heckuva find. I believe you are correct.

veldan - Sunday, September 18, 2011 5:12 AM

Let me rephrase that... Holy crap that's something from long ago. However, it does appear that you are correct that it's from an earlier version of thost, and no longer applicable to 3.2x.

zelrik - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 9:57 PM

I am not sure why changing the cloaking failure rate from 1% to 0% for all cloaking races. I mean are the privateers doing that bad??? ->>> http://vgaplanets.nu/discussion/race-positions-in-completed-games

It may make sense for the birds or something but not all cloaking races.

capnkill - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 10:22 PM

Well first of all that is what the default was for the original VGAP games.

Second of all, this is a game that should be decided by strategy not a random factor that can screw you over.

Privateers spend hours on their turns, meticulously plotting and planning every move, and when a plan that you spent hours on goes to complete waste because of a 1% cloak failure, then that can be insanely frustrating.

This isn't a victory the privateer opponent has earned, it is simply them getting lucky.

I'm on turn 50 in one of my games, and I get a failure almost every turn. I just pray that the failure isn't to a ship that is performing a critical operation.

How bout a 1% chance that your fighter bays don't open when you fight? How bout a 1% chance that your ship simply doesn't move because its engine fails... or a 1% chance that your torpedo tubes don't work... Its unnecessary.

coldsteel - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 10:25 PM

Well actually the torpedo firing time and the fighter bay release time are stochastic.

mjs68508 - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 11:58 PM

I can go either way. One the one hand, in real war, chance occurances way more frequently than happen in VGAP. On the other hand, I prefer a more chess-like approach with less randomness that the new way provides.

What I always found curious is the point capnkill brought up: If the special ability of cloaking has a 1% failure rate, why not all special abilities???

1% chance of:
1. Failure to chunnel.
2. Failure to Dark Sense (and failure = loss of 10 crew, even if ship becomes unowned (Datk Sense dude goes crazy and kills people).)
3. Failure to build free fighters (failure = damage % of the number of fighters that would have been built, preceeded by jettisoning all cargo and movind 5 lyr off planet.)
4. Hiss backfires and happiness is lost rather than gained.
5. Failure to super refit = destroyed ship.
6. Crystal minefields can fail and self destruct giving every ship, even crystal, 10 pts damage.

etc.

On the other hand, it is never a good idea to help the Privateers. They don't rape, kill, and pillage like good soldiers. They are a bunch of thieves! (Then they rape, kill, and pillage).

Anonymous - Thursday, September 29, 2011 4:32 AM

These changes are consistent with the mission statement of Nu - to reproduce the original game.

rudel - Thursday, September 29, 2011 4:50 PM

I just wanted to underline how much I hate cloak failure. A perfectly planned turn - involving several fleets coming from different directions - got completely ruined today because the key ship decided that it's a good time for a cloak failure.

That's really no fun. It's like playing chess and one turn before check-mate your opponent gets a free turn out of nowhere.

But I guess you will not change those rules for running games...

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