Star Army

Star ArmyⓇ is a landmark of forum roleplaying. Opened in 2002, Star Army is like an internet clubhouse for people who love roleplaying, art, and worldbuilding. Anyone 18 or older may join for free. New members are welcome! Use the "Register" button below.

Note: This is a play-by-post RPG site. If you're looking for the tabletop miniatures wargame "5150: Star Army" instead, see Two Hour Wargames.

  • If you were supposed to get an email from the forum but didn't (e.g. to verify your account for registration), email Wes at [email protected] or talk to me on Discord for help. Sometimes the server hits our limit of emails we can send per hour.
  • Get in our Discord chat! Discord.gg/stararmy
  • 📅 October and November 2024 are YE 46.8 in the RP.

Tech Wars 101: The Issue and Discussion

When someone says present facts Zack is means show some proof. Sitting there saying "I was right it's facts" doesn't prove you were right, you just sound like a kid whining. Also it wasn't unilateral, he got Wes' approval to do so, which means Wes deemed that it was a necessary or reasonable change.

Also a large portion of the people didn't like the 8 weapon limit. It's just that at the time that was the best we could think of so we stuck with it. Now there's a chance to make something better.
 
Considering how few fucks I give about Zack's opinion anyways, especially how he's sidetracking this thread in fingerpointing rather than actual constructive discourse, it'd be nice to move on from what has devolved into a pissing contest.

Now there's a chance to make something better.
Exactly. Someone gets it. Yay.
 
Last edited:
Fingerpointing at the person who is making rules changes without submitting them?

Pointing out this same person does not have a track record of fair play when it comes to rules changes?

Pointing out that their previous rules changes have rarely had the desired effect?

I'm ok with that. How about we just make DRv3 optional and be done with it?
 
Fingerpointing at the person who is making rules changes without submitting them?

Pointing out this same person does not have a track record of fair play when it comes to rules changes?

Pointing out that their previous rules changes have rarely had the desired effect?

I'm ok with that. How about we just make DRv3 optional and be done with it?
Changes were submitted.

This isn't the topic for that discussion, your track record for 'fairness' is worse than Fred's, see the 100 something gun satellite you tried to build.

Also you've been banned from the site previously, so your record is much worse.

Trial and Error is a thing, I'd be amazed if Fred could create rules that didn't need modifying or tweaking.

Your systems likely wouldn't have had the desired effect either, just they don't last long enough do to popularity in the first place for us to see how bad they do.

DRv3's merit has not changed. We simply just need a separate ship building system. But the fact that the damage definitions in V3 are superior to V2 has not changed, nor has the need for damage definitions changed.
 
DRv3 is superior for damage calculation. It can not be optional. However, @Zack, I highly diapprove of your frankly toxic behavior here. You don't listen to anyone, and then claim that what they say is invalid or illogical or wrong in order to justify your ignoring them.

However, all this aside, it still stands. We need a system for shipbuilding that works with DRv3 and I think that as someone intimately familiar with it, @FrostJaeger should be the one to make it.
 
You shouldn't unilaterally change the rules. You were in the wrong to do so. DRv3 removed a lot of features that had been put in place with DRv2, and we shouldn't have to keep fixing parts of the rules just because Fred doesn't like them.
Wes wanted that change. Fred did the asking, but Wes wanted it.

If you paid attention to anything but yourself, you'd know that.

You don't. That's another reason your ideas get shot down and crushed, and it's why you keep losing whenever you try for a setting-wide change.

Start paying attention.
 
Iirc my ideas get shot down because you don't know the site rules, and I have to have someone else step in to tell you what the site rules are because you won't listen to my explanations.

Wes wanting it, or agreeing with Fred, doesn't mean it is a good idea.

Being able to say how many weapons go on a submission is a huge benifit to reviewers and tech submitters. Both have a direct guideline to meet. DRv3 has a long way to go sure, but a weak guideline can constantly be improved upon where no guideline can't.

Removing this guideline will make the NTSE worse.
 
Iirc my ideas get shot down because you don't know the site rules, and I have to have someone else step in to tell you what the site rules are because you won't listen to my explanations.

Wes wanting it, or agreeing with Fred, doesn't mean it is a good idea.

Being able to say how many weapons go on a submission is a huge benifit to reviewers and tech submitters. Both have a direct guideline to meet. DRv3 has a long way to go sure, but a weak guideline can constantly be improved upon where no guideline can't.

Removing this guideline will make the NTSE worse.
Do you have some kind of mental block preventing you from understanding the words people say. We have said at least 3 times, that a ship building system can be made or is in the works. Yet you still some how do not get that there are not "no regulations" but rather this is being used as a time to implement new regulations. Also I can tell you, if your ideas were actually as good as you claim, they'd have been implemented. The site isn't foolish enough to let a good idea disappear just because someone like you made it. The problem here is you think everything that comes out of your mouth is a great idea so you can't tell the difference between the good the okay, and the actually poor ideas.
 
A ship-building oriented article not on the DRv3 page actually has a few benefits.

For instance, DRv3 is blind to rate of fire. But clearly it's a recurrent concern with NTSE submissions. Especially with consideration of what cropped up recently: missile launchers able to spew large amounts of single-shot missiles in contrast to single-shot launchers with larger ammo stores. such an article may be able to take that into account... though it's my hope that it doesn't get too granular like what's been tried before; I believe best to curtail outliers while not limiting freedom of design.
 
Both rate of fire and missile weapon concerns were something that we brought up as problems with DRv3 when DRv3 was proposed. This is something DRv2 had already solved by treating weapon damage as a per round thing.


Certainly people realize it is a problem now, and a fix is slowly being applied through NTSE mods figuring out how they want to handle this.

How many weapons can go on a ship was a problem in the last DR system and DRv3 solved that. There is no reason to just bring back that old problem.
 
Both rate of fire and missile weapon concerns were something that we brought up as problems with DRv3 when DRv3 was proposed. This is something DRv2 had already solved by treating weapon damage as a per round thing.


Certainly people realize it is a problem now, and a fix is slowly being applied through NTSE mods figuring out how they want to handle this.

How many weapons can go on a ship was a problem in the last DR system and DRv3 solved that. There is no reason to just bring back that old problem.
'Cept in DRv2 no one was really sure if it was per 'round' or per 'attack' and things were all wonky with that. And the problem isn't being brought back. A new separate system is being made, that will likely take that into account. If you can't listen and get back on track I'm going to start asking staff if you can be barred from speaking here cause all you're doing is being toxic.
 
And the system can be just like I had written it in the DRv3 page as a stopgap measure, if something is absolutely needed right now.
 
There should be a discussion before stuff is removed from site wide rules like this. Especially something as contentious as the DR system.

If there is to be a replacement system, certainly we should wait until that system is out before removing the old system.

DRv3 replaced the DRv2 shipbuilding systems so like it or not it is the shipbuilding system now since it is what the NTSE staff have to use.
 
This calls for "confused lego John Travolta"
amedia.giphy.com_media_rCAVWjzASyNlm_giphy.gif
*looks at this thread*
*looks at other submissions and threads where the inadequacies were discussed, markedly by Zack*
*looks at the DRv3 submission thread, where the point was aired and that Wes concurred, with no counter-opinion raised*

Huh.
 

Attachments

  • amedia.giphy.com_media_rCAVWjzASyNlm_giphy.gif
    amedia.giphy.com_media_rCAVWjzASyNlm_giphy.gif
    913.5 KB · Views: 0
Iirc my ideas get shot down because you don't know the site rules, and I have to have someone else step in to tell you what the site rules are because you won't listen to my explanations.

Wes wanting it, or agreeing with Fred, doesn't mean it is a good idea.

Being able to say how many weapons go on a submission is a huge benifit to reviewers and tech submitters. Both have a direct guideline to meet. DRv3 has a long way to go sure, but a weak guideline can constantly be improved upon where no guideline can't.

Removing this guideline will make the NTSE worse.
Goddamit zack, stop this!

Your ego is getting in your way and your foot is planted firmly in your mouth.
 
The old 'rate of fire and damage are combined into one' thing didn't work. It didn't tell you how much damage one shot from a rapid-fire weapon did, only one burst of vague length, while single-shot weapons could have a rate of fire of less than one without being given low damage statistics to go with it. And at the end, the hit point-based system made armour mostly useless, which caused all kinds of problems.

I've already said this, but the solution to people racing to put more weapons on things isn't an explicit point-buy system. The root problem is the misconception that more is always better. So long as we understand that a ship made out of nothing but weapons will perform incompetently, and the more absurd a design is the less effective it is, there won't be any motivation to come up with absurd designs.

A pointbuy system could easily backfire, by convincing people that so long as they could figure out how to game the system, they'd be able to make a more effective ship by through bizzare min/maxing, even though it's common sense that this would result in a less effective ship. I think we need to rely more on judgement and basic principles than on precise rules.

Ships are designed for a purpose, and we can assume that competent ship-builders are already optimizing their designs. We don't have to do it for them. All we need to deal with is deciding where their strengths are and when they meet against weaknesses.
 
Single shot vs burst could be solved with either different DR values or just leaving it the same DR either way. Certainly a not great solution but it was still a solution.

A ship that is all weapons would certainly be worse in other areas but by how much? What about trading armor for speed? What you are asking for is a point buy system, like it or not they are amazing for this sort of thing.

If people want to min max and make a slow ship with lots of weapons then let them? Is that really so bad? We'd end up with defensive ships that are like turtles, fast interceptors and blockade runners, well rounded cruisers.

With the 8 weapon restriction everyone basically gets a very samey ship to any other ship at the same level... Which is fine, it is fair, it prevents personal feelings from affecting submissions, and it stops a lot of the problems with people worrying that things are overpowered because everyone ends up at the same level.

Moving to a pure personal judgement based system will just magnify the problems with everyone feeling that things are unfair because you actually are just making it up as you go along which means things are going to be unfair. Approval could depend on what mod you get, how they are feeling that day, or just how your writing style makes your weapon seem.
 
A ship that is all weapons wouldn't just be worse in other areas, it would be worse in the one area it's specialized in (assuming your goal is to fight and kill, not to just have weapons). There's synergy between different systems, an effective warship needs armour, sensors, fire control, C&C, ECM, ECCM, the ability to deploy and maneuver, damage control, redundancy, damage absorption, enough power to fire all those weapons, the ability to sink heat from all those weapons, ammunition, maintenance, point defense, staying power, a reasonable price and a suite of offensive weapons. You're making a lot of sacrifices when you give up several of these for the sake of more weapons.

And I think I just explained why a comprehensive point buy system would be maddening, while I was at it. Instead of trying to figure out the perfect balance, we should look at what we already accept are plausible ships, the ones that we've accepted as part of the genre all along.

If people want to make a slow ship with lots of weapons, yes, we can let them. We don't have to reward or punish them with a point-buy system, though, we can instead just assume that all else being equal, a system defense vessel or monitor will be more potent than a fast attack craft if they, for some reason, duel it out in a slug-match. In practice, ships are designed for a purpose and ships that aren't used the way they're meant to be used should be at a disadvantage. There's many factors to consider.

It's the solution, not the problem, if we make it clear what ships are meant for and how well-designed they are when they're approved and then use our judgement on how they interact, later. If we don't agree, if one person thinks a design should work great and another thinks it's absurd, then the issue is that we never agreed on it, not that we didn't come up with strict rules.
 
RPG-D RPGfix
Back
Top