Ur Lord Tedric

I thank you all for your kind words - but this was not a betrayl of information or military action - you are all thinking of the 'obvious'. No names, no pack drill..... There was the big, all encompassing, alliance of vision and purpose... There was also the regional alliance of which the Star League was a part. I was very lucky to finally meet up with people who were in both. With unified vision and purpose we meshed the research and economics of our local empires to our mutual benefit. We committed ourselves to the eradication of the Evil One - our enemy MMB After 4 years and over two of complete synergy, there are whole tech lines that the Star League haven't researched, because they received them in trade. Whilst there had existed some moderate amount of tension as exists in any such alliance of equals over those two years, we had bound ourselves in loyalty. Now, this is only a game when all is said and done, but it is a very long and very expensive game. 1000's of real dollars and 100's of man-hours spent on it. Real life will always take priority - but no RL exigency (certainly in my world) would result in a terse general message that you were dropping everything you had committed yourself too - passing one empire to an almost unknown person and others just dropped - without some effort to mitigate the effect and at least communicate with those you have unified yourself with for so long. But this is what happened to the Star League. The empire is completely intact - there is nothing at all wrong with it - except that it is now unplayable in that condition. All my efforts over those years were just dumped on. I committed myself, perhaps too much, to the alliance vision I was sold nearly 4 years ago, by one player who was such a visionary. I had assumed that those who joined him with me and to whom I bound myself were also so committed. It seems I was wrong - and it only took one person's actions to prove so. Only friends can cause so much damage. It is not the fact that the empire was summarily trashed - it was the way it was done. The fact that this person can happily continue in the game with other positions is even worse..... I can no longer give freely of my skills and total loyalty to the pan-alliance to which I was a part when my own personal reason for playing was so treated. I can no longer justify the spending of additional 100's of dollars in trying to bring the Star League back to the level it had already achieved once through co-operation. Those who truly co-operate will survive the longest in this game - but I will never again be able to trust someone else enough as they could trust me and thus there is no more reason to play for me. Equally, many people trusted me with their information and thus I will not play at all in case there was any danger, or even thought that I could compromise my integrity. For words like honour, loyalty and integrity mean something to me - sadly it doesn't seem to work both ways...... Sincerely Mark

It is time to say farewell to a game I have loved for nearly 4 years. My thanks to Pete & Russ for continuing to keep it going through all their own difficulties. It is a wonderfully complex and deep game, even with the occasional glitch , and I know of nothing out there to match it. It is not a game for the faint-hearted by any means. I spent 4 years on it and would have spent at least 6 more had that proved possible. I joined a wonderfully visionary alliance and made many new aquaintances, some of whom I've even now managed to meet in person. I was also given trust by a great many of them and have subsequently been given masses of turnsheets of data for which I thank them. It certainly allowed me to appreciate what Pete has done even more. But I did embrace the game completely and dedicated my main empire to the goals of that alliance. Sadly it therefore became vulnerable. The absolute best way to play this game is in co-operation. Some are just lucky, or have sadly swapped empires, to enable themselves to 'play with themselves', but it is much more interesting to have true multi-player play. However, it only then takes one player to throw a temper tantrum and make your empire unplayable. However, I must return the trust given to me with honour and loyalty and thus I must bar myself from playing, in case I could ever be lead into abusing that trust. Thus it is farewell. I may, when the shock of what has happened in the last week fades, look in on these boards every now and again to see how you all fare. To those of you who have made the game so interesting over the last 4 years, and again to Pete and Russ, I thank you. It may only be a game - but, my goodness, what a game. Regards Mark Requiem In Pace Ur-Lord Tedric and the entire Conclave of the Star League Stabbed in the back........ Also - Clan Elder Giff'ar and the Nest of the Valar'i

Well, whilst I'd really like mine... I'm kinda hoping our Pete is now properly asleep and we'll just have to wait. However, I strongly suspect something is awry as he would almost definitely have told us Mx

And more.... The build cost for SFGs certainly is very odd..... It has twice the BSG and twice the Computer requirements that the simple 5 x Mass normally assigned to components would lead us to expect. Halving those, would certainly make a difference, even if the defense mitigation provided wasn't to be raised at all.... Chief Planner to Ur-Lord Tedric

Thanks for getting back to us so quickly! Sadly, we do have to agree with the EDAC assessment, it is incredibly effective in its current form - as, indeed, a number of battles have shown, but hopefully without significant effect. If we may, however, as you have already been looking at the SFGs and having done a good bit of analysis recently.....we would ask that you might possibly reconsider 'tweaking' them just a bit as they are so important. Whilst they do indeed cover all the damage vectors, the values are a little low - especially when considering the actual build costs - nearly, sometimes more than, 10x as much as other defences for equivalent tonnage!!! Yours, Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric

Dear Oracle, We've now looked more closely at a number of battles that have occurred since the changes to the reports - and contain some simple designs..... For all sensors, EDAC, Defense Screens, etc perused the numbers are consistent. And we are now fairly confident that we have answered our own query - and are afraid that the example in the Naval Combat document is indeed in error. The '250,000' should actually be 25,000 and therefore all the following sums and examples are wrong..... The 10 x Type A BSG will actually produce a Mitigation of 0.5 and not 5... Thus will reduce the incoming Plasma FP by 33.40% (most numbers seen seem to round up) and not the 83.4% shown...... Please could you confirm this and edit a copy of the Naval Combat document? Unfortunately the whole remaining example of fitting or not fitting also therefore contains false conclusions..... Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric + Sundry Mathematicians

To the Great Oracle and Author of the Naval Combat Document: The following is an extract from the document in the example of the Defensive Systems and the Excalibur... Now, the bolded bit is ours..... Now we have the ANZ details, we can see that the Type A BSG has a Black Sphere Generator Strength of 25,000 - not the 250,000 that appears in the example above. Our question is simple - is there a 10x multiplication factor that we need to be aware of and could actually be applied to every figure we see in the ANZs? Or is the above example wrong? As it stands - having 10% of your ship with Type A BSGs (the first generation of such) gives a Defense Mitigation of 83.33% - which is very impressive. If the 10x factor is taken out, it changes the '5' in the example to 0.5 - which would give a Defense Mitigation of 33.33% - which, whilst not as good, is still pretty damn good. And, whilst we're on the subject of defense.... Has your recent information on the Mitigation Factor of Manoeverability being limited to 8, and no higher, had any effect on the Agility vs Missile/Torpedo Range Table given on the next page? If either prompts a change, could this please be incorporated into the document and the link updated - especially for all the new guys? Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric and all at the War College

Well - I hope that Pete's happy to let things run and has gone to bed now... We'll just have to be patient! Mx

Late September is the time for anniversary goodies - not before.....

No - please, no.... A single list of the stockpiles is just great - this is the only thing wanted to print out and enter in the spreadsheets...we just need the unemployed pop in the same place. Save the trees!!!!!!!!!

Wow! Forum necromancy at it's best!!! We still use this all the time in trade planning...... Chief Planner to Ur-Lord Tedric

Thanks for the update Russ, We'll all try to be patient this side of the Pond... I just hope you're able to get it out before all your side wake up! However, sleep is also important - we have 10 days!!!! Mx

If we may request a tiny tweak... If the Unemployed Pop and the Owning Empire columns could be swapped from the Installations Report to and from the Stockpiles report, that would be great. It's the Stockpiles we need every turn - and that's where we need the Pop that can be used. Indeed the establishing empire is a little confusing, but overall it's a great change - especially the Fleet reports Many thanks Chief Planner to Ur-Lord Tedric

Ah - that's happened once or twice to our knowledge... There is a 'limit' over how many rounds a battle will go - but it's a 'soft' limit rather than a hard limit. The Great Oracle can step in when a battle seems to be going on a very long time and slowing down the processing. In this case, we suspect, with 3 small 1st Gen weapons firing from DL7 and thus degraded by 50%, coupled with the defensive advantage of the enemy ship being at DL7 (a further 30% defensive bonus) - the amount of damage to the unarmed ship only accumulated very slowly and the battle lasted round after round - lets assume 300 for the sake of argument, which resulted in 'Heavy Damage'. At this point the 'captain' of the surveyor managed to extricate himself.... Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric

EAF has long been broken - and still is. We have one to sort out too, it just hasn't been a priority.... Also the RN division of Fighters remains an issue - again we're just waiting for a set of RNs to complete and then we'll be sending a list of changes Chief Planner to Ur-Lord Tedric