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Repair after gating loophole Mon, 23 June 2008 07:47 Go to next message
Micha

 

Messages: 2343
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1
The help file states that a fleet does not get any repair in the year it travels by gate. However there is a loophole.

In the Stars! Order of Events you'll see that the WP1 merge order is carried out *before* repair. This leads to the following: when you gate a fleet# A and give it a WP1 merge order at the destination with a stationary fleet# B the damaged ships in fleet# A (damage either from previous battles, either from overgating) *will* get repaired. Stars! looks for fleet#s that have moved and obviously fleet# A no longer exists.


The repair % depends on the normal rules: does the planet has a dock, does the fleet you merge into holds a SFX etc and of course if you have a battle at the planet where the fleet is gating to there will be *no* repair.


Reason to bring this item into the open is that in recent games the question has been raised if this is a bug or feature, if this should be banned or not. I will leave that to the host of each game, the intention of this post is to inform and to level the playing field since it appears not everyone knows about this possibility.

I'm adding this loophole to the Bug section and will leave it upto the hosts to allow or disallow it in their game announcements. Feel free to post arguments pro and contra. (And if anyone has a fancy name for it, let's here it. <g>)

mch

{edit: spelling}

[Updated on: Mon, 28 July 2008 16:17]

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Mon, 23 June 2008 09:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
Chief Warrant Officer 3

Messages: 182
Registered: June 2008
Where do you get the low-down on the inner workings of the game? Can you give me a link?


The goat whats YOU.

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Mon, 23 June 2008 10:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

Messages: 2343
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1
beanspoon wrote on Mon, 23 June 2008 15:13

Where do you get the low-down on the inner workings of the game? Can you give me a link?

A lot of information has been collected over the years by many people. What you Must Know you can find in the Must Know section of this forum. Wink

mch

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Mon, 23 June 2008 10:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
beanspoon is currently offline beanspoon

 
Chief Warrant Officer 3

Messages: 182
Registered: June 2008
Micha wrote on Mon, 23 June 2008 10:11


A lot of information has been collected over the years by many people. What you Must Know you can find in the Must Know section of this forum. Wink


Ah the mysterious Must Know forum, how we adore thee... UFO abduction

It's just I'm attempting over this summer to start writing a clone of stars! and so I need an in-depth view of its workings.



The goat whats YOU.

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Mon, 23 June 2008 10:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

Messages: 2343
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1
beanspoon wrote on Mon, 23 June 2008 16:38

It's just I'm attempting over this summer to start writing a clone of stars! and so I need an in-depth view of its workings.

Ah, I though you were looking for the SOoE and such, however in this case check the FreeStars forum! Nod

mch

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Mon, 23 June 2008 11:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
bigcanuknaz is currently offline bigcanuknaz

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year

Messages: 205
Registered: July 2004
I often use the "merge and repair" feature. I go so far as to try to have a SFX merged with my minelayer at potential destination merge points, so I have some mass to merge with, and the extra repair of the SFX.

I think it would be impractical to ban this feature as a cheat.

1. The extra micromanagement of merging by hand the next turn, versus using the feature would not be too bad.

but..

2. The additional fleets would *often* in my case, cause me to go over the 512 fleet limit. This causes a whole new *huge* set of micromanagement problems of having a ship stationed at *every* planet, so new production can be merged with that ship rather than lost. And then the effort of splitting all those ships from the planet covers, and sending them where they are needed.

As everyone can use this "feature" what is the rational of trying to brand it a cheat?

Using it as a feature slightly increases the utility of IT, from the point of view of no ships lost overgating, but increases the utility of all other races (except HE), when repairing higher overgating damage. I'm not sure if there is any net gain here.

Thus:

1. All races can use it equally (except HE)
2. It is not unbalancing in game play
3. It avoids over 512 fleet micromanagement

So I think this feature should not be labeled as a cheat.

naz

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Mon, 23 June 2008 11:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

Messages: 2343
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1
bigcanuknaz wrote on Mon, 23 June 2008 17:05

I often use the "merge and repair" feature. I go so far as to try to have a SFX merged with my minelayer at potential destination merge points, so I have some mass to merge with, and the extra repair of the SFX.


Same here. Since years I have fleets stationed at most of my planets called "* M+R Columbus" or whatever planet name, meaning "Merge+Repair" (the M also stands for Minelaying), those fleets contain one or more MLs and SFX. (The * is there so the fleets show up on top of the fleet report.)

Quote:

I think it would be impractical to ban this feature as a cheat.

Personally I feel the same way.

Quote:

1. The extra micromanagement of merging by hand the next turn, versus using the feature would not be too bad.

but..

2. The additional fleets would *often* in my case, cause me to go over the 512 fleet limit. This causes a whole new *huge* set of micromanagement problems of having a ship stationed at *every* planet, so new production can be merged with that ship rather than lost. And then the effort of splitting all those ships from the planet covers, and sending them where they are needed.

Merging on arrival does not help against going over the 512 limit. Merging happens after production. So during the production phase your fleets aren't merged yet. Or maybe I misunderstand and you mean something else ... ?

Quote:

As everyone can use this "feature" what is the rational of trying to brand it a cheat?

This is the main reason of my first post. To make sure as more people know about it, like I said: to level the playing field.

IMHO it's more hassle to forbid it, to control it and adds more MM than just to allow it. Especially for the old-timers with rusty playstyles. Wink

mch

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Mon, 23 June 2008 11:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
vonKreedon is currently offline vonKreedon

 
Lieutenant

Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA
Chiming in to "me too" on both using this feature and thinking that trying to ban it would be a bad idea.

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Mon, 23 June 2008 13:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
perrindom is currently offline perrindom

 

Messages: 129
Registered: August 2005
Location: Denmark
One more thing to, perhaps, level the field:

There is the tactical aspect of merging: I always do it to make it harder to trace/target my ships just gated in.

Bystander told me that you can partly(?) overcome this by setting battle orders to e.g. "transports" as primary target to get a better chance of following his transports rather than going to the planet. True? and is it documented somewhere?

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Mon, 23 June 2008 15:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Micha

 

Messages: 2343
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1
perrindom wrote on Mon, 23 June 2008 19:51

One more thing to, perhaps, level the field:

There is the tactical aspect of merging: I always do it to make it harder to trace/target my ships just gated in.

Bystander told me that you can partly(?) overcome this by setting battle orders to e.g. "transports" as primary target to get a better chance of following his transports rather than going to the planet. True? and is it documented somewhere?

This is more about the split fleet dodge than the merge bug, afterall if you are merging to dodge you can simply merge everything the next turn and split all up again. Please keep that for another topic. Any further replies on this will be split off.

mch,
modaw

[Updated on: Mon, 23 June 2008 15:00]

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Mon, 23 June 2008 18:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
gible

 
Commander

Messages: 1344
Registered: November 2002
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

I'm amused...this bug/feature has been known about and not in the bugs list for a long time...long enough that I noted it in the Standard_Cheats_Disclaimer and didn't add it myself.

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Gate Relief Wed, 25 June 2008 10:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
neilhoward

 
Commander

Messages: 1112
Registered: April 2008
Location: SW3 & 10023
Makes perfect sense to me. I certainly don't consider this cheating. I would classify it as an exploit rather than a "bug".


By the time you realize how steep the curve is, you will be using five types of calculus to get to the market. You will then need three different calculators to perform what you once considered basic arithmetic.

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Thu, 26 June 2008 18:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
bigcanuknaz is currently offline bigcanuknaz

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year

Messages: 205
Registered: July 2004
Micha wrote on Mon, 23 June 2008 11:23


Merging on arrival does not help against going over the 512 limit. Merging happens after production. So during the production phase your fleets aren't merged yet. Or maybe I misunderstand and you mean something else ... ?




Oops... I got that backward. (Been a while since I was battling with too many fleets.)

I guess it only helps by leaving you with less than 512 fleets when you open your turn, so it is easier to split fleets as you go, rather than having to go through all the planets merging first.

But I know it does make life easier when production is merging with planet covers.

naz

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Re: Repair after gating loophole Mon, 28 July 2008 16:19 Go to previous message
Micha

 

Messages: 2343
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1
gible wrote on Tue, 24 June 2008 00:59

I'm amused...this bug/feature has been known about and not in the bugs list for a long time...long enough that I noted it in the Standard_Cheats_Disclaimer and didn't add it myself.

It's now added to the Known Bug list, maybe it should be added to the SCD as well. Wink

mch

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