PA trying to get rid of external tools ?

[kaos]

From the recent news, some personal talks and some rumors it seems that one of the aims for Round 10 seems to be to kill off external tools (either private or public).

1. Scan parsers:
From what i got told you will be able to store scans ingame.

2. Battlecalc:
The new Combat scene sounds like calcing will be impossible because of the many possibilities of fleet targets, etc

3. Stats (maybe. I aint sure if i am remembering right here):
Creators even want to integrate stats into the game (or maybe only allow the *cough* superb *cough* public tools, like i was threatened with already), which would finally kill the last use of any public tools

4. Ingame alliances:
Well, the info i could get makes me feel kinda mad. As far as i got all correct they want to put _every_ aspect of an ally into the game like memberlists, defece stats, etc blabla


Well, i am not here to judge these actions, but what this game has always been shown is that the community can do most of this stuff as least as good as the creators or even better. And instead of doing stuff which many ppl wouldn't really accept, they should focus on more important things like finally SECURING the game against bots (oh well, the new login questions sooo hard to get past and even the old ones were relativly easy to 'crack' as well [actually the most hard thing would be the ocr, but even thats very simple]), protecting newbies and all that stuff which is _really_ important (not even to mention customer care).

All this lets me really see this game finally losing its old community it once had.

[Hicks]

If it's anything like their great toolkit I doubt you have anything to worry about kaos

[coza]

Dude, I Think they are scared of the success pilkara has
and mits failed to make anything like it for pa. :P

i dont know why u dont just code pa u could prolly do a better j0b ;P
and would prolly make it like the old days

[kaos]

Originally posted by coza
Dude, I Think they are scared of the success pilkara has
and mits failed to make anything like it for pa. :P

i dont know why u dont just code pa u could prolly do a better j0b ;P
and would prolly make it like the old days

hehe, well, if i had time maybe but there is still lh etc (actually pilkara might be there for lh in the future) so i didn't bother

[at0mic.c0w]

they are probaly gonna put it all onto the portal

[KaneED]

OH NO THEY'RE LOSING ALL THAT MONEY.

COME ON GUYS

WTF

[Cochese]

Originally posted by kaos
From the recent news, some personal talks and some rumors it seems that one of the aims for Round 10 seems to be to kill off external tools (either private or public)

What's wrong with that? I'd prefer to have these things in-game, rather than having to use a 3rd party website.

1. Scan parsers:
From what i got told you will be able to store scans ingame

It makes sense, and should have been done a long time ago. This is more convenience than an attempt to cut out Pilkara etc.

2. Battlecalc:
The new Combat scene sounds like calcing will be impossible because of the many possibilities of fleet targets, etc

This is bad how? It makes the game interesting, because you don't know exactly what will happen in any given combat.

Nothing to do with putting toolsites out of business; more to do with making actual thought a part of the game again, instead of just putting numbers into a calc, then launching the 'best' fleet.

3. Stats (maybe. I aint sure if i am remembering right here):
Creators even want to integrate stats into the game (or maybe only allow the *cough* superb *cough* public tools, like i was threatened with already), which would finally kill the last use of any public tools

I don't recall hearing anything about this, but like stored scans, it should have been implemented long ago. People want detailed stats, and they shouldn't have to use a 3rd party site to see such information.

I can see your point on this issue, but again, it should have been an in-game feature long ago.

4. Ingame alliances:
Well, the info i could get makes me feel kinda mad. As far as i got all correct they want to put _every_ aspect of an ally into the game like memberlists, defece stats, etc blabla

The details here are unknown at present...in any case, the only aspect of this that would affect toolsites is c/p ranking(?), perhaps things like "top owned" etc (unless that falls under 3, stats)

Well, i am not here to judge these actions, but what this game has always been shown is that the community can do most of this stuff as least as good as the creators or even better.

It's not because of "competition" with 3rd party sites they are making these changes, but rather, the reason these sites exist in the first place: such features aren't available in-game, and they should be--their popularity has proven round and round again, that people need/use this type of information.

I see Pilkara as being an important "crutch" for Planetarion; it has all the resources players need, that aren't provided for them by Planetarion. Adding these things in-game is just common sense...and if Pilkara is better than anything the Creators can come up with, then it will still be used.

Don't take it personally...it's not an attack against Pilkara or anyone else. It's simply Planetarion realizing they have failed to provide all necessary resources for playing the game, and resolving that situation.

And instead of doing stuff which many ppl wouldn't really accept, they should focus on more important things like finally SECURING the game against bots (oh well, the new login questions sooo hard to get past and even the old ones were relativly easy to 'crack' as well [actually the most hard thing would be the ocr, but even thats very simple])

If you have a more productive method of bot stopping, why not make one, and SHOW the Creators it's effectiveness, much like Pilkara showed them the need for tools? Complaining about it without providing an alternative, or constructive criticism, doesn't help your argument any.

protecting newbies and all that stuff which is _really_ important (not even to mention customer care)

What newbies? There haven't been enough newbies in this game, to merit creating protection for such a group, in several rounds now. The issue, as far as I can tell, has been addressed for r10--I believe, they expect to see an influx of new players (to what extent, I don't know), and have taken newbies/casual players into consideration during development.

Their customer service area has always been fairly rusty, but having worked in customer service for a large corporation myself, it's not "fun", or "easy", and certainly not something people enjoy doing for free. Point taken though.

All this lets me really see this game finally losing its old community it once had.

The community has dwindled since r5...and has extremely little to do with tool sites, but rather, p2p. Perhaps the coding community within the Planetarion community has dwindled, but I wouldn't know about such things, only decreases in players generally.

I fail to see any relevance here.

[Gerbie]

Originally posted by kaos
From the recent news, some personal talks and some rumors it seems that one of the aims for Round 10 seems to be to kill off external tools (either private or public).

1. Scan parsers:
From what i got told you will be able to store scans ingame.

2. Battlecalc:
The new Combat scene sounds like calcing will be impossible because of the many possibilities of fleet targets, etc

3. Stats (maybe. I aint sure if i am remembering right here):
Creators even want to integrate stats into the game (or maybe only allow the *cough* superb *cough* public tools, like i was threatened with already), which would finally kill the last use of any public tools

4. Ingame alliances:
Well, the info i could get makes me feel kinda mad. As far as i got all correct they want to put _every_ aspect of an ally into the game like memberlists, defece stats, etc blabla

1. Scan parsers
Some external scan parsers used by alliances offer more options then I think PA team will create (links to databases/tools). It will reduce their use, but not end it.

2. Battle calc
Even if you make it more difficult: people will try to get a tool to help them. Alliances can seriously benifit from such tools. Even if they succeed only half.

3. Stats
See #2.

4. Ingame alliances
PA team told us it would be more like the alliance tagging system used now. Thus Alliance websites will still be used and will have added value for their members. I expect AH to continue to exist separately for the smaller alliances which have less technical resources.

[Mushroom]

this again

[pablissimo]

What Cochese said.

Holy hell, doesn't take much to get a panic going on this forum, does it?

[General Martok]

For the paranoids under us this is a good thing, but i cincearely (spelling anyone? ) doubt their tools can outclass the current 3rd party tools, since they simply dont have the time to make them, since they should concentrate on the game itself.

And about saving scans ingame: that has been possible since R1, the journal

About the alliance website thingy I have my doubts. This will be a very good thing for the smaller/beginning alliances who don't have some 1337 techies to make their site, but it also takes away an advantage away from those alliances who DO have such people. Most of them spend incredible amounths of time in it, with sites coupled to their private ircserver etc, and they wont be happy that their sites won't be used anymore. Or the other way around: allainces with a great site may refuse to intesively use the build-in alliances site. But doing that may cause certain disadvantages, not announced yet.

[kaos]

Originally posted by Cochese
What's wrong with that? I'd prefer to have these things in-game, rather than having to use a 3rd party website.



It makes sense, and should have been done a long time ago. This is more convenience than an attempt to cut out Pilkara etc.

[snip]

Well, i agree and disagree with you there.
I agree in the point that stuff should be ingame since a long time.
but the past has shown that there is _always_ someone who can do such things better than the creators / pacrew (just due to better knowledge or just more time, and imho creators shouldn't have to care about stuff like fancy graphs or stuff, because such stuff just eats up lots of time)

It's not because of "competition" with 3rd party sites they are making these changes, but rather, the reason these sites exist in the first place: such features aren't available in-game, and they should be--their popularity has proven round and round again, that people need/use this type of information.

I see Pilkara as being an important "crutch" for Planetarion; it has all the resources players need, that aren't provided for them by Planetarion. Adding these things in-game is just common sense...and if Pilkara is better than anything the Creators can come up with, then it will still be used.

Don't take it personally...it's not an attack against Pilkara or anyone else. It's simply Planetarion realizing they have failed to provide all necessary resources for playing the game, and resolving that situation.

oh well, they have even tried to control pilkara more than once
(good example: my 1. april joke with the allies ranking at startpage, see following pm:
-23:53:03- <Prince> then take the bs off pilara
-23:53:42- <Prince> Elysium 999k 999M 100% 100%
), threatened me with taking dumps down, etc so i kinda see this as 'competition' or whatever

If you have a more productive method of bot stopping, why not make one, and SHOW the Creators it's effectiveness, much like Pilkara showed them the need for tools? Complaining about it without providing an alternative, or constructive criticism, doesn't help your argument any.

eerrm, come on. using a fixed font for login questions ... what a competition. last rounds login questiosn were even a _bit_ hard to guess for a bit, but this rounds questions are just *lol* you just need to be able to do 2 things: calcing or getting the right text into the box, last round it was a bit harder, but still not impossible (if a word occured 2 times in the text you could be very sure it was the answer etc)
and if you would care i think i could have a _complete_ collection of urls and answers to the urls (i didn't check but i highly doubt that the images are dynamic so the same question will have the same filename) withhin 2 or 3 days (pasting the image to a chan and letting ppl answer ... and then just login every 2 minutes or so)

What newbies? There haven't been enough newbies in this game, to merit creating protection for such a group, in several rounds now. The issue, as far as I can tell, has been addressed for r10--I believe, they expect to see an influx of new players (to what extent, I don't know), and have taken newbies/casual players into consideration during development.

well newbies was the wrong word, i meant small planets (i've been bashed like hell often enough and i heard like every round that the next round would fix that ...)

Their customer service area has always been fairly rusty, but having worked in customer service for a large corporation myself, it's not "fun", or "easy", and certainly not something people enjoy doing for free. Point taken though.

The community has dwindled since r5...and has extremely little to do with tool sites, but rather, p2p. Perhaps the coding community within the Planetarion community has dwindled, but I wouldn't know about such things, only decreases in players generally.

I fail to see any relevance here.

i wanted to write spirit first ... but thats not exactly what i meant either, this game has just changed to something where the guys who make seem to have fun with to a 'money making machine'

this thread wasn't about judging any of the actions as i don't see why I should do that, it was just more like putting my 'frustration' to public

[kaos]

Originally posted by Gerbie
1. Scan parsers
Some external scan parsers used by alliances offer more options then I think PA team will create (links to databases/tools). It will reduce their use, but not end it.

2. Battle calc
Even if you make it more difficult: people will try to get a tool to help them. Alliances can seriously benifit from such tools. Even if they succeed only half.

3. Stats
See #2.

4. Ingame alliances
PA team told us it would be more like the alliance tagging system used now. Thus Alliance websites will still be used and will have added value for their members. I expect AH to continue to exist separately for the smaller alliances which have less technical resources.

Well, prince wanted sakera + me to make eads for pa round 10 ingame (this 'deal' broke up for some reason)
and that sounded more like an much more improved ah for r10 than just an advanced tag system to me

[SpazMonster]

My my, we certainly are self centered aren't we?

Why would you think that them adding features to the game has anything to do with you? Perhaps, just maybe, it has something to do with the majority of the players who would benefit from them by having easy access in game? Oh no.. that can't be it, the world revolves around Kaos. It's some evul conspiracy to keep people from using his tools.

Tell me something. What would be the bad thing about people not using your tools anymore? Can you come up with one reason why people NOT visiting your tools site would be bad? It's not like you're making money off of it. Plz just get over yourself and look at the bigger picture.

[K-W]

Get rid?

Yah just like alliance hosting got rid of external messageboards and alliance tools. Would you be complaining if say, eclipse released new tools? All they are doing is providing services to people, unless they start shutting down other services you cant really complain about that.


INcluding allainces in the game is an entirely different story ofc.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by SpazMonster
Tell me something. What would be the bad thing about people not using your tools anymore? Can you come up with one reason why people NOT visiting your tools site would be bad? It's not like you're making money off of it. Plz just get over yourself and look at the bigger picture.

I won't go into the rest of this discussion but I will mention somethig on this point. If you run a website that gets a lot of hits it feels good . You've created something that people want to use, I got a load of hits on mine last round presumably because I had a few stats that pilkara doesn't (and did one or two things differently), it felt nice that people appreciated the work I put into it.

The fact that the universe size this round crashes the rank generator is beside the point, I was bored of it and moved onto IRC bots anyway

Side note: I haven't forgotten the archive stuff I was doing, if I don't end up in work tonight it should be up shortly

[kaos]

Originally posted by K-W
Get rid?

Yah just like alliance hosting got rid of external messageboards and alliance tools. Would you be complaining if say, eclipse released new tools? All they are doing is providing services to people, unless they start shutting down other services you cant really complain about that.


INcluding allainces in the game is an entirely different story ofc.

-01:21:57- <Prince> and in round 10
-01:22:05- <Prince> i plan to tie dumps down so tight
....
-01:22:46- <kaos> <Prince> i plan to tie dumps down so tight <-- how tight ?
...
-01:22:54- <Prince> no dumps

this should answer that ...

Originally posted by SpazMonster
My my, we certainly are self centered aren't we?

Why would you think that them adding features to the game has anything to do with you? Perhaps, just maybe, it has something to do with the majority of the players who would benefit from them by having easy access in game? Oh no.. that can't be it, the world revolves around Kaos. It's some evul conspiracy to keep people from using his tools.

Tell me something. What would be the bad thing about people not using your tools anymore? Can you come up with one reason why people NOT visiting your tools site would be bad? It's not like you're making money off of it. Plz just get over yourself and look at the bigger picture.

Well do you know how much time i put into pilkara ? i guess you have ABSOLUTELY no clue what i invested into this **** just that YOU have some stuff to look at (and i am not counting the money that was/is spent for hosting ...) .

and its not about MY toolsite, its about EVERY toolsite (ignoring the official one)

for more stuff just read gayles and the other posts ...

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by kaos
-01:21:57- <Prince> and in round 10
-01:22:05- <Prince> i plan to tie dumps down so tight
....
-01:22:46- <kaos> <Prince> i plan to tie dumps down so tight <-- how tight ?
...
-01:22:54- <Prince> no dumps

this should answer that ...

<CH> 23) Gayle (present) asked: What's the chances of some advance details of the R10 DB dump format and enough details to write a bcalc replacement? Or would you rather there WAS no new bcalc?
<Gayle> lo
<Spinner> Hi Gayle
<Spinner> The dump formats are never the first thing on the priority list
<Spinner> we dont know it yet
<Gayle> Will it include as a minimum the current data though?
<Spinner> very likely Gayle
<Gayle>
<Gayle> No point putting in lots of hours if it's going to be pointless in a month
<Spinner> (-:
<Spinner> nqp

Ignore what Prince said, I asked Spinner in CH

[kaos]

Originally posted by Gayle29uk
<CH> 23) Gayle (present) asked: What's the chances of some advance details of the R10 DB dump format and enough details to write a bcalc replacement? Or would you rather there WAS no new bcalc?
<Gayle> lo
<Spinner> Hi Gayle
<Spinner> The dump formats are never the first thing on the priority list
<Spinner> we dont know it yet
<Gayle> Will it include as a minimum the current data though?
<Spinner> very likely Gayle
<Gayle>
<Gayle> No point putting in lots of hours if it's going to be pointless in a month
<Spinner> (-:
<Spinner> nqp

Ignore what Prince said, I asked Spinner in CH

heh, actually the only ch i didn't read and such questions, tsk tsk (btw very likely != 100% ;D)

[edit]
ok ... i have to revoke some stuff, seems like they don't do as (prince?) planned, so you could call this discussion now a bit pointless because things will run on smoothly it seems, but could see it instead of an request doing the anti bot stuff right

[Supernova9]

Originally posted by kaos
heh, actually the only ch i didn't read and such questions, tsk tsk (btw very likely != 100% ;D)

[edit]
ok ... i have to revoke some stuff, seems like they don't do as (prince?) planned, so you could call this discussion now a bit pointless because things will run on smoothly it seems, but could see it instead of an request doing the anti bot stuff right

Or everyone could just laugh at how amazingly paranoid you are. Taking the word of a now-fired creator and crying all over the boards.

This is the second thread about such a subject, why not wait until something is definite next time before running around on hearsay?

[xtothez]

Originally posted by SpazMonster
My my, we certainly are self centered aren't we?

My my, we certainly are an active troll arent we?

Originally posted by SpazMonster
Why would you think that them adding features to the game has anything to do with you? Perhaps, just maybe, it has something to do with the majority of the players who would benefit from them by having easy access in game?

Yes, because the in-built/official tools have always been better than the 3rd-party alternatives... Do you think that if there were no Pilkara/Sandmans/Bcalc.com that the creators would bother to include these features in r10? Lets face it, most of the major community features of this game have been brought on by the players rather than the staff, and I dare say the game wouldn't hae survived as long as this without community-minded individuals providing support such as battlecalcs and parsers for the small number of newcomers in the last year or two.

Originally posted by SpazMonster
Oh no.. that can't be it, the world revolves around Kaos. It's some evul conspiracy to keep people from using his tools. Tell me something. What would be the bad thing about people not using your tools anymore? Can you come up with one reason why people NOT visiting your tools site would be bad? It's not like you're making money off of it. Plz just get over yourself and look at the bigger picture.

Yes, that way the evil Big Brother Elysium can keep spying on your fleets while you sleep . Alternatively, maybe he has a vested interest in keeping online the tools he's put so much effort into?

[xtothez]

Originally posted by Supernova9
This is the second thread about such a subject, why not wait until something is definite next time before running around on hearsay?

Because when PA crew make a 'definitive' decision its usually at the last minute, or soon followed by a 'maybe'...

[kaos]

Originally posted by Supernova9
Or everyone could just laugh at how amazingly paranoid you are. Taking the word of a now-fired creator and crying all over the boards.

Oh well YOU dunno the happenings, but elysium/pilkara has been attacked mroe than once by the creators and i really wouldn't wonder if they would do anything to get it down, and if you call that thread crying how would you call some other threads than ?

[edit] paranoid ... LOL ok you do work for something so much like i worked for pilkara and then i come over to you and destroy everthing with 1 move, and i would like to see your reaction[/edit]

[pablissimo]

Am I being wholly stupid in wondering why Pilkara and Toolkit are pretty much exactly the same?

[Mit]

Originally posted by kaos
-01:21:57- <Prince> and in round 10
-01:22:05- <Prince> i plan to tie dumps down so tight
....
-01:22:46- <kaos> <Prince> i plan to tie dumps down so tight <-- how tight ?
...
-01:22:54- <Prince> no dumps

this should answer that ...

heh, oh well, u'll be pleased to hear, i'm trying to get u MORE

[kaos]

Originally posted by Mit
heh, oh well, u'll be pleased to hear, i'm trying to get u MORE

prince did that too \o/
but i guess someone at the creators just doesn't like us

[Mit]

Scans in game - yes, but it means if u close the window / forget to parse it / copy mucks up etc u DON'T have to rescan, thus saving scans - its a GOOD idea.

Battle Calc / Stats - Not as open, this is better - it adds more fun and excitement to the game. Brings back the level of 'guess work' and experimentation instead of perfectly calced fleets.

Alliance Stuff - in game, its not anywhere near as much as ur making out. its VERY basic and desinged to run alongside Alliance sites if the alliance has them.

[Mit]

Originally posted by kaos
prince did that too \o/
but i guess someone at the creators just doesn't like us

I dunno why i am, after all the bitching / slagging off that was done of my work back at the start of this round... but i am!

[kaos]

Originally posted by Mit
Scans in game - yes, but it means if u close the window / forget to parse it / copy mucks up etc u DON'T have to rescan, thus saving scans - its a GOOD idea.

Battle Calc / Stats - Not as open, this is better - it adds more fun and excitement to the game. Brings back the level of 'guess work' and experimentation instead of perfectly calced fleets.

Alliance Stuff - in game, its not anywhere near as much as ur making out. its VERY basic and desinged to run alongside Alliance sites if the alliance has them.

well, when prince wanted eads that sounded a bit different, nice to have this cleared

Originally posted by Mit
I dunno why i am, after all the bitching / slagging off that was done of my work back at the start of this round... but i am!

oh well, i have been bitched my pacrew many times ( you dossed mits tools, etc blabla) and if i wanted i could just have made pilkara private, but i didn't. i think there are just some ideological reasons

[SpazMonster]

Originally posted by kaos
-01:21:57- <Prince> and in round 10
-01:22:05- <Prince> i plan to tie dumps down so tight
....
-01:22:46- <kaos> <Prince> i plan to tie dumps down so tight <-- how tight ?
...
-01:22:54- <Prince> no dumps

this should answer that ...



Well do you know how much time i put into pilkara ? i guess you have ABSOLUTELY no clue what i invested into this **** just that YOU have some stuff to look at (and i am not counting the money that was/is spent for hosting ...) .

and its not about MY toolsite, its about EVERY toolsite (ignoring the official one)

for more stuff just read gayles and the other posts ...

Gayle never answered my question directly. She said having the website up and hit alot makes you feel nice. I know how that is, I know how putting alot of hard work into something makes you protective of it, but as I said in the original post, look at the bigger picture. You not being able to feed your ego by watching the counter on your website increase has abso-fking-lutely NOTHING to do with this game.

[SpazMonster]

Originally posted by xtothez
My my, we certainly are an active troll arent we?



Yes, because the in-built/official tools have always been better than the 3rd-party alternatives... Do you think that if there were no Pilkara/Sandmans/Bcalc.com that the creators would bother to include these features in r10? Lets face it, most of the major community features of this game have been brought on by the players rather than the staff, and I dare say the game wouldn't hae survived as long as this without community-minded individuals providing support such as battlecalcs and parsers for the small number of newcomers in the last year or two.



Yes, that way the evil Big Brother Elysium can keep spying on your fleets while you sleep . Alternatively, maybe he has a vested interest in keeping online the tools he's put so much effort into?

Wow, can you misinterpret what I said any further? my god.. you're completely off base.

1) I wasn't trolling, more pointing out that his entire tirade is all based around his desire to feel good about himself because of his spiffy website.

2) I never said that 3rd party websites didn't add anything to teh game. I said that adding usefull features to the game that increase playbility and such has nothing to do w/ Kaos personally. Period. It's not a move to put him 'out of business' it's a move to keep them IN business.

3) Where the hell did you get that **** about 'big brother elysium' spying on scans? I never said anything (or even implied it) in my original post... Where you came up with that I really don't have a clue. It has no place in this discussion.

[whoop]

Originally posted by Mit

Battle Calc / Stats - Not as open, this is better - it adds more fun and excitement to the game. Brings back the level of 'guess work' and experimentation instead of perfectly calced fleets.

This is stupid.

As long as the stats don't randomly change throughout the course of the game, it will take next to no time to implement a bayesian filter or neural net based battle calculator for someone who has some semblance of a clue.

Put in combat reports, repeat until the filter is trained, boom done.

-whoop

[Mit]

Originally posted by whoop
This is stupid.

As long as the stats don't randomly change throughout the course of the game, it will take next to no time to implement a bayesian filter or neural net based battle calculator for someone who has some semblance of a clue.

Put in combat reports, repeat until the filter is trained, boom done.

-whoop

u can't train when u don't know...

As spinner has revealed there are fleet priorities, u'll never know what teh priority of the defence is - u can guess, but u'll never be able to get it as accurate as current. Plus, imo, bcalcs spoil the fun - i remember back in rnd 6 it would be (just after races were brought in) everything was a challenge, a lot of guess work went on etc.

[whoop]

Originally posted by Mit
u can't train when u don't know...

As spinner has revealed there are fleet priorities, u'll never know what teh priority of the defence is - u can guess, but u'll never be able to get it as accurate as current.

Thats the point of a bayesian/nn filter. You don't need to know anything. Its a _very_ interesting field of computer science. Do some reading, the stuff is amazing.

You provide your inputs, and your expected results (i.e. paste in combat reports), and it will automagically learn what rules to apply to obtain the desired results. After enough combat reports are pasted in, it will be dead accurate.

The only thing that will prevent this from working is if the ship stats change during the round, which I doubt PA will be so foolish to do.

Originally posted by Mit
Plus, imo, bcalcs spoil the fun - i remember back in rnd 6 it would be (just after races were brought in) everything was a challenge, a lot of guess work went on etc.

I agree that this game used to be a too predictable, and I think for example the changes to the milscan were wonderful, but to have ships with completely unknown characteristics is a mistake.

This will only help the alliances, as they will have a large pool of players who are willing to set up combats to learn what the ships do, while the new guys that don't know anyone in-game won't have this data.

-whoop

[K-W]

Originally posted by Mit

Battle Calc / Stats - Not as open, this is better - it adds more fun and excitement to the game. Brings back the level of 'guess work' and experimentation instead of perfectly calced fleets.

Brings back?

This game has never been about guess work. We arent here to play craps Mit. If more variation is needed, then they should introduce probability into weapon strength or something.

Making us run our ships around like morons trying to figure out what does what isnt gonna help anyone.

[Mit]

Originally posted by K-W
Brings back?

This game has never been about guess work. <other crap>

Don't tell me, when races were introduced, u knew EXACTLY how they all worked right from the start... used calcs straight out of protection etc... if so, BORING is one polite word to describe u.

[Woodeh]

Going off topic & purely out of interest what is the cookie that Pilkara.com sets ?

And to be fair having all these battle calcs etc does take alot of the fun out of the game, turning it into a battle for who's got the leetest calc.

[Mit]

Originally posted by Woodeh
Going off topic & purely out of interest what is the cookie that Pilkara.com sets ?

And to be fair having all these battle calcs etc does take alot of the fun out of the game, turning it into a battle for who's got the leetest calc.

Cookie, i hadn't noticed that one... but i had noticed session id's being passed around all over the place... on a 'no tracking' site, it puzzles me why cookies / session ids need passing around.

[kaos]

Originally posted by Mit
Cookie, i hadn't noticed that one... but i had noticed session id's being passed around all over the place... on a 'no tracking' site, it puzzles me why cookies / session ids need passing around.

well, this are/were plans for a login system (its actually already in use for the internal stuff, like our coordlist and other admin stuff and i just was to bored to make this internal only ...)
if you want i can remove that cookie asap (i think it takes me 1 hour to fix the hc stuff then ...)

[K-W]

Originally posted by Mit
Don't tell me, when races were introduced, u knew EXACTLY how they all worked right from the start... used calcs straight out of protection etc... if so, BORING is one polite word to describe u.

Crap huh?

we had pretty good ideas what the races did, and had calcs available pretty damn fast. It certainly wasnt about guesswork. I was calcing battles as soon as we got past quick roiding phase.

[SYMM]

I know I was calcing scenarios when the new race-stats came out, discussing in #strategy </pimp> and trying to work out what was best, and then once the round started narrowing down these things based on what the rest of the uni was like (i.e. Drakes and Pods was pretty much all you needed as a terran...ooh, the days when drakes weren't sh*t )

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by kaos
well, this are/were plans for a login system (its actually already in use for the internal stuff, like our coordlist and other admin stuff

<tinfoilhat>Ok, remind me why your coord list is linked to the toolkit again....?</tinfoilhat>

[kaos]

Originally posted by Gayle29uk
<tinfoilhat>Ok, remind me why your coord list is linked to the toolkit again....?</tinfoilhat>

because our hc are VERY interested how their ally is doing ?
actually almost everything is linked with patools, ally stats, bg stats, target picking, etc blabla

[edit] btw wtf is a tinfoilhat ? nm, i think i got it ... [/edit]

[ComradeRob]

Originally posted by Mit
Don't tell me, when races were introduced, u knew EXACTLY how they all worked right from the start... used calcs straight out of protection etc... if so, BORING is one polite word to describe u.

wtf?

When races were created for r6, the stats were trailed well in advance, the strengths and weaknesses of the ships were all well-known. If there was a period of 'guesswork' it lasted only a few days (out of what, 9 months worth of gameplay with races?).

If the game were totally a solo experience, I would possibly agree with your 'trial and error' method of attacking. Figuring out what works well and what doesn't is an interesting solo pursuit. The problem is that once one person has worked it out, he can tell everyone else, and we're right back to the start.

[Pitchfork]

Originally posted by whoop
Thats the point of a bayesian/nn filter. You don't need to know anything. Its a _very_ interesting field of computer science. Do some reading, the stuff is amazing.

You provide your inputs, and your expected results (i.e. paste in combat reports), and it will automagically learn what rules to apply to obtain the desired results. After enough combat reports are pasted in, it will be dead accurate.

...

-whoop

afaik Bayes' Theories were more about probability based upon prior measurements. I'm not quite sure, if it applies to this problem, but it could be worth a try. You'll need a recursive algorithm with lots of dependent and even more explanatory variables though, which is most prolly one hell of a work to code And you'll never gain exact results, but it is better to have something near to the outcome than nothing.

Besides, I don't understand all this arguing about the toolsites. What is the problem in players running them? They know what they want and they are better than "official" ones (no offence, Mit). Plus it saves expansive bandwith and coding power, that could be used somewhere else. I can't see any point in putting stones on the way of volunteers willing to put their effort, time and knowledge in the game.

[(°>]

Didn't the dump start because ppl was getting all the details via an account?
Causing even more server load.

So I don't see pa removing dumps because of the drain on servers.

Good they bring things in game so outside sites continue to come up with new ideas to make them more useful.

[Mit]

Originally posted by Pitchfork
Besides, I don't understand all this arguing about the toolsites. What is the problem in players running them? They know what they want and they are better than "official" ones (no offence, Mit). Plus it saves expansive bandwith and coding power, that could be used somewhere else. I can't see any point in putting stones on the way of volunteers willing to put their effort, time and knowledge in the game.

its called paranoia, and as for saying i could do more 'useful' things, i'm not paid to do anything, i do it because i enjoy it and wanted to give the community something back. If u don't like what i do, u don't have to use it, there are others...

[Pitchfork]

Originally posted by Mit
its called paranoia, and as for saying i could do more 'useful' things, i'm not paid to do anything, i do it because i enjoy it and wanted to give the community something back. If u don't like what i do, u don't have to use it, there are others...

I didn't want to imply that u are getting paid for what u do. My point is more, that u as a member of pa crew should do something else than coding another toolkit (eg. improve AH or something) when there are some around that have been growing and advancing for some rounds now.

Nor did I mean to imply that u are unable to write something like pilkara. It is just that you didn't spend that amount of time and don't have the amount of experience that went into pilkara. So let kaos do what he is most prolly the best of us all in and code something we don't have already.

[Beast-of-War]

Originally posted by Hicks
If it's anything like their great toolkit I doubt you have anything to worry about kaos

lol I so agree.
pilkara >> *

[Mit]

Originally posted by Pitchfork
I didn't want to imply that u are getting paid for what u do. My point is more, that u as a member of pa crew should do something else than coding another toolkit (eg. improve AH or something) when there are some around that have been growing and advancing for some rounds now.

Nor did I mean to imply that u are unable to write something like pilkara. It is just that you didn't spend that amount of time and don't have the amount of experience that went into pilkara. So let kaos do what he is most prolly the best of us all in and code something we don't have already.

You did very well at implying BOTH the things u didn't want to... heh.

As for AH - thats being changed and integrated more - spinners doing that, there is something else i am coding for PA - its only a replacement IRC bot thou - hopefully improve CH's stability for one.