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Unread 20 Oct 2006, 09:26   #1
ComradeRob
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Scans and distorters

There seems to be a view around that there is a distorter whore 'problem'.

For those who don't know, a distorter whore is a person who builds lots of wave distorters, possibly building nothing else. This tactic is most effective for Terrans because of their low construction time, Xans for their low construction time and for blocking Mil Scans, and Ziks because their stealing ability gives them good faking potential.

Distorter whores are unscannable by the majority of the universe. This has the effect of creating a need for a class of uber-scanners, who build almost nothing but wave amps, in order to be able to scan the dist whores. This has the further effect of causing most ordinary players to not bother with amps or scan research at all, instead relying on their alliance's designated scanners, or friends who go heavily for scans and amps. Galaxy buddypacks might also have one member who does scan research. Scanners are generally funded through donations, either to the Alliance Fund or Galaxy Fund.

Why is this bad? I'll come to this issue in a moment. Firstly, let's consider what's good about it.

Distorters are good because they stop the game being a game of perfect information. They create scenarios where there is genuine doubt about what ships an attacker (or defender) has sent. Instead of simply scanning everything and putting it into a battle calc, players have to use skill and judgement to decide how to defend or attack against certain opponents. I think this is a good thing.

Distorters also represent a genuine strategic choice. A person building lots of distorters is forgoing the extra income they could gain by building finance centers instead. A wide variety of strategic choices is also a good thing and the game would be boring without them.

So, with this in mind, what are the objections to distorters?

The first objection is that, whilst they make the game interesting for experienced players, newbies lack the experience necessary to make good judgements about how to handle an incoming fleet which they can't scan. New players are also much less likely to have access to a dedicated scanner. By the time a new player realises how important distorters and wave amps are, it's too late for them to build enough of them to take real advantage of them.

Secondly, distorters create an 'all or nothing' situation, where a planet with 101 distorters is unscannable by a planet with 100 amps. Effectively, the 100-amp planet might as well have no amps at all. This gives an advantage to players who a) can log in very frequently to build new distorters, b) can always get defence against structure killers, c) are lucky enough to avoid covops and d) have enough roids to afford 24/7 construction. All of these advantages work in favour of the kinds of players likely to do well already, and against those who tend to do badly from the current setup. Missing just one wave amp construction, or losing one amp to a covop or structure killer, can make the difference between being able to scan a planet or not.

Thirdly, whilst specialised strategies are a good thing, distorters have some extreme effects with regard to scanning strategy. We now have a situation where some people build lots of amps, and sacrifice any idea of playing a 'normal' round, and other players don't build any amps at all. This division of labour does have some positive benefits - people who don't want to play actively can play as a scanner - but it hurts new players who don't know any scanners. I think scanners should stay as part of the game, but have we become a bit too dependent on them?

Does this add up to a case for removing distorters? In my opinion, no. I think there are other solutions. In this thread I suggested some changes to how constructions worked, including changes to their price. I think it would be fair for distorters to cost twice as much as amps.

I don't really have any other suggestions at this point. What does everyone else think? I think we especially need the opinions of people who strongly believe that distorters are either good or bad.
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Unread 20 Oct 2006, 10:05   #2
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Re: Scans and distorters

As a casual player who doesn't rely on scanners, I concur that this is a problem. For me, the game doesn't begin until 100 ticks after everyone else. I have to research scans first. JGPs being after FA on the tech tree this round hasn't exactly helped.

Planets with more distorters than I can scan are simply not part of the game for me. They might as well not exist, except when they attack me.

I'm a big fan of partial information, but distorters don't create a partial information situation for me; They ensure that I have no information.
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Unread 20 Oct 2006, 14:50   #3
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Re: Scans and distorters

Playing as what you called uber-scanner I don't agree that there is a problem with the current distorter/amp-system.
About your first concern. How many new players ever gonna get incoming by a distorter whore?
The high-dist planets are usually found among the top-ranks as it takes a lot of dedication to play with a cons every 4 ticks. Any new player who gets above the bash limit should be able to find himself an alliance - and every alliance needs to have scanners.
Your second concern - if we compare the ultimately dedicated dist player to an ultimately dedicated scanner the scanner is always going to win. He doesn't need 2 factories necessarily. To your 4 points:
a) if someone has the necessary dedication he deserves an advantage
b) structure killers don't play any serious role these days
c) from exp sooner or later any dist whores gets found and cov opped a lot - simply because they sacrifice security for invisibility
d) 150 cons means appx 11M res each - that's a lot of fleet the dist whore is sacrificinig either - and the start is very slow

Your third concern. While I agree it can be very efficient the distorter strategy is one of the most sacrificing and risky strategies out there - the introduction of mil scans has made it even worse. Theoretically 1 scanner with enough amps is enough to get very detailed information on all distorter whores in the game and could contribute it anywhere.

The game was always in need of seperate scan planets - however this round with introduction of mil scans have made the system very unbalanced. From tick 400 on (appx) unit scan and fleet analysis will become useless as soon as most scanners have mil scans. I advised everyone except scanners not to touch the wave branch - it simply has no use anymore - unlike with fa in previous rounds. The price for the scans have heavily increased aswell - depending on how many interaction with xans there is between 16-50%. The scanning system needs some serious fix for next round - yet I don't think it should be the distorters...
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Unread 20 Oct 2006, 17:04   #4
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Re: Scans and distorters

The problem isnt so much for the new players but for the hardcore alliance members. Alliance members who attack everynight now have a heavy dependence on alliance scanners. Every alliance I have seen has a problem with not having a scanner online when they need one. Lets face it, most scanners, are scanning becuase they are playing halfassed and dont have the time to play for real. Most arent online all that much becuase, wtf do they care, they arent going to be high ranked. There is really no incentive for anyone to be an active scanner. Alliance players get alot of headaches throughout the round trying to get scans before fleets land.

The game needs to come away from the dependancy on full time scanners. It needs to be made possible for anyone to scan again when they need to. Just make the chance of getting a scan through a percentange, based on the ratio of blockers to amps. If the target has more dists than you have amps, you might get blocked a few times before getting thru.
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Unread 20 Oct 2006, 17:17   #5
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Re: Scans and distorters

Quote:
Originally Posted by Marka
a) if someone has the necessary dedication he deserves an advantage
b) structure killers don't play any serious role these days
c) from exp sooner or later any dist whores gets found and cov opped a lot - simply because they sacrifice security for invisibility
d) 150 cons means appx 11M res each - that's a lot of fleet the dist whore is sacrificinig either - and the start is very slow
a) Yes i completely agree he does deserve some sort of advantage
b) Im sorry but i think a fair number of scanners last round got mass SK incoming from eXilition when they discovered who was scanning them.
c) I wouldnt know having never been a distorter whore but if you put security priority one then the chances of a successful information blackout are probably fairly negligible
d) Is the start that slow? i mean by now surely there are already people taking advantage of it as soon as you dont know what someone has they are a much bigger threat to you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ComradeRob
The first objection is that, whilst they make the game interesting for experienced players, newbies lack the experience necessary to make good judgements about how to handle an incoming fleet which they can't scan. New players are also much less likely to have access to a dedicated scanner.

Thirdly, whilst specialised strategies are a good thing, distorters have some extreme effects with regard to scanning strategy. We now have a situation where some people build lots of amps, and sacrifice any idea of playing a 'normal' round, and other players don't build any amps at all.
Provided new players land in a gal with irc activity they are fairly likely to be able to get some sort of access to scans. In general in gals I have been in there is another scanner and they will normally do scans for galmates and even point them in the direction of a decent alliance to join.

I disagree with your third point scanners can get a good score even when they are build 100+ amps for example the two I know of being achilles and Crowly getting up there in previous rounds. It is possible to do if you try.

I dont believe that players completely give up on the scan tech tree i think fleet analysis is underated as any decent player will make his fleets look the same to a mil scan so to know what your incoming is you need fleet analysis.

I personally like the way in which scanners and distorter whores are part of the game it makes it more interesting and gives players a definitive path to follow if they have no real game plan. Alliances always want comitted scanners and if your a decent distorter whore you can get a good score fairly quickly.

Thats my two cents
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Unread 20 Oct 2006, 23:42   #6
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Re: Scans and distorters

If PA had 20K players, nobody will really care about a bunch of dist whores, but with only 2 k planets do we really need to have some of them 'out of the game' ?
Yes a percentage of success based on amp/dist ratio would be good, with the possibility to send multiple scans at once and a warning message in the News when someone is 'failed scan'.
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Unread 21 Oct 2006, 00:20   #7
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Re: Scans and distorters

If the premise of dist>amps then you cant be scanned is changed then I'm leaving. Mil scans were bad enough.
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Unread 21 Oct 2006, 00:52   #8
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Re: Scans and distorters

if you can't scan a target, you build more amps till you can! its simple also cov. opping and sk's are a good way to lower amp/distorter numbers! I don't see this as a big problem! , but i guess thats cause i've been a scanner since r11 and have still played this game fairly active Dissorters can be annoying but its what makes the game interesting
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Unread 21 Oct 2006, 00:57   #9
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Re: Scans and distorters

Not this argument again. If someone wants to spend a huge amount of resources to reduce the amount of incs they have (when your not guarenteed to avoid someone like Dead_Ops cov oping you dists away), then that's their choice, their strategy!

Cov oping is an under utilised part of the game. If most alliances are willing to let players distort to the point where they can't scan them, how are they in a position to turn round and complain about it?
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Unread 21 Oct 2006, 08:09   #10
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Re: Scans and distorters

With having milscan you need to have a HUGE ammount of dists to be able to do some nice fake(being zik).
With having fa scans only like last rounds it was enough to have more dists than your target got amps to do some decent fake. like sending some fr or even co faked as bs. but this round doing such fakes is hardly possible as
every scanner can see every fleet. you always have to use 2 fleets having same numbers of ships. and still one can easily spot the fake or def against it when you see 200 fr pods only in one fleet and 200 bs in the other. so you simply have to have that big ammount of dists.

i dont like milscans :-(

but i do like beer :-)
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Unread 22 Oct 2006, 00:31   #11
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Re: Scans and distorters

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dom32
c) I wouldnt know having never been a distorter whore but if you put security priority one then the chances of a successful information blackout are probably fairly negligible
I wasn't primary talking about information black out - bank hacking etc is bound to happen regularly. Despite that you can't put security first in the 600-700 ticks you are building your cons - and with each successful info blackout that gonna take longer.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dom32
I dont believe that players completely give up on the scan tech tree i think fleet analysis is underated as any decent player will make his fleets look the same to a mil scan so to know what your incoming is you need fleet analysis.
If you have so many weak spots in your fleet that any xan/zik could roid you with several classes easily that's frankly your own fault :P
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Unread 22 Oct 2006, 11:08   #12
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Re: Scans and distorters

So, the consensus appears to be that there isn't a problem with distorters. Does anyone disagree?
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Unread 24 Oct 2006, 23:13   #13
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Re: Scans and distorters

Quote:
Originally Posted by ComradeRob
So, the consensus appears to be that there isn't a problem with distorters. Does anyone disagree?
excepting you? no
only noobs and losers fear the unknown, unfortunately we still have this kind of ppl in PA
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Unread 25 Oct 2006, 01:40   #14
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Re: Scans and distorters

Quote:
Originally Posted by ComradeRob
So, the consensus appears to be that there isn't a problem with distorters. Does anyone disagree?
I do to a certain extent. There is no problem with distorters themselves as pointed out so far - it's more a question of how to implement them into the game. Maybe distorters combined with amps is a flawed concept in itself. I mean sorry, but why is a fleet that I sent 5 clusters away still protected by my planets distorters? Logic fails there - even if a game should not have too much realistic logic, this is a point which annoys me.
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