Cluster Wars (formerly Empyrean Challenge)

[Roy Bean]

There are 3 other scouts sitting in the adjacent star system -- the one with the large alien colony. They are in orbit 11 (the outer ring), along with a single alien scout.
Typing this, it occurs to me that the alien scout in orbit 11 might not be one of THESE aliens -- it might belong to another player. Oops. I guess I will find out -- are ALL ships/colonies that don't belong to me flagged as "alien"?

Any S/C that belongs to a player who has not designated you a Friend or Ally will show as belonging to aliens. Take a look at the diplomacy tool to see who has designated you a Friend etc.

[Chirpsithtra]

I believe that all alien SHIPs belong to other players. But then I am also a relative newbie so I can't be absolutely sure.

[Greybeard]

I believe that all alien SHIPs belong to other players. But then I am also a relative newbie so I can't be absolutely sure.

We always used to believe that in real life, too!

[jwsosus]

Things have been very quiet around here... TOO quiet. Kind of creepy if you ask me.

And no Ixnay report for a few turns now. It must be that those alien scout ships took him out...

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

LOL

Let's see... Losing your position to a mass 5 scout ship. That would be the definition of Epic Fail!

[ixnay]

Getting back up to speed here, folks. I had a torrent of Real Life stuff that sharply curtailed my free time for the past few months. I was just able to squeak out a series of maintenance turns for this game, and finish editing an article for S&D that I had partially drafted earlier.

I will catch things up by writing a post for each turn. A lot has been going on, and there is much to review, even if my order-sets have been short. So here is my next turn in the series. There will be a few more to follow...

* * *

My orders were not fully complete this turn, but getting there. The big news is that I finally set up a large freighter-colonizer to haul people and materiel. I did it the old-school way of running basic calculations on a piece of paper to make sure it had basic integrity. First, I put in all the accumulated Light Structure 2 I had on-hand -- a few hundred million. Each one provides 4 volume-equivalents, but ships require 10 of these to enclose each volume. (Orbiters need 8, enclosed surface colonies need 5, and open colonies just 1.) So each of these structural units would enclose about .4 actual ship volume units.

To this I added basically all the hyper engines (for inter-orbital and interstellar moves), space drives (for tactical moves), and advanced life support I had. I threw in a large batch of Farm-1s and Min-1s, unassembled, for use on my in-system hab world. I loaded up about 15m population and a bunch of fuel. And just for good measure I added all the energy weapons and shields I had accumulated in small production runs these many turns.

Mistakes? You bet. First, I didn't read up on "cargo holds", which designate a portion of ship volume for efficient storage. I didn't use the ship designer tool. I added enough food, but only JUST enough fuel to keep the life support running. (Ships need lots of fuel!) I have a new batch of Mine-4 coming off the line next turn, which will make my Mine-1s look shabby. And I forgot to include constructors, and to carefully calculate the amount of transport units to include. Obviously I'll need enough capacity to set up the whole colony in one turn. So I'm probably going to hang around in home orbit one more turn and get that all straightened out.

I am building a bunch of Lab-8, but not nearly enough to occupy all my professionals. Clearly I am running low on production capacity, so I pumped Factory tech from 4 to 7. Sadly, I have only a bunch of Factory-1 units available to build them, so this was all bad planning. I am retooling production lines where I can to boost production of both Lab-8 and Factory-7, but it's going to be a few turns at least before I'm back in balance.

I stocked my old alien outpost in orbit-1 with loyalists and am bringing the alien people home where I can reeducate them. I'm still just producing food out there, nothing else. Maybe my colonizer needs to make a stop with some mines...

In military news, I launched a test invasion of the alien colony in the next system. You'll recall that last turn I fired wildly at a scout ship in orbit-11 that I believe belongs to a friendly player. (Didn't even penetrate his shields, though!) This taught me some combat fundamentals, so I thought I would probe the alien colony defenses. First, he's got no energy weapons, shields, or missiles -- at least nothing set to auto-fire. Nice. Second, my invaders (a few thousand soldiers armed with assault craft) were overwhelmed by his ground forces -- amounting to about a million combat factors. I can deal with this. My missile-3 production lines are nearly done, which will help me soften them up from space. I built a half-million military robots, each of which is worth 2 CF. And I have a good million actual soldiers ready to go. I think two rounds of missile bombardment (there are 2 per turn) aimed at his military defenses will bring his CF down enough that my invaders will have a solid chance.

The timing is not perfect. I will need a turn or two to get my colony set up, then return home to pick up the troops. But this invasion is probably my best chance at catching up on the old race for habitation.

[ixnay]

That last post was turn 12. This is for turn 13. Just getting caught up here -- the game is currently up to turn 16.

First, my invasion of the alien colony failed utterly, as expected. But I got some useful info. I managed to actually hit it with some pre- and post-maneuver bombardment -- this time my energy weapons were able to hit, and with no energy shields to stop them they actually did a little damage. The aliens didn't fire on my 3 scouts at all, but they did resist my "invasion" with about a million ground combat factors -- easily swamping my few thousand soldiers and assault craft. So, we learned that the aliens don't have shields, they have a relatively moderate amount of ground defense, and they either don't have space weapons or they chose not to fire. I am sending the 3 scouts back home.

Back on the homeworld, my factories finished up a large batch of farms, life supports, and power plants. Just basic colonizing stuff. I am assembling up to the planetary cap of power plants, which at this tech level will save me 10m fuel per turn. I'm retooling a bunch of factories to produce Lab-8 and Factory-7, since I am in short supply of both.

I brought my other scouts back from the in-system former alien outpost, and am completing the assimilation of their small population into my home colony. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, I always say.

My big new colonizer ship setup went well -- it's sitting in dock, loaded with people and stuff. I am adding a bunch more fuel and a LOT of structural units, both assembled (to expand the hull) and unassembled (to use in building a colony on planet 2.)

And finally, I put a big boost of tech into Robot Probe Vehicles, which are new in this iteration of Empyrean Challenge. Not only can you fire them out into nearby star systems for remote probing, but you can harpoon alien ships with them and get reports on their movements!

[ixnay]

And now for turn 14...

Argh. I must have fat-fingered the orders where I enlarged my new colonizer ship and stocked it with light structural units (to be used in constructing my new colony.) Instead of LTSU-2 I apparently ordered LTSU-4, which I don't have. So now my colonizer is sitting in orbit 2, burning fuel, with 15m people on it, and it has to come BACK HOME.

This gets to what is my one big gripe with this game. I should have an alert or warning when I enter a bad order. The interface does help tremendously (compared to when we used to do all this on paper), by guiding us through the order writing process. But I should have had a red flag go up when I tried to add materials to a ship that I didn't have. I would think that in real life, I would have noticed that my structural units were tech-2, not tech-4, and I certainly wouldn't have sent 15m colonists on their merry way without their supplies.

On the other hand, this player-fallibility does have an air of realism about it. Snafus happen all the time in the real world. The handful of other players in this game who have posted here seem to have hit similar snags. And one Legends player (another high-complexity PBM beast) said that even as a veteran, he generally strived for limiting himself to just one bad error per turn. And as a programmer, I can tell you that error-proofing data input can be very difficult and time-consuming.

Back to the first hand, though -- this error-prone order writing thing is potentially one of the big barriers to entry on this game. The dedicated fans will deal with it enthusiastically, but newbies will become frustrated.

Anyway, couple more things to note about this turn:

- Got pinged by another player via his scout. I haven't been probing my home system each turn, which is dumb. I need to set that up as a recurring order.

- All my aliens from the outpost have been safely assimilated into my home planet.

- My orbiter is now growing excess food in the hydroponic farms, which I need to shuttle down to the planet now and then to keep it from overflowing. Good.

- My consumer goods pipeline is falling short. After I doubled its size in the first 4 turns of the game, I thought I was good for a while, but now I see my stockpiles are running low. I am retooling some factories to CNGD production now.

- I boosted missile tech higher. Missiles are less versatile than energy weapons -- you need to pair missile launchers with the exact same tech level of missiles, the missiles are expended upon use, and there are 2 techs that can shoot down incoming missiles -- anti-missiles and energy weapons. I imagine that most players would focus on energy weapons for simplicity, versatility, etc. So I went the other way. Why? Because the damage energy weapons deliver drops over distance, while each missile that hits delivers the full punch. And you'll always hit within a certain range that goes up as missile and sensor tech advances. So I am testing a risky strategy -- use more expensive weapons that require more research, to use with ships that now need to enter battle "high" (ie: at greater distance) to maximize that edge, and hope that my feeble energy shields will hold their lasers off.

- Finally, retooled more factories into building these new missiles and more production goods.

[GrimFinger]

And now for turn 14...

Argh. I must have fat-fingered the orders where I enlarged my new colonizer ship and stocked it with light structural units (to be used in constructing my new colony.) Instead of LTSU-2 I apparently ordered LTSU-4, which I don't have. So now my colonizer is sitting in orbit 2, burning fuel, with 15m people on it, and it has to come BACK HOME.

This gets to what is my one big gripe with this game. I should have an alert or warning when I enter a bad order. The interface does help tremendously (compared to when we used to do all this on paper), by guiding us through the order writing process. But I should have had a red flag go up when I tried to add materials to a ship that I didn't have. I would think that in real life, I would have noticed that my structural units were tech-2, not tech-4, and I certainly wouldn't have sent 15m colonists on their merry way without their supplies.

On the other hand, this player-fallibility does have an air of realism about it. Snafus happen all the time in the real world. The handful of other players in this game who have posted here seem to have hit similar snags. And one Legends player (another high-complexity PBM beast) said that even as a veteran, he generally strived for limiting himself to just one bad error per turn. And as a programmer, I can tell you that error-proofing data input can be very difficult and time-consuming.

I'm not in this game, but I am going to chime in, anyway.

In Hyborian War, which is still played via the postal service, veteran players still make mistakes. Is it frustrating? Yes, but it hasn't destroyed the game. In fact, reading about errors that players make in games such as these is often a notable point of amusement. The human (player) errors, themselves, while regrettable, also become part of the overall entertainment value that a game provides. Some even rise to become lore within player communities.

That is not to say that errors are good, per se. They can be frustrating. Yet, at the same time, many games playable online have order checkers, even as they don't achieve the same degree of popularity as numerous older PBM games achieved, by comparison.

Eliminating all potential for human error can be a commendable goal, as far as processing player orders goes. Yet, human error is part and parcel of the human element in games. The more of the human element that gets eliminated, it impacts the game, somehow, I'm certain.

Recently, I began experimenting with a game that features the game, itself, offering suggested orders. Some games offer battle simulators, so that you can be certain of the outcome of pending match-ups against opponents in battle. It would be possible to have two electronic chess games that would offer suggested moves, and two players could then compete against one another utilizing those electronic chess games.

At what point, though, does the pursuit of elimination of human error negatively impact a given game? It might vary by game. But, I do think that it is something worth considering.

[ixnay]

I am inclined to agree. Interesting that you should mention playing chess via electronic chess. Back in high school I was on the Chess Team (geek! GEEK!) and played many games with our "first board" (ie: the best player). I almost always lost, but it was always fun and instructive, and slowly my game got better. Once we were talking on the phone and I was sitting in front of my atari game console with the Chess cartridge sitting nearby, so I offered to play him a game by phone (which we did from time to time.) I set the chess program to start playing, and entered his moves, responding to him with the program's moves. Inexorably I beat him, but I had no sense of victory or fun. I admitted it to him immediately upon finishing, and he laughed.

But the OTHER game we played that I specifically remember, I somehow managed to flank his defenses and surprise him with a checkmate. Both of us were surprised. And for me, the taste of that victory was worth all the defeats that came before.

Back to CW. Turn 15. I brought my colonizer back to the home world. I will finally add the missing structural units and send it off. While I am at it, I am also setting up another big ship -- this one will be intended as a missile cruiser to send to the alien colony. I have a whole pile of Missile-3s ready to shoot. I had thought of using the colonizer to ferry military stuff over there after my colony is set up, but I think I'm going to keep that ship in-system. I will need a ferry service. So the number of capital ships under my command is about to double.

I finished building a batch of Lab-8, though not nearly enough to replace all my older Labs. I also have a big batch of Mines and Farms ready to go on the colonizer -- better stuff.

On another note, last turn I finished a large batch of Automation-10 -- the highest tech item I have! (Thanks to those captured alien prototypes.) So I assembled enough to fully automate my home world and orbiter. ALL my unskilled labor is now entering training for professional status. The star-trek economy? I should have enough automation to last through the rest of the game.

I noticed that my raw material stockpiles are starting to run low. My full palette of Mine-4s are being overwhelmed by the demands of a full set of Factory-4s. So this turn I am bumping up to Mine-7 and setting up a production run. I am also junking my old scout ships -- I am in turtle mode at the moment, and by the time I get around to extending my reach beyond the alien colony, I will have tech far beyond what is on those old scouts.