Starbase thoughts.

[Sandtrooper]

This makes perfect sense. You NEED a certain amount of crew to control something as massive as a star Base. It also makes perfect sense that a small ship, like a scout, can keep fighting with only 1 crew member. Rather than a bug, this seems to be a rationally decided feature that I hope is kept for modders to decide on.

We're hoping to see a "crew" value in the designs of the ships sometime during development, but right now the size of starships is determined by MASS, and that is what skyrockets crew count rather than their true forums shown on-screen, this is why we (mostly me and another fellow) want to set some damn standards to the game. So this is why AI Starbases have 34 thousand crew members compared to your 14 thousand on your base, the mass may be the same but the game gives more crew to the AI Starbase because his/her Starbase meets the criteria for becoming a "Dock".  You'll easily tell how much crew you'll get if you're around 35,000 mass (we don't know the measure of the mass, but we do know the measure of distances) when you load up armor.

[Trompete]

I think it's perfectly fair for the devs to implement measures intended to stop players from cheating or gaming the system. Whether "MOD APPROVED" is the best way of doing this, I think that remains to be determined. But I don't see how anti-cheating/point farming measures, in general, would be 'unfair' provided a clear, unbiased set of rules and guidelines is published by the game admins.

This highlights our intentions well. The point behind approved mod packages is preventing somebody from creating a mod whose sole purpose is to whore stat points. We have no problem with everybody and their brother running their own server and publishing to the nexus as long as they aren't running the server just to stat whore with a local custom mod. I doubt there will be any problems with this with generally available mods that people make public to share.

[Trompete]

Also, even if a server isn't running an approved mod, it should still be available to join from the nexus with some sort of designator next to its name that means "go ahead and play here, but the stats for the game won't be saved". For anybody else who has played games like Halo 3, unranked games are just as popular as ranked games.

[Darius]

I think it's perfectly fair for the devs to implement measures intended to stop players from cheating or gaming the system.

Define cheating. If servers store data locally, then this context is no longer valid and we have no "cheating". Thus, everyone is happy without additional administration or coding time.

[NiteHawk]

If ranks are going to matter, it makes sense that only the higher command ranks (like star bases) should be able to set tasks for the AI. Question then is, what happens when there is no player to command the AI?

Then the AI will do what they want, like they currently do. If there is no one to command the AI, then the AI will do the best choice of action. I'd rather improve what they have now, as there just god awful retarded. But we want to put AI to scripting, so that everyone can define them better or change how they are. Future stuff.

If you let the Protoss win in Starcraft, you deserved to lose. If you let them capture your starbase, you deserved the loss. It should not be considered unbalanced as it is implausible to capture one, and is a fun teamwork exercise to do so. Regardless of the default gameplay, it must be left to the modders to decide star base properties like this one.

I can see this being a toggle in the future and leave it so they decide... But yeah, toggle would be fine with default off.

This makes perfect sense. You NEED a certain amount of crew to control something as massive as a star Base. It also makes perfect sense that a small ship, like a scout, can keep fighting with only 1 crew member. Rather than a bug, this seems to be a rationally decided feature that I hope is kept for modders to decide on.

It is not a feature, as the coding is flawed. I have already seen it myself. A starbase, that has 5-10k population still, does not want to fire, AT ALL? It, for the most case doesn't even do anything. 5-10k population is still rather up there. I could see however adjusting it so there fire rate is slower, until there is 'nothing left', but a ship with 30% crew members still shouldn't be a paper weight in space.

This is not fair to anyone branded a "cheat server". If you can't store your server data onto the Nexus, then what's the point? If anything happens to your local machine, that data is gone, and everyone has to start all over again. Rather, if people are so uppity about this, then why not have ranks stored on the nexus in individual server form?

There will always be a global rank vs a server rank vs a local rank. Server rank is not added yet though. I'm not going to keep peoples local ranks on the nexus, as this is just a bit to tedious I feel. But I am keeping the global rank regardless. It promotes gameplay among each other, despite the server you are on, etc.

Global Rank: For global rank (Any server that is attached to the nexus with global scores), the server would need to run a approved mod.  The reason for mod approved is simple that 80% of scores have been from people mass spawning AI, crazy guns that kill with a single touch, etc. So, if you finished your mod and want to submit it to us, we check it and if good, then we add it to the list of mods that CAN save score. This doesn't affect the fact that you can post to the nexus, I would be fine with all servers posting. Just have a image for approved mods like Trompete said. This won't be removed, most of the community prefer a global based rank.

Server Rank: Don't have this one yet however we want to add it. This would be ranks bound/saved to the server, and the server saves all the ranks. You can still post to the nexus, and you can make some crazy mods without the worry of approval.

Local Rank: As it is now, saved on your own computer. Mainly play on servers that have 'local rank' enabled.

Who gets to decide what is "cheating"?

Like I said above, people make crazy mods to raise there rank. They often firewall themselves as well so we can't actually get in the server, but they can still 'send' data to the nexus due to just keeping the nexus port open. For the most case to be 'mod approved' its just a simple check over of the coding, and we tag it as good. I just don't want to see anything over the top that would promote gaining score super easy. I'm not saying you can't have some crazy gadgets here and there (For example grenade 3), but it needs to be balanced.

It's not all that bad, you finish a mod, you send it, we approve it rather quickly. For the most case I'd maybe even have a web based program that can verify 'max' allowed values to be allowed so it can be automated or half automated at least (to speed up checks.). But again, if this isn't good for you since you want crazy stuff in game, the Server Rank will be available, so that server can have its own ranking system, instead of local only.

But the idea I would say between global and server/local ranks might be that global, since you can play it on every server, would take longer to get the 'highest rank', much like it is now. Server/Local ranks, though you don't have too, I can see it being more 'fast paced' We could even have it so you can toggle a check that states "Reset Server Ranks at end of game (when you win on a server)" so you can have one of those fast paced ranking systems that levels you up during each game, if you get that. I suppose that would give some variance to SF too.

[Darius]

Why do there need to be global ranks at all? If all scores are kept locally, this mess is avoided entirely.

[DarkSun]

It occurs to me that we have perhaps covered this already.

There will always be a global rank vs a server rank vs a local rank. Server rank is not added yet though. I'm not going to keep peoples local ranks on the nexus, as this is just a bit to tedious I feel. But I am keeping the global rank regardless. It promotes gameplay among each other, despite the server you are on, etc. ... This won't be removed, most of the community prefer a global based rank.

What you're saying is that you prefer local ranks. That's fine. We are already going to have local ranks, and you would be free to only play in servers that have local ranks. No one is going to be forced to use a global rank.

[NiteHawk]

Well, you wanted a toggle on the SB's being cappable right? Which I'm fine with doing in the future, no problems. But you then fight that global ranks should be removed. I say let the player choose, just like you are saying. Most now in days games have a global rank, and people love them. I'm sure people love them in SF as well. But you can play local/server ranks if you want, which I will keep local and add server ranks for you. No one will be stopping anyone from playing global or server, as you can create your own server.

I could question you and say, "Why do SB's have to be capped at all?" as well, which would be very well similar. I don't feel they should be right now as it unbalances the game to the point where as soon as you lose your upgrades, you are pretty much going to have issues... But normally I tend to accept the fact that some people want different things, and I do try to get in a good amount of stuff that's asked for. I understand your point when you say it will be a bit more work coding wise, but I am all for doing it, no questions asked, you know?