The biggest "industry standard" programming languages of today by far are languages like C++ and Java. And let me tell you - THEY SUCK. You couldn't pay me enough money to program in either of them (and I've been offered quite a bit). Either language will rot your brain to use it. VERBOSITY Consider a program which writes "Hello World" to the screen. Here it is in Java: <span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: courier
[quote]I haven't really played the other factions, do they also have repair cruisers?[/quote] They have repair cruisers, but you almost never see them used in ICO games - they are at a higher tier level. But you ALWAYS see TEC hoshis.
[quote]the capability to keep your capital ships alive is simply invaluable.[/quote] I'm not so sure that hoshis are great for keeping caps alive in the face of focus fire and bombers. Of course they are better than nothing, but they aren't THAT much better than nothing. Basically, we just have to accept with this game that there is little we can do to keep caps alive if they are to support the fleet. My response to this is just to not build caps.
If you don't like repair cruisers like hoshis, you might want to try vasari, as the overwhelming number of vasaris you will ever see will never use repair cruisers.
[quote]You are playing ffa (vs. locked teams).. No, the teams are unlocked.[/quote] That's what I said. You are playing ffa, instead of locked teams, so it's sort of difficult to take you seriously when you then complain that you are getting ganged up on, especially with an unfair setting.
I still think caps are just ridiculously vulnerable. I've gone back to my old "crapship" mode (just build the first cap, and when it dies, don't replace it). because it is just impossible to have them actually support your fleet - they will get bombered or focused with lrm. They need to make it so that only caps counter caps (besides a few exceptions, perhaps).
You are playing ffa (vs. locked teams), choosing to use pirates, and playing with an unfair setting to boot, and then you are complaining when things are... unfair?
Can you guy download the sync build so they can track down the problem?
Well, weirdly enough, there seems to be no interest in this from anyone. I would think people would be beating down my door to get their hands on a program like this. Go figure. I did code up the "standard" pug where you just flip a coin, choose whether to defer or not, etc, and it works fine... but I guess since so one seems interested....
[quote]blitzes are a rarity in this game This sounds very contrary to what I hear, but maybe somebody can throw out an opinion on that for me.[/quote] Oh no, blitzes (rushes) are all too common in this game - it's all anyone does online. I think that guy may have been trying to say that while rushes are common, actually completely eliminating the opponent very quickly (assuming the guy just never gives up) is more rare. This could be considered true.&nbs
Nice spreadsheet work. You and Deceiver (I believe it was him) have both suggested using wins/losses ratios in the calculation. Frankly, I don't care either way, but just so you guys know, most pros that I know don't do that. They say the wins/losses don't count, because there can be minidumps, disconnects, map fucks, and about a million other things to make that data unreliable. They just look at pure numbers of games played. The rationale is, if you've played
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The question is misguided, because the fact is, as every economist worth his salt knows, governments (through central banks such as the Federal Reserve) cause the very recessions that you then propose that they cure, through either spending or spending cuts. The answer is that governments should not cause recessions in the first place through government or central bank policies. Furthermore, it would help if governments didn't allow coporations to ship millions of good jobs over
[quote]Fixed the translucent planets issue. My driver was slightly out of date.[/quote] That wasn't the problem at all, because the problem came back. I tracked down the cause. If I use Entrenchment to launch Diplomacy, then it does the translucent planet thing. If I launch normally, it doesn't.
So the TEC envoy produces money for YOU, the owner of the envoy, or for your ally? And if you use it on an enemy planet, does it essentially "steal" the money from him?
As far as 1 goes, you'll have the smurf problem whether you pug normally, or pug with a program. If you know who the smurf is, you could use a number that is closer to his real record. As far as 2 goes (inconvenience), I actually tested this in a couple of real pug games tonight. As soon as all the bickering started as far as "who's gonna cap?" and "pick a number!" and "let's just do tvb" blah blah, I grabbed my cell phone, entered all the player records into it, spawned o
Sins Forums
[quote]Kharma, I'm afraid, would argue with a fencepost, doesn't matter the issue. [/quote] Well maybe so, ya damn fencepost! :-) But at the end of the day, I will evaluate a good argument for what it's worth. If Diplo ends up with higher player counts than Entrench had, that's good enough for me. (Still don't like increased speed options, but whatever....)
Okay, I actually have an alpha version working. I've run a few test cases, and it seems to work well with those. The algorithm I use is this (my own custom): 1) Add up all player records (number of games played) and divide by 2. This represents the theoretical "midpoint score" you would want both teams to have, ideally. For example, say you are doing a 2v2. Say the number of games played is 50, 100, 100, and 50. The total is 300. Divided by
[quote]My friend and I tried about a dozen games on ICO a while ago, and the asshole to reasonable player ratio was about 1:1.[/quote] I actually find the asshole to reasonable player ratio to be worse than 1:1. The people on my personal "ban list" far exceed the people who aren't, so it's far more difficult for me to get games than the average guy (and it's tough for the average guy!). I always thought the 5v5 was bizzare too. It was obvious to me after just playi
Okay, I've been jaded on Diplo from the get-go, but Deceiver said something that makes sense to me - the chance of recruiting new players to Sins will probably come from Diplo. not from anywhere else. If they aren't simply chased away again by all the assholes on MP who want their own private party, it would be reason enough for me to buy and support the product. Good argument, Deceiver.
[quote]2) The previous aside, there's also the problem of SMURFS! While your system would work fine for secret smurfs (ie ones you dont KNOW are smurfs) it could create a problem with those who are Obviously smurfs, or known smurfs. Your program would have problems adjusting for this and people would certainly cry foul if teams were stacked with smurfs....[/quote] Are you saying that with a known smurf, the pug captain doesn't just look at the record of the smurf when he drafts, rathe
[quote]They shouldn't be unstoppable.[/quote] Not that I care either way - I'm not a diplomacy man, and I'm not a pirate man either - but my problem lorewise with this is, why should a gang of pirates sitting on some asteroid be more powerful than the vasari, a race which ruled over most of the entire galaxy? Or why should they be more powerful than the freakish advent, a race which strikes terror in the heart's of the TEC?
Actually, there are always patch notes that say "saved games will be incompatible" whenever they release a patch.
I hate to say it, but this game is chock full of assholes on MP. It has been since day one - I know because I was around on day one. There are a bazillion threads on this subject if you care to find them. I have played strategy games for years, but have never run across assholes like I see with this game's MP, neither in quantity nor quality. This game, for whatever reason, attracted scores of assholes to its multiplayer. Why that happened is certainly an interes
Fixed the translucent planets issue. My driver was slightly out of date. Didn't affect Entrench, but I guess Diplo has added a few more whiz bangs to the engine? Also, haven't had any more crashes since, so the driver may have been the problem.
You know, drafting for PUGS takes so damn long, and people dread to do it so much that additional time is wasted just because people would rather sit and talk than start the process. Then there's deciding who the captains are gonna be (not me! not me! etc.) which takes up even more time, yadda yadda. It occurred to me that I could sit down and write a program that would automatically choose the teams "fairly," based on the records you input. I could kick out the