Trying to stay on-topic here, I have no reason to question Quake's experience, or the fact that his experience led to useful insights under the old metagame. That's for him and Mortius to debate! But I don't think what we're saying and what he's saying are incompatible.
What Quake is saying, I think, is that in the WGF/Syndicate era, boarding and capture were an important part of total warfare. We're saying that in the new designer era, boarding shouldn't be the most important part of total warfare. One statement is indicative and historical, the other is deontic and programmatic. I think we've adduced enough support from real-world conditions, sci-fi narrative tropes and video game balancing conventions (all good sources for Hazeron to draw on) to establish the position. I'm a fan of boarding and have always argued for mechanics which enable it: weapons which disable and immobilize, shield disruption etc. But every reference I know argues for its being an entertaining secondary mechanic, not a front-line strategy. Someone may be able to make a good argument against that, but I don't think they've done so yet.
The only area where I'd make a claim to some solid experience is new ships themselves. In recent months, I've become very familiar with the tremendous firepower of new ships compared to their health. I'm just not sure I can think of a situation where I'd sit around, inside transporter range, fiddling about with boarding while my own vessel gets hammered. You'd have a few minutes at most. I'd only risk it if I had a tremendous tactical advantage, or stealth and surprise, or a completely disposable ship. In any of those cases, I'd presumably be able to solve the puzzle at leisure, or else give up and destroy the enemy some easier way. Hence, my 1:99 statement, which I will defend. In war, you try to win without fighting the enemy's strongest units at all, a.k.a. the Maginot Shuffle. If you must fight those, you take the minimum risk possible, which certainly precludes boarding as a first resort!
Er...I wasn't going to make that point, out of respect for the fact you've probably fought more people than I have. But it seems you've just made a pretty good case against yourself, anyway. So, do you want more difficult-to-capture stuff, or don't you? Getting slightly confused.
(By the way, if it's ever revisited, my "steal blueprint" suggestion was not about downloading something from a list of enemy designs, but pointing some sort of scanner at a specific enemy ship and pulling part or all of its file; presumably with the help of future stealth mechanics. Modified by Q, scanner volume, ECM, &c. Hiding everything except room voids and stations in the parts list gives you a pretty good general idea of layout. The rules about how voids must be made are strict enough that you can't really do anything super-wacky with them without lagging your own ship to death. At careful team shouldn't need more than a week to work out how to capture any given design. If you're really set on capturing, that's a lot quicker making a new one of your own.)
What Quake is saying, I think, is that in the WGF/Syndicate era, boarding and capture were an important part of total warfare. We're saying that in the new designer era, boarding shouldn't be the most important part of total warfare. One statement is indicative and historical, the other is deontic and programmatic. I think we've adduced enough support from real-world conditions, sci-fi narrative tropes and video game balancing conventions (all good sources for Hazeron to draw on) to establish the position. I'm a fan of boarding and have always argued for mechanics which enable it: weapons which disable and immobilize, shield disruption etc. But every reference I know argues for its being an entertaining secondary mechanic, not a front-line strategy. Someone may be able to make a good argument against that, but I don't think they've done so yet.
The only area where I'd make a claim to some solid experience is new ships themselves. In recent months, I've become very familiar with the tremendous firepower of new ships compared to their health. I'm just not sure I can think of a situation where I'd sit around, inside transporter range, fiddling about with boarding while my own vessel gets hammered. You'd have a few minutes at most. I'd only risk it if I had a tremendous tactical advantage, or stealth and surprise, or a completely disposable ship. In any of those cases, I'd presumably be able to solve the puzzle at leisure, or else give up and destroy the enemy some easier way. Hence, my 1:99 statement, which I will defend. In war, you try to win without fighting the enemy's strongest units at all, a.k.a. the Maginot Shuffle. If you must fight those, you take the minimum risk possible, which certainly precludes boarding as a first resort!
Quote:
Most of the people we fought were severely inept, had no idea how to make difficult-to-capture cities or dangerous ships
Er...I wasn't going to make that point, out of respect for the fact you've probably fought more people than I have. But it seems you've just made a pretty good case against yourself, anyway. So, do you want more difficult-to-capture stuff, or don't you? Getting slightly confused.
(By the way, if it's ever revisited, my "steal blueprint" suggestion was not about downloading something from a list of enemy designs, but pointing some sort of scanner at a specific enemy ship and pulling part or all of its file; presumably with the help of future stealth mechanics. Modified by Q, scanner volume, ECM, &c. Hiding everything except room voids and stations in the parts list gives you a pretty good general idea of layout. The rules about how voids must be made are strict enough that you can't really do anything super-wacky with them without lagging your own ship to death. At careful team shouldn't need more than a week to work out how to capture any given design. If you're really set on capturing, that's a lot quicker making a new one of your own.)