Re: Escorting stat, on new experimental server! Be the first admiral!

[Peter Mardahl <peterm@langmuir.EECS.Berkeley.EDU>]

> Greetings,
> 
>     The proposed changes sound good, but I have a few questions...  First,
> how is blowing up on the taker defined?  What if you only do 1 pt. of
> damage?  5 pts?  10?  I'm not sure how you do this, but I have thought of
> some possible methods:

oh, I'm not proposing that the vanilla server be modified yet.
I'm announcing my new server which has these changes, and thought the vanilla
list might be amused/interested.  If the vanilla list is interested,
I'd be glad to contribute the changes.

However, I'd like to run the mods experimentally for some time before
contributing the changes, for tuning, bug elimination, and possibly
additional features.

> 1.  Set a certain limit on how much damage a person's explosion causes to
> carrier, and if it is over that limit, escort credit is decreased.

Right now, if you damage your carrier at all with your explosion,
you lose credit for dying in his defense.

> 2.  Set a certain *percentage* limit on how much damage a person's explosion
> causes to carrier.  A 15 pt. explosion is a drop in the bucket for an AS
> with 170 hull, but not for a CA with 65 left.  This is the one I like.

I can certainly implement this, it is not difficult, and it sounds reasonable.
But there's a benefit of taking credit away from people who blow on their
carriers:  it will teach them not to do that.  However, I personally lean
toward removing credit proportionally to damage done, as you've proposed.

>     Also, what happens if the player's explosion KILLS the carrier?  Is all

They get no escort credit at all.

> of their escort "bonus" nullified?  Detting for the carrier should be
> rewarded also, and 'death by det' for the carrier should be rewarded even
> moreso.  

I agree with this, but haven't implemented this, and I'm unsure how to do it.
I don't know if there is a way to distinguish "death by det" from "death
by torp".  If there is, I can keep record of it:  I already keep a record
of deaths so I can award credit for planet takes to dead escorts.

> Is there a possibility for people to "escort scum" with this setup?

yes, absolutely:  just as offense/bombing/planets can be scummed, so
can escorting.  However, a "scummer" will get more credit if he
is actually useful to the carrier.

> I can see myself rushing into a planet that I see a lot of teammates at,
> only to have them all run back about 1/2 tactical away to get escort credit,

> thus giving the enemy team a nice, juicy doosh (namely me).  :'(  Perhaps
> only give credit if the take succeeds?

They'd be stupid to do that:  a successful take gives them credit, a
failed one, none.  Successful takes give the most escort credit.  Abuse
can be done by staying behind the planet (as the code is now):  you'd get credit
without working for it.  However, if you sit in front of the planet
and die, you get MORE credit, (you get credit for dying in defense of
the carrier), AND even if you die, if the carrier get the planet within
9 seconds of your death, you get escort credit for the successful take.

PeterM