The Design Championship. forum game

[sublight]

I'm in if you are accepting veterans.


1. Iranon
2. AL
3. MarcAFK
4. Thanatos
5. Garfunkel
6. xXKageAsashinXx
7. Panopticon
8. sublight

[Sheb (OP)]

Great! With 8 participants, we can start. If more people wants to join, they feel free to join. I'll put up the brackets once I've got the design in.

For the first round of the tournament, you can use all technologies worth 5000 RP or less (Nuclear Pulse, Near UV Laser...)*. Your designs should have a combined cost (including any missiles) of 5000 BP or less.

Mail me the design by MP. Please include a screenshot of the design window so I know exactly what's in there.



*I'm not counting race-specific tech in thise, so feel free to have a gigantic sensor array.

[Iranon]

Any restrictions on deployment time, maintenance life, minimum speed or range, to keep the designs fit for general use?

EDIT: Also, is this meant to be a single ship or can it be several? First post implies the former, but isn't clear.

[Sheb (OP)]

If can be a ship, or several ships. I expect most people to field single ships since we're not constrained by shipyard size, but it'd be nice to see fighter swarms or some more complex design (ship towing an alpha strike missile pod?).

Good to remind me about the limits. I don't want to be too strict, but I don't want to have ship run out of fuel before they get to fight either. So your ship or Task Group must have a range of at least 7 billions km (enough to make it from Pluto to Sol and some.)

[AL]

Do we allow any "exploits" of possible game mechanic flaws? I might show a screenshot of what I mean when I get back on my home computer.

And with regard to start locations, can we say we want to start x distance from the other guy? If so, is x=0 allowed?

Also, what's the deadline for submissions?

[Sheb (OP)]

Depend on the exploits, I'll rule on them when I see them.

No, the enemy's starting location is secret. 

There is no deadline yet, I'll run matches as I get submissions. Deadline for the first round will be the start of the second round.

Also, I'd help me if you could give a team name and write a short description of the team. Think of the whole thing as some kind of bloodsport.

[Thanatos]

I sent my designs in.

I shall be 'Thanatos Transport Solutions'. Because we are businessmen. Funny acronym intended.

[AL]

Here's two "exploits" - one's pretty harmless while the other is most likely not.
Consider this design:

Code: [Select]

Weapon class Destroyer    100 950 tons     5230 Crew     9414.2 BP      TCS 2019  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 10-193     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 1536
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 58    AFR 81527%    IFR 1132.3%    1YR 3607117    5YR 54106761    Max Repair 5120 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 4   


T256-MB-200 (1x256)    Range 200 000km     TS: 3000 km/s     Power 2560-256     RM 20    ROF 50        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Fire Control S02 192-2000 (1)    Max Range: 384 000 km   TS: 2000 km/s     97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
Pebble Bed Reactor Technology PB-1 (86)     Total Power Output 258    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Junk (1)     GPS 100     Range 800k km    Resolution 100

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

The "exploit" here is that 0 tracking speed turrets can be turreted, leading to monstrous death cannons like you can see in the design. This is more of something funny that I wanted to share than a serious exploit. But the serious part is coming now:

Code: [Select]

Propulsion class Fleet Support Vessel    6 000 tons     21 Crew     946.4 BP      TCS 120  TH 840  EM 0
7000 km/s     Armour 10-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 0.31 Years     MSP 99    AFR 288%    IFR 4%    1YR 322    5YR 4834    Max Repair 140 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 0   
Tractor Beam     

280 EP Nuclear Pulse Engine (3)    Power 280    Fuel Use 226.87%    Signature 280    Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 550 000 Litres    Range 7.3 billion km   (12 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Perhaps you might already know what I'm referring to, but here's a screenshot of the setup that is generating the exploit:

By daisy-chaining two tugs, the weight of anything further down the line is completely disregarded so the whole group can move at the full speed of the tugs.

Also, is spoiler tech allowed?

[Sheb (OP)]

Ok, the second one isn't allowed. No daisy-chain.

And no spoiler tech either.

I've already received two entries, one of which require minor modifications. Keep them coming in guys!

[AL]

So if we want to use tugs, it has to be only two per chain?

Kudos for the super-quick response btw.

[Iranon]

Very interesting find, AL!
I can't believe I never noticed the possibility, given that I used 0-tracking turrets quite often.

[AL]

Haha, I'm afraid I can't take all the credit for these bugs; I believe I saw them originally from a comment somewhere in the depths of the forum, but they still aren't really well known. I guess noting them in this thread will probably go a long way to bringing them to general awareness.

[Sheb (OP)]

So if we want to use tugs, it has to be only two per chain?

Kudos for the super-quick response btw.

Basically, you can use tugs as long as they don't result in artificially higher speed. If you do daisy-chain them, I guess I'll just manually lower the TG speed.

[sloanjh]

Basically, you can use tugs as long as they don't result in artificially higher speed. If you do daisy-chain them, I guess I'll just manually lower the TG speed.

Not 100% sure I remember correctly (the conversations were 5 years ago or more), but my very strong recollection is that Steve's intent is that daisy-chaining tugs not be allowed - this is an exploit.  In particular, I think the speed calculation might be incorrect.

John

[Sheb (OP)]

Yeah, but I can manually correct the calculation.