The "missile back up" exploit in action

[DaveV]

I'm currently playing an Impossible game as the Psilons. My chief rival is the Bulrathi, who are about even with me in population but well ahead in technology and production. They have Class X planetary shields and Class VII deflectors, and I have nothing that can penetrate that shielding, so the combat is taking place over my planets.

Here's the start of one combat:






Although the Rhino is no threat to my planet, I'm going to target it first because it's the fastest:



And now the Rhino is just barely in range of my nuke missiles. I shoot one.



Although the missile will do exactly one point of damage if it hits, the Rhino backs up to avoid it. Now the slower ships are in range of my Hyper-V missiles:



And the Warbear backs up to avoid the missile. The Rhino should be killed by the volley that's on the way; I spend this volley of planetary missiles on the Colony ship to further reduce the number of targets. Another Nuke is targeted on the Grizzly stack:



Now, I'm going to target the Warbear with the planetary missiles:



The Warbear is now in range of the Hyper-Vs:



And now the Grizzlies are coming back for more:



Four turns later, the Warbear is destroyed, and the Grizzlies are in range for a Hyper-V:



I finish off the Grizzly with one Hyper-V and three nuclear missiles left over.

I probably could have retreated my ships and beaten these guys with my missile bases, but this would have worked just as well if they were packing bombs or bio weapons. This trick is less effective if the invaders have good speed or missiles - although I've had good success in the latter case with a large design with auto repair and one rack each of Hyper-Vs and nukes. If you're careful in your targeting, you can often make two stacks back up on one turn.

[Sirian]

I know about this loophole. The question is not whether it can be exploited to break the game, but whether or not RB players will have the sense not to exploit it. We'll regulate this if necessary, but I'll be frank here. We don't have the resources to enforce a rule even if we write one. At best, we could run spot checks, and anybody found to be designing ships for the express purpose of achieving the kind of results you describe here would be found in violation. "Dual use facilities" and other ambiguous situations would be harder to enforce, and the farther down that road we have to go to maintain order, the worse off the tournament will be.

Thus, I am starting from the position of regulating nothing. I ask folks to use common sense. If anybody has questions about whether a particular tactic is unbalancing and should be reviewed for possible regulation, or put on a voluntary list of items to refrain from pursuing, by all means come forward, although doing so in email might be better than doing so publicly.

Unless an issue comes up for several people and shows itself to be problematic in an unavoidable way, then the proper solution may be to tell the player involved to "cool it" rather than write a rule, which applies to everybody, to contain an issue that is warranted for only a tiny fraction of the participants.

In this case, yes, this is one of those elements. So try this.

* Don't exploit it by design.
* Don't bend over backward to avoid accidental instances.

Everybody follow this guideline with sincere intent to comply, and we shouldn't need to regulate this. That is my hope, at least.


- Sirian

[DaveV]

Originally posted by Sirian@Apr 21 2004, 02:13 PM
...although doing so in email might be better than doing so publicly.

Oops, sorry. I wasn't trying to be a skunk at the picnic; I realize I'm new here and am grateful to the Imperium organizers for reviving interest in a game that remains one of my all-time favorites.

[Sirian]

No problem. The missile retreat issue is probably going to need some regulation, and I've known that for some time. Zed has pointed it out publicly before, along with one or two other imbalance problems, and I have a couple more I'm eyeing. Still, I had hoped we'd get at least one full Imperium under our belts before the first encounter with a rules issue. In cases where a one-size-fits-all solution is possible (such as RoP Rape issue in Civ3 - "Don't do it") then a regulation can be a no-brainer. If an issue has legitimate and perhaps even important applications, but also abuse potential, that gets messy for the rules keeper. In those instances, all options come with costs, cons, so finding the best solution is more challenging. Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something. That's what I'm waiting to see about MOO's issues: "Where will the costs of doing nothing exceed the cons of taking action."

This is a long term approach, so I ask for patience. We're all in this together.


- Sirian

[Drasca]

Maybe its because its 4:30 am and my brain isn't working, or I'm not reading slowly and carefully, but the entire thing went over my head. I don't see what's really going on and I'm just I don't get it and I'm not going to ask further.

[Zed-F]

By shooting slow ship-based missiles at your opponent when they are just barely in range, you will cause the AI ships to back up out of range of those missiles. This is possible because ship-based missiles have relatively limited fuel and will disappear after moving twice. The point of doing this is to (i) keep those AI ships away from your planet and thereby prevent them from attacking it with beams or bombs, (ii) keep those AI ships away from your own ships so they can continue to fire missiles, and (iii) allow your planetary missile bases, whose missiles are not constrained by fuel limits, more opportunities to fire before they come under attack.

In the example above, DaveV's missile bases only have shield IV. The attackers had plenty enough beam power to penetrate those shields. If he did not have ships in orbit, or even if he had the same number and size of ships but he didn't try to use the trick (e.g. they were outfitted with different weapons, or he waited until the enemy ships were all the way in firing range before shooting the missiles) then for certain he would have lost all his ships and some or all of his missile bases. The presence of a couple cheap ships using the "missile back up" trick turned what could have been a defeat into a cakewalk. Turning a close or losing battle into a cakewalk using this trick is not uncommon either.

What an AI beam ship should be able to do is figure out how much damage it is likely to sustain from a missile barrage, and if it's not sufficiently large, plow right on through, rather than backing up and delaying being able to bring its own guns to bear.

There are other tricks that can be used to keep AI ships away from your planet, such as using warp dissipators or repulsor beams on your ships. In comparison, however, these tend to put your ships more at risk of attack themselves, and don't exploit flaws in the AI, so are less "cheesy". Moreover, in these cases you are using specials in the way they are intended to be used, rather than cheap missiles, which are intended to do damage, to instead cause the AI to turn his ships into sitting ducks.

[DaveV]

A further advantage to playing the back-up game: if I had retreated my ships on the first turn, the AI would then have been smart enough to retreat his Rhino, since it can't do any damage to the missile bases. By keeping the Rhino on the board, I'm able to destroy it and do more damage to the attacker, making him more likely to offer or accept a peace treaty, and causing him to lose his investment in that ship.

What an AI beam ship should be able to do is figure out how much damage it is likely to sustain from a missile barrage, and if it's not sufficiently large, plow right on through, rather than backing up and delaying being able to bring its own guns to bear.

Especially in the case of the Warbear, which has Automated Damage Control! If my missile had hit (a 70% chance), it would have done one hit of damage. The Warbear can repair 135 hits per turn; calling one hit "insignificant" is the understatement of the year.

[DaveV]

In an attempt to make things clear, I'll run the same combat without my ships. My initial target is the Warbear, since he has the most firepower.


Four turns later, the Rhino has retreated, I've almost killed the Warbear and have lost one missile base to the first round of ship fire.


Now, it's attrition time: can I kill the Grizzly stack before I run out of bases?


Yes, I can. The Colony ship decides discretion is the better part of valor.


Here's the damage:


So, in this case, using the back-up trick saved me 6 missile bases, 1 million population, and 4 factories, and cost the Bulrathi two extra ships. As Zed-F said, though, it can often mean the difference between holding and losing a planet.