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scraping plaents... |
Coeus {NCX-Charger}
Admiral, I can't read,
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 16, 2004
Posts: 3635
From: South Philly
|  Posted: 2004-10-09 15:16
Scorched Earth - the tactic for sore losers who know they can't win in straight combat 
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Darkspace: Twilight
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Tbone
Grand Admiral
Joined: July 21, 2001
Posts: 1756
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2004-10-09 16:08
You have to be in orbit and have engineering drones to build, you should at least have to be in orbit (or some certain range) to scrap.
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Distel {Combat BUMpkin} Stolz
Cadet
ExtraTerrestrial Space Bums
Joined: April 04, 2003
Posts: 85
| Posted: 2004-10-09 16:43
From Coeus: "Scorched Earth - the tactic for sore losers who know they can't win in straight combat."
I notice that you have degraded a discussion of a combat tactic to name calling. By the way, if you don't already know this, the logical fallacy that you are using is called "ad hominem," or "against the man." It means to argue against the person rather than their postion. If you are unable to offer a cogent argument against "scorched earth," perhaps it is best that you refrain from posting.
Additionally, please do not let the anonymity of the internet become an excuse for insulting behavior. If you are a child, please learn some manners; if you are an adult, get some maturity.
@Tbone: Why? I can understand having a unit that specifically builds things. The U.S. Army has a Corps of Engineers. However, almost every military unit other than supply is capable of destructing things....that's the nature of war: Destruction. And realistically (as in real war), when a position is overrun, soldiers must destroy their own radios, maps, cypher machinery....in fact anything that can be used by the enemy. And they don't have to call in the equiment's manufacturer to do it for them. Up until a planet is capped there are still friendly infantry on it. Scrapping at a distance is simply equivalent to giving those infantry orders to "scorch the earth" before they are captured. And since we can already give infantry orders withoout being "in orbit," I do not see how distance scrapping is essentially any different.
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Tbone
Grand Admiral
Joined: July 21, 2001
Posts: 1756
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2004-10-09 18:13
Quote:
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On 2004-10-09 16:43, Distel Stolz wrote:
@Tbone: Why? I can understand having a unit that specifically builds things. The U.S. Army has a Corps of Engineers. However, almost every military unit other than supply is capable of destructing things....that's the nature of war: Destruction. And realistically (as in real war), when a position is overrun, soldiers must destroy their own radios, maps, cypher machinery....in fact anything that can be used by the enemy. And they don't have to call in the equiment's manufacturer to do it for them. Up until a planet is capped there are still friendly infantry on it. Scrapping at a distance is simply equivalent to giving those infantry orders to "scorch the earth" before they are captured. And since we can already give infantry orders withoout being "in orbit," I do not see how distance scrapping is essentially any different.
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If you want to be realistic (as you seem to want to be) then you are (purposely?) leaving out a few major points to support your own agenda.
Can these engineers destroy things from a couple hundred kilometers away or on the other side of a planet or OFF planet instantly? Nope. They have to be told to destroy this object (communication delay), move to that object (travel delay), set the demolition charges (even more delay), evacuate the object (more delay), then set them off.
I can tell a planet to destroy a building instantly no matter where I am. I could be orbitting the planet, or I could be on the other side of the MV.
Let's take my idea one step further, borrowing from your paragraph, in fact, and expanding on my previous.
You have to use the friendly troops on the planet to destroy any buildings you want. No more of this Ctrl-X twice and the entire infracstructure is gone. You have to tell friendly troops to destroy friendly buildings.
They would have to move there and then destroy it. It wouldn't be a slow as the current "Raze" would be, but it wouldn't be as instant as Ctrl-X is either. If you send the infantry too late, the planet could be captured before you destroy the target buildings. If you send them too early, you could be sabotaging your own planet for no gain and all loss.
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Fornax
Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: April 30, 2002
Posts: 906
From: Jacksonville, FL
| Posted: 2004-10-09 20:02
My complaint about scrapping isn't that it is done at all. I feel that there is a place in the game for selectively denying an opponent a capability. A common example is the interdictor. Scrap it,and most of the time somebody has to work the planet up to 70 tech so it can be rebuilt. This is very applicable when you think you can return with a sufficient force to recapture it very soon.
Other scrappage is reasonable also, including removal of defense bases or a SY AND/OR the tech producing buildings on it.
On the other hand, I still don't get it when somebody scraps the ENTIRE planet...or, generally scraps something other than the above. It just doesn't make sense. In fact, in my mind, it runs very close to griefing.
But it is 'legal'.
Scrapping planets to help enable capture is still a RoC issue.
Nax
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Grimith
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: August 09, 2003
Posts: 836
From: Your local future farm.
| Posted: 2004-10-09 20:27
To begin with, I have to compliment Distel on the fact that he was relying on more or less logic in his arguments. He backed up his stuff with what he knew, and even if I do disagree with some of it, I still have to say that it was very nice.
So, with the history of destroying stuff to prevent its use for others out of the way, I shall now continue.
For one, I agree with what TBone last suggested in the last post. Order the friendly troops to raze the buildings. To me, that is the best way to do it. After all, when you order a scrap all the way across the systems, you're relying on people to automatically be in those places with the tools necessary to rupture... nay, destroy those buildings completely (which is why there officially becomes an empty diamond!).
If you're all the way over near Urd in Epsilon Caranie AA and you're scrapping buildings on Grice in Struve A... there is something wrong.
Troops should be ordered to do the scrap. That is the best way I can think of to solve the problem.
But, I think that this situation should ONLY apply in the cases where there are enemy troops invading the planet. If a ship is trying to scrap and rebuild certain necessities for a planet (let's just say there are all sensor bases and no other good stuff), then the scrapping should take place immediately. Don't need to impede all things.
Now that that's taken care of, I'll address something that Fornax brought up.
I will admit that I do scrap planets. At first, it was just basically the hubs (back in 1.480 when losing the hub actually made a really powerful difference), but there's been times where I've gone full monty and burnt the whole bloody thing to ashes. That was not the case for 1.480... I'd only scrap things like starports and other valuable structures... but with 1.481 and beyond, I've never lost a single point of construction prestige for anything I've scrapped.
This has made me do it a bit.
Over the past handful of months, though, I've regulated myself. I'll only scrap an important building here or there (like a shipyard) and leave the rest of the stuff on the planet. The only exception to this rule is when I've taken at least thirty minutes of my playing time to build the planet myself. When it's one of my planets that is being captured/bombed/invaded, I have this horrible feeling of anger (be it a game or not), and I will not hesitate to ruthlessly scrap everything if I wish it. Consequently, when the builders of other planets that are about to be captured are online and they don't want a thing scrapped, I'll listen to them. If they built it, they should have the choice.
One of the things about it being a game is that it's supposed to be for fun, ne?
Now, the stupidest thing about the game mechanics the way they are is how sudden the technology falls. What... even if we do like twelve hours for every minute ('cos let's just assume that space time has been simplified so we don't have a ton of boredom), a whole planet can drop from 100 tech to 10 that fast?
Mein Gott, how stupid are the people in the time of Darkspace? They're marginally better than Sims!
Let's be reasonable! How about a gradual technology decay? That way, when someone goes hogwild and scraps the interdictor base and all of the DB3s, it won't take a lot of time to rebuild them all! I know that this would also help in building stuff, because when I scrap a Subspace Network to build a Cortex Nexus (for instance), there are times where the technology will go down before I can make the nexus, and I'll have to rebuild the network and wait for the tech to go back up! It's come to the point where I always make sure to have a spare structure I can scrap so I don't screw up in nuking myself down the tech totem pole until I'm ready for it.
In honesty, when it comes to the tech and everything, we're just as bad as we were in 1.480. When the hub was scrapped/bombed, all the research had to be done over from scratch. Even though that there are more buildings to maintain the tech now in 1.482, they're hardly there except for on mod planets and sy planets. No one even has to just wipe the hub to remove the technology... just remove the buildings themselves and voila.
But, anyway, I've sorely digressed. Forgive me. There are just some things about Darkspace that I have strong views on... and this is one of them. 
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Coeus {NCX-Charger}
Admiral, I can't read,
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 16, 2004
Posts: 3635
From: South Philly
| Posted: 2004-10-10 05:20
Quote:
| From Coeus: "Scorched Earth - the tactic for sore losers who know they can't win in straight combat."
I notice that you have degraded a discussion of a combat tactic to name calling. By the way, if you don't already know this, the logical fallacy that you are using is called "ad hominem," or "against the man." It means to argue against the person rather than their postion. If you are unable to offer a cogent argument against "scorched earth," perhaps it is best that you refrain from posting.
Additionally, please do not let the anonymity of the internet become an excuse for insulting behavior. If you are a child, please learn some manners; if you are an adult, get some maturity. |
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Trying to defend or compensate for something there bubba? Anonymity shmanonymity - gimme a number to call or an address to visit & I'll say the same thing. And I try not to get involved in the actual discussion, but give my opinion of the original post just 'cause I can
And as to a valid reasoning... that was summed up in my original post. It is a tactic whereby a retreating (therefore losing) army destroys the resources that they once occupied so that the advancing army cannot use said resources to further force the retreating army towards its defeat.
Retreating army would only do this if they knew that that the resources could not be taken back, or not be taken back in any amount of time that would validate the resources survival and potential use by the advancing army - thus they are losers in the battle for the earth in question, and they are quite sore because they lost it & won't be able to get it back, and they obviously can't win in the straight combat because their resources are being lost in the first place.
And buddy... that 1st post was me being mature and having manners, perhaps you should learn to read past the blatant and see what the message means. No where in there did I attack anyone, or anything - you assumed that. Why? *shrug*
Damn you for getting me involved in this.
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