Planetarion Wiki - User contributions [en]

Ra

2008-06-03T11:41:40Z

Ra:

== Description ==

Ra joined the game a couple of weeks into Round 1 after being invited to play by a friend. He quickly picked up the games mechanics and went on to have a good innings in later rounds, notably finishing '''13th''' in [[Round 2]] and '''65th''' in [[Round 3]] as a member of [[Fury]]. After Round 3, he became less active as the rounds progressed, before finally quitting during Round 8.

The nickname Ra was only used by him up until Round 4, after which he became ViolentJ, and then Kueller in order to stay under the radar, with only his close friends knowing who he really was.

He was also a memeber of the battlegroup/community [[Kralizec]], often playing other games with them.

In Round 27, Ra will return to the game.

== Alliances ==

As Ra:

*[[Round 2]] - [[Round 4]]: [[Fury]]
*[[Round 5]]: None

As ViolentJ:

*[[Round 6]]: [[Silver]]

As Kueller:

*[[Round 7]] - [[Round 8]]: [[ViruS]]
*[[Round 10]]: [[NoS]]

After Round 10 had a brief spell in [[1up]] under the nickname Ra once again, but soon left the game once again.

[[Category:People]]

Fury Update

2005-04-18T00:23:25Z

Ra:

Fury Update
-----------

This is just a update to let you all know what's happening. As you'll
all no doubt have noticed, we've had a few problems - but nothing
that can't be resolved. I'll try to address various issues here, and
explain what we're trying to do about them. I'm also including some
basic tactical information and a few bits of news. Apologies for the
messy format.

I'll try to send out an update email on a weekly basis: if any of you
have questions you want answered, tactical suggestions or news feel
free to email me with them.

Officers
--------

One of the problems we've experienced has been a lack of officers
around, particularly to organise defence. Although we've appointed
some new officers in the past, we've had a number of officers who for
RL reasons have been temporarily unable to fulfill their duties.
Although they will be back, it's left us short-handed in the
meantime. You will, by now, have seen some new ops in our irc
channels: expect to see a few more. Our target is to have 2-3
Officers online at all times of the day.

IRC network
-----------

As everyone will be aware, we suffered some irc problems due to
sabotage by person(s) unknown. Viaraix has worked hard to get the
system back up again - I think he deserves thanks for that from
everyone. If you seem to have lost access to some (or all) channels,
first stage should be to run addserv again (type /msg addserv addme).
You should ensure that your irc nick is registered to the same email
address as you use for the egroup. Only if that doesn't work should
you speak to someone in #help.

Defence
-------

The first thing to realise is that we can't defend everyone who is
attacked when multiple attack happen on us. This is NOT a problem
specific to Fury, it's a function of two things:

1. The enemy are (Sensibly) attacking at multiple targets or with
multiple waves, increasing the requirement for defence.
2. The messed up rules this round, specifically the high armour of
ships, means that casualties are too low for an attacker to be
deterred by anything other than being prevented from capturing roids
(or a very large number of combat ships).

There ARE alternatives to defence, which you should be considering if
attacked and it's not certain that you will be successfully defended.
You MUST also consider the current roid-capture rules properly. My
apologies to those of you who I'm only explaining the basics to -
everything below is just common-sense stuff that you'd assume
everyone would already know: were it not for the fact that some
members clearly don't.

1. If some planets in your galaxy have sufficent defence, and others
don't, consider getting all your planets to send their killing ships
to a planet without proper defence. Although you can't stop roid
capture, some attackers may be deterred by a sufficently large
quantity of combat ships, particularly if you have plenty of BS
there. Note, however, my comments about roid capture.

2. Be VERY careful when attacked by fleets which have a combined
score higher than your planet. In this situation, getting defence
which isn't sufficient to stop capture will actually increase your
roid loss. Unless you are attempting to deter attackers by defending
with combat ships and offering very high cost per roid to them, you
should not be getting defence in at all. A large, but insufficient
spider defence is the WORST possible case here.

3. Where defence is close (or 2 planets are only just covered),
consider cross-launching between planets. If planets A & B both send
defence to one another, you keep open the option of withdrawing
either/both fleets if the attackers withdraw on either of the
planets. Where defence was insufficient you also get extra defence to
one of the planets (covering it) - though this relies on you being
able to get defenders from the other planet recalled last minute.

4. Where there's an overwhelming attack on a planet, requiring
massive defence, an alternative to defending is to get multiple extra
attackers added. Even a 1 int additional attacker adds 2% of their
planet score. Roid loss can be minimised in this way, and it's also a
valid tactic when defence is present but won't stop roid loss. You
need, of course, to take into account what PDS/defence/attackers will
be present when deciding what to send. It would be stupid, for
example, to get 1 int extra attackers when the attackers had sent no
fighter class ships and there were WF/BS defending.

5. When the attack on your galaxy is mainly from 1 other galaxy, and
that galaxy has more roids than you (particularly if attack is in-
parallel) then an alternative to defence is to defend what you can in-
galaxy/parallel and counter-attack - targetting primarily the
attackers of planets which you couldn't defend. This allows you to
take advantage of the following:

A. They have more roids than you, so you stand to gain more,
B. Because you launched later, you stand to get back a % of what they
capture from you.
C. Beause they're bigger, there's a fair chance they won't be getting
the full 10% from you anyway,
D. They may withdraw anyway.

Worst case is, of course, that you get roided and they get defence.
But it's got to be better than sitting at home, collecting a bit of
salvage, with 0 chance of any more positive outcome.

6. Astropods are NO USE AT ALL for defending. If you're under attack
you can still attack elsewhere. Even if your fleet is needed to
defend your planet, it's worthwhile launching back at an attacker
who's got more roids than you. You can recall when you need to,
there's a chance he may recall, and there's always a chance he won't
get defence and you can make a profit in a road swap. Plus you tie up
defence which would otherwise be facing off against other Fury/allied
attackers.

7. If your attackers recall, have the courtesy to mail your defenders
promptly and inform them. You should also mail defenders of other
planets in your galaxy from whom attackers have recalled. Those
defenders need to be home to be able to go elsewhere as quickly as
possible.

Attacks
-------

Every night we are attacking hostile targets with our allies. The
number of members showing up to launch is, frankly, disappointingly
low. With the low casualties this round, attacking is definitely the
way to go - salvage only offsets your losses, it's not a primary
source of income.

It's also unfortunate how few members seem to be able to get their
galaxies to attack with them. When you get hit, your whole galaxy
tends to get hit: so surely they should be willing to join in on
retaliatory attacks? It's ironic that not that long ago, members were
complaining about a lack of good targets. Now that we've got a
massive list of good targets, many of those people are not around to
take advantage of them.

Although VeX/NoS/CELL may be having the more note-worthy victories of
late, a fair few of our attacks are getting through as well: even on
parallels like P8 and p25 where they're at their strongest. If more
members/galaxy mates were around to attack we could be having much
more success and going for larger targets.

Activity
--------

Activity by members has definitely dropped off, with a fair few
disappearing totally from sight. A high priority now is to identify
those who are properly active, so we don't waste time/resources
defending no-hopers. As a consequence, the following must happen:

Each galaxy rep must re-state which Members/Provs in their galaxy are
still active. They should also notify those they believe aren't
active so they can appeal (if, for example, they believe they're
active but at different times to the rep).
If the rep in your galaxy is inactive, then you should notify me
yourself.

Notifications of continuing activity should be sent to the usual
email address:

jwoodall@freenet.co.uk

This needs to be done shortly - in a few days all inactives/non-
respondents will be deleted from access. At that point EVERYONE will
need to re-run addserv. This is easiest way for us to get access
lists to where they should be. People who have notified Officers of
absence for RL reasons will be re-added if no list is sent from their
galaxy.

Criteria for activity are:

1. You will be on irc on pretty much a daily basis,
2. You will attack targets that are Fury hostile on a daily basis,
3. You will defend any/all Fury that need defending.

If you have made any NAPs/other arrangements with enemy
alliances/galaxies then you will need to cancel these or leave Fury.

Defectors and other Invertebrates
---------------------------------

Anyone who has left Fury to join another alliance will NOT be
accepted back. So don't bother asking.

Tagging Up
----------

If you wish to tag your galaxy, you may do so. If, for local
political reasons, you would prefer not to then there's no obligation
to do so.

Fury Provs
----------

The Provisional Member situation is being addressed. It was only ever
intended as a temporary stage for new members and, as such, has
pretty much fulfilled its purpose. In the near future (after the
inactives have been weeded out) we will promote/kick all provs - and
consider taking in new members to it (not necessarily from current
galaxies). In the meantime, no new provs will be accepted unless they
have already achieved a respectable score (20 million for now).

Political Situation
-------------------

As you will all be aware by now, Wolfpack have severed all ties with
Fury and allied with NoS/CELL. This is part of NoS/CELL's masterplan
to have been allied with every alliance in the game by the end of the
round. Until further notice we consider ourselves as being
unofficially allied to Wolfpack. We will NOT, however, send defence
to Wolfpack other than as part of in-parallel arrangements - nor, of
course, will we request defence from them.

My expectation is that NoS/CELL will cancel their NAP with VeX, and
as I've indicated before, I wouldn't be surprised to see Xanadu leave
VeX and join with them - but there's no firm evidence of that (just
some comments from senior Xanadu that support that view).

We remain allied to Virus, and working with Tuba/Hirr (and
occasionally Quha). We are in discussions with these and other
parties at the moment about our policy for the remainder of the
round. Should WP/NoS/CELL go to war with VeX our course of action
will be determined by a number of factors:

1. Which of them are still attacking us and our allies,
2. Our allies' views on what we should do,
3. Political developments in general.

Sorry not to be specific about this, but the situation is very fluid,
there's a lot going on and it's hard to predict precisely how the
sides will end up aligned.

Many of you are wondering why Wolfpack cancelled our NAP (no formal
alliance was ever agreed). To make an alliance with NoS/CELL, they
couldn't have any arrangement with Fury: it would prevent them
defending NoS/CELL who we are currently in hostilities with. I guess
they decided they'd prefer to be with NoS/CELL than with Fury. A
large factor was also the change in Wolfpack HC - from the old ones
(who were pro-Fury) to being led by Jonka (who historically is anti-
Fury). Given the large number of shared galaxies we have, direct
conflict is unlikely.

In Summary
----------

What the Execs/Officers are doing:

1. We've made new Officers, and will make more to address the lack of
high-level irc presence that has been a problem,
2. New tools are being developed to try to get around the recurring
problems with egroup since yahoo took it over,
3. We've been doing successful (though not large/frequent enough)
attacks with our allies - this will continue and enlarge,
4. We're going to remove all inactives - reducing our defensive
burden,
5. Fury Prov will be reshaped as a new recruitment wing over the next
few weeks,
6. We'll be working more closely with our current allies, and are
also in discussions with some other parties,

What we NEED in response from members:

1. New lists of who are the active members/prov members in each
galaxy.
2. A higher level of activity on irc,
3. FAR more participation in attacks (in particular) and defences.
This round is one where attacking is the best policy by far - even
more so now salvage has been reduced. If you aren't going to attack,
then you aren't going to grow.
4. Members need to involve their galaxies more in attacks: too few
members are able/willing to get their galaxies joining in on attacks -
I've no idea how your galaxies grow.

You now need to decide whether you want to stay with Fury, or whether
you believe the grass is greener elsewhere. I have no problem with
people leaving because they believe Fury has failed/is
dying/whatever - I may not agree, but it's a valid view to have.
Leaving because you're worried that you'll lose a few roids in a
round that ends in a month or so is pathetic, makes you spineless and
we're well rid of you.

Yes, we've had problems. Yes, we've taken some substantial military
losses.

But NO, NO, NO - Fury is NOT dead and it's not dying. Those who
believe it IS dead/dying should quit now and let the rest of us get
on with building back up, fighting on this round, and returning
revigorated, reorganised and remotivated after the next reset.

Finally, apologies for my lower than usual activity of late - which
is for RL reasons I won't bore you all with. Seeing talk of me being
away for weeks/months was amusing - I was absent for 4 days, and have
been on reduced activity for a few weeks. I've also been staying out
of #fury-chat to avoid getting bogged down in PMs. I've come to the
conclusion that I can't win on that one:

If I don't show my face, everyone complains I'm not around,
If I do hang around on IRC, I get PMed to death then people complain
because I don't get things done :)

Synthetic Sid

Newbie Bashing

2005-04-09T16:41:33Z

Ra:

'''Newbie bashing''' is the term used to describe hitting someone significantly smaller than yourself with a lot of ships.
[[Category:Terminology]]

Zeriod

2005-04-09T01:41:39Z

Ra:

'''zeriod''' designed the [[Round 5]] [[portal]], and when races were first introduced in [[Round 6]], the [[Xandathrii]] and [[Terran]] skins were designed by him. The graphics for the Manual written by [[Leshy]] for [[Round 8]] were also his work. zeriod also produced a number of skins that were never used.

He also contributed a few 3d models to [[Petru]]'s effort to design an entire fleet.

Later on zeriod [[false deaths|faked his own death]] in order to leave [[Planetarion]] behind for good.
[[Category:People]]

Zeriod

2005-04-09T01:41:15Z

Ra:

'''Zeriod''' designed the [[Round 5]] [[portal]], and when races were first introduced in [[Round 6]], the [[Xandathrii]] and [[Terran]] skins were designed by him. The graphics for the Manual written by [[Leshy]] for [[Round 8]] were also his work. zeriod also produced a number of skins that were never used.

He also contributed a few 3d models to [[Petru]]'s effort to design an entire fleet.

Later on zeriod [[false deaths|faked his own death]] in order to leave [[Planetarion]] behind for good.
[[Category:People]]

Newbie Bashing

2005-04-08T15:02:38Z

Ra:

The term used to describe hitting someone much much smaller than yourself with a lot of ships.
[[Category:Terminology]]

Round 1

2005-04-08T14:05:00Z

Ra:

*[[:Category:Alliances:Round 1|Alliances]]
*[[Round 1:Ship Stats|Ship Stats]]

[[Spinner]]s words during an interview with Adam Rodman from http://www.justadventure.com

'The idea dates back to summer 1999. Three wise heads got together, some with experience from making games, some with database backbone experience, and we decided we wanted to make a game by ourselves. We took a look around at what existed and decided we could do better. Nothing wrong with a decent self-esteem when setting out on something like this. So we gathered ideas for a while, and since Star Wars was a movie people were talking about around that time we, well, decided to go to space and sci-fi setting. We were also huge fans of Starcraft and Elite, so it wasn't a hard choice. So we sat down and started to make the actual game then, on our own spare time. Heh, I remember when we had something called spare time. First we outlined ideas on paper, then went to visual design on the screen, and then we started implementing, or programming if you want to call it that. And in February 2000, we launched it for the first time ... my, oh my ... That was a rush!'

{{stub}}

Zeriod

2005-04-08T14:01:17Z

Ra:

Although he was never a great player, '''zeriod''' was a great member of the community. He designed the [[Round 5]] Portal for free, and when races were first introduced in [[Round 6]], two of the skins used ([[Xandathrii]] and [[Terran]]) were designed by him. The graphics for the Manual written by [[Leshy]] for [[Round 8]] were also his work. A number of skins that were great improvements on the [[Round 6]] skins, which were sadly, never used, were also contributed by [[zeriod]].

A few 3d models were also contributed by [[zeriod]] in an attempt to aid Petru in his effort to design an entire fleet.

Later on in his [[Planetarion]] career, due to unknown reasons [[zeriod]] began to grow tired of the community and faked his own death in order to leave [[Planetarion]] behind for good. This caused a great deal of people within the community to dislike him, despite all that he contributed to the game.
[[Category:People]]

Joker

2005-04-08T04:10:25Z

Ra:

'''Joker''' was a figurehead in [[Round 1]], where he finished 3rd in the rankings, as many thought that throughout the round he had remained allianceless. This was untrue however, as unlike most other players, who held a position within one alliance, such as [[Concordium]] or [[BlueTuba]], [[Joker]] joined a number of smaller alliances to leech defense in order to support his planet against incomings from hostiles.

[[Category:People]]