Mini 856 - Star Control: Zeta Sextantis - Over

[Porkens]

Here's my quicktopic.

[Kmd4390]

Spy, it wasn't intentional. I didn't have the free time.

[Rising]

Very clever idea of a setup, and very well done. I'm quite surprised that there were only two scum, though.

Tough game to be Survivor in, btw; Succesful lynch on D1, but catastrofical result for town on N2; I never really knew whether I should play protown or try to help scum. My main reason for not lynching Excedrin early on D3 was that I was enjoying the game so much I wanted to play a little further, however.

I would love to participate in (or just read) an epic version of this.

[sigma]

Here's my quicktopic.

Great job, town, to find the scum. I thought we were screwed after the D2 disaster. Would have been fun to psychically identify all those people...

[Papa Zito]

I've found daytalk to be the most powerful weapon in a player's arsenal. I'm really amazed it's not used more often around here.

Rising/Zito QT

Spyrex. Dude. WTF with Zex and Chenjesu? Srsly.

Also, I seriously thought I'd totally blown this game. So much relief do I have.

[Vi]

Setup reviewer here.

ZEX was meant to be an ultramiller, and in the end he died like one. ZEX's abilities were extremely powerful, but VUX in a ship that's just about as strong as the Ur-Quan Dreadnought was meant to raise a few eyebrows (and a noose or two).

The Chenjesu was in there because even with the occasional Hierarchy race thrown in as Town it was still difficult to find races that were obviously not anti-Town. So canon got broken a bit.

The Survivor was actually one of the more fun design ideas in the setup IMO.
Since we have a flavor expert here, I'll ask a design question. When SpyreX decided to give the Spathi a safeclaim (good idea), he wanted Slylandro and I pushed for Melnorme. (In retrospect Orz would have *fit* best with Rising's abilities, but Orz, etc.) Which was the better option?

I'd like to see the system used in a large game, possibly with an emphasis on something other than subversive Millers/race assumptions.

Actually, this game was a Large before it was trimmed down. There were a couple of other ideas in the beta version of the game that were thrown out because of said trimming, but I think it would be better if you saw those for yourself - during the next game, of course.

Remember: Cops are

bad

. Neighbors are

good

.
On a related note, the investigation roles were intentionally gimped in this game because of all the Hierarchy races running aboot. Since the players that were in Hierarchy ships jettisoned ASAP, the ZFP scan became much more powerful. But it's the Zoq-Fot-Pik, so that's okay ^.^

[Papa Zito]

The Chenjesu was in there because even with the occasional Hierarchy race thrown in as Town it was still difficult to find races that were obviously not anti-Town. So canon got broken a bit.

Chmmr?

The Survivor was actually one of the more fun design ideas in the setup IMO.
Since we have a flavor expert here, I'll ask a design question. When SpyreX decided to give the Spathi a safeclaim (good idea), he wanted Slylandro and I pushed for Melnorme. (In retrospect Orz would have *fit* best with Rising's abilities, but Orz, etc.) Which was the better option?

I wouldn't have believed Slylandro and would have pushed for his lynch. The Slylandro were (again) a planetbound race and weren't capable of interstellar travel. Supox would have worked I think.

It's funny, I PMed SpyreX complaining about letting an Orz on my ship. My plan was to warp myself off and take over Excedrin's. That way if Rising Orzed my ship he'd kill a probable bad guy too.

I never got to do an epic roleclaim as Syreen seductress

There's still time!

(My secret goal is a trilogy of these games: one more mini and then a TRULY EPIC large that, of course, anyone who has played in either mini gets super access to if they'd like)

/in

[Rising]

When SpyreX decided to give the Spathi a safeclaim (good idea), he wanted Slylandro and I pushed for Melnorme. (In retrospect Orz would have *fit* best with Rising's abilities, but Orz, etc.) Which was the better option?

It's such an abstract ability that I don't think it has to make perfect sense thematically. Personally, I enjoyed that I had two claims that both were somewhat flawed.

To me, Spathi made more sense as a pro-town race (but I understood quickly that Zito would probably not see it that way), but the ability to generate energy didn't really feel like a perfect fit for them, so I suspected that people were going to suspect me if I claimed as one. At the beginning of D3, I actually thought about claiming Slylandro Probe instead (to me, that was the most obvious choice of an energy-generator) but why would a Slylandro Probe use an escape pod? In the end, I figured that Melnorme was probably the best choice.

ZEX is my favourite role in the setup. Very clever. Although, if I had chosen Dry-Fit as my target when the game started, I probably wouldn't have liked him that much...

My biggest issue with the setup was the timing of abilities. I would've preferred if it was clearer when each power would resolve, since there were so many powers that directly interfered with other abilities. Papa Zito and Plum pretty much *had* to ask mod whether or not Plum could use her old ship's abilities after Papa had swapped her with me.

I'm thinking that it would work if every ability had a stated Initiative. That would make it easier to plan actions without the need of verifying everything with mod, and plus; it could potentially be used to hunt scum in original ways: "What? Fwiffo says he busdrived himself with you, and that his ability resolves at #3. You said earlier that your ability to investigate have the initiative #8, but I tried to roleblock Fwiffo at #4. Thanks to his busdrivin', I must have targeted you instead, but that means you should've been roleblocked!" I think that would potentially reduce the number of questions players would have to ask the mod.

[SpyreX]

The Chenjesu and Mrnhrmrm were partially a strategic maneuver. One was town, the other a scum fakeclaim that mirrored the abilities of the other. Chenjesu and Mrnhrmrm are also tied together in the minds of most SC fans.

So, one claims, the other backs it up. THEN things get interesting when lo and behold one is scum.

Of course, Porkens opted to hax that.

I mean, we're talking about canon but Zito you're on a different precursor vessel. Going to Zeta Sextantis when Zelnick is in the flavor. You've gotta know there's SOME liberties.

---

And like Vi said, ZEX was raw liquid awesome that had the misfortune of being indistinguishable from scum. I'll admit that his claim was one of my favorite moments of the whole game though.

[Sajin]

My thoughts:

Rising picked THE most useful vessel to escape pod onto. Being able to be teleported helped confirm him.... or at least his usefulness.

KMD or Dryfit were death to him and the telepathy power would of spilled the beans early on him being neutral.

Private communications wins the day.

Read abilities carefully. Kast blocked race abilities of which the ship scan was NOT one.

The Yehat being modkilled helped town tremendously. Its powers as a vig with KMD being immune to it as well as it registering as a scum ship would of likely muddled town more. Again I must point to not liking the forced modkill in the BAM ruleset in particular because of setup balance. It took away a good ML candidate of the scum as well as an extra kill.

I was rooting for a zito swap onto the Urquan dreadnought. His ability to let him use foreign ships powers would of been awesome.

I loved the ship concept/mechanics. Reminds me of the Majora Mask mechanics/hat mafia with less swaping going on. I would in to play or help balance a large theme of this.

[SpyreX]

Play in the next mini (when it comes up) and then help with the large. Everyone wins.

Although I may be trying to run a large non-SC one beforehand for some more mod XP.

[VP Baltar]

I don't have much to add other than, as someone who doesn't know the flavor either, I felt bad for Kmd.

Zito could have really gone wrong with how much speculation he was doing based on flavor, but I suppose it worked out in the end.

Sajin raises an interesting point about the forced modkill in the BaM ruleset. It does perhaps have the potential for abuse. Hmm.

[SpyreX]

I'd HOPE that the potential for abuse is outweighed by blacklisting, personally.

[VP Baltar]

True enough, I suppose.

[Locke Lamora]

Well, at least I was right about KMD, not that my investigation did any good. I have to say I fell behind in this one and made myself look scummy by not contributing enough. Great job to the town for winning and thanks to Spyrex for modding, the setup was pretty cool, although it might have helped if I knew SC better!

[SpyreX]

All of you who haven't had the chance to partake in the bag of awesome that is SC should give it a try. Its open source now so no monetary excuses!

[Rising]

Normally, I'm a big fan of oldschool games, but I find Ur-Quan Masters a bit too repetitive and unforgiving for my taste. I really like the story and the atmosphere, and the battles are a lot of fun, but other than that, I just can't stand the gameplay. Even a simple thing like travelling in hyperspace is pure torture.

[Vi]

Even a simple thing like travelling in hyperspace is pure torture.

You do know about the autopilot, right?

I can't get used to the controls at all, though.

[MeMe]

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