Nation War

Firstly, sorry for the raggedy hosting today. It's easy to take for granted that everyone will know the rules. Next time I'll make sure to remember to impress upon the new people that we don't start fighting until I give the signal.

We had healthy turnout again today. Itani and UIT had some sort of strange NAP thing going for fortunately for Grey this fell apart at the end and peytros and Maalik got the opening they needed. Thank you all for participating!

Grey
Capt'N Blood
Maalik, &c. (survived)
peytros (survived)
Sagrath

Itani
ARF_01
Beren Erchamion
Finite
iry
Richmond
The Aviator

Serco
boggered
Crusader8389
Denji Royhu
WidowSon

UIT
Fferret
Jamy Haiku
Mistena Kosmel
Nahin Lor
Solten Remal

Wins
Itani 67
Serco 38
UIT 75
Grey 30
Rainbow 1

Prize
Today's 14 million credit prize was brought to you by Denji, Maalik, and Sagrath. Thanks!

Basic Rules
Only those who are on-time are allowed to participate.
Participants must be on their nation's team unless they can make a claim to be unaligned in which case they may choose to fight for Grey.
Teller-Ulam mines, and pet bots are not allowed.
You may not start fighting until the host signals the start of the battle.
You may not return to the battle sector after you have left except to observe from a healthy distance in a bus.
No running from the asteroid field.
The last team standing wins.

Pfft.

stop being a sore loser cause your NAP fell apart nahin

Grats to the winnners

This new style of Nation War is not playable without a valk. As such, I will no longer be participating. Good luck to you all.

We've talked about banning valks in the past. Maybe we should talk about it again. 9/19 brought one today which I think is almost everyone who have access to them. We don't need to include a ship or weapon that gives too much advantage and isn't available to all.

So. Comments? The more people who weigh in on this the better.

The ship's in the game, you think you can't do well without it: use it.

I'm not going to address your implied suggestion that in order to participate in NW all Serco should raise their Itani standing to the point where they can get valks. I am going to explain what happened in this Nation War that caused my retirement from the field, so to speak.

I headed the Serco team, and we had two new members on the team today. As such, they didn't really have much idea what to do, but hey, NW is usually a fun time even if you die early and then come back to watch. The very first thing that happened was a wave of valks, both UIT and Itani, boiled across the sector, quickly destroying the two newbies and forcing the remaining two of us to dodge for our lives. I quickly realized that neither blue nor yellow were firing on each other, only on us (and grey). I realized this when facing down around 7 valks of mixed nationality, some of whom had great firing positions on the other side, but all of whom were focusing solely on myself. This continued for several minutes before I was swarmed by seemingly every blue and yellow remaining and crossfired to death.

How did I get into that situation in the first place? I was in a corvult. A corvult is a great ship, certainly up to going toe-to-toe with a valk in single combat. However, if you try to turbo out of a valk gank in a corvult, you are soon going to have no corvult at all. Had I been flying a valk, I could have done the standard valk tactic of flying around doing hit-and-run to my heart's content, with nary a care in the world. As it was, I was forced to hang on my reverse thrusters and dodge a multicoloured wave of energy death.

Valks on their own aren't a deal-breaker. NAPs on their own generally aren't a deal-breaker (as seen today, when the NAP fell apart, sometime after my death). When the entire Itani team, nearly all the UIT team, and half the Grey team is flying valks, and the Itani and UIT sides, who outnumbered everyone else to begin with, agree not to shoot at each other until everyone else is dead, it gets stupid. The surviving Grey members were the ones flying valks (I didn't notice whether or not the other two were flying valks, but I know that Maal and pey were). As I will never fly a valk in Nation War, nor will I ever agree to a NAP, this current style is clearly not for me (or for any loyal Serco).

It would be interesting to see what NW would be like without valks. I'm not available for the next few weeks anyway, but I would participate in the future to test out a new valk-less format.

Nation Wars would be a lot more fun if Valks were banned, and maybe more people would participate. If others claim this isn't fair and the SCP should be banned as well, then so be it.

And of course Itani and UIT teamed.. The UIT are just a sub branch of Itan. Death to all of em.

Valks have always had the group combat advantage thats just how its been. I know people have made suggestions for serco to get a group combat ship and they have been shot down in the name of "NOT EVERYONE CAN HAVE EVERYTHING" or "BALANCE OMFG BALANCE" if you want to ban a ship i don't really care. I do however think the bigger issue is with NAPs as they destroy the fundemental reason we have nation war

> And of course Itani and UIT teamed... The UIT are just a sub branch of Itan. Death to all of em.

As a longstanding UIT Nationalist, I strongly resent that insinuation, although from recent nation wars, I can understand how you've come to that conclusion. Non-Aggression Pacts used to be a clever, if underhanded, way to undermine the strength of a stronger enemy at the expense of another, weaker enemy; these days, its just a crutch to make up for poor showing at these events. Its a shame, really; we used to have the preponderance to win without resorting to such methods.

> Nation Wars would be a lot more fun if Valks were banned, and maybe more people would participate. If others claim this isn't fair and the SCP should be banned as well, then so be it.

Now, as for the banning of nation-specific ships, I see no problem with that so long as a consensus can be made amongst the participants. On the other hand, it might be a good idea to come up with a more detailed 'ban' list, rather than a blanket "no valk/prom" ruling. While the X1 and SCP are definitely a head above everything else, whether or not the 'lesser' variants fall into this category is a matter worthy of debate.

1: The NAP was called off after it became a chase.

2: Ban NAPs.

3: Ban anyone who flies a Valk that isn't Itani.

4: Ban anyone who flies a Prom that isn't Serco.

5: Ban any UIT that flies either.

6: Grey isn't a nation, yet we have them in Nation War. BAN. Nation War used to be a time when all members of a major Nation could fight side-by-side, grey team has ruined that. Some members of grey team even have good standing with the major Nations (zips up a flame-proof suit).

EDIT: These are all the things I've come up with that I disagree with in Nation War at the moment, after a good deal of thought. I'm not likely to change my mind on these issues.

General comments are almost always welcome but for the purposes of making an efficient and thoughtful decision about banning valks, I'd appreciate it if we stayed on topic.

Since NAPs have been mentioned a few times I'll just say that a ban on them would be impossible to police and that for this discussion they are only relevant so far as their inevitability affects the usage and fairness of valks.

once again nahin proves he is the eternal newb. grey is not a new thing to nation wars while it did die out for a while the grey team was quiet popular in the past.

I've actually written a lengthy e-mail to Inc regarding the balance of Itani vs. Serco PvP. The main subject was something along these lines:

I still maintain that the SCP is more deadly in group combat than the Valk.

(dodges a barrage of produce)

HOWEVER!

(produce stops)

The piloting skill required to make the SCP deadly in group combat is of a significantly higher level than the skill required to make the Valk deadly in group combat.

(confused silence. one stray head of lettuce is thrown)

Stop throwing things, I'll explain.

(mumbles of agreement)

In order to make the valk deadly in group combat, you have to do three things:

1. Focus fire.
2. Aim well.
3. Be quick to disengage.

Note that only one of these things has to do with coordinating with other players and is relatively easy to do. In order to make the SCP deadly in group combat, you have to do the following:

1. Constantly switch focus to the closest target.
2. Stay within 300-800M of your wingmen at all times.
3. Constantly be ready to assist your wingmen should they become the point of attack for the enemy.
4. If at all possible, keep everything in front of you.
5. Constantly update your wingmen of your position via voice chat.
6. Constantly update your wingmen of your target via voice chat.
7. Pay careful attention to each update from your wingmen regarding their position and targets and respond accordingly.
8. Focus fire whenever possible.

Seven out of these eight concepts involve coordinating very closely with other players. This makes SCP group combat much less about the skill of one pilot and more about the skill of the group as a whole. Even the greatest SCP pilot, if separated from his wingmen, will quickly fall victim to focused fire. The Valk has much more solo survivability (while in a group setting) and is much more forgiving when it comes to positional mistakes as they can quickly be corrected.

So you see, in an SCP group, EVERY pilot must be of a high enough caliber to coordinate closely with his wingmen. While in a Valk group, as long as you are attacking the same target, additional coordination beyond that (while effective) is much less important.

With this in mind, I will reiterate that a group of well-flown and coordinated SCPs is far more deadly than a group of Valks. They can bring to bear an absurd amount of firepower that can obliterate a target in seconds, before it has the chance to flee out of range. But the skill levels required to obtain such a result are severely disproportionate.

...On the flip side, there is no reason a SCP should EVER lose in 1 on 1 combat. But that's a lecture for another thread!

(runs away amidst a sudden onslaught of produce)

You may well be right, Ghost. The Serco team has used SCP group tactics to devastating effect in the past.

However, NW will remain a solo group activity until such time as there are enough people to make real group tactics viable. And even if you have 4 really strong SCPs sticking together, a cloud of 14 Valks is going to take its toll.

It's something of a catch-22. The war will probably remain Valk-dominated as long as there isn't enough of a group, and there's no incentive to make there be enough of a group while the Valk dominates so much. I would be in favour of a ban (on both, to make it fairer), just to see how things shake out without such a destabilizing force.

And I have yet to meet the SCP that won't fall to a careful and patient light pilot.

Have all Nation members fly Nation ships.

Or call it something other than 'Nation' War.

The SCP that won't fall to a careful and patient light pilot is a careful and patient SCP.

Yes, the SCP is weak at range, but it also has such strafing power that you should not be getting hit by energy fire outside of 150m unless you're trying to force the situation. The best SCP pilots (most of which are no longer around) would not try to force anything. They would patiently wait for you to come close as they new you couldn't touch them at range. And if you get closer than 150m against a good prom pilot for longer than a few seconds, you should not be making it out with more than 50% armor.

Mass SCPs (I almost wrote SCVs...) are amazingly hard to kill. D:

Don't make me fly a WTD, please. At least let me fly a Corvult, Shedu!

Peytros, I know differently. Eternal taunting does not affect me. You're just poisening the thread.