Regarding the valk vs. non-valk argument, I am on the non-valk side. Don't bother trying to argue with me on that point, you will only waste your time.

That said, I understand that not everybody agrees with the valk ban, and frankly, I do like to see valks every so often as a change of pace. They make nice fat targets for my gauss :)

My original thought when I began hosting NW regularly was to alternate every week - even numbered wars would be non-valk and odd numbered wars would be valk.

I am fine with continuing this plan.

However, I want to know how fine everybody else is with that. Does alternating just rub salt in the wound and make things worse? Or perhaps make things too confusing? "Which is it this week? Grrr..." Would it be better to do a valk war only every fourth NW instead? Just outright not accept them at all?

I know it's a touchy situation and I don't want to make things worse by alternating, if that's what it's doing. But my hope is that alternating helps rather than hurts.

Why are you banning valks at all? Are you going to ban skyproms during alternate weeks as well? How about Corvults or greyhounds? When does it become a govbus only event?

I'm fine with Valkbans if you ban the SCP.

Seriously tho those things are just as fucking deadly.

Rin stop behaving like a stinking trader... Real man never ask, just draw your own rules and stick to them...

--plant

Valkyries are only easier to use. I say quit banning things all together. If someone wants to bring a biocom mine, let them waste millions of credits. If someone wants to bring swarms, turbo around until they're empty. Lag is no longer a valid excuse for banning these.

Alternating sounds fair enough.

I think alternating would be pretty fair.

On a side note, I'd be happy with banning of pilots using ships that are not made by their nation (exception for gray space ships as they are not a nation).

Actually, swarms have not been banned from any of the wars that I have hosted. I left the pet bot ban because I don't know anything about these pet bots. If I knew more about them I could make an informed decision. I've been too busy with dumb real-life stuff lately to learn about them yet, so for the meantime I've just left that ban alone. I'm open to the idea of unbanning biocom mines, at least temporarily, as I've never seen them used in combat so I'm not sure how fun or unfun they might make things.

I'm not a fan of bans. I'm not a fan of rules at all. I hate authority. However, I like having fun, and games are defined by their rules. My experience has been that wars with valks are not as fun as wars without. I have seen evidence that many people agree. But I don't really like the idea of banning them every time. That just doesn't seem fair to the Itani. Ergo splitting it 50-50.

Yes Sagrath, I could just say "My way or the highway", but my goal is for people to have fun. To achieve that goal I need to first consider their opinions. Afterward, I can set rules and stick to them, adjusting them only when well reasoned arguments are provided. But initially, I need to make sure that what I'm doing is not actually making things less fun, which would be counter to my goal. I'm not going to blow 10 mill a week if people aren't having fun!

Pet bots are valent assault bots that follow you around. Up to three can follow you around at any time. Any time the owner is damaged, the bots attack whatever damaged the owner. In a furball, they could be useful, though friendly fire would turn them on your allies and bumping an asteroid would turn them on you. To get them, a long mission tree must be completed, and after that they must be manufactured using more equipment than fits in a behemoth XC. I say, if you're willing to do the missions, build the bots, and risk friendly fire, go ahead an bring them. They have a single neutron blaster and approximately eight thousand armor, and are large targets. Three won't change the course of a battle.

Alternating is the best idea I think. I personally enjoy non-valk NW better, but I also understand people like using them. I just get really sick of boosting around in circles to the point I just let someone kill me.

The 3 winners of today's Nation War flew valk x-1s. The last 4 people alive were in valk x-1s. One other person flew an IDF valk.

I'm going to be on vacation for a week, in an area without internet (yes, those still exist), so Thespian will be filling in for the next war. I'm going to think about provisionally lifting the bans on pet bots and biocom mines when I come back - fewer rules make the list of rules easier for new players to process, and maybe that would make things a little more interesting once in a while.

It doesn't look like there are any major issues with alternating, so I'll continue for the time being.

For the record, my criteria for the valk/no-valk alternation is the number of the war (odd = valk, even = no valk), so the first war when I get back (#247) will be another valk war, regardless of what Thespian opts to do for this next one (#246). Going by the numbers is to minimize confusion in the event that a substitute host breaks from the pattern (which is their right).

Just make sure it's posted as an event and the event description clearly contains the rules, and it shouldn't be a problem.

Erm.... sorry.... I wasn't able to host this week because of a last-minute performance- I can try to host next week though, if I don't have any conflicts.

Well buggers. I'm guessing nobody stepped in and ran it anyway? If they did I need to know so I can make sure the numbers and cumulative scores come out right.

I just got back home tonight, and I'll try to get the event submitted tomorrow or so. I'm actually going to be beginning moving into a new apartment tomorrow, so I'm going to be pretty busy over the next few days, but I should be ok for hosting NW on Sunday. Not sure whether I'll have my own internet hooked up by then, but if I don't and if there isn't a wireless network around that I can mooch off from my room, I'll just go find a cafe or something and host from my laptop.

Nobody ran it. :-l

Ok. That means this week's will be #246, making it a no-valk war after all. I'm writing up the event post now. (Normally I just copy/paste from a template I made, but that's on my desktop which is still packed. I'm using my lappy so I have to improvise.)

I'll go ahead and lift those other restrictions this week as well, so that the only restriction will be on valks. Any problems with that decision may be posted in a separate thread.

My internet won't be installed until Tuesday, so I'll have to host from a hotspot somewhere. Probably the McDonalds I'm at right now. I won't be participating because this laptop really sucks and the net connection from here is probably crap. Very slow downloads anyway - approx 20kBps. Glad I went ahead and downloaded the installer before I moved.

Rather than banning Valks altogether... why not actually make it what its supposed to be? A Nation War. The only restrictions being, you use the ships of your nation. Or in the case of pilots who are KoS with his nation ships available in Gray space.

Its supposed to be a nation war... its fought for the glory of your nation, use your nations ships. Its not as though the various nations don't have some great ships.

I agree with ryan, no matter how much it hurts...

No valks+ibg for Serco/UIT/Grey, no proms+svg for UIT/Itani/Grey, no WTD/maud for Itani/Serco?Grey, no Corvus ships for UIT/Itani/Serco is my vote.

As much as it hurts that Nahin agrees with me, I can at least derive some pleasure that it causes him pain. However... I agree with Nahin agreeing with me and agree with the proposal as he states it.

If a lot of people take issue with it, we could always have an event called...

"The Big Furball of Pilots Who Are Not Nationalists and Have no Pride Whatsoever in Their own Nations and are Also Traitors Who Make a Profit of Blood Money Off of Both Sides Continued Suffering as is Evident by the Fact That They Have Triple Pillar of Society Standing and Fly the National Ships of Their Nations Enemies"

OR...

TBFOPWANNAHNPWITONAAATWMAPOBMOOBSCSAIEBTFTTHTPOSSAFTNSOTNE

Nahin, if the idea of a true nation war doesn't fly with the current hosts... would you be interested in co-hosting a "True Nation War" with me?