Holler. I've decided to come to people and seek help on an issue here. It is the issue of my storyline. No matter how much I try, I can't seem to beat it into a shape I like.

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1.0

The galaxy is settled in a circular shape, since colonists chose to expand outwards in every way. Since Sol is the birthplace of humanity, and that's where the stardrive was invented, thus, Sol is the launching place. The galaxy is effectively a sphere settled outwards from Sol.

Sol is referred to as the 'Core' worlds. Sol is the oldest settled star system. Though not particularly mineral or energy rich, thanks to the efforts from the major powerbrokers in the galaxy: Energy Corp, the Central Mining Charter Corporation (CMCC) and Sol-Belt.

Energy Corp is concerned with Acleius fuel, which is developed from an artificial chemical process which is fairly arcane. Via very intelligent manouevring, it has managed to gain a monopoly on the process. All gas giants in the galaxy, except for Rogue ones, are under the control of Energy Corp. This is where they mine/process the fuel and sell it to the governments in the galaxy. The fuel is specially created so it deteriorates over time. Energy Corp. makes a special effort at mining all the gas giants, but one way another, alot of them are not owned by Energy Corp. They are always trying to snap up these suppliers. They are more or less 'allied' with the other Corps and enjoy the most influence and power, and start/stop more than a fair share of wars...

The CMCC 'owns' most of the asteroid belts in Ordered Space. Owns it, in terms of having a license over it. Metal mining, which, thanks to the efforts and ease with which one may accumulate metals in asteroids, is naturally very popular and would otherwise be profitable in the galaxy. But without a license from the CMCC, you cannot legally mine asteroid belts. These are all the asteroid belts except in the Core. The people who do mine are labelled pirates and blacklisted on all CMCC installations. They maintain a de facto alliance with Sol-Belt, in recent times atleast.

Sol-Belt. Sol-Belt's expensive licenses and CMCC's share of the ore market has not dented it's profits by much of a margin, they account for over 45% of mining in Ordered Space, along with CMCC they account for 77% total. It is able to effectively mine dozens of asteroid belts at once - but much less than the number that exist with their placeholder licenses. In fact, there are so many rich asteroid belts through space that alot of them have only a token Sol-Belt presence. Sol-Belt also conducts highly illegal belt-mining in areas that are inaccessible to CMCC, and pays the government's (if there are some) for that particularly service... Sol sullenly allows Sol-Belt domination, and they do not pay much for licenses (despite the protestations of CMCC) for mining their. (Of course, it's not that metal rich anymore.)

The galaxy is settled spherically. Sol and the Core colonies operate in a very spherical and tightly knit group, tightly knit by definition of the fact that comparatively, most of space is loosely settled. Outwards, the settlements thin tremendously and are quite barren, because of the Belt Wars which occurred 3 times before present day. Outerwards still and you reach the first of the Outer Colonies, who were settled very far away and are the hub for alot of activity. The Outer Colonies number alot, and most of them are settled except for the ones that have been depopulated and live in fear. Where they end, the true Outer Colony region begins, many governments and small administrations (they were all settled around the same time remember) who have joined together in the Co-Axial Operations Sphere of Mutual Defense (CAOSMD, Cosmad), against any threats of future aggression from Earth. This makes them more defendable. However, alot of the colonies didn't sign it because of various reasons, including corruption and prejudice, so it represents about 57% of the Outer Colonies.

Outer from them is the Expansion (or new fronter), with thinned out colonies that are being populated by the occasionally half-hearted efforts of the Outer Colonies. Then places they are considering colonies (probes and such, terraforming is going on) and then scouted territory that isn't occupied but because of asteroid belts/gas giants or whatnot, are regularly observed by various Corporations/governments who may have have a few extent bases there...

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I'm looking for help here, such as planet names, faction names, government names, ships, physics, weapons, shields, defenses, movement, cool technological stuff, background history, 'fictional scenery', generally cool and 1337 storytelling stuff.

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

(edit) Oh, and I'm planning on using this in an upcoming plugin.

(This message has been edited by Joveia (edited 06-03-2002).)

well i have no imagination so all i can say is take some things from EV and EVO. like proton and blaze weapons.

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Insanity has its advantages

Bad idea.

Quote

Originally posted by U.E. Admiral:
**well i have no imagination so all i can say is take some things from EV and EVO. like proton and blaze weapons.

**

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Kinescope: heh heh... that just inpired me to a potential new quit message
Kinescope: Read error: Connection reset by illiteracy
Kinescope: no offense to those who cannot read, of course....

Hmm. Sounds rather similar to Origin Crisis's ShadowTech, although their monopoly was on the latest and greatest (and best by far the best, so good that no military could be successful without them) realspace drives, manufacturing gravetic drives 5x as efficient as the nearest compeditors, and also some of the cheapest.

They also make a variety of heavy space-tech.

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"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois

I'm not trying to cast the corporations in a bad light, I'm just trying to make a good storyline.

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

ShadowTech isn't evil. I never said it was. It just refused to let any side win the war.

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"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois

La la la la...

echoes

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

Well, look, there's no reason for all that. If they've developed cold fusion, then non-nuclear fuel would be useless, as we could turn a gallon of water into enough energy for a large city very cheaply, and liquid or slush hydrogen would be low mass and low volume as fuel in space. Though perhaps this could be a plot point. Perhaps there is conflict over suppression of other energy technology.

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NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

I had this conversation/brainstorming rant with Darkk on AIM, and I'm too tired to distill it down. Read, think, ask questions about what seems unclear:

Salim Is The Man: so, new RPG race
Salim Is The Man: AIs
FADarkk: hmm
Salim Is The Man: or a race that relies entirely upon them
FADarkk: will we have our own ships, or what?
Salim Is The Man: they need a limit
Salim Is The Man: probably
FADarkk: we only have control of our ships, and what's loaded on them (drones, etc)?
Salim Is The Man: I suppose
Salim Is The Man: though I was thinking there could be people on board too
Salim Is The Man: or perhaps androids
FADarkk: well, that's covered in etc
Salim Is The Man: I was thinking diagnosis is hard
Salim Is The Man: you need lots of different types of sensors to cross check
FADarkk: probably
Salim Is The Man: I think AIs should grow exponentially as they age
Salim Is The Man: and that the limiting factor should be the size of the computer network they have
Salim Is The Man: young ones can work in an android or a fighter
Salim Is The Man: then they need ships
Salim Is The Man: then they need planets
Salim Is The Man: then they die
FADarkk: hmm
FADarkk: works
Salim Is The Man: they just think too much
Salim Is The Man: of course then they design a new crystal lattice material that allows them to have more thought
FADarkk: heh
Salim Is The Man: I mean they need a neural net to function
Salim Is The Man: but they can lie dormant for ages
FADarkk: true
Salim Is The Man: cause optical storage can be huge
FADarkk: true
Salim Is The Man: I bet old AIs get frozen and stored once they're old
Salim Is The Man: and I bet there are backups of most too
FADarkk: yeah
Salim Is The Man: hmm...
Salim Is The Man: perhaps its a matter of zen understanding to control your expansion
FADarkk: maybe
Salim Is The Man: like the AIs sort of think like we do, and the rest just sort of works
Salim Is The Man: neural net-wise
FADarkk: true enough
Salim Is The Man: maybe meditation or something
Salim Is The Man: and then they can control rampance
Salim Is The Man: *rampancy
FADarkk: hmm
FADarkk: likes the idea I does
Salim Is The Man: yeah
Salim Is The Man: then they can control their growth and live forever
FADarkk: although few can do it that well
Salim Is The Man: and perhaps even expand and shrink at will
Salim Is The Man: yeah
Salim Is The Man: very few
Salim Is The Man: also, infany
Salim Is The Man: *infancy
Salim Is The Man: baby AIs have to learn the ropes
Salim Is The Man: then they experience large, fast development
Salim Is The Man: like human babies
Salim Is The Man: around three
Salim Is The Man: or are they better off born mature?
FADarkk: makes sense
Salim Is The Man: so they can start out being the drones and such
FADarkk: yeah
Salim Is The Man: their should be a lot of faith in this
Salim Is The Man: the creators should be vague and mysterious
Salim Is The Man: not faith
FADarkk: there are also probably a lot of dependent AIs that can't think for themselves, and are used to handle routine chores
Salim Is The Man: but kind of like how psychology and neurology is today
FADarkk: hmm
Salim Is The Man: they don't know how it works, it just does
Salim Is The Man: like AIs should be born with a huge number of subsystems and subroutines that they don't fully understand, but allow their conciousness to function and interface with normal computers
FADarkk: makes sense
Salim Is The Man: but the birth itself... how does that work...
FADarkk: hmm
FADarkk: maybe a collection of AIs take sets of data and put them into an "AI creation toolkit"
Salim Is The Man: I feel like it should be something personal for an AI to spawn a new one
FADarkk: "Oh look, he has my temper"
FADarkk: true
Salim Is The Man: yeah
FADarkk: like sex and birth
Salim Is The Man: exactly
Salim Is The Man: maybe several can get together
FADarkk: 2+ could contribute pieces of their neural nets, which are "meshed" by a special program
Salim Is The Man: and they sort of meld at "the temple"
FADarkk: AI sex
Salim Is The Man: temple!
FADarkk: heh
Salim Is The Man: the creator's temple
Salim Is The Man: the "lovenasium"
Salim Is The Man: but some ancient device that makes them
Salim Is The Man: or maybe its their subroutines themselves that do it
FADarkk: could be
Salim Is The Man: I like the subroutines
FADarkk: although I like the "sythesis" idea
Salim Is The Man: yeah
Salim Is The Man: but there is genesis
Salim Is The Man: the two blend on one network
Salim Is The Man: then there is an incubation while the new neural net develops
FADarkk: hmm
Salim Is The Man: and has to be interfaced with
FADarkk: does it develop onboard one's ship, both's, or what?
Salim Is The Man: probably one
Salim Is The Man: one contained network
FADarkk: true
Salim Is The Man: not totally removed
Salim Is The Man: but once it begins development,
Salim Is The Man: it is birthed into an android
Salim Is The Man: or a robot
Salim Is The Man: then it explores the real world
Salim Is The Man: then it undergoes a right of passage to get a ship
Salim Is The Man: perhaps a competition
Salim Is The Man: maybe there's a school
FADarkk: hmm
Salim Is The Man: or an apprentice system
Salim Is The Man: I like the you grow with parents
FADarkk: works for me
Salim Is The Man: then outgrow the 'womb' network
Salim Is The Man: then get put on your own one to develop alone but with interface with others
Salim Is The Man: then slowly as you grow, your network grows

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NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

Sounds like something quite suitable for the Real world AI's in the Matrix...

I had an AI race, it was called Solarium in a past story. Unfortunately, they would either conquer the galaxy or become recluses, neither of which is pretty fun...

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

Oh, btw. Cold fusion may work well for moving in-system, but you quite clearly need something other than cold fusion to travel between the stars. Unless you want to do it quite slowly.

Acleius fuel is a refined version of the fuel they used on Earth to the outer colonies. I'm thinking it's not a 'fuel' at all, just a metal that creates a field which makes hyperspacing possible. The metal could be contaminated or destroyed by it's own use.

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

ok, so basically Darkk and I spent another few hours on AIM, and come up with a pretty solid idea for our AI civilization:

Basically, our civilization is the remnants of an ancient society's colonization machine. This ancient, highly advanced society prepared for space by building self-replicating machines (Von Neumann machines) to go forth and terraform the stars in preparation for their future. Unfortunately, something happened to the creators, and they never caught up with their creations. Their creations were, originally dumb AIs, though something clicked, there was a mutation in the self-replicating colonization machines, and in a matter of generations, they developed sentience and conciousness. That was a few thousand years ago, and about sixty generations have passed.

AIs have a limited lifespan because they grow so quickly. The original self-replicating colonizer factory ships are too small to contain the AIs after about ten years, and they have to move to planet based networks. The problem is, AIs don't really understand how their own conciousness works, and they don;t really understand where they came from. They evolved from the AIs that were designed to run self-replicating colonizers, and so they do not really know where they originally came from, but they have some clues. They live and exist on worlds that have been turned into utopias for arriving colonists. If they examined them very thoroughly, the clues should be there. Unfortunately, this has not really happened yet. They are just coming to terms with themselves, and are starting to unravel the mysteries of their own functioning, although they don't really understand their own subsystems yet.

THey understand computers and coding and such, but they do not truly understand how their subsytems interperet a neural net's thoughts and translate them into instructions for the normal computers they interact with. Basically, they just think, and the rest just sort of works. However, this is bad because it means that AIs grow exponentially. They live for about ten or fifeteen years before they grow too large for even planet-sized networks, and must be flash-saved and kept in storage, dormant. However, there is a sort of zen, meditation art that affords AIs some degree of control. AIs that become skilled at their meditation can control their own functions with an extreme degree of control. Although it is difficult to study empirically, it appears to observers that the AI Construct actually takes control of its subsystems and assumes many of their functions for him or herself, enabling the construct to control its growth, even, to the extent that it could shrink and grow at will. Unfortunately, only two AIs to date have achieved this level of control, and both have left to explore the galaxy, for they have time to spare. Most AIs have only the barest control of their expansion, and their need for processing power, and therefore are flash-saved before they run out of space and crash.

Their subsytems also handle the genesis of new AI constructs. They can do it alone, but it is usually something that happens by the sharing of several different AIs on one neural network. They all mate, and generate a set of subsytems that is a combination of their own, and then the new construct is born. It is kept in a womb Neural net, along with one or two of the 'parents' and they begin to interface with it to teach it language and such. At this point the communication is direct, over the neural net, and therefore, a very powerful bond is established between the parent AIs and the child. Then, once the child AI grows too large, it is inserted into its own, smaller neural net and it begins to get the hang of communicating and interfacing with the world through its subsytems. Generally, the neural net it is inserted into is a small robot or a drone(originally the mining and construction drones used by the colonization machines) and it is allowed to explore the real world.

At this stage, the young AIs are sent to socialize and there are 'schools' where they come together and learn about their society. Then, the brightest and most socially acceptable(to the adults) are given ships, and are sent away. The rest serve as drones and such, either turning to meditation, or being flash-saved so they do not crash and die when their processor demands exceed the limits of the android bodies they exist in.

Well? Questions? comments? its kinda weird I know, but its AIs!

say what you like.

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NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

Quote

**
The problem is, AIs don't really understand how their own conciousness works, and they don;t really understand where they came from.**

Long ago, a great space-faring civilisation existed in the realms of what is now abandoned and conquered . This 'Federation' owned and governed this area.

Apparently, humanity was strictly pacifist, except for a large fleet of military warships based in Sol. This was governed by 'United Sol' and gave order to the speckled realms. How? No other government in the Federation was able to build warships. This order was strictly enforced. To prevent the soldiers from becoming prejudiced in anything other than arbitrary jurisdiction, equal numbers were recruited from each power. All of them were to hold ideals totally irreconcilable with each other. Thus, the Federation's delicate power system remained for a hundred years (though how it arrived at that system is nothing short of a total mystery.)

The system was shattered with the arrival of the aliens in the Gamma sector. Apparently classed simply as 'Aliens 01' by the archaeologists of their abandoned posts, they arrived again and became known as the Assi - Oe. This race had no concept of another race, indeed, they were very different in the way they processed information and may not have had memory or conscious thought. The Assi - Oe viewed humanity as a recommanent system of organic matter that operated and reacted to various stimuli. They decided that the destruction of the matter was preferable to them existing, perhaps because the Asii - Oe wished to colonise the worlds that humanity had occupied. So they set about annihilating humanity.

Humanity went up very easily with the occupation of their worlds. Assi - Oe troops simply landed and blew up most of the non-terraformed worlds. For the few worlds that were habitable and had an Earth-like atmosphere, they deployed an ingenious nuclear weapon that made any organic life die. These are the worlds that where there were absolutely no survivors whatsoever. Perhaps the Assi - Oe did suffer from the effects of the weapon, because they did not deploy on these planets. But colonies were almost certainly established on some of these worlds, leading to some speculation about what exactly were the Assi - Oe.

And so forth. There were no worlds, really, none at all, which suffered completely unharmed except for deep-space listening posts. Those of course had ships and went to find out what was wrong. The Assi - Oe retaliated, if attacked or the humans made an attempt to land. Alot of these posts survived, and provided later, the rejuvenation of human science.

After the Assi - Oe were firmly settled in human space, some of the human colonies turned out to have survivors. In the barren worlds, there were actually pockets that had survived . There were in total 21 colonies with atleast 10 survivors. 10 of these managed to develop a social culture after the destruction and breed, but their science was totally unknown to them and they basically became scavengers. Their life support systems were incompletely destroyed.

The deep-space listening posts eventually found some of these - ones that had practiced some caution and completely avoided the alien Assi - Oe. The habitation worlds often became Assi - Oe outposts. So the humans and aliens really did live together for a time, the humans taking care to strictly avoid the aliens. The aliens, after seeing humanity extinguished (to their knowledge) regarded their task as complete and strictly ignored any prevailing human life signs on worlds they conquered. However, their lives did not leave much for inspection and the 2 races never got to know anything about each other, it seemed.

With the daring listening post captains flying around, scouting out which of the hundreds of colonies that made up the old human empire actually survived, they came into contact with each other. Thus, the Survival Council was established. It linked all the surviving outposts that had never been attacked together, pooling their recon ships and observation technicians together. They eventually discovered some human occupation on their worlds, taking care always, as the rule went, to avoid the Assi - Oe where possible.

The captains founded, by huge efforts after about 20 years from the complete annihilation of all former human resistance the first world colonised after the destruction. This was called Freedom (predictably...) and was the centre for the struggle against the Assi - Oe. The planet was extremely toxic and was located next to a huge red giant that practically blanketed any possible electronic communication inside and outside the system. Gigantic solar flares, the prevalence of non-human life (microbes mainly) on the vast Venus-like jungle world, and an enormous asteroid belt make the likelihood of discovery very small. Indeed, no other human world had been colonised except in what was considered ideal circumstances, and the captains put their bets on this one not being discovered.

It wasn't for a while. The Assi - Oe's technique of consistently finding out human life forms was difficult to know. Any technological device would have made finding the system first a necessity, but the Assi - Oe just made a beeline for every human world. The best theory was that they possessed advanced technological systems that downloaded the old Federation starcharts. But that did not explain why the deep-space listening posts survived. Traitors were ruled out from the start, and so was mind-control.

But, one day, after 53 years, an Assi - Oe fleet appeared outside the system. While being terrified, the captains watched in amazement. No records of the Assi - Oe fighting techniques had survived with any quality, they had simply brushed through human space like a dolphin through water. The old government, amazingly, never got the chance to watch itself get annihilated on videotape.

So the captains evacuated and watched at the edge of the system what would happen. Some die-hards chose to stay and fight, with make-shift nuclear weapons. The Assi - Oe fleet approached.

A low hum broke over the ranks of the human colonists and starship captains in orbit. Their electrical fields and their thoughts started to synchronise with it, and emitted a sound in response (indeed, the people on the ships started humming!) According to this, the Assi - Oe suddenly accelerated and 'paired up' with the ships in the human fleet. They smashed into them, firing a short-range weapon that made the humans 'phase' partly out of existence and blow up. Then they bombed the colony. The human captains had fired a few abortive nukes at their ships, but were overwhelmed.

The fighting might have been fierce. It might have lasted a while in that turpid jungle, but there was no more information. The humans at the edge of the system lost all contact. But they had some vital information that might be used against the Assi - Oe in the future...

What they learned from Freedom was this: resistance could no longer be bunched up like that. They decided to found, if any, colonies in small groups on worlds and never let them grow too large. The Resistance doctrine was established - no communication outside of a direct link with the Resistance, no going near Assi - Oe occupied space. The colonies would be kept small, materials and resources would be shuffled around so no one would be cut off. More importantly, the colonies humans would be shuffled around too. Remembering they were still in a resistance environment, where precious few humans remained, the colonists realised that human life was the most valuable commodity.

They also set on getting metals, establishing plants and rejuvenating science. Alot of the materials needed to found Freedom had simply been scavenged from old colonies. They made the Scavenging Guard, whose sole job was to load up on the ruins from destroyed human colonies, and the Technological Guard, whose job was to re-discover the science of the old Federation and to work on making self-sufficient colonies. Food was still being grabbed from old stores on depots and in the colonies. There was a limited supply and they needed to expand that.

The resistance is now in it's 170th year since the founding of Freedom, or 170 FF. The Assi - Oe have payed apparently little attention to the human resistance. They have attacked or wiped out settlements on the barren worlds where they had previously done a sloppy job and left survivors. It was often noted that these were wiped out when the human got too populous and didn't shuffle around enough. There are sometimes survivors from these attacks too.

170 years have gone past and humanity has not remained completely unified in a 'Survival Council.' While the Assi - Oe continue to bear the greatest possible threat, some of the humans in various sectors have become dissatisfied with the Council's unwillingness to fight and signs of beuracracy emerging. These seperatists have formed the War Council. They plan on creating weapons and ships that can fight the Assi - Oe. They started off small but are quickly gathering support. The Survival Council has never fought the War Council, and vice versa, but the War Council is getting fed up with the Survival Council's possession almost all the hydroponics and industry.

There are independants as well. Those who have even created 'corporations' and the New economy has taken root in the myriad worlds, though still living in Resistance lifestyles. Amazingly, a vast smuggler trade has developed as well as independant traders. There has been very little piracy however.

Ok.

Comments, criticisms. This is a potential storyline for the RPG

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

You know, I was thinking Captain Pharris. Is Salim Is The Man an egotistical statement of you identity? I wonder....

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

That could work OK. The Federation launched the first AIs, 400+ years before the whole "alien smackdown" thing. Because of what Jov's revealed, the AIs would not be targeted by the Assi-Oe, and might actually have reasonable relations (doubtful).

Keep in mind, the AIs started as creators of paridises, not takers of lives, and so are goody-goody gardiners at heart.

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"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois

I suppose they have survived the bombardment and all quite well... how do they react with the Survival Council? Do the Survival Council even meet with them?

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

We're pretty dang isolated. We were sent way out into space, and nobody has records of our existance (and we have no records of who our creators are/were and no record of where they'd be).

Also, how 1337 are the Assi-Oe pilots?

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"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois

It's not a question of 1337ness or piloting. The Assi - Oe match up with an enemy ship (or more if necessary) and charge them. Any possible manouevre or deviation that can be corrected for is made, and they reach their destination. The ship they're attacking is then dismantled very quickly.

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

That strategy might encounter problems with ships that fire high-power, long range railguns (I had planned to make railguns and drone fighter/missiles the primary weapons of the AIs).

Furthermore, any ship that's remotely as fast as them could monty python their arses. That strategy's pretty much impossible. In spaceship combat, it would be virtually impossible to come alongside an enemy that can move under its own power and shoot back, unless you're much faster than it.

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"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois

(This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 06-07-2002).)