Cruiser Command

Ok, I have to take a moment to vent.

In a game yesterday, our team was doing great. I had just took out a chomper, and brought back nearly 2000 resources right in the beginning of the game. I felt like I was being a good team player. I feel like I single handedly handed us the game with all those resources. I should have been fucking awarded for taking the sacrifice of running the chomper and making it so we could win while everyone else in every single game takes the wraiths out to have fun.

The battlecruiser was near another astroid field, and I wanted to pilot the battlecruiser over to cover a chomper (alot of enemy wraiths were out) to I could get the rest of the resources. I needed like 3 engines. I understand that we need to charge the capacitors, but there is a big advantage to moving the bc to the astroid fields where chompers are - the chompers are protected, and don't have to spend the time (time is time a miner isn't mining, so it equals money) to go back and forth between the bc as the astroid fields around the bc are depleted.

So, the battlecruiser is at 0 power to engines, max power to charging the capacitors. I go to the power console, and take 25 GW off of weapons (reducing it from 115 to 90 or so) and allocate that power to engines. Cruiser cap was already at 2/3 power, weapons cap was high, and I left the controls still positive (+35 gw or something). Hell yeah, I am going to save my team, right? This will be great, I don't even have to bother the guy who is doing upgrades, before you know it we'll have even double the resources we had before?

Then someone (sky?) comes and says why are you on power? Presses vote kick, and in a split second I am kicked off of the team. Enjoyment went from super elated to infinitely pissed off. No chance to respond to what I am doing, no discussion on if this deserves a kick, no nothing, just some asshole who is playing a cooperative team game who doesn't understand the first thing about sportsmanship. I stayed for a few minutes to monitor the in game chat after my player was removed, and nobody seemed to even care. It's like getting fired from your job for trying to be a 'team player' and take on extra responsibilities.

Cruiser command, as it is, already only has a few people that play it each night. I was really getting into the game, but this whole "Your a slave and you're only allowed to mine" bullshit just fires me up like I can't even describe. ITS A FUCKING GAME. WE PLAY IT TO HAVE FUN. THATS THE GODDAMN POINT. I can't comprehend what went though that dudes head to basically ruin the game for me at that moment. Am I supposed to justify every single action that I do? "Captain, I'm going to go for reds now, is that a good idea?"

I swear, I thought I played enough games with everyone for people to realize that I have at least a general idea of what I'm doing, and I'm not going to just hit the self destruct button. I want to win too.

The elitism with the 'pros' around here is disgusting and totally ruined any enjoyment that I have built up playing this game in the last few weeks. I don't know if I will play again. I don't know if I care. I just know some asshole thought that because power was modified (I didn't even spend resources! I barely even adjusted anything!) that that was enough to kick me from the game without even allowing me a moment to justify myself. If thats the norm, well fuck this game.

[edit - removed]
Seriously, way to go at ruining something fun, whoever you are.

First off, I can understand your view. I hate getting votekicked in other arcade games I try out without them even giving me a chance or condemning me as "useless".
I am not sure which match you were referring to specifically, but I think I was there on your team.

The problem with you moving the BC is that you need to communicate it.
Most captains, me included, dislike when someone changes stuff on drone or power console without knowing about it, since having an overview about everything what's going on is important.

I used to votekick newbs a lot like a year ago but I stopped votekicking anyone til they really went too far and there is a really good reason to, I started to care more about growing the community since it shrinked so much.
I usually only votekick people now if they really don't communicate and just buy random ships (most likely infiltrator) when we urgently needed the resources for something else or when someone refuses to leave a console in a really crucial moment and screws up the team.

The reason people didn't care from your point of view is because all of us veterans are using a TeamSpeak server and we're coordinating via voice chat a lot, so you didn't see what we were planning or talking about.
Now for your particular reason, in most cases it is better to let the BC follow the chomper by using the free speed from enhanced stabilisers, which is 16 m/s when maxed. Fast enough to make engine power unnecessary.

Most veterans also wouldn't trust a low-rep player to have a good enough understanding of the power console, which you apparently have from what I can see in your post there.
In the end, yea your modification on power wasn't thst major and didn't justify the votekick.

Also note that resources aren't the only thing that is necessary to win.
At the point you got 2000 resources for the team, energy becomes one of the most important resources and you really don't want to have a much lower capacitor when the BC engagement happens. It's hard to make an energy gap up during the fight, while some resources may even remain unspent since there will probably be nobody on the upgrade console.

I agree that the votekick mechanic should receive an overhaul. At least letting the votekicked person 5-15 seconds time to explain himself and then giving the people to decide whether to kick or not. It's too abuse friendly with instant voting.

I am incredibly sorry for what you experienced. It is something I never personally experience because people generally know that I made the game, and if they don't, my 14000 reputation often scares them enough to believe it.

I've been kind of disgusted by the use of vote kick for some time now. You'll be playing like normal and suddenly you notice that someone on the other team was kicked off. You ask why they kicked him and you get a general response like: "He didn't listen" or "He spent resources without asking".

I personally almost never vote kick. I also dont automatically vote yes because someone proposes to kick someone else. There are 2 exceptions:
* Griefers
* AFK people

If someone runs to the power console and raises core to 200%, I'll votekick him and probably do so if I see that person try it again in another game.

If someone has been AFK for a long period of time (I wont just do it because they've been standing still for a minute at start), I will probably suggest kicking them.

I'm going to try to explain it from their point of view, without defending it. Cruiser Command is not a popular game. There's several reasons for this, but right now it is the truth. It has been this way for a long time which means people have had to stand long waiting times and such. Every time a game is "ruined" by a griefer or a new player refusing to listen to anything despite detailed instructions, that's a lot of time wasted for a lot of people. Over time, people's patience becomes smaller and smaller and apparently it can become as small as you experienced. Does this mean it's right? Absolutely not, but that's how it got here in the first place.

However, it's worth noting that Cruiser Command is a very team oriented game. You're all running the Battlecruiser. If people all run around with their own goals, it will often end up conflicting. Some things can easily be done without captain feedback, such as mining (although, in pro games, miners often call out what they're mining to give the captain an idea of what resources are coming in in the near future).

However, this is not always the case. Some things should generally be called out to the captain (which is often the guy doing upgrades). For example, maybe purchasing a miner at one point is a good idea. You've lost some miners and need to get your economy back on track, so you buy a miner. What you didn't know is that the captain was saving up for an important upgrade and you just set it back 2-5 minutes. Spending resources or moving the BC (which usually means changing energy) are things that should be communicated. Does this mean that you should get kicked for not telling him, without getting a chance to explain? Not at all.

Finally, I would like to know if this is something that has happened regularly. Because in the end of your post, it seems like it is. I have never seen a kicking this extreme, so I would definitely say it's not the norm. You lose a lot of credibility with your penultimate paragraph, which is a shame because the rest of your post was very well written and brought up a good point.

Wow,

Let me take a second and say that I feel humbled. Siretu, I really respect you and the map you have made here. I think it is the most fun I have played in a game in along time, and I did not expect you to see this message - I did not realize you participated on the forums here.

I honestly overreacted with that last paragraph. I was feeling particularly enraged, but even after I wrote that, I find that I still really like the game and think about it quite a bit. It was an isolated ocourance, and not representative of an average game of Cruiser Command, or its community, you're actually all really great people. I can just man up and give it another go, it's really nobody elses fault but my own on how I take some sort of event like this. So, for that. I'm sorry for anyone I pointed fingers at or offended in the community.

After reading your point of view on the situation, I agree with you that this could just be the random end result of a combination of factors inside and outside of people's controls (such as the waiting period to start a game) with the mechanic of the kick command.

In any case, sorry for overreacting, and from a fellow programmer, thanks for the game!

are you on the Skype group Bbot?
because we have an idea to make it so that when someone initiates a vote-kicks on someone else, there is a 5-15 time period before the voting starts where person can defend themselves real quick or call accidents like "oh crap, didnt mean to kick him, DONT KICK AUGH!" or "HEY! i was just moving the BC to protect the chomper...*everyone else* oh....."

that sort of thing....

Wai.. wait.. there's a CC Skype group?!?!

(Slightly off topic, sorry!)

what is your skype name?

Karl 206, or if that doesn't work I'll have to check.

bbot wrote:Wow,

Let me take a second and say that I feel humbled. Siretu, I really respect you and the map you have made here. I think it is the most fun I have played in a game in along time, and I did not expect you to see this message - I did not realize you participated on the forums here.

It's my forum, I've read every message on here

Thank you for the kind words, I always appreciate compliments. As for this incident, I'm glad you're considering giving it a second chance. As a direct result of your thread, I am currently reworking the kick system to allow for a 15 second defense period. I hope this will remove most of the kick abuse. This should be in the 3.1.1 patch that I'm hoping to publish today.

Remember though: Communication is key.

Siretu wrote:[I am currently reworking the kick system to allow for a 15 second defense period.

is 15 seconds long enough for the core to survive at 150% output? (because 150 is when the notification gets called out)? if not, then I would suggest adding a delay to the "increase core output" when it's above say 120% - make it take a second to go from 120 - 125%, an extra 1.5 seconds to go from 125% to 130%, etc.

and as much as I dislike the vote-kick system, not listening and buying tons of missiles to use on "small ships" is a very vote-kickable offense imo, as is the justification of "II mined those resources, so they are mine to spend on an infiltrator" - I would suggest having some sort of limit on particularly "tempting but often wasteful" operations like buying missiles, destroyers, infiltrators, messing with core output, etc. - because normally if a person buy an extra miner, that's OK - but when they buy an infiltrator, that's almost never OK

actually - I would suggest creating a single-player "infiltration" mission, and only allow the infiltrator purchase after that - give it objectives like place a C4 on construction console, steal minerals, and kill a drone.