[spoon-discuss] Re: [Spoon-business] The aforementioned prop alteration

[Daniel Lepage <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wednesday, March 19, 2003, at 10:43  PM, Baron von Skippy wrote:

> Replace the text of proposal 1389 with:
>
> {
> Drastically alter 1341.B to read:
>
> {
> B. Improvements
> If an entity owns a square, they may create Improvements on that 
> square by paying BNS and resources equal to the cost of said 
> Improvement to the specified recipient. If no entity is specified to 
> be the recipient of the cost of an Improvement, the cost is paid to 
> the Admin. No square may contain more than one Improvement unless 
> explicitly permitted by the rules. Armies may attempt to destroy 
> Improvements by attacking them. When this happens, 1d3 is rolled. On a 
> 1, the improvement is destroyed. On a 2, the Improvement is Scrapped. 
> On a 3, nothing happens. At any time, an Improvement may be Scrapped, 
> which returns half the capital resource cost, rounded down, of the 
> Improvement to the owner of that Improvement.
> }

Make Scrapping something that can be done to Improvements; add the bit 
about Armies doing it to the Armies rule. It's cleaner that way, and 
makes it easier to add things like explosives, etc. that can harm 
Improvements.

Also, make sure you don't just say "Armies may attempt to destroy 
Improvements"; nothing in that suggests that my army of faeries on 
(1,1) can't arbitrarily try to nuke your (20,20) Power Plant as many 
times as I want. It really should be limited to some number of times 
per nweek, and to adjacent/same location Improvements.

> [[
> A side note on the nature of Power Plants, which will come up soon: 
> WBE developed a way to harvest Entropy from Ancient Monoliths and can 
> it, creating a powerful weapon. vSOI reverse-engineered the process, 
> and, with the waepon angle on things taken, tried something else. They 
> found that by linking a bank of monloliths together and running the 
> entropy from one to the next, more entropy could be generated - the 
> entropy of a system always increases or stays constant, more often the 
> former. Running this entropy through various devices which probably 
> sidestepped physics in an ingenious way, they had found a new energy 
> source. Cheap, efficient, endless - almost. While theoretically a 
> nearly infinite amount of entropy and thus energy could be generated, 
> this would do two things.
>
> One, blow up the power plant. The sun generates a lot of energy, too, 
> and that is why it is a flaming ball of gas which could engulf this 
> planet whole without a second thought. Lots of energy is dangerous.
>
> Two, send the universe tumbling catastrophically into an entropic 
> lockdown, freezing all processes, stopping all change, and causing the 
> ultimate averaging of everything, which would culminate in the 
> stoppage of time. That's a bad thing. Luckily, both effects are 
> blocked by the stopgap controllers, which draw off excess entropy to 
> be used elsewhere, controlling the reaction. If they fail, so does the 
> flow of entropy - it's like stopping a resistor from blocking current 
> by cutting it out of the circuit. Long story short, we've got cheap 
> power. All it takes is a few rocks, some tubing, and a Can of Whoopass 
> to start things off.
>
> A much shorter note on the naming of the weapons vSOI developed: for 
> PR purposes, names such as "The KiloEviscerator" and "The 
> Destructomatic T-47" were scrapped, the first because it's disturbing 
> and the second to prevent copyright trouble with LucasArts, in favor 
> of more "family-friendly" names, or at least acronyms. This led to 
> some interesting strained acronyms based on the names of friendly 
> children's entertainment characters. vSOI: Corrupting young minds for 
> over 20 nweeks.
>
> Oh, and this isn't prose. This prop started as prose, but it wasn't 
> going to work, so that idea was scrapped and this piece of exposition 
> was stuck in. So don't rate it. We now return to your regularly 
> scheduled proposal already in progress:
> ]]
>
> {
> In rule 1341.B, add subsections:
>
> B.3. Power Plants
> Power Plants are Improvements. Power Plants cost 300 BNS and, if the 
> entity who is purchasing the Power Plant has no other Power Plants, 
> one Can of Whoopass. Each Power Plant produces 100 units of Power per 
> nweek. Other improvements which require Power may only draw those 
> Units from Power Plants owned by the player who owns the improvement 
> requiring power. If at any time a player does not have enough Power to 
> power all Improvements they own, a random Improvement that player owns 
> which requires Power is scrapped.

Just out of curiosity, why Scrapped? If I'm not powering my guns, they 
blow up?

> B.6. Defense Platforms
> Defense Platforms are Improvements. Each Defense Platform requires 10 
> Power each nweek. Up to two Defense Platforms may be placed on each 
> Grid space, provided no other Improvements occupy that Grid space, or 
> one may be placed on a square already containing an Elbonian Airways, 
> Elbonian Starways, or Power Plant.

Are these abstract, or can an object be *just* a defense platform (as 
opposed to being a specific type of defense platform)?

> B.6.1. vSOI Platforms
> The platforms in this subsection may be purchased from vSOI. Each may 
> target an enemy which is between (MIN) and (MAX) spaces away, (RATE) 
> times per nweek, no more than once per target per nweek, dealing 
> damage as though it were an army with (ATK) Attack Power and 1 
> Strength. Each costs the purchasing entity (BNS) BNS and vSOI (RU) 
> RUs. If the purchasing entity does not have enough BNS, or if vSOI 
> does not have enough RUs, the sale is cancelled.
>
> TIGGERS: Tactical anti-Infantry Ground to Ground Energy Repeaters
> THUMPERS: Tactical Heavy Uber-Mega-Powerful Explosive Railguns
> SIMBAS: Surface-based Interception Missile launchers: Barney And 
> Speeders
>
> Name         MIN  MAX  RATE  ATK  BNS  RU  Targets   Special
> TIGGER       0    1    100   50   150  10  Armies    N/A
> THUMPER      1    3    2     200  300  25  Armies    N/A
> SIMBA        0    3    100   50   150  10  Speeders  Can be equipped 
> with KEMOSABE missiles
> }

Nothing specifies what the 'Targets' column does; what's with this 100 
shots per nweek thing on two of these?

--
Wonko

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