C&P loop-hole. Trade ship builds can be more than combat build ships! Even a T7!

Probably because combat alone doesn't represent experience in the game.

Is that what they're attempting to quantify here?
Cos, y'know, there's already a "time-played" stat' available which does that perfectly.

Seems, to me, that there's s two distinct things going on.
C&P should allude to whether or not you're doing illegal stuff and karma should allude to whether you're doing nice things or not.

For me, the C&P response to something like destroying another ship should be the same regardless of whether you use a Flying Death-Machine to kill a newbie in a Sidewinder or use a half-decent Vulture to kill an Elite CMDR in a T9.

The karma response would be the more nuanced one.
That should probably be based on how evenly-matched the ships are and the experience of the player, which leads to some difference in how things happen to you during subsequent play.
Things like, perhaps, finding tougher police-ships sent against you or an increased likelihood of being scanned etc.
 
Oh my, this one ran away from me... Where was I...

I can and yes I can, and yes I do :)

Play in PG. C&P not required.

Brevity mastered! Awesome!

Can't rep you again, but you are doing well ;)
This right there ^
:)

Thanks guy's :)

Yes, that's also a serious problem ..... they are likely to have credits coming out of their ears in the first place :eek:

I guess the other enforcement alternative, with SJA's advanced tactical weaponed-NPCs take over if they continue in their killing spree.

I do love that woman! She sure kicks butt!

Huh? Traders use large fuel scoops? I doubt that, except for rares traders.

If you are doing a few hops then you might use the better part of a tank, but still shouldn't require a scoop. Your cr/hr would drop too low with too many jumps. Worst case scenario, drop a small scoop on for a one time refuel, or add an extra fuel tank and double your range.

I do generally agree with you! By and large, anything more than 3 jumps away (6min loop) isn't profitable. If it's a long haul like Sothis Biowaste runs then yes a scoop works. At CGs I'd park the 8A scoop on the Cutter (yes, some people do buy them!) and fit a cargo rack (ship it from shin usually). However, explaining every eventuality would make for a very tedious post! I way trying to get the idea across more than build accuracy... As it was I still put in way more details than needed in the OP.

"you pay 10% per point of notoriety of the difference between your rebuy cost and your victims rebuy cost".

Difference?
just 10% (per point) of the difference?

Make it the whole cost, not just the difference.
This will not significantly affect piracy or consensual PvP: Pirates want cargo, not kills.
Consensual PvPers typically turn off "Report crimes against me".

THAT THERE ^^^^ is closer to the point! Why the difference? Why not the whole cost? Why that variable?

Thing is the objective is to be in the least expensive ship you can manage, to have the greatest difference between yourself and your attacker. The greater the price difference, the greater their costs. So for a T-7, you'd want: https://coriolis.io/outfit/type_7_t...18aQ==.Aw18aQ==..EweloBhBmSQUwIYHMA28QgIwV0A=

We could potentially make a new game of "Counter Griefing", by flying swarms of small, weak ships into the line of fire of griefer murdermobiles, and see if we can't wrack them up Bankruptcy in rebuy costs.

See how this becomes an "Arms Race" real fast?

Personally, I'd just as soon leave people alone to play.

Interesting observations... But ultimately, I'm with you. I'd leave people alone to play. I'm very rarely in Open. Even way out in the black I'm in Solo because I can use the Alt-F10 to grab high res screen shots, which I can't use in Open...

In C&P, what the devs could have included is the cost of the cargo (x some multiply), unless they scoop it up

They could have done a whole load of different things! But fdev seem very cagey about going anywhere near cargo contents, maybe because of potential outliers like a large quantities of meta alloys worth 10s of millions...

Yeah, I was wondering about that too. Dunno if it was conveniently left out, but combat hull types are by far the most expensive things to buy.

Besides, I'm pretty sure no one ever bought a class 8 fuel scoop. For the big ship, if you take the fastest route instead of the most efficient, a class 5 fuel scoop will be more than enough to top up your fuel tank while skimming the surface at full speed between arrival and departure. Anything bigger will be a waste of money.

Left out because even a lightly designed combat build (aka PvE combat build) where the build cost isn't much can usually kill an inexperienced trader. A PvP combat build is a no brainer, yes it's more expensive but its overkill for the task. You don't need the expensive pvp elements, just the super penetrator rail guns to take down the FSD.

Well, I've seen the 8a scoop mentioned a few times, I personally use the 6a scoop in my cutter.

It may also be worth mentioning, please don't use the chieftain posted in the op as a template for a combat chieftain lol.

It's was a stupid example build thrown together as an example ... LoL

Of course if you equip your ship poorly and put a useless fuelscoop that costs half your hull's value, chances are that a much cheaper combat build will kill you despite the fact TTKs are so insanely high and therefore heavily in favor of the defender.

In the bubble, an extra fuel tank makes a lot more sense than throwing money out the window with a fuel scoop. And what kind of trade route could be profitable enough to justify jumping further than what an extra fuel tank will allow?

By and large I agree with you. Mostly for the convenience though... Fuel scoops are insanely priced though and should be reduced.

OP, I don't think the C&P changes are designed to save traders from their own daft fitting choices.

Probably not... But I don't get this 'difference in rebuy cost' approach. It just feels wrong to me with too many caveats that nullify it's use, which is what I was trying to point out.

I've been deliberately avoiding most of this stuff, but still...

If they were looking for a way to compare relative combat ability, why wouldn't they just focus on, say, DPS?

That makes more sense to me! A trader's DPS will be zero... Even a newbies DPS will be low in an cobra or something, only a combat vessel will have high DPS? But then DPS isn't a good measure of effectiveness... A frag cannon can have DPS in the hundreds! My frag Python has a DPS over 500 but to use it you need to hit them at point blank range otherwise most of that DPS is lost. Lasers are only good at less than 1km because of their falloff etc. Hence, DPS is also a crude measure unfortunately.

I guess we are trying to nail down what this is trying to achieve and whether this variable is the right way to do it. Personally, I'm not convinced.

Probably because combat alone doesn't represent experience in the game.

An high-ranked Trader or Explorer should have enough nous about them to make a survivable fitting and have the smarts to get out of trouble.

That is from a PvP perspective though, unless you have specifically looked into pvp builds in depth and taken the time to know a good deal about weapon types and their possible modifications, you are not likely to know how a PvP combat pilot is outfitting their ship(s) to take yours down. A Trader or Explorer isn't likely to have read extensively on the PvP sub forum about build configs and flight strategies. They are probably mostly unaware of what can be done to stop them cold in their tracks! Put another way, a year or two trading or exploring the black doesn't represent experience in the game either...

I've played for more than a couple of years, but I would not like to pit my skills at evasion against a combat pilot! Even in my PvE Vette build, I know enough that I wouldn't last 15 seconds. In a trade build, Bah dead in a couple of heart beats. That's just me being realistic with myself.

Really interesting observation by the OP. It's these nuances that make the ED the choice for thinking players :)

However, there are just too many fit-out variations for combat and trading ships to draw a hard conclusion. FD have made it clear that the change to C & P is to discourage "seal clubbing" (Sandro actually used those words on the livestream) and I think it will probably have that effect. How well? Have to wait and see.

Agreed. The number of variables is horrendous! But I'm not convinced this will stop seal clubbing. In ships like a Vette possibly, but in smaller inexpensive ships like the Vulture... That is a different story and likely to be the new meta for griefers and gankers. Smaller cheaper builds with specialised weaponry for nailing their victims.

Hence, I don't think this will curb all but the most flagrant of abuses...

Is that what they're attempting to quantify here?
Cos, y'know, there's already a "time-played" stat' available which does that perfectly.

Seems, to me, that there's s two distinct things going on.
C&P should allude to whether or not you're doing illegal stuff and karma should allude to whether you're doing nice things or not.

For me, the C&P response to something like destroying another ship should be the same regardless of whether you use a Flying Death-Machine to kill a newbie in a Sidewinder or use a half-decent Vulture to kill an Elite CMDR in a T9.

The karma response would be the more nuanced one.
That should probably be based on how evenly-matched the ships are and the experience of the player, which leads to some difference in how things happen to you during subsequent play.
Things like, perhaps, finding tougher police-ships sent against you or an increased likelihood of being scanned etc.

I entirely agree with you! Reped. At the moment I'm only seeing one dimensions thinking on solving this problem, which is why this solution doesn't sit well with me.
 
A-rated fuel scoop prices are pretty ridiculous, admittedly - more than Prismatic shields, much more than any A-rated core internal. The stereotypical exploration Asp is (by price) 2/3 fuel scoop. But that's a problem of fuel scoop pricing, not of the effects of ship price on rebuy cost.
(And if you spent the fuel scoop money on the same size Prismatic shield, you wouldn't generally need to worry about what your rebuy was, either)

There isn't anything wrong with pricing of the scoops - there is, however, something wrong with people being able to do basic math, and apply that to how the game works.

With the exception of the Beluga, using the 6,7,or 8A scoops is a near-zero ROI, which literally makes them a waste of credits.

Also, while I don't necessarily agree with the OP's assessment, I would say that picking on the builds is missing the forest for the trees.

Get better soon, Susanna :)

Riôt
 
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A lot of experts on the front page shooting down OP with detailed examples.
I'm going to suggest that most players aren't experts.

I get told off for having A rated everything on my T-9.
I don't have the patience to juggle millijoules vs whatever you measure a power distributed in.
A-Rated life support has saved my bacon so that's how I roll.

And there's also a lot of folks shooting down the "big fuel scoop" trade ships.
But there's a definite use case: I had a big scoop when I was running goods out to that station on the edge of the bubble for the SMAC Alliance CG.

It's not just noobs who run sub-optimal builds.

Big trade ships are expensive.
And if you've solved your money problem - there is a real tendency to gold plate them.
So they're even more expensive.

Susanna has a point.
 
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Jerks will always be jerks and find ways to exploit and circumvent systems and continue to be jerks. Since you only get the murder bounty if you destroy a ship, the only thing you need to do is to disable it in a way that it can't recover and will be destroyed in due time without you, jerk, firing the last shot. The new system is certainly a good thing in my opinion, but I am under no illusion that this will keep idiots from being idiots.
In the end there really aren't as many in Open as one might think. Well, CGs are a problem. I'd love to see some solid ideas on securing hot spots like that, but that seems to be a bit hard to do.
 
It's not just noobs who run sub-optimal builds.
Sure, but
1) I don't think the purpose of the rule is to apply scientifically every time. It's just to discourage people from using really big ships to prey on really small ones.
2) An attacker can't generally tell anyway. Is that Asp running a 6C scoop or a 6A scoop? (>1 million difference in rebuy) - is it mostly D-rated or mostly A-rated? (600k difference in rebuy) - no way to know. So within a size class it's not like it would help.
3) As defensive measures increase your rebuy cost, you don't really want a situation where shooting at shielded trade ships consistently attracts no extra penalty, but shooting at unshielded ones does. That puts exactly the wrong incentives.

Rebuy's not a particularly good measure of capability, because how much a ship costs is a poor measure of its capabilities - a stock E-rated Cutter fresh off the factory floor and useless at basically anything has a rebuy almost twice that of a full battle FAS and somewhat higher than a combat-fit FDL - but on the other hand anyone flying a stock E-rated Cutter certainly has the resources to fly something more survivable instead.

There isn't anything wrong with pricing of the scoops - there is, however, something wrong with people being able to do basic math, and apply that to how the game works.

With the exception of the Beluga, using the 6,7,or 8A scoops is a near-zero ROI, which literally makes them a waste of credits.
So your argument is "there's nothing wrong with the pricing, they're just too expensive to be worth using". Then why are they that expensive? I can accept "trap for people who insist on gold plating their ships" as a possible reason but it hardly seems to be Frontier's design style.

(Back before they updated the hyperspace exit to be in direction of travel, there was a definite advantage to using 6A scoops on a long exploration trip, because you might be taking much shorter arcs around the stars a lot of the time. Since then, sure, the 6C is generally sufficient. But it was still ridiculously expensive even when it had a point...)

the only thing you need to do is to disable it in a way that it can't recover
That's technically possible, but if you actually have the precision to both take a critical module down to 0% health *and* take their hull percentage so low that the reboot/repair cycle will destroy it so they can't do that *and* stop any of their friends getting through with repair limpets when under police (and possibly ATR) fire ... to be honest I think you deserve to get away with it at that point just for style.

Sure, in a few circumstances you might be able to leave them there for the NPCs, but you still have to combine
- dead enough that they won't be able to escape the NPCs
- alive enough that the NPC won't kill them until your last hit has timed out
- positioned so that the NPC won't get distracted by anything else
 
A lot of experts on the front page shooting down OP with detailed examples.
I'm going to suggest that most players aren't experts.

I get told off for having A rated everything on my T-9.
I don't have the patience to juggle millijoules vs whatever you measure a power distributed in.
A-Rated life support has saved my bacon so that's how I roll.

And there's also a lot of folks shooting down the "big fuel scoop" trade ships.
But there's a definite use case: I had a big scoop when I was running goods out to that station on the edge of the bubble for the SMAC Alliance CG.

It's not just noobs who run sub-optimal builds.

Big trade ships are expensive.
And if you've solved your money problem - there is a real tendency to gold plate them.
So they're even more expensive.

Susanna has a point.

This is all stuff which I find quietly disturbing.

Play your own way. Blaize your own trail.
But if you're going to be a Trader, do it in a Rinzler-spec ship, fit powerful weapons, carry an SLF and don't use A-rated modules.

And yet, as a Trader, there's still no actual way to gain the upper-hand over a combat pilot.
All you can do is either reduce the likelihood of becoming debris or ensure the game knows you're the "victim".

Combat pilots spend their time optimising their ships for pew-pew.
Traders spend their time optimising their earnings.
There should really be ways for a player to take advantage of both of these things.
 
I guess we are trying to nail down what this is trying to achieve and whether this variable is the right way to do it. Personally, I'm not convinced.

Exactly.

I'm not saying I have the answers but I'm also not sure that FDev has them either.
They seem to have just created a variety of arbitrary conditions to recognise specific scenarios rather than coming up with a cohesive framework that governs everything.

When I said they should "concentrate" on combat stuff, I suppose what I really meant was just to ignore the stuff that doesn't factor into the equality of a combat situation.

Again, I don't have all the answers but I would have thought it'd be possible to give all weapons some kind of "kill factor" whereby, for example, weapons might start off with a number based on their DPS and then have some kind of "multiplier" applied based on stuff like the type of engineering done to them, their range, their ease of use etc, in order to come up with a final "kill factor" which accurately represents their usefulness.

Take that "kill factor", do some more math's which considers things like experience (combat rank & time played), ship design (specifically, armour, shields, SBs, SCBs, PDs, chaff, ECM etc) and it should be possible to come up with a fairly accurate measure of two player's relative capabilities in combat.

Stuff like whether you've got a spendy fuel-scoop shouldn't really factor into that equation at all.


Also, while I'm at it, it occurs to me that there might be potential for co-op play to screw up the way this is all supposed to work.
If I'm flying, say, an unarmed ExploraConda, I could get interdicted by a Viper who's accompanied by another player in a Cutter who could ensure I remain mass-locked while the Viper rips my ship apart.
If the game only "sees" an Anaconda vs a Viper then it's probably not going to think that's an unfair fight.
 
...
Also, while I'm at it, it occurs to me that there might be potential for co-op play to screw up the way this is all supposed to work.
If I'm flying, say, an unarmed ExploraConda, I could get interdicted by a Viper who's accompanied by another player in a Cutter who could ensure I remain mass-locked while the Viper rips my ship apart.
If the game only "sees" an Anaconda vs a Viper then it's probably not going to think that's an unfair fight.

And if you
- run an unarmed ExploraConda (not exactly a newbie now)
- in open (few explorers do that)
and
- let yourself get mass locked (high waking exists)

you are (also) constructing a situation in which you deserve everything you get.

Yes, you could change the scenario a bit by e.g. using an unarmed DBX instead of the 'conda.

But the purpose of this small bit of C&P change (as I read it) wasn't to make fights "fair". It is an attempt to add a bit of additional discouragement to the most blatant seal clubbing. How well it will work for that I can't estimate - I've never flown a Cutter, and my financial reserves are well below the 1 bn Cr. mark. My guess is that, with the start of 3.0, we will see a short rise of such incidents, just because people are people and will want to try and see what actually happens and how far you could go before triggering the ATR and how fast you will go down (or can you escape? Tune in at 11!). Honestly, I'm tempted myself to upgrade an iCourier and go on a shooting spree.
 

And yet, as a Trader, there's still no actual way to gain the upper-hand over a combat pilot.
All you can do is either reduce the likelihood of becoming debris or ensure the game knows you're the "victim".

Combat pilots spend their time optimising their ships for pew-pew.
Traders spend their time optimising their earnings.
There should really be ways for a player to take advantage of both of these things.

Optimizing a trading ship like the T-7 only increases the re-buy cost without increasing survivability to a level where the increased re-buy cost makes sense and at the same time cripples an already crippled trader even more.

It's a lost cause.

Ship design is completely imbalanced, engineering made that even more pronounced and 3.0 engineering is the cherry on top with it's "god roll"-mods for all.
Since 1.0 FDev is trying to balance combat and the only result is that combat got completely broken. SCBs, SBs, HRPs, MRPs, engineering, military slots - all things designed to help combat ships fight better against other combat ships at the cost of making any ship not designed for combat less and less usable.

The only thing that could help would be a complete restart of the ship balance - something we will never get.

At the same time FDev still thinks that harsh bans are not the answer, while they are courting player groups that openly promote toxic behavior. Adding useless C&P stuff to the game that will just create more toxicity.
 
Optimizing a trading ship like the T-7 only increases the re-buy cost without increasing survivability to a level where the increased re-buy cost makes sense and at the same time cripples an already crippled trader even more.

yeah, because replacing a DC + 8t cargo with 800 armor costs the insanely expensive fee of 150.000cr. Man, that poor T7 pilot has to work at least a minute for that! ;)
 
yeah, because replacing a DC + 8t cargo with 800 armor costs the insanely expensive fee of 150.000cr. Man, that poor T7 pilot has to work at least a minute for that! ;)

T-7 with class 5 shield (181 MJ), 6A FSD (15.6 ly, laden), 272t cargo, 612 integrity:
2 class 3 HRPs: + 2x 260 integrity - 16t cargo: 256t cargo, 1132 integrity
class 6A shield: 217 MJ - 32 t: 224t cargo
Military grade armor: 1710 integrity 14.8 ly max jump


We then can add engineering and SBs and the T-7 would still have effectively no shields, after shields are down the modules are extremely vulnerable - unless modified for sturdiness (making the ship even less maneuverable and reduce the jump-range).

Let's face it, a T-7 even with more defensive modules won't survive 3 times longer than a shieldless T-7 in the hands of an average player.
 
That's technically possible, but if you actually have the precision to both take a critical module down to 0% health *and* take their hull percentage so low that the reboot/repair cycle will destroy it so they can't do that *and* stop any of their friends getting through with repair limpets when under police (and possibly ATR) fire ... to be honest I think you deserve to get away with it at that point just for style.

Sure, in a few circumstances you might be able to leave them there for the NPCs, but you still have to combine
- dead enough that they won't be able to escape the NPCs
- alive enough that the NPC won't kill them until your last hit has timed out
- positioned so that the NPC won't get distracted by anything else

What about the canopy?
 
Let's face it, a T-7 even with more defensive modules won't survive 3 times longer than a shieldless T-7 in the hands of an average player.
217 MJ of base shield, plus 4 pips to systems is a bit over 500 MJ effective shield, which should be enough to escape most attacks. With a bit of engineering and a couple of boosters for extra resistance, that could be doubled to 1000 MJ even versus absolute damage and more than that versus thermal or kinetic, which makes it even easier. Skip the HRPs and Military armour at that stage, and you can transport 240t of cargo while being basically invincible and having 15.49 laden range (well over 20 engineered). It's certainly not going to be winning any fights, but it won't have any trouble running away from them.

And this is the T-7, one of the weakest ships defensively, and one arguably not designed for delivering cargo into really dangerous areas in the first place!

(Also, at a rebuy of only about 2 million, anything that does have the firepower to get through 1000 MJ of shield in the 25 seconds available is going to be facing a big bounty as a result)
 
What about the canopy?
D-rated life support gives you 7:30 base time, which is generally plenty of time to get to some sort of safety if the rest of your modules are intact.
2 iron and 1 nickel will give you a further 7:30 on top of that - they're ultra-common materials already. When in 3.0 people can stockpile 300 of each without compromise ... well, most people won't have that many, of course, but anyone who does even a little SRV driving or mining is going to have at least a few life support refills.
(Checking now, I throw out most low-grade materials and just keep a few back for SRV repairs - and I currently have 15 life support refills on 2.4 stock rules)

Again, it's not impossible ... but you're not going to reliably get people this way.
 
And if you
- run an unarmed ExploraConda (not exactly a newbie now)
- in open (few explorers do that)
and
- let yourself get mass locked (high waking exists)

you are (also) constructing a situation in which you deserve everything you get.

Yes, you could change the scenario a bit by e.g. using an unarmed DBX instead of the 'conda.

But the purpose of this small bit of C&P change (as I read it) wasn't to make fights "fair". It is an attempt to add a bit of additional discouragement to the most blatant seal clubbing. How well it will work for that I can't estimate - I've never flown a Cutter, and my financial reserves are well below the 1 bn Cr. mark. My guess is that, with the start of 3.0, we will see a short rise of such incidents, just because people are people and will want to try and see what actually happens and how far you could go before triggering the ATR and how fast you will go down (or can you escape? Tune in at 11!). Honestly, I'm tempted myself to upgrade an iCourier and go on a shooting spree.

You seem to be missing the point.

In the scenario I suggested, a Viper vs an ExploraConda probably wouldn't be considered seal-clubbing.

If, however, the game fails to consider the roles played by other ships then the whole C&P/karma thing might not work as intended.
 
Optimizing a trading ship like the T-7 only increases the re-buy cost without increasing survivability to a level where the increased re-buy cost makes sense and at the same time cripples an already crippled trader even more.

It's a lost cause.

True enough but, TBH, that wasn't really my point.

By way of analogy, if I got into a bar-fight with Bill Gates, he's not going to go to the gym, learn karate and then come and find me for a re-match.
If he decided he wanted to get even, he's probably going to find ways to ruin my life without even having to leave his office to do it.

I think it'd be nice if ED provided some element of that, whereby rich CMDRs might be able to use their wealth instead of their trigger-finger to get things done.
 
A lot of experts on the front page shooting down OP with detailed examples.
I'm going to suggest that most players aren't experts.

I get told off for having A rated everything on my T-9.
I don't have the patience to juggle millijoules vs whatever you measure a power distributed in.
A-Rated life support has saved my bacon so that's how I roll.

And there's also a lot of folks shooting down the "big fuel scoop" trade ships.
But there's a definite use case: I had a big scoop when I was running goods out to that station on the edge of the bubble for the SMAC Alliance CG.

It's not just noobs who run sub-optimal builds.

Big trade ships are expensive.
And if you've solved your money problem - there is a real tendency to gold plate them.
So they're even more expensive.

Susanna has a point.

The wrong point. The system isn't meant to protect expensive trading vessels piloted by experienced players. It's meant to dissuade ganking new players in utterly defenseless vessels with no idea of how to react.

If you can pimp out a trading vessel to be worth as much or more than a medium sized fighting vessel with adjusted engineering value, congratulations. You are no longer a new player. At that point, whether or not you survive an interdiction is largely on your own shoulders and ship loadout choices. Hint- put some defenses on there, submit to interdctions, and high wake out. You'll be fine.
 
You seem to be missing the point.

In the scenario I suggested, a Viper vs an ExploraConda probably wouldn't be considered seal-clubbing.

If, however, the game fails to consider the roles played by other ships then the whole C&P/karma thing might not work as intended.

May be (about the point).

The points I was trying to make were:
1) I wouldn't even consider a PvP Cutter vs. an Exploraconda to be seal clubbing. Unfair and essentially boring, sure. But if you fly an Exploraconda in open, you (should, admittedly) know what you're doing.
2) It may not work as you think it should, but could work as I think it might be intended. Including the emergence of new (ok, any...) tactics for murder hobos.

These changes make life harder for murder hobos, and I think that's all the intention behind it. FD never said that they wanted to make psychotic murder sprees impossible. In the discussion about the KWS, Sandro (IIRC) even stated that one of the intentions behind the idea of limiting the KWS to the topmost bounty (currently under review) was to prevent that serial killers would find themselves suddenly bankrupt when being faced with the prospect of having to pay off all of their bounties at once. Not something I would agree with (if you do the crime, you should lovingly well do the time), but I'm willing to give the new system as it stands now a few months of trial.

The words "emergent gameplay" have been abused regularly here, but you will never know what major changes in gameplay will emerge from minor changes in the rules.
 
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