Bay 12 Games Forum

I just had a possible idea of how to limit the tech rate while giving multiple designs per turn.  Give the players, say, five designs and five revisions, each set of five all being rolled for at once, with revisions only able to be used on existing equipment, and each turn is five years long.  With everything done simultaneously, it is a bit harder to do a build off of that is what allows for the tech to advance as fast as it does in a regular Arms Race.  This may also allow for a bit more fun from using esoteric designs, as players don't need to be 100% pragmatic all the time like a single design requires them to.

As a side effect, with the five year gap, you can have the nations have a small war where territory is exchanged in a peace treaty at the end of them, marking territorial gains.  Game would be a bit more realistic due to alternating short bursts of war divided by peace is a bit more realistic for nations to wage rather than an eternal war like a standard Arms Race.

Decided to do a bit of looking around since I couldn't locate a mention of threadmarks on the Simple Machines forum or the customization list.  Bad news is that the only example I can find seems to only be a part of the XenForo software, a forum software you need to pay for to use.  Good news is, threadmarking is something made by the community rather than something innately part of the XenForo software, and it also seems to utilize an .xml file to some extent, which the Simple Machines forum stuff seems to use as well.  Bad news is, in order to download the threadmarks program, you need to be a registered customer of theirs, which costs $140.  Yet, there is good news, as the author has a github page here that includes to .xml file containing the code to get it working.

Granted, there's probably a bit of reverse engineering and Jerry-rigging to get it to be integrated, but at least there's an open source base to work off of that is very permissive of its use and modification thanks to using the MIT license.

Significantly more than threadmarks (they're pretty great, mind you, but there's a lot of B12's discussions that it isn't as useful for as somewhere like SB or SV, imo), a decent alert system would probably be all kinds of sexy. There has to have been something approaching a good hundred or more times over the years I've been here someone's asked how to unsubscribe from a thread, or fiddle with new/unread topics, or so on. I wouldn't be entirely unwilling to bet stuff surrounding that sort of feature is straight up the single most asked about thing regarding the forum software.

... after that would be an easier method of resizing images, and/or auto-resize, methinks. Then let me put spoilers inside spoilers and I might go find a small child to sacrifice to you. I mean, it would probably be a tadpole or something instead of human, but we could work something out. I've never cooked veal but I'm willing to learn.

There might be something on the customization section of the simple machines website I linked in the post above yours.  Never know.

Can SMF be customized? I know we're essentially using base, but Toady has added at least one thing to it with the Darkling theme.

I too would commit blood sacrifice to bring threadmarks to Bay 12. If someone here knows how to customize SMF, maybe Toady would accept their work?

Well, section of the simple machines site exists and it has a fair number modifications section for the simple machines forums.  Plus, the community section of the simple machines site has several boards dedicated to modifying the forum software.  Granted, I don't know if a threadmark system is in there, though, but it does seem the software can be customized.

I've recently been on the Spacebattles forums a few times, and noted one really neat feature over there that I honestly kinda miss on this forum.  Specifically, their 'threadmarking' system, where various posts in a thread can be marked and allows for easy browsing between those posts.  I can admit it would probably see the most use on the various Forum Games and Roleplaying boards, allowing for the Game Master to easily mark off turn posts so people could directly browse between each turn post without having to scour the entirety of the thread, and the DF Community Games and Stories, where the turn posts of succession games or installments of the stories could be marked so after reading through one you could instantly go to the next important one if you wished, but there are likely benefits for other locations as well (Toady using the system to mark each time he replies in the Future of the Fortress thread so people can look between them easily, for example).  While some people do provide lists to turn posts in the thread OP, or in a secondary post, it does take a bit of time to keep updating that, so there are many that don't do that, and going between individual threadmarks is both quicker and easier to both browse between the important posts and to set up the marking of the important posts.

After a bit of musing on this topic, something came to mind.  I'm honestly not on too many forums, so there are probably ones others have seen that I haven't.  So I ask, what features on other forums have you seen that you think could improve this forum's software?  I don't expect Toady to actually change over the forum software due to the hassle it likely would be to do so, but I figure it could be an interesting bit of conversation to see what features people like to see on forums.

Quote from: Zanzetkuken The Great on June 06, 2017, 03:22:14 pm

A minor bit of curiousity.  Should elves, dwarves, animal men, giant animals, and all other fantasy creatures, rather than being removed, be treated like Centaurs and Chimera?  Specifically, have their entries stripped down and placed in a file with the 'does note exist' tag, so there is a chance for them appearing in engravings, serving the purpose of being within the mundane world's mythology?

That would make sense. Our world works that way.

Probably going to be going the route of slow integration for all the 'man' and 'giant' creatures.  There's a lot of them.

Fantasy Special Forces Arms Race?

Small Group vs. Small Group
Not Territory Based
Likely Based on Certain Challenge Objectives which push the assumed background war.

I'm really liking the idea.

Actually, could run it more in lines with a Cold War style of Arms Race, with each side equipping small groups that perform specialized strikes to get an edge in the conflict, as well as building up garrisons to prevent the other side from winning.

Given in such a conflict territory wouldn't be gained like in the Arms Race games, a different win condition might need to be implemented.  Maybe you could take inspiration from some of the Paradox Interactive grand strategy games, and instead use a 'war score' meter, that when one side achieves a certain level of advantage on the meter, they've won.  Descriptor wise, this could mean that one of the nations have essentially been knocked out as being a meaningful power in the region.

A minor bit of curiousity.  Should elves, dwarves, animal men, giant animals, and all other fantasy creatures, rather than being removed, be treated like Centaurs and Chimera?  Specifically, have their entries stripped down and placed in a file with the 'does note exist' tag, so there is a chance for them appearing in engravings, serving the purpose of being within the mundane world's mythology?