@ByloBand I applaud your move towards a constructive approach with one clarification, you say:
And here is where IMO "some kind of" line needs to be drawn between something like the wiki and an add-on app that directly accesses your account and actively makes optimal decisions for players in the game.
IAP does not make any decisions for a player (and certainly not actively) It makes recommendations, however, those recommendations cannot be defined as "optimal" since all of the items it recommends on are multivariate optimization problems for which closed form optimal solutions do not exist.
One follow up question to this: out of 100 suggestions made by IAP, how many of them does the average STT player overrule?
I guess we would have to poll 100 IAP users. :-) I can only speak for myself, for Gauntlet:
I regularly overrule the recommended settings of the two default parameters during crew population because I favor trait bonuses over featured skill frequency in my gauntlet style, and because I like getting use out of different gauntlet crew, a VERY suboptimal conceit. Every day I fiddle with the parameters to see how far I have to crank them to get the crew I think should be in play to turn up, and with full knowledge of my sunk cost fallacies, I'll choose some crew the app thinks are suboptimal just 'cause I want to play them. I just get to do so informed of how far out of the statistical norm I'm probably drifting. So to your question, I at least try 100% of the time.
Then within rounds I choose whether to sort by highest % success (runs) versus highest Expected Value of points (rank), and vary this over the course of the 2 days, because the app cannot choose that strategy for you. So to your question, in about 50% of the rounds presented, I override the default sort order approach.
Once the sort order is chosen, I then quite often slightly overrule the individual 1-on-1 sorted recommendations, say, if I am in a phase going for runs, I'd prefer a 97% chance of 10 points over a 100% chance of 135 points, even if the 100% option is listed first in sort order. (To your question, out of a hundred 1-on-1's, I'd say I choose the not-first recommendation about 20-25% of the time). What's going on there is every player has an acceptable risk/loss internal calibration that no app can ever guess or "optimize" around.
With that, I get through gauntlet rounds somewhat more efficiently than by hand and with a rate of return that I am content with but which may or may not be optimal. After a certain point I don't care about rank, so I don't fuss further.
That style of play, however, is so far from "automated" that you can see why some IAP users get quite worked up over suggestions that this is somehow equivalent to skirmish macro'ing or some such. It's also pretty much exactly the same set of thought processes and decisions I'd have to make using the crappy in-game interface, just informed by some extra data.
For Voyages, I almost never override the recommendations, but for me this is 100% because the app turns up crew suggestions I probably would not have thought of on my own and again, I just plain dig getting to use 2nd/3rd tier crew once a month or so, it has nothing to do with edging out a few extra chrons dropping that day. I have no idea if it is giving me the best solution, it's just one I enjoy and am content with. I'm pretty proficient in both statistics and programming so I'm pretty sure I could build a better mousetrap, but I save that time and energy for strategizing on how to optimize events and prioritizing crew decisions - stuff that's high in the value chain - not daily gruntwork.
I do not care. Leave it alone and focus on improving the game interface.
I looked into the tool and third party software that needs access to my game is not for me. From what I read I don't feel like the iampicard users have an unfair advantage. After all if someone wants an advantage in STT all they need do is get out their credit cards and pay to win.
No, iampicard automates the game and should be banned.
i'm missing the magical part where it says that automated stuff takes all day, that everyone keeps referencing.
A successful gauntlet round takes 8 taps. Go ahead, count 'em. In IAP it takes one.
I could set a macro so that it will only run one ship battle at a time and just press start at every battle. Would that make it any less of a macro?
Look, it's automation. You may view it as harmless automation. That's fair.
You might view it as automation you subjectively find more favorable to yourself. That's fair too.
But you know what my favorite part of this whole thing is?
You know that bug you get with an empty voyage that keeps going and never runs into a dilemma?
It is caused by IAmPicard. IAmPicard's interaction with the API causes bugged voyages, which people then ticket for, and waste CS's time, and get free stuff out of the deal, too. So. It's getting to a point where it's actually harmful to the game's ecosystem.
thanks, this has been another forums post you'll all disregard in search of a more convenient truth that lets you keep your precious IAmPicard without feeling like you're gaining an unfair advantage over players who cannot use it.
Yes, iampicard is fair and does not unfairly advantage players
as the IAP STT Crew Manager is available to every one, why would it not be fair.
just because some one chooses not to use it. doesn't make it un-fair.
i didnt have a phone able to get all those add warps, shouldn't that be marked as unfair then
because i didnt have access to a device able to run the games mobile version
i didnt scream like a baby and call it unfair, i just eventually got phone able to run the game.
just like all the peeps who refuse to ever buy in to any part of the game that they are enjoying freely.
they dont get the perks for VIP level, is that unfair
how about those peeps that have the money to by those $100 deals every week. isnt that unfair
IAP STT Crew Manager doesnt do any thing with out the user being active to input a command.
all it does is give us data to better make a calculated decision.
it doesnt all ways equate to a win.
DB needs to fire the Ferrengi and higher more Engineers, Rom doesn't count. [FSC] Peace Keepers
Gryphon [****] Adm
@ByloBand I applaud your move towards a constructive approach with one clarification, you say:
And here is where IMO "some kind of" line needs to be drawn between something like the wiki and an add-on app that directly accesses your account and actively makes optimal decisions for players in the game.
IAP does not make any decisions for a player (and certainly not actively) It makes recommendations, however, those recommendations cannot be defined as "optimal" since all of the items it recommends on are multivariate optimization problems for which closed form optimal solutions do not exist.
One follow up question to this: out of 100 suggestions made by IAP, how many of them does the average STT player overrule?
-EDIT-
For the record, I have the HIGHEST respect for you @5000 Quatloos. We at times find ourselves on the opposite side of discussions, but that in no way diminishes my respect for you.
That last paragraph is a perfect example of "Have a donut on the hoose", and gentlemanly respect and honour even when disagreeing. These Forums really are polite!!!!!!
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
i'm missing the magical part where it says that automated stuff takes all day, that everyone keeps referencing.
A successful gauntlet round takes 8 taps. Go ahead, count 'em. In IAP it takes one.
I could set a macro so that it will only run one ship battle at a time and just press start at every battle. Would that make it any less of a macro?
Look, it's automation. You may view it as harmless automation. That's fair.
You might view it as automation you subjectively find more favorable to yourself. That's fair too.
But you know what my favorite part of this whole thing is?
You know that bug you get with an empty voyage that keeps going and never runs into a dilemma?
It is caused by IAmPicard. IAmPicard's interaction with the API causes bugged voyages, which people then ticket for, and waste CS's time, and get free stuff out of the deal, too. So. It's getting to a point where it's actually harmful to the game's ecosystem.
thanks, this has been another forums post you'll all disregard in search of a more convenient truth that lets you keep your precious IAmPicard without feeling like you're gaining an unfair advantage over players who cannot use it.
Continue on.
Nothing is black or white here. It's definitely about degrees. When I investigated this I was looking for how it affected events. Bottom line it doesn't directly. It affects events only tangentially in the same way that people with more time or more money get to. So if there are people who can't use the app, there are also tons of people who can't afford to pay for advantage or have commitments that don't enable them to grind as efficiently as others. These are entitlements. Smart people have found a way to mitigate these disadvantages (that have nothing to do with the game and don't infer any form of merit having them either way). All those of us with spreadsheets have been doing the same thing for years now. Are you mad at me too for doing that? Are you mad that my friends give me advice and help me be more efficient? It helps, it doesn't play the game for me. And it gives no advantage in any area that involves interaction with another player.
Honestly, it's weird that people are upset about this. Try it out for yourself. It just improves the experience of playing the game.
@ByloBand I applaud your move towards a constructive approach with one clarification, you say:
And here is where IMO "some kind of" line needs to be drawn between something like the wiki and an add-on app that directly accesses your account and actively makes optimal decisions for players in the game.
IAP does not make any decisions for a player (and certainly not actively) It makes recommendations, however, those recommendations cannot be defined as "optimal" since all of the items it recommends on are multivariate optimization problems for which closed form optimal solutions do not exist.
One follow up question to this: out of 100 suggestions made by IAP, how many of them does the average STT player overrule?
I guess we would have to poll 100 IAP users. :-) I can only speak for myself, for Gauntlet:
I regularly overrule the recommended settings of the two default parameters during crew population because I favor trait bonuses over featured skill frequency in my gauntlet style, and because I like getting use out of different gauntlet crew, a VERY suboptimal conceit. Every day I fiddle with the parameters to see how far I have to crank them to get the crew I think should be in play to turn up, and with full knowledge of my sunk cost fallacies, I'll choose some crew the app thinks are suboptimal just 'cause I want to play them. I just get to do so informed of how far out of the statistical norm I'm probably drifting. So to your question, I at least try 100% of the time.
Then within rounds I choose whether to sort by highest % success (runs) versus highest Expected Value of points (rank), and vary this over the course of the 2 days, because the app cannot choose that strategy for you. So to your question, in about 50% of the rounds presented, I override the default sort order approach.
Once the sort order is chosen, I then quite often slightly overrule the individual 1-on-1 sorted recommendations, say, if I am in a phase going for runs, I'd prefer a 97% chance of 10 points over a 100% chance of 135 points, even if the 100% option is listed first in sort order. (To your question, out of a hundred 1-on-1's, I'd say I choose the not-first recommendation about 20-25% of the time). What's going on there is every player has an acceptable risk/loss internal calibration that no app can ever guess or "optimize" around.
With that, I get through gauntlet rounds somewhat more efficiently than by hand and with a rate of return that I am content with but which may or may not be optimal. After a certain point I don't care about rank, so I don't fuss further.
That style of play, however, is so far from "automated" that you can see why some IAP users get quite worked up over suggestions that this is somehow equivalent to skirmish macro'ing or some such. It's also pretty much exactly the same set of thought processes and decisions I'd have to make using the crappy in-game interface, just informed by some extra data.
For Voyages, I almost never override the recommendations, but for me this is 100% because the app turns up crew suggestions I probably would not have thought of on my own and again, I just plain dig getting to use 2nd/3rd tier crew once a month or so, it has nothing to do with edging out a few extra chrons dropping that day. I have no idea if it is giving me the best solution, it's just one I enjoy and am content with. I'm pretty proficient in both statistics and programming so I'm pretty sure I could build a better mousetrap, but I save that time and energy for strategizing on how to optimize events and prioritizing crew decisions - stuff that's high in the value chain - not daily gruntwork.
I congratulate you on not falling into my tiny trap That being sad, I still wonder how many IAP users put as much thought into their choices as you seem to. My guess is that a majority of people simply do whatever the app tells them to, and if so I would argue that this is de facto outsourcing of game play, which IMO fits a loose definition of automation. Or at the very least it represents players creating an app to play the game for them, as one could without any difficulty define playing a game such as STT as nothing more than making decisions. Without further data on IAP user choices however, this is all speculation.
To bring this home and ground it in canon, this debate feels like the TOS episode "The Ultimate Computer". If an app is for all intents and purposes playing the game for the player, what is the point of any of this?!
Yes, iampicard is fair and does not unfairly advantage players
If the game is just dice rolling (which is for all intents and purposes what Gauntlet is) does it matter whether a human rolls the dice or an app. The app suggests the optimum choices, as my friends or the STT Crew lvl 100 stats does, and I then get to make my own choices, then the 'gameplay' kicks in.
There's more game in acquiring the crew than picking them for Gauntlet.
I congratulate you on not falling into my tiny trap That being sad, I still wonder how many IAP users put as much thought into their choices as you seem to. My guess is that a majority of people simply do whatever the app tells them to, and if so I would argue that this is de facto outsourcing of game play, which IMO fits a loose definition of automation. Or at the very least it represents players creating an app to play the game for them, as one could without any difficulty define playing a game such as STT as nothing more than making decisions. Without further data on IAP user choices however, this is all speculation.
To bring this home and ground it in canon, this debate feels like the TOS episode "The Ultimate Computer". If an app is for all intents and purposes playing the game for the player, what is the point of any of this?!
I agree, some do. From the other thread, a nontrivial number of the forum population still make their own choices vs the recommendations, but I agree with you that the forum population is not representative of the player base as a whole.
Separately, while ignoring a post above's attempt to draw this once again to "if skirmish macros were banned, why should IAP get to exist?", I will heartily agree that if IAP is causing voyages to stick, then clearly the during-voyage management element of that module should be suspended until it is fixed, as it is directly harming other players. No-brainer.
Yes, iampicard is fair and does not unfairly advantage players
IAP is not automation but I can see where purists would take issue.
Totally understand the frustration that some people can't use the app, although I can't for the life of me figure out why they cannot. I was only been able to play on Facebook or Steam for over a year, and was unable to get ad warps. A HUGE disadvantage. For the fairness of all, maybe should ad warps be banned as well?
I cannot tell what items are what in my inventory. IAP gives me a tool to see unique items I gained in an event that I will never use again. STT does not, so I can use them to replicate other items. When you reach item limit, this is an issue.
I have a life. I forget how many replicators I have used in a day and STT does not tell me unless I click many many times. IAP tells me on the splash screen. Nice. Is that automation? An unfair advantage?
The stats IAP provides for voyage calculations are taken with a grain of sand. It sometimes recommends sending a voyage with some skills at less than 2K. I would never do that. I ALWAYS use my own judgement. It is not in the least automated. It is a reality check for me.
When I replicate items, I sometimes use ship schematics. IAP gives me an easy way to see which are maxed and are expendable.
Managing a fleet is challenging. From week to week, it is nearly impossible to tell in STT who is participating or even active other than logging in. Downloading details with IAP helps make this manageable.
If DB decided that IAP should not be able to upload execute commands (for gauntlet or voyage) I would be fine with that. The rest is pretty cool and the team that put the time, insight and creativity in to making IAP a useful tool should be proud of their accomplishments. Well done y'all.
IMO the results of this poll on these forums were never NOT going to be anything but what they are, the key wording being "on these forums". If we could somehow poll the entire STT playerbase I suspect the results would be much less favorable for the app. Please do not read into this anything regarding my own opinion, just reporting on a theoretical bias.
But this observation leads me to my own struggle with this entire conversation, namely awareness. I think it is fairly well established that most people assume the following two truths:
1. That casual players do not care to compete with those of us who play hard and therefore do not care what tools/information are used to get there.
2. That players that want to go 100% will seek out any/all information to help them achieve, up to and including finding these forums, Reddit forums, the wiki, etc, and that people who do not do these things are casuals.
To me this leaves out a group of people who want to try hard but for whatever reason do not seek out additional information. A quick glance at the event rankings every week when compared with a list of the active people on this forum should at the very least allow for the possibility that many of these people exist; I am not saying they definitely DO exist, but it seems reasonable to assume that there are people who are trying who only try within the confines of the game itself without using outside information.
And here is where IMO "some kind of" line needs to be drawn between something like the wiki and an add-on app that directly accesses your account and actively makes optimal decisions for players in the game. The wiki is a collection of shared information assembled by players, the IAP app represents the outsourcing of game play decisions. If we allow for the existence of players who intend to be competitive but are for whatever reason ignorant of outside resources, this to me represents a fundamental tilting or unbalancing of the playing field.
So what is to be done? If this app is in fact authorized (I am not challenging this claim) then DB is aware of it and at least peripherally involved, so I would be satisfied with a single in-game announcement as to the existence of the IAP app so that there can be no argument against the idea that EVERYONE has been made aware of it. OR, have DB reach out to the developer and have the developer incorporate the IAP tools directly into the game so everyone benefits. Those are two solutions that should satisfy everyone and address the gray area this app creates.
For this third group of people who want to do better but can’t be bothered to look up more info, the wiki is hardly different from IAP. Heck, I think a solid argument could be made that forum announcements provide an unfair advantage for forum readers (not necessarily active posters), by way of several days of advance notice for which crew can be unfrozen or leveled prior to an event.
Example: I played from January of 2016 to December 2017 basically without ever visiting the forums. I knew they existed and checked things out on occasion but didn’t religiously check event notes or other announcements...I only signed up to voice my Picardgate concerns (and never looked back). Leveling event crew or, later on, unfreezing immortalized crew was done on short notice; if I couldn’t level someone in time, I had a distinct and noticeable competitive disadvantage. The legions of players, new and old, that do not visit the forums today have a similar problem. Would it be fair to end all advance notices of events posted here so as to not disadvantage a large number of players?
IMO the results of this poll on these forums were never NOT going to be anything but what they are, the key wording being "on these forums". If we could somehow poll the entire STT playerbase I suspect the results would be much less favorable for the app. Please do not read into this anything regarding my own opinion, just reporting on a theoretical bias.
But this observation leads me to my own struggle with this entire conversation, namely awareness. I think it is fairly well established that most people assume the following two truths:
1. That casual players do not care to compete with those of us who play hard and therefore do not care what tools/information are used to get there.
2. That players that want to go 100% will seek out any/all information to help them achieve, up to and including finding these forums, Reddit forums, the wiki, etc, and that people who do not do these things are casuals.
To me this leaves out a group of people who want to try hard but for whatever reason do not seek out additional information. A quick glance at the event rankings every week when compared with a list of the active people on this forum should at the very least allow for the possibility that many of these people exist; I am not saying they definitely DO exist, but it seems reasonable to assume that there are people who are trying who only try within the confines of the game itself without using outside information.
And here is where IMO "some kind of" line needs to be drawn between something like the wiki and an add-on app that directly accesses your account and actively makes optimal decisions for players in the game. The wiki is a collection of shared information assembled by players, the IAP app represents the outsourcing of game play decisions. If we allow for the existence of players who intend to be competitive but are for whatever reason ignorant of outside resources, this to me represents a fundamental tilting or unbalancing of the playing field.
So what is to be done? If this app is in fact authorized (I am not challenging this claim) then DB is aware of it and at least peripherally involved, so I would be satisfied with a single in-game announcement as to the existence of the IAP app so that there can be no argument against the idea that EVERYONE has been made aware of it. OR, have DB reach out to the developer and have the developer incorporate the IAP tools directly into the game so everyone benefits. Those are two solutions that should satisfy everyone and address the gray area this app creates.
For this third group of people who want to do better but can’t be bothered to look up more info, the wiki is hardly different from IAP. Heck, I think a solid argument could be made that forum announcements provide an unfair advantage for forum readers (not necessarily active posters), by way of several days of advance notice for which crew can be unfrozen or leveled prior to an event.
Example: I played from January of 2016 to December 2017 basically without ever visiting the forums. I knew they existed and checked things out on occasion but didn’t religiously check event notes or other announcements...I only signed up to voice my Picardgate concerns (and never looked back). Leveling event crew or, later on, unfreezing immortalized crew was done on short notice; if I couldn’t level someone in time, I had a distinct and noticeable competitive disadvantage. The legions of players, new and old, that do not visit the forums today have a similar problem. Would it be fair to end all advance notices of events posted here so as to not disadvantage a large number of players?
I guess that would depend on a few factors, but I think not. The game is run by DB, who also run the forum. Frequently in-game messages from DB direct people to check the forums for additional information. In that sense, I think a reasonable argument can be made that the official game forums are an extension of the game itself.
No, iampicard automates the game and should be banned.
I'm on record as a "hater". I think time will show my hate was correct, justified, and there was an interesting amount of hypocrisy from some of the more vocal defenders.
Allowing a third party raw access to the API for in game actions against the TOS was never going to end well.
I'm on record as a "hater". I think time will show my hate was correct, justified, and there was an interesting amount of hypocrisy from some of the more vocal defenders.
Allowing a third party raw access to the API for in game actions against the TOS was never going to end well.
IMO the results of this poll on these forums were never NOT going to be anything but what they are, the key wording being "on these forums". If we could somehow poll the entire STT playerbase I suspect the results would be much less favorable for the app. Please do not read into this anything regarding my own opinion, just reporting on a theoretical bias.
But this observation leads me to my own struggle with this entire conversation, namely awareness. I think it is fairly well established that most people assume the following two truths:
1. That casual players do not care to compete with those of us who play hard and therefore do not care what tools/information are used to get there.
2. That players that want to go 100% will seek out any/all information to help them achieve, up to and including finding these forums, Reddit forums, the wiki, etc, and that people who do not do these things are casuals.
To me this leaves out a group of people who want to try hard but for whatever reason do not seek out additional information. A quick glance at the event rankings every week when compared with a list of the active people on this forum should at the very least allow for the possibility that many of these people exist; I am not saying they definitely DO exist, but it seems reasonable to assume that there are people who are trying who only try within the confines of the game itself without using outside information.
And here is where IMO "some kind of" line needs to be drawn between something like the wiki and an add-on app that directly accesses your account and actively makes optimal decisions for players in the game. The wiki is a collection of shared information assembled by players, the IAP app represents the outsourcing of game play decisions. If we allow for the existence of players who intend to be competitive but are for whatever reason ignorant of outside resources, this to me represents a fundamental tilting or unbalancing of the playing field.
So what is to be done? If this app is in fact authorized (I am not challenging this claim) then DB is aware of it and at least peripherally involved, so I would be satisfied with a single in-game announcement as to the existence of the IAP app so that there can be no argument against the idea that EVERYONE has been made aware of it. OR, have DB reach out to the developer and have the developer incorporate the IAP tools directly into the game so everyone benefits. Those are two solutions that should satisfy everyone and address the gray area this app creates.
For this third group of people who want to do better but can’t be bothered to look up more info, the wiki is hardly different from IAP. Heck, I think a solid argument could be made that forum announcements provide an unfair advantage for forum readers (not necessarily active posters), by way of several days of advance notice for which crew can be unfrozen or leveled prior to an event.
Example: I played from January of 2016 to December 2017 basically without ever visiting the forums. I knew they existed and checked things out on occasion but didn’t religiously check event notes or other announcements...I only signed up to voice my Picardgate concerns (and never looked back). Leveling event crew or, later on, unfreezing immortalized crew was done on short notice; if I couldn’t level someone in time, I had a distinct and noticeable competitive disadvantage. The legions of players, new and old, that do not visit the forums today have a similar problem. Would it be fair to end all advance notices of events posted here so as to not disadvantage a large number of players?
I guess that would depend on a few factors, but I think not. The game is run by DB, who also run the forum. Frequently in-game messages from DB direct people to check the forums for additional information. In that sense, I think a reasonable argument can be made that the official game forums are an extension of the game itself.
But really how many people follow the link? No mobile user can c/p the links from in-game mail into their browser and even with bit.ly addresses to cut down length it’s not worth switching back and forth between apps. This puts the forum just as far away (an Internet search) as the wiki and IAP. In-game mail that goes beyond “check out the forum for more info” does happen when there is something important, of course, but advance notice of events and a lot of other information is not readily available.
I did forget earlier to agree that moving the things that make IAP great into the STT app would solve a lot of problems. However, there’s no telling how quickly/easily that would be accomplished and there is the virtual guarantee of an endless string of bugs, just as we see in most other things that DB’s coders touch. Would it be worth losing a stable tool that really is available to everyone* just to stop all the e-lawyering going on here in the last couple of days?
* To those of you who have tried and failed to log in to IAP, did you actually go to the GitHub page and ask for help yet? Because if the answer is “no”, it’s like having a serious bug with the STT app, complaining about it in the Ready Room, not filing a ticket and/or posting in the Engineering Room, and then being mad that nothing is getting fixed.
IMO the results of this poll on these forums were never NOT going to be anything but what they are, the key wording being "on these forums". If we could somehow poll the entire STT playerbase I suspect the results would be much less favorable for the app. Please do not read into this anything regarding my own opinion, just reporting on a theoretical bias.
But this observation leads me to my own struggle with this entire conversation, namely awareness. I think it is fairly well established that most people assume the following two truths:
1. That casual players do not care to compete with those of us who play hard and therefore do not care what tools/information are used to get there.
2. That players that want to go 100% will seek out any/all information to help them achieve, up to and including finding these forums, Reddit forums, the wiki, etc, and that people who do not do these things are casuals.
To me this leaves out a group of people who want to try hard but for whatever reason do not seek out additional information. A quick glance at the event rankings every week when compared with a list of the active people on this forum should at the very least allow for the possibility that many of these people exist; I am not saying they definitely DO exist, but it seems reasonable to assume that there are people who are trying who only try within the confines of the game itself without using outside information.
And here is where IMO "some kind of" line needs to be drawn between something like the wiki and an add-on app that directly accesses your account and actively makes optimal decisions for players in the game. The wiki is a collection of shared information assembled by players, the IAP app represents the outsourcing of game play decisions. If we allow for the existence of players who intend to be competitive but are for whatever reason ignorant of outside resources, this to me represents a fundamental tilting or unbalancing of the playing field.
So what is to be done? If this app is in fact authorized (I am not challenging this claim) then DB is aware of it and at least peripherally involved, so I would be satisfied with a single in-game announcement as to the existence of the IAP app so that there can be no argument against the idea that EVERYONE has been made aware of it. OR, have DB reach out to the developer and have the developer incorporate the IAP tools directly into the game so everyone benefits. Those are two solutions that should satisfy everyone and address the gray area this app creates.
For this third group of people who want to do better but can’t be bothered to look up more info, the wiki is hardly different from IAP. Heck, I think a solid argument could be made that forum announcements provide an unfair advantage for forum readers (not necessarily active posters), by way of several days of advance notice for which crew can be unfrozen or leveled prior to an event.
Example: I played from January of 2016 to December 2017 basically without ever visiting the forums. I knew they existed and checked things out on occasion but didn’t religiously check event notes or other announcements...I only signed up to voice my Picardgate concerns (and never looked back). Leveling event crew or, later on, unfreezing immortalized crew was done on short notice; if I couldn’t level someone in time, I had a distinct and noticeable competitive disadvantage. The legions of players, new and old, that do not visit the forums today have a similar problem. Would it be fair to end all advance notices of events posted here so as to not disadvantage a large number of players?
I guess that would depend on a few factors, but I think not. The game is run by DB, who also run the forum. Frequently in-game messages from DB direct people to check the forums for additional information. In that sense, I think a reasonable argument can be made that the official game forums are an extension of the game itself.
But really how many people follow the link? No mobile user can c/p the links from in-game mail into their browser and even with bit.ly addresses to cut down length it’s not worth switching back and forth between apps. This puts the forum just as far away (an Internet search) as the wiki and IAP. In-game mail that goes beyond “check out the forum for more info” does happen when there is something important, of course, but advance notice of events and a lot of other information is not readily available.
Since you asked, the difference is awareness, not access.
Yes, iampicard is fair and does not unfairly advantage players
As a user of the tool I am pissed to see that because of the threats and what not he shut it down yet I can look in my game and it's obvious that others are cheating. No one brings up stuff like the guy who has 6,131,804 number one on the current shuttle event. If people don't think there are others cheating via Facebook or what not then they are fools. I've seen several of the same players that always rank first and no one does crap to find out how they rank 1 constantly with millions and millions of points.
IMO the results of this poll on these forums were never NOT going to be anything but what they are, the key wording being "on these forums". If we could somehow poll the entire STT playerbase I suspect the results would be much less favorable for the app. Please do not read into this anything regarding my own opinion, just reporting on a theoretical bias.
But this observation leads me to my own struggle with this entire conversation, namely awareness. I think it is fairly well established that most people assume the following two truths:
1. That casual players do not care to compete with those of us who play hard and therefore do not care what tools/information are used to get there.
2. That players that want to go 100% will seek out any/all information to help them achieve, up to and including finding these forums, Reddit forums, the wiki, etc, and that people who do not do these things are casuals. You have also not mentioned those that
To me this leaves out a group of people who want to try hard but for whatever reason do not seek out additional information. A quick glance at the event rankings every week when compared with a list of the active people on this forum should at the very least allow for the possibility that many of these people exist; I am not saying they definitely DO exist, but it seems reasonable to assume that there are people who are trying who only try within the confines of the game itself without using outside information.
And here is where IMO "some kind of" line needs to be drawn between something like the wiki and an add-on app that directly accesses your account and actively makes optimal decisions for players in the game. The wiki is a collection of shared information assembled by players, the IAP app represents the outsourcing of game play decisions. If we allow for the existence of players who intend to be competitive but are for whatever reason ignorant of outside resources, this to me represents a fundamental tilting or unbalancing of the playing field.
So what is to be done? If this app is in fact authorized (I am not challenging this claim) then DB is aware of it and at least peripherally involved, so I would be satisfied with a single in-game announcement as to the existence of the IAP app so that there can be no argument against the idea that EVERYONE has been made aware of it. OR, have DB reach out to the developer and have the developer incorporate the IAP tools directly into the game so everyone benefits. Those are two solutions that should satisfy everyone and address the gray area this app creates.
The results of all polls ever conducted are what they are.
In the first paragraph you speculate on the opinions of those who don't use the forum and therefore haven't rendered an opinion and then claim to have observed it. Observed what?
Your point 1 makes an assertion that you cannot possibly make and then a logical inference based on that speculation that, even if the premise was true, the logical inference cannot be made. Casual players DO compete with those of us who play hard just not very well. In a tournament there is always people that comes last. Sometimes they will come last because they haven't used the tools available to them.
Your point 2 list only some possibilities. Some players that want to go 100% may not seek out any information and spend lots of money instead.
People who want to try hard but for whatever reason do not seek out additional information will tend to do less well than those that do.
By analogy your post reads to me as follows. People that are educated tend will do better than those who less educated. The balance or divide between those that do better and those that do worse is unfair. Some kind of line needs to be drawn between those that are well educated and those that aren't. So lets keep primary and high schools but ban colleges and universities. Another analogy. Company A uses computers and is more profitable than company B. Therefore ban computers.
I do think that there should be in-game announcement as to the existence of the IAP app and that DB should incorporate the features into the game or develop their own stand alone tool.
It's really sad it has come to this I had never used the tool, yet never condoned anyone for using it either, I would have hoped the perfect solution was finding a way to integrate the tool into the game it would have been nice to see that kind of collaboration come to fruition.
I was always concerned with two things the programme being open source and liable to abuse from others and giving a third party my login credentials - the latter being a matter of principle and nothing personal against the developer of the tool.
Very sad to hear how they have been treated by certain degenerates.
[was on Sabbatical/Hiatus] Currently a trialist at Galaxy SquadronSTAY SAFE and KBO
Yes, iampicard is fair and does not unfairly advantage players
The star trek timelines tools have been taken down by IAMPICARD (I was Picard).
You can read his post here https://iampicard.com/#HomePage
Very sad in particular the reasons why ... "I have decided that it’s not worth the hassle for me to continue working on this tool. In the past few days (January 2019) I’ve been insulted, accused of hacking, doxed and personally threatened."
Very sad that there has been no comment from DB acknowledging IAMPICARD had not 'hacked' or broken their terms of use, and the tool was (or was not) still supported while being assessed"
The votes show only a clear minority (17 out of 137) were against.
Compare this against the users ... From "I was Picard" site closure notice.
"During its last month of existence, the website had more than 27,000 unique visitors, with an average of 1,089 unique users logging in per day."
What this means is only those who have downloaded the PC tool now have access to the crew management and downloading crew data to spreadsheet, as well as the other parts to the program. No one else should trust any future copy of this you see around. In the author's words
"I also strongly urge you to not install future “versions” of the tool that may be floating around; I will be no longer working on this project and would have deleted my GitHub page; any future releases will not be done by me, are not endorsed by me, and will most certainly include malicious functionality that may compromise your credentials or infringe the game’s Terms of Service."
Maybe there should instead be a new poll urging DB to complete their assessment of IAP and offer to pay him to develop a much needed crew management tool within their TOS.
I do not care. Leave it alone and focus on improving the game interface.
Ultimately it’s all about how the developer considers it. And they’ve had it removed. STT is greater than Iampicard. I hope DB can implement some of the good ideas of Iampicard and possibly even compensate the creator for his ingenuity. But ultimately, I’m a fan of Star Trek and the game itself.
Ultimately it’s all about how the developer considers it. And they’ve had it removed. STT is greater than Iampicard. I hope DB can implement some of the good ideas of Iampicard and possibly even compensate the creator for his ingenuity. But ultimately, I’m a fan of Star Trek and the game itself.
Whilst the developer has been instrumental in the closure of the app and deserves some responsibility for actions done it it’s name, they did not actually shut down the app, the developer themselves pulled the plug after suffering online harassment from so called Star Trek fans.
I didn’t have an iron in this fire until 2 days ago and I’m sickened by how all of this has gone down. Disruptor Beam/Tilting Point need to make a clear statement on this disowning the actions of some members of their fan base. The naked hate and anger displayed by some on this forum really shouldn’t be tolerated.
And if it’s possible to track down users who have doxxed other players in the name of ‘fairness’ they should be banned from the game for life.
Ultimately it’s all about how the developer considers it. And they’ve had it removed. STT is greater than Iampicard. I hope DB can implement some of the good ideas of Iampicard and possibly even compensate the creator for his ingenuity. But ultimately, I’m a fan of Star Trek and the game itself.
To clarify, the developer of IAP removed the app, not DB. It's sad that some members of the community decided to attack the developer of the tool rather than allow DB to weigh in on whether this violates TOS.
As far as we can tell, DB did not decide whether the app violates TOS or not. For my a day late $0.02: I could see them asking some of the features to be cut. While Gauntlet rounds still needed to be played, the app did reduce the actions required to play a round. Similar, but to a lesser extent, for voyages.
What this means is only those who have downloaded the PC tool now have access to the crew management and downloading crew data to spreadsheet, as well as the other parts to the program. No one else should trust any future copy of this you see around. In the author's words
It's an even smaller set of people than those who have downloaded the tool. Once the forced upgrade happens this week, the tool will cease to work. It's only people who have the source code who will be able to make the small changes to keep up with the app version who will still have access to the tool.
This for me is the most frustrating part. The tool was openly shared with the entire community so people without programming skills could benefit from this as well. Now we're back to "if you can program, you've got a leg up on all of the other players," and will be for the foreseeable because why would you risk threats and doxxing?
Maybe there should instead be a new poll urging DB to complete their assessment of IAP and offer to pay him to develop a much needed crew management tool within their TOS.
I doubt this would happen, but an official companion app with similar features would be nice.
It's an even smaller set of people than those who have downloaded the tool. Once the forced upgrade happens this week, the tool will cease to work. It's only people who have the source code who will be able to make the small changes to keep up with the app version who will still have access to the tool.
I have the source code, but I doubt it'll work very long, since I'm sure there are some server-side related stuff on IAP servers. Like assets, datas and stuff.
It's an even smaller set of people than those who have downloaded the tool. Once the forced upgrade happens this week, the tool will cease to work. It's only people who have the source code who will be able to make the small changes to keep up with the app version who will still have access to the tool.
I have the source code, but I doubt it'll work very long, since I'm sure there are some server-side related stuff on IAP servers. Like assets, datas and stuff.
Hmm, I hadn't looked at the source code for a while. It's true he must have added a server for the web app, but I don't think any of the player data required the server. I might be wrong and do not have the source code to find that out myself.
Comments
I guess we would have to poll 100 IAP users. :-) I can only speak for myself, for Gauntlet:
With that, I get through gauntlet rounds somewhat more efficiently than by hand and with a rate of return that I am content with but which may or may not be optimal. After a certain point I don't care about rank, so I don't fuss further.
That style of play, however, is so far from "automated" that you can see why some IAP users get quite worked up over suggestions that this is somehow equivalent to skirmish macro'ing or some such. It's also pretty much exactly the same set of thought processes and decisions I'd have to make using the crappy in-game interface, just informed by some extra data.
For Voyages, I almost never override the recommendations, but for me this is 100% because the app turns up crew suggestions I probably would not have thought of on my own and again, I just plain dig getting to use 2nd/3rd tier crew once a month or so, it has nothing to do with edging out a few extra chrons dropping that day. I have no idea if it is giving me the best solution, it's just one I enjoy and am content with. I'm pretty proficient in both statistics and programming so I'm pretty sure I could build a better mousetrap, but I save that time and energy for strategizing on how to optimize events and prioritizing crew decisions - stuff that's high in the value chain - not daily gruntwork.
i'm missing the magical part where it says that automated stuff takes all day, that everyone keeps referencing.
A successful gauntlet round takes 8 taps. Go ahead, count 'em. In IAP it takes one.
I could set a macro so that it will only run one ship battle at a time and just press start at every battle. Would that make it any less of a macro?
Look, it's automation. You may view it as harmless automation. That's fair.
You might view it as automation you subjectively find more favorable to yourself. That's fair too.
But you know what my favorite part of this whole thing is?
You know that bug you get with an empty voyage that keeps going and never runs into a dilemma?
It is caused by IAmPicard. IAmPicard's interaction with the API causes bugged voyages, which people then ticket for, and waste CS's time, and get free stuff out of the deal, too. So. It's getting to a point where it's actually harmful to the game's ecosystem.
thanks, this has been another forums post you'll all disregard in search of a more convenient truth that lets you keep your precious IAmPicard without feeling like you're gaining an unfair advantage over players who cannot use it.
Continue on.
just because some one chooses not to use it. doesn't make it un-fair.
i didnt have a phone able to get all those add warps, shouldn't that be marked as unfair then
because i didnt have access to a device able to run the games mobile version
i didnt scream like a baby and call it unfair, i just eventually got phone able to run the game.
just like all the peeps who refuse to ever buy in to any part of the game that they are enjoying freely.
they dont get the perks for VIP level, is that unfair
how about those peeps that have the money to by those $100 deals every week. isnt that unfair
IAP STT Crew Manager doesnt do any thing with out the user being active to input a command.
all it does is give us data to better make a calculated decision.
it doesnt all ways equate to a win.
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That last paragraph is a perfect example of "Have a donut on the hoose", and gentlemanly respect and honour even when disagreeing. These Forums really are polite!!!!!!
Honestly, it's weird that people are upset about this. Try it out for yourself. It just improves the experience of playing the game.
I congratulate you on not falling into my tiny trap
To bring this home and ground it in canon, this debate feels like the TOS episode "The Ultimate Computer". If an app is for all intents and purposes playing the game for the player, what is the point of any of this?!
There's more game in acquiring the crew than picking them for Gauntlet.
I agree, some do. From the other thread, a nontrivial number of the forum population still make their own choices vs the recommendations, but I agree with you that the forum population is not representative of the player base as a whole.
Separately, while ignoring a post above's attempt to draw this once again to "if skirmish macros were banned, why should IAP get to exist?", I will heartily agree that if IAP is causing voyages to stick, then clearly the during-voyage management element of that module should be suspended until it is fixed, as it is directly harming other players. No-brainer.
Totally understand the frustration that some people can't use the app, although I can't for the life of me figure out why they cannot. I was only been able to play on Facebook or Steam for over a year, and was unable to get ad warps. A HUGE disadvantage. For the fairness of all, maybe should ad warps be banned as well?
I cannot tell what items are what in my inventory. IAP gives me a tool to see unique items I gained in an event that I will never use again. STT does not, so I can use them to replicate other items. When you reach item limit, this is an issue.
I have a life. I forget how many replicators I have used in a day and STT does not tell me unless I click many many times. IAP tells me on the splash screen. Nice. Is that automation? An unfair advantage?
The stats IAP provides for voyage calculations are taken with a grain of sand. It sometimes recommends sending a voyage with some skills at less than 2K. I would never do that. I ALWAYS use my own judgement. It is not in the least automated. It is a reality check for me.
When I replicate items, I sometimes use ship schematics. IAP gives me an easy way to see which are maxed and are expendable.
Managing a fleet is challenging. From week to week, it is nearly impossible to tell in STT who is participating or even active other than logging in. Downloading details with IAP helps make this manageable.
If DB decided that IAP should not be able to upload execute commands (for gauntlet or voyage) I would be fine with that. The rest is pretty cool and the team that put the time, insight and creativity in to making IAP a useful tool should be proud of their accomplishments. Well done y'all.
For this third group of people who want to do better but can’t be bothered to look up more info, the wiki is hardly different from IAP. Heck, I think a solid argument could be made that forum announcements provide an unfair advantage for forum readers (not necessarily active posters), by way of several days of advance notice for which crew can be unfrozen or leveled prior to an event.
Example: I played from January of 2016 to December 2017 basically without ever visiting the forums. I knew they existed and checked things out on occasion but didn’t religiously check event notes or other announcements...I only signed up to voice my Picardgate concerns (and never looked back). Leveling event crew or, later on, unfreezing immortalized crew was done on short notice; if I couldn’t level someone in time, I had a distinct and noticeable competitive disadvantage. The legions of players, new and old, that do not visit the forums today have a similar problem. Would it be fair to end all advance notices of events posted here so as to not disadvantage a large number of players?
I guess that would depend on a few factors, but I think not. The game is run by DB, who also run the forum. Frequently in-game messages from DB direct people to check the forums for additional information. In that sense, I think a reasonable argument can be made that the official game forums are an extension of the game itself.
Allowing a third party raw access to the API for in game actions against the TOS was never going to end well.
Here, here. 👏👏👏
But really how many people follow the link? No mobile user can c/p the links from in-game mail into their browser and even with bit.ly addresses to cut down length it’s not worth switching back and forth between apps. This puts the forum just as far away (an Internet search) as the wiki and IAP. In-game mail that goes beyond “check out the forum for more info” does happen when there is something important, of course, but advance notice of events and a lot of other information is not readily available.
I did forget earlier to agree that moving the things that make IAP great into the STT app would solve a lot of problems. However, there’s no telling how quickly/easily that would be accomplished and there is the virtual guarantee of an endless string of bugs, just as we see in most other things that DB’s coders touch. Would it be worth losing a stable tool that really is available to everyone* just to stop all the e-lawyering going on here in the last couple of days?
* To those of you who have tried and failed to log in to IAP, did you actually go to the GitHub page and ask for help yet? Because if the answer is “no”, it’s like having a serious bug with the STT app, complaining about it in the Ready Room, not filing a ticket and/or posting in the Engineering Room, and then being mad that nothing is getting fixed.
Since you asked, the difference is awareness, not access.
Back to manual calculations
The results of all polls ever conducted are what they are.
In the first paragraph you speculate on the opinions of those who don't use the forum and therefore haven't rendered an opinion and then claim to have observed it. Observed what?
Your point 1 makes an assertion that you cannot possibly make and then a logical inference based on that speculation that, even if the premise was true, the logical inference cannot be made. Casual players DO compete with those of us who play hard just not very well. In a tournament there is always people that comes last. Sometimes they will come last because they haven't used the tools available to them.
Your point 2 list only some possibilities. Some players that want to go 100% may not seek out any information and spend lots of money instead.
People who want to try hard but for whatever reason do not seek out additional information will tend to do less well than those that do.
By analogy your post reads to me as follows. People that are educated tend will do better than those who less educated. The balance or divide between those that do better and those that do worse is unfair. Some kind of line needs to be drawn between those that are well educated and those that aren't. So lets keep primary and high schools but ban colleges and universities. Another analogy. Company A uses computers and is more profitable than company B. Therefore ban computers.
I do think that there should be in-game announcement as to the existence of the IAP app and that DB should incorporate the features into the game or develop their own stand alone tool.
I was always concerned with two things the programme being open source and liable to abuse from others and giving a third party my login credentials - the latter being a matter of principle and nothing personal against the developer of the tool.
Very sad to hear how they have been treated by certain degenerates.
You can read his post here https://iampicard.com/#HomePage
Very sad in particular the reasons why ... "I have decided that it’s not worth the hassle for me to continue working on this tool. In the past few days (January 2019) I’ve been insulted, accused of hacking, doxed and personally threatened."
Very sad that there has been no comment from DB acknowledging IAMPICARD had not 'hacked' or broken their terms of use, and the tool was (or was not) still supported while being assessed"
The votes show only a clear minority (17 out of 137) were against.
Compare this against the users ... From "I was Picard" site closure notice.
"During its last month of existence, the website had more than 27,000 unique visitors, with an average of 1,089 unique users logging in per day."
What this means is only those who have downloaded the PC tool now have access to the crew management and downloading crew data to spreadsheet, as well as the other parts to the program. No one else should trust any future copy of this you see around. In the author's words
"I also strongly urge you to not install future “versions” of the tool that may be floating around; I will be no longer working on this project and would have deleted my GitHub page; any future releases will not be done by me, are not endorsed by me, and will most certainly include malicious functionality that may compromise your credentials or infringe the game’s Terms of Service."
Maybe there should instead be a new poll urging DB to complete their assessment of IAP and offer to pay him to develop a much needed crew management tool within their TOS.
Whilst the developer has been instrumental in the closure of the app and deserves some responsibility for actions done it it’s name, they did not actually shut down the app, the developer themselves pulled the plug after suffering online harassment from so called Star Trek fans.
I didn’t have an iron in this fire until 2 days ago and I’m sickened by how all of this has gone down. Disruptor Beam/Tilting Point need to make a clear statement on this disowning the actions of some members of their fan base. The naked hate and anger displayed by some on this forum really shouldn’t be tolerated.
And if it’s possible to track down users who have doxxed other players in the name of ‘fairness’ they should be banned from the game for life.
To clarify, the developer of IAP removed the app, not DB. It's sad that some members of the community decided to attack the developer of the tool rather than allow DB to weigh in on whether this violates TOS.
As far as we can tell, DB did not decide whether the app violates TOS or not. For my a day late $0.02: I could see them asking some of the features to be cut. While Gauntlet rounds still needed to be played, the app did reduce the actions required to play a round. Similar, but to a lesser extent, for voyages.
It's an even smaller set of people than those who have downloaded the tool. Once the forced upgrade happens this week, the tool will cease to work. It's only people who have the source code who will be able to make the small changes to keep up with the app version who will still have access to the tool.
This for me is the most frustrating part. The tool was openly shared with the entire community so people without programming skills could benefit from this as well. Now we're back to "if you can program, you've got a leg up on all of the other players," and will be for the foreseeable because why would you risk threats and doxxing?
I doubt this would happen, but an official companion app with similar features would be nice.
Hmm, I hadn't looked at the source code for a while. It's true he must have added a server for the web app, but I don't think any of the player data required the server. I might be wrong and do not have the source code to find that out myself.