Do we need stricter Tarn rules?

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May 2012

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May 28 - Memorial Day

[Victor Warilard]

Dove I really appreciate your contribution to this thread. When I am in game I will ask some of the other makers to see if they want to contribute as well. Who knows, maybe we can reach a consensus after all.

[Adoveea Rau]

Warning:
I've already established new levels of flight, such as my racers already have auto cruise control on them-no need to press that button constantly, they always go forward when it's on. By vote among who are in the tarn house testing group the war tarn has auto circling-it automatically circles when that button is pressed.
I turn you to the books on auto controls by quoting:

Tarnsman of Gor- Chapter One by John Norman
 "I released the reins, letting them hang on the saddle-ring, which is the signal for a constant and straight flight, no pressure on the throat strap.  The great tarn snapped his wings out, catching the air under them, and smoothly began to fly a straight course, his wings beating slowly but steadily in a cruising speed that would soon take us far beyond the towers of the city."

And another observation, with my tarns I can adjust the flight script to fit the person, in turn ratio, handling and tailor to what someone wants. This will also change how people fly tarns.
I have done this for five different tarnsmen in testing out my war tarns with a   beginner to the highest most demanding tarnsman, they all improved tremendously in their flying but each one wanted a different *style* of control, some like heavier banking, faster turn over, Mercy and his love of barrel rolls for example (laughs) etc.etc...so you will also see leaps of difference in flying styles

[Kyss Ohl]

from a complete observer point of view...I absolutely adore that Treve has Tarnsmen that actually use them.  I love that at any time a warrior might drop out of the sky.  There's just something about us actually having tarnsmen that adds that special something of Treve.

[Carter Ebbage]

I agree on the health meter, that's why I'm going to make sure those racers are at 100 points with damage being 14 points per arrow on them, the war tarns are already at 100 points with with 7 points per arrow.

is this our starting point Victor ??

[Adoveea Rau]

The toran tarn health meter is set at 250, but it takes arrow shots faster then a Rau or Tarn House tarn. So the higher health points on a Toran are equal other tarns in the long run.
You cannot pump millions of arrows into a tarn in seconds, anymore then another guy can chop you up instantly with a sword, for you there is an set delay rate in your gm/glm/cls meters. For tarns, it's written into their program how long a delay will be.
Health meter programs for tarns are based on string recognition of an object (arrows) with the *key* of the owner shooting the arrow, and a delay before another bit of damage will be accepted  A tarn meter is NOT based on the gm or glm meters, tarns can't wear a meter, they're not *avatars* they are objects. And their regeneration health points are a set amount of time too. Which is why you have variables in tarn health.
Sound geeky to you? welcome to programming.

[Darkness Vollmar]

The toran tarn health meter is set at 250, but it takes arrow shots faster then a Rau or Tarn House tarn. So the higher health points on a Toran are equal other tarns in the long run.

In the testing I did, I shot each tarn repeatedly with my bow without giving it a chance to heal.  It took a bit more then 2x the # of arrows to kill the Toran tarn vs the Rau tarn.

[Victor Warilard]

I agree on the health meter, that's why I'm going to make sure those racers are at 100 points with damage being 14 points per arrow on them, the war tarns are already at 100 points with with 7 points per arrow.

is this our starting point Victor ??

I like the concept in theory, but we then need to decide how to classify every tarn. For instance, would the Toran be a war yarn because of it's features or a racer because of it's speed?

[Victor Warilard]

The toran tarn health meter is set at 250, but it takes arrow shots faster then a Rau or Tarn House tarn. So the higher health points on a Toran are equal other tarns in the long run.

In the testing I did, I shot each tarn repeatedly with my bow without giving it a chance to heal.  It took a bit more then 2x the # of arrows to kill the Toran tarn vs the Rau tarn.

If I understood Dove's post, she is saying that more hits will register on the Toran than the Rau to make up for the fact it takes more hits

[Darkness Vollmar]

Vic,  I did not see that effect.  I was able to shoot each tarn at full speed.

It sounds like we should have a tarn testing & standardization event.  We could invite each of the major tarn vendors, do some testing like they do for cars with each tester recording their results.  Then collaborate on proposed standards.

I have to agree that it would be simple if we could just state max speed and health for a racer and war tarn.  However, there are so many other factors involved in the performance of a tarn.

[Victor Warilard]

Vic,  I did not see that effect.  I was able to shoot each tarn at full speed.

It sounds like we should have a tarn testing & standardization event.  We could invite each of the major tarn vendors, do some testing like they do for cars with each tester recording their results.  Then collaborate on proposed standards.

I have to agree that it would be simple if we could just state max speed and health for a racer and war tarn.  However, there are so many other factors involved in the performance of a tarn.

I think to test it we should have more than one warrior shooting the tarns and time how long it takes to kill the tarn rather than the number of hits.

[Victor Warilard]

Here are the issues as I see them:

Should we allow unlimited speeds on tarns or should there be some restrictions? Currently they range from the slow Rau war tarn to Dove's seemingly jet propelled racer.

What, if any, standards should we accept for health? What we see currently is the glm meter on the Toran, which requires more hits, but according to Dove accepts more hits as well, and the one seen on the Rau tarn and Dove's.

Should there be varying standards for types of tarns, e.g. war tarns vs. racers? Dove, for instance, takes less hits to shoot down her racer than her war tarn. Rau's tarns are the same.

Do we allow racers? The problem is that the Toran tarn and Dove's war tarn are still much faster than the Rau war tarn. So how do we classify them?

I also don't want to make any rules that could stifle their creativity and abilities of makers to continue to make improvements to their products, or to limit tarns to just one or two brands. 

First, I do want to test the Toran tarn as described in my previous post to see if Dove is correct. Assuming she is, here is what I think:

From what I can see, any advantage you get from increased speed does not help a novice tarnsman. In fact, it probably hurts them because it is so much harder to shoot from them. It takes a lot of skill, as Dove said, to take advantage of the Toran tarn. For most of us, it is a bitch to shoot from. I like the idea of different types of tarns with different pros and cons to each one. Someone who is willing to put in the time and effort to master the more difficult, fast-flying tarns should be able to enjoy the benefits. Only a few will be able to. Since we are a city of tarnsmen, hopefully a couple of those truly elite ones will be in our city. For history buffs like myself, think of the air battles in WWI and WWII. You had slow flying bombers (think of the Rau War tarn), troop carriers (think draft tarns with baskets), fighters (think racers) from different makers and different strategies. Why would we want to do anything that would stifle the terrific opportunities for creative battle strategies using the different types of tarns and different skill levels of the tarnsman?

With the possible exception of the Toran tarn, which I want to test further, I don't want to ban any tarns right now. I think the worst thing we could do is what Thentis did and only allow the Rau war tarn.

[Carter Ebbage]

I agree Victor..the pro's of a faster tarn are balanced by the inablity to fight from them.

The Toran does cause me a little concern...if its health is greater than Havoc's or Doves.. will wait with interest to see what comes from that

[Carter Ebbage]

Btw... I cant for the life of me get the Dove War tarn to auto circle.. I have pressed the keys as its says. but cant get it too circle contiously without me holding the keys down... 

[Koh Gausman]

I have tried her demo war tarn (god I can't believe I flew a pink tarn) I pressed PgUp and PgDn together once and it auto circled for me.

[Adoveea Rau]

Koh looked very cute on the pink tarn.
Carter, Hit pageup and pagedown with authority *grins* together, or use the alternative command key C and E together. When I coded it the first time, in testing it was way too sensitive for the testing tarnsmen, so I made it a bit more *strict*. If you still have problems come see me, we need to talk about your custom war tarn anyway-I'll tweak your flight program as well to suit you.

And a note about war tarns vs racers:
I built two different flight programs, one racer, one war.
Racer is fast, but there is no banking, it's all in how you maneuver your tarn, it's high maneuvers-360's, pin point turns & circles and speed-no banking unless you do it. Just like the books when they talk about in racers.
War tarn is smooth easier to fly, less work, banking, turns and speed AND in mouselook, you can fight, turn, fly it. To coin the phrase told to me by tarnsmen "we don't wanna have to think about keys in combat".
Racers take more concentration, more skill to control, and you can't use mouselook for turns because you do a circle right where you are.
So whether you know it or not, I deliberately built in choices in my programs about which tarn you really want to take to war.(psst the war tarn is MUCH better-the racer is for wild fun and training a tarnsman to fly any tarn on the market with ease)

And I'm not done with programming flight programs, I've got a couple of others in the works I will be working on next month.