For those of you guys that have the opportunity, take heed and try taking 101! Frank is one of the best designers about, spending half an hour with him on MSN improved my skills considerably (I'm actually almost profficient now! )
I may have a different approach, but only because I'm not as good at it as he is at his.
Frank is a great gun (no pun intended) and one of the main trainers (and trainer of trainers) period.
Greets mate. Cheers, PDJ

If you're sure it IS a mothership mission and not an event, it needs checking out. The whole point of missions is the guarantee of returns on missions is the main reason to do them in spite of the 15 turns expenditure needed.
I personally have NOT had this problem, doesn't mean there are no mistakes though.
On the other hand the segment returns are not the expected, but seem to be out by a x 10 factor (I get 800 on a "80 seg" mission) on mothership missions.
Cheers, PDJ

Have a stance?
 

Blows whistle loudly so it is heard in all galaxies and their dimensions!
Orders original cream pie to be rethrown as "trimental replay" (TM) has shown ars 68 to be off-side per "Random object fight league" R.O.F.L  rule number 2.
Sends in paramedics to unfold Remfer as he is stuck under a beer keg (be careful, mate, If it had been ars's avatar you would have been sorry!).
Issues warning to zerg to leave alone!
Your throw ars! 

Frank,
Fuimus's history is slightly longer than that. it actually started as a deterrent to attacks on "non alliance" commanders (by having a logo beside my name based on my own practice of preferring to attack "non logo" guys...

also, just a hypothetical situation:
commander X attacks me, commander X's mate Y attacks me, their alliance mate Z decides to plunder me...

A. I can cry up to my alliance leaders for "help" or
B. I can take care of it myself.

Then X, Y and Z cry "PDJ is attacking me" or even worse "a member of AL2 is attacking me" so asking their alliance and allied alliances to take part in what is essentialy a personal issue. To avoid that, and having said "I'll take care of it myself" I have respawned Fuimus as a transient alliance whereby I renounce defense by my alliance (Travellers of Valhalla first time and AL2 the second) and effectually saying: "You looking for me? Well I'm here, come and get me."
Once it is over (and I mean OVER, not 2 days later) and considering the issue settled, I can get back.
I have never used it as a "truce evader" (though some mates of yours, members of TH have done that, Frank) NOR have I pretended not to belong to AL2. I simply take care of my own problems.
You know I'm not even disrespectful from personal experience mate, and I have no reason to attack you or other TH members.


Skum's situation was a bit different, Lamma. Let me recap:
1. I had 108 bill power and the only guy in sight I wasn't allied with was you.
2. I hit a fleet of your powerships, and you threw a paddy.
3. I offered to truce you, you don't accept it and contend that you don't need a truce, and that I shouldn't attack you because... errr....hmmm.... actually, you never did give me a reason 
4. Some time later I took out another powerfleet, leaving one out for you to counter and take out.. ANOTHER paddy and you said you were going to zero me. Swore and cussed and suddenly what was a personal issue became an alliance issue when you said "you are not getting past my ALLIANCE", "you can't beat me" "f**k you" and other intelligent contributions
5. I didn't like your attitude, decide to prove you wrong and said I alone could get past your alliance
6. I knocked your alliance members (you brought them into this, not me), explaining why I had done it...
7. 4-5 of them took it in good spirit (some even saying you were an idiot) and I truced them, personally, explaining the situation, the rest remained fair game
8. Started enjoying the spirit of the "I'll take you out" and "No you can't" battle
9. Had to dismiss offers for bounties on your head (from >4 different people)
10. Was told I had a bounty on my head (2 trill if I'm not mistook, )
11. You swore you yourself could hit me
12. You hired a hitman because there was no way you could do it yourself, as I had >2 bill more power than your alliance on aggregate.
-> I doubt that cash came from skum: You don't donate and you hadn't the ships/cash/segs to generate that cash

I admit I failed my purpose (knocking you below 10 bill), but I honoured my word (kept for you, as honour doesn't appear in your dictionary (self admitted)) After a while the messages were more friendly, and the reason for the feud disappeared (you stopped behaving like an as......le, ) As for hitting AL2, you did that with Lamma before, during and after the feud... so what was the difference???


Principle:
If you have a personal problem with me, fine. I will fight my own battles.
If anyone targets my alliance, and our leader orders war, I'm game.

Space Odyssey is a war game. Any guys who are not my allies are my foes, valid targets, and can't complain in case of an attack. That DOESN'T mean I'll attack everyone in sight, nor turn tables on expiry of a truce. Loyalty and honour are still important to some of us. What's more, I wont even bounty an ally (technically acceptable). That's all folks.

Cheers, PDJ
"Who dares wins"

WTF is Fuimus?
Fuimus is the name of my feuding alliance.
If I have a personal issue with someone or an alliance (eg. Murphy's Law a long time ago, Skum's Dump at the end of last round) I create this alliance, for that particular feud.
This is to avoid damage to the rest of my alliance during hostilities which are of my concern. I have not and will not rejoin my main alliance until hostilities have ceased (ceasefire/armistice/surrender).

OK dipshit. You hit me with lamma to tkar out my ships and then raid me with skum's dump till the neb is here. Fuimus is coming onto being if Midnight doesn't declare war!
If you want to see Fuimus in action, please be a noob/objectionable/irritating for long enough and I'll try to oblige 
Cheers, PDJ

Hit list: No longer empty! 

Raid     Skum Bag(#6656)     1.617.624     254.774.991    2006-11-01 01:20:19
Raid    Skum Bag(#6656)    1.299.296    255.223.248    2006-11-01 01:20:14
Raid    Skum Bag(#6656)    2.784.675    254.016.337    2006-11-01 01:20:10
Raid    Skum Bag(#6656)    1.811.813    255.170.380    2006-11-01 01:20:05
Raid    Skum Bag(#6656)    3.327.481    253.987.460    2006-11-01 01:20:00
Regular     Skum Bag(#6656)     19.137.500     204.640.852    2006-11-01 01:20:40
Regular    Skum Bag(#6656)    21.262.500    223.778.352    2006-11-01 01:20:35
Regular    Skum Bag(#6656)    11.190.000    245.040.852    2006-11-01 01:20:27
Regular    Lammalord(#4495)    243.718.249    450.864.730    2006-10-31 00:53:29

Seems a good idea...
You'll get a number of people abusing the system though. 
e.g. I want to bash a guy below my level. I make an alt, haul out max loan, splatter the guy and then delete the alt. No breaking of ToS (no feeding). I think you'd have to eliminate alts. Even without them a certain number of loans will not be repayed, and what with the havoc made by the indebted commander?
I think it's a good idea but it requires serious safety measures to avoid problems...
  PDJ

What about:
Space Odyssey is not liable in any way for server breakdown, faulty programming, etc. This means members accounts suffering losses due to technical problems or game modifications will not be restored to their condition before the ocurrence.

The original phrase sounds as if you were requesting a reset before there was a problem.

Maybe add: "Compensation and bonuses are at the discretion of the Space Odyssey team."

Cheers, PDJ

Where are you from Timmmmm?

Space Odyssey is a game in Development. It changes, sometimes for better other times not so.

If you remember last round galaxy missions sucked... now they are an important component of the game. Some Items are irritating/useless at the moment but we will incorporate them into the system
 :DTrust me, someone will find a use for "mining turns" that someone else is going to find abusive.

This game is about power, and knowledge IS power.
Maybe that's why the formulae are not available for all to see....


Modifying the market "stopgaps" a loophole but doesn't solve the problem.

There is an honest necessity for transfers, reasons being:

• succesful bounties
• ships designs
• services rendered (scouting the galaxy and others)
• setting up a commander who has hit a killer fleet/been zeroed?

(this although it sounds reasonable, may not be. A careless twit who insists on hitting fleets beyond his power should probably pay the price  )

• others?

Last round Skum put a bounty on me... I was hit, damaged and the hitman got payed: in the spirit of the game
I'm dragging the galaxy, a mate is running out of turns and I find a BH that will allow him to continue in game: in the spirit
I plan a cool stack design and ship ratio that will allow growth with minimized risk, share it: in the spirit
I offer to fortify a commander and set him up to damage someone artificially: sucks
...

So now I generate an advantageous position for someone  Why can't I profit from it?
I give you a 10 bill advantage (a legal one of course) and you want to pay me 1 bill. How do you do it?
Force donations?  That if anything makes the game even more skewed = my help has forwarded 2 commanders linearly instead of spreading the advantage out...


IMO The best way to keep things square is to
A. Define acceptable/unacceptable manouvers and price ranges.

Ideas:

• BH: worth upto 10%? of the reward a Gold transport the same size
• Royalties: the full 2% standard and mot more than 5%? in any case

B. Establish an escrow/banking system and impose penalties on offenders:

Ideas

• Fine them proportionaly to the transfer

eg I have a power of 1 bill and transfer 100 mill creds to an 10 mill commander -> I'm fined 10 bill cash

• Freeze turn allocation
• Make a "doomsday" like rule (won't neb for x hours, and no power restriction on attacks) for repeat offenders

[/i]

If you outlaw p2p interaction you would have to eliminate the whole game. By imposing restrictions and installing a warranty method you can avoid abuse.

A long "two pennies" worth. Cheers,
PDJ

And that would be?

I completely agree... but remember that if I say "Sad old f*g" or "pathetic Sod" most people do not think of an ancient cigarette  or a compassion inspiring piece of land, do they?

If someone (or several members of an alliance) has a list of ships all referring to colloquial names for genitalia, please don't expect me to believe it's a coincidence

I appreciate that Mist is normal english and not particularly elegant german or puta may seem a typo (but don't call your spanish-speaking girlfriend one)... simply calling for a bit more care when selecting names. Thats all.

Cheers, PDJ

Also filters aren't perfect. What's your "thingy" called?
(I mean the ship between Kill'em all and Wing of course...)

Ah... what's to be said. If you don't like the ToS, say so. If not, take your own advice.

in a recent exchange of hostilities found the following:

Defender VeeDee (#5234)


Engaged Units
Fleet Name    # of Units    Attack    Defence    Hitpoints
Assasinator 1    ??????    24754419    0    41524816
<b>Baldthingy 2    ??????    5937439    0    9847672
Baldthingy 1    ??????    5937439    0    9847672
Baldthingy 3    ??????    5937439    0    9847672</b>
MaryHinge 1    ??????    3223582    0    3951661
MaryHinge 2    ??????    3707119    0    3951661

Also found "SilkyMuff" on another attack

I suggest that ToS covers these and filters could also apply to ship names.

Cheers,
PDJ 

Didn't notice the filter had substituted thingy for 4 letter word starting with t that can also mean an idiot used also to imply female genitalia....

I declare I am feuding skum bag, who has dared me to get passed his alliance.
I have voluntarily dropped power, as a strategy (I was above 108 bill, now at <4 bill) The reason is Skum is irritating, aggressive and proud. ("I've never been beaten"..."I can beat you"... "come out of hiding"... "oh f****" and other messages of the kind...) I've dropped him ~20 bill power and will continue to do so.

To do this I've "banked" cash with friends, reserved fleets and bought marines with the rest to keep the power down.
Please do NOT shout "foul" once I'm back to my original power, or above.
I've had to request >10 different people from 5 different alliances NOT to fund me as cash would be a tactical liabilty. lol

I will attempt to reduce skum bag to <10 bill (I have a bet on this =1 cred). After which I'll return to the "rat race"

If there are any takers: There is a 2 trillion bounty reportedly on my head. Seems I'm worth a lot less than a black hole. I warn eventual takers that counters will be taken up 

Cheers, PDJ