Über

Not "English".

The word is German and means 'above'.

But the meaning is to be found on the other side of the pond over in the US of jolly old A. It is used for something 'above' the standard.

Ten-gallon hats, and other such exercises in the imagination.

The celebrated English stiffness of the upper-lip would never countenance such ... or would it?

I'd have to say that I do not agree that there is actually a contention between "über" and "balance". Überness is an extreme, and end of the scale. We don't usually name the other end of the scale in this sort of discussion, but for the sake of argument, I'm going to refer to it as Cheyd-ness. Commander Cheyd is well known for his "Iron Adder" preference to the game (ie: no money, no fuel, no missiles and restart again with each death), and I daresay that while maybe not everyone would want to play that way, there are few here that do not have a high degree of respect for Commander Cheyd on that matter. I put forth that "balance" is actually something that falls somewhere between Überness and Cheydness. One the one extreme, Überness seeks to make things bigger and faster because the people who favour it want *lots* of neat toys and lots of power available to them as a player. Cheydness prefers the game to be challenging on the fundamental issues, even beyond the "strict mode" or "vanilla" game limitations. For most players, though, the game will be most enjoyable somewhere between the two extremes. That is fine, and it works because Oolite can be set up via the various OXPs and etc to be to the player's taste. But when I hear someone insisting on "balance", I bear in mind that thy are talking about "their balance" which may or may not be similar to "my balance". The great thing is that we can all have what we want and we can all enjoy the game. That is the most important part. So I vote for "balance", but I do not see balance as something opposed to either Überness or Cheydness. I think that every player who plays the game for any length of time and enjoys it feels that the game as they are playing it *is* balanced well. I personally feel that both extremes should be kept available and developed to allow the player whatever choices they may find useful to make playing Oolite *FUN*! I may not have the same OXPs loaded as you do, I may not play in the same style, but when I get a few hours to "go Ooliting" I can assure you that I'm looking forward to it and am ready to dive into the Ooniverse for a while. I sincerely hope that everyone is having at least as good a time playing. We don't have to argue over balance or insist on some particular balance because it is a matter of personal choices and one of the great strengths of this game is that it can be custom for everyone. It can be the space adventure game we always wanted. I've tested some OXPs that I felt were so Über that I didn't like how the game played with them. There have also been some that raised the difficulty to the point where I found the game hard to enjoy or look forward to playing. I fully support and encourage both those extremes, and I have always made my choices so my game balances between those two. Now about that other issue, the editing of the savegame to start with more credits. I have done it. Back when playing Elite, I found the game rather slow and hard at first and it was easy to give myself a million cr, and so I did. I eventually played long enough that I did get the "Elite" rating. I was delighted. For a day or so. But then it felt like I hadn't *really* done it, not like others had. I wasn't proud o how I'd gotten all those kills, I'd done some things as a player to get points that I don't feel I would have done as a real person, and I wasn't happy with it. To me, personally, the achievement felt shallow. That's why you don't ever see me claiming to be "Elite" here. Not yet. So in Oolite, I chose not edit the savegame to get credits or advantages (some edits to savegames have been necessary to be able to name my ship or to make fix OXP problems and etc, but I didn't do any to gain game advantages). After playing for about a year now, I have a bit less than two million credits and am a little less than a quarter of the way to the "Elite" rating. But it *does* feel like I earned every bit of it, and it could be fighting words for someone to imply otherwise. LOL As such I won't take the "moral high ground" and tell other players they shouldn't do it "because it is bad" or anything. How can I, when I've done the same thing myself in years gone by? But if a new player is looking for advice, I can say that I personally felt that in so doing I robbed myself of some of the sense of achievement involved. So yeah, I did it, but not this time, and I wouldn't do it again. Your mileage may vary on that, and it's your choice. I don't think that making that cheat impossible would accomplish anything good for the game, and might even cost us some players who might otherwise have had a lot of fun playing. (Before someone wonders about Carver, no money cheat there either. But Carver actually has far less in the bank and while he has a "Dangerous" rating, that character has no interest in "being an Elite combateer" as a game goal. It's yet another example of the many ways one can play Oolite.)

(Ganelon (2011 debate about Über vs Balance))

For Ganelon's references to Carver etc. see Ganelon's fiction here: List of Oolite stories

Links

• Ubership‎‎
• Handwavium
• Cheating
• New lasers

Debates

• Clearing Up a Debate Once and For All (2011) - Ganelon's quote above is from this thread.