That's semantic. Winning is beating all the other players. If you want to go about on some moral quest to redefine it as fair play that's great, but his point is valid.

There's more to winning than just beating all other players. I would ask you to compare your last victories... The one where you stomped and had 100 ships left, and the one where you had a rag tag force left barely hanging on. Two totally different dramatic levels... Two totally different game experiences...

As for trainer use: If what I want to do is just have massive ship battles, then I would use a trainer too. It would enable me to get to the part of the game I wanted to play at that time. Using the trainer isn't a question of wrong. It's what you wanted to do at the time, and that's fine. I do, however, think it would be a fallacy on my part to think I "won" the game by using it. It's not a victory to change the game to let you do anything you want, to avoid all the decisions and moves that enable you to get to the place you can win from.

As for a moral quest, that's for you to answer. I simply want to understand the motivation for using a tool that basically removes the game from the game, yet allows you to win... If you don't actually "play" the game, how can you win it? In my mind, it seems that you cheat yourself of the game experience by passing through it so quickly with the use of a trainer. It just doesn't make sense to me. I can't wrap my head around the concept of someone thinking they have won the game without actually playing it... In the words of the National Enquirer... I want to know.

In proof reading this... maybe its all semantics after all. It just seems so hollow a "victory", so unsatisfying... Like eating chinese food for dinner...

T

PS-This isn't a flame, nor a trolling enticement on my part. I am not interested in a long drawn out philosophical debate on the morality of trainer use. If you want to argue that, please... start another post.

I'm with antracer on this one. It is not victory, true victory, unless both you and your foe start on equal footing, with roughly the same resources available to you.

Like I said, trainers are of more use than just "winning (or whatever you call it) But also are of great use when play testing when creating mods to make sure they're running correctly. (such as whether a new research item far along the tech tree researches and enables correctly)

Otherwise you'll be spending tons of time play testing and less time finishing the mod. They;re also useful if you just want to get an over all look at the game (what ships are available to team x, what team x's tech tree looks like etc..) for cataloging purposes or to show a friend some of the neater stuff available later on in game.

I don't get the whole "use it to test your mod". I always just modded in a light scout corvette with nine thousand damage auto-repeaters or something like it when I really need to test something...

This gets kind of repetitive when you make a mod with more than just a scout corvette.

...?
You misunderstand. If I am making a mod of anything, I'm modifying the game files. Now since I'm already doing that, I can mod in a special immortal invincible ship available only to me, to make sure I get to test out whatever I want to mod to the fullest extent. Still don't see the need for a trainer here...

The problem is let's say you're modding the research tree some. Like for example how many levels of crew training are available, or modding structures like decreasing the build speed on the TEC's planetary cannon.

Having to start a new game and tech up all the way to the appropriate research level just so I can make sure it's working right and doesn't crash the game will take a couple hours at least.

Granted a invincible frig might make this a little easier (or a fleet of 'em) it's still going to take me along time to research the tech, harvest the money to order the research, take over enough planets so I can build the requisite structures to enable the research, etc..

With a trainer I can speed this process up tremendously with a couple clicks of the trainer options, letting me test the crew training or planetary cannon in a much more timely fashion without having to waste a couple hours each tweak. (I've found the game doesn't always load saves made with different mods in effect than the one you originally saved it with)

Also a *remove fog of war* trainer option is useful for legit play with random maps. You start a new game, save it, use the trainer and make sure the AI's are in good starting positions and not all grouped next to one another, and the systems have a good mix of planets. (it sucks to be the poor slot stuck in a system with mostly gas clouds and asteroids)Then reload your save with the trainer off and enjoy.

If you can make an invincible frigate by modding the files, what's to stop you from making a tier 1 free... aww, hell, I give up.

I get what you're saying, you can just mod it to make the changes so it works just as if you were using a trainer.

Only downside is more effort coding all that stuff compared to less effort of clicking a button on a trainer. (and not having go hunting through and removing your changes after you're done, providing you remember what they all are when you finish your mod 3 weeks later)