One data point establishes very little about what isn't possible. In engineering, that's what you're mainly concerned with - you need to establish that certain bad things will not happen (i.e. device failure). Whenever the question is instead, 'what can happen', a single data point can be very illuminating.

Turn it around, thinking like, you have one measurement of a bridge collapsing due to some effect that only applies to that design of bridge. You aren't going to want to use this measurement to prove other bridges won't collapse, but you can definitely use it to establish that they can. Now suppose you only ever learned about this style of bridge because this one collapsed and the locals called you in to look into the matter, and you have no idea how many other bridges of this sort are out there. Maybe there are lots of them out there that don't collapse. Maybe there are lots of other bridges, and a lot of them collapsed, and this is just the first time they called you about it.

Bridge collapse, in this case, is analogous to the development of sapient life. You definitely know it can happen (it did), but you don't know how widespread the conditions necessary for it are, and you don't know how likely they are given those conditions.

Thanks, I knew I had something turned the wrong way around in my brain.

That's what I'm curious about though. I'm no expert and not trying to be clever, just looking for some thoughts on the subject. I was taught in my field that one point of data is as worthless as none, and I've always kind of assumed that holds true otherwise as well. Perhaps this is only relevant in more parctically applied fields though? I mean, if I get one data point without references, I can't do any recommendations on materials, required pressure class or some such. To me, it doesn't make MORE sense to use one data point rather than NONE, because the one point can always be a fluke of some sort that doesn't  give any sort of indication as to actual constrains or values.

But again, my work is more down to Earth than calculating possible ET's. What I'm curious about is whether my way of thinking is only useful in specific fields, or whether it can be used more broadly, such as in this discussion.

Hence the qualifier most. Now proceed to compilating a chart on known substances and their reactions to currents between 0 and infinity (the qualifier enough) to deconstruct a silly joke

A sufficient amount of current will turn most things into a killing machine

Slightly after that I thinjk, after the whole Good World adventure where alternate Zoe died.

Jesus, is Sluggy still going? I used to love that comic, but eventually got bored with the grander and grander story arcs.

Generalizing from one data point makes more sense than making stuff up from nowhere.

It does, you are correct.
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Isn't it essentially the same though? One data point could be a line, an incline, all manners of curves, a circle and whatever. In my line of work at least, using one data point is just guessing.

In a similar fashion, since there was no "I know aliens are watching me" option, I couldn't answer the poll.

It took the Ur-Quan over thirty years to conquer this sector even *with* the Sa-Matra! Now without the Sa-Matra deployment in 2134, it's easy to imagine the Alliance gradually gaining the upper hand, especially considering that the Ur-Quan ended up with some of the most useless and unstable races in this sector as battle thralls (Spathi anyone?).

The assault of the Sa-Matra was only on the Chenjesu, when the Ur-Quan had their focus on them. It was the only place the Sa-Matra was used, apparently to speed up the Ur-Quan's victory.
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The dramatic shift in power was likely more of a tactical nature, the Ur-Quan managing to whip their Thralls into goodenough order to work efficiently together and bringing more of their own forces to bear. Might even have been the arrival of more Dreadnoughts from the last sector they conquered, which had been left behind to clean up or something.

But as onpon says, it's made pretty clear that the Sa-Matra was put into play only against the chenjesy when the Alliance was already crumbling, and just used to speed the process up because the Kohr-Ah had been detected. They would have won anyway, but it would have taken time.

Hey. Son, long time no see.

My goodness, there actually is a new TW-Light release there! And it's been in the works since June, apparently. Maybe we need to get that better advertized somewhere.

Maybe Yurand could let people know that it is alive, it'd be a lot easier to advertise then.

Regarding the ideas in Timewarp, you absolutely should utilise them. I only commented on the inactivity because I thought you were comparing it to TW-light, which, as you've now noticed, seems to have updated fairly recently.

Arne, I'm going to point you in the direction of Lukipela's Otherwhen Odyssee. It's set in pretty much exactly the sort of world you're trying to come up with - perhaps an opportunity for collaboration beckons?

IIRC, Arne only does art because it helps him with what he likes, building worlds. So a pre-packaged deal probably isn't to his liking. Now if we could team him up with Dragon, whose one true goal in life is to create the computer game system to bind them all (TM) but isn't that interested in making content, we might be on to something.

Also, if you click the link and like it, feel free to participate!

Now, I have no great ideas for new ships, but I have to point you to another project, TW-Light, for inspiration. That game is not really my thing, but they do have many interesting ideas for ships abilities, like Kahr ship's boomerang.
http://tw-light.appspot.com/

Wait, someone is actually developing tw-light still? Weird, especially since whoever isn't exactly letting the community here or on the SCDB know they're doing it. Who do they expect to play it?

Don't forget vanilla tw! (http://timewarp.sf.net) tw-light has a lot less ships.

And vanilla timewarp? Oh wait, that thing hasn't been fiddled with for a while.

Well, some things change, or I'd have had the very first, third, fifth and seventh reply to the thread

I believe it is an attempt at turning this into a Sierra game. Next up, you'll lose the game because you forgot to pick something up at the beginning at the game.