Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
My idea of a reasonably sized revamp for PA which wouldn't require monumental coding or investment. In simplest terms it's an expansion of the map as we currently know it through the use of multiple planets, located in different areas, that become unlocked as the round progresses. There would be 3 total areas.
1) What we now know to be the Universe. This is where everyone would start but the layout being essentially identical with some naming changes. Planet -> Galaxy -> Universe would become Planet -> Sector -> Galaxy. Which will be expanded upon with: 2) The Galactic Rim. Unlocked at approx the 1/3 round point. This allows planets to launch a colony ship (requiring a tech advance after Siege and tt-4? costing a lot?) towards the outer edges of the galaxy to found your second planet. For simplicity you would probably assign these planets to what would currently be Cluster 100 and they would be arranged in the traditional format but with less planets per sector. The colony ship would take x (24?) ticks to get there at which point you have a new planet with 0 asteroids. Protection (24-36 ticks?) would then begin. Asteroids inited on your new planet would count towards an overall HCT, for which the research curve would need to be revised or removed, but only that planet's own asteroids count towards initing costs. The rim itself is distant so no interaction is possible with the main galaxy at the beginning, at least for the purposes of combat. The distance between planets at the rim itself is also greater and so fleets would have an effective travel time penalty of 2, including fleets launched in sector. However 2 further researches would be added to the tech tree to reduce travel time. At approx 2/3 round point their is a universal scientific breakthrough allowing combat interaction between the rim and main galaxy. However, flights between the galaxies would cost 2 of the planets fleet slots and take x (16?) ticks regardless of travel time research or ship class. In tag alliance defence out would continue to be x-1 for all purposes. This breakthrough would also unlock a new area: 3) The Galactic Core. An inhospitable area but abundant in minerals where everything is packed closer together. All asteroids mined in the core give 2x resources. After constructing, launching and landing a second colony ship the player gets their third planet, located randomly in what would now be Cluster 1. This means sectors populated with many planets. No combat interaction will be possible between the Core and anywhere else. Planet building is the same as for rim planets. Attacking in sector is allowed in the core with a base eta of 6, with in sector defence at 5. Attacking or defending between sectors in the core is treated the same as between sectors flight in the main universe. Other changes: Self-exiles would be possible in both the rim and core but would be delayed by 24 and 48 hours respectively to avoid sector stacking. Round would probably have to be slightly longer to accommodate the new areas and tech tree. Score would now be a calculated with the results achieved by all three of your planets meaning that even if an alliance (or player) races ahead at the start or middle there is still a chance to catch them by outperforming them in the new area. Planets would still have their own individual values. Summary: I'm going to cut it short there because it's probably exceeding most peoples tl/dr threshold as it is. I think there is a good idea in here, it's something that recycles a lot of what PA already does (meaning it can be done) whilst adding whole new levels of depth and strategy but not a whole lot more complexity. Opinions? |
Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
Nice idea, but I think you would be making the game more complex then necessary with all the different eta's etc.
And just think of the headache's you will be giving DC's with 3x as many incomings... I also don't see the less " experienced " players holding out that long in " The galactic core " as top alliance players will be bashing them for their roids even more as roids are worth 2x in that area. So the difference between the " top " players and mediocre will proberly become even greater then it already is. |
Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
I actually like the idea, but i guess it is too far off from oldskool to ever be realized.
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Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
Aiming too high, Achilles.
Sound idea though. |
Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
"...revamp for PA which wouldn't require monumental coding or investment."
I think thats a bit of an understatement, it would take a lot of coding and testing to produce the effect. Another game did this (Plantia??) and it just turned out that the biggest alliances controlled 90% of the planets. They did have a limit of 6 planets though. The structure of the PA Universe is sufficient, but only works if your in an active galaxy (of course you can exile). Cluster alliances are pretty much non existant, with the current era of small player base. Might as well remove the bonus eta to cluster defence. Many attempts at changing the universe have been suggested (circle universe with the bigger players closer to the center and small players at the rim, the closer to the center/edge you are the longer it takes to go the other way). |
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As for the original suggestion, I think there's a good idea buried in there, somewhere, but it needs a lot of work. |
Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
I didnt get half what u were saying.
If we somehow wana edit the curent system, I would suggest 2 methods. 1. Make suffle at tick 72/100, suffle planets to each closed clusters depending their curent score. This way there will be no noob roiding and should allow fair fights between the planets on your range. Repeat the suffle after x period of time, I guess rather on small tick period of time, incase someone is unlucky where he ends. Alliances would still protect eachothers and try to get as many of their men to first level as possible. But would still allow depending on friends and old contacts, if u end up alone on a cluster/level. There could be plenty of interesting statistics added (most suffles stick on first level and so on...) and the second scenario: Make stored accounts (no new signups needed.) Add stuff to ingame alliances to support more gaming thrue there. Make 4-12 alliances, where people get randomly suffled in to, when there is a new round, the players suffled to their alliance would vote for their commanders and the game would be on, would mean each player to have a "decent" alliance, depending on your luck tho, but there would be no noob alone getting roided, each player would have someone to support them and each player would count to the tag score. Having more of these hardcoded alliances would allow some political play to be involved aswell (notice there will be plenty of internal politics allready.) Obviously u cant attack anyone in your tag, others u may hit freely, weather the alliance coordinates their launches is their own matter :) How we would place the planets I have no idea, perhaps random hardcoded galaxys for each alliance. |
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Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
noob players dont contribute to galaxies either.... u know people keep just exiling or killing the galaxies till they find one they like and hope the galaxy wont kick him. That is just sad and makes none of the poor players develope.
U whine about having small universe, yet make no actions to make it potentially bigger. The size of the universe is pointless, the amount of balls is everything. We can enforce the balls by giving them no other targets than ones that takes some guts to hit and tests your level of gaming aswell. |
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Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
by tripling the number of planets a player has to manage ( and thus fleets, research queues?, construction queues, production queues, scans, etc ) , arent you worried that you might be introducing too much scope for micromanagement that will require a larger time investment from players to play the game?
Also, its going to make things like defence calls more complicated ie 'defence in core eta x anti-y' What happens with things like government - same settings for all planets or allow for differing ones? |
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you claim alliances cant teach the players, just like gals can? i disagree. |
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The hardcoded alliances would have new and old players.... they would be suffled there randomly, so no I cant see a case like that happening. Alliances are the factors that make the gal status apear green or red, so I assume they know enough battle wise. Besides we would still have the allied planet friends, as my scenario said. Also I am looking for scenarios, which would make every new and old player have a meaning, purpouse, which would make them more involved to the community and having new friends they meet. They are more likely gona stick around if some big fellas dont come knock their door each night for easy roids. Our xp system is best I seen to support leaving smallies untouced, but I am sure there are still the ones going for easy roids. Hence the funny balls statement. Having everyone put in to alliances, would obviously get them more involved, also having someone to help them and guide them, since it helps to win, if they take and claim the other smaller targets from other alliance, its a help allready and for them aswell to grow. The other scenario wouldn't support them as much, except they would have the peacefull enviroment to test the attacking and defending and game features, among other noobs and not be an easy target for others. As soon as they learn, they get transfered to new level, where someone can guide them more again. Learning step by step :) Also the hardcoded alliance scenario would divide responsibilitys more and not be all relating to some alliance hc, who will burn him/her out. |
Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
Wait, you want to force everyone into random alliances? Shit idea.
You can't (or at the very least, shouldn't) force the metagame. Alliance limitations are bad enough already, please don't destroy it any further. |
Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
alliances cannot be created through dictation of which one you belong to, only through choice.
People will simply continue with their own unofficial alliance structure and ignore an imposed one if that's what they want. |
Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
First of all these were my scenarios, IF we wanted to change the universe, weather we should do it or not is up to you. I just wanted to share my view how it can be done on somewhat profitable/reasonable way.
and they cannot go around the system if its hardcoded. aren't all the alliances same **it in here? once in a while one comes up with more active players, such as jermain and co provided.... now they are gone too.... along with one oldschool alliance. So I dont see the curent systems providing anything special either, hence I could imagine other ways to rearrange the universe to offer more interest. |
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Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
and your scenarios would be more like?
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Granted they wouldn't get an eta bonus but do you think thats going to stop them? |
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Basically Ave, to borrow a saying - you can lead a horse to water but you cant make it drink. They dont have to work with each other if they dont want to, and a dysfunctional group of people in an enforced alliance means it wont work, or if it does its going to be at a quality level similar to the very worst of fang, orbit, etc etc etc all crammed into one with some new people thrown in who dont have a clue what to do |
Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
Assuming you cant hit your own players in your tag and in your planet, that will neutrally make some sort of friendly status to them, Also there arent any other alliance tags to lift them up on ranks, apart from your own or the rivals, so I cant see gain for such co-operation. Only some sort of personal gains and coop can be arranged, but aswell as now, the rules can stop that.
Perhaps these with the organisational skill can raise the level of the so called worse players. There are probably plenty of tools that can be published for others use, or even game coders can probably work on some basics. Maybe the organisation and skill and activity meters would be measured by who is willing to step up to lead group of that curent round, and who can work things out internally and who is teamplayer enough to get a tag victory to their curent group instead of personal success, who has the best vision and strategy for the players u have to work with. It just changes the game play a bit and the measures which is good or bad. Also u are all noob wankers who got no balls to fight as your tools and experience and even skills would allow. Hence this game will never get forward, Only thing keeping it alive compared to other similar games are queue things, pre-launch and so on, that allows playing without time and ofc its originality. :P |
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Again, such complex tools did not exist at one point and people still managed. Quote:
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Tools are relatively nothing. experience, team playing skills and communication are everything. Your idea would not improve any of these qualities so where is the benefit in forcing established alliances to disband? ( not that it would ever succeed, mind you. ) |
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I've done, and seen my share of bad designs, and I think it's up to the guys with access to the code to determine if this is doable. And let's face it, if they say it's a no-go because it's too difficult without a rewrite, it's not going to happen no matter how much this idea (Which I like, actually) gets refined. |
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and mind you, I played 8 years without tools, but here they seem to be in a higher value ;) There are plenty of potential players whould could lead/run/guide a group of people... they just need proper enviroment for it. But I do ofc like the oldschool alliance thinking, shame is, what comes as a bigger issue from your post aswell is that people are lame and hence none of the alliances are actually cool, hence we can get rid of them alltogether. none really even seporates from the masses, apart from asc. |
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Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
Adding geography to the game would be a big step forward in making it more interesting. The idea proposed in the OP is something long talked about, generally, by having the active planets grouped in the center, while the newbies started out "on the edge" and the middle class (read: feeder planets) in between the two groups.
However, your planet would have to "move" through the universe as it grew in size/score/value or whatever, which would be (I imagine) tricky to code. If it was a fixed point, you'd be stuck in the newbie zone with targets getting further away...assuming you weren't in an alliance, but did well as a beginner. What needs to happen, is some sort of map system based either on alliances or private galaxies. Much like a Risk board. How un-allied, random, and newly created planets would appear is certainly a point of contention. I simply don't see any other way to add geography in the current x:y:z coordinate system. *Totally agree with mz about research queing aswell. |
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I support queing research aswell :) |
Re: Redrawing the Planetarion Universe
i think alliances are sort of what makes the game what it is.... you cant abolish them completely! if you rid the universe of them, we are left only with our galaxies to attack with, and that always leaves nothing at home to defend with. just my two cents worth.
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