Remove the scan tech tree
 

This is a branch off of this thread.

I agree with Achilles that lack of access to scans is a serious inhibition for new players. Planetarion is a team game, but there's lots of teamwork in attacking and defending. Having to know enough people to ensure that one of them is sacrificing their round for you to play is not a great way of letting new players try the game out before deciding to commit to another round in an alliance.




The simplest alternative is to keep amps/dists as they are, and either have all scans available from tick start, or unlock scan as progress is made through the round; either by tick number, number of amplifiers built, fraction of amplifiers or whatever.

Alternatively, a more cov-op style approach could be used. Amplifiers build up scan power, which is depleted by scanning.

New players would be able to perform enough scans to have a play around, whilst alliances with dedicated scan planets would still benefit from them.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

I like the scan system the way it is. How are you meant to be able to scan a whole galaxy if your 'scan power' runs out after 1 scan?

Bad idea, keep scans the way they are.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

As an alliance player, I can see your point of view.

I've benefitted hugely from being in a position to scan anyone in the game, whilst those pesky new players haven't been able to touch me, or crashed their laughable fleets as they've been unable to get scans.

The alternatives I've suggested here democratise PA and opens it up to newer players whilst retaining benefits for distwhores and/or alliance players.

The problem you highlighted is completely avoidable by not using the scan power approach, which I also included in my suggestion.

However, if the 'scan power' approach were used, your problem is far from insurmountable. Scan power could be generated by number of amps, or even made to go like # or % of amps squared. Thus dedicated scanners would be able to scan entire galaxies with all types of scan each night, non-scanners would be more limited, but there would now be many planets in an ally able to scan and they could still contribute.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

ehm i kinda like the scan system like it is atm as well.. maybe make the recruitment to alliances and such things more attractive for the new players instead of changing the system? new ppl are ought to join an ally neways if they want to have a better chance to learn this game and get a better ranking in universe.. also even little alliances have their scanners so that kinda solves the problem and also leaves the position of alliance scanner still valuable as it is atm.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

My immediate reaction was the same as you guys (neroon & kenny).

But have you tried thinking through in your head how a round would play out from the PoV of an alliance player and a new player in each case (each case being the current case, and a new suggestion).

The alliance player would notice barely any difference. The new player would have a nearly infinitesimally smaller incentive to join an alliance, but would be able to play much, much more of the game. A larger number of players would be able to play more, an a proportion of these would get hooked and decide they want to spend more time messing around on their browser. Then they know they'll be able to commit enough to join an alliance and play 'properly'.

The net change being more people having more fun and hopefully more players.


I initially opposed the idea because it was change, and I'm used to how things are. I don't think I had any real, logical reason for doing so.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Direct copy from my reply to gate in the PD thread:

Make every scan (or maybe everything until newsscans and let the other scans take longer to research?) available from the beginning and make it so that you can scan with 0 amps. At the moment, someone with 1 amp can scan someone with 1 dist, so why not be able to scan someone with 0 dists with 0 amp? This way you could still use dists and alliance scanners (planets with a large number of amps) will still be needed to scan the dist whores or save res by not 'wasting' res on scans. That makes the game a little more accessible without changing the current game concept or introduce much coding.

Changes:
- start with some research already done
- make 0 amps able to scan.

I'm no coder, but that would take 5 mins tops?

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Personally I'd still include scanning on the tech tree. What I would do is alter the way it's laid out.

Snapshot-unit-planet-surface-tech-news-fleet-jumpgate-advanced unit (with a relatively similar, probably slightly shorter overall research time as the current scan tree).

Snapshot is a jgp of a planet you're attacking only on the tick you're attacking. This has the added bonus of getting rid of that ultra-faggoty start of round desperation search for a jgp for a fairly negligible investment. At least if people refuse to do the 8/9 tick research or whatever they only have themselves to blame.

There are some slight problems as this gives a little bit of an edge to xan but I'd suspect it'd be relatively minor. Obviously this still leaves distwhoring as a feasible approach and requires hardcore scanners to scan them but to be honest I don't really see this as a terrible thing. Most players who scan for a round these days are scanning so they can take a break from playing normally. The number of people who actually sacrifice their planet is, in my opinion, comparatively low.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

I agree with the principle. An alternative to the other suggestions:
People would start with the planet scan, sucessfully using it x times would unlock the next scan, and so on...

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

I scan you, you scan me, we research up to jgps!




(I'm right because it rhymes and nothing which rhymes is ever wrong).

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

I understand your point, but the change I suggested is more to cater to new players and to shorten the time from sign up to being able to play effectivly. As it is now, you'd have to wait about 200 ticks (no idea about the actual number) to be able to play without needing anyone else. That's hard to explain and it's even harder to keep the new player interested for so long. I know alliance play is what makes the game interesting, but you should also be able to play by yourself and thus scan for yourself. If all scans necessary for survival would be available from the start (so everyting up to newsscans) you could achieve this and still keep alliance play (and even scanners) very important.

It's basicly to lower the joining barrier to acceptable levels.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

(It didn't actually rhyme Jonny.)

I've long been of the opinion that the current scan system is outdated and holds Planetarion back. However, I think a cov ops approach is needlessly complicated for something as vital to the game as scanning, while Makhil's idea isn't even worth getting into here, so I won't.

As for the scan power idea (more amps = more scans per tick), it doesn't solve the problem. Allianceless players would still need quite a few amps to be able to reliably scan people, and alliances will still rely on scanners to do their work for them, meaning alliance players won't have to get into it.

JBG's idea is the one that appeals to me most, it gives new players a reasonable chance to get advance warning of defenders against their attacks, as well as early ability to scan non-distwhores. I'm not sure about the placement of fleet, nor news scans. I'd go with snapshot-unit-planet-surface-tech-jumpgate-fleet-news-advanced, but really it's a minor issue.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

If you'd read my post you'd have seen that I propose giving basic unit scans and basic jumpgate scans to people within 20 odd ticks of research.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Yup, you're right. Still like my idea better though ;)

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Paolo`s idea seems quite normal atm :P .. tho one thing i dont get is that why u added that 0 amp/dist thingy ? maybe just leave the amp/dist as they are and make 1st scan researarch for some 16 ticks or so and that it allows to scan up to unit ?

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

ehm 16 ticks is too few tho ehh :=)

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Well you need 2 dists to block someone with 1 amp. So I figured it's logical to need 1 dist to block someone with 0 amps. I see amps as a 'boost' to your scanning power, not the technique that does the scan (=research). This with the added bonus of being able to scan right away, why give some basic scans as a bonus if you're not able to use them?

Just like cov ops and fleet movement, block scans until you're out of protection mode?

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Spinning off neroons comment, how about a bonus for being in an alliance tag? Like bigger miningoutput.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

that 16 ticks was ment to b the time that the research takes to get it ... im not good in these things as u can see hehe, but just tho thought that it was just one way to make scanning more easier to be done for new players or allianceless players - giving em first 4 res with 1 a bit longer research but still ppl can do dists if they wanna play it that way, without having to worrie that more ppl can scan em now or something.. as there aint that many dist whores either then ppl without dedicated scanners also have a decent chance to get their scans done by themselves.. just simply shortens the time for scans..

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

ehm well bonus is that scanner can do the scans for free, from ally fund.. might b some other advantages as well ofc

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Why?

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Personally, I'd like to get rid of the scantree + distorters/amps.
Alot of people will disagree, but to be honest, scanning & distwhoring adds little actual gameplay to the game.
Sure, you can sacrifice alot to become unscannable and cause other players to play only to scan.

From a new player it can be close to impossible to get scans.
For a solo person it can be hard to get scans.
For an alliance player that can't get on irc and his alliance tools aren't all that great it can be hard to get scans.
For an alliance player who is just shit out of luck that his alliance's scanners aren't there it can be hard to get scans...

Ofcourse for the people who actually visit these forums it will usually not be a problem: Either they're ascendancy & have access to alot of scanners or they've been around a long long time and know alot of people / scanners they can get scans from.

I believe we are making it needlessly hard and complicated (especially for newer players) to access the vital information that's needed to play pa properly.

I know alot of people will disagree, but that's mainly caus they've gotten used to the currect situation and are not open to change.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

You do realise the whole essence of gameplay is choice-related right?


What an utterly bizzare claim.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

There are two issues that can be dealt with:
1. allianceless players need to do scans research, thus delaying other researches
2. allianceless players need to build their own amps, costing them valuable resources and delaying other constructions

To fix issue 1, there are a number of possible solutions:
- give everybody all or the most essential scans without research (immediately or give a new scan periodically)
- make a parallel research tree for scans that would not delay research on the other tree

I do not see issue 2 as a problem worth fixing at the moment.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

As I stated in the thread linked by Gate I believe that inaccessibility of scans is the single greatest impediment to the new player learning and sticking with the game. Here's a true story about my own personal experience with this in R25.

Last round my 2 housemates wanted to see what all the fuss was about and signed up planets. Not an easy procedure as neither had used irc before and we had to apply for exceptions and so on. This process could be a lot easier and I think less restrictive (since it by definition stopped me from playing with said friends in any meaningful capacity) but that's a topic for another day. After we'd all been cleared to play I spent 30 minutes going over the basics with them, just the planet building stuff really. I told them we'd go over combat and ship building later.

So roll on ~100 ticks and their fleets are ready and I show them Ascendancy scans and the stats sheet and got them to pick targets. When they ****ed it up I explained how and they got it right the second time. All was good, both launched, then capped and everyone was happy, they seemed genuinely pleased with the game and were looking forward to attacking again. But then I explained that they would have to ask other people they didn't know for scans in future (we had already reached the exception limit for attacking together) or spend 200 ticks (1 1/2 weeks or so) researching their own they both swiftly lost a lot of interest. All they wanted was to be able to log in, look for targets and attack. I had to tell them that simply isn't possible. For some reason I personally felt embarrassed at this and I think PATeam should too. 1 guy stuck with it a bit and built ships to defend his galaxy when they asked, the other made it to units, saw how long he still had to go before he could attack properly and lost all interest, never logging in again.

I wonder how common this story is? I'm not going to waste my time thinking up a solution to this problem that will almost certainly never be implemented. That said, I really hope I'm wrong and that an admin does take an interest in this.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

There's no point in giving out scans periodically, as it doesn't serve any purpose. If there's a level playing field for all, just give everybody everything at once.

And I agree with you a little here - stop changing the game to favour allianceless players. If you want to play, join up to an alliance. You may not get into a top 10 alliance if you're brand new, but there are around 15-20 'tags' that play on a roundly basis, and it's not like every alliance even asks for IRC activity. ** see my reponses in other threads for the alliance issue. Cba linking.

Continuing to cater for people who're unable to play the game the way it's meant to be played is like telling somebody who doesn't own a computer they can still play World of Warcraft, as the system is changing to a world-wide chain-mail game whereby quests are worked out on paper and sent via Fed-Ex. It's just not right.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

ehm.. well if they gave up playing just cos they always wanted to just log in, claim targets and launch and sometimes defend then its their own problem aint it ? i mean if u really are intrested in this game and wanna play it then ure also ought to really do things ureself as well.. if u dont wanna go for scans like most ppl, then go and join alliance heh.. simple as that.. there are lots of allys that provide def and targets each day and dont have rough defpoint systems and so on, so they wont b kicked or nething either. pointless to make this game like: ppl dont need to do nething, just make a scan, launch and get those roids and happy as they are. im personally very intrested in making it easier to get scans, but to lose all the amp/dist/research is also idiocy (dont know if this word means anything).

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

The natural progression for this game does not involve instantly joining an alliance. By creating a game system which requires instead of advising people to join alliances you don't make them feel welcome to the game. There are two aspects to games which succeed. A simple, relatively straight-forward surface game which can be picked up relatively quickly and an in-depth metagame behind it. You get people interested and then you keep them interested.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

A similar thing happened to me; which is what convinced me you were right. My housemate signed up late in the game. He was alright when I helped him out, but he got a lil bored of the main game. He's really enjoying havoc though, because he can scan stuff and have fun.

He's now downloaded IRC and is looking forwards to joining an alliance when he next has the time to play.

If he'd started the round earlier he would have struggled with scans for longer and may well have quit.

^^^^My point.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Exactly! And I believe that the first simple straight-forward game does not really exist at the moment. I agree with Kenny that we shouldn't make the game too easy, exactly the opposite, as that would get rid of the hardcore players.

The starting barrier should be made small enough to, for example, be able to attack within your first week. The quests are a step in the right direction and guides you through the process and a few more quests should be added like attack bot planet x in 1:1 (They're there for a reason right?). The importance of scans should be made clear and you should be given some scan tech when you start to show why it's important. Then add a quest to click on a link to the Alliance Recruitment forum with a little text that states the benefit of alliances.

These are the only real changes that should be made. That way the new player receives enough info to start the game and the hardcore player gets a little boost. The game will still be exactly the same, but a more gradual introduction to the active alliance playfield will be given.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

The entire game is unfriendly from a new players point of view as well as the solo player who might not care about an alliance.

Someone needs to analyse the behavior of new players and find out what features of the game are causing the most problems. The quest system is a halfhearted attempt at trying to teach new players about the game, yet it still isn't going to be of much use if they find it too complex to start attacking if they need scans.

Nearly everyone as experienced players has forgotten about the learning curve of the game, nobody really gives much consideration to other players.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

I have to say this IS a perfect example of a good reason to ditch the scanning research. I fully agree with removing the scans researches and just rely on dists/amps, which would still make scanners vauable.

Also, scanners would have more ability to play for real this way.

If you complain that you would removing choices, then think of this: having to make choices is fun for experience dplayers in an alliance, but not fun at all for solo/new players.

I never thought id say it, but Achilles, you convinced me :D

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

I'm gonna stick to Anarams 4+ year old suggestion(yeah, this thread is also about as novel as bows and arrows) which is the following:

Seperate the different branches of the techtree and make them independent of each other. All branches can be researched simultaniously, alothough at a cost(requires re-applying research costs)(keeping it free would mean we might aswell remove the techtree and just set the game to give everyone new techs at given PT's). Optionally the amount of branches possible to research at a time could be limited in some fashion, or the techs could be semi-split(group as eta/units, scans/covops, infra/hct).

Most of the rest of Anarams original suggestion has allready been more or less implemented(mainly changes to scan formulae and research/construction pairing(although I think that was my addition)).

At any rate, amps/dists probably need to be looked over anew if the problem of the scanplanets is finally fixed, seeing as how the benefit of having a few dists multiplies greatly if the number of scanners decreases in the game.

ps. I oppose the complete removal of scan-techs from the game and completely free informationflow as it's not needed to fix the problem and it removes a period of uncertainty and different strategical stage from the game.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

I just love all these bullshit solutions. In what world is it feasible to redo the entire research system in the next fortnight? It's not going to happen, it's an unreasonable and pointless suggestion. Why shouldn't everyone have access to the scans necessary to attack? The most obvious and easily implemented solution is to give everyone Units and Jgps from tick 0. Everything else could be researched as normal with tweaking of the research times if deemed necessary to overall game balance.

That way distwhores are completely unaffected, xans are completely unaffected and new people can actually play by just building 1 amp. Why is this a bad thing?

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

My suggestion wasn't meant to be implemented for this round, imho the only solutions that can be implemented for this round are make-shift solutions such as the one you propose, but the danger is in leaving such a make-shift solution in place, as they tend to be left in place, screwing up the game yet a bit more in the long run.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

How is it make shift? It's very much final. Can you please answer my question and tell me why it's a bad idea that everyone should be able to attack within a reasonable time of starting to play without recourse to alliance scanners?

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

It's make shift in that it's not consistent, which is sort of the definition of make shift I guess. Also, you try to set your argument up as if that's the only option. Quite clearly, my suggestion also allows people to attack as soon as they get out of protection with reasonable scanning capability without having to leech scans off an alliance. My suggestion also allows for a longer period of "daredevil" attacking right out of prod, as you will be landing quite blindly(I'd prefer this timeperiod to be extended a bit, as I find it to be rather funny). My suggestion would also better allow every player to get access to all scans from their own planet than yours would. Because my suggestion doesn't change anything about the way dists/amps work, it would also not weaken distwhores, yet because it more largely removes the need for alliance scanners it would also increase the importance of amps/dists as there would be a lot of small-amp-amount people scanning others out there, in effect meaning that even a small investment into dists would potentially be very effective.

So what about your suggestion was better again?

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

well it actually made sense for starters (without having to read it more than once).

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

and another solution would be to remove the scans from the tech tree and place them in 'Construction'...
When you build 1 scan building you chose if it's for AMP or DIST.
so you would have different amps/dists for each scan...
- Someone could choose to be immune to JGP or AU by building only 1 type but nobody could be immune to all the scans.
- Alliances would have to get specialized scanners

In all it would make it senseless to distwhore, then it would become pointless to have dedicated scanners, then scans would be back to what it should be. a feature for all players.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Please refrain from posting ever again. They lied to you, not every opinion is equal or even worth while.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Please refrain from posting useless comment ever again. They lied to you, you're not even funny.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

His idea is only marginally worse than yours. KISS is king, something both you guys seem to have forgotten. My idea has the benefits of requiring almost no coding, has almost 0 impact on the metagame and allows all current strategies as regards scan planets, distwhoring and so on to remain in place. Meanwhile new players can actually play the game for a change.

As opposed to your idea which further complicates something without adding anything to the gameplay. No-one, not even 1 person, plays PA to research shit. Major alterations to the research branch are therefore pointless unless they actively contribute something other than change for changes sake. That's 5 good reasons why my idea is better than yours which is, frankly, terrible.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Agree completly with you Achilles.
What we need aren't complicated sollutions that make the game even more noob-unfriendly, what we need are simple sollutions like the one you say that don't change much for the people that allready play but that can make a huge difference for newer players.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Exactly.

My favourite solution is to start with units and JBG's 'peek' scan type, shortening the research time for other scans.

There is an issue with xands being untouched by newer players, but I'm not sure this will be an absolutely awful thing.


EDIT: And to make absolutely sure, the 'peek' scantype suggested by JBG should only include launched fleets to prevent abuse.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

That would also work, but considering PA-Team's coding time is valuable an easy solution like removing the scan tech tree completly and making it accessible to all would probably be easier to do.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

For the record it's not my suggestion originally. Keizari suggested it approximately two years ago.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

I think that there was something involved with needing to be eta4 to a planet to be able to use it at all, which makes abuse rather hard, if not impossible.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Ok you have all looked at planet option to have scans, how about a galaxy/alliance option.

There are currently 4 officer options, make a 5th - the tech officer or give the job to the MOW.

The tech officer/MOW once installed would automatically have his scan tech boosted through a part of the galaxy page that provides scan access, the scans could be paid for from the galaxy fund like alliances do.

Alliances could have their own scan tech within the alliance tools.

The only thing the planet doing the scans would have to do is create amps.

But leave the scan tech tree alone, give anyone the option of using alliance, galaxy or doing it themselves.

This would give even new players better access to scans.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

Dear sweet Jesus kill me now please.

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

I didnt say it was an instant fix ;P

worthwhile permenant soloutions allways take time

Re: Remove the scan tech tree
 

It doesn't fix anything. It makes things worse. It actually increases the gap between the haves and the have nots. Who do you think controls the galaxies and ministerial positions in this game? How does having a different stranger to ask for scans help a newbie? All this idea does is make it even easier for established players to get the scans they need with almost no benefit to new players. Why must everyone pigeon-hole this game into the box they personally play it from? I wonder if I can get Internet Myopia added to the DSM 4 as a recognised mental illness.