Quote:
Originally Posted by ArcChas
Those are the exact reasons that pre-launch *doesn't* work. As you rightly say, everyone can set their fleets to attack - but only the active players can defend. This is what has led to the "hardcore" practice of sending SMS messages to alliance (or galaxy) members and getting them out of bed to help with defence.
If the intention of pre-launch was to make attacking easier and defence impossible (for the casual player) then you could say that it works. Unfortunately, I believe that the casual player soon gets tired of losing his constructions and roids - in fact I'm not fond of it happening to me on those rare occasions when I actually want to sleep at a "reasonable" hour.
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The pre-launch feature enables people that want to sleep for 7-9 hours straight able to play this game competitively.
Furthermore, a couple of key points regarding defending, you can receive defence from galaxy and cluster (i think) eta -1 plus with galaxy defence that gives you another eta-3/5 advantage. I am fully aware quite often you will need more then gal def to fight off incs.
Regarding your statement, " casual player soon gets tired of losing his constructions and roids'". I sincerely doubt the casual player loses too many constructions... As with asteroids of course 'the casual player' will lose many of these but with the run and hide fleet options you now have, it is so easy to use to pre launch attack function to steal them back.
I think I have may it clear that in terms of nighttime protection this game can function quite well without any. As I have mentioned ways to reduce any losses by sleeping. What we need, as expressed in my first post, a modern technology device with the ability to play pa and to use irc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArcChas
Removing pre-launch would be, I believe, a step in the right direction. Yes, it would mean that the active players/alliances would still have the advantage of launching attacks at "prime time" but there would be less launches at 03:00/04:00 GMT in total - and it's possible that even a few of the actives would change their launch times to something a bit more reasonable.
An additonal benefit would be that players would be online for a (possibly short) time after launching and would therefore be able to offer defence at peak times - but that's a different (and much discussed) topic.
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Removing pre-launch would now be a step back. At least now if you create a BP of europeans mixed with some Americans/Canadians you will cover most hours and your incommings will be dealt with effectively. Out of the 500 or so players that are commited to PA now I would estimate around 300 rely on the ability to pre-launch.
To summarise I think any form of Nighttime protection suggested in this thread will not be an efficent measure to make this game for acceptable to the general public/non pa players. What would be an effective measure, as mentioned before, would be a PA app with irc integrated.