I have a fear....

[The IceQueen]

I was looking at the way it's quite possible to gain score by suiciding on a very big planet.

Now bare with me on this one it might seem odd but here goes.

By hitting massive planets and killing their ships (especially if that was your mission priority) you gain score. Nuts isn't it. And if your ships die valiantly in a heroic scenario you gain score. That's really nuts isn't it.

which btw clearly means the only race is xan. Lots of score to be had by killing more and dying more than say the brick wall cathaar players. But lets suppose you had an indefinate increasing income, largely though covert ops (my GOD there's no way of tracking this you say spinner? and you can steal resources you say, and it's instant you say? oh Spinner you've outdone even the overburn with this one ) and the obligatory escorting ideas (just don't set for roids, and you don't get any, EVEN though you're flaking beautifully AND no-one could scan and work out if you were or not).

These are probably not new comments, just not seen them on here yet, and I'd like to have the discussion. Doesn't this round look so open for abuse it's insane?

[MAdnRisKy]

ahh fkit!

^^ my fault, bloody cookies

[Backbone]

but when you suicide you don't have any ships left to do something with them. If you don't suicide you can attack every night, kill some ships and then kill some other ships the next night. You will probably gain much more score this way.

[Cochese]

The best part is, once you've suicided and gained tons of score, you are wide open to being bashed...I don't mean ships, I mean all those nifty Structures you've accumulated.

Set for 'Structures' and 'Factories' or 'Roids', and leapfrogg off the planet who suicided their ships.

By nuking their buildings, you'll gain massive score...all because they were vastly higher in score than you to begin with, with utterly low value in comparison.

[MAdnRisKy]

Originally posted by Cochese
The best part is, once you've suicided and gained tons of score, you are wide open to being bashed...I don't mean ships, I mean all those nifty Structures you've accumulated.

Set for 'Structures' and 'Factories' or 'Roids', and leapfrogg off the planet who suicided their ships.

By nuking their buildings, you'll gain massive score...all because they were vastly higher in score than you to begin with, with utterly low value in comparison.

pyramid leapfrogging?

holy end of round shinanigans batman! :eek:

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by The IceQueen
These are probably not new comments, just not seen them on here yet, and I'd like to have the discussion. Doesn't this round look so open for abuse it's insane?

Yes, yes it does. But with most of the formulas undocumented, it's not like anyone can definitively point them out ahead of time; plus Spinner is probably still tweaking the formulas. I'm sure with the betas he'll manage to find and close most of the obvious holes; but I'm afraid he'll end up having to tweak the formulas during the round as players find and exploit the less-obvious holes--and won't that be lovely?!

[Cochese]

Originally posted by MAdnRisKy
pyramid leapfrogging?

holy end of round shinanigans batman! :eek:

You said it, not me


*whistles innocently*

[MAdnRisKy]

Originally posted by Backbone
but when you suicide you don't have any ships left to do something with them. If you don't suicide you can attack every night, kill some ships and then kill some other ships the next night. You will probably gain much more score this way.

Sorry my bad when I said suicide I didn't mean your entire fleet, just enough to make it viable.

I started looking at this as a liniar versus expotential arguement in my head, but the more i think about it, the more I can see they're both expotential, ESPECIALLY if I can maintain growth rates to match others, but STILL boost my score more by bashing myself.

because this other half of your score, is untouchable.....

yes, that's right, it can't be bashed, it can only be hampered by your own activities. Kinda like buying a smeg load of wave amps in the very early days, because they couldn't be hurt.... (when planet score mattered not a jot in terms of target selection).

I mean maybe i;m really missing the boat here, but doesn't this look like a flaw? like a really bad one?

[MAdnRisKy]

Originally posted by Cochese
You said it, not me


*whistles innocently*

It's gonna be a farce isn't it

wiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee

Tact, yeah, when I was going through the data I had (largely so I could answer those bloody irritating questions of "so what race is best then?!" - usually followed with "no I don't care why i just wanna know what to pick" grrrr - ) I thought... hang on a minute, and the first comparison I made was " this is SO much worse than the rnd 4 piggiebacking formula". Yeah it's probably going to have to be changed mid round, after people have seen how open to abuse it is, unless it gets caught in this public beta, but I'd be skeptical of that, at least, it's not gonna get caught to the extent that it can be abused, the ticks are too quick and that often makes people use really different plans for getting big. (all anyone likely to do something like this would care about in beta :/ )

[Cochese]

Actually, it can ruin a round long before the "endgame run" for the top...with some thought.

Anyone can figure out a few different exploits to boost their planet/galaxy/alliance/team artificially, giving them a lead early on...and enabling them to maintain that lead by "score farming" throughout the round.

[at0mic.c0w]

Originally posted by The IceQueen
largely though covert ops (my GOD there's no way of tracking this you say spinner? and you can steal resources you say, and it's instant you say? oh Spinner you've outdone even the overburn with this one )

(i was planning not to talk bad abot PAX so ppl could see for themselves - but here we go)

resources stealing works on relative networth so u can only actually gain resources from ppl with a higher networth then your own - the formula is pretty simple and i trust you ppl will work it out in no time.
the amount you can steal in a time-span is limited by your security rating or whatever it's called. i'd say if u find a sufficient number of planets with 2-3 times your networth and low security ratings u can steal maybe 300k/24 ticks (depending on how lucky you get) - most planets will be producing more then that by the end of protection already.
i see it mainly as a way for smaller planets to annoy the big guys. giving them a button which makes other ppl's cd drive open and close a few times would be more fun tho.

i think during one of the early beta rounds i pointed out how flawed the idea giving score for suiciding your fleet at a bigger planet is. u could even boost your score by killing your OWN ships.

i still see the combat as somewhat lacking but at least we got Spinner to remove random fire and to add the "disturbance" factor in roiding. still the combat doesn't get near to what it was in r9. fleet composition is not as important as it used to be i'd say: limit yourself to 1 ship class -> leave a targeting hole -> find a galm8 of a different race for cross coverage -> get the girls

all in all i found the betas to be very dull. maybe that's just me tho so please please please go and see for yourself !!11122

[Andy_r]

I've been searching for exploits in the score system for several iterations of the beta, and just like another person I could mention, I have a nice but hollow victory to show for my success :-)

Spinner is doing a very good job of maintaining the score system and closing the holes, when the score system is patched it's probably only those of us who were 'testing' the exploit who noticed. I strongly suspect this is the reason he's keeping the score formula secret, to allow tinkering as the game goes on.

I've tried successive tiny suicide fleets (amongst many other things!) as a score gaining tactic, both to get score and to 'donate' score to the target, and it's simply not an efficient strategy. You do get some score, but not a lot.

The only real impact of this is that it gives a nice incentive for everyone to participate in massive end of round battles, and it (quite rightly) gives people who try an attack that fails more reward than people who sit still and do nothing get. You will get far more score from a successful attack than a failure!

[dabult]

While we're on topic of exploiting flaws..
It is today possible (and i was told it is supposed to be like that) to send covert ops in-gal.

So far the only thing i can do/have seen is the pretty harmless steal resources. And if it like at0mic says, that isnt likely to be exploited. But what about when you have researched more missions? Do they give any score, and if so, is it enough to be abused in-gal on inactives etc?