Fast Forward: PA in Round 11-> How would u like it?

[Narziss]

Okies!

Everyone knows......we're currently playing a complete new version of PA.....some Players like it but most of them (as I know) dont like it that much!

My opinion is: PaX has some good and funny new things ingame, like Covert Ops and the whole Ingame-Alliance thing (I like it pretty much)...BUT the fact that they deleted all the shipclasses and one of the important things to bring more fun in this game-> the special advantage of every race in PA: Cloaked ships,EMP,Stealing enemy's ships and hmmm Terran=Destroyer
I can't believe it....that was one of the most interesting things in PA...grrr......And also the new traveltime setup....okies....Alliance-1 traveltime should be okay....BUT this Cluster thing with ETA+1 every 10 Clusters is big bull**** in my eyes I think we could list many more facts to bring back the old PA BUT I thought a mix of OLD PA WITH PaX would be cool in R11.....this should be interesting.....

Should look like this:

-> Old Traveltime Setup
-> Race specific things (Cloaked,EMP etc....)
-> Old shipstats and the old 3 tick-Attacks (incl. old Combat-Formulars)

BUT NOW WITH:

-> Ingame Alliance functions
-> Covert Ops (why not,just 4 fun )
-> Engineering priorities (I like that)

This would be an interesting PA for R11 in my eyes...

What do u guys think of my idea and what would u change in R11 to make PA interesting again?

[Killerbij]

Originally posted by Narziss

Should look like this:

-> Old Traveltime Setup
-> Race specific things (Cloaked,EMP etc....)
-> Old shipstats and the old 3 tick-Attacks (incl. old Combat-Formulars)

BUT NOW WITH:

-> Ingame Alliance functions
-> Covert Ops (why not,just 4 fun )
-> Engineering priorities (I like that)

This would be an interesting PA for R11 in my eyes...

What do u guys think of my idea and what would u change in R11 to make PA interesting again?

Traveltime:
I dun mind a different traveltime system as long as its balanced. Instead of basing the traveltime on distance it could be based on value. Much fairer. Big planets got normal etas to each other but when they attack smaller targets they get an eta disadvantage. (this could just apply to attacks) The current system puts too much pressure on the systems in the centre and little on the edge. As for using real distances; that would really suck as etas would get too high to be able to attack everyone who is your enemy.

Race specific things:
Races are allready specific but as it has been said before giving them the old names was the biggest mistake PA-team made.
As for extreme racial differences in ships (steal,cloak,emp) its a pain to balance imho. Would be nice if it was implemented again but it was never fair the way it was before. Maybe if they can do it without reintroducing initiative and really balanced stats it might work but I bet at least 1 race would be overpowered.

Old shipstats: noooo way the initiative thingy ruined many a fair battle where the only winner was a Xan player. As for 3 tick attacks they really take out the speed of a game. Currently you can cap as much in 1 tick as you used to be able to in 3. Also because defense lasts only 1 tick its become a much more dynamic game with much more strategic depth and a lot more roid movements around the universe.

Ingame alliance functions: I find them a bit lacking atm. You cant even send a message to a recruit without giving away coordinates. The attack system allows only 1 galaxy as a target if I remember correctly but the defense system has been thought out. Its useless though since you cant send defense on the defense page (making sure offline irc ppl can defend other offline irc ppl).

Covert ops: They are fun and force top planets to spend many ticks on constructing security centres. Its a nice function to maintain the balance of power.

Engineering priorities: a very nice function indeed

My own changes for rnd 11:
-a value based traveltime system (see my earlier comment)
-shorter research times for the roid researches (allowing more different research paths)
-the ability to use covert ops on incoming fleets instead of base ones (and deal more damage)
-the overview showing your incomings in the same list as the galaxy one but sorted and with good spacing between galaxy planet names.
-research ships instead of research labs maybe (dunno if this would be fun actually)
-the ability to slow fleets down with covert ops

[Narziss]

Originally posted by Killerbij


Ingame alliance functions: I find them a bit lacking atm. You cant even send a message to a recruit without giving away coordinates. The attack system allows only 1 galaxy as a target if I remember correctly but the defense system has been thought out. Its useless though since you cant send defense on the defense page (making sure offline irc ppl can defend other offline irc ppl).

Hehe,Killer what I was going to say with these ingame-ally things was simple: I love the FACT that every freaking ally wants to have the ETA-1 advantage and so all players can see which ally is on Top! That means in a non-cheating/non-blocking round it would be the first time that a PA-player can see which Alliance really ownzzz in a Round

[Killerbij]

Originally posted by Narziss
Hehe,Killer what I was going to say with these ingame-ally things was simple: I love the FACT that every freaking ally wants to have the ETA-1 advantage and so all players can see which ally is on Top! That means in a non-cheating/non-blocking round it would be the first time that a PA-player can see which Alliance really ownzzz in a Round

Unless they split up in smaller parts ofc and only merge in the end But I admit it takes considerable effort to get equal parts. Dont think many alliances did it in PAX. Otherwise it rocks0rs though yes.

EDIT:
I also wouldnt mind being able to que researches and constructions but I guess that is too rewarding for inactives

[Gerbie]

- Travel time: a flat universe, clusters, parallels, score based, doesn't really matter as long as it is fair. Distance based is nice, but it appears to be too hard to implement fairly.
- Race specifics/stats: round 9 stats rule. They can be simplified however (so can the combat formulas). I want stats with cloak/emp/steal, multiple targets, initiatives and (because of multiple targetting) at least 5 classes. Throw in some sucky ship targetting all as well. Get rid of WpSp/Agil.
- amount of combat ticks is not really a major point for me.
- use this round to expand the ingame alliance functions. Make it easier to sort members.
- make alliances more visible: I'd like to see who's who. Reward alliances that choose to be visible (for instance with the defence eta bonus).
- keep covert operations, make covert ops a tiny bit more profitable scorewise
- I dont care much for engineering and fleet priorities, but others seem to, so keep it.
- speed up research
- give details on the formulas used. Some people like to know how things work. Provide tools for people to test the effects of these formulas (make a public battlecalc).
- don't make changes during the game unless they are tested and anounced beforehand (unless necessary to solve a major bug)
- remove free planet score from the alliance rankings
- make jumpgatescans only possible at low eta, only show fleets arriving when your fleet is bound to arrive
- random universe (and when I say random, I don't mean filled lineairly), shuffle if necessary, if you're not sure wether a shuffle is necessary, then make sure people realize that and anounce a date/time before which a shuffle will be anounced (like tick 36 or tickstart)
- galsize 10
- it's bedtime... this might be editted because the list of wishes is still way too short

[zenopus]

Addressing the emp/cloak/steal issue only.

The old race specific qualities (emp/cloak/steal) could be added back in.
How? Just add a research step at the end of the Tactical branch, what you actually get from researching it would depend on your race, dunno what to give Terrans tho - extra armour?

Would fit nicely with the fleet mission priorities.
So you could have
2nd priority = 20%,
1st priority = 40%,
1st + 2nd priorities = 60%
of a fleet with focus on emp, cloak or stealing, the remaining 80% / 60% / 40% would always have the conventional mixed objective.

Obviously as EMP does not kill ships, Cathaar ships with focus on EMP need to perform much better in EMP mode than in conventional mode, and EMP does require some sort of initiative.
Ziks would not be able to get emp or cloak by stealing ships as these are attributes of the race rather than the ships. And with pods gone, the only advantage Ziks would have is that they can potentially make themselves very difficult targets if they manage steal the right ships.

[Killerbij]

Originally posted by zenopus
Addressing the emp/cloak/steal issue only.

The old race specific qualities (emp/cloak/steal) could be added back in.
How? Just add a research step at the end of the Tactical branch, what you actually get from researching it would depend on your race, dunno what to give Terrans tho - extra armour?

Would fit nicely with the fleet mission priorities.
So you could have
2nd priority = 20%,
1st priority = 40%,
1st + 2nd priorities = 60%
of a fleet with focus on emp, cloak or stealing, the remaining 80% / 60% / 40% would always have the conventional mixed objective.

Obviously as EMP does not kill ships, Cathaar ships with focus on EMP need to perform much better in EMP mode than in conventional mode, and EMP does require some sort of initiative.
Ziks would not be able to get emp or cloak by stealing ships as these are attributes of the race rather than the ships. And with pods gone, the only advantage Ziks would have is that they can potentially make themselves very difficult targets if they manage steal the right ships.

I wouldnt want to be the one to balance that Allthough I like the initiative for emp ships only idea. I guess stealing could be tweaked down in a way its nice to do but not a way to directly gain score. I dont see the use of cloaked ships as a priority though. I for one would never want to use it.

[zenopus]

Originally posted by Killerbij
I dont see the use of cloaked ships as a priority though. I for one would never want to use it.

Target can never be sure if he's seeing 100% of the fleet or 80% or 60% or 40%.
Might make the target run. Valueable purely due to the bluff factor.

[DukePaul]

or, he believe he sees the whole fleet, but actually only sees 40%, decides to stay and get slaugthered. Attacker gets score

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally posted by Killerbij
As for extreme racial differences in ships (steal,cloak,emp) its a pain to balance imho. Would be nice if it was implemented again but it was never fair the way it was before. Maybe if they can do it without reintroducing initiative and really balanced stats it might work but I bet at least 1 race would be overpowered.

Different types of ships are surprisingly easy to balance. very few of us know that i have been working on a set of ship stats for some 6 rounds now (having been rejected every round by Our Mate Spinner), and so if i can do it, lots of people can. I think one of the problems with the game since R7 (when the new pods were introduced) was that the same old people ('lo Theam, Petru :P) were used repeatedly - if others were able to particupate more in the devlopment of ships, not only would it have been more interesing, but the round would have been more diverse.

Nevertheless, i am a strong believer in Initiative. I fail to see why it keeps getting bagged all the time - Xans were only succesful because their only C sink happened to be an ETA 2 Fighter with a T3 of 'all' - not because they had a good initiative, or they were cloaked and imo not because their pods were ETA 3. nevertheless, the purpose of beta testing each time a new set of stats is used is to discover imbalances and adapt the stats to balance them - it is not hte fault of the statmaker that betas tend to have been (and still are :\) poorly run or organised.

My 2 cents on the in-game alliance page is that i believe incoming on all members should be displayed automatically (or at least an option to turn this on in preferences), although hiding the number of ships etc that are imbound is probably more balancing. In this way, a person's alliance can know wether you have incoming, but must rely on a galaxymate to get more precise details. Still, its alot better than we had before .

btw, incase you were wanting to see my stats, you can find them at http://home.iprimus.com.au/rourkek/Production48.html

/me waves

[Killerbij]

Originally posted by zenopus
Target can never be sure if he's seeing 100% of the fleet or 80% or 60% or 40%.
Might make the target run. Valueable purely due to the bluff factor.

That actually encourages bashing again. And if I can choose between cloak , roid and ships priorities I know what I'll pick. (and it aint cloak)

[Killerbij]

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie

Nevertheless, i am a strong believer in Initiative. I fail to see why it keeps getting bagged all the time - Xans were only succesful because their only C sink happened to be an ETA 2 Fighter with a T3 of 'all' - not because they had a good initiative, or they were cloaked and imo not because their pods were ETA 3. nevertheless, the purpose of beta testing each time a new set of stats is used is to discover imbalances and adapt the stats to balance them - it is not hte fault of the statmaker that betas tend to have been (and still are :\) poorly run or organised.
/me waves

Initiative encourages bashing as well; just send loads of low inititative ships as a killfleet (you wont get any losses because they die before they fire) and roid the next tick. (I know thats how I did well with Xan in rnd 8). With structures you cant even run now or you'll lose tons of structures.

Also never ever include pds in any round of PA again (like shown in your stats) It really takes the fun out of the game especially when they fire first!!!!!!!

[das_experiment]

Soveh


Ive always liked your stats, and i would love to see them implemented.


Just imagine all the various fleet combos

[masochist]

many things have to be changed.
but first a real gal status. i hate the overview screen. 'overview' = overview not 'gal status'.

[Al_zz]

Originally posted by Gerbie
- Travel time: a flat universe, clusters, parallels, score based, doesn't really matter as long as it is fair. Distance based is nice, but it appears to be too hard to implement fairly.

Lets see how it goes this round. Travel time probably needs some tweaking though.

- Race specifics/stats: round 9 stats rule. They can be simplified however (so can the combat formulas). I want stats with cloak/emp/steal, multiple targets, initiatives and (because of multiple targetting) at least 5 classes. Throw in some sucky ship targetting all as well. Get rid of WpSp/Agil.

You could als add special abilities of the races to the current fleet priorities. Seems more in line with current game design.

- use this round to expand the ingame alliance functions. Make it easier to sort members.

Definitly !!! In game alliance needs more features. Some people want automated warning for attacks on allies but that might be too much though. But better forums, messaging on alliancenick, messaging to alliance groups, better attack organiser, better defense organiser. Please improve !!

- make alliances more visible: I'd like to see who's who. Reward alliances that choose to be visible (for instance with the defence eta bonus).

Interesting but I am not sure alliance would dare unless the bonus was huge.

- keep covert operations, make covert ops a tiny bit more profitable scorewise

More score for covert ops seem ok allthough atm it is a mystery for me how scoring on covert ops works.

- speed up research

NO !!! I know mnay people want faster research but this I find one of the best features of the new game. You just cannot research all you would like to research. Research is now a major strategic descision point in the game. Keep it that way !!!

- give details on the formulas used. Some people like to know how things work. Provide tools for people to test the effects of these formulas (make a public battlecalc).

Give details, nah. Tools, mayby ?!??

- don't make changes during the game unless they are tested and anounced beforehand (unless necessary to solve a major bug)

No problem with changes. Announcing in advance would be nice though.

- remove free planet score from the alliance rankings

Well, I can see alliances wit less than 150 players try to make up score by filling with freebies but the limits on those accounts do ensure only a limited profit from this. Also some alliances might want to let their members that play other games a preview of the game and add some score as well. Also what about recruitement alliances. The might want a combination of free and paying members and not getting score for the alliance is demotivatiing then. So not sure really.

- make jumpgatescans only possible at low eta, only show fleets arriving when your fleet is bound to arrive

I think this is already implemented in some form.

- random universe (and when I say random, I don't mean filled lineairly), shuffle if necessary, if you're not sure wether a shuffle is necessary, then make sure people realize that and anounce a date/time before which a shuffle will be anounced (like tick 36 or tickstart)

As I suggested somewhere else. How about shuffle at end of protectetion. Untill that time keep free and payed accounts mixed in 25 people gals. Keep the free accounts in 25 person gals and move the payed accounts to 10-15 person gals somewhere else. Freebie people have 48 hours amongst experienced players who can help them organize gal, setup irc, give starting advice, recruit them for alliances and so on !!!

- galsize 10

Only for payed accounts. Low activity free accounts need larger gals to setup a galaxy community.

hAl

[Killerbij]

Originally posted by Gerbie
[B
- make jumpgatescans only possible at low eta, only show fleets arriving when your fleet is bound to arrive [/b]

Originally posted by Al_zz

I think this is already implemented in some form.
hAl

No it isnt; I went scan tree in last beta and all you need to do is send a fleet, do a scan and recall it before it is launched. Making scanplanets still very viable.

[dabult]

/me want proper galnews
And the journal.

Constructions should deffo stay though.

[Al_zz]

Originally posted by Killerbij
No it isnt; I went scan tree in last beta and all you need to do is send a fleet, do a scan and recall it before it is launched. Making scanplanets still very viable.

In that case I fully agree on 'news' scanning only being possible at lower eta's.

hAl