The FC limit

[Mzyxptlk]

So. Remember the good old days? I want them back.

Ever since the FC limit was removed, PA has essentially been reduced to a single-strategy game. Everyone with a brain makes buttloads of FCs. This is bad because it removes choice from the game and discourages creativity. Disting is fun -- much more so than building FCs. I suggest reinstating the FC limit to return that choice (FCs or dists?) to the game, and as a result, to allow people to have fun again.

Thoughts?

[CBA]

agreed

[Caj]

agree!

[isildurx]

I sincerely agree, there NEEDS to be a FC limit at 50\60.

[tobbe]

/signed

[HaNzI]

Why have FCs at all?
Make people choose between mines and dists instead

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by HaNzI

Why have FCs at all?
Make people choose between mines and dists instead

Remember what I said about how more choice is better?

[Gabriel]

signed

[HaNzI]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Remember what I said about how more choice is better?

In that case make mines produce 50% more AND cap the FC to 60

[Cochese]

Don't know why the hell it was changed in the first place.

Signed.

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by HaNzI

In that case make mines produce 50% more AND cap the FC to 60

I cant think of anything immediately wrong with this. If I remember correctly, pure FCs starts outperforming pure mines at 800 roids, so that'd change to 1200 roids with your suggestion.

[Zeyi]

I went for dists until 800 roids then FCs.

TBH I wouldn't do it again, but some of us do try other tactics.

Good suggestion on limit though.

[JonnyBGood]

I'd have to agree here. Although disting wasn't as efficient a strategy as FCs even before the limit was removed at least it wasn't an utterly ridiculous choice.

[DragonKing]

A bad choice is no choice at all, i never played when there was a limit on them but it does seem like a good idea

[HaNzI]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

I cant think of anything immediately wrong with this. If I remember correctly, pure FCs starts outperforming pure mines at 800 roids, so that'd change to 1200 roids with your suggestion.

Exactly.

Whoever wants a good ranking needs to have a lot more then 1200 roids though.
Maybe even double the income on mines! then it will be a valid choice to have ~1000 roids and 60 mines as it will pay off the following with unification:

- 350000 resources from roids
- 168000 resources from mines

Same as having 1480 roids with 40% bonus or 1218 roids with 70% bonus which is max with capped FCs.

With mines:

-If you choose a target, you rather take the 1480 roider, or the 1218 roider then the 1000 roider. So its possible to avoid more incoming with mines and to keep steady and high average round roids.

- Mines pay off immediately, and FCs need to have a certain amount of roids before payoff. Making the profit higher the first 400 ticks.

- You keep a steady income even if you lose roids.

With FC:

- You make more money then the mines once you reach 1218 roids


So i do see a valid tactic of going mines and it would be my first choice if i didnt have time to spend every night fighting for roids But with only 1000 resources per mine its still nothing against FCs. With increasing the income to 2000 per mine you will have to think before choosing mines or FCs.

[HaNzI]

I dev-scanner the universe to investigate further. See the following link to see how many who actually builds disorters.

http://pirate.planetarion.com/showth...=196890&page=2

I picked up that it was tops 10 people who built a lot of mines and had decent income from them.
On the other hand i expected more people with 60+ Finance centres then i found, but still its a lot more planets who build FC then mines and disorters.

It would be fun to choose between mines, disorters,FCs or even combinations as tactics. Right now its slightly unbalanced in favour of FCs.

What really shocked me the most was though that it seems like only 20% of the universe understand that it pays off with constructions whether its mines, FCs or disorters.
If those three choices were more equal, then i also suggest the PA-team issue a tactic-mail in addition to the welcome-mail, where you explain the 3 tactics. This way everyone who joins the game will understand the importance of constructions.
Constructions also credits activity, and the faster a player can build constructions the faster his/hers planet grows.

[Mzyxptlk]

I've noticed that quite a few people think there is no point in building any constructions at this point (tick 850).

[HaNzI]

to build a mine as the 135th construction now with 40% miningbonus you need 289 ticks to pay off. Its 285 ticks left of the game.
so if you got 132 constructions, then you can spend a few ticks on constructing the 133th construction as a mine and still benefit.

When it comes to FCs every man for himself i guess. Its pretty simple to calc how much that extra FC will cost and then how much it will give you over 285 ticks (if you keep the roids)



So it still pays off to build constructions

[Mzyxptlk]

You're forgetting value gained from the construction itself. If your 135th construction is a mine, then it takes 180 ticks to pay off with a 40% bonus.

[HaNzI]

Auch yes i did forget that :/
i should be shot, but lets make up an excuse. i was tired!

Anyways. Between building FCs, mines and disorters i would still not build disorters, so perhaps the solution is like i suggested in a different thread:
Move amps/dists to Waves-section allowing everyone to construct amps and dists from tick0 with a set speed.
Using ETA6 and 8 will make it possible to start constructions at the same time every day, but 7 and 9 will make it a bit harder to keep up and therefore give activity a small advantage. The buildings should be capped at some stage, like 150 perhaps if eta6 or 7, or 120 if eta8 or 9.
Say the cost for 1 amp/dist is more then a normal construction, and increasing for every construction, it would take a serious investment into building amps and disorters.

If we at the same time make all scans free and implement Your suggestion Mz about scans found in this thread:
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=197210

Then its starting to look like something

[Mzyxptlk]

You're making this way too complicated. The suggestion was "bring back the FC limit". Nothing else.

[HaNzI]

cap the FCs is a good start. but its still more powerfull then mines and disorters. So if you want to cap FCs you should make mines better aswell, and do something about disorters/waves.

[Mzyxptlk]

Mines and FCs work differently. At some roid counts mines are better, at some FCs. While I agree that the line (more like a grey zone, really) should be moved up a bit, I see no reason why mines should be as good as or better than FCs for the majority of players.

Distorters are fine as they are.

[Zeyi]

What if you capped FCs and implemented bonuses dependent on the # of mines you own.

EG. <10 mines 1000res per
at 10 mines you 1100, 20 - 1200, 30 - 1300 and so on. Maybe cap at 100.

I'm not sure how it would balance it, might be a little overly complicated but certainly a plausible option?

[HaNzI]

Well the majority of the players struggle with roids, while a small minority have access to large galaxies with massive fences, endless alliance defence and such things!

So the people who would build mines are the ones that are new to the game, or find themself in a very bad galaxy and cant hold on to roids. Im sure there are more good reasons too.

So my point is not to improve mines to make as much resources as FCs, but by doubling the income(perhaps a little less) then there will be more planets further down on the rankings that can focus less energy and time on keeping a high roidcount, and rather invest in mines and perhaps XP. There are a few variables involved in this, making this more like a grey-zone like you said.

When you say disorters are fine, i really dont agree because if we upgrade the mines then the disorters are worth EVEN LESS, because once you finished 60 FCs you build mines instead, or vica versa. So the disorters needs to be either upgraded on some sort, or find a different solution on the waves-section and amps/dists

[[JungleMuffin]]

I agree with your thoughts, but i dont agree that capping FC's is the best solution.

I agree with your point that playing FC's is single strategy and far less enjoyable than disting, but thats a path people chose to take. By implimenting an FC limit, youre removing diversity from the game, while claiming to add it instead. I would like to see more variety in PA. I dont think removing a valid strategy is the best way to go, instead, id rather see more interesting strategies added.

As for disting, there is nothing wrong with it imo, people just tend to not do it well enough.

Playing mostly solo this round, ive been forced to research scan tech for the first time in god knows how long. Ive found, if i cant scan a target myself, i simply dont attack him, as getting mid-high amp scans for someone in my position isnt always possible. If disting stops u from getting incomings occasionally, then surely thats enough benefit in itself. On top of that you have the ability to send fake fleets all round and gain far MOAR roids than you would otherwise have, which ultimately can prove just as beneficial for value play as mines or FC's. Come to think of it, theres also the added benefit of increased XPability, something mines/fcs dont give.

There are still as many ways to play the game, its just that the vast majority of players out there prefer to focus on FC's because they have tangible proof of benefits. At the end of the day dists and mines both have their benefits, sadly, most players arent perceptive enough to notice them.

By making other strategies more appealing, u lower the amount of people playing FC's, increase the use of others such as distorting, which in turn lower the amount of FC spamming again, as people are forced to chose between more value or being blind. 1 out of every 100 people disting isnt going to make you build amps instead of FC's, but if that ratio became less lopsided, i guarantee thered be alot more people with amps/scantech/covops.

My 2 cents
/Green

[Mzyxptlk]

I am not proposing to remove FCs altogether, but merely to make them less overpowered. How that constitutes removing choice is beyond me, it really is.

[Caj]

oh i agree

fc's are too overpowered, and i would like some distorters at least

the cap on 60 was good

the cap on 40 maybe be better i think?

disting is fun;d

and with cap at 40, ppl will generally build scans or amps, so scans more accesible(or at least an option for even a big planet)

[[JungleMuffin]]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

I am not proposing to remove FCs altogether, but merely to make them less overpowered. How that constitutes removing choice is beyond me, it really is.

As far as i can see, you are proposing placing a limit on the amount of FCs able to be built, ergo, removing the choice to build more.

Im not wanting to get into an ego contest, however subtle, i was simply putting my opinion accross.

As for ideas to recduce the amount of FCs around, how about:
- resource specific FCs
- aside from the general +1k construction fee, perhaps imposing an additional cost on top of it per FC, sort of like roid initiaing
-an XPC?!?! generating XP for ur planet instead of resources :O

any other suggestions?

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by [JungleMuffin]

Im not wanting to get into an ego contest, however subtle, i was simply putting my opinion accross.

My post was not influenced by the fact that I don't like you. I don't disqualify posts simply based on who made them. I was being perfectly sincere when I said I don't see how setting a FC limit removes a choice.

Originally Posted by [JungleMuffin]

As far as i can see, you are proposing placing a limit on the amount of FCs able to be built, ergo, removing the choice to build more.

Fighters have a minimal oog ETA of 7, thus the game is blocking me from the choice to send them at eta4. Roids give me a base income of 250 resources per tick, thus the game is blocking me from choosing to become #1 with 100 roids.

I'm not trying to be pedantic here (ok, maybe a little), but games need limits. It is of course best if those limits are more or less natural, but this is not always possible. Setting a limit on FCs is the simplest way of returning a little of the balance between dists and FCs. This doesn't mean I'm opposed to any other measure to achieve this (the goal is what's important here, not the means), but as always, simplicity is king.

Originally Posted by [JungleMuffin]

As for ideas to recduce the amount of FCs around, how about:
- resource specific FCs
- aside from the general +1k construction fee, perhaps imposing an additional cost on top of it per FC, sort of like roid initiaing
-an XPC?!?! generating XP for ur planet instead of resources :O

any other suggestions?

Resource specific FCs could work, but in my opinion that makes them too similar to refineries, which also come in 3 flavours.
An additional cost per FC would (logically speaking, at least) also have to apply to other mass constructions (disting in particular is vulnerable), so doesn't really help much
I am personally very much opposed to the idea of free XP factories. It is also worth mentioning that these XPCs would be utterly useless (value > score).

The only other option I can think of is making FCs less efficient (for example, make it a 0.4% boost per FC).

[[JungleMuffin]]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Fighters have a minimal oog ETA of 7, thus the game is blocking me from the choice to send them at eta4. Roids give me a base income of 250 resources per tick, thus the game is blocking me from choosing to become #1 with 100 roids.

^^^^^^^^^ Youre better than that Mz.

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

I am personally very much opposed to the idea of free XP factories. It is also worth mentioning that these XPCs would be utterly useless (value > score).

Sweet Child Mine Cat 790 2,030,963 5,643,923
Uni rank #22 5:1:12 Sweet Child Mine Cat 790 5,643,923

Apparantly xp is < value, but its not too far behind.....

I wholeheartedly agree with you except for one minor issue.... rankings are based on score, which is based upon value AND xp. I personally find the idea of a score producing factory quite appealing. More often than not finding myself ruling a high value planet, ive been in the position of causing a substantial value loss to attackers, but still, have them land for the outrageous xp they cap. To a certain extent, value > score, but unfortunately value does not > SCORE.

XPC's could be used as a way to generate score, without receiving the 5+ fleet teamups that inevitably comes with high value. Im not saying it would be the best way to run ur planet, but like it or not, it has its upsides. Surely its up to other players to decide if the upside is up enough.

A major drawback with playing value, especially for players perhaps not as active, or with the same resources as other players (scanners etc,) is that you need to be able to keep your fleet alive. For some players, without the time to dedicate 18 hours a day to PA, that is simply not possible, resulting in constantly logging in to find your fleet destroyed, and no doubt in some cases, walking away from the game, something none of us want. XP is an unloseable score, something which is extremely usefull, for both nubs, and potentially alliances at war.



Like it or not, an XPC in one form or another, appears to be one solution to the overuse of FC's

Sorry, no time to finish/structure this post, so if i get a chance ill chuck the rest up when i can, hopefully its enough to sikn your teeth into