[Discuss] Few Ideas

[Lοki]

I have a... lot of ideas:

#1. Let people donate money to planets within their alliance. It would be of great help to pay for assistance with attacks etc. If i need a few other-race ships to help me attacking, but the guy loses them, it would be great to just donate him the money and he'd help me. Or, when one doesn't own a credit card, he can pay for it in pa money. (This may be discussed many times already, i don't know.)

#2. Let the race advantages be way greater! Terrans-what can they do? constructions two ticks faster, prod one tick... think we should have a bit more diversity. EMP should be way more powerful (for the caths to get... in the top 50 lets say). Make Xan's completely inscannable. Make Ziks... the same they are too good already.

Terran

Construction: 2 ticks faster. -->how about... constructions take 6 ticks to build? (no research advantage then)
Production: 1 tick faster. --> how about... production 3 ticks faster

***adds***
Invulnerable too covert ops

Cathaar

Construction: 1 tick slower. -->delete this line
Research: 10% faster. --> make that 40%
Covert Ops: higher max-stealth and stealth growth. --> even more max stealth and stealth growth
Ships EMP enemies instead of destroying them. -->well, make this more powerful

***adds***
Eta -1

Xandathrii

Construction: 1 tick faster. --> make that 2
Research: 10% slower. --> delete this line
Production: 1 tick faster. --> why not 2?
Ships are cloaked from fleet scans, have extremely poor armour but more powerful weapons resource for resource. --> give them more attack then? i don't really notice the "powerful weapons", unless you mean the xpk's who have eta 10 with a hypergate...

Zikonian

Production: 2 ticks faster. -->delete this line
Covert Ops: higher max-stealth and stealth growth. --> make this more alertness
Can steal enemy ships and use them against others. --> nothing

***adds***
Eta +2

#3. Make it possible to set a landing tick as well as a launching tick. This would make it easier for alliance attacks.

#4. Who needs a MoC in a gal? just give the GC that power
#5. What gal seriously does gal attacks? So what exactly does a MoW do now?
You could also just make 2 or 3 gc's in a gal.

#6. Give the golden roids a bigger advantage.

#7. Very radical - make unit and fleet scans one and the same. Then you could add, for example, that Cat unit scans don't display fleets and you have to do an extra fleet scan for that.

#8. Why Heavy Cargo transfers MXXCDLIVIII? Just make the research last a little longer and upgrade some more. If you have many roids, it is certain you will do the research to mine them.

#9. Heavy factory. If you are a xan you may notice it is only able to produce xpk's.

#10. Higher eta for more ships? i could imagine a 1 vsh fleet will take less time to travel than a 17000 vsh fleet. --> you could have additional research like "Battleships now have eta-1"

#11. Score also contains defending ppl and destruction of ships, cov ops and waves (the last ones ofcource a very small bit)

#12. Raise salvage for defending ppl.

That's it, i suppose. some ideas may be better than others, but i think they are all quite nice. oh, one more:

#13. Make an additional race

[wakey]

A tip before I bother replying properly

Rather than post a thread with a number of unconnected ideas post one thread per subject area. Its very hard to discuss ideas when everyones commenting on a differnt one

[Rinoa]

lol i think 1 of these suggestions alone would have been enough to keep people arguin for a while but theres too much worng here to even make a start :/

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by Dark Link

I have a... lot of ideas:

#1. Let people donate money to planets within their alliance. It would be of great help to pay for assistance with attacks etc. If i need a few other-race ships to help me attacking, but the guy loses them, it would be great to just donate him the money and he'd help me. Or, when one doesn't own a credit card, he can pay for it in pa money. (This may be discussed many times already, i don't know.)

No, and are you suggesting an alliance member pay to upgrade accounts using pa money... oh so wrong...

#2. Let the race advantages be way greater! Terrans-what can they do? constructions two ticks faster, prod one tick... think we should have a bit more diversity. EMP should be way more powerful (for the caths to get... in the top 50 lets say). Make Xan's completely inscannable. Make Ziks... the same they are too good already.

There is a fine line to keeping the races in balance, the ships are supposed to be the main difference. Make xans unscannable? Horrible idea, it would overpower them.

Randon stuff.

People have thought long and hard about these numbers, you can't just say 'lets triple this number to make it good'

#3. Make it possible to set a landing tick as well as a launching tick. This would make it easier for alliance attacks.

Provided you can count you can work what landing tick it will land, it even says what tick under each fleet's mission

#4. Who needs a MoC in a gal? just give the GC that power

The gal page looks nicer with 4 colours

#5. What gal seriously does gal attacks? So what exactly does a MoW do now?
You could also just make 2 or 3 gc's in a gal.

See above.

#6. Give the golden roids a bigger advantage.

There will be quests and other stuff for r14, golden roids if captured by the top people would be uncapturable and provide to big an advantage.

#7. Very radical - make unit and fleet scans one and the same. Then you could add, for example, that Cat unit scans don't display fleets and you have to do an extra fleet scan for that.

What. And no.

#8. Why Heavy Cargo transfers MXXCDLIVIII? Just make the research last a little longer and upgrade some more. If you have many roids, it is certain you will do the research to mine them.

I'm sure theres a reason, but it defies me atm.

#9. Heavy factory. If you are a xan you may notice it is only able to produce xpk's.

Well done for noticing. Next round all races might have ship classes missing but thats irrelevent considering xpks are useful and thus so are heavy factories.

#10. Higher eta for more ships? i could imagine a 1 vsh fleet will take less time to travel than a 17000 vsh fleet. --> you could have additional research like "Battleships now have eta-1"

I'm fairly sure the eta system works nicely.

#11. Score also contains defending ppl and destruction of ships, cov ops and waves (the last ones ofcource a very small bit)

Score is made partly from xp, you get xp for cov ops, wave scanning and roiding.

#12. Raise salvage for defending ppl.

It's either been increased, or has been planned to be. Either way it shouldn't be over 50%.

#13. Make an additional race

I'd prefer more ships for each race.

[ChubbyChecker]

I got bored about a third of the way through your post but from what I did read your suggestions would have way too much impact on the game. 40% faster research for Cats? heh.

[barney]

Originally Posted by ChubbyChecker

I got bored about a third of the way through your post but from what I did read your suggestions would have way too much impact on the game. 40% faster research for Cats? heh.

you got a third of the way thru!!!! wow

[Cannon_Fodder]

I got all the way through

[coffee-]

I'm not sure how to respond Dark Link.

[Makhil]

Originally Posted by Dark Link

I have a... lot of ideas:

Nice, now how about having a good one ?

[Alki]

well good debate guys either read it and reply or dont bother.....?

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Dark Link

I have a... lot of ideas:

Contrary to what many of the people's responses so far have been, i am of the opinion that it is great to post ideas onto this forum. As wakey mentioned, the usual practice is to make one idea per thread, which just makes it easier to have a more in-depth discussion an analysis of the one idea. That aside, i'll get stuck into your ideas.

#1. Let people donate money to planets within their alliance. It would be of great help to pay for assistance with attacks etc. If i need a few other-race ships to help me attacking, but the guy loses them, it would be great to just donate him the money and he'd help me. Or, when one doesn't own a credit card, he can pay for it in pa money. (This may be discussed many times already, i don't know.)

Alliance donations have been frowned upon in the past, as it has been felt that (particularly top alliances) would be able to abuse the situation to gain an unfair advantage. This could come in the form of the alliance's members donating a small percentage of their resource (like 1%) to just one planet who, at the end of the round, spend a huge amount of accumulated resources and suddenly become untouchable.

Or, alliances could use it to bolster the power of their scan planets - players who dedicate themselves to helping their alliance by becoming powerful and unblockable scanners thus defeating the purpose of wave jammers - as they tend to be small (in score/value) but high in importance. It is for these main reasons why alliance resource transfers tend not to be a good idea.

#2. Let the race advantages be way greater! Terrans-what can they do? constructions two ticks faster, prod one tick... think we should have a bit more diversity. EMP should be way more powerful (for the caths to get... in the top 50 lets say). Make Xan's completely inscannable. Make Ziks... the same they are too good already.

The differences between races are looked at each round. The desire to make them different to each other must be tempered with the idea of "balance" - ie, if you make one race's advantage too good, then you weaken the other race too far. Ziks and their stealing ability is a good example of a race advantage that is not balanced.

Terran
Construction: 2 ticks faster. -->how about... constructions take 6 ticks to build? (no research advantage then)
Production: 1 tick faster. --> how about... production 3 ticks faster

***adds***
Invulnerable too covert ops

With this sort of setup, you create nearly the perfect Scan Planet - fastest construction (even before engineering) which result in the numbers of Amplifiers to be built to be really large very quickly, and immunity to covert operations means that scan planets dont have to make any of their constructions Security Centres (as currently covert ops can be used to reduce the number of amps that a scanner has). This would mean more of the 150 constructions can be devoted to Amps.

Cathaar
Construction: 1 tick slower. -->delete this line
Research: 10% faster. --> make that 40%
Covert Ops: higher max-stealth and stealth growth. --> even more max stealth and stealth growth
Ships EMP enemies instead of destroying them. -->well, make this more powerful
***adds***
Eta -1

By making research take almost half as long, you'll find that this will give the Cathaar race a massive advantage - particularly at the start of the round. This is because they can build their crusier fleets at the same time as other races start building their Frigates - for Zik whose anti CR this round are Fighters that isnt too bad - but for Terrans whose anti CR are Dragons they will be vulnerable to Cathaar CR attacks for five or so days before they can also get the technology. Towards the end of the round, any large cathaars will have the natural research ability to keep well ahead on their HEavy Cargo Transfers research. HCT is meant to be a limiting factor - so if your roid growth is really fast, the lack of HCT means that you cant produce as many ships untill they are done --> slowing down your growth so that others can catch up. That simply wouldnt happen for caths.

Anyway, providing access to research THAT much sooner gives cathaars extra resources earlier, the ability to mine additional roids sooner, faster ships sooner, and access to higher level scans sooner - all at the same time. I refer you back to the Balance point.

Furthermore, an ETA advantage of minus 1 means that Cathaar Crusiers are no longer defendable in-universe by Battleships (Dragons), and if Guardians are sent along to kill Bombers, then Peacekeepers cant be sent along either. Cathaar Corvette fleets will be undefendable by any alliance or cluster ships at all - thus players are totally reliant on in-galaxy defence for Anti CO. ETA is another area where the balance is fine. Decreasing the ETA by 1 has massive implications. I wish you thought this point through more, as it is pretty obvious.

Xandathrii
Construction: 1 tick faster. --> make that 2
Research: 10% slower. --> delete this line
Production: 1 tick faster. --> why not 2?
Ships are cloaked from fleet scans, have extremely poor armour but more powerful weapons resource for resource. --> give them more attack then? i don't really notice the "powerful weapons", unless you mean the xpk's who have eta 10 with a hypergate...

Increasing the power of Xandathrii weapons would make them even more powerful at killing than EMP is with stunning. I would be extremely cautious before wading into the area of Ship Stats. I have built a few in my time, and just declaring that one ship or one race will suddenly be more powerful puts the whole balance out of whack.

Zikonian
Production: 2 ticks faster. -->delete this line
Covert Ops: higher max-stealth and stealth growth. --> make this more alertness
Can steal enemy ships and use them against others. --> nothing
***adds***
Eta +2

Again, with regards to the ETA this is completely stupid. No Zikonain will be able to launch a successful attack, even with the lower ETA CO fleets. Especially as, due to the Cathaar ETA reduction of 1, Universal Scorpions will even be available to defend, let alone about 3 ticks of Vsharracks, 2 ticks for Lancers (!!!) etc.

Covert ops, with 1/3 of the universe totally immune to them (Terrans) is a complete waste of time.

#3. Make it possible to set a landing tick as well as a launching tick. This would make it easier for alliance attacks.

Hitting the 'launch' button will display the launch tick and the landing tick already. Also, its not the most challenging mathematical trick to add 8 to the tick number, ie 1488.

#4. Who needs a MoC in a gal? just give the GC that power
#5. What gal seriously does gal attacks? So what exactly does a MoW do now?You could also just make 2 or 3 gc's in a gal.

The MoW is just a pretty colour and a reminder of the days of old. S/he has no specific purpose other than to look dangerous in red . There was a good suggestion elsewhere on this forum to give the power for the MoW to do scans for people, with a certain (small) financial bonus.

#6. Give the golden roids a bigger advantage.

Golden roids tend to land in the posession of the biggest planets, who are then too hard to attack successfully and thus keep them. Giving them massive bonuses isnt the best idea, as then those massive planets will be growing even faster - and thus becoming further out of the reach of others. besides, they arent the main focus of the game (unless you are playing a certain speedgame - lo Appoco ).

#7. Very radical - make unit and fleet scans one and the same. Then you could add, for example, that Cat unit scans don't display fleets and you have to do an extra fleet scan for that.

Lets say i unit scanned my Zik attacker atm. Would the scan display the ships coming towards me, or only his total number of ships? I might want to know what he has at home so i can send some retal at him. But if i cant find that information as the unit scan will only show what is inbound to me, i am stuck - you see? If you develop this idea further, i am willing to listen. I think there are too many types of scans atm anyway.

#8. Why Heavy Cargo transfers MXXCDLIVIII? Just make the research last a little longer and upgrade some more. If you have many roids, it is certain you will do the research to mine them.

By breaking them up like that, you give players more opportunity to do some other research. eg, if you presently have two HCT researches that take 50 ticks each, you could do one, then do some ETA research, then do the other one. What you are suggesting is that the player would have to do the full 100 tick research before being able to do something else. but i think the number of roids it permits you to mine could be puched out a little more.

#9. Heavy factory. If you are a xan you may notice it is only able to produce xpk's.

There is a good reason for this. Heavy factories produce Battleship and Cruiser classed ships. This round, Xandathrii dont have any Battleship classed ships, and only the one Cruiser - the Peacekeeper. Next round, Xans could have 2 battleships and 4 crusiers etc. Then again, they may have none. I dont really get at what you want to do with this heavy factory anyway. its a statement, not a suggestion.

#10. Higher eta for more ships? i could imagine a 1 vsh fleet will take less time to travel than a 17000 vsh fleet. --> you could have additional research like "Battleships now have eta-1"

That's actually a very interesting idea, and warrants more discussion. In principle, i am against altering the reletive ETAs of ships, but i see alot of strategic potential here.

#11. Score also contains defending ppl and destruction of ships, cov ops and waves (the last ones ofcource a very small bit)

The problem with giving score by destroying ships has a number of facets. 1) Cathaars are buggered as they dont kill. 2) giving score for killing ships encourages people to BASH, or outright kill other people - this is fine on a 1:1 basis, but think of all the newbies who are going to repeatedly loose their roids AND ships solely because people are looking to bash each other. Giving score for killing ships doesnt encourage successful attacking - it encourages large and repeated killing. "Victory preceeds slaughter."

#12. Raise salvage for defending ppl.

I am in favour of that . /me defwh0re .

#13. Make an additional race

That could be on the drawing boards....

[Appocomaster]

XP, which you refer to I believe as "Score", is being discussed for giving XP (although no one can agree how ). Killing ships / structures for XP, as has been said, is a pretty bad idea.

[Cannon_Fodder]

Reading your comments on how good caths would become with those changes I have had a change of thought and agree with dark lord

'That's actually a very interesting idea, and warrants more discussion. In principle, i am against altering the reletive ETAs of ships, but i see alot of strategic potential here.'

I see no potential, only more coding and less realism

'I am in favour of that . /me defwh0re .'

Pfft. You want to def me? You damn well deserve to lose all your ships and get nought back.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Please learn to use the quote function mate . its not really that hard .

Originally Posted by sniborp

I see no potential, only more coding and less realism

Well, what i was thinking of was that small (lets say value) fleets were faster than high value fleets. This gives incentive for defenders to send alot of small fleets to defend to take advantage of the ETA - ie, you could get defence for longer but they would only be in smaller increments. This has alot of opportunity costs attached however - especially hte limited number of fleetslots available.

OTOH, it gives even greater incentive for attackers to send the smallest value fleets possible - especially if it reduces their ETA by one - as it is a trade off between taking (more) losses at the target planet or risking getting defence.

Also, it gives alliances who have alot of small members, such as F-crew/Rock/APA etc more time to organise defence for themselves. This is especially poingiant as their members tend to be less active as well. This may go some way to reducing the gulf between the smallest and the largest alliances, which perhaps penalises the 'elitest' alliances.

Obviously, this all depends on how the reduction in ETA is calculated.

What would be especially nasty would be somone attacking a 5 mil xan with his peacekeepers out with like 10 Levs - if it appeared at ETA 5 (or 4 perhaps) and he couldnt get def or recall his peacekeepers in time, that would be hell funny. I can understand how it could be annoying too, but still. It would add a whole new layer of strategy to this game - which is a good thing .

Pfft. You want to def me? You damn well deserve to lose all your ships and get nought back.

Why would i want to defend you? i keep getting n00b raids on me from your alliance. seems a bit silly defending hte people who are attacking you.

Might get reported for cheating...

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

Please learn to use the quote function mate . its not really that hard

Look at my first post here. I could not be f***ing bothered. Bite me.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by sniborp

Look at my first post here. I could not be f***ing bothered. Bite me.

You didnt reply to the Core Issues that i raised, rather focusing on a potshot i made in jest.

I am dissapointed.

[cypher]

Only thing i really agree with is the cargo thing. I fail to see even 1 good point about limiting the number of roids. if you play well, you play well and deserve to be able to mine more roids then 8k.

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

You didnt reply to the Core Issues that i raised, rather focusing on a potshot i made in jest.

I am dissapointed.

Boo Hoo.

To stop you from crying further, I disagree, The idea of having someone send a small fleet at you at eta5 or so, which could be covered by alliance or gal, but couldnt due to size of def fleet needed, and its resulting eta (read further into how many times def value is needed to cover attackers value)

[Lοki]

***For all people who read the first three lines and stopped***
Well, you might be right, but you give the wrong reasons.

There is a fine line to keeping the races in balance, the ships are supposed to be the main difference.

though in the next sentence you made a point, this line would mean the races are balanced? I don't think so. Don't ask me to do it better, but that there's no Cat in the top 50 displays it is not really balanced. I also thought I read ppl implying things like "The PA team has balanced everything and it cannot be done better." I don't think I agree on those things. Why would there be a forum about development? At least give a good reason for the ideas being bad.

I will make a short new list. At some points you are right, others I don't really agree with. I expected ppl not
liking any o the ideas... they would change the game too much.

#1. Alliance Donations --> you are probably right. You could let someone with eta 7 incoming let build thousands of defense ships in 6 ticks...

#2. On the races. I think the differences should be more different than they are now. But I admit it was pretty radical. Eta 5 is too short, but an ETA -1 or +1 advantage for a race is certainly not a bad idea I think.
When every race is overpowered, that in fact means they are balanced. Mine probably weren't balanced, but it was more to let you know i would like different races to have a bigger impact on the game.

#3. Here, ppl say "Well count +8" etc. This may be true, of cource anyone can send his fleets on the right tick. Why do you think the slogan of Philips is "Sense and Simplicity"? Of cource ppl know how to make coffee with a 20 button machine, but it goes easier with a 3 button machine.

#4. & #5. SERIOUSLY, who would want to keep something completely useless just for the colors? Make 3 gc's, make one red one green and one pink if you like! =/

#6. Golden roids are not owned by the bigger planets. In fact, last time I checked there was a very SMALL planet having a golden asteroid. I couldn't even attack it, and due to recent attacks on me my value has dropped to below 1M. But when they would stay at the biggest planets anyway, what's the point of the golden roids then anyway? You might as well reset them every... 1000 ticks.

#7. Hmm maybe not. But being unable to do fleet scans on xans doesn't really help alot:
43627846327846237823462378 incoming
I can tell you it's fighter. You can also tell by your own fleet.

#8.

Only thing i really agree with is the cargo thing. I fail to see even 1 good point about limiting the number of roids. if you play well, you play well and deserve to be able to mine more roids then 8k.

Yeh, i didn't think of this, but it would be great to just delete the Heavy Cargo Transfers etc. Why do you need research for mining 100 roids instead of 99?

#9. True. This is a statement. Never mind this one.

#10. This would give you new battle tactics. It wouldn't be like "i send a 1000 one ship fleets eta 8": you only have 3 slots. The point is here, you would be able to see a very big fleet coming earlier. (Wow. What could that black cloud there be?)

#11. Getting roids while doing no damage at all just seems cheap to me. When you attack somebody, I think you should get xp for getting enemies down as well as just sending 100 levis to a target that doesn't have anti bs. Why would it be bad to have ppl slaughtered? That's the main purpose of structure killers, i invented last days.

#12. Raise salvage for defending ppl. --> good thing this is being raised.

#13. "The PA Team has done their best to make this game. It is good this way so we shouldn't change it." I'd say, more diversity is equal to more fun. Just like i think the current races should have more difference to each other.

And for ppl who just say "I didn't read it" or "this is bad - end of post": just leave this forum if you don't like new ideas or don't plan on making the game even better. I think my post contains some quite good ideas - they are just not thought of long enough.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Dark Link

but an ETA -1 or +1 advantage for a race is certainly not a bad idea I think.

Please re-read my earlier post on why this is bad thing. In effect, people would be un-able to get defence from their alliance or cluster for certain types of attacks on the one hand with a lower ETA fleet, and on the other hand with higher eta fleets, people would find it far more difficult to land attacks as their ships are so slow it makes it easier to defend against them, particuarly by classes that are larger that the fleet they sent. Say Ziks had +1 ETA. Their Frigate fleets can be defended by Frigates and Destroyers in universe as it stands now. With the increased ETA, they can now be defended against by Cruiser/Battleships as well (ie, Roach, Guardian etc - and potentially more ships as stats change each round). Further, the race with -1 ETA would be able to defend with two classes above - Say Cathaar had -1 ETA then they could defend Universal Fighters with Tarantulas. The whole POINT of having a small classed fleet is to reduce the time people have to organise defence - which would completely defeat the purpose.

Do you now begin to understand the massive detrimental impact of fiddling with ETA?

#3. Here, ppl say "Well count +8" etc. This may be true, of cource anyone can send his fleets on the right tick. Why do you think the slogan of Philips is "Sense and Simplicity"? Of cource ppl know how to make coffee with a 20 button machine, but it goes easier with a 3 button machine.

Coffee aside, i only see one button in use - the "launch" button. Punch in the co-ords, set a prelaunch time, hit launch and when the page refreshes, OMG YOU ARE SHOWN THE LAUNCH TICK AND THE LAND TICK! 'Launching in tick 1505, arrival in tick 1513, Return ETA: Instant' for example.

#6. Golden roids are not owned by the bigger planets. In fact, last time I checked there was a very SMALL planet having a golden asteroid. I couldn't even attack it, and due to recent attacks on me my value has dropped to below 1M. But when they would stay at the biggest planets anyway, what's the point of the golden roids then anyway? You might as well reset them every... 1000 ticks.

#7. Hmm maybe not. But being unable to do fleet scans on xans doesn't really help alot:
43627846327846237823462378 incoming
I can tell you it's fighter. You can also tell by your own fleet.

This round, its not a huge advantage. However, if xans had FI and CO classed pods it could be very hard to tell, or CO and FR classed pods like Ziks. I dont know if you remember, but as a DC at the start of the round it was really hard to tell whether a Zik was sending CO or FR fleets. Having said that, if you expand on your idea of merging or altering scans (ie, how would they work, what would it show etc) then a more meaningful discussion could be had.

#8. Yeh, i didn't think of this, but it would be great to just delete the Heavy Cargo Transfers etc. Why do you need research for mining 100 roids instead of 99?

This game is not realistic. AFAIK, it is not overly realistic to be able to travel to a planet somewhere outside your galaxy in 8 hours. Besides, the entire POINT of the HCT is to be a limiting factor - which, as i explained before, is designed to stop or reduce the ability of the top players from running away with the game. I dont know if you remember, but in R3 the top planets had a score of around 3 billion, and planets around the top 1000 had 20 millionish score (there were ~180 000 planets so top 1000 would be like the top 100 now). HCT is designed to make the top planets hittable by more people.

#11. Getting roids while doing no damage at all just seems cheap to me. When you attack somebody, I think you should get xp for getting enemies down as well as just sending 100 levis to a target that doesn't have anti bs. Why would it be bad to have ppl slaughtered? That's the main purpose of structure killers, i invented last days.

KILLING SHIPS IS NOT THE PURPOSE OF ATTACKING - the purpose is to gain roids. Thus, by giving score for killing planets, the focus changes from 'roiding' to 'bashing' - where planets are killed for no reason other than score. This has large detrimental effects to the game on a macro level, as the weakest planets are killed the most often by the most number of people. New planets, and more importantly new players are not going to have fun if their planet is going to be wiped out every time they log in. If they arent having fun in a game, why the hell would they keep playing?

The current scoring system - that rewards people for taking roids, particularly from larger planets than themselves - is an excellent system that encourages the free flow of roids between planets. Dont under-estimate this.

Furthermore, sending 100 battleships to a planet that has no anti BA is a tactical choice by both players. Presumably, the defender would be stronger in other areas, such as anti FR, so that they receive less incoming from Frigates etc etc. The reason why ships only have 1 target is so that attackers can take advantages of the weaknesses in an enemy's fleet - this also, combined with the XP scoring system, encourages the free flow of roids throughout the universe. This is a good thing. Sending battleships in to exploit a weakness in a fleet which then WTFPWNS the defender back to the stone age whilst you gain some score isnt as good as just dropping by and nabbing roids - leaving hte defender's fleet mostly alive and able to steal roids off someone else.

Killing people's fleets ends their fun, and ends their rounds. A scoring system that encourages this IS NOT A GOOD THING.

As for structure killers, i have been trying to get them removed for a while now. I think they are malicious things.

#13. "The PA Team has done their best to make this game. It is good this way so we shouldn't change it." I'd say, more diversity is equal to more fun. Just like i think the current races should have more difference to each other.

Unbalanced, under developed and poorly thought through divesity isnt going to be fun either.

[Lοki]

Do you now begin to understand the massive detrimental impact of fiddling with ETA?

I see what you mean. Though there are 20 members in a gal and eventually 100 in an alliance. Some of them couldn't defend in that case. But that's the same with battleship anti-x. If the incoming is eta 8 they also can't make it. Though you are right when you say we should be extra extra extra careful if we were to change anything about eta.

OMG YOU ARE SHOWN THE LAUNCH TICK AND THE LAND TICK!

I know, but this is when you have already launch it. I didn't say I couldn't just do it, I just thought it would be easier when you could also use landing tick.

On my idea of scans: ***i don't know if i still agree with this idea myself *** I meant that unit scans showed BASE: ship x 321 ALPHA: ship z 6787 ship k 10 BETA: etc... This would merge unit and fleet scans. If you can't do fleet scans yet or don't have a paid account (I DO in case you wanted to know) it sucks pretty badly. You could also, when the fleet is out, let a unit scan display "Gamma - OUT". This would give the game additional landing-time-strategy.

Besides, the entire POINT of the HCT is to be a limiting factor

I didn't say there wouldn't be a limit. I purposed the removal of Cargo Transfers. Set the limit to 8000 if you like. I don't really see why ppl should keep doing research for it. If you have 5000 roids you would do the research to mine them anyway.

As for structure killers, i have been trying to get them removed for a while now. I think they are malicious things.

Either one way or another. Personally I also hate my structures being destroyed. Last week I think I rebuilt my 3 factories 3 times in a row.

Unbalanced, under developed and poorly thought through divesity isnt going to be fun either.

Where do I say the game needs to be unbalanced?

[Wandows]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

KILLING SHIPS IS NOT THE PURPOSE OF ATTACKING - the purpose is to gain roids. Thus, by giving score for killing planets, the focus changes from 'roiding' to 'bashing' - where planets are killed for no reason other than score. This has large detrimental effects to the game on a macro level, as the weakest planets are killed the most often by the most number of people. New planets, and more importantly new players are not going to have fun if their planet is going to be wiped out every time they log in. If they arent having fun in a game, why the hell would they keep playing?

Just for the sake of interest... what if you would gain score from losing ships? It would certainly encourage more battles . I know its probably hard to balance such a feature, but i would be a interesting change imho, maybe combine it with the roidcap XP formula, that way you get rewarded for participating in more 'risky' attacks/landings.

[Wandows]

Originally Posted by Dark Link

I see what you mean. Though there are 20 members in a gal and eventually 100 in an alliance. Some of them couldn't defend in that case. But that's the same with battleship anti-x. If the incoming is eta 8 they also can't make it. Though you are right when you say we should be extra extra extra careful if we were to change anything about eta.

There is a HUGE difference between not being able to use 1 ship class and not being able to use any ship at all. The first thing is a minor problem, the second thing is impossible

[cypher]

killing ships is actually the purpose of a wargame...

why do you think fleetcatches happen?

[Banned]

Originally Posted by cypher

killing ships is actually the purpose of a wargame...

why do you think fleetcatches happen?

To neutralize threats to friendly roids.

[Alki]

#7. Hmm maybe not. But being unable to do fleet scans on xans doesn't really help alot:
43627846327846237823462378 incoming
I can tell you it's fighter. You can also tell by your own fleet.

learn the art of faking an attack then u will understand

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Dark Link

I see what you mean. Though there are 20 members in a gal and eventually 100 in an alliance. Some of them couldn't defend in that case. But that's the same with battleship anti-x. If the incoming is eta 8 they also can't make it. Though you are right when you say we should be extra extra extra careful if we were to change anything about eta.

Black Widows and Chimera can make anti BA ETA 8. I use them often . My point is, many galaxies are not very co-operative. By making eta 6 type incoming you'll either have planets JGPing themselves every tick, or you'll 'strongly encourage' galaxies to work together, or both. Whilst the latter can be considered a good thing, it would be a massive pain for players not in a co-operating galaxy as tehy would receive wave after wave of ETA 6 incoming that their alliance couldnt do anything about.

I know, but this is when you have already launch it. I didn't say I couldn't just do it, I just thought it would be easier when you could also use landing tick.

Unlike Old Skool PA, these days you can hit the launch button, see what tick it lands, then recall the fleet and adjust accordingly. You enemy wont see it unless they happen to do a JGP in the 2 mins it takes to do it - which would be unlucky. but after a while you just know how long you take. I really dont see a pressing need to add more complexity to the missions page .

On my idea of scans: ***i don't know if i still agree with this idea myself *** I meant that unit scans showed BASE: ship x 321 ALPHA: ship z 6787 ship k 10 BETA: etc... This would merge unit and fleet scans. If you can't do fleet scans yet or don't have a paid account (I DO in case you wanted to know) it sucks pretty badly. You could also, when the fleet is out, let a unit scan display "Gamma - OUT". This would give the game additional landing-time-strategy.

So its like one of the last versions of the Military Scan of old - shows all fleets, all ships in each fleet, and whether the fleet is out (but not where the fleet is headed). That can be useful, but Xan cloaking as it stands goes out the window. Unless all of their ships show up as 0, so you dont know which fleet is where etc.

I didn't say there wouldn't be a limit. I purposed the removal of Cargo Transfers. Set the limit to 8000 if you like. I don't really see why ppl should keep doing research for it. If you have 5000 roids you would do the research to mine them anyway.

There is a difference between a limiting factor, and a limit. The limiting factor with HCT is time. That might sound strange, but consider this example. Small Player 1 has 200 roids, and gain roughly 100 roids per week. thus, he can complete one HCT research per week/fortnight and still mine all of his roids. Large Player 2 gains 1000 roids per week. Even with research on P1 and full Research Centres, his roids increase at a faster rate than the rate at which his ability to mine them increases. This means, his income is limited to the roids that he can mine, as opposed to the roids that he has (a larger figure). This means that his growth is more limited when compared to other players, and thus more difficult for him to run away with the game.

Does that make sense?

Where do I say the game needs to be unbalanced?

Some of your suggestions, even if they werent intended to, would have resulted in significant imbalance.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Wandows

Just for the sake of interest... what if you would gain score from losing ships? It would certainly encourage more battles . I know its probably hard to balance such a feature, but i would be a interesting change imho, maybe combine it with the roidcap XP formula, that way you get rewarded for participating in more 'risky' attacks/landings.

Well, if you do that, then hirr with wtfpwn everyone so much we might as well quit now .

more seriously, you are right. it would encourage more landings etc. It would also make ziks even more powerful as 1) in the beginning, there is more incentive for players to suicide on zik stealers - gaining roids AND score from doing so, and 2) towards the end of the round, Ziks can land on normally overwhelming defence, take roids steal ships and not have a massive reduction in score. Indeed, ziks would suicide all the time to reduce their value to get more XP - as ranks are based on Value and presently Ziks have much of their score tied up in value. That way, Ziks could loose value, but not loose (as much) score from doing so, and still get more XP.

So such a change would empower Ziks alot. I'm not sure whether that would be a good thing.

[ANdrode]

Originally Posted by Alki

learn the art of faking an attack then u will understand

ATM, there is no faking a fr fleet with fi for most xans. Unless you're really fr heavy, but your fi fleet would be useless.

You could be lucky and find a terran without anti-fi... (those happen, i think i found one who suicided his DE's), but most targets will have considerable def against fi home at all times.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by cypher

why do you think fleetcatches happen?

Greedy Ziks who are tired of their targets running wanting to steal useful ships i imagine .

That, and what Banned said

[teknik]

Originally Posted by Dark Link

When every race is overpowered, that in fact means they are balanced.

made me laugh

[teknik]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

Please learn to use the quote function mate . its not really that hard .

[quote=Ultimate Newbie][quote=Dark Linkbut an ETA -1 or +1 advantage for a race is certainly not a bad idea I think. [/quote]

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by teknik

Its times like these i just point at my nickname and roll my eyes .

(fixed now )

[Lοki]

If you gain 1000 roids a week, don't you deserve it to have a high score & value?

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Dark Link

If you gain 1000 roids a week, don't you deserve it to have a high score & value?

Yes, but you dont have the right to becoming an inpenetreble fortress that no-one can attack for the rest of the round.