Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

I believe that buddypacks should be larger.

In my opinion a decent buddypack size is not 3, it is 5.

You talk about this game growing, for many, myself included the fun is in fact playing with friends. But the problem is that you want new players, randoms, crap players to be involved with the good players. For me there is a solution to this.

A galaxy is made up of two buddypacks. Yes 10 paid players who have chosen to play with 4 friends. Then randoms are put into these galaxies. So instead of having say 100 galaxies with 3 paid players, the rest randoms and then getting exiles in.

You have perhaps 50 decent galaxies with a good amount of knowledge and experience.

Of course the problem here is that block politics may come back into the game, although after this round being so boring I can't see that being a great problem.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

7 People galaxies, with a bp of 5. Bigger galaxies lead to less target galaxies available again. I really like it that this round has less piggying.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

I would like bigger galaxies and bigger buddypacks personally. But I agree with you on the piggying, so maybe your suggestion is almost a middle road of sense.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

I thought that that kind of setup has already been tried pig? I cant recall it solving the 'problem'. Plus, you might just find yourself stuck with an 'inactive' buddypack, so exiling 5 people when other gals have 10 awesome people could put your galaxy at a great disadvantage.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

I just prefer big galaxies with people I know, what about private galaxies then?

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

One of the problems with small galaxies is that inactives can easily take them over. You only need about five players in a galaxy making some kind of effort for it to be useful. But you really do need those few. Even if there's 10 dead accounts sitting in the galaxy, so long as you've got those people there, any new players that come along have something to be part of.

It seems logical to me to put the better players closer together, so new players actually have something to join and be part of. Isolating them in worthless galaxies for the sake of being fair doesn't really achieve anything.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

How about:

Galaxies:
- 10 private (2 bps of 5) + randoms
- default current cluster etas
- allow in galaxy attacking and defending
- trusted galaxy members get current galaxy defence eta

Clusters: remove

Universe:
- Increase current etas slighlty - purpose being to make initial conflicts about the galaxy
OR
- add proper concept of geography

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

I think we've outshrunk clusters, and certainly in their current state they're not worthy of much attention for players. You find the occasional individual looking for cluster defence from friends on an ad hoc basis, but thats about it. They could be rescued, but it doesn't really make much sense to bother. They made sense in the context of the old game, today they don't.

I'm tempted to say, as much as it can be fun seeing who your 'other' bp turns out to be.. we're probably best off ditching the two-bp system in favour of more private galaxies where galaxies are likely to be more well organised/settled. Probably not ten players, I'd say 7's a reasonable number. I am assuming there that the objective of this change is to make galaxies more cohesive, if that's not the case, two bps or a bp of five.. sure.

Actually block politics would probably give the game some character again. I'd prefer something more fluid with new alliances popping up all the time challenging for top places, but that's not on the cards anyway.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

In-gal attacking? Please tell me you're not serious about that.
And i will always vote for removing cluster eta advantages.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

I'm effectivly merging clusters and galaxies, so in gal attacks isn't nearly as dramatics as it would otherwise be.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

NO NO NO NO. Do not make ingal attacks please. You dont have to remove clusters, just remove the bonus they got in def and attacks. Galaxy HAS to be a place for trust and for new players to get along with the other people in the galaxy.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

You might go out of your way to build real trust/relationships in your galaxy if it was there, though.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

. bigger buddypacks
. bigger galaxies
. abolish clusters [amusingly the Misc page still has a reference to parallels 'hah']

The only problem I see with in-gal attacks would be farming, assuming this is easily caught and stopped then it should make for a nice change!

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

How is in gal attacks a problem the way I described it? Effectivly the "galaxy" would be the trusted people and the "cluster" would be everyone else. (we could also make it so trusted people can't hit each other).

The only danger is farming/bashing of the untrusted people. However, I think most people would see the benefit of trying to grow a bigger galaxy rather than fighting internally, wouldn;t they?

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

So basically: You signup3 active players, and 2 inactive players in your buddy pack. Your whole alliance/bg does this an mass, and you can farm ingal and crossgal.

Sounds ace to me....

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

First of all: I do very much like the idea of re-enabling ingal attacking (and, in logical consequence, to allow farming again).

However, I disagree with bigger galaxies as well as with removing clusters (or parallels, as second tier level). We need rather small galaxies to allow alliance smaller alliances to successfully attack multiple targets at once, as well as we need as many galaxies as possible to reduce the amount of piggybacking (we do already witness a reduction of it this round). At the same time we also need clusters (or parallels) so that people can get in touch with more people than those they know from there galaxy.

Why do we need the option of ingal attacks and farming? Farming further increases the amount of asteroids available (thus make attacks more profitable) AND farms give people another option of playing (they are effectively the same as scan planets, just for a different aspect of the game). The original intend for the farming rule (to deliver less incentive for multying) can be ignored nowadays, since intelligent multying/acc sharing won't be caught anyway and the other cases are too easy to spot.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

No. Farms are an unbalanced way of getting to the top, not through skill, but through how many friends you have/how many peons in your alliance are dumb enough to be your farm.

Planets actively farming will hardly ever participate in other forms of attacks [especially at the start of the round] They never risk their ships, and they keep growing.

As much as you might imagine they would get loads more incoming because they're bigger, I can't see that actually working out as they would regain their roids really easily [especially ingal] and could probably get such a head start that they have a solid defence fleet while everyone else is building and losing attack ships.

Add to that the fact that midround they dont actually need any ships except the few pods to maxcap, they would go under a lot of peoples bash limits.

Abolishing farming and properly watching out for it was one of the best moves PA could have done.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

But everyone has the chance to farm, so where is that unbalanced? Certainly it does not help if you have more farms than someone else, since you can mine only a certain amount of roids anyway nowadays, unless these farmers sacrifice lots of other technological advances for being able to mine more roids; which in return means they are either vulnerable for different kinds of incoming or useless to their alliance again in terms of providing defense.

I do, however, see your concerns that farming may become more efficient than normal war-gaming. This has to be thought about more. Especially if a score system change may come at some point.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

I like it.

Universe: add proper concept of geography :)

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

Don't make Alki unhappy, he fails to understand the concept of a sphere.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

I think that sums it up, farming will always be more efficient, thus changing the game dynamics to make having a farm at some point in the round a prerequisite to competing.

I for one do not want to play farmatarion, nor do I want to waste my time playing a game where others can farm without repercussions.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

Why will it always be more efficient?

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

As I see it when you factor in the whole zero-loss, zero-risk, low eta, bash limit stuff - it makes it much simpler [especially during the early stages without scans and travel time reductions] than having to deal with the possibility of defence or even counter attacks. A farmer can launch during peak times when regular targets would easily cover themselves, and have his fleet home at night when incomings would be expected. Additionally a farmer never has to worry about getting the whole galaxy covered, he can easily solo raid and expect no defence.

Two of the shittiest experiences in PA are playing with a farm in your galaxy, or playing with a farmer in your galaxy.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

I could counter-argue here with my pa experience. I experienced round 5 as very enjoyable because the farms allowed to regain lost roids easily and to recover from failed attacks. Also, due to the bash limit and pods not dying anymore, it might prove rather inefficient to farm for a longer period of time. After all, the more roids a farmer gains from his farm, the less he can spend on ships to keep on using his farm. If he cannot spend much on ships then he is increasing the risk of getting heavily roided. It's not purely benefitial to have farms nowadays.

Re: Galaxies, buddypacks etc
 

Round 5 was possibly the single shittiest PA round I've ever played. The majority of my galmates were farming [I believe there were only about 4 of us not farming, practically all quit out of disgust]