Change to Steal
 

It has been suggested by some people, and supported by others that we should change Stealing, so that the Steal ships only lose 85-90% of their ships after stealing.

Thoughts?

Re: Change to Steal
 

Why is this better than losing nothing, or losing everything?

Re: Change to Steal
 

I've not heard or read of anyone suggesting this change...

Also, what mz said.

Re: Change to Steal
 

Anything that allows value gain as a result of stealing is open to abuse and (possibly worse) rewards "bottom feeding".

Re: Change to Steal
 

Its first off all a addition to stats.
Certain stats who is full steal, ziks cant solo. To make them better allowing value gain could be a option. 90% loss i doable without changinging the dynamics of the game.

If u want to cheat, abusing 90% loss stealers would be very silly. Its way more efficient ways to cheat.

There is allready ways to "abuse" steal for rankings, r63 is a prime example where theman won the last day day due to s crash. It was not a intentional one, he just got very lucky.

Re: Change to Steal
 

Your logic gives me repeatedly headaches.

Re: Change to Steal
 

Thinking out of the box gives you headache. Give it a rest, and take a rest dinosaur.
If 0 loss was working back in the days, 90% could work today.

Replying to your post is stupid by me, i shouldve reported and have it deleted

Re: Change to Steal
 

0 Loss worked 45 rounds ago, when the game was still young, had a huge player base. The game has evolved a lot since then. Theman's win of r63 was lucky for him, however if yo do make 90% steal ratio, then you will allow ziks to Value steal off EVERY crash, not just defense and not just vs specific ships. a t10 planet can only gain 100-200k per landing with xp/roid value, and only if the target is big enough. Ziks would now be able to steal into 300-500k value depending on size of their fleet. You will the end of round game into who can land the best fc's on alliance that are unable to defend.

Re: Change to Steal
 

Your delusional. Give me the calcs where you would steal 300-500k value gain. Please.
Last round the top value planet was 9million. Unless he had 50% of his fleet in one class, and you had 5 million value in a steal ship with 100% eff, and you had him fully emped or he couldnt fire back at you, this isnt possibole.
Mind you even this scenario would only be a once a round scenario.

You live in a fantasy world with fairies, magic elfs, and angry goblins. Please spare us all for your imaginetive calcs, people might be stupid enough to read it and think its a legit argument.

Re: Change to Steal
 

I can't show you in a bcalc because have no server set up with any level of steal ratio however i can try and show you with words.

I am a t10 planet, in value and score. I am Zik. I have 4m value in Cutlass a Co that steals Fi. I arrange a Fc on any 4m value Fi fleet. The Fc is through and no monkey buisness. I have 3 Caths landing with me to ensure the defender is fully emp'd. I will gain 10% of my fleet value + roids + xp. For the sake of arguement well say 400k Value(10% of my 4m value Cutlass) + 300 roids from a 1800(15% cap) roid planet which is 60k + 2k in Xp which is 120k So right now im looking at 400k+ 60k + 120k = 580k GAIN in 1 landing.

Afterwards i have 4m value in Fi, 400k value in cutlass. To rebuild 4m value in cutlass or 400,000,000 Resources would take a 2k+ roid planet 100 ticks to rebuild. 100 ticks is about 5 days, but then you only need to rebuild 3.6m value because you kept your original 400k. So 4 days roughly. And that is just with 1 part of my fleet. IF i have other steal ships, I can do the same thing with those.

Now if you look at it over the course of the round. I can gain 10% of my fleet value ever 5-6 days ~~. 49 days in a round meaning that i can do this about 8 or 9 times with proper support from ally/bg. If i've done this 8x over the round and play like a top planet would play, with escourts, good def, good gal then I will be 60-80% value ahead of every other NON-Zik top planet.

This entire idea leaves out the bottom feeding idea of farming from idle planets. Finding them, and then send enough ships to steal from them. Meaning that i could gain 10% of my value every time. And i have yet to even mention Stealing into other Steal ships. I have 1m value in corsairs, a Fi that steals Fr. I find an idle planet that has 1m value in Zik fr. I arrange a team to attack the planet, and take his ships. I gain 1m value in zik steal ships, keep my 100k in Corsairs and can use the zik ships to continue my stealing.

This is something that we can NOT allow to happen. If you are struggling with balancing Zik then don't make stats. If you think Zik are suppose to have only steal ships thats fine, just make sure you give them options to attack.

Re: Change to Steal
 

went zik in xmas round and the 0 loss will be abused to hell and you know who by! funny how we forget the lessons of old and try to repeat mistakes.

Re: Change to Steal
 

This isnt the discussiomn for 0 loss steal thread, you got the wrong thread.
Sorry

Re: Change to Steal
 

Tia, are you arguing against your own suggestion?

Re: Change to Steal
 

No, I brought this topic to life so that it would get shot down. It was not my idea, nor do i support it. There was talk about introducing it as a way to make Zik not suck. I like this game quite a bit and I think the changes and updates over the last year have been good, this is not one of them. While I am writing this post I am finding it hard to not name names as to the ones who actually feel this idea is good.

Re: Change to Steal
 

He is not suggesting this change to steal, he is against it.
The points he make with "FCing/stealing to the top" is only valid in those scenarios its steal ships vs steal sheeps.
Its not a linear growth you can get from this.
Day 1. 100k value + 10k value
Day 2. 150k vlaue + 15k value
Day 3. 250k value + 25k value
....
Day 49. 4000k value + 400k value.

Its surely doable as a strategy to gain value, but it does require some effort.
The question should be is the effort to small/to big for the price?
If you have 3 planets dedicated to support you through the round, would this be the most efficient way to win?

Re: Change to Steal
 

That is silly.

Re: Change to Steal
 

But it worked ;)

There is no way in hell that this would not be abused. Zik needs to stay steal/die. If you want to make Zik viable, give it an amazing normal ship with low init. Zik is primarily a def whore race anyway.

Re: Change to Steal
 

what is needed is 100% steal (no dying apon cap) but max value gain stops at 10% per battle report

Re: Change to Steal
 

Its a matter of how the stats are.
If u limit urself to have "normal" ships prefiring other within the zik race you are limiting yourself.

Zik was built with high init, and usualy been only "good alongside EMP".

Re: Change to Steal
 

How does that address the abuse issues?
(I can see that it limits it - but 10% gain on each farming trip)?

Re: Change to Steal
 

There is no way to make any kind of ratio steal Viable. It will be abused plain and simple. Even if we limit to 10% gains, a 4m value fleet will gain 400k value per steal + roids + xp. It will turn the last 200 ticks of EVERY round into what ally has the biggest ziks.

Re: Change to Steal
 

We need to get rid of XP and military centers aswell.
Now you can win the last day with XP riding it.
http://game.planetarion.com/bcalc.pl?id=jx011hd8ojlz4y5
http://game.planetarion.com/bcalc.pl?id=4bco0oydc2o0ljz
Evidence you can easy get 5-6million score the last 2-3 days.
Please admins fix this!

Re: Change to Steal
 

This isnt an exploit BB, its strategy. You have to have a pretty nice escort in order to land that kind of attack. We've seen in previous rounds that Xping isnt ALWAYS viable, it depends on stats and politics. This is a Strategy not an Exploit.

Re: Change to Steal
 

And winning by value steal wouldnt always be viable

Re: Change to Steal
 

It is, if you can do it off lower ranking planets, since Xp has to target higher ranked planets. Where as for Steals you can bottom feed with +10% every land. Even if that means attacking smaller and getting smaller gains, they are Still gains.

Re: Change to Steal
 

+10% 'every land' - that is assuming there are ships fighting...
So it will not be 'every land'. On some land yes, every land? Not at all..

Also: once you gain more value the bash limits will change making it again more difficult to get +10% on each land.

Re: Change to Steal
 

I'll reiterate the main issue here as well: it is impossible to balance no-loss stealing. Either Zik is good and you'll see at least 8/10 lucky/superactive Ziks in top10, or you take those 'lucky' people into account and make Zik shit for the average player. I'm not even talking about the possible abuse - simply being in the right place at the right time (defending against the right crashers) can, in theory, increase your value by ~50%. That's ludicrous.

I understand it has its benefits, the idea that Zik can actually solo if it has enough value to steal back what it lost is appealing, but it's not worth the sacrifice.

What's wrong with Zik the way it is, anyway? (not counting r65 stats where it seems very weak)

Re: Change to Steal
 

This is not the discussion thread for no-loss stealing, we are discussing having limited loss-stealing in the range of 85-95% die upon steal.

Re: Change to Steal
 

100% or 5% gain makes no difference as it has the same issue: it will benefit the few, meaning you have to take those few into account when creating stats - making Zik as a whole worse.

You can make balanced stats that would put all races at the exact same average value/score/ranking, then Zik will dominate at the top because of possible value gains. It's too feast or famine.

Re: Change to Steal
 

Patrikc is right, my arguements have all been under the idea that ziks will just run fc's and steal from lower value targets. 4-10 man bg can run fcs every night and try and snag smaller fleets, ALL will net the ziks large gains.

However its even more stupid on defense, because you get the salvage for stolen ship, + salvage for defending ship + the % steal, + Xp for defending, abiet less reliable but it would only take a few crashers to make the ziks huge!

Re: Change to Steal
 

Yes I agree. Cath suffers this a little bit, but Zik suffers more, even if you nerf it and give it bad d/c

For reference, we have a box where we set the % of steal to die - it's a matter of seconds to change it from 100% to 50% or whatever, so the combat engine isn't the issue. It's just if anyone can come up with reasonable stats where this isn't unfair on most players.

Re: Change to Steal
 

This happened in r47 or something. All the top zik players gained 100-800k extra value/score because of 'crashes'.