Espionage
As this seems to be the biggest issue with any new proposals, I thought I'd start a specific thread.
It basically involves the concept of shifting all intelligence gathering to sending agents. The more difficult the mission, the longer it takes. The more agents you send, the lower your stealth but the quicker the mission. Why change the system? Well, for a start "distorter wh0res" force the advantage to alliances with dedicated scanners. As the round goes on, some fair percentage of the playerbase decides to go for distorter whoring, which only some top alliance scanners can scan. I wonder how many of the top alliances actually had scanners with over 100 or 130 amps, or access to one? And how many planets had over 100 distorters? (yes, I admit I should have looked this up BEFORE resetting everyone's constructions). Covert ops are generally used by mid-top alliance players (admittedly partly because many of the smaller players are free and can't get any decent covert ops). They're almost self justifying - covert ops are used by scanners to steal resources, and more than just scanners use covert ops to destroy amps of scanners and any structures of top enemy planets with low security. Very few people (I think YoureDoomed was one?) have actually come top 100 using some sort of covert op method. I think that we could make the route as a whole more useful. Secondly, all this "concept stuff". Waves is meant to send scans out to count things. If you want to debate realism, I fail to see how waves can do most of the specified scans, and even if they can somehow detect which researches you've done, I don't quite see how amplifiers work properly (even if they were to boost accuracy the more you had). Surely if anything, amplifiers should let you scan yourself, your galaxy, your cluster then your universe? (as an aisde, that'd be a far better way to limit free planets). If anything it makes more sense for a guy to go to the planet and have a look around. While he's there, he might as well attempt to stick plastique on likely targets (although that's slightly more difficult and reflected in the fine details, should we ever get that far in the espionage discussion). I know a lot of people feel that it's not "broken" and so shouldn't be changed (although some covert ops aren't that great - the ship / asteroid killing ones for example). I think we could at least see what happens. |
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afaik he did it after the rules were adjusted - I remember a galaxy got in trouble for scanning and abusing the bug, and another galaxy for abusing the gal fund limit bug.
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I thought it was his galaxy which got in trouble for the scanning? And wasn't it Gerbie who could have finished top 100 for cov opping?
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I can't remember. :( can someone help us out?
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Open community tools ftw ;)
Round 13 #70 Round 14 #63 I have no idea how he did it though. I know he was scanner in atleast one of those rounds. I can imagine him staying tiny for a long time, stealing resources from inactives and filling the fund, then getting it all donated to him in 1 go to produce a fleet and go roid to get into the top100. |
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It was the top gal who abused it.
AGAIN ITS SPRITFIRE Posting... FFS. Hard to remember this when I am home :D |
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I am one of the biggest oponents to the suggested changes, mostly because it removes scans the way it is now. I do think that cov op needs to be done something with. My biggest irritation is that cov op to reduce others security.. I dont know how many have used that one... But putting scans and cov ops into the same "bracket" and as far as I know removing the jpscan and doing radical changes with the scan system is something I am against. In the initial suggestion from Appocomaster one of the suggestion was to remove the ability to jpscan unless you were eta 4 or less from the target planet. This would make it alot harder on alot of people, and also make alliance coordination tougher.
Also, critisising people for going distorter whore is totally and utter shite. It is an option within the rules and if some newb without an alliance isnt able to scan someone, then he should go for more amps. The system as it is now allready permits the possibilities to do a good round without an alliance. There was alot of people in smaller, or without any alliances in the top 100 the last round so with time and dedication is it fully possible to do good without an ally. |
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I finished the round on 145 amps.. When I was around to use them. (Sorry for that eXi)
In previous rounds when I have played for 'smaller' alliances I nearly always finished on at least 130 amps. The distorter whore situation can be very annoying for alliances or solo players without access to a large scanner but it is a perfectly valid route to go down. I did this in R13 iirc while playing for F-Crew, the number of attacks on me was reduced by a very large magin and as such i got my highest finish in PA so far, the flip side was that at that time F-Crew didn't have any scanners I consdered big enough to be useful which i found fustrating as their were targets I wanted to hit but couldn't get scans for. This was the risk I took when I massed distorters, consider it a play off, you can stop people scanning you, or you can scan the universe. Both are valid tactics, and both have worked very well for me depending how I wanted to play a round. That said, I am very intrigued as to how you plan to form espionage. Will they have to travel on some fighter to the planet to perform covert operations, thus having an eta there and back unless they get caught where they would be killed? Will you're jgp intel gatehr travel with the fleet scanning the universe around hime for extra fleets, or will he be at the planet already monitoring their communications? Will the spies be members of that planet already that you have to contact, pay and wait for their responses? If you can give more information on how espionage will work, travel times / spies etc, please do so. |
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For someone who is apparently starting up a recruiting wing next round, I find your opinion to be extremely interesting. Why does he have to spend all his time making amplifiers? Quote:
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Basically, missions have a hardness associated with them, between say 1 and 10. The number of ticks it takes to complete the mission is the int((mission_hardness - number_of_agents)/2) (well, to be precise it's the maximum of 0 and that value, otherwise we'd have negative numbers :P) So, the harder the mission the longer it takes. Scans are considered easier than covert ops, and so the harder scans are generally as hard as the easiest covert ops. This forces people to strike a balance between being discovered by sending more agents to complete the mission (which lowers stealth), and having a time delay for the mission of up to say 4 ticks. Admittedly it's not *that* much more realistic than even covert ops, but the time delay is interesting. I think missions should have a fairly low cost, but agents that get caught die (or have some % chance of dying) and are expensive. [not sure on this] There's a random function so missions are more like covert ops / old scans than current scans. You can be completely immune from all missions (perhaps the covert-op type ones more easily than the scan ones) but this costs in terms of building 40-60 constructions (similar to distorter wh0ring, I guess), and that'd ruin your %s for everything else. Maybe I should increase the number of constructions :) |
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Yes
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erm.. ok let me get this clear.. use timedelayed agents for jpg.. if they get caught they die... due to gettin caught .. u get no jpg....due to timedelay...u cant send new 1es... due to to no jpg u land blind... due to landing blind u suicide ur fleet....
doesnt really sound appealing tbh, but then again i could be wrong cause i wasnt here durin "old scans" i know rock had @least 1 scanner with 130+ amps not sure if the #2 scanner made it, and HR recruited a scanner with 100 amps halfway trough the round so hes bound to have ended with @least 130 :p tbh i never gave much thought to usin cov ops apart from an occasional info blackout cause i think the rest is pretty useless, untill now when i see people around the universe cov oppin eachother to destroy the buildings given by apocco to get room for more amps/dist... buildinglimt ftw :D |
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I think the major change is scans are less certain and certainly not instant. I wrote a whole post with lots of details and formulae I came up with on the private forums, but tbh that wasn't the point. It boils down to the following:
Against a "top security" planet (i.e. spending a one off payment of 15k resources per asteroid you have to make your planet secure), you are waiting 2 ticks with a 66% chance of getting a succesful jumpgate scan back, or 1 tick with a 58% chance of getting a succesful scan back, or a 0% chance at 0 ticks (all would be 100% if the planet only had a 75% security rating). You can send multiple agents, but I guess the agent-dying thing is a bit harsh for scans. I actually like the idea more now though - how many agents are you willing to train up and send to make the chance of you getting a scan or covert operation more likely? "Scanners" will need more. Do you send 1 agent with a 66% chance of getting through? 2? 3? 5? :) Also, blocked scans would probably show again, giving some indication of if your galaxy will get incoming. Alliances will always be more organised - people will preorder jumpgates for their targets so they're ready, and unit scans can always be done before time (58% chance to instantly get a sucessful scan, 66% chance to get one done after 1 tick). Espionage will just be a unification of scans and covert ops to some degree, housing them all together. They'll still be a bit different - I was considering rasing security levels for covert op missions in addition to making them take longer to complete. scans would now have the randomness again though, and some would have a time delay. It would just generally remove the whole "launch scan recall" nature of the game. |
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Scans pre R10 were "fine". Why were they changed then?
I will try and make the system "clearer", but tbh what is wrong with having chance in scans? |
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If i wanted a game of chance, I would have been playing poker or Risk. Strategy games like this is fun because they challenge the strategy of the game. You want some more chance in the game, why not introduce dicerolls for battles.. *sigh*
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Well, I wasnt the one that made the "change" then. You are the one now. So please enlighten us as to your reasons for making this change instead of dodging the question. |
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I'll try and justify it more, but not tonight. I need some sleep |
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/me throws the laws of gravity out of the window & then flies home |
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Why not just making different eta for finishing certain construictions? Like +1 eta for building a distorter, and maybe making important cons like factories ones a tick faster. And pls drop that annoying co-op bs.
And please make pa less predictable then deciding if a snowball will roll up or down a hill :p |
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Hasn't the whole purpose of waves/scans system since time immemorial been to give advantage to big organized alliances and to players with (multi) scan planets? Why the sudden change of heart?
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I have to say I agree with kargool here, i want to be assured of certain information before I land my attack, not have to recall and be pissed off because of some odd espionage system.
It ain't broke, so don't fix it. |
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Ok.
Firstly on the chance front, I don't see an issue in itself with bringing back chance in scans. The issue with that seems to be a combination of chance and a time delay, which makes most scans more difficult. I take it there's no complaint about time delays for covert ops, especially if some of them are stronger? I don't see how new players will suffer, as they'll have one system to learn instead of two. Quote:
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Covert ops isn't that bad. I think it could be good with modifications. Quote:
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And you still havent answered the question I asked : Why the change?? |
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Knowing YoureDoomed quite well i can actually clear this up. He took part in the majority of the alliance roiding missions but often taking the unappealing targets that needed covering. He was mainly a scanner in both of these rounds and thus focused his res/con on scans. To the best of my recollection he didnt actually start in a decent galaxy and subsequently spent quite a lot of money on exiling. Once he had found himself a decent galaxy he then carried on scanning and attacking bad targets until the universe had sorted itself out (ie there was a side with a clear advantage) he then set about roiding a lot of roid fat targets in team up raids with friends from various alliances until he had himself enough xp and size to be able to build a big enough fleet to attack these targets on his own and thus get into the t100. As for why he wasnt attacked and brought down a peg or 2 i cant say but i do recall him getting roided a fair few times and actually losing a lot of roids but by that time his xp was so high it didnt matter especially when coupled with the fact that he did his big attacking late in the round when a lot of people were starting to lose dedication and therefore he didnt pose too much of a threat and people were busy attempting to take down the number 1 alliance. But he did start both of those rounds as a scanner but as a scanner with a plan. One which eventually came to fruition and proved to be a good one. |
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first of all the whole agents thing sucks really it means u even land less then now!!! jpg scans are powerfull but not the best scan by far. also the cov ops are useless the only ones u use are hacking: res transfers and the dist amp killer. all others are rediculous and u can't get far by using them. maybe give xp? (and i mean reasonable been said in beta when i was cov op whore) but in short words cov ops suck atm nobody does them as a main as there's nothing to gain. maybe make some sort of jpg cov op?
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also on the time delay don't u just kill any speed that was left in the game!
and if that aint all u are exspecting to have 24/7 scanners and ac's as they need even more time with a time delay and they allready need alot of time setting up something decent |
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I fail to see a connection between Cov ops (espionage) and waves, unless you are going to implement a new type of Cov-op that completely blocks any sort of scan on a planet for a given numbe rof ticks, but at a significant cost?
For example destrucion of 5 (of your own) asteroids using a Cov-op Nuke to deploy an emp barrier for a given number of ticks (4) perhaps, but perhaps only useable once every 48 ticks ? The result would be completely bocked scans in and out for the given period. |
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i agree judge that it might be a good idea to play waves versus cov ops making cov op way better then they are now as atm they suck
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Personally I think there should be more uncertainty in the game in the sense that people shouldn;t have to relly on scans - scans should be a useful addition, but people should be able to plan an attack in such a way that chances are they will be able to land and roid - the onus should be on taking risks, becuase taking risks is fun - predictability is not. I for one could see myself landing an attack without a scan to tell me if there is defence or not.
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mid round... you'll do it once, then your fleet is dead
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If you're going to be landing attacks without scans, then you need the defenders to not be able to kill your entire attack fleet. If they do, then you're screwed for a good couple of weeks or more.
Defence is sent to stop you from getting any roids. Since most attack fleets are one class only, then to do so you must kill the entire fleet. So Kal - either defence is impossible, or you're talking complete crap. |
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or we make it easy to rebuild.
in pax i lost my fleet mid round and ended with a high rank |
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PaX was a mess though. And how do you make it easy to rebuild? - salvage?
Oh dear, I just had visions of Round 4 again. |
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Predictability may not be fun, but neither is getting your entire fleet twatted for absolutely no gain. Weather we like it or not people have come to rely on scans, no one would choose to land blind if given the choice.
If you want a bit of variety, try doing fakes. |
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I've seen players leave the game, but the most common reason is generally RL issues. You're welcome to throw rocks at me especially for "game development" and "loosing contact with the game" if you wish, as it's my department. I can't see how you can get upset with us for not changing the game and trying to change the game. Most people are very willing to see the game "improve", yet neglect to mention how to improve it, or mention general ideas like "get more players". The remaining ideas are generally, if anything, more unrealistic than most of my ideas, or are only minor clarifications and improvements on the existing game (e.g. timestamping jumpgate probes). Most of you are here and like playing the game because you're used to it. At most there's one or two changes and ship stats changes in each round, and people can cope with that more than majorly changing the game. While we're sitting on a couple of ideas that have been big discussion topics, there's not much support for specific suggestions in improving the game. Quote:
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Probably more contraversal :) Quote:
The scan and covert ops branches are related by them both being operations on a hostile planet, currently performed instantaneously. I think Covert Ops could be made stronger in terms of what they can do and in some cases the general damage (if people destroy one of my roids I usually laugh more than anything else; same with ships). A time delay might be more helpful though. Quote:
What about if there were no time delay for scans, only covert ops? Basically the only difference would be that amplifiers wouldn't be necessary, and in general scans would be slightly easier to do (especially at the beginning of the round), but random |
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About the time delay.
I played round 2-5. I then quit as I didn't have time as I started at Uni. Just started again this round (15). If time delay comes into play I know that I for one will not have the time to play any more. As I understand I would then have to log on, order a scan, log of, log on 1-4 hours later get the results, order the attack. Then log on in a couple of hours order a scan, wait a few hours check the scan result and pull or land. With a wife and child I can't see how I will be able to manage that. PA as it is still a game that favors players that can be online a lot. This will not help. |
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Can we STOP trying to use "realism" as an argument for bringing in something someone wants to change?? Its utter moronic. For example when we use this "jumpgate" technology I understand is somehow adapted from Babylon 5, please watch the original series as they are able to pick up fleet movements far away from the jumpgate at B5 and along time before they jump into the gate at B5.. Therefore I think scans are possible "realisticly" the way I interpret the universe in Planetarion. If we had full realism, noone would have had ships capable of leaving their own galaxy.. Secondly, the game changes I dont have a problem with. But now you want to do this total new shape of PA, that causes PA to halt for over a month before we get a real round, then there will be several months (my guess) before we will get the PaN round. Are you guys not afraid that all the waiting time will make people loose interest of the game?? And, I am working on some extended changesuggestions based on the thread i had earlier about some changes I saw as possible outcomes. (orignal thread here: http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=187824) But my main pri will always lie with the alliance im helping "running" And last, why is it so difficult to clab together this "freeround" in 2-3 weeks and start the game allready? |
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(Sorry for not reading the entire page... ;) )
I think cov ops should be made better. They are too bad at this point and for most players hardly worth researching. Top players have so many security centres and security at priority 1. At the moment it's almost impossible for a mediocre player to cov op him. Something should be changed here if cov ops will be used as jumpgate "scans". Say chance of succeeding is 66%. You are unlucky and you fail. Then you have to retry with lower stealth and have a reduced chance of succesfully getting a jpg "scan". I think that's quite a problem. - Do you mean to completely remove scans from the game? - What do you want to do with the fleet analysis scan? (Send spies to your own planet?) - I believe you said something about realism... A spy at an enemies' planet cannot see a fleet that is going elsewhere, so fleet analysis wouldn't fit in. I can imagine Unit scans work when the target has a fleet out (it goes the same way with scans), but I really don't see how a spy on the opponents planet could know what fleet is heading for your planet. |
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As a matter of intrest, will we be able to jgp ourselves by sending spies in with a 100% chance of success? (DarkLink got this thought ticking)
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A lot of issues have been raised and I'm trying to sort out if some of them are mindset on the old wave /amp issue or otherwise.
Agents dying has to go, especially for scans. "scans" can be instantaneous; you just run the risk of having less chance of getting a succesful scan. Your stealth rate is always dependant on the number of agents you send; there's no base stealth rate at your planet. To change the stealth rate of someone else's planet, you have to send in agents to take out their agents. To change the alert rate, you kill their security guards. I had a random factor (it changed 100 to 90-120) but that's looking a bit big, so it might have to be adjusted. I'm not sure I can ditch the time delay - I know it's unpopular, and after speaking to pople it's obviously unhappy as they want a "guarenteed" scan, but it's possible to think of it as scanning a few ticks in advanced as the equilivent of having more "amps". It's the only way I can think of to create a difference in scanning levels (the random factor aside) without amps. I know that people have issues with this: They're amps and distorters and waves, they work fine. The PA Team are obviously out of touch and trying to fix something that isn't broken! No. Firstly it'll make distorter whoring harder but still possible, and a more balanced tactic - it'll cost you more in terms of loosing production/research/production times, and more resources. In general, scanning will become easier for everyone, but time will still need to be spent researching and gathering agents, and some won't want to spend resources on scans. It will be possible to be (practically) "immune" from covert ops without spending any time building constructions, but immunity from scans will be harder. The formulae Security rating (Alert): # of security agents/number of roids * 100 (capped at 100) vs "scans" (# of security agents *1.15)/number of roids * 100 (capped at 115) vs "covert ops" Stealth Stealth for a mission: Base stealth (dependant on number of agents): 100 - integer(x^3 /4), where x is the number of agents. Stealth on a mission: int [ rand (90,120) / 100 * base stealth ] ^^ probably needs to be modified slightly. Security Guards will take 4 ticks and 3k of each resource to train. Agents will take 8 ticks and 15k of each resource to train. (you can get discounts depending on your personality) I had a tech tree that had three forks (something like this), and even tried to allocate figures in terms of difficulty and time to research (difficulty = X) as shown below: Primary Intelligence Gathering Takes: 10-12 ticks Prerequisits: none Gives: Nothing (combined with Primary Espionage gives ability to train more agents and security guards) Basic Observation Takes: 15-16 (?) ticks Prerequists: Primary Intelligence Gathering Gives: "Planet Summary" (X=1) := Planetname Rulername Race Metal Resources Crystal Resources Eonium Resources Metal Roids Crystal Roids Eonium Roids Total completed researches Total completed constructions Total units. Primary Explosives Takes: 10-12 ticks Prerequisits: none Gives: Nothing (combined with Primary Espionage gives ability to train more agents and security guards) Basic Plastique Usage Takes: 15-16 ticks Prerequisit: Primary explosives Gives:"Basic asteroid destruction" (X = 3) Advanced Planet Stealth I Takes: 20-24 ticks (?) Prerequisits: Basic Plastique Usage, Basic Observation Gives: "Complete Research Discovery" X = 3 APS II Takes: 30 ticks (?) Prerequisits: APS I Gives: "Complete Construction Discovery" X = 3 APS III Takes: 35-36 ticks (?) Prerequisits: APS II Gives: "Current Construction/Research Progress" X = 4 APS IV Takes: 45 ticks (?) Prerequisits: APS III Gives: "Delay Construction/Research Progress" X = 6 APS V Takes: 55 ticks (?) Prerequisits: APS V Gives: Resource stealing X = 6 APS VI Takes: 60 ticks (?) Prerequisits: APS V Gives: "Destroy a construction" X = 8 APS VII Takes: 70-72 ticks (?) Prerequisits: APS VI Gives: "Destroy a research" X = 8 ======================================== Advanced Atmospheric Exploration I Takes: 20-24 ticks (?) Prerequisits: Basic Plastique Usage, Basic Observation Gives: "Unit Scan" X = 3 AAE II Takes: 30 ticks (?) Prerequisits: AAE I Gives: "Advanced Asteroid Destruction" X = 4 AAE III Takes: 35-36 ticks (?) Prerequisits: AAE II Gives: "News Scan" X = 3 AAE IV Takes: 45-48 ticks (?) Prerequisits: AAE III Gives: "Production Scan" X = 4 AAE V Takes: 55-60 ticks (?) Prerequisits: AAE IV Gives: "Destroy units at base" X = 6 AAE VI Takes: 70-72 ticks (?) Prerequisits: AAE V Gives: "Destroy ships in production" X = 8 AAE VI Takes: 70-72 ticks (?) Prerequisits: AAE VI Gives: "Wipe Planet News" X = 10 ============================================== Advanced Outerspace Techniques I Takes: 20-24 ticks (?) Prerequisits: Basic Plastique Usage, Basic Observation Gives: "Scan ships out of base" X = 4 AOT II Takes: 30 ticks (?) Prerequisits: AOT I Gives: "Scan to find launching time of fleets" X = 5 AOT III Takes: 35-36 ticks (?) Prerequisits: AOT II Gives: "Jumpgate Scan " X = 5 AOT IV Takes: 45-48 ticks (?) Prerequisits: AOT III Gives: "Destroy ships in flight (less effective than ships at base)" X = 6 AOT V Takes: 55-60 ticks (?) Prerequisits: AOT IV Gives: "Fleet scan (as of last few rounds)" X = 8 AOT VI Takes: 70-72 ticks (?) Prerequisits: AOT V Gives: "Military scan (doesn't show eta or target co-ords)" X = 8 The scans need costs, but I'm not sure exactly what they should be - probably 500 of each resource up to 10k of each resource, or so (or maybe something like X*500, or X*1000). The times, if anything, probably need shortening by 20% or so. For the single player, the middle tree is probably the best, but alliances would prefer players with the last tech tree, and the first is quite powerful. I know this disadvantages the single player slightly - we could move the JGP into the middle section. I was trying to think of "on planet / around planet / away from planet" mentality. XP gained = 0.5*number of agents*X*10*min(2,target_value/your_value) |
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