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Unread 12 Feb 2017, 09:33   #42
booji
a bucket
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Chatham, UK
Posts: 1,073
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Re: Round stagnation

When talking about this we should probably remember that we mostly dislike the opposite of stagnation almost as much as we dislike stagnation! By this I mean the gangbangs that inevitably cause shifts in the top alliances. We particularly dislike them when we are on the receiving end of them – and I am sure we all have been – we want the other side to play fair and us to have a chance of hitting back. And I suspect that some of the ways out of the need for gangbangs would also help prevent stagnation from occurring.

P3n has spent several weeks asking around for allies for a gangbang on app (unsuccessfully but that does not matter for this argument) because we can’t land app on our own with such a large value difference. It seems to me therefore what needs to be done is to ensure that inferior alliances can have some gain from fighting a superior alliance. Conversely this can provide an incentive for alliances to move on to more equal wars.

At the moment, there is a binary situation land/recall. I think there should be a fuzzy area in between. So, I’m going to re-suggest missions which have been suggested in various forms for years, particularly:
  • Hit and run attacks: The attacker’s fleets avoid battle instead grabbing small numbers of roids and running. They steal a much smaller number of roids than in a normal attack. (max 5% cap?)
  • Commerce raiding: The attacker’s fleets avoid battle instead attacking merchant ships and destroying trade around the target planet. They gain a % of the target planet’s income for a couple of ticks.
In both cases, there is no big fleet battle providing an immense combat report. Instead there are some losses to attrition on both sides. This would be determined by the number of opposition ships in the sector but would never be anything like a full crash for either side.

These could be done either through simply having another mission alongside attack/defend/fake attack/fake defend or it could be done through issuing a mission once you get close enough to the target (I prefer the latter as it requires some activity and also gives you a way to change things). Potentially there could be a counter ‘guard’ mission for defenders to implement which would reduce the loss in roids and income.

I would also like cov-ops to be much more strategic rather than the tactical annoyance they are now. Cov opping someone to make a fleet slower, or to mean it launches a tick late, or to disable inc scans for a couple of ticks could potentially have a much bigger impact on the game and would provide a possible asymmetric way for alliances to fight.
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