[Memtok]

Going through this thread, it appears to me most agree support planets are "bad". Why is this? Simply stated, because they circumvent the alliance limits via untagged members...

Alliance limits were set in place as a means to prevent HUGE conglomerations of players in a few strong groups, thus leaving new people (the life blood of continuing this game) from having an enjoyable experience. Granted, alliance limits alone have not made the game entirely "balanced" (if by that you mean an unallied planet has as likely a chance to succeed at the level of an allied one), but I DO feel those alliance limits have made the game more competitive over all. And from this new competitiveness has arisen, most naturally, strategies evolved to give each alliance that extra "edge" needed to beat their foes. This is where support planets enter the picture...

The question now is how, or even WHETHER, to regulate these support planets...

Think outside the box a moment:

What constitutes an "acceptable" support planet?

I doubt seriously ANY reasonable alliance would want to eliminate Scan planets. Doing so would impede the growth of too many members overall, as well as eliminate much of the co-operational aspect of this game.

What about Def Planets? These planets would be much harder to defend as being "in the interests of the game". The creation of planets solely for the defense of an alliance would seem to be a direct circumvention of alliance limits. Also, Def planets could easily morph into "ship/roid farms", could be used to overwhelm the defense on target planets via lack of regard for ship losses from the defense planet "attack helper", or any of a number of other pernicious uses...

The problem, from my way of thinking, is that a Scan Planet, especially with the alliance fund/taxation etc, can relatively easily swap to become a Def planet, and vice versa. How do you rectify this?

Perhaps thought should be given to ALLOWING both Scanners and Def planets into the game officially, but placing limits upon the numbers of those planets allowable to an alliance. I'm sure we all know people who are completely happy being scanners, and we also know people who love defending their mates more than attacking, so why penalize people who seek their enjoyment in these activities, instead of the unrestrained pursuit of roids and score? Afterall, it is relatively easy to identify a Scanner or a Def planet via thier build pattern. If it is an in-game option to sign up for an alliance as one of these 2 types of planets, then more than 1 instance of suspect activity in aid of a given alliance by an unregistered planet fitting a certain build type could easily be "justified" as suspension and/or closure worthy.

Granted, there may be coding problems to doing this, but are these coding problems insurmountable? I would have no clue...

More to the point would be the mechanics of implementing the inclusion of support planets. Do you allow them to sign up ONLY pre-round (or before the end of protection), or allow continued recruitment of these types of planets throughout the round? Do you allow unrestricted "switching" between the modes of play? What, if any, portion of the support planet's score would go towards the overall alliance score?

These question would be easier to address than the issue at the heart of Support planets though- The question of whether they should exist at all.

I say yes, but with regulation.