To be honest I love messing with covert ops, I like the fact that when someone much bigger takes my roids I can get some 'payback' by blowing up some of their roids or ships. Taking out structures is also great. This round there was a juicy target that had more amps than I could block so he always knew how to defend my attacks. I cov - op'd several times and took out a pile of his amps and hey presto he couldn't scan me any more. I was able to land a few good attacks by using fake fleets. That is a strategy that wouldn't have been available to me if you remove covert op's. Sure they can be a little petty, but it can be fun at times. Perhaps changing them slightly to reflect the races - so maybe Zik cov - op's can steal a few ships while Ter / Xan blow them up and Cat simply stun them for a few rounds (performed just before an attack lands this can make a slight difference). Perhaps only Cat's get the emp op that destroys amps / dist's while the rest get Havoc, where the structures destroyed are chosen at random (Cat's get those too).
As for the sliders, I used them a lot to start off with. As my planet built up, I changed my priorities from research and mining, to a bit more on construction. As my research got to the point where I wasn't bothered about what was left to research I changed more towards mining, construction and shipwrights, now my priorities are - and have been for a while - on mining, shipwrights and security. That's how I played this round - slowly and steadily, shifting my focus to reflect where I was in the game. Again I would not like this option to be removed.
Personally I think that adding more scans at the beginning of the scan tree would just mean that it takes longer to get to the end of it where the really useful ones are.
Being a long time Zik player I am completely against the idea of the steal ships getting destroyed when they steal an enemy ship. With the slowest initiative of all attack ships this means that the Ziks get shot up by the enemy fleet and then what ever is left gets blown up when they return fire. Either let Zik ships stay alive more - perhaps drop the steal/die rate to 75% from 100% or let them fire earlier in the combats at comparable initiatives to the Ter ships. This allows the Cat and Xan to keep their faster firing advantage. That said emp seems way over powered this round, I get my ass stunned by fleets half my size, I have found myself specifically sending out fleets with the aim of steeling Cat and ETD ships rather than going for the roids as their ships are just so effective!
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Originally Posted by GReaper
The game needs reworking from the ground up.
Planetarion really needs to be fun for the solo player, and something which becomes even better in alliances. At the moment it seems to be something where solo play isn't recommended, forcing you to join an alliance unless you want to get crushed quickly.
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This I think is a really overlooked and important statement. There are a decent number of long time players that are in alliances and they are the bedrock of the game. BUT it is the new players who are the lifeblood of the game will be the bedrock of the game in the future. If new players come along and find that they cannot really play because every time they get some small success someone else comes along and destroys / steals it - They wont hang around. Without engaging new players and keeping their interest the game will slowly grind down and will end up being a handful of grizzled veterans sitting around saying things like 'remember 10 years ago when we used to play PA? Man those were the days!".
P.S. The war between Hex and the Horde was fun Morpheus!