Getting a Scanplanet to #1

[Lord Cheese]

As i have had so many PA Mails regarding how i got to and as things stand continue to stay at #1 i got fed up of replying (sorry if i didn't reply) and decided to post it all up here on the forums.

I started the round as HR's Scan planet with my tech going straight down techtree with a couple roid researchs, then co-ops, then ships, then travel time.

After i got co-ops i started using resource transfer to build up a stockpile of resources to test the new unit scans (300 unit scans a tick costs lots of resources ) adn then found myself with a 9mil resource excess so went building CR and headed off to attack a planet bigger than me but with little anti CR.

When I landed i spotted a vast increase in my score after hitting a target much bigger than me, realising this was part of the formula change for score mentioned in the changes this round section of the manual i went to talk to kal in support who confirmed that this was the case and the equation Score Gain = (Roids Taken^1.5) x ((Target Planet Value/Your Value)^2)*30
where ^ means to the power of, This equation accurately models upto 200k score gain after that it goes a tad (lots) wayward.
From looking at this i realised that the second section was the real critical section as it can be shown
ratio of 5/1 = 25 multiplyer
ratio of 4/1 = 16 multiplyer
ratio of 3/1 = 9 multiplyer
ratio of 2/1 = 4 multiplyer
ratio of 1/1 = 1 multiplyer
ratio of 1/2 = 0.25 Multiplyer
ratio of 2/5 = 0.16 Multiplyer

After suggesting this could be a way to go to #1 i was told it wasn't possible by the member of the support team so off i went to prove it.

First hitting smaller targets and taking no losses i found my value growing to the dizzying heights of 400k which started to affect my score increase on landing, i tried the roid swapping technique with zo0f that netted me a total of 400k score and 15k incomings.
Satisfied that this tecnique works i started hitting top 40 planets generally taking 50% fleet losses but capping lots and getting a lot of score the heavy losses weren't too serious as it kept down my value, which in turn allowed me to co-op more resources (i think i am currently sitting second on the co-op rankings - not bad for a cath planet).
Over the last night i capped on two big planets giving me a total increase of over 2mil score and durring the day i tend to try and hit smaller less likely to get defence planets, with the big 'uns getting me 600-1000k score a go and the smaller ones getting around 150-400k a go. The roids capped are normally lost back under waves of incomings the next few ticks this isn't really a problem as my income is co-op and keeps my value down its just a matter of defending the ones catching my fleets and/or with lots of structure killers.

Its been fun and i've enjoyed being #1 as a fully working scanplanet (although less effective now as it was silly to think all those waves could be defended and i've lost about 40 amps over the last day) and maintaining it while doing very little in the way of dodgy attacks - excluding one on zo0f but on the normal scale of top 10 winners very little - generally i dont think this tactic should be viable due to the possibility of exploiting this with roid swapping and escorting fleets in as well as a few other ideas me/zo0f/aldarn have had.

Although i love the idea of score for hitting planets bigger than you as it discourages bashing and encourages creative attacking, which the new stats allow i would suggest a reduction in this system to avoid people exploiting to #1. I havn't thought to much abouit how to prevent it but i would suggest instead of a system squaring the difference a system where it just uses a straight multiplyer to stop tiny planets roiding bigger ones. Also the stats allowed this as people all over covered terran de class ships as imo terran are overpowered. If terran were to take a reduction in their de effectiveness then perhaps more could be diverted into anti CR. Also a general reduction of armour would help as it would stop tiny (relatively) fleets getting through and make roiding harder. Another good solution would be to have ships targetting a second class so that classes could be covered a lot more effectively by a compact fleet, even if say the second class it targets takes a negative modifier say 50% less firepower. Personally i am a big fan multi class targetting and this would have certainly reduced the possible targets for me this round. I have talked to A2 about this and he said although it can be in R12 it cannot be coded into R11.

The ultimate solution is to take it out altogether and go back to flat tactics where farming wins rounds but i would hate to see this step as it increases and encourages bashing, while keeping tactics flat.

Hope this provided an explanation to all those who mailed/pm'd me about it, i probably forgot to put a whole load of stuff in.

Skinny_Boy - [HR]Scanwhore

[Tis]

Thanks for proving how utterly gay the experience formula is. Anything exponential is rediculous.

[Nadar]

lol pld m8

[Henck]

nice work skinny and thx for those scans in begin

[Zo0f]

The only good way of getting the point across was by doing it. I think you far surpassed our initial expectations of it though. Its nice to see you have had fun doing it too

I most liked hearing the people claiming you werent a scan planet. Clearly every planet has 30+ amps and no roid tech hehe.

I think the most important thing is that hopefully it will be changed now. Im not sure what to do to fix it though

[Seth Mace]

Skinny is the #1

[Kal]

luckily its easily fixable in a large variety of ways

[jerome]

Question: Is exchanging roids illegal?
The controversy lies in the fact that it is exchanging, not donating roids, both participants will end with equal amounts as they startedoff with, but they should ofcourse derive a boost in xp. I believe if it's not already illegal as it's not 100% farming, as theres no ONE planet gaining, both involved will gain etc, it must be made illegal next round.
I assume it's not illegal atm, as I've seen enough people in beta doing so atm, myself included. However, I do agree with the fact that it SHOULD be illegal and the xp growth shouldn't be as exponential.

[Kal]

roid exchainging is in violation of the eula - the helping others gain score section.

[jerome]

Please understand from this point onwards, I am not an advocate for the method, infact I do want it to get abolished, even though I myself have done it, but it was also to expose the frailities here:

18.
CHEATING


Any action in game intended to let one account gain score at
the direct cost of another with the main intend being the score
gain for the one account.

This method is useful to gain score for BOTH participants involved and doesn't deal any sort of real cost to either parties, as such it doesn't break the EULA. Technicalities suck, I know. If you were to be closed for exchanging roids a few times for the xp boost, please answer honestly, if you would argue that it was not stated illegal in the EULA and the focus was on one person gaining, not people helping each other. I mean, atm, it's done on a small level between 2-3 friends, It wont take much planning to make it much more organized and a bit like Pyramid farming, but for xp instead.

My point basically is to just edit the EULA a tiny bit

ps. im going to bed now, exams tomorrow etc, please leave the flames/arguments/discussions 16hrs for me to reply to, sorry :\.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by _ryzekiel_

Please understand from this point onwards, I am not an advocate for the method, infact I do want it to get abolished, even though I myself have done it, but it was also to expose the frailities here:

This method is useful to gain score for BOTH participants involved and doesn't deal any sort of real cost to either parties, as such it doesn't break the EULA.

ps. im going to bed now, exams tomorrow etc, please leave the flames/arguments/discussions 16hrs for me to reply to, sorry :\.

on a tick by tick basis though 1 must loose score first when it looses roids.

[jerome]

Since, It takes a tick to register score, you could always launch as so->
planet a launches tick 1000 with eta 10 to planet b, lands at tick 1010.
planet b launches at tick 1010 with eta 10 to planet a, lands at 1011. Thus, all the loss will be paid back almost right away, so barely noticeable. :\

[edit going to bed for real now :<]

[Achilles]

18.
CHEATING


Any action in game intended to let one account gain score at
the direct cost of another with the main intend being the score
gain for the one account.

Originally Posted by Kal

on a tick by tick basis though 1 must loose score first when it looses roids.

However Kal, as the main intent is to gain score for both planets roid swapping isn't in violation of the EULA. It's just lame. The EULA needs a slight addition to outlaw this.

[Tis]

and how do you tell a one time roid swap from a attack/counterattack?

the huge problem is the current exp formula.

[Tomkat]

Nice one on pointing out errors and bugs. There are others in this game who'd keep quiet about it and then use it to their advantage, come the real round. Good on you for trying to make the game fairer and better, and treating the beta round how it should be

[Cayl]

The EULA itself is utter crap. This game has been from tick 1 round 1 about nothing but gaining score at the direct cost of another. Is it illegal to roid someone? That roiding fleet's causing direct roid/score loss entirely at the other planet's loss with the main intent being the victor's gain.

I mean that could be the statement of the game goal in the introduction. "The main goal of Planetarion is the accumulation of score and asteroids for yourself and your alliance at the direct cost of your enemies."

But back on topic, thanks for doing the legwork and preventing an utter farce of a round

[furssie]

PLD skinny

Now what will the creator do with those exponential XP now?

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Tis

Thanks for proving how utterly gay the experience formula is. Anything exponential is rediculous.

Score increase HAS to be exponential.

[Andy_r]

Well done to Lord Cheese for outthinking the rest of the universe. I'm in favour of this sort of thing. If we had the tough 6k roid limit of round 10, we'd be seing a battle of wits for the top 10 places, not a battle of sizes.

Sadly, this method of making the game more intersting was squashed when I won a round 10 beta this way, and I guess we'll see it squashed the same way for round 11, because it's practically impossible to tell the difference between 2 enemies attacking each other repeatedly in an attempt to kill each other and 2 enemies attacking each other repeatedly in an attempt to gain score.

[Lord Cheese]

most my score was gained fairly not via roid swapping - just getting my fleet and charging it at top 40 planets to get 1 mil a time in score and this is a fair way to win imo its just finding a way of stopping the farming/swapping

[Synthetic_Sid]

I'm not sure what was going through Spinner's mind when he made score gain proportional to an exponential of the ratio of target_value/attacker_value. The formula for roid-capping as it stood last round worked pretty well - without being open to easy whole-scale abuse. Any formula which allows a tiny planet to shoot right up the rankings in a few attacks (which this one does) is not only open to abuse, but in a real round WOULD be abused.

The whole concept of "the crapper you've played the easier you can gain score" seems contrary to the central theme of PA - working your way up the rankings by playing well for an entire round. With the formula last round, a small planet could jump nicely up the rankings with a well timed attack - but not gain ludicrous amounts of score by taking roid donations from friends (which is what this type of formula would lead to).

[Kal]

the ratio can be limited, and the tools can detect abuse

[Synthetic_Sid]

The issue, to me, is what's the reasoning behind formulas that lead to a situation where late in the round you're actually best off suiciding the bulk of your fleet if you want to be able to compete for a high finishing rank?

Having exp score gain the way it currently is (even with some limit on the ratio) means that a planet that's done well all round (and hence has a large fleet) is physically unable to gain score at the same rate as one who's played badly. Doesn't that somehow seem wrong? Are we really meant to have to either play badly, or deliberately lose our fleets, to compete for top finishes?

May just as well go the whole hog and make score entirely random - that way the objective of allowing anyone to win, without requiring them to build up a fleet and successfully defend their roids, would be achieved. And that would also stop any cheating.

[Kal]

fleets have a value, and XP gains are actually lower for normal attacks than they were last round, so with the ratio limited to say 2, you would have to do an impossible amount of roiding inorder to catch up

[Synthetic_Sid]

Originally Posted by Kal

fleets have a value, and XP gains are actually lower for normal attacks than they were last round, so with the ratio limited to say 2, you would have to do an impossible amount of roiding inorder to catch up

So XP gain from roiding is now only a way for crap planetst o gain score - and for big planets ranking is basically back to old style value? What was wrong with last round's formula - it encourage large planets to solo attack vs other large planets. If exp gain is now significantly lower then it's back to bashing as usual I guess

[jerome]

Forgive me for my ignorance but as I didn't play last round, care to fill me in on how that formula worked?

[Gerbie]

Originally Posted by Synthetic_Sid

So XP gain from roiding is now only a way for crap planetst o gain score - and for big planets ranking is basically back to old style value? What was wrong with last round's formula - it encourage large planets to solo attack vs other large planets. If exp gain is now significantly lower then it's back to bashing as usual I guess

XP gain is now lower when you attack a smaller planet. This is meant to stop the bashing. The fact that XP gain is now generally lower than last round is a result of the fact that most people are still continuing to bash in stead of attacking people of decent value.

[Gerbie]

Originally Posted by _ryzekiel_

Forgive me for my ignorance but as I didn't play last round, care to fill me in on how that formula worked?

Last round it was XP=(roids_stolen^0,5)/2

[Jonas]

The hardest thing I did this round was getting out of top 100. I were top 20 for most of the round, then my exams took time and I found out id suicide so my gal wouldnt have to defend me/themselves constantly. I attacked someone with my 3k DE, but instead of dying, I took 450 roids off him who were 2 times bigger than me. Eventually I managed to kill my fleet and give away 35 million resources, however this only brought me to 109 in ranks. I simply dont see the point with XP. The PA admins simply cant make it work anyway. We see abuse/bugs etc of it every round

/me votes for old score(value) system

[Blazde]

Hmm...

Didn't we learn this formula didn't work back in round 10? Or did I imagine that....

[Wishmaster]

bring back the old score system. easy and fun-and u cant abuse it...

[Boogster]

I hate stats. I don't understand them.

[Tis]

Originally Posted by Blazde

Hmm...

Didn't we learn this formula didn't work back in round 10? Or did I imagine that....

So spinner made it "better."

Yay!

[Zeke]

(Roids Taken^1.5) x ((Target Planet Value/Your Value)^2)*30

what the ****?
Why are you using roids taken and then a "x" for multiply and at the end "*" for multiply with 30 or what?

[Lord Cheese]

Originally Posted by Zeke

(Roids Taken^1.5) x ((Target Planet Value/Your Value)^2)*30

what the ****?
Why are you using roids taken and then a "x" for multiply and at the end "*" for multiply with 30 or what?

I think your being a tad pedantic as they both mean the same thing and i was just doing it off the top of my head.
I think the R10 score system was based on any combat by the planet this round it seems just based on roid cap, and there are more constraints to the effectiveness of it from R10

[SYMM]

Originally Posted by Achilles

However Kal, as the main intent is to gain score for both planets roid swapping isn't in violation of the EULA. It's just lame. The EULA needs a slight addition to outlaw this.

Simple logic dictates that if "both planets gain score" is true, then the statement "one planet gains score AND one planet gains score" is true, which by and-elimination means "one planet gains score" is true.


See, you're not the only one who can be a pedantic little ****.

[Zeke]

Okay thanks alot
I was just a little confused about that cause I calcuated I would gain 154 mil, but know how it works

[derry]

why just not make it --> (roids_capped^1.5)*(score_defender/score_attacker)

makes it with 150k defender and 200k atatcker and 300 roids capped -->
(300^1.5)*(150/200) --> 5196*0.75 --> 3897 points

and opposite

150k attacker vs a 200k defender with 300 roids capped
(300^1.5)*(200/150) --> 5196 * 1.33 --> 6910 points

where there should be cap limits arround 50% & -50% on the (score_defender/score_attacker) bits so it can't be abused by small players attacking planets 150000 timers there size and capping a few roids

its has the exponatial bit from how more roids the more score, it gives smaller attackers an extra bit of XP gain by attacking bigger players, and gives bigger planets "less" score when attacking smaller planets, thus countering farming/bashing?

the downside is that when bigger planets farm/bash the farms/bashed planets stay longer in their attack range since they don't gain that fast xp

[Lord Cheese]

bash limit is based on value not score derry

lots of people seem to be farming on last day

[derry]

always seem to confuse those 2 lol

they should get rid of 1 imo

[jerome]

Originally Posted by Lord Cheese

bash limit is based on value not score derry

lots of people seem to be farming on last day

in a beta too

[Achilles]

Originally Posted by SYMM

Simple logic dictates that if "both planets gain score" is true, then the statement "one planet gains score AND one planet gains score" is true, which by and-elimination means "one planet gains score" is true.

If you examine the statement in the EULA it says that one planet gaining score at the cost of another is wrong

Therefore if both planets involved gain score it is not wrong according to the EULA. Hence what I said.

Originally Posted by SYMM

See, you're not the only one who can be a pedantic little ****.

I'm glad you decided to take the time to point out my character flaws in such a thoughtful and insightful manner. Next time, however. assume that I think you are an idiot and am simply going to ignore the stellar wisom you are about to impart on me. And shut the **** up.

[SYMM]

If a planet has their roids taken, they will lose score.
Whether or not they subsequently/simultaneously gain score is irrelevant.

Planet A gains 100 score and loses 50 score.
Planet B gains 100 score and loses 50 score.

Planet A gains score at the expense of B.
Planet B gains score at the expense of A.

Both are breaking the EULA.

[derry]

so attacking any1 is in violation of the Eula

why don't they just make the eula consting of 1 sentence..

"If you do something we don't like, ur out"

if ppl don't like it, don't sign up

[edit]typo[/edit]

[Spinner]

The changed XP formula does a good job of giving a score boost to daring sucessfull attacks.
It also gives minimal score to those who constantly hit planets near the 40% limit.
The problem is that it opens up to abuse through not having any limits at the top, so we need a capped value here, to avoid values out of control.
I'll be back with more over the next days.
And Sid, I'd love an email from you pls (:

[Cooling]

Why is it almost impossible to drop out of the top 100?

I stopped playing the beta 3 days ago, got roided about fifty million times and still managed to finish top 100 :/

[Mr. Juggalo]

pff

scrub this whole stupid value thing that just confuses people anyway, and go back to how it was pre round 10.

[Kal]

value is what it was pre round 10....

[Cayl]

Its hard to drop out of the top 100, because so little of your planet's score and value resides in your fleet now. I did the same thing, suicided my fleet on an (unsuccessful thank god) attack, and let my surviving heavy ships sit at home and get killed off for the last 2 days ... but once a planet has XP you can't take it away from them, and buildings and researches or whatever also contribute, so its hard to knock someone completely out of the running even just by roiding them.

The game is a lot less defensive and a lot more aggressive.

And Spinner... this game is riding a very fine line. It is already more beneficial for a planet to keep their value low by various means to beat your 40% bashing-cap. If you put anymore score encouragement on being a small crap planet, I don't think I can play this game.

I know you want to make things entertaining, and interesting for small players, but why put a penalty on the people who are winning? What did they do wrong?

[Lord Cheese]

I know you want to make things entertaining, and interesting for small players, but why put a penalty on the people who are winning? What did they do wrong? <----bashed 45k players (at least) out of the game since r5 would be a start