Suggestion: Roid Destruction (no, not like you've heard before)

[Sally]

I've posted this in another thread, but thought I'd throw it out for discussion:

How about whenever a battle for roids takes place, some get destroyed?

In other words, you send 200 pods to steal roids, and a ton of ships to back them up. You come away with 120 roids, but 20 more get caught in the crossfire and destroyed. There's nothing anyone can do about this.

That might help farming, and would put more emphasis on roid production as the number of roids in the universe would keep going down without it.


Thoughts?


Sally

Farms are not that hard to find, when you find one, tell everybody that you know and you can blow them up.
Farms are easy to get rid off you know...

[Scouse]

There's not enough roids in PA already, so destroying more would be a bad idea, in my opinion.

[hAl]

It would be better to be able to destroy stocked resources. Maybe even do sneak attacks just to kill stocked resources.
Let's call it sabotage attacks.

Sabotage attack:
Target xx:xx:xx
Sending out raiding parties to destroy __% of targets current resources
Costs is 10% of hostile resources to be destroyed.
Raiding parties are recalled if hostile target spends at least 50% of resources. Spend resources on sabotage raids are lost.

hAl

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Sally
In other words, you send 200 pods to steal roids, and a ton of ships to back them up. You come away with 120 roids, but 20 more get caught in the crossfire and destroyed. There's nothing anyone can do about this.

If the destroyed roids come out of what the attacker otherwise would have gotten, then it makes attacks more expensive (same launch costs and ship losses; but fewer roids captured). If the destroyed roids come out of what the defender would have been left with, then it makes attacks more devastating (more roids lost from the target's point of view--harder to recover/rebuild). If the destroyed roids are "shared" between both attacker and defender, then both suffer to some degree.

Basically, it becomes sort of a "tax on attacks" by increasing their negative effects. I think that's the wrong approach--we should find ways to encourage more attacks.

[hAl]

Originally posted by Tactitus
we should find ways to encourage more attacks.

I just did, one post before yours.

hAl

[hAl]

Originally posted by Tactitus
Basically, it becomes sort of a "tax on attacks" by increasing their negative effects. I think that's the wrong approach--we should find ways to encourage more attacks.

How about give bonus scores for taking roids from bigger planets. If you take a roid from someone with bigger score then yourself you get a bonus(point). Every bonus would be worth 10k more in your score.

Off course when your lose roids to a planet smaller than yourself you might be losing them again untill you have 0 left.

hAl

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by hAl
How about give bonus scores for taking roids from bigger planets. If you take a roid from someone with bigger score then yourself you get a bonus(point). Every bonus would be worth 10k more in your score.

I think that would be a bad idea--at least without more significant changes to the game.

I have long been against "empty" scoring; that is, giving score for items which do not materially improve your ability to attack or defend. The reason, of course, is that score is used in so many places in the game: it controls who you can attack and who can attack you, it controls roid-cap percentages, and it's used in so many target locators. Giving bonus points defeats the purpose of how score is used in all these other places.

Beyond that, I'm skeptical of the idea of "honor" scoring. It introduces a slippery element into the game (specifically, trying to define what is an "honorable" attack and therefore worthy of some sort of bonus). Previous attempts to encourage small planets to attack larger planets this way have ended badly, because players have figured out ways to obtain the bonuses that weren't very "honorable" at all (the R4 piggybacking fiasco being perhaps the best example of good intentions gone awry).

[hAl]

Originally posted by Tactitus
I think that would be a bad idea--at least without more significant changes to the game.

I have long been against "empty" scoring; that is, giving score for items which do not materially improve your ability to attack or defend. The reason, of course, is that score is used in so many places in the game: it controls who you can attack and who can attack you, it controls roid-cap percentages, and it's used in so many target locators. Giving bonus points defeats the purpose of how score is used in all these other places.

Well it is true that the suggestion I made gives empty scores as you put it. But at least it is tied to a regular PA object which already scores. Also it is score that can be retaken from you by opponents so it is not just an honour bonus.

Beyond that, I'm skeptical of the idea of "honor" scoring. It introduces a slippery element into the game (specifically, trying to define what is an "honorable" attack and therefore worthy of some sort of bonus). Previous attempts to encourage small planets to attack larger planets this way have ended badly, because players have figured out ways to obtain the bonuses that weren't very "honorable" at all (the R4 piggybacking fiasco being perhaps the best example of good intentions gone awry).

This is true but atm the game only incourages attacks on small planets. I am not really in favour of honourable attack as it is generally hard to implement a decent system and it is often easy to abuse. Still as a suggestion I put this one forward as it is extremly easy to implement (you need only a single bonuscounter element) whereas suggestions in the past were all very complex and this suggestion is not that easy to abuse as gaining score this way is always a loss for the the highest score player.

Also you asked for ways to encourage attacks and as such I think it will be good. Atm too soon into a round the score gained from roids is passed by the score lost in gaining it. Attacking gets to difficult. By improving the score of (certain) roids attacking stays a valid option much longer. Also at the moment when you are behind there seems almost no way to make up ground but this suggestion woould at least make it possible (though not easy).

So allthough I agree that a score bonus does not seem the obvious choice it might be one of the few actual options that can be implemented. I understand you are against the basic principle of this way of scoring but how do you see the suggestion itself. Like what are its flaws...

hAl

[Chax]

If everything else remains the same and we get extra score for stealing roids from bigger people I sure wouldn't switch from attacking planets smaller than me to bigger. On the contrary I might see a fat target with all ships out and offline and say to myself no thanks, this empty score will hinder me from attacking smaller planets and will make me a possible target for bigger ones.

If on the other hand I could get reduced score, then it might be interesting.

[RealJames]

I'm in favour of score representing what it does now. I don't think points should be 'awarded'. You also have to bear in mind from a programming point of view it's easier to recalculate score every tick than it is to keep a floating score value for every planet and adjust it every tick. One bug could dramatically affect it, and fixing it would be near impossible.

As regards destroying roids in crossfire, it is an interesting idea. However due to roid capping you're already hampered for sending overly large fleets (I am in favour of this) so I see no need for this from a fairness point of view.

I'd really like to see the return of some sort of cargo ship/smuggler, but a slightly more usable one.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally posted by Sally
How about whenever a battle for roids takes place, some get destroyed?

Your surname isn't Thorne, is it?

Anyway, quite the contrary is needed. Roids should be spontaneously generated as someone else suggested a while ago. A random roid (either U, M or C) given every 5 ticks after the first 100 ticks (to make the beginning bit still challenging). It would drastically increase the amount of useful targets out there.

[RealJames]

Originally posted by Dante Hicks
Your surname isn't Thorne, is it?

Anyway, quite the contrary is needed. Roids should be spontaneously generated as someone else suggested a while ago. A random roid (either U, M or C) given every 5 ticks after the first 100 ticks (to make the beginning bit still challenging). It would drastically increase the amount of useful targets out there.

Interesting idea. However I feel it woud encourage inactivity and would make players happy with stagnation, as opposed to working to avoid it.

If you have roids spawning themselves surely this will increase the possibility of being a nice target for someone. Having incoming is not really stagnation,and,a few more worthwhile targets out there may encourage more attacking.

[RealJames]

Originally posted by Gudgeon
If you have roids spawning themselves surely this will increase the possibility of being a nice target for someone. Having incoming is not really stagnation,and,a few more worthwhile targets out there may encourage more attacking.

My comment about stagnation was along the lines of people will be happy not to attack if the game has gone one-sided and you're on the winning side because they can gain as much by just sitting on their planets and getting the odd free roid. If you're on the winning side of a stagnant universe finding anything to attack that's going to be less than 20k score/roid can get challenging.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally posted by RealJames
My comment about stagnation was along the lines of people will be happy not to attack if the game has gone one-sided

Let's say there are three blocks in a 10k universe all evenly matched with 3k members each (the other 2k being unallied, inactive or whatever). Block A is winning, Block B in the middle and C worst of all.

So the roid scoreboard is looking something like :

Block A : 300,000 Roids (total)
Block B : 100,000 Roids
Block C : 80,000 Roids
Everyone else : 60,000

(obviously the numbers aren't representative of how the universe would look, but just to give a taste).

Now, every day let's presume there would be 5 deliveries of free roids (so 5 roids per planet per day). That's 15k of roids for each block per day, within a month Block A's lead would be severely undermined. So : If no-one attacked then Block A would have a slower rate of growth than Block B or C (proportionally). They'd still maintain their absolute lead (of 200k roids) but these roids would be less important since roughly 450k roids are coming to each block per month. It'd make domination by a very small number very difficult to pull off, since they'd have to be constantly attacking everyone else to prevent them from their lead being reduced.

Therefore, the incentive for attacking is greater than ever. The actual amount of roids per day (i.e. delay between respawning) would need to be tweaked, based on activity, amount of players, etc, etc.

The only real downside I could see is it aids farming by cutting the costs, in some cases to nil.

[RealJames]

Originally posted by Dante Hicks
Let's say there are three blocks in a 10k universe all evenly matched with 3k members each (the other 2k being unallied, inactive or whatever). Block A is winning, Block B in the middle and C worst of all.

So the roid scoreboard is looking something like :

Block A : 300,000 Roids (total)
Block B : 100,000 Roids
Block C : 80,000 Roids
Everyone else : 60,000

(obviously the numbers aren't representative of how the universe would look, but just to give a taste).

Now, every day let's presume there would be 5 deliveries of free roids (so 5 roids per planet per day). That's 15k of roids for each block per day, within a month Block A's lead would be severely undermined. So : If no-one attacked then Block A would have a slower rate of growth than Block B or C (proportionally). They'd still maintain their absolute lead (of 200k roids) but these roids would be less important since roughly 450k roids are coming to each block per month. It'd make domination by a very small number very difficult to pull off, since they'd have to be constantly attacking everyone else to prevent them from their lead being reduced.

Therefore, the incentive for attacking is greater than ever. The actual amount of roids per day (i.e. delay between respawning) would need to be tweaked, based on activity, amount of players, etc, etc.

The only real downside I could see is it aids farming by cutting the costs, in some cases to nil.

That is a very good point. I shall have to think out my responces more. My comment was more 'why should I bother attacking? I can just sit here and collect roids'. Some players are more preoccupied with getting their name on that t250 list than their side winning any war. I'm not saying that's wrong, but it doesn't motivate war for those people.

btw 3k+3k+3k+2k=11k, not 10k

[Dante Hicks]

Originally posted by RealJames
btw 3k+3k+3k+2k=11k, not 10k

D'oh! And to think I have to give advice to people about their rents each and every day.

[r72dk]

funny to see how this thread developed to Roid Destruction to Roid Creation

Imo, i liked and had already thought on the roid giving to increase the roid total in universe, so am here supporting that idea.

Indeed, providing the universe keeps stable the fixed difference becomes meaningless with time provided that there´s a significant amount of roids being "created".

One drawback is that universe isnt stable ( ffs if it would ), so attacks must be taking in account and then, assuming there exists a dominante faction around, the roids will sweep to the stronger side, thus making the opposition more uneven.

Maybe a way to counter this, which is a nice idea and could be implemented to surpress some needs *sigh, was to assign a fixed amount of roids to a certain planet. A lower limit of roids that could be taken away, and make that value a variable one changing accordingly to factors such as score.

Question to the creators: how hard would it be to setup this idea ?
Code it and put into play.

r72dk

[hAl]

Originally posted by RealJames
I'm in favour of score representing what it does now. I don't think points should be 'awarded'. You also have to bear in mind from a programming point of view it's easier to recalculate score every tick than it is to keep a floating score value for every planet and adjust it every tick. One bug could dramatically affect it, and fixing it would be near impossible.

Well, that was exactly why I suggested this method. You only have to keep 1 extra field of info per planet and that is a count of a planets bonus points. When recalcuting score every tick you can just add those bonus points multiplied by 10k. When gaining roids from higher score planet you also add them to bonus points and when losing them to smaller planet also subtract them from the bonus points. Extremly easy to implement and keeps the normal recalcing of complete score every tick.

You might be happy with score representing what it does now but is is a known fact that the current way of scoring induces stagnation rather quickly in a round. I see here a suggestion to create roids out of thin air which is in game terms about as bad a giving bonus scores.

I do not think creating roids out of thin air that will make attacking more attractive much but it will make farming quite a lot easier. Also inactives will just start building PDS as they do not need to attack for roids anymore but just manage to keep those roids that they get for free.

Also someone suggested that roid creation would help a losing block regaining back its ground where actually it does just the opposite. The alliance on top is already gaining loads of roids every day because of its far superieur fleet and they will welcome the steady supply of new roids into their targets. The alliance behind will not be able to counter this cause both the score difference and the difference in fleet size will grow more and more every day. So what you actually create is a feast for the leading pack and a losing battle for the ones who are following behind. To let a losing side keep up and give them any chance of a fight you need to counter the difference in fleet size so either give extra fleet to those who are losing (would be strange move gamewise) or reduce the fleet of the people in the lead (which seems a possible option).

hAl