Planetarion Forums

Gate · 12 Oct 2005, 14:41

Random idea I just had whilst on the toilet without reading material.

Since there's been some people having issues with the whole allymates/galmates being able to scan you thing, why not have it so you can turn your distorters on and off?*

It adds a small element of risk of letting others through, but it keeps you in control of when you want people to scan you.

Also, if you go out/go to bed, you can then have friends scanning you to see if you get incomings, but you then take another obvious risk as people may then be able to fleet scan prelaunched attacks or get an attack through on you.

Comments?

*yes, a genuine question, I haven't thought this through properly yet

Monroe · 12 Oct 2005, 15:18

I can't see how this can hurt, but I'm not sure it's actually useful, but it certainly is an interesting idea. I guess the only downside would be if you forgot they were off it would kinda be a opps! Maybe set a timer so they would only be off for 4 hours or whatever.

Clogg · 12 Oct 2005, 15:26

I think this won't help. Because when do you want to scan your alliancemates? I can only think of 3 reason:

- An jgp at his request
- An unitscan, because he has incomming and you need to figure out what you need to cover him or to figure out what the attacker is sending.
- An newsscan, because you do not completely trust this member and you want to know what he has done.

With the first reason he is around so he can turn his distorters off (prolly the most common scan aswell). About the second one, the player prolly isn't around, otherwise you will have received a bcalc with his ships on it already. So in this case it would hard to also switch the distorters off.
Let's hope the third thing doesn't happen too often.

So in general, I think that the amount of distorters being nulified for alliance mates is a better option then the lightswitch for distorters.

Benneh · 12 Oct 2005, 15:37

I like it!

You can have them on when you want them on(eg someone can scan you to attack you but oh my when you get incs you turn them on

and in some cases they cant get a jgp of you).

noah02 · 12 Oct 2005, 16:25

Could just default it "off" for each planet on galaxy page or something and then you get to click it "on" for each individual person in galaxy you trust to do your scans.

Shyne · 12 Oct 2005, 17:25

Smart idea - why not put a timer on it though.

It's easy to open up for 10seconds and close after someone/yourself has scanned you.

How about 24 ticks?

bwtmc · 12 Oct 2005, 17:27

I'm 100% in support of this idea. Choosing galaxy mates who can scan you however isn't great for internal relations.

Gate · 12 Oct 2005, 19:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clogg

So in general, I think that the amount of distorters being nulified for alliance mates is a better option then the lightswitch for distorters.

This was meant to be an alternative to that, and you make some good points. Whichever is more popular/is easy to code tbh

Proxi · 12 Oct 2005, 21:45

I dont know about this, it means you get all the benefits of being a distorter whore with none of the drawbacks :/

Gate · 12 Oct 2005, 22:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by veX

I dont know about this, it means you get all the benefits of being a distorter whore with none of the drawbacks :/

It's a risk either way. If you want to go to bed but still be jgped by alliance mates, it means you cannot prelaunch attacks as effectively (as defenders may well be able to get an FA in).

Considering the current feature is that they have no effect vs fellow alliance members or galmates, I think this is probably a viable alternative and one I prefer. Possibly from a realism point of view... but then again, PA isn't the most realistic of games at the best of times!

bwtmc · 12 Oct 2005, 23:42

Well the drawbacks VeX are inherent in your costly focus on Constructions and moreover Distorters as opposed to other constructions. The fact that you can't really benefit from resource gains, or fast research (Consider Engineering balancing issues) is without doubt the cost that justifies players *not* choosing to go with them.

The other risk you take by concentrating on Constructions is investing in something that can be taken away by others despite all the care you can possibly take to protect it.

Razgriz · 12 Oct 2005, 23:50

I think if distorters on/off was capable it would probably take away an interesting part of the game. It has many pro's and cons but coming from a BC point of view it's just too easy. It's quite exciting trying to get people with the correct amount of amps to beable to scan someone (although fustrating at times). If you had your distorters 'off' then there's alot more people can do for you but there will be less attacks landed thanks to knowing exactly what defence to send etc - attackers will recall.

I can't be bothered to carry on this reply coz i'm drunk but there's so many pros and cons. I'll be going to bed now.... i think

Spritfire · 13 Oct 2005, 00:44

Quote:

- Scans now ALWAYS get through to your gal mates and alliance mates regardless of the number of wave distorters they have.

From pa news page

Shyne · 13 Oct 2005, 00:48

\o/

Proxi · 13 Oct 2005, 01:41

ah i didnt see that.

demiGOD · 14 Oct 2005, 22:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by veX

I dont know about this, it means you get all the benefits of being a distorter whore with none of the drawbacks :/

I think we've been having distorter whores since they implemented distorters, either way, I think they have it already coded for R15 where you can scan galmates no matter how many distorters your galmates have.

Ron7684 · 16 Oct 2005, 09:08

Quote:

- Scans now ALWAYS get through to your gal mates and alliance mates regardless of the number of wave distorters they have.

This makes it too easy, id say u can turn em on or off but only once every tick, that way u cant turn em off for a min and get ur scans. Ud have to sacrifice ur information for the tick, also can make it interesting for attacker to scan every tick to see if dists are off. In general, i like it