Planetarion Forums

shibaMac · 3 Jul 2007, 17:09

Seems to me that one of the biggest problems with PA, for new players especially, is the availability of scans. If you're new, unless you know someone in a decent alliance, you're not getting jgps until you research them yourself. These are the second last scan, and just take too long to get, particulary if you have to go get seige before you can really start roiding. This leads to a lot of landing blind, dead fleets and quitting players.

So my suggestion is a new scan, available to everyone when they start their planet. This scan would work like a JGP, but only for yourself, and only at an ETA of 1.

Could be called the "look out the window scan"

Allfather · 3 Jul 2007, 17:12

I would much rather like it if scans went like this
planet > ship < adv ship > news > jgp > fleet an.
And fleet analysis should also see cloaked ships incoming, anything cept that is just idiotic cause before this you get adv unitscan, so why the hell shouldn't you see all the ships?

Tomkat · 3 Jul 2007, 17:56

I like the idea Shiba.

It could be a really simple scan and go in the format of:

Out-The-Window Scan on x:y:z
Defence Fleets 3
Attack Fleets 4

It doesn't need to say the ETA, the number of ships, or anything apart from the details given above.

Achilles · 3 Jul 2007, 19:37

Good idea, I like TK's modification also, balances it nicely while giving the new guy some hope.

Ultimate Newbie · 4 Jul 2007, 12:55

I really like this idea - particularly Tomkat's modification to make it balanced - as not only does it make sense, it also facilitates attacking, reduces the penalty for being unallied and rewards active players. I'm not seeing anything wrong here.

Love it.

Edit: Added it to the Suggestion Status thread - hurrah! \o/

Remy · 5 Jul 2007, 00:16

I do like the IDEA TK had, but it has a major drawback: ppl wud simply send defships (one ship only mission?) to make the Defence Fleets <x> look higher.

I personally wouldnt mind a jgp at eta 1 showing the amount of ships, and if its in- or out-of galaxy for instance

Thrud · 5 Jul 2007, 01:01

What a good idea, but I'd like it to be only the Fleet at the same eta (i.e 1) and it does need an idea of the number of ships and the race. So something like

Out-The-Window Scan on x:y:z
Defence Fleet Ter looks like less than 100 ships
Defence Fleet Cat looks like less than 1000 ships
Defence Fleet Xan looks like some ships
Attack Fleet Zik looks like more than 100000 ships

This gives them a chance to gauge the odds of a successful landing without giving away to much. I think there should be a cap on the maximim number of ships that you can guess at out the window though, stops it being a useful scan later on. But anything that gives an indepenant player a chance is good.

Tomkat · 5 Jul 2007, 09:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Remy

I do like the IDEA TK had, but it has a major drawback: ppl wud simply send defships (one ship only mission?) to make the Defence Fleets <x> look higher.

I think that's a good thing - faking fleets has been a part of the game for years now and this is just an extension of that.

Zaejii · 6 Jul 2007, 01:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thrud

Out-The-Window Scan on x:y:z
Defence Fleet Xan looks like some ships

you mean, "i think i just saw someone taking a piss into space, so that must be a xan cloaked fleet out the window" i think

Tietäjä · 6 Jul 2007, 12:18

In favour of the idea in principle, though I'm a fan of my own plan with jump gate probes at large being replaced by a probe that only shows on your own ETA, and can be researched with ease early on. With the revamp of News being the "chief" scan showing missions too. Oh, bumbum. Less scanners, more scans for players.

Ultimate Newbie · 6 Jul 2007, 12:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Remy

I do like the IDEA TK had, but it has a major drawback: ppl wud simply send defships (one ship only mission?) to make the Defence Fleets <x> look higher.

I think everyone knew that this was part of the proposal - that the "Out the Window" scan would be easy to fake defend against. However, this leads to placing the decision making back on the player; do i ignore my scan and land anyway and risk it being fake, or do i recall? I think that if its going to be such an early and easily available scan, it should have such major shortcomings. If you add numbers of ships, what point researching all the way down the branch to JGPs?

I'm not sure if the Out the Window scan should includ ethe co-ords of the defender(s), or other planets (at the same ETA), or not. There are certain pros and cons to that (making fake def early round less good, because it would still highlight co-ords) etc. But it could be considered at least.

But still not a big fan of numbers at this stage - plus, without unit scans, what would numbers mean anyway?

shibaMac · 6 Jul 2007, 13:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

However, this leads to placing the decision making back on the player; do i ignore my scan and land anyway and risk it being fake, or do i recall?

Exactly. This way there's a decision to be made based on some information, which is massively preferable to landing blind.

Gerbie2 · 6 Jul 2007, 21:58

You could also make it so the scan does not show where the ships came from.

Thrud · 7 Jul 2007, 14:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zaejii

you mean, "i think i just saw someone taking a piss into space, so that must be a xan cloaked fleet out the window" i think

I was thinking more Start Trek than Space Balls, but yeah something like that.

Cincinnatus · 7 Jul 2007, 15:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thrud

I was thinking more Start Trek than Space Balls, but yeah something like that.

you mean more like "i sense hostility captain"?
(sorry, couldn't resist

)

Appocomaster · 7 Jul 2007, 16:47

I think it seems similar to a previous idea I can't seem to find on the forums but I thought was there, about a fleet morale.

When you get to eta 3/2/1, your captains have a "happy" or "ok" or "sad" sort of thing depending on the value of ships defending you compared to your own.

So if you were landing on someone and there were 100x as many ships in terms of value as you had attacking, it'd be like
"The captain of Fleet Alpha is making out his last will and testimant"
whereas if you were hugely outnumbering them, it'd be
"The captain of Fleet Alpha almost feels sorry for the opposition in the opposing war"
or "The captain of Fleet Alpha is already hungover from the pre-battle party".

Well, maybe just optimistic / ok / worried / EXTREMELY worried
It'd be something similar to the decent/good/excellent/superior ranking of covert ops.

Red- · 7 Jul 2007, 17:11

that would be boring - wheres the surprice and fun in that?

Appocomaster · 7 Jul 2007, 17:11

Well, you can just send any old ships

Ultimate Newbie · 8 Jul 2007, 06:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

I think it seems similar to a previous idea I can't seem to find on the forums but I thought was there, about a fleet morale.

Morale in PA is generally a bad thing, as it empowers the powerful and weakens the small - which is the opposite of things like XP are trying to achieve.

However, your example above isnt really adding much or changing things - if your fleet was happy because it was alot bigger in terms of numbers or fleetscore, and then doesnt perform, it could be very misleading to new players. "Why was my fleet totally destroyed when my admirals were very confident of victory" - everyone knows that numbers arent everything, especially in a single (or any form of limited) targeting like PA has.

A scan that effectively declares "we can see other fleets inbound by a presence of an open wormhole (or whatever), but we've no idea how many ships of what type or whatever because they havent actually arrived" makes more sense.

You could merge the two ideas, but again i'm not sure what the benefits would be.