Stolen Pods capturing Asteroids

[Ultimate Newbie]

It was recently brought up in #Planetarion today, whether stolen pods will cap roids in the same combat tick. This issue has arisen because of this round's ship stats having stealers firing at Init 20, and pods at init 30.

The purpose of this thread is threefold; one, to discuss the apparent implications of this (unannounced) change will have and the associated intentions of the stat designers, two; to eagerly await a reply from Appoco to clarify whether stolen pods will actually cap or not and whether the intention was for them to do so, and three whether this change is actually a good move or not, based on what we know of combat in PA.

I'll start .

To me, it seems that because Pod initiative is after that of Stealers, then any stolen pods should capture roids. That makes intuative sense, however myk expressed some doubts as to whether the combat engine will actually handle stolen pods in this way - ie, they are removed from combat and stored (and generate a stolen ship report) and then added to your fleet on the return journey, or whether (as i see it), the ships that are stolen are immediately added to the fleet.

In the past, this has not been an issue because of pods always firing before stealers; thus stolen pods would have already fired and thus their changing status would not have made much of an impact in battle.

The old setup was good insofar as it gave players a choice; you could pretty much pod-only Ziks (especially in the early game) and capture their roids, however then the Ziks would steal your pods and free up the fleet slot to do it again. It was a simple ship-for-roids exchange that did strangely potentially benefit both sides; the attacker got the roids, the Ziks got the critical pods to build more diverse attacking fleets with. I in principle liked this setup quite alot.

However, the current system means that nasty things can happen. Eg, a Zik fleetcatching a Xan FI attacker need only send ... err, Rogues, and not only would they steal all/most of the Xan's ships, but also their roids as the stolen FI pods would then steal the Xan's roids for the Zik, free of charge. Obviously, the whole ships-for-roids thing is gone too, because the pods just wouldnt cap anything before they were stolen. I wonder if that makes Ziks stronger or weaker though - they have more roids but potentially less pods with which to attach ships on later. Nevertheless, i think it does makes Ziks significantly more powerful than they already were when it comes to fleetcatching, potentially a deliberate move to compensate for stealers dying?

Other than that last thought, i cant really understand the motivation towards changing the status quo though. I wonder if it was merely an error in the ship stats when they were being done, or an experiment in the beta at some point which was forgotten to be returned, and thus the fact that pods fire after stealers is a pure accident. Hell, in the 3 mins i looked at the stats this round, i didnt even notice the change, and its a pretty important thing to notice too. So, perhaps its just an accident and that pods init will change from 20 to 40 or something.

What are your thoughts?

/me waits for The Great Appoco to wade in and clear up the mess .

[Appocomaster]

The whole reason to change the inits of pods and stealers was to make stolen pods not capture.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

The whole reason to change the inits of pods and stealers was to make stolen pods not capture.

That doesnt make sense - at least, to me .

If pods fire before they are stolen, then no stolen pods cap roids. The other way around makes them cap.

o_O

[Appocomaster]

well, we had the the other way around in previous rounds and it meant they could cap. so we swapped it.

before, they attacked, stole asteroids, teleported home, then got stolen.
Now, they attack, get stolen, and ... wait, how can they steal asteroids when they're already stolen?

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

well, we had the the other way around in previous rounds and it meant they could cap. so we swapped it.

before, they attacked, stole asteroids, teleported home, then got stolen.
Now, they attack, get stolen, and ... wait, how can they steal asteroids when they're already stolen?

Ah, you misunderstood Sovereign. He was asking if pods stolen on an attack do capture.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

well, we had the the other way around in previous rounds and it meant they could cap. so we swapped it.

before, they attacked, stole asteroids, teleported home, then got stolen.
Now, they attack, get stolen, and ... wait, how can they steal asteroids when they're already stolen?

Ah, i see what you mean.

But those pods are yet to be stolen ships which then go off and cap roids when they are attacking a zik. Now, if a zik is attacking and there are pods defending, then the zik steals the defending pods and then caps.

How is that an improvement? Or is it just an experiement?

[SpookyVince]

I understand what you mean Ultimate Newbie.

What you say is: if a zik attacker steals pods from his target, those pods will roid his target too.

I don't think so. In the past, it happened to me to steal structure killers when attacking a planet. Those SK have never blown a structure on my target then, although their initiative was after the stealers too.

What Appoco says is: zik can defend from attackers with stealers: stolen pods (from attacker) won't roid (the defender)...

[Edit] Just posted about same time

[Ultimate Newbie]

Wakarimasendeshita.

It all makes sense now.

So tell me, what is the motivation behind the change?

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Heartless

Ah, you misunderstood Sovereign. He was asking if pods stolen on an attack do capture.

They don't. This is stealing, not subversion.

[Appocomaster]

Yes, sorry.
What Jester said

[Shyne]

Maybe this is related to the bug/oversight whereby those that land at the same time as another fleet and are eradicated can still cap a large proportion of the roids.