[Discuss] RPG Elements: Fleet Commanders et al.

[Seth Mace]

This definately aint a new idea as there has always been some1 talking about bringing more RPG elements into the game. I think the "fleet naming" was a half-arsed attempt to bring unique appeal to owning your own planet

Anyways, im pretty much thinking out loud (im also ill) so try not to flame me for any holes in my suggestions!
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You have a Commander for each fleet slot (thats 4 atm including static Home slot) and the main role of the Commander is for them to grow in Tactical Ability (TA) for each Battle they survive. For each battle you receive XP and this XP effects your planets Score. So i was thinking that to bring in a dynamic element into conflicts, is to allow these Fleet Commanders to have a direct effect on;
- Score Yield (SY) = How Much XP you receive/ loose post-combat.
- Tactical Ability (TA), I will talk about this later.

The more battles these commanders have survied, the more XP you will receive in future conflicts. Ofc the greater the victory, the greater the XP received and hence, the more experienced your Commander will become (greater SY). Likewise, if the battle is considered a loss, this should have a negative impact on your commanders SY Status.

HOW battles are declared win or loss, should be calculated through "% of defenders ship value lost" compared with "% of attackers ship value lost", i suppose you would also have to include roid gain in there too

Ofc the trick is to keep your commander alive and if you get your attack/ defence fleet destroyed, you commander will also perish. There could be a percentage of losses required (say 70% killed?) before your commander perishes?

Some planets may even reach a stage where their Fleet Commander (FC) has notorioty (top100 FC Page?) and due to the reputation of him/her, becomes a target in itself for some classic fleetcatching tactics.

Fleet Commander Death & Creation

If you loose a Commander, you should be able to automatically draft a replacement and it may also be more interesting if their starting XP is random between a certain starting bracket. This also means that everyone from tick-start, has an FC who is better then their other FCs and thus, one they will take more care with.

I dont think it would be benificial if players can delete/ create FCs when they want, however when an FC is automatically spawned (when the planet looses another FC in combat), i do think they could maybe rename the FC just once.

Tactical Ability

TA would be something that actually effects battles, unlike Score Yield ect which is really only asthetics from a planet/ FC's Score point of view.

If your FC has a high Tactical Ability, then maybe this can be calculated into the combat engine? Name it "influence", "tactics", "moral" or whatever but it could bring a new dynamic into battles?

Players should be able to scan to view opponents FC status but i think its better if its in a less common scan (ie not Fleetscan, JGP or Unit scan).

Extending on the RPG element

I dont know if PA Team even want RPG elements like this but i know it is something that a lot of players think would help bring in new players and more importantly, keep them playing.

If any of this was possible or more so, wanted by Pa Team, you could expand upon this further and bring in such things as;
- "Intelligence Officers/ Spys" that could influence Scanning/ Covert Opping akin to FC's over combat.
- "Mining Guilds" that effect productivity for resources mined at each planet, with elements such as "peacetime" benifiting worker moral. If planet is attacked & not defended, then ofc productivity is decreased. Again, you would need to set formulas to decide what is considered "win" or "loss".
- "Builders Union" which relates to productivity for construction times and maybe even how much resources they require for each new building (again, peacetime = cheaper, recent un-defended incomings = dearer).

End Bit..

Just to end on a self-destroying idea remark, the only problem with such systems is they dont do favours for the divide between the 1337 players and the bashed players. So some considerations would be needed to ensure such RPG elements dont dictate gameplay too much but enough to add another bond between player & game.

[Kal]

i like the basic idea

[The Real Arfy]

Originally Posted by Seth Mace

Tactical Ability

TA would be something that actually effects battles, unlike Score Yield ect which is really only asthetics from a planet/ FC's Score point of view.

If your FC has a high Tactical Ability, then maybe this can be calculated into the combat engine? Name it "influence", "tactics", "moral" or whatever but it could bring a new dynamic into battles?

Players should be able to scan to view opponents FC status but i think its better if its in a less common scan (ie not Fleetscan, JGP or Unit scan).

Well I like the basic idea too. One thing I think is dangerous is that, while we seem to be able to calculate too much these days, we don't want to have a guessing game (like combat engineering in PaX), and a cap should be implemented on an FC's TA, it should be really quite low.

Also on my mind is the fact that one fleet catch at the beginning of the game whereby a planet's fleet is completely decimated would result in a huge advantage for the attacker until his fleet is killed? I think...

I do like the idea of FCs though, although perhaps a bit too complex to be implemented all at once.

How about a maximum battle advantage of say, 5%. This is the highest that both attack and defence stats could be raised, but it declines towards zero as time goes on. The percentage increase is determined by value. For example:

My FC lands in a battle where they kill 75% of the enemy's fleet. My value is 750,000 and the enemy's is 1,500,000, twice the size.

(1,500,000 / 750,000) * 0.75  = 1.5, so their stats are increased by 1.5%.

As you can see, the maximum is reached by killing 100% of the enemy's fleet, given they are 5 times larger than you, and you were on your own, and this works for both defence and attacks (regardless of how much of the fleet is killed).

I'm not too sure how multiple fleets would work, thats something else to decide on.

With respect to "it declines towards zero as time goes on", one idea is to have the percentage decrease by something like 0.02% every tick, i.e. approximately 0.5% every day. This will encourage battles, but still allow for the FC's TA to be kept intact long enough to use it.

Either that... or... How about it declines faster, but only declines while fleets are in base, or prelaunched? Personally I prefer the former idea.

Anyway, something to ponder, and nice post SM!


EDIT: The resultant fleet value percentage (in the example it was 75%) could be calculated by enemy value loss - your value loss, thus giving negative TA? (and the percentage again reaches zero at the same time it would decline).

[Seth Mace]

One thing I think is dangerous is that, while we seem to be able to calculate too much these days, we don't want to have a guessing game (like combat engineering in PaX), and a cap should be implemented on an FC's TA, it should be really quite low.

Definately, the concept idea was just more from a personal touch point of view, any effect on battle should be minimal but in war, everything little helps!

With respect to "it declines towards zero as time goes on", one idea is to have the percentage decrease by something like 0.02% every tick, i.e. approximately 0.5% every day. This will encourage battles, but still allow for the FC's TA to be kept intact long enough to use it.

I agree such an idea would promote more battles and also prevent people from protecting their Best FC's for any real length of time, as it would ofc depreciate over time.

[The Real Arfy]

It would be nice for more interesting elements to be added into the game, and a news scan would reveal all fleet commander's individual xp, given that the attacker can be bothered to calculate it.

I vote yes!

[Chika]

I think its a great idea. BUT, the stats would have to be changed dramatically, and force more combinations needed to attack successfully. me personally, I used the same fleet slot to attack with all last round. Someone newbie bashing using same fleet slot would exploit that feature. Also, this will open up a new option to farm.

[CrazySpoon]

Top Commanders rankings

1. Commander X- Died: Tick 253
2. Commander Y- Died: Tick 739
3. Commander Z- Died: Tick 493

[Goafer LX]

i don't lilke this idea simply because a once u start getting victories, your gonna keep getting victories, because, how often do u attack someone you know is gonna defeat u???
this will just keep the leet players leet, and not allow the n00bs to advance...

[The Real Arfy]

Originally Posted by Goafer LX#

i don't lilke this idea simply because a once u start getting victories, your gonna keep getting victories, because, how often do u attack someone you know is gonna defeat u???
this will just keep the leet players leet, and not allow the n00bs to advance...

I think its more to reward good planning of attacks and good defending.

One other problem I've though about is flak. This will deter people from flakking and taking losses for their roids, thus they will only hit those who they can destroy.

[Seth Mace]

Originally Posted by Goafer LX#

i don't lilke this idea simply because a once u start getting victories, your gonna keep getting victories, because, how often do u attack someone you know is gonna defeat u???
this will just keep the leet players leet, and not allow the n00bs to advance...

I think if PA team did use this idea, they would only allow the FCs impact to be minimal for the exact reason you highlight but i did highlight this problem at the end of the initial post.

One other problem I've though about is flak. This will deter people from flakking and taking losses for their roids, thus they will only hit those who they can destroy

Well each player would have 3 FCs and im sure players (like ziks) would have at least 1 fleet slot & FC that they would use for such tactics. Either because the FC has low TA/ SY through recently perishing or through constant flak support nerfing their Xp.

[Orion Treet]

Lets bring back cargoships but have them steal xp instead of recourses

[Proxi]

So the TA added to your commander after a battle only depends on the amount of enemy fleet that was lost.?

Doesnt this put ziks and cats at a disadvantage throughout the game?

[Seth Mace]

Who gives a fook about cath & zik though?

But seriously yes it ofc would, so maybe its not such a good idea to include enemy losses in the formula but instead roid gain vs value of attack ships lost?

[Proxi]

Yeah that would probably make more sense

Dont get me wrong, i really like the idea sethy, just pointing out holes as i see 'em

[Goafer LX]

i really like the idea, but i just can't see it working fairly
like i said before, as soon as you start to win battles, your commander attributes are just gonna increase and your gonna keep winning battles, then it will become easier to win battles and u wouldnt even have to try.....

[Doorsdown]

Originally Posted by Goafer LX#

i really like the idea, but i just can't see it working fairly
like i said before, as soon as you start to win battles, your commander attributes are just gonna increase and your gonna keep winning battles, then it will become easier to win battles and u wouldnt even have to try.....

not true

its very easy to have a nice attack go horriable because you forget to wake up or can't get scans. all planed attacks usualy look great on the calc but most end up being bloody due to those evil BC's

[Goafer LX]

i guess that is true, but then it just comes down to how active you are, most of the big shots are more active than n00bs, so therefore the more active players will get hiher attributes and be in the same position as i stated before....

[Doorsdown]

Originally Posted by Goafer LX#

i guess that is true, but then it just comes down to how active you are, most of the big shots are more active than n00bs, so therefore the more active players will get hiher attributes and be in the same position as i stated before....

no you can not hurt players for being active. the most active ones will be the ones that will have the biggest chance of the BC screwing up there attack. while thinking of the noobs is good just you can't let your want for them to do better to hurt the people that are doing better by not getting extra help but rather r staying up at night and doing the math

[Goafer LX]

Originally Posted by Doorsdown

the most active ones will be the ones that will have the biggest chance of the BC screwing up there attack.

how?
i dont follow, basically i jus think this is bad....

[Doorsdown]

Originally Posted by Goafer LX#

how?
i dont follow, basically i jus think this is bad....

the most active will be hitting the bigger planets as there is more chance of growth there... the bigger planets will be other actives no noobs. so there is bound to be more action there than with 2 noobs.

[Kal]

more thinking needed

[Ferretus]

I like the orignal concept of Fleet commanders. Perhaps the bonus would be like the engineering priority a few rounds ago, 5%, 10%, 15% respectively, perhaps reduce it to 2,5,10. Anyway, that I think would be a suitable bonus.

it should be relatively easy though to get them up the ranks. Gives noobs a chance and doesnt make you throw your computer out your window when someone gets lucky and takes you out.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by The Real Arfy

I think its more to reward good planning of attacks and good defending.

One other problem I've though about is flak. This will deter people from flakking and taking losses for their roids, thus they will only hit those who they can destroy.

They could use their other two commanders for those activities (being given the hard tasks), and then keep their baby for situations of obvious victory...

[NitinA]

More complications within the stats & score gain systems of PA would turn off newer players from the game. Need I say more?

KISS = Keep it simple, stupid!

-Nitin