Why wasn't the salvage change announced?

[Jester]

For those who are unaware, sometime between round 13 and round 19, the salvage formula changed. For round 13 it was 20% for defending ships lost and 15% for attacking ships. At some point, I think for this round, it was doubled to 40% and 30% respectively. This amount is very high and strongly favors the defending party. It leads to an increased ability for targeted players to build defense ships and thus helps stagnate the game.

I would like to know why the change was not announced in the manual.

This was an important change and since the information for many previosu rounds has been good, the lack of announcement was a step backwards.

[Wandows]

It was doubled for this round after these figures had been used in some speedgame without anyone complaining or noticing it. I noticed it about 3 or 4 weeks into the round and at that point verified it with Appoco who admitted it was changed, but forgotten te be announced and added to the manual . And at that point i got the salvage calcs on the xVx/Vision bcalcs changed to the ingame figured expecting some form of announcement on it, but that never happened .

As for the change, personally i like it as it somewhat compensates for the free stealing that Zik do. But i agree its hardly a solution to that problem and makes it even harder to really damage your opponent as most of the losses they take from non-Ziks can be rebuilt quite fast.

[Jester]

It doesn't actually compensate for the free stealing. It worsens the situation of stealing relative to killing.

[Wandows]

Yeah you're right there, but i meant it somewhat compensates as its easier to get resources from elsewhere to compensate for not getting any salvage from stolen ships. I doesn't fix the Zik problem, far from it actually, but it gave me personally more options to recover from lost ships that i would have not been able to do otherwise. Which ofcourse brings us back to the stagnation point because no one was/is really losing this way. So on a personal planet note i liked it as it helped me, but i agree that on a higher level it does more harm then good.

[lokken]

The point I think jesterina is trying to make is what's the point of trying to kill ships or even attacking if increased salvage results in the defender being in a much stronger position (as he recoups more from salvage) and thus encouraging the game to be unnecessarily defensive.

[Jester]

Not quite. My primary point is that this is important and should've been announced. My dissatisfaction with the actual change is secondary to that.

[Appocomaster]

The fault is mine, I guess when updating it for the speedgame between rounds I left it and forgot to adjust the announcement stating this.

With regards to the other issue, yes, I was going to make a discussion about it. Having steal ships dying seems a more and more popular solution to the issue of being fleet caught and losing all your ships, as attackers leave salvage.
However, this is not the only 'issue' with Zik, and it'd be wrong to focus on this solution purely because it solves one issue when it may [obviously] cause others.
And be less fun :P

[Heartless]

- Why would it be less fun if kill-ships die?
- What other issues does it cause?

[Appocomaster]

Jester has often said that unlimited stealing is more fun than limited stealing [for the attacker, obviously].


Focusing on the issue of fleet catching:

One of the reasons steal ships dying when stealing is good is that when you get your fleet stolen [when defending], you get salvage for it.

However, if steal-dying less than 1:1, there are other issues to take into consideration.
For example, you'll get less salvage for the ships than you would if they were killed (quite apart from the fact you get less salvage from attacking fleets than from defending ships).
If we try and counter this by artifically increasing the bonus for salvage from ships dying because they stole, what happens when there's a planet attacking and a zik defending? The Zik would then get the inflated salvage along with the stolen ships.

Another issue that springs to mind for steal ships dying when capping is people suciding "useless" ships onto ziks to kill their steal ships and leave them with useless ships.

Let us now wait while I come up with a solution for you to poke holes in

[Jester]

Back on topic, will the salvage formula be fixed again for next round?

[Appocomaster]

What do you mean by "fixed"? Any changes to it will be announced? or do you mean reduced to 15/20% for attack/defence fleets?

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

What do you mean by "fixed"? Any changes to it will be announced? or do you mean reduced to 15/20% for attack/defence fleets?

I meant the latter, but both those are valid questions

[Bugsby]

I liked the higher salvage numbers a lot better. I played as Terran last round, and, as we all know, Terrans fire last. They are the bitch when it comes to defense - at least Ziks can steal low-init ships. So higher salvage numbers on my end actually made defense possible.

Here's a concrete example: I get attacked by a swarm of Xan FR: Vampyres and Nightmares. This guy has also brought along an extensive Phantom escort. What do I need to cover this? Because of the Phantoms, I can't ask for Wraiths from the ally because those will all get shot down. I need to find both Beetles to knock out all the Phantoms, then Wraiths to kill enough of the FR to make the attacker pull. Sometimes I could get both. Sometimes I couldn't.

Halfway through the round I got sick of this whole thing. So I started building Chimeras like mad so that I could cover my own incs. But no matter how many Chimeras I built, that didn't change the fact that I would still fire second, after the Nightmares, and so would lose a huge chunk of my DE fleet. In order for it to be possible to cover myself, I needed the higher salvage percentiles to recover the res from the Chimeras I lost. If I had had the lower salvage numbers, I wouldn't have been able to cover myself with ANY number of Chimeras. The losses would always outweigh the gains.

Did this imbalance the game? No. Even though I could cover myself with Chimeras, not all Terrans pursued that path. Most didn't. It wasn't because these other Terrans were stupid, they just didn't want to make the tradeoff I did - the rest of my fleet suffered because I had to put so much of my res into Chims. But without the higher salvage numbers, this tradeoff wouldn't even have been possible.

As for making the game more static and defender-friendly, well, it certainly made it a bit more defender-heavy, but that doesn't mean it was more static. My incs from Xan FR went down, but there would be some nights where I would be waved by multiple Xan FR in the same tick, overwhelming me and forcing me to run. That's not static at all. And I believe that a decreased amount of attackers in some circumstances is a good thing, especially when the player is pursuing a more defensive strategy.

There might be other things to consider that I haven't thought of. But as far as I'm concerned, this increased level of salvage didn't make defense overpowered. It made defense POSSIBLE.

[Wishmaster]

Having a huge % of salvage is good imo, as atm it is too easy to attack someone -succesfully-

[Judge]

Originally Posted by Bugsby

I liked the higher salvage numbers a lot better. I played as Terran last round, and, as we all know, Terrans fire last. They are the bitch when it comes to defense - at least Ziks can steal low-init ships. So higher salvage numbers on my end actually made defense possible.

Here's a concrete example: I get attacked by a swarm of Xan FR: Vampyres and Nightmares. This guy has also brought along an extensive Phantom escort. What do I need to cover this? Because of the Phantoms, I can't ask for Wraiths from the ally because those will all get shot down. I need to find both Beetles to knock out all the Phantoms, then Wraiths to kill enough of the FR to make the attacker pull. Sometimes I could get both. Sometimes I couldn't.

Halfway through the round I got sick of this whole thing. So I started building Chimeras like mad so that I could cover my own incs. But no matter how many Chimeras I built, that didn't change the fact that I would still fire second, after the Nightmares, and so would lose a huge chunk of my DE fleet. In order for it to be possible to cover myself, I needed the higher salvage percentiles to recover the res from the Chimeras I lost. If I had had the lower salvage numbers, I wouldn't have been able to cover myself with ANY number of Chimeras. The losses would always outweigh the gains.

Did this imbalance the game? No. Even though I could cover myself with Chimeras, not all Terrans pursued that path. Most didn't. It wasn't because these other Terrans were stupid, they just didn't want to make the tradeoff I did - the rest of my fleet suffered because I had to put so much of my res into Chims. But without the higher salvage numbers, this tradeoff wouldn't even have been possible.

As for making the game more static and defender-friendly, well, it certainly made it a bit more defender-heavy, but that doesn't mean it was more static. My incs from Xan FR went down, but there would be some nights where I would be waved by multiple Xan FR in the same tick, overwhelming me and forcing me to run. That's not static at all. And I believe that a decreased amount of attackers in some circumstances is a good thing, especially when the player is pursuing a more defensive strategy.

There might be other things to consider that I haven't thought of. But as far as I'm concerned, this increased level of salvage didn't make defense overpowered. It made defense POSSIBLE.

I pursued the exact same stratedgy, even to the extent of not building BS/CR untill week 4 of the round.