Brainstorming Round 10

[Telest]

Well, after serious brainstorming with some friends I/we came up with some ideas that could help PA round 10 to become better than round 9. Even though there are quite possibly many things that are already set in stone, not presenting your ideas and then whining afterwards feels sort of lame. Consider this post my ticket to I-told-you-land.

I will present both "game rules" part of the changes as well as the "back-story" explanation to the features, as I at least personally find rules with a reasonable explanation far more appealing (and hence less artificial) than simply stating a set of rules & game mechanics.

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First and most critical idea attempts to deal with powerblocking and alliances mixing galaxies without implementing too artificial limitations.

All ship movement, except inside galaxy, is to be handled via entities called "hyperspace nodes" (or simply nodes). In effect, each alliance has their own hyperspace node, a portal to which is kept open at all times from all member worlds. A planet can only maintain a portal to one node (possibly exempt cluster/parallel nodes).

Whenver a planet attacks or defends, their fleet first moves to the node for 2 ticks and then 10 ticks (modified by ETA tech) to their target. Only during the last 10 ticks is the fleet visible to the target planet. The only exception to this rule is when both sending planet and target planet are in the same node, where the latter part of the travel only takes 8 ticks (modified by ETA tech). Defending planets in a different node is hence very difficult.

Resource costs of sending ships to attack or defend icreases as the number of planets connected to a node increases, since the energy required to break hyperspace unstability increases (in short: bigger alliances pay more).

Due to the special nature of hyperspace, it is not possible to make sure that ships exit into normal space at an exactly defined time, hence the only way to make sure that ships arrive at their targets simultaneously is to send them through the same node. This does not mean the ETA of the ships is random. However, if multiple fleets are sent to the same target from different nodes, they will arrive at their targets at slightly different times, meaning that they will EACH fight the defenders of the planet separately. In effect, three allianes attacking leads to three combat ticks. Defenders always fight, though.

Summary in terms of game rules:

Defending inside alliance means -2 ETA (avoids crossdefending of alliances)
Fleets are not seen during the first two ticks of travel (ETA 10 fleet shows as ETA 8)
Attacks can be sent at any time during the tick without much disadvantages (player friendly)

Possible appendages:

-Only one alliance (=node) allowed per (private) galaxy
-Fleets once sent can only be recalled, but this is NOT possible while the fleet is on it's way to a node, as no known methods of hyperspace communication exists.

[EDIT]

In most situations, the nodes are handled transparently. You still just set the target, choose mission and click send. The attack simply shows up two ETA's after it was sent.

[/EDIT]

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Second idea attempts to (partially) eliminate the roulette that Planetarion is before news scans. It introduces "scout" ships.

Scouts are ships that use advanced sensors to make readings of target planet before the attacking ship actually exits hyperspace. The accuracy of the reading depends on the number of scout ships as opposed to the number of ships at target planet (including friendly fleets). The minimum accuracy is 50% at ETA 1 and rises towards 100% as the number of scouts increases.

Scout ships also see fleets that have not arrived at the planet the scout is heading to, but the accuracy of the report rapidly diminishes with higher ETA fleets.

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The third idea has to do with even Planetarion players occasionally wanting to sleep. Even though activity should be awarded, the playability of planetarion could be greatly increased by giving people opportunity and initiative to sleep. This would help attract new people as they do not risk their entire fleet each time they go to sleep.

Introduce a sleep mode of 7 hours, during which any fleets can not be sent at your planet. You can not wake up from sleep before 6 hours. If you do not use your sleep mode, your planet's productivity will go down by 30% until you do sleep. During sleep, you may be logged into your account normally, but can not send fleets or use scans. You need to announce sleepmode a few ticks before and this is visible to anyone looking at the planet in galaxy screen.

I'm sure some people think this is unfair to the active people. It might be so, players with lack of proper sleep are definitely not good for planetarion in general. Many enough have quit planetarion because it's too difficult to compete without staying up at nights. Instead of being a game to fill the awakehours of night, Planetarion has become a nocturnal game. If anyone can sleep when they are not babysitting their planets, nightly activity is likely to go down dramatically, moving the game back to daytime.

Problems:

-Galaxy attacks, where some planets are coming out of sleepmode "soon" can defend.

[EDIT]

This sleepmode solution is by no means without problems. The point, however, is to encourage people to use a "safe" sleep mode, so that it is possible to attract players, and not destroy the life of those who play (which eventually leads to them quitting or becoming less active and then quitting), and to move planetarion to be "played" when people actually should be awake. If someone has better ideas, do bring them up.

[/EDIT]
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The ideas from now on are of nature that would add more variety to the game, introduce more tactical aspects, and in general add more to the game. They are not as critical in my book as the three mentioned above, but would add quite a bit to the game compared to the amount of programming required. Not all of them are necessarily practical, just features I consider would add to the game.

Possible race specific abilities or mutually exclusive tech trees:

-Telepathy: The ability to modify the orders of a fleet en-route to a hyperspace node. In effect, a fleet could be sent to the node if it is to be expected that some target to attack/defend will surface.

-Precognition: Increased scout efficiency; Normal ships double as scouts

-Cybernetic: A proportion of ships killed in combat are knocked back into production queue instead of being destroyed

-Warlord: The ability to shift the proportions of roids stolen/lost in combat (less uninitiated, more initiated of the preferred type, for example)

-Other obvious abilities such as increased resource production


Change construction and research to be based on construction/research points. Both are accumulated at the rate of one per tick during sleepmode if no construction/research is in progress. They speed up the next construction/research started by one tick each, but are expended in the process. If construction/research is in progress, the proceed as currently. In effect, you can wait a few ticks before starting the next item without losing ticks, if you are sleeping.


Introduce to normal (non-stealing, non-emp weapons) a percentage value, that disables ships instead of destroying them, knocking them back into production queue. 0% means that all ships are destroyed, 100% means that all ships instead of destroyed are moved back into production queue.


Introduce the ability to move ships through another hyperspace node, provided ships from that node have arrived at your planet within the last 12 hours. This means -2 ETA to any member of an alliance whose member attacks/defends you (but it does NOT give you information of who is a member of that alliance). If you want to use other nodes than your normal one, that needs to be specified.

Change the max asteroid capture to be based on the proportion of your asteroids vs target planet's asteroids. Introduce a feature to destroy uninitiated asteroids. If you attack someone of equal size, you cap a max of 12%, someone double your size will yield 15%, half your size 9% and quarter your size 6% (3% for each time size doubles or halves with the max cap of 15., make the scale "smooth" though). Possibly make the change 2%.

Declare the winner of the round based on initiated asteroids instead of score. Gives players chasing a good rank initiative to attack (and lose ships in doing so) to the very end.

Allow transmutation of eonium to metal and/or crystal with 2:1 ratio, but not vice versa.


Well, I had some more ideas, but even if some discussion on any of the above could be made, something might actually make it to r10, provided any of the creators ever make they way here and that some people actually reading these boards found any of the ideas good.

[InTGuRu]

Originally posted by Telest
Scouts are ships that use advanced sensors to make readings of target planet before the attacking ship actually exits hyperspace. The accuracy of the reading depends on the number of scout ships as opposed to the number of ships at target planet (including friendly fleets). The minimum accuracy is 50% at ETA 1 and rises towards 100% as the number of scouts increases.

Scout ships also see fleets that have not arrived at the planet the scout is heading to, but the accuracy of the report rapidly diminishes with higher ETA fleets.

So there is a special ship called a 'scout' or is it any ship sent out from military with orders to 'scout' instead of attack/defend. It needs to be it's own ship with it's own highish resource cost and build time, else it would be too powerful imo. Else it would drastically reduce the need for newscans. Part of the 'fun' in early round is not knowing if there is defense or not. But...for all we know, newscans in it's current form may not even exist next round.

[Telest]

Well, the point there is to replace news scan. News scans currently support scan planets, alienate new players and make the game a roulette before they get around. Notice that a 50% accurate evaluation on defence is not too great, so you'd need more than one scout.

Scout would be a speciific ship, aye.

[RexDrax]

Intresting concepts. Some I like and would add diffrent tactics to the game. However the balancing of these new tactitics is what always hurts PA. Will have to re-read it and think about it some more.

[zenopus]

Originally posted by Telest
...

Several ideas with potential.

The sleep mode thingy, I disagree with - as presented. I agree with the concept of a sleep mode and or work/school mode, but it has to be more flexible for all involved.

The idea termed Cybernetics (and later derived ideas) look good.

The idea termed Warlord - needs clarification.

Transmutation of roid type. My twist on that would be that you can only transmutate up (to a roid type you have more roids of - very similar to your idea) and it can take from 2 to many roids to get one - depending on the metal cost of the roids you are destroying and the metal cost of the roid you are creating. Would make sure you don't get someone initiating E roids just to convert them to M roids at much less than an M roid would have cost.

[Telest]

Okay, here's the deal for warlord:

Suppose your capture is percentage is 12%

target has:

100 metal
100 crystal
100 eonium
100 uninitiated

You've set your preferences to:
metal (wanted)
crystal (not wanted)
eonium (wanted)
uninitiated (not wanted)

Normally the capture would be:
12 metal
12 crystal
12 eonium
12 uninitiated

instead, since we don't want crystal/uninitiated, we'll throw off 30% (percentage up for consideration) of them.

which is approx 4 of both roids, a total of 8.

then, we put those 8 roids back into "pool" and "recapture" them according to the roid proportions (25% each here)

2 metal
2 crystal
2 eonium
2 uninitiated

Making a total of:

14 metal
10 crystal
14 eonium
10 uninitiated

Of course, the mechanics can be anything. In defence, this is done inverted (30% of the roid type you "want" is put back into distribution). So in effect, what you are choosing is the roid type you "prefer". Your pods will cap a bit more of those at the expense of other types and you will lose a bit less of them at the expense of other types.

[patsz]

i actually like almost all of ure ideas, only thing i didnt like as much is the sleep mode, it indeed does hold the problems u allready pointed out . Sleepmode might indeed do as u say though, but pushing it back to day time doesnt necesarily only increase player base, some might actually quit cause they dont like to play during the day / .

cheers m8!, great thinking and as far as iam concerned do some more of it

[kiora]

Sleep mode wouldn't work

I would feel sorry for all the ppl in the non european zone.

As they see most of the universe dissappear every nite.

Might as well have versions of PA running in different time zones.

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Those nodes appear complicated.

If you galaxy joins a game based alliance then you get -1 eta on defence. That would be a nice advatage.

But that doesn't help the newbie who might not be in an alliance at all and maybe all the powerblocks would join one big in game alliance.

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I like the start of the round more than after newsies come out,
I don't like losing lots and lots of fleets.

Upping salvage and reintroducing it for attackers might be better than a "scout" class

Also turning salvage from resources into % back into production is an idea, don't know what it would give you though.
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I don't like the way emp works now, in that frozen ships appear to be killed last.

Maybe instead they should be targetted normally, but as they are frozen they lose their agility bonus.

Might be too complicated to implement cleanly though

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Shifting of roid cap,

Mmmm would anybody want unitiated roids?

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Introduce two types of score:

Traditional score based on ships and roids, used for cap calculations.

Store additional statistics, like number of ships killed, roids stolen.

Have a fame score, which is actually what you are ranked on.

[Telest]

Originally posted by kiora
Those nodes appear complicated.

If you galaxy joins a game based alliance then you get -1 eta on defence. That would be a nice advatage.

But that doesn't help the newbie who might not be in an alliance at all and maybe all the powerblocks would join one big in game alliance.

Well, they aren't really all that complicated once you get down to it. The fleet launch costs increase as the number of people in the Node(alliance) increase. [Node and Alliance can pretty much be treated as synonyms]. Assuming large alliances had to pay 5x the launch cost of smaller ones(and with planets actually able to use eonium for things other than sending fleets, transmutation for example), there might actually be movement towards tighter, better integrated groups. Also, the newbie in random galaxy can have his own alliance, it's only those 1337 players in privage galaxies who have the "galaxy alliance". This is to prevent "powerblocks" from mixing galaxies, and hence is at least an attempt towards preventing them. In 90% of the circumstances, you can simplify the nodes to read "-2 ETA to friendly planets".

One could possibly allow overburn defences to those without alliances, giving them one ETA advantage.

Okay, with regards to sleep mode:

It's a very problematic issue. Planetarion should be playable during the nighttime also, obviously, but nocturnal activity shouldn't be the only way to play planetarion without the risk of finding your planet entirely wiped. The reason nightly attacks are so common nowadays is that defence is thinnest then (part of the reason of this is that nightly attacks are so common, a vicious circle). The lack of news scans early on forces people to attack when defence is thin, otherwise they risk their entire fleet even more. The habit sticks even after newsies come out.

More on the news scan issue:

The reasons why I don't like news scans in their current format is the way it supports (often multi) scan planets. At minimum, these planets are a distinct advantage to larger groups, and not a measure of individual skill.

[EDIT]
Shifting of roid cap: no, nobody would want uninitiated asteroids, however, not everyone would have the warlord ability. Gain some, lose some.
[/EDIT]

[LanMan]

Alot of good ideas but i still see ways some elements can be turned around badly.

First of all you could set ur planet to preferably loose uninitated roids(cheap to make)

Secondly each alliance group could split into wings or attack groups, but still have a High Command(council) that organises it all. Each of these groups could still bashfully attack anyone they want(without the high cost as these groups are not too big) First group migh suffer higher losses but the next ones will severly kill of the defenders(just as in a real war) What i see for me is that Rookies will be used for firstwave attempts while the veterans and experienced players goes in for the clean up and brings their alliance fame and glory. In effect limiting an alliance can only be done by setting the terms that each individual alliance can never be at peace with each other. That means that they cannot attack at the same time, or defend each other(would end up killing each other after the opposition is taken care off)

The cap u described is GANG UP on the leader, and i see myself looking at Lemming runs(Lo Hirr) not thats it a bad thing, but in most cases you can't win versus someone thats bigger then u unless he's utter crap and inactive with few or none contacts. And should you attack with lots of others then shouldnt the roid count of ALL the attacking planets or each one individually. Either way you will end up getting less if u get help from someone your size. + the added risk of target getting defence etc. There really is in most cases a reason why the bigger are bigger. (Either because their in a good alliance with good attacks and defence, or their activity or their skill, etc)

But now i've gotta run to class.
PS sleep mode is good, but not the way you wished to implement it, would be too troublesome, and make it unfair the other way around

[Telest]

The big alliances could definitely split into groups, aye. In practise though, these groups couldn't cross-defend or mix galaxies.

Killing defenders so that others can land is definitely an issue. I've spent thought on that too, but didn't want to post those suggestions, since, well, there is a number of ways to prevent bashing. I'm sure anyone can come up with some.

As for asteroid capture, my plan was that if you are of size with target planet (12% capture) and was sending 10% of attacking fleet value, they would capture 1.2%. Yes, small planets could team up on a bigger one and still get a good cap.

Aye, you could make a lot of uninitiated to lose those, but then again, that would make you capture less asteroids in attacking (worse cap due to size comparison). And you would still lose quite a bit of normal asteroids, at best you could reduce losses on those by 30%, in practise mebbe by 15%.

[LanMan]

Before u say that cross defending and attacking don't work. Remeber that many ppl are already setting their BattleGroups before their alliances, and that several alliances are built with a wing system and has worked well. Xanadu was the first once to really make it work well i belive(then again they disbanded) but still other's have that structure, and i belive that if you have to be small, Battlegroups will get a bigger impact then now, but the wars will still be the same as the Battlegroups are alligned to the "background" alliances. Background because they don't really exsist in the game, but is made from politics outside the game, which makes each battlegroup work for the greater purpose in attack and defence.

And roiding the big ones are always hard, even harder now when they can choose to sleep, unless you are bigger ofc, then you could take em easily. The positive thing tough is that it will be easier to gain ground with your proposal, so the round should have less of a chance to stagnate just as quickly.

[Telest]

Aye, the battlegroups may and like will be aligned with the background alliances. That is part of the charm of the game. However, the proposition prevents efficiently mixing of galaxies, so that alliance politics are "forced to be more flexible".

Each galaxy will stand more on their own, or with a few other galaxies instead of a huge entity covering a third the universe, mixed all over.

[GabeZ]

Why don't we just keep this game as simple as it is now instead of changing all kinds of caprules and sleep modes and scoutships................

Ofcuz it would make the game more fun for ppl that play it alrdy, but isn't it a higher priority to get more ppl to play pa, then to make this game more attractive for the ppl that alrdy know how it works?

[Not_RIT]

Even tho I did say how it would be a good idea to have P's and C's I have pretty much found out, this coupled with the terrans eta 8 DE ships means its nigh on impossible to get defence. Its a nightmare. It basicly makes only fighters useful. GRR!!!

[Morden]

the thing I dont like about this is that it would force alliances to have pure galaxies. now either you dont have friends in other alliances or you think other players will put up with being dictated to, to this extent.

trying to force an alliance into anything is foolish, giving them advantages and making them want to use it is more effective.

i.e just make it fully random and make it cheaper and slightly quicker -1 tick to defend your alliance, and make it cost a lot to defend outside of galaxy. as well as giving alliances other benefits to make them want to use the system.

because tbh this wouldnt stop blocks, the alliances would just settle for not having eta -2 and have the ability to mix galaxies or they will just set up an entire block as one alliance.

note: NO alliance in there right mind would make a pure galaxy, simply because it it suicidal unless you have 500+ members, and even then it is risky, and considering most alliances have 100-150 members thats say 15 galaxies, which would be easy for another alliance to take out in one go just by working with another alliance.

only real solution is to make it semi random: i.e groups of 2, then added with other groups of 2 until the gal has 20 people(with say 6 people who were solo so they can get taught the game etc and help the playerbase perhaps)