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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 13:23   #1
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Races

The current race setup has a few issues:

1) cloaked isn't really cloaked
2) cath always win or die
3) stealing is fun
4) [unlimited] stealing is hugely abusable, causes bashing, farming and related issues, possible "secret" steal chains, etc.

5) even limited stealing has advantageous steals, and as limited stealing would make zik stronger to still compete, being able to steal the "right" ships from farming/ ship donating would still cause problems.

6) subvert has it's own associated issues, green hostile fleets, red defence, etc. also, we may not have a copy of the subvert combat engine (just looked and can't find it, it was about 2 1/2 years ago we had it).


These are some of the issues.
I'm not saying we should ditch the race system - it still keeps things interesting. However, we've not had a huge amount of change.

Zik in particular cause problems. I know Kargool will die of shock that I've admitted there's a problem and why haven't I done anything about it already if I knew there was a problem. I'm not 100% sure what the answer should be.

It wouldn't be very hard to return Xan to their former glory and bring back the mil scan (such as was seen in the world cup). However, while (as Jester has often said) "stealing is FUN", it always seems to lurk under a cloud of suspicious farming. Perhaps that's just my perception?

I'm extremely reluctant to heavily change steal, as it's one of the more popular parts of combat; however, it does seem to bequite heavily interlinked with some of the problematic areas of the game.

limiting steal - even say so you do less damage when attacking smaller planets, and so on - could end up extremely messy and complicated, not to mention making it harder to calculate combat.


Does anyone have any bright ideas?!?
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 13:25   #2
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Re: Races

When you come out of the closet with the rest of the problems the game is experiencing, I will die of shock. Please send a card to my family should it happen.

Limited steal you are offering sucks. I would just push further down steal strenght. Statistically, making the ships even worse and enabling more tactical workout for zikonian instead of straightforward bouncing it is with the current stats would make zikonian more challenging race to play. Still rewarding, but very difficult.
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 13:36   #3
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Re: Races

make stealing only available when fleetcaught (so fleet alpa beta gamma, and not home) so ppl palying zik can't attack inactives. active ppl who let their fleet at home when attacked are not to bright now are they?
anyway, dodging the rules has been the unwritten rule in pa since whenever
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 14:01   #4
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Re: Races

I dont think you can really change it even though its needs to be the choices to me is simple

1) leave them as they are (maybe change stats a little)
2) take them out

but both of them options cause a greater problem.

You could make it so they have no pods and have to steal them first. that would make them harder to play and slow down their growth a lil to begin with
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 14:24   #5
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Re: Races

Make it so that you lose your stealer ships when you steal others (1:1 resource ratio, or maybe slightly in the Zik's favour).

Getting ships for free is ridiculous, really.
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 14:27   #6
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Re: Races

i dunon what seems to be the issue with stealing.
Maybe its just that i am extremly unlucky, or maybe noone can figgure out my faking... but everyone runs from me. every time. I think i capped like 50k value worth of ships throughout the round
And ofc, "questionable" steals ruin the game. i have head of those. But its not that unbalancing.

Were discussing this issue now because Ziks had been given a really good stealing/roiding fleet... And there are drawbacks to it. Has anyone pondered why is there both, rogue and bucaneer same class having same targets (bs) making 1 ship practically useless in zik's lineup ?

imho, to balance out races you just need to balance out stats. And thats impossible to do, and once you do do it, its only good for 1 round, and then u need to change them again for game has to remain forever changing in order not to get extremly boring.

Terr is quite strong, but , imho, just how it was intended to be. I think one of the best terr stats i have ever seen (given i havent played PA for 4 years ;/)

Cath is always an issue. U CANNOT make cath better as better players are almost certain to win, howeer smaller caths are quite fubored, coz EVERY hole in their def gets exploited as much as possible.

Xans would be very easy to balance out, imho. And it is not abotu stealthing (that helps) but about being able to shoot first and having tremendous firepower. If u give Xans viable faking fleet that can roid, it can become very powerfull race without "bringing it to former glory" of "u have 0 incoming hostiles from planet "Xan" zomgwtf ? "
Maybe even let units not work on them, at least people can approximate from the amount of ships. making fakes easier for them.
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 14:28   #7
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomkat
Make it so that you lose your stealer ships when you steal others (1:1 resource ratio, or maybe slightly in the Zik's favour).

Getting ships for free is ridiculous, really.

Bad idea due to the fact that, mostly, when Ziks steal, its never 0 loss.
I think fact that ziks steal at init 40, making everyhting else and their mother shoot at them first, and then loosing even more just coz they shoot does not maek much sence
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 14:31   #8
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomkat
Make it so that you lose your stealer ships when you steal others (1:1 resource ratio, or maybe slightly in the Zik's favour).

Getting ships for free is ridiculous, really.
Agreeing with the die-on-steal, disagreeing on the ratio. It should be something like 0.9:1 resource ratio, i.e. 10 resources worth of zik steal ships would be able to steal 9 resouces worth of other ships.
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 14:35   #9
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Heartless
Agreeing with the die-on-steal, disagreeing on the ratio. It should be something like 0.9:1 resource ratio, i.e. 10 resources worth of zik steal ships would be able to steal 9 resouces worth of other ships.
If you factor in mighteh's point you have to consider that sometimes ziks die. In fact a lot of the times zik dies. Maybe you could factor something weird in like ziks killing as well. To explain a bit more, all ziks fire first, ie init 1. However ziks only cap whatever they can steal with their fleet alive at the end of the battle. All other ships that would have been stolen just die (but only die at the end of the battle when they would otherwise have been stolen). Opinions?
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 14:42   #10
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Re: Races

Mighteh might be right about the stealing - maybe all we need is closer monitoring of the steals.

Steals of ex-alliance member fleets and stuff should be forbidden and other kinds of blatant donation should certainly be flagged up.
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 14:44   #11
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Heartless
Agreeing with the die-on-steal, disagreeing on the ratio. It should be something like 0.9:1 resource ratio, i.e. 10 resources worth of zik steal ships would be able to steal 9 resouces worth of other ships.
Not sure about the ratio going that way - hardly makes stealing beneficial then.

From the start you are handicapped in the sense that you can only kill 3 classes, and the other 3 classes are only at risk if they dont kill zik ships before init 42 or so.

Furthermore if you cap ships, you lose value.

I think those two bad points outweigh the theoretical ability to own 48 different ships.
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 15:24   #12
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mighteh
Bad idea due to the fact that, mostly, when Ziks steal, its never 0 loss.
I think fact that ziks steal at init 40, making everyhting else and their mother shoot at them first, and then loosing even more just coz they shoot does not maek much sence
So? They end up having fleets that can roid pretty much any target. A Zik getting that for 0 loss would still give them a huge advantage.

I remember about 10 rounds ago I had a Zik FR fleet, a Xan CO fleet and a Terran DE fleet at my disposal from stealing. Of course I'd lost ships getting it, but they pay back in dividends after.
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 17:17   #13
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Re: Races

Steal ships are currently so bad, overtargetted and fire last because that's the "seen" way to balance steal.

There's always been an issue - it's not just this round. Every round since R13 there's been issues.
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 17:46   #14
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Re: Races

Make steal weaker and let it shoot earlier - that's what you are implying.

How about it shoots init 2 after emp ?
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 17:48   #15
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomkat
Make it so that you lose your stealer ships when you steal others (1:1 resource ratio, or maybe slightly in the Zik's favour).

Getting ships for free is ridiculous, really.
Quoted for truth. Stealing ships for free IS ridiculous! (is that how its written mazz?)

The more profitable it is to cheat the more ppl will do it. Atm its so easy to shipfarm without getting cought and when you get ships for free its also very profitable.
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 21:35   #16
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Re: Races

i don't know why you just don't do the one race splitting into various options thing :/
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 22:08   #17
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by jerome
i don't know why you just don't do the one race splitting into various options thing :/
Indeed. I was reading down this thread wondering if anyone would have got to this point first, getting slowly more and more depressed, but jer saved me!


We need to return to the tech tree as a source of planetary development - right now it's just a means to an end.


Stealing ships or hyperspace?
EMP or amps/dists?
Cloaked ships or finance and security centres?



The choice could be yours. Coming to PA some time around 2026.
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 22:08   #18
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomkat
Make it so that you lose your stealer ships when you steal others (1:1 resource ratio, or maybe slightly in the Zik's favour).

Getting ships for free is ridiculous, really.
here's the solution, but in a ratio of you still 1,5 paying 1 an still zik should fire last, perhaps before the pods
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Unread 28 Jul 2006, 22:22   #19
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by furball
Indeed. I was reading down this thread wondering if anyone would have got to this point first, getting slowly more and more depressed, but jer saved me!


We need to return to the tech tree as a source of planetary development - right now it's just a means to an end.


Stealing ships or hyperspace?
EMP or amps/dists?
Cloaked ships or finance and security centres?



The choice could be yours. Coming to PA some time around 2026.
Those choices are pretty different.
If I started now and had this as the major change, I could probably get this coded for next round.

Creating a tech tree is difficult.

Previous "beta" tech trees I was fiddling with are such as :

http://www.appocomaster.co.uk/tree.jpg
http://www.appocomaster.co.uk/newtree.JPG

But really, it's hard to find a balanced decision.

Starting and making decisions as you go along would be more interesting. I don't think hyperspace or mil scans type decisions would be great, and it'd have to be something slightly deeper than that. At the far extreme, we could perhaps do something like the following:


I'd prefer to split the game up into combat, scans/covert ops and "other stuff" - finance centres, refinaries, HCTs, core mining, infrastructure, etc.

I tried this to a certain extent when I tried to merge scans and covert ops, and got pretty much shot down!

You'd have the ships section (perhaps include ETA with the ship techs?) for combat stuff

you'd then have the espionage type stuff, scans, covert ops, etc (though you could almost move scans into the covert ops section). It'd be a different way of doing things to normal, straight forward combat, and be instantaneous, but would have different strengths and weaknesses.

The last section would be stuff on/around your planet. I'm not talking about micromanagement, which I know some favour. It could be more extensive heavy cargo researches, and chosing to balance them against getting more wave amplifiers/ distorters / refinaries.



Of course, we could just shift to some slightly more exciting technology tree!
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Unread 29 Jul 2006, 10:43   #20
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Re: Races

I found split tech trees a joy of the game when you had them
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Unread 29 Jul 2006, 11:05   #21
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Re: Races

I know this is slightly off topic, but since you were mentioning tech tree, do we really need 16 heavy cargo transfers, isn't there a way to take out about half of those.
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Unread 29 Jul 2006, 12:54   #22
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by jt25man
I know this is slightly off topic, but since you were mentioning tech tree, do we really need 16 heavy cargo transfers, isn't there a way to take out about half of those.
Of course we could reduce the number but I don't think that's a good idea. The way it works now it means that people who accumulate a lot of roids have to invest a lot of time into HCT research, leaving them less time to research other stuff. This is a good way of (slightly) balancing things out.

As for Zik stealing, I think it's great the way it is. Zik stealing has kept me playing the game for the last few rounds, without it I would certainly have quit the game a couple of rounds ago. I think the fact that it's abusable is a small price to pay in comparison.
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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 10:29   #23
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Re: Races

how big is the problem with zik stealing? How many ziks are there in top 10/100 compaird to other races each round?

I know that I love to play zik just for the fun of stealing and trying to hoard as many ships as possible (maybe that's why ppl always run?)

I find that If I don't send "to few" ships to get max cap the target will run and leave me their roids to save ships. It's almost like its worse loosing ships to a zik then letting them die at the hands of a ter/xan....
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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 11:39   #24
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Re: Races

I also feel like adding that the stealing capability of ziks has another counterpart that becomes often a major problem: defence. Especially in the beginning of the round.

That can be overcome by stealing the classes you need, but really, look at it, it is not easy for a zik to defend against FR, DE & CR. And even the rest... Initiative is 6...

Also, a zik cannot defend roiding against half of the ship classes (unless he has a good amount of stolen ships). I would be able to steal some of the ship incoming, but they still go with the roids! Initiative is lower - well higher... 42 - than pods. That is, roids are taken before ships are stolen.

I greatly enjoy the ziks stealing ability as it is now, even though I often rage about not being able to defend against some ship classes. Trying to steal those I need for that defence purpose is precisely what makes stealing an art & a very fun game to play.
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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 11:40   #25
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Re: Races

Zik has weak defences, yes. This attracts attackers onto it, which gives it an oppertunity to steal ships.
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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 13:20   #26
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mighteh
Bad idea due to the fact that, mostly, when Ziks steal, its never 0 loss.
I think fact that ziks steal at init 40, making everyhting else and their mother shoot at them first, and then loosing even more just coz they shoot does not maek much sence
What if the inits for stealing ships were set lower? Ziks could have a variety of inits for strengths and weaknesses in stealing against the various classes, however the price they'd have to pay is the loss of their stealing ships.

How can you balance a game where 3 races can only gain value by stealing asteroids, and the 4th can steal asteroids and potentially steal ships with very little loss? Even though you say that Ziks tend to lose ships just to steal, they won't stay around if their losses don't make the steal worthwhile.

Ziks could still be all about stealing, but instead of having massives gains they could replace ships with their enemies, therefore not raising their value too much.
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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 19:05   #27
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Re: Races

Well, let me start a bit negative:
I dislike races as they are always imbalanced
I dislike the old tech tree fixed decisions
I dislike Xans/cloaked coming with 0 ships
I dislike the 3 slot limit
I dislike Dists/Amps races

However, what about giving a certain number of researches possible for every planet and this is less than the actually possible researches. Then have researches like the following:
ETA -1, -2, -3, -4
Ship Classes: FI/CO, FR/DE, CR/BS
Cloak Classes: FI/CO, FR/DE, CR/BS (cloaking all ships that class against against FA Scan)
EMP Class, FI/CO, FR/DE, CR/BS
Steal Classes (ok, I dislike stealing, just to make it complete): FI/CO, FR/DE, CR/BS
Number of fleet slots: 4, 5, 6
Scans: Planet, Tech, Struct, Unit, News, JGP, FA, Military (the old style)
Mining: 50, 100, 200, 350, 550, 800 (whatever)

For cloaking a class it is necessary to be able to build that class itself, when researched all the ships in that class are cloacked.
Stealing/EMP works with extra ships.

33 researches i mentioned above, now e.g. you have only 25 researches possible, you have to decide what you can do and create a great diversity of strategies that way.
And as a goody for the marketing department: free planets get e.g. 15 res, payed planets 25, or even with several steps in between. As researching takes some time and quite a few people are content with not having all researches anyway it even might be a successful business model to enable more steps.

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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 19:35   #28
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Re: Races

So the top planets would just disregard scans and have everything else, cloaked , emp and stealers, numerous slots and full eta res?
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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 19:55   #29
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cannon_Fodder
So the top planets would just disregard scans and have everything else, cloaked , emp and stealers, numerous slots and full eta res?
See it as a draft. You can work with less res possible, with big research time increases on the higher researches, split the classes into single classes instead of doubles, add dependencies like 'cloak only possible after unit scans as you need basic wave knowledge before you can avoid waves', or you can actually want exactly that decision. But yes, it is possible to have cloaked stealers that way.

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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 21:26   #30
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Re: Races

well it isnt a bad idea but hard to get it to work
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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 21:41   #31
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Re: Races

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Originally Posted by robban1
well it isnt a bad idea but hard to get it to work
I am a simple minded techy, can't see it that hard to implement from a coder perspective, at least way simpler than doing stats that make 4 balanced races.
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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 21:48   #32
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by are
I am a simple minded techy, can't see it that hard to implement from a coder perspective, at least way simpler than doing stats that make 4 balanced races.
No, I only have to recode half of the tech tree, the research page, the ticker, the stats admin, the combat engine, some of the major database tables, and probably the construction/production/fleets/missions/overview pages due to knock on effects

I'll see what I can do though in the next couple of weeks though!
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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 21:58   #33
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Re: Races

i dislike nowadays how quickly the "big stuff" comes out.

Cr and bs is flying from sometimes early 90s...
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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 22:10   #34
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Appocomaster
No, I only have to recode half of the tech tree, the research page, the ticker, the stats admin, the combat engine, some of the major database tables, and probably the construction/production/fleets/missions/overview pages due to knock on effects
I'll see what I can do though in the next couple of weeks though!
Ah, you sound a bit depressed. I don't know PA code, I will just assume it has been coded with a slight approach of reason. This means the research page needs to be reworked (actually the display part can stay the same), the tech tree needs to learn about dependencies, the ticker i see no reason to change, same for stats and the combat engine. Ziks already can have all types of ships so obviously the combat engine can handle it.
All that needs to be changed is the Production Page as you can build more or less ships there depending on more than just 1 research tree.
I assume you already loop on fleets, missions and overview anyway, my parsers do for sure.

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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 22:40   #35
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by are
However, what about giving a certain number of researches possible for every planet and this is less than the actually possible researches. Then have researches like the following:
ETA -1, -2, -3, -4
Ship Classes: FI/CO, FR/DE, CR/BS
Cloak Classes: FI/CO, FR/DE, CR/BS (cloaking all ships that class against against FA Scan)
EMP Class, FI/CO, FR/DE, CR/BS
Steal Classes (ok, I dislike stealing, just to make it complete): FI/CO, FR/DE, CR/BS
Number of fleet slots: 4, 5, 6
Scans: Planet, Tech, Struct, Unit, News, JGP, FA, Military (the old style)
Mining: 50, 100, 200, 350, 550, 800 (whatever)
The main problem with some branching; is that it can be very very bad to allow certain mixes. Especially since someone could just research most of the FI/CO stuff and have an unstoppable FI/CO fleet (imagine a vsh/spider/corsair fleet, for example). Which has a knock on effect in stats design and makes it very difficult.

A method to prevent this could be to have them all targetting similar stuff, but that too presents a headache, and may limit variety.

If you were trying to get another idea across, then I apologise.
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Unread 30 Jul 2006, 22:55   #36
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aragno
how big is the problem with zik stealing? How many ziks are there in top 10/100 compaird to other races each round?
Since stealing was reintroduced, we are in our 6th round.

The 600 top 100 planets in that time have consisted of 57 terrans, 96 caths, 159 xands and 186 ziks.

A lot of ziks always make it. They also tend to achieve a higher final avg value and sometimes highest avg score or roids (though xands usually have the highest avg roids if I remember right).

During a round, it's usually caths and terrans who dominate early; terrans often skydive out and cathaars are slowly whittled down. Xands and Ziks then tend to replace them, and occasionally terrans will have a later surge too (this is in my experience and from my PoV). This round, ziks have already achieved highest roids, score and value and look like they will absolutely dominate the round.
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Unread 31 Jul 2006, 09:01   #37
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gate
The main problem with some branching; is that it can be very very bad to allow certain mixes. Especially since someone could just research most of the FI/CO stuff and have an unstoppable FI/CO fleet (imagine a vsh/spider/corsair fleet, for example). Which has a knock on effect in stats design and makes it very difficult.

A method to prevent this could be to have them all targetting similar stuff, but that too presents a headache, and may limit variety.

If you were trying to get another idea across, then I apologise.
I am aware of the possibility to have unstoppable FI/CO combinations, this is why I suggested certain dependencies. I dislike the negative dependency of 'lowest ETA or best scan', I prefer more the positive dependency of 'if you want FI cloaking, you need Unit scans first'. The trick is, everyone has the possibility to play with all ships. Nice if you have the unbeatable FI/CO fleet which can't target CR/BS, but perhaps there is some CR/BS that hit FI/CO, so you are in deep shit if you completly ignore all better than FI/CO in the long run.
Another way to reduce these hyper combos is to weight the value of a research. E.g. a line of reseach is worth 9 points
FI/CO = 1, FR/DE = 3, CR/BS = 5
cloaking: 2, 3, 4
stealing: 2, 3, 4
Tech, Struct, Unit, News, JGP, FA, Mil -> 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2
ETA -1, -2, -3, -4 = 1, 2, 2, 4
Then you have to decide much stronger what you want to do and what you neglect. This means a cloaked, EMP, steal FI/CO fleet is still possible and even cheap (8 points, +9 for lowest ETA), so many will have it, but I think after some rounds fiasko it was decided FI/CO don't target CR/BS. And nice you can steal FR/DE, but obviously your pilots can't manage them as they are not trained to fly FR/DE or even manage theirs cloaking devices.
Then researches need time as well, so with the typical 8 week round and being limited by say 30 points max, this should be quite ok.
I think with a few basic rules a points system can be made quite easy to be way more independent from stats than current races.

Regards,
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Unread 31 Jul 2006, 18:16   #38
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Re: Races

Quote:
Originally Posted by are
Ah, you sound a bit depressed. I don't know PA code, I will just assume it has been coded with a slight approach of reason. This means the research page needs to be reworked (actually the display part can stay the same), the tech tree needs to learn about dependencies, the ticker i see no reason to change, same for stats and the combat engine. Ziks already can have all types of ships so obviously the combat engine can handle it.
All that needs to be changed is the Production Page as you can build more or less ships there depending on more than just 1 research tree.
I assume you already loop on fleets, missions and overview anyway, my parsers do for sure.

Regards,
_are_
The nature of the research part of the ticker is such I'd have to recode it to add dependancies, and the combat engine might need some slight adjusting.
Half of the fleets page is looped, half isn't (including things like the javascript). I've started looping it, but ... it makes me cry. The missions page is looped I *think* - it seemed to work when I gave myself 4 fleets one beta (unlike the fleets page).
Overview is looped :-)
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Unread 31 Jul 2006, 18:44   #39
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Re: Races

My biggest problem with stealers is the following dilemma.

You got a bashlimit to avoid smaller planets getting whacked, you got a 25% roidcap to avoid smaller planets totally die from getting incs.

Most "hardcore" players agree to this statement: Keeping your fleet alive is the most important thing in Planetarion. Lost roids can be regained etc etc. Right?

Now we have the zik. It doesnt have a bashlimit (it can send def to planets to defend against small targets) It doesnt have a caplimit on ships, meaning it [i]can be able to steal your entire fleet.

I see that zik's are fun, and I agree to that, to some extent, but why should the zik's that way be allowed to steal in so heavy amounts that it can actually cripple and destroy the round for the poor geezer getting incs..

Now, I think that zik's could still be able to steal
but a cap on the value of the steal should be considered, and maybe after that, the rest of the ships subvert enemyships or something similar.
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Unread 31 Jul 2006, 19:16   #40
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Re: Races

First off a note to Appoco: If people like my idea, I fully expect a credit for next round if you use it

Anyways this idea came to me whilst in the shower this morning. Make it so Zik ships can only steal up to a certain percentage of the total defending/attacking fleet, and after that the steal ships "resort" to using regular damage weapons and begin killing ships with the same effectiveness (effectiveness _could_ be changed I suppose) that they were stealing them at. So if a 25% cap (for example) is implemented and you have 10,000 thieves vs 10,000 vsh (using this round stats and leaving phantoms out of the picture for simplicity) then the thieves, despite outpowering the vsh, could steal a maximum of 2,500 vsh and would then proceed to kill the other 7,500. This would at least get rid of the ship donation problem. Instead of sending, for example, 5,000 vsh to donate to a zik since that is the most his thieves can handle, with the new system you would need to send 20,000 vsh to donate the same amount.

Another variation on this would be to allow zik ships to only be able to do for example 50% of their damage in steals and after that resort them to doing regular damage. In the 5,000 vsh donation example this would result in the donator losing half of what would have been donated, and the donatee recieving only half making the deal less proffitable for overall.

Both of these ideas were thought up in the shower as I said and are more or less rough drafts. Perhaps use the first idea but implement a 40% max ship cap? Or use the 2nd idea but let them do only 30% stealing? or 70%? Maybe mix both ideas... I don't care as long as appoco rewards me with a credit for this brainstorm
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Unread 31 Jul 2006, 19:38   #41
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Re: Races

A nice idea Devlin. Certainly stops farming at a stroke. Penalises non farming Ziks like myself. But if it stops cheating, which it would, then I'd support such a move for the good of PA.
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Unread 31 Jul 2006, 20:17   #42
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Re: Races

Could be made to do 1.33 times normal damage once they "switch" to "kill mode"? Again I picked this number out of the air but it would lessen the nerf on the Zik race whilst still making it much more difficult to farm. ACTUALLY.. it would make it even harder to farm because it would cause even more of a loss of ships.
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Unread 14 Aug 2006, 12:29   #43
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Re: Races

Treat stealing like you would treat asteroids.

Only a % can be stolen and Some % gets killed by the stolen ships due to rubbish drivers and self destruction buttons being pressed etc...
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Unread 14 Aug 2006, 15:05   #44
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Re: Races

even though I can easilly see why some want stealing gone, I dont think it would be smart. PA got alot of zik only players. Most of them vets which only find some fun in playing zik. like me

Thikn alot would stop bothering to play if u remove stealing as it is today. Just that zik r too good this round..doesnt mean you have to change more than some minor things concerning stats .
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Unread 14 Aug 2006, 15:34   #45
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Re: Races

I don't think Zik were all that overpowered really. The Spider firing before Beetle causes a huge growth acceleration factor for Fi/Co fleets and the BS being able to steal Terr DE easily gave excellent faking options for roiding. This seems as much of a problem with the other race stats as a problem with Zik.

I think the rest of the game should be made like this*. As Wishmaster says they are more fun than say Xan - my favourite race for many rounds before I played them in the XP round and the necessary levels of activity almost killed me. Zik don't need roids to do all that well so its not as painful to be roided. I have never had more than 600 roids** and I'm Top50 at the moment for example. Also, with zik it's not just a case of "I am xan. I have Vsharrak fleet. I will attack a Terran again @ 03:55 for the 20th straight night."

* By which I mean more complicated with more options. I think Secondary Targetting would help bring back a lot of interest. I think allowing divergence of shiptypes within races would allow more flexibility in stat design aswell.

** Not very often at least and never for long. You could ask an eXilition guy to be sure though, they seemed to be keeping a very close eye on it at all times
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Unread 14 Aug 2006, 20:41   #46
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Re: Races

The major issues to Zik aren't those you raised. They're the bashing and abuse issues. These have nothing to do with how strong or weak they are...
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Unread 15 Aug 2006, 11:04   #47
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Re: Races

Go back to subversion. It's much easier to establish rules on red defence and green hostile fleets than to judge what is farming ships and what is not. I can't remember a round with zik steal ships where another race was the strongest. (XP aside)
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Unread 15 Aug 2006, 11:45   #48
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Re: Races

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Originally Posted by Gio2k
I can't remember a round with zik steal ships where another race was the strongest.
There's some subconscious issue to the statsmakers with this one. When they make stats, they think that zikonian zikonian zikonian must be great must be great must be great winner winner winner. BLING BLING.

Then we get cutter, that shoots at battleships for zero-loss, with ridiculous gunpower, and assassin, that runs over any defences unless your target is sixteen times your size. Oh, we've recovered from that right, the ziks were almost bad enough by damage/armor, now tuxedo to the helm.

We still got cutter (hello), and brigand (hello). What we don't have is bad attack fleets, instead we build a fleet that can bounce pretty much everything. This all *has* to be good playing down zikonians. I'm sure they're fairly balanced when they have the possibly best (or second best) attack fleet of the round with full steal ability.

I don't know how rounds 14-15 went, but 16-17 and 13 definately didn't see even an attempt to make zikonians harder by ship stats.
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Unread 15 Aug 2006, 16:00   #49
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Re: Races

personally, i dont have a problem with zik stealing.. but i do when they re attacking ppls half their value for obvious ships and roids, knowing they cant be stop (as it take too much gal or alliance def to stop!)

having a costumable fleet via a tech tree could be interesting, would provide a variety of ships, especially if you can choose your targeting ship for the class!.. of course , i know it would be a b..ch to code.. , maybe add tech upgrade as a side way (as power up armor or attack power, greater init power up, distorter / amp better effectivenes, etc!)

so that there s more possibility. and to my opinion, a higher limit to "bash planet", as it is.. bigger planet have it too easy to either roid or steal.
or put in negative score tied to value of attacker vs value of defender.. so the lower you hit, the bigger the penalty.. player not willing to play fair should be punish, in my opinion, as xp is obviously having no impact on bashing planets.

and why not make covert op more effective.. it s a laugh to spend 25k ressourcee to blow up 6 spiders or 5 corsair , bank hack stealing is fair , but not good.. barely cover the expense of ressource, and many covert op are rarely if ever used! who use the infiltration co op? or the any of the lesser cov op?... give some power to it , it will add a dimention to the game..
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Last edited by rop1964; 15 Aug 2006 at 16:05.
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Unread 28 Aug 2006, 15:58   #50
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Re: Races

How about adding a random element to stealing? all steal ships fire, then i.e. 5 - 25% of the stolen ships (random roll) either blow up due to "nanite malfunction", or manage to break steal and return unharmed to the owner.
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