r10 as random

[Kåre Willoch]

Well, with r10 being all random it's back to surviving with spies in your galaxy, and no security whatsoever. If rumours on traveltimes/geography of universe are right, it'll effectively be a smaller universe too. And with pds taken out, no chance for a defensive planet to survive.

Spies will be a great advantage to the big alliances, they will have people ready to attack at all times when somebody in the spy's galaxy is logged out, or out attacking.

Two drastic solutions to limit spying :

1. Take away galstatus completely

2. Remove the online* symbol from galaxy, so scans have to be used to find out when you're on.

Taking out galstatus will be making the game more open, attacks will have higher chance of success = more fun for those who actually play.

Another idea would be to add armor and cut firepower, so attacking would be more likely to succeed. The way it is now 95% of the planets sit with they're fleet at home, that must mean there's something wrong with the game-mechanics. Scanning roids up to 7-800 actually pays off in this stagnated universe. It shouldn't it should be a wargame FS.

[Gerbie]

There already are several solutions to the spying thing:
- make accounts so expensive that spying gets a pricetag;
- make traveltimes so that there's a big chance spies will have their owners a zillion ticks away;
- it will be a bit easier to exile a spy.
Information will be changed, perhaps in the way you suggested. Suggestions have been made where people could turn their status view on or off for their galmates.

[Kåre Willoch]

to take out galstatus: well, lets face it, galstatus greatly favours the allianceplayers. They usually attack galaxy by galaxy, or even cover whole clusters. Because of that the victims of their attacks have little use of the galstatus, with the whole galaxy covered in red there's not much more than a little crossdefense to do.

The crap players inside the good galaxys however, have a great advantage from galstatus, no player in a much smaller galaxy will dare to hit them, as long as they know galstatus will reveal their attack. The big galaxy will always have some players online running the show, easily defending against random retals. Take out galstatus, and it's goodbye safety.

The less pro attackers playing out of cubicle heaven at work in daytime, and not dedicating their lifes to pa, lose out on having galstatus, as their unorganised attacks get spotted by galmates 90% of the times, and their attacks fail.

[Colt]

hmm, the idea of taking out the gal status seems good, but i would keep the incoming status shown and take out the outgoing. My reasoning is that it would just be like putting overburn back in to the game with attacks and means that you have to be very active, something which a newcomer to the game wont be, and therefore no1 else can see the incomin and you die, without a chance of even getting defence. BY taking out the outgoing, any spy that might be in ur gal will not know if you have sent a fleet out to def/att, thus dampening the usefulness of that spy...

i like the idea of not being shown the online status of ppl un the gal tho.

IMO the travel times should just stay as they are as there is nothing wrong with them, but that is just a thought.

[Ultimate Newbie]

i agree with the removal of the online status (*) from the Galscreen - its IRC activity that counts, and that should be the judge of whether you are online or not.

I disagree with the removal of the Gal Status though. the point of having it was to create some galaxy unity. if you dont know what's coming at members (like totals, etas etc), then every member of your gal must be constantly online. I see this heavily favouring the larger alliances who have the potential to be far more active. Removing the outgoing may limit the amount of info a spy may gain, and i dont see any loss to the galaxy other than being unsure as to whether everyone launched (but how many gals attack together these days? its all battlegroups).

[-QS-]

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie
(but how many gals attack together these days? its all battlegroups).

Actually a sucessful gal has to go on constant raids together, but in a random universe u r surely right

[mens]

what UN said

[Gerbie]

With the new attack system gal attacks might be the way to go.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally posted by Gerbie
With the new attack system gal attacks might be the way to go.

however, they just as equally may not.

you cant say that without any proof in the direction of the game - tbh i dont think that Spinner really knows what he is going to do. He thinks that having regions is a good thing, but he also sees a thousand and six people who have said that it will make matters worse. Still, even if he does know exactly what he is going to do, coding it properly with various rules etc will be antoher matter entirely.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie
Removing the outgoing may limit the amount of info a spy may gain,

Although quoting myself is lame, i'd like to highlight that even by limiting the amount of info a spy can gain can still result in that spy working over your galaxy.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by Kåre Willoch
with the whole galaxy covered in red there's not much more than a little crossdefense to do.

Don't belittle cross defending, we've covered 7/10 planets with near zero losses by cross defending this round.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie
i agree with the removal of the online status (*) from the Galscreen - its IRC activity that counts, and that should be the judge of whether you are online or not.

WTF? You want all the people (me included) who spend a significant portion of time behind a firewall at work to quit?

[virogenesis]

I believe this will destroy the game if you make these moves as a gal should be united rather than apart that was what if you make it so you can't see status a new person to the game gets attacked & has no one to help him\her as they can not see their status.

I believe 3 different types of cloaked would be good.
cloak outgoing
cloak incoming
& also be able to cloak online status but by doing this it will make the game more easy fo farm which is the downside

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally posted by Gayle29uk
WTF? You want all the people (me included) who spend a significant portion of time behind a firewall at work to quit?

well, tbh i hadnt considered that. However, i presume that you can let your galaxy know that you are online by 1) mailing people and 2) posting on Politics - there isnt much of a need for the asterisk symbol to tell you that 'Gayle is at work!' etc.

[Embroglio]

So say 9 people are online, and the 10th gets incoming, noone will know about it?

What a stupid idea.

It also encourages account sharing.

[Gayle29uk]

Forgot to mention, this would also take us back to the overburn farming Hell.

[leknu]

Removing incoming friendlies details in galnews could be nice compromise.
- At least no defender coords
- Maybe not even shipnumbers
- defending fleets count?

It wouldnt give out info to spies if planet is covered or not, and also makes it impossible to counter defense before newsscans...

And it would still give some clue to the galaxy if player #x's alliance is sending def or not when the said dude is offline and his alliance has been alerted. And also it would enable new tactics with fake defense sent by attackers ;-)

Galaxy screen online info should be kept there imo. Any good spy can check the online times of the gal from irc just as well...


Edit: Nothing prevents people spying. Most spy planets arent just spy planets. Scanners and farms is the main reason, spying is just a nice little bonus. As long as scans work like they do theres going to be spying accounts around. All that can be done is to reduce the damage they could do (and reduce a bit the temptation to make such planets)

<utopia> Cheat hunters will delete all farms, and scan system is made one which renders scan planets useless. Then it would be possible to significantly reduce spy planets as well. </utopia>

[black-eyed boy]

It's probably just me but I'm sure that an "active" spy is far more dangerous than "inactive" one.

("Inactive" = planet only signed up to leak the galstats / online stats to it's friends / multis whatever.
"Active" = playing just like most people do - being on IRC, participating in arranging defence etc).

My point is that in 99% cases there is no way you can find out who the active spy is, unless he's stupid enough to blow the cover.

Keep your friends close but enemies closer or something

[zenopus]

One big advantage of a random-only universe is that it puts politics back in the hands of individual players, you can no longer just rely on the political skills of your alliance HC and officers.

Originally posted by Kåre Willoch
Spies will be a great advantage to the big alliances, they will have people ready to attack at all times when somebody in the spy's galaxy is logged out, or out attacking.

I've been in random galaxies most rounds.
I don't recall having a spy in my galaxy in the last random-only round.
There was one round I had a nasty spy in my galaxy, allegedly "pepsi" - but we found out which planet it was and exiled.
This round I have a couple of peons from one of the major alliances in my galaxy, but we have not noticed any spying from them - I guess some alliances don't see it as glorious to use such tactics on "innocent" randoms - in a private galaxy universe.

Another idea would be to add armor and cut firepower, so attacking would be more likely to succeed.

Back to R4 stats?

The way it is now 95% of planets sit with their fleets at home, that must mean there's something wrong with the game-mechanics.

Anything specific?

Scanning roids up to 7-800 actually pays off in this stagnated universe. It shouldn't

I'm not sure that would be a very popular view; scanning for roids and initiating them is the only way to get more roids in the universe... A lot of people are complaining that there are not enough roids in the universe... OFC most players want *others* to be the ones scanning and initiating - and a large number of players seem willing to accept a higher price per roid for roids stolen rather than scanned and initiated.

... it should be a wargame FS.

Spies are part of the reality of war...

[Chax]

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie
Removing the outgoing may limit the amount of info a spy may gain, and i dont see any loss to the galaxy other than being unsure as to whether everyone launched

Knowing the outgoing fleets of a galmate that's under attack is of great use when trying to defend him.

1. Will he lose all his ships when the killfleet lands if I can't get him covered? Or is he out and will only lose roids?

2. Is the attack a counter for an attack he is doing?

3. Does he only need a small amount of something to be perfectly safe?

How you can say there's no use for seeing outgoing I can't fathom. Maybe it's the galaxy I'm in, but I'm defending and and/or arranging def for galmates 5 times a week. Outgoing fleet info is a must!

[Chax]

Originally posted by leknu
Removing incoming friendlies details in galnews could be nice compromise.
- At least no defender coords
- Maybe not even shipnumbers
- defending fleets count?

Bad idea
1. Galmates can't mail defenders that it's safe to recall when the hostiles have pulled?
2. Galmates have no way of knowing if an offline planet is covered or not.
3. Galmates have no way of knowing if the friendly fleet defending vs 500 hostiles isn't in fact just 5000 corsairs from the same guy that sent the 450 cutters+50 pods.

[leknu]

Originally posted by Chax
Bad idea
1. Galmates can't mail defenders that it's safe to recall when the hostiles have pulled?
2. Galmates have no way of knowing if an offline planet is covered or not.
3. Galmates have no way of knowing if the friendly fleet defending vs 500 hostiles isn't in fact just 5000 corsairs from the same guy that sent the 450 cutters+50 pods.

In random universe people dont trust recall mail from any other planet than the one they are defending anyway, (at least most of the time).

Not knowing everything isnt necessarily a bad thing, if people communicate well, they dont need galnews to see the whole picture.

[dabult]

Already kinda pointed out but anyways...

Removing galnews would be as to say "WELCOME BACK FARMERS", plus it would be just as utterly sucky as OB attacks was last round, only three times worse cause you can stay for three ticks. Remember how a HUGE majority screamed for the removal of OB, especially attacks...?
Removing the * on the galscsreen, why..?
There are MANY who cant/dont want to/cba to be on irc all the time, i just dont see any reason to remove it..it wouldnt benefit anybody in any direction.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally posted by dabult
Removing the * on the galscsreen, why..?
There are MANY who cant/dont want to/cba to be on irc all the time, i just dont see any reason to remove it..it wouldnt benefit anybody in any direction.

Just as there is no argument to remove it, there is no argument to keep it either. Why do we really need to know if somone is online? They can make their presence felt on IRC or just responding to events in the galaxy status. They do not need a star next to their planet for them to do this. I've seen somone deleted for not logging into their planet for a week, but their asterisk was on the whole time. (i thought that was interesting, too). still, it doesnt matter if its there, and it doesnt matter if it isint. I reckon it should be removed to stop spies from gaining info on when people login - but even at best, its a shaky argument.

[hyfe]

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie
Just as there is no argument to remove it, there is no argument to keep it either. Why do we really need to know if somone is online? They can make their presence felt on IRC or just responding to events in the galaxy status. They do not need a star next to their planet for them to do this.

Hmm.. the way I read your reasoning it sounds like you're really saying:
'there are other ways to say you're online/communicate'
rather than your rethorical question:
' Why do we really need to know if somone is online?'

The short hand of the story is that when you're using pa-mail for in-game communication, the online marker is a timesaving and valuable tool. It gives you some idea who is online, and who you can expect answer from. For some irc isn't an option, just responding to galaxy events is plain silly, and making a post on politics asking whats going on isn't enough as you really want to 'push' messaging instead of 'pull' messaging.

While you may not have had use for it, others certainly have.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally posted by hyfe
the online marker is a timesaving and valuable tool.

Why wouldnt you send a particular message, if it was important, to everyone in the galaxy?

knowlege is power :P

[dabult]

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie
Why wouldnt you send a particular message, if it was important, to everyone in the galaxy?

knowlege is power :P

I sense überspamm0rage..completely useless spammage aswell :P

The short hand of the story is that when you're using pa-mail for in-game communication, the online marker is a timesaving and valuable tool. It gives you some idea who is online, and who you can expect answer from. For some irc isn't an option, just responding to galaxy events is plain silly, and making a post on politics asking whats going on isn't enough as you really want to 'push' messaging instead of 'pull' messaging.

And in particular:

While you may not have had use for it, others certainly have.


That simple really (:

[leknu]

Originally posted by Ultimate Newbie

...
I've seen somone deleted for not logging into their planet for a week, but their asterisk was on the whole time. (i thought that was interesting, too).
...

I'd guess thats a case of refresh bot which was reason for delete as well...

[[Cymru]]

I couldnt be bothered to read half of this thread but heres my view...

Get rid of the stupid planet asterisk * !!! Even if this shows the planet online, it still takes an irc conversation or a PA mail to see if the person is actually there or at their computer. The * is totally pointless and only really serves as info to spies these days.

As for the gal status. In any random round. you NEED gal members to see your incoming, what you dont always want them seeing is your defence.

1. No gal status = a free version of overburn attacks for everyone and roid/ship farming heaven because nobody in the galaxy will see incomings.

2. You need gal mates to see your incoming in a random round to get the galaxy working together etc. too aswell as give half decent people a chance in the round.

What i propose is that your galaxy can all see your incomings but not all of your galaxy can see your defence. You could set up a tag like system where you choose which planets in galaxy can see your friendly defence fleets, so you can avoid having spies check your gal status for friendlies while news scans arent available.

What i would like to see in the new random round 10 is a way of letting gal mates see incomings without checking the galaxy status screen. Such as making the enemies tab glow amber to say the galaxy has incs even if your planet does not. If your planet has incs of course, the enemies tab will still be red =/

And get rid off the outgoing galaxy status, it serves no purpose that outweighs the spying advantages!!!

[[Cymru]]

and btw...

Anybody who claims that spies arent that much of a problem is talking utter bull****!!!

Round 8 was cut short, yet i only played half of that time. And in that short time, the galaxy i was in only had 4 original members throughout. In total we had to exile 10 different planets from the galaxy due to BIG BIG indications threy were spying and defending our attacks and even scanning in galaxy for info ffs!!!

This period of exiling spies not only cost us s***loads of resources but resulted in no-one at all revealing who they were for fear of being hit by enemy allies and gave us incomings 95% of the round.

Round 8 imo was a very very bad example of what a random round could be. Overburn helped farmers loads and stopped a lot of galaxy comeradery plus there were still way too many ways a spy could get FREE info on the galaxy they were spying on.

And to do a slight change on the outgoing gal status. To make it easier maybe. Leave both incoming and outgoing gal status on, but let planets decide through some sort of tag or similar system which gal mates can see their incoming friendly fleets. But ofc still leave ALL incoming hostile fleets viewable in the hope gal mates will help if you are offline and to stop ship/roid farming!

[Kåre Willoch]

Originally posted by [Cymru]
and btw...

Anybody who claims that spies arent that much of a problem is talking utter bull****!!!

Round 8 was cut short, yet i only played half of that time. And in that short time, the galaxy i was in only had 4 original members throughout. In total we had to exile 10 different planets from the galaxy due to BIG BIG indications threy were spying and defending our attacks and even scanning in galaxy for info ffs!!!

This period of exiling spies not only cost us s***loads of resources but resulted in no-one at all revealing who they were for fear of being hit by enemy allies and gave us incomings 95% of the round.

Round 8 imo was a very very bad example of what a random round could be. Overburn helped farmers loads and stopped a lot of galaxy comeradery plus there were still way too many ways a spy could get FREE info on the galaxy they were spying on.

And to do a slight change on the outgoing gal status. To make it easier maybe. Leave both incoming and outgoing gal status on, but let planets decide through some sort of tag or similar system which gal mates can see their incoming friendly fleets. But ofc still leave ALL incoming hostile fleets viewable in the hope gal mates will help if you are offline and to stop ship/roid farming!

---------
So true !!!!
I've had several rounds partly ruined due to spys, those of you saying they aren't important haven't played as an average pa-player. If you are in an uberleet alliance winning the round, you have no worries, as spys won't make anybody want to hit you, because of the payback that is bound to come. If you are in an under average galaxy, and doing just reasonably well, but with no elite alliance to back you up, you can be quite sure some scanplanet/farm/multi will be selling you out. This is so obvious in the period before news-scans are out, when all attackers know exactly when to pull and not to...(DEATH PENALTY TO SPIES !!)

I see the point about farming, incoming should be shown, but removing the outgoing would help a bit, and * should definitely go, FFS let them scan you if they want to know your online times.