Round 10, traveltime and alliances

[LordBlackheart2000]

Originally posted by KMM

i loved the guerilla idea thing.that would be good for stealth attacks and even newbies would have chance to roid bigger people (aslong as the bigger person has their fleet out ofc)

that intel scan idea is good aswell.

Can i Ask did you even consider what the Problems with Guerilla Idea will cause. as there has been 2 suggestions on this so far, The first idea which posted Proposed that the Planet under attack wouldn't be able to see the attack until it actually happened, the second suggested that it be eta 2 before anyone saw it including the planet under attack.

Lets have a look at this shall we in a little more detail.

Lets say you have a reasonable sized planet and you happen to be part of the controlling Group for your little area. Now Player B comes along with his ships, being much bigger than u btw, now he launches his Guerilla Attack. What are you going to do about it.

NOTHING!!!!!

cause if you went with the first idea, you could be sat online waiting for the tick, then it ticks and your news light shows up, and u think whats that, u look and oh what a shame i have no fleet left, then i would be oh look i have no roids left as well, oh well nevermind i didn't want to play anymore anyway.

Now you go with the second idea which was eta 2 before it could be seen. hmm lets see you think its all safe i'll think i'll go to bed for 4 - 6 hrs, wake up and oh look i have no planet left, so unless you actually happen to be online during those 2 important ticks your planets dead...

What a great way to piss many New and Old players off. You really want top play a game that you can either be killed without knowing about it or have to be online 24hrs a day just so u can spot the surprise attack.

No your going to say ah but you have the Intel scan, which if i'm wrong was suggested to be some time after Mil scans which are only just appearing in the universe's Scan planets now some 587 ticks into the game, so your Intel scan wouldn't be around until atleast tick 700 and thats for the scan planets, but they wont help u cause its based on your gal only, which would put the time before having a intel scan somewhere in the region of tick 1000.

how many times do you think u can be attacked in those 1000 ticks. Would also mean that you would have to have someone online in your gal 24hrs a day, just to do the scanning, and then be able to contact the person thats under attack. Christ even in private gals you have people you cant get in touch with, how people do u think are going to hand out a sms number in a random gal setting..

I'm all for ideas but please at least try and think about what sort of effects on the universe they would have before posting.

Cupelix....

hmmmm,

Let's say my galaxy's coords are 5:6, and I'm in alliance X, and my alliance is at war with alliance Y. Now let's say by pure accident, 5:5, 5:7, 4:6 and 3:6 happen to be alliance Y, now my round is ruined as it takes my friends more time to help me than it takes for my enemies to attack me. If this can be solved in game I like the idea, else it sux. Also I'd like to see a maximum to traveltime not higher then 14 or 15.

[isildurx]

i havent read all the other posts but...


i wud like to have it so that ur jumpgate have maybe 10-15 prefixed coords.

Theese coords u type in while still in protection, and these coords will have lower eta than usual(how much i dunno).


This will make the round both random, and u get to 'play with ur m8es'.

[bmwoody13]

Does everyone forget about the third dimension? It seems like some people claim this is a good idea because of the "realism" of it... but wouldn't planets on one edge of a galaxy be closer to the next galaxy than planets on the other edge?

hehe, maybe that would get a little complicated to implement, and it's a really bad idea to raise in-gal eta... but I'm just saying... If it's REALISM you all want...

Oooh! Ooh! Or MAYBE the traveltime could depend on the time of day. That would create an interesting new type of strategy... Say, all your planets are in slightly different orbits, and they all line up one time during the week, or something like that, then each gal would have to figure out their special time so they could all launch at the same eta... er... bah, i've lost my mind!

But anyway, the point is, I don't think raising the eta is such a bad idea... It would be good for people who only get to check once a day - they won't have TOO many successful attacks, but at least they'll be able to launch at 5:00 tonight and see tomorrow night at 5:00 how they're doing instead of having to try waking up at 1-2 in the morning to check...

[Cassidy]

Originally posted by Cassidy

The coordinate system could be used for defs though, with travel tech resulted in lower ETA

ETA 0 -> ETA 5 + distance
ETA -1 -> ETA 5 + distance/2
ETA -2 -> ETA 5 + distance/3
ETA -3 -> ETA 5 + distance/4
ETA -4 -> ETA 5 + distance/5

Distance could either be calculated the way Spinner proposed, or using pythagors and rounding up. ie. square root of (cluster distance² + paralell distance²). With a circular universe as allready mentioned.

Overburn (def only) could be implemented like this:

1 x E cost : real ETA - 0
2 x E cost : real ETA - 1
4 x E cost : real ETA - 2
8 x E cost : real ETA - 3
16 x E cost : real ETA -4

Ditch this idea, would give low eta to too much of the universe -> blocking .

/me slaps self

Originally posted by Axis_WLF
instead of denting travel time so much why not dent eonium usage more somehow. Perhaps making it 50/50 dent the travel time a bit and dent the eonium usage a bit as well. Or make travel time faster and eonium cheaper for some as well. I dunno but dont go so much into travel time as after a while someone will take advantage of it but if ya dent the fuel they cant be so free about it.

That won't work: big blocks can build more EO too.

I like this idea, just a few small changes would make it more interesting.

First off: make the model more realistic: in-cluster traveltime should be less impacted than out of cluster. So maybe half a tick per Y coord (1:1 -> 1.2 = 5 ticks, 1:1 -> 1:3 or 1:4 is 6 ticks, 1:1 -> 1:5 or 1:6 is 7 ticks etc)

Out of cluster traveltime should be longer. Maybe 1 tick per X coord.

You can put a maximum traveltime to keep it manageable.

What I personally would like though is a larger and more variable techtree to go with it: allow people to "specialize" in certain directions. And combining things. Like having people design their own shiptype. You cut all the shipdevelopment from the techtree and instead put things that are needed to develop ships in their stead.
An example: I want to build a cloaked ship with a lot of firepower, then I first need to research cloaking, "Ion guns" or something of the like and build a shipfactory. Once I have all the neccessary developments, I design a ship by adding engines, number and type of guns, shielding, emp shielding etc.
The battle characteristics of the ship are easy to calculate, as you know the number of guns and their weaponspeed, the amount of shielding etc.

The same goes for other developments too. And maybe adding a "surprise factor", in stead of having defined all developments beforehand, allow people to combine types of research and find new developments based on that.

It would make a more realistic model: xans being the only ones with cloaks for instance is b*ll****, since IRL of course we would immediately "borrow" that technology from them.

Just my $0.02

Odysseus

[menth0l]

maybe jumping one cluster = 0.5 ticks and one parallel = 0.5 ticks and rounded down ?

[Zeus]

Im all for travel time changes. Indeed some people here pointed out that if the purposed travel changes that spinner meantion went ahead, the universe would have to be a circluar universe, which would continue to expand as new planets and galaxies joined.

However, I dont beleive ANY change in ETA's will reduce or remove the powerblocking which undoubtly IS needed to happen. Therfore I think if people looked upon this idea, from a strategy perspective, rather than a block/alliance reducer/remover, then we may be able to get somewhere. Everyone should also bear in mind, this is only one purposed change. Seeing one change by itself will never appear fair or the right thing to do. Therfore I wouldnt put one idea up for discussion, but the whole round 10 plan, WHEN the creators beleive its right. Without seeing the whole picture its rather foolish to making decision or constructive comments.

Perhaps if blocking is the current topic, annoucment of the alliance hardcoded and benifits to them & the universe?

[Spoticus]

Originally posted by whoop
Spinner. I've seen this idea before, it was in another game - can't remember the name of it. Was written by some french dude, and the idea was you captured planets, traded between them, etc.

Anyway, just like you are suggesting, travel time depended on where you were in the universe.

It sounded good, but what would happen was that someone would attack you, and your allies would be about 50 hours away, and by the time they got there to help, you were dead.

I remember when I started playing the game, I thought it was great idea, but in practice it totally sucked.

What ended up happening was that a few players would dominate their respective corners of the universe. If you were a new planet in that area you basically lasted about 48 hours before you lost your planet completely - the good guys had killed all the planets nearby to them that were a threat.

Then they grew and grew till they met in the middle, but it was never a big fight, again because of the travel time. A battle would start, reinforcements would get sent in, they wouldn't get there in time, and it just kind of fizzled. Lots of complaining on the forums.

It sounds nice, but it sadly doesn't work.

-whoop

You talking bout space? A r5 gal mate got me into that during havoc, i liked it a lot but it was even more time demanding than pa lol.

[Domin]

The travel system would work... if ticks was 15 min.

24 hours back and foward???? must seriouse be kidding. btw this will not stop people getting roided over over over and over again like it's in cluster/paras. Why would it stop stagnation btw? with big blocks they all will be spread. and that way can coordinate it's just abit harder but alliances will always find a way...

[Telest]

Anything over ~12 ETA is already way too long for the game to be interesting, unless we made ticks every half an hour or so (which might not be such a bad idea, provided ETA and other compensations were made). You don't really want to isolate big people for the whole round, making them unable ever to fight it out.

Still, I think the biggest trouble with powerblocks is the combination of local (cluster/parallel) control combined with universe control. People in blocks can find "friends" easily from galaxies close by, and many are afraid to detach themselves from their alliance ties to attemp to co-operate with a few galaxies close by. If you split the universe in many zones and there is one dominant block, it's likely that this block will eventually seize control of each zone. With competing powerblocks, it might actually be different blocks seizing different zones.

Personally, I like the idea of a flattening universe best of those presented here so far - in other words the game would start with your only able to access galaxies near by to your reaching the whole universe in the end. It - if properly implemented - might allow for some anti-powerblock resistance whilst still allowing the big people to pummel it out at one point or other.

How about making ETA technologies increase the range of galaxies one can travel to without penalties (and making the ETA researhes take MUCH longer, so that the first three aren't done before you even notice). Travelling beyond this zone would then take a quickly increasing amount of time. With sufficient advancements(5/6?), even the large galaxies could eventually fight it out if they so wanted.

Well, just my thoughts.

[fishfood]

I really liked the suggestion about different parallels for different sorts of galaxies,
someone else also suggested putting random gals round the edge with private gals in the middle.

another suggestion that is similar would be to have a weekly shuffle that moves your gal closer to the middle if you have more score than the next gal along. This means that active gals who are growing in score will not run out of targets as they will keep moving to the middle with more targets that are their size. It also means that inactive gals who start next to loads of big people will not have to worry about being bashed forever as they will slowly move to a quieter part of universe where the attackers will be smaller.

This would mean that there were always plenty of targets for people and they get less of an eta handicap if they attack targets that are close to their own size.

Everyone will have targets,
everyone will mainly interact with gals their own size

[Slinky]

Originally posted by Dreadnought!
I see a flaw

say there are 50 clusters and 10 parralels

25:5 would have an unfair advantage as compared to say 50:10

as it would have double the gals to hit at half the eta


as there is no 51:11 but there is a 26:6


See my point? :\

It gives an unfair advantage at the start

Too lazy to read through the entire thing, you make the universe spherical. i.e. cluster one is as close to cluster (top cluster (51 for instance) as it is to cluster two, problem solved.

okay some of my ideas:

first: what are major problems inside pa:
- newb bashers
- random gals vs private gals
- scan planets
- multis

you always tried to solve this problems but none of your ideas really helped ..

so your new idea is to implement variable travel times
why not combining this with problem 1 - newb bashers

10 parallels, 50 clusters, 10 players per cluster

idea:
reshuffle once per week
from huge gals in 1:1 down to newb gals in 50:10

this means that huge gals will only be able to battle against other gals in their size, so newb bashing will be gone

this makes it also obsolete to inplement rules like its only possible to attack players > 20% of your size, because you will bash them only with travel time

impact. and even a newb should be able to send his fleet away when he knows that there is an attack with 30 ticks eta

....

some guys will only play if there are private gals
it will be no problem, because random gals will play at the end of the universe, and private gals will play at the other side - so no one will have problems

with egoistic players inside private gals

and when one random gal is able to coordinate their players well, they will be also good enough to get closer to the beginning of the universe - fighting against private gals - this will be true winners

...

scan planets
include the geographic situation also into the scan formular
so it will be not possible any longer to have scan accs

scan accs will be only usefull if they reside in their own gal - but this will weaken your gal score

....

multis
its hard to have farm planets when you cant reach them or? isnt it?

...

jumpgate

maybe it should be also possible to connect 2 gals together with some kind of jumpgate
allowing only friendly fleets for defense purpose, and also reducing eta to lets say gal travel time + 2 ticks
also such jumpgate should only work when both gals launch their jumpgate to the other allied gal
the jumpgate should be expensive and the price should be gal score based

there should be also the possibility of shared gax stat pages between this 2 gals

....

also there is some kind of problem with our shringking user base ...

but it might be so easy to solve this

paid account: accs like yet
free account: each roid produces only 50% ressources
but no max score limit! this allows them to fight against other free players till the end and maybe also get their gal into random player space - when they are good enough

it should be possible to steal roids from free players with paid accounts, because paid fleets cant reach them => traveltime, because free players will stay

at the end of our universe

....

i also like bertrans idea ..

maybe there should be some kind of "alliance center" research / construction reducing traveltimes between alliance members
2 ticks reduction seems fine, but it should not be possible to reduce below the traveltime of vicinal parallel galaxies

but it should not be possible to change your tag within one reshuffle period - so this feature should really belong to true alliances

...

also it might be good to increase firepower / armor ratio
so there should be more damage on players ... it shoul not be so easy to growth to fast
- balance it

maybe this should also give you the possibility to convert r10 into some kind of endless round (still pay for 3 month .. )

when the players inside 1.x will get to huge, there might be the possibility of some kind of "random space anomaly" reducing the travel times to their cluster to the rest of the universe - should enable the other cluster to knock them down

when the whole universe gets to huge ..
just increase firepower / armor ratio .. it will be solved autonomous

...

another thing killing pa:

search engines ..
its always easy to find targets
for example r4 had many players ...
but it was impossible to survive with bad score roid ratios because they always where able to find your planet by means of search engines

with the new traveltime / shuffle implemention this problem will be gone, because you will search for targets in your near and not inside the whole universe

...

attacks:

when you start an attack the launch should be always one tick after launch
the current situation is just some kind of lie - you always launch 2 minutes before tick to reduce your tick ...

would be the same when the fleet launches asynchron - and traveltimes are traveltime - 1 for attacking fleets

...

grr just read the last post from fishfood - he also has some ideas concerning weekly reshuffle

btw
hth
cybi

[Ariados]

The idea is rather good but it needs some modifications:

• Make it a round universe
• Have regular re-shuffles
• Travel time should be max 15 hours (or something like that)

And of course, make it random.

Making the universe random and to have regular re-shuffles can perhaps prevent the stagnation and uberblocking we faced this round. It will also make the game more intense, as with regualar re-shuffles you have to get new intel and organise new allies all round through. You will face new enemies and make new friends all the time, so that might prevent people from getting bored after a couple of weeks. And it won’t ruin the round for those ending up at a bad location in the universe.

Perhaps with alliances built into game, you can defend your alliance members with lower eta. Alliances should however have a maximum limit of players, otherwise it will be hard for the rest to attack them. This way people can still play with their friends.

[Chax]

1. a link in MOTD to Portal
2. a link in portal to forums
3. a question to the players posted in AD

Why not a link to QTTP boards from MOTD?

It is a nice idea, and would bring the difficulty of playing the game a bit higher.

But still I wouldn't be playing PA without my Alliance anymore. Its the whole alliance thing (m8's) ect, that keeps me from playing. Its something that makes PA more than just a game.

So don't implement it for breaking up alliances. Every alliance will have to learn for themselves that big powerblocks won't work. because the're aren't enough targets left and chaos will come everntually.

(READ ON FROM HERE FOR THE GOOD STUFF)
*making it a round universe is a good idea. But keeping it a flat universe and making the gal co-ords choosable, would even it up for everybody. You can choose a safe place on the edge of the universe, with low attack possibilities, or in the center with high risks and oppertunities. To work it out you could let people choose 5 sides or something. (left side of uni / bit more to center / center) ect. then Random co-ords could still be used (kinda)

* If you want galaxies to be more important then alliances, then its a good idea too. but it would work even better if overburn would return (but this time with the ability to see incomming on galstatus).
Overburn could also be used to make the high eta's even lower then just -1. like -25% or something.
so eta 8 would be eta 6
eta 10 -> eta 7/8 (depends on narrowing it down or up)
eta 20 -> eta 15

* I would also make Galaxy Jump Gate more interesting. Make it reduce time from eta 10 (or something like that) and higher. You could choose a safe side for the beginning of the round (on the edge of universe) and try to compete at the ending of the round.
And ofcourse it would again make galaxies more important then alliances.

* And I still like the idea of 30 mins ticks, and with the lower ammount of players we got now, it should be able to work right?(so fastest attack should be like eta 12)

Well thats about it...
I had even more, but I kinda lost it.

[Quetzovercoatl]

The idea is good, the wraparound idea is a must, and it has to include parallels as well as clusters.

However, there's something not quite right about there being planets that are almost impossible for you to hit so let's have fleets that can move from target to target without having to return home.

[Alexan Drite]

What is this round 3?

Spinner the idea was REJECTED rounds ago because it was a bad idea. I don't remember all of the reasons, but I can think of one:
Strategy for Round 10:
Tick 48-Form NAP with cluster
Tick 120- break nap and begin Cluster Civil War with a few other galaxies
Tick 264-Cluster Civil war ends bloodily. My galaxy sets up a regional hegemony with the other galaxies that we joined with. We start to setup a cluster alliance to attack nearby clusters.
Tick 300-Just as we're about to organize an attack, Backstab with an even smaller group of people against the other galaxies in Alliance.
Tick 400-Continue Stabbing people until complete dominance in area is assured.
Tick 500-Clean out the cluster of all its roids, ships, what ever.
Tick 600-Using increased power start moving out to clusters further and further away.
The timing might be off.

Since alliances are 'dead', this can happen. But this doesn't end bashing. It merely takes a new form. It doesn't end blocks. It doesn't make it any less difficult for newbies. The bashing merely takes a new form. In fact it's going to be harder and more intense. The game will have an insane skill barrier.

You know what would be neat, if you brought back Cargoship from Round 1 and 2. Some type of combination.

[Morden]

Originally posted by Alexan Drite
What is this round 3?

Spinner the idea was REJECTED rounds ago because it was a bad idea. I don't remember all of the reasons, but I can think of one:
Strategy for Round 10:
Tick 48-Form NAP with cluster
Tick 120- break nap and begin Cluster Civil War with a few other galaxies
Tick 264-Cluster Civil war ends bloodily. My galaxy sets up a regional hegemony with the other galaxies that we joined with. We start to setup a cluster alliance to attack nearby clusters.
Tick 300-Just as we're about to organize an attack, Backstab with an even smaller group of people against the other galaxies in Alliance.
Tick 400-Continue Stabbing people until complete dominance in area is assured.
Tick 500-Clean out the cluster of all its roids, ships, what ever.
Tick 600-Using increased power start moving out to clusters further and further away.
The timing might be off.

Since alliances are 'dead', this can happen. But this doesn't end bashing. It merely takes a new form. It doesn't end blocks. It doesn't make it any less difficult for newbies. The bashing merely takes a new form. In fact it's going to be harder and more intense. The game will have an insane skill barrier.

You know what would be neat, if you brought back Cargoship from Round 1 and 2. Some type of combination.

he is trying to limit blocking with this suggestion, nothing else, I beleive there are other discussions going on about how to make pa more fun overall as well as easier for the new players well I hope so at least of the game wont make r11.

[TGO]

Just one small point - dunno if it was already mentioned but I think its quite important...

Figures so far would show that traveling from 1:1 to 5:5 would involve 5 + 4 + 4 = 13 ticks

Realistically a pilot would not travel 4 to the left, then 4 forwards. They would travel in a straight line, so we must apply pythagoras' theorem, making the distance:

5 + (root 4²+4²)

11 Ticks.

Comments appreciated....

[K03N]

Originally posted by Embroglio
Dont like the idea of traveltimes increasing.

[Zitos]

This might have been said.. But I couldnt bother to read every thing, as I am in a bit of a hurry..

The idea is good, very good - and suits players like me perfect..
And the only thing that I would like to add.. is: When a ship have to jump from 1:1 to 2:2 , its so close that it wont peak top speed.. If your going from 1:1 to 9:9, the speed (of the ship) will be much higher, thus bringng down the travle time.. Try to play a bit around with that thought..



AND I TOTALY AGREE WITH TGO, on his point!

I don't know if anyone suggested this already (cba to read 4 pages of posts :P), but I think the distance formula should be used (d=sqrt(x^2+y^2), where d=distance, x=x-coordinate, y=y-coordinate) and rounding to the lowest number, with the max being a constant number. This will be smaller than adding coordinate different because you would not be going up, then over, but straight diagonally.
Another way is to have increments of eta...lay out the universe on a coordinate plane and divide it into divisions of a certain number (according to this round, that number would be 10 for x-coordinate and 5 for y-coordinate), then the eta would be +1(added to the base 5) for the galaxies in the local "rectangle," +2 for the galaxies surrounding that "rectangle" (including the ones going diagonal), therefore, the greatest eta possible in a 70-cluster universe (the 60s clusters could be filled with bots made by the creators (that they talked about before) to even out the "rectangle" so that the real players don't have the unfairness of being able to attack less people on that end with shorter eta) would be 12, and that's going from one corner of the universe to another. That would make etas sort of more like the current arrangement, but still conform to the idea of distance involved, and 12 is not such a huge number, considering you are going to the other side. It will still put the middle of the universe at extreme defensive position, where they will have to fend off many attacks, but then again, they can more easily attack every gal in the universe. That could be solved, however, by linking the opposite ends of the universe together to create a circular universe, where technically, everyone is in the middle....

[MadwoG]

spinner.. great idea as usual.. but well thought out.. no.
thats why you got us here ofc =]

okay.. ive read a little of what was said.. some ideas were alright.. some were abit unthought of.. anyways.. i'll put forward a combination of what ive heard so far and sounds good.

a circular universe is whats required obviously..
i did a small pictorial design of what it could look like.. but yer.. i wanted to get it into my head how it could work..
anyways.. the idea i have combined with everyone elses here..
is to have a circular universe and have it divided into well instead of a name like clusters.. somethin like "orbital" or so on.. heh
well.. in these "orbitals" they spin around.. say one galaxy a tick clockwise.. and say the neighbouring orbital would rotate anti-clockwise well.. one galaxy a tick. and u think that would be fun?

we'll add another variable.. as there is a begining and a end of the orbitals ofc. we'll make these travel inwards towards the mighty gap in the middle.. and as your orbital goes towards that gap.. it gets thrown to the end.. only adding this variable.. so there isnt any gals at the end permanently..
we could on the other hand.. skip the last idea.. and instead make the parrallels do this.. and have each parrallel.. like the orbitals.. one travells clockwise.. the neighbouring parrallels travel anti-clockwise.
so for short you basically get galaxies moving diagonal constantly.. but your idea on the travel time.. i love it.. keep that.. the only downfall on your idea.. is you need a re-organization on the universe to make your idea practical and manageable.. you NEED a moving universe otherwise you will get gals farming.. and people will get bored.. so if you have the universe moving in the kinda motion ive suggested.. you get rid of this.. as your galaxy could be anywhere..
and not only this.. people will have to plan where their galaxy is gonna be next tick to launch attacks..

a thing that would be awkward tho.. if my universe idea is used.. u need to make galaxy co-ords changeable for each galaxy.. but just so people get a sence of where their galaxy is.. add a feature.. galaxy number which stays permanent with each galaxy... heh =]
i donno the idea is rough.. but workable.. donno...
thats assuming spinner gets this far on his reading =]

[Ronin]

The Reason why I won't play this:

[17:29] <Ronin> its always for a reason why people get bashed
[17:29] <Prince> and have this fking bollx again?
[17:29] <Prince> with gals
[17:29] <Prince> and blocks
[17:29] <Prince> random gals eliminate stagnation
[17:29] <Ronin> what will happen now
[17:29] <Ronin> 3 strong C's will arrise
[17:29] <Ronin> all in the middle
[17:29] <Ronin> by people who got luckely placed in the same C
[17:30] <Prince> really?
[17:30] <Ronin> 2 ally
[17:30] <Ronin> bash the 3rd
[17:30] <Ronin> and its still boring
[17:30] <Prince> who said its not a round uiverse?
[17:30] <Ronin> but now it isn't called blocking
[17:30] <Prince> who said 1:1 is next to the biggest numbered gal
[17:30] <Prince> i'd make it to the next lvel actauly
[17:30] <Ronin> that would at least make that more fair
[17:30] <Prince> c1 is a circle
[17:30] <Prince> small
[17:30] <Prince> outside is c2
[17:31] <Prince> c 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 etc
[17:31] <Ronin> but still, people who end up in ****ed up c's and are l33t won't get what they deserve by their skills
[17:31] <Ronin> just because their random placement was "unfair"
[17:31] <Ronin> maybe they can now attack with eta +3
[17:31] <Ronin> but its still not fair
[17:31] <Ronin> not every player would get the same chances for their money
[17:32] <Ronin> now it is like I said, u get accepted in a l33t alliance, because you are l33t
[17:32] <Ronin> if you're not, you won't get accepted
[17:32] <Ronin> whats wrong about that, thats "fair"
[17:32] <Ronin> people with more knowledge get jobes also before people with less knowledge
[17:32] <Ronin> thats for a reason, and its not unfair
[17:34] <Ronin> I just wish the round goes back to RND 4 or something
[17:34] <Prince> post that on the thread
[17:34] <Prince> the reasoning




[17:34] <Ronin> the unfair and powerblocking part atm is mostly because the game is to small
[17:34] <Prince> not round 4
[17:34] <Ronin> well admitt it?
[17:34] <Prince> anyone would think your xxxx hc now
[17:34] <Prince> why?
[17:35] <Ronin> well
[17:35] <Prince> small numbers
[17:35] <Ronin> roids are scare
[17:35] <Prince> forced weet anr to nap
[17:35] <Ronin> well I didn't like that
[17:35] <Ronin> but its the only way to get roids
[17:35] <Ronin> 1/3rd is weet
[17:35] <Ronin> 1/3rd is nar
[17:35] <Prince> is to nap half the universe?
[17:35] <Ronin> 1/3rd is vvomm
[17:35] <Ronin> they have the only roids in the game

[Ronin]

IMHO: stop the damn changing, get banners back, make the game free, let the 100k People join again


only thing pacrew has to do
#1: No bollocks big changes
#2: start the game
#3: shuffle
#4: keep the game online
#5: spend your whole round dedicated to get rid of cheaters:

(code something like, if planet 1 sends to planet 2 only 50 pods or less, if planet 2 sends fleet out: output: admin screen: ban)


everyone is thinking way to complicated. Powerblocking has been around since Rnd 1, and now everyone suddenly whines about it?, ohw god give me a break.

[Hathor]

I don't like the idea for many reasons but mostly because of these points:
1. it will segment/fragment the PA community into regional playing...ie ppl will only travel shorter distances thus breaking the universe into segments
2. Most hard core players have built up a close friendship with their mates/alliance members. It's one of the reasons they keep playing round after round. This is likely to serioulsy break up those friendships as this has the effect of destroying exsisting alliances.
3. a tick longer than 10 hours is not worth it. I for one am not intereste din agme where I send my fleet off and have to wait anything up to a day for it to arrive. It's bad enough as it is with long etas before you get -4 eta .
4. the maths is going to have a huge bearing on this working. You either have to be very mathematically minded or ready reckoners provided. Personally I'm not interested in doing additonal sums every time I want to attack. It's bad enough working out what fleet to send without working out the time it will take.
5. Defence will be a nightmare. Cluster and para alliances have always been very fluid and wonderful places for back stabbing and fained freindships. This will just condone it more.
There is probably more I hate aboiut this but that's enough.
I keep coming back round after round because of the comradeship. If this is an indication of what's to come then methinks that the crerators are trying to throw freindships{read pre round alliances) out the door and so I'll probably just pop out with them.
The only think that concerns me is I already have paid for r10 <-- how very blonde of me

well,if you had read what the person said when he/she suggested the idea, they suggested that with the guerilla idea that you can't attack anyone SMALLER than you. that'd reduce the prospect of being totally bashed..unless you had quite a few people attacking you.anyway,i keep waking up and find out i'm going to get bashed and roided...so there's no difference in that.

another way you could do it is if you did it where only the person being attacked can see it,so really it'd be like overburn,but without the triple eonium costs and are able to attack for MORE than 1 tick. it'd be more like renaming overburn and having a special scan so you can see whether the is a guerilla attack.if your thinking 'you could just a news scan to see if they are being guerillared' well,what about if its hidden from the news?

[Morden]

Originally posted by Hathor
I don't like the idea for many reasons but mostly because of these points:
1. it will segment/fragment the PA community into regional playing...ie ppl will only travel shorter distances thus breaking the universe into segments
2. Most hard core players have built up a close friendship with their mates/alliance members. It's one of the reasons they keep playing round after round. This is likely to serioulsy break up those friendships as this has the effect of destroying exsisting alliances.
3. a tick longer than 10 hours is not worth it. I for one am not intereste din agme where I send my fleet off and have to wait anything up to a day for it to arrive. It's bad enough as it is with long etas before you get -4 eta .
4. the maths is going to have a huge bearing on this working. You either have to be very mathematically minded or ready reckoners provided. Personally I'm not interested in doing additonal sums every time I want to attack. It's bad enough working out what fleet to send without working out the time it will take.
5. Defence will be a nightmare. Cluster and para alliances have always been very fluid and wonderful places for back stabbing and fained freindships. This will just condone it more.
There is probably more I hate aboiut this but that's enough.
I keep coming back round after round because of the comradeship. If this is an indication of what's to come then methinks that the crerators are trying to throw freindships{read pre round alliances) out the door and so I'll probably just pop out with them.
The only think that concerns me is I already have paid for r10 <-- how very blonde of me

Segmenting the universe isnt a bad thing, and if done well will help pa enourmously.

the biggest problem in pa is not blocks or p2p, its that anyone who joins is fed to the wolves as soon as they get out of protection.

which is why i suggested a segmented universe based on how actively they plan to play with bonuses to reflect that, and a travel time system that will not cripple players who arent close to friends because if they all play at the same level then they are all close to each other for defence.

and if the alliances are coded into the game in a meaningful way to make alliances WANT to use them then restrictions can be made to tone down anyblocks that will be created wether at the start of in the middle of the round.

probably the best thing about this is that it enables people who want to compete but not at fanatical levels a chance to do well and fight in wars against people with similar mindsets. anyone remember pre r5 with all the smaller alliance wars? most of them were living in a dreamworld outside of the furgion wars which was imense fun for them, after r5 they all got trashed side due to being let out to the wolves because of the dwindling playerbase, and because of this it has only got smaller and smaller as every new player gets masacred.

[Spoticus]

One idea that would be cool to implement imo would be an "anti bash shield" sort of thing. You res/cons it whatever then you are able to set it to any one players specific coords. It spends the next 24 hours or so "gathering intel" on a specific persons fleet and creating strategies to make your fleet 2x as effective when defending @ your planet vs theirs.

It should obviously be cheap in cost and available early as it is meant for smaller ppl after all. This would help deter ppl from continually launching on your planet day after day after day with their single minded goal of ruining your round in mind (with whatever tweaking of #'s to make it balanced ofc)

Could also make it so you can only set it to work vs ppl twice your size or greater or something. Anyway doesnt help solve universe travel at all but sounds decent to me anyway ;/

[newt]

just been readina bit of this thread, and posted this on my gal forums :-) guess i might as well put it here too :-) [some ideas nicked from convos on irc, some from this thread, and some are jsut my own :s)

cud be a good idea. if they set max time travel to say 15hrs. make the universe spherical as well, and a non-linear time-travel relationship or summut ... at bare minimum take the "hypotenuse" time distance beween 2 galaxies and round it down or to 15.

I also liek the idea of maybe sending ur ships to attack/defend a planet ... and then having the choice of either letitng them return home or sending them elsewhere.

another possibility is like ... have a set number of "free planets" in the universe, or maybe give every1 a free planet at the start, one which is ur main planet. then u can send ships to your other planet, or capture other ppls' secondary planets. [ofc, at your secondary planet u wont be able to build any ships? it'll just be there as a like storage planet for soem ships? ]

maybe also an extra res/cons for shorter alliance timetravel (to say just base eta + 1 or 2hrs for anywhere in the universe). but then they'd need to structure ingame alliances better (tag system sucks :\) and limit the number of ppl in it to say 10-15, stopping big alliances rising and killing off any n00bs that might join the game.

I personally think this idea from spinner is good, but a little too extreme and u certainly need more stuff like ive just mentioned above added in.

maybe more races? so it becoems harder for us "l33t" players to dominate over slightly less skilled noobs.

i'm, also verrrrry against news scans, think they spoil the round, but i guess we cant have some l33t player having his entire fleet bashed and moaning about it and then quitting :\

was gonna quit PA, but guess ill stick around for rnd10 now :-o

Originally posted by LordBlackheart2000
Christ even in private gals you have people you cant get in touch with, how people do u think are going to hand out a sms number in a random gal setting..

as for that,you'll have to form strong bonds with the galaxies or whatever around you.everything at the moment is heavily dependent on alliances,if you haven't got them alliances,then your screwed.thats pretty much the score this round and several other rounds hence why you need them. your just going to have to make new friends and find new defence people.it'll make MoC's jobs more crucial in the round.

I'm all for ideas but please at least try and think about what sort of effects on the universe they would have before posting.

Cupelix....

i was only replying to the suggestion which was made.i like the sound of it so i think that gives me the right to post it.

[Quetzovercoatl]

30 ticks or more to reach a distant planet needn't be a bad thing.

Just make a simple change to something that was always wrong :

Since the beginning, you can't issue new orders to your fleet. They can receive the recall message but nothing else.

Well, if you could sent out a fleet, change it's orders, move from one galaxy to the next without returning home, maybe raiding planets for fuel, stealing fleets to replace losses, defending one day, attacking the next, all on a deep space mission with no chance of reaching your home planet in an emergency, joining a cloaked killer alliance fleet out in the middle of nowhere that just maintains a presence (before wiping out an enemy galaxy) etc etc

Maybe this could be done by having a new kind of battleship similar to an aircraft carrier, that you could load up with a variety of ships, extra fuel etc, even taking roids (and stolen roids) on board and using them to produce new ships while out in space, becoming a mini-planet that can move through space.

The more I type the further I get from sanity, but admit it, if the universe was like this it would be worth paying for

[Doomhammer]

how about this idea...

in the system spinner is proposing, you can have a huge ETA to some planets...

take this example. I'm 12 ticks away from my mate. he gets inc eta 8. No chance in hell i can get there in time.

but you could build in a system that you can "overburn" your fleet to the same eta as the attacker... but with a high eonium cost, AND a percentage of shiploss in the way over there...

for example:

1 tick faster: 2% of sent ships lost
2 ticks faster : 4% of ships lost
3 ticks faster: 6% lost

until a certain maximum ofcourse, otherwise defenders would have too much advantage... also this system could not be used in cluster or gal defence for obvious reasons...

this way you can still reach everybody.. but at a certain cost...
this idea is not complete ofcourse, and still needs some perfectioning... but it seems to solve some of the problems...

[Morden]

Originally posted by Quetzovercoatl
Maybe this could be done by having a new kind of battleship similar to an aircraft carrier, that you could load up with a variety of ships, extra fuel etc, even taking roids (and stolen roids) on board and using them to produce new ships while out in space, becoming a mini-planet that can move through space.

Or perhaps an alliance- mobile battlestation that enables fleets to stay in a hostile galaxy 24 ticks, i.e it takes 4 hours to get from the battlestation to the planets in the gal and 4 ticks back, then they relaunch at those planets again.

would add a bit more depth to the game as well as giving gals the oppertunity to destroy large chunks of enemy fleets while they're docked to the battlestation & such.

would be great fun but doubt it'd be in r10

[Chef!]

Is this just to stop 1:1 getting attacked as much :P

Sounds an "interesting" idea to me and could definetly bring a new aspect to the game.

[Ronin]

Originally posted by Doomhammer
how about this idea...

in the system spinner is proposing, you can have a huge ETA to some planets...

take this example. I'm 12 ticks away from my mate. he gets inc eta 8. No chance in hell i can get there in time.

but you could build in a system that you can "overburn" your fleet to the same eta as the attacker... but with a high eonium cost, AND a percentage of shiploss in the way over there...

for example:

1 tick faster: 2% of sent ships lost
2 ticks faster : 4% of ships lost
3 ticks faster: 6% lost

until a certain maximum ofcourse, otherwise defenders would have too much advantage... also this system could not be used in cluster or gal defence for obvious reasons...

this way you can still reach everybody.. but at a certain cost...
this idea is not complete ofcourse, and still needs some perfectioning... but it seems to solve some of the problems...

yeah right, people hate to def and love to attack, and you think this will help?. lol

[Morden]

Originally posted by Ronin
yeah right, people hate to def and love to attack, and you think this will help?. lol

only rounds people loved defending were 2 and 4, and that was due to decent theives and salvage, to my knowledge there hasnt been another round where people loved to defend.

[Petru]

I don't know if any of these responses have been replied, but here are my thoughts on it.

This move will go a long way to breaking up the alliances in place now. As without the alliance being fixed in one area, it simply can't operate. With a membership scattered across the universe you'll never effectively be able to defend.

Although breaking up some alliances may be a good idea to some, I for one don't look forward to it. RaH is an alliance based entirely on everyone being friends, and I'd hate to see that ruined for the sake of distance based eta.

I can see the reasoning behind it, and it will go a long way to force the formation of new alliances and the discontinuing of existing block minded ones, but it, in my opinion at least will also see a lot harsher scale of domination per "district". With ETA's on their side, an alliance that is based around focussing firepower within a short reach will be nigh on impossible to topple by an alliance outside of it's district other than threw mass of numbers and waves. Once again leading us back to a block mentality.


I can see the reasoning behind it, but it will lead to more problems, more domination, and overall just more ****eness.

[Petru]

Originally posted by Morden
only rounds people loved defending were 2 and 4, and that was due to decent theives and salvage, to my knowledge there hasnt been another round where people loved to defend.

This round I can say rah members like to defend, they are eager to defend and offer it at any opportunity. It may be a trend that people defend less, but not everywhere

[Spoticus]

Originally posted by Morden
only rounds people loved defending were 2 and 4, and that was due to decent theives and salvage, to my knowledge there hasnt been another round where people loved to defend.

I loved defending in round 7

I will also vouch for most r5 virus members and say they loved defending vs the evil legion. ;-)

[Ronin]

btw, like petru said, your basically breaking up all alliances in the game. This would mean everyone will create new alliances in their own C's etc. and no offence, many people go back many rounds, do you really think ex Legion will ally ex Fury, or whatever combination.

some hatrets go deep, and its just stupid to try and force them to ally.

[Morden]

yes but in r2 and r4, they gained something tangeble which is why it was overall more enjoyable to defend.

tbh i think on some level there has to be gains for defending, as it will enable alliances that are primarily for defence such as the old ICD and IPC to grow doing what they enjoy doing. it'll also help newbie alliances grow a bit more.

[Spoticus]

Originally posted by Morden
yes but in r2 and r4, they gained something tangeble which is why it was overall more enjoyable to defend.

tbh i think on some level there has to be gains for defending, as it will enable alliances that are primarily for defence such as the old ICD and IPC to grow doing what they enjoy doing. it'll also help newbie alliances grow a bit more.

Sorry but imo fighting for a cause has always been a far bigger motivation for defending than personal score gain. Same with attacking usually as well heh. I guess it works both ways tho

[Doomhammer]

Originally posted by Ronin
yeah right, people hate to def and love to attack, and you think this will help?. lol

easily solved by a decent salvage rule...

as i said... the idea ain't perfect... it needs some further thinking on...

[Petru]

In reality though Morden, members should be willing to defend without having to offer artificial incentives. As I said before, my guys now are all willing to offer defence again without the need for salvage type gains, but I know we're one of the few. They know if they don't offer defence they don't get defence, so everyone contributes, which is how it should be.

When referring to new alliances, what hopes do they really have if you have to basically hardcode a paycheque to get members to defend each other?

[Doomhammer]

Originally posted by Spoticus
Sorry but imo fighting for a cause has always been a far bigger motivation for defending than personal score gain. Same with attacking usually as well heh. I guess it works both ways tho

true... i think most players are willing to sacrifice something for friends.... at least i am...

[Petru]

I think the main issue of concern is still nesting. If an alliance establishes itself firmly within a "district" (for want of a better term) it will be able to beat down the surrounding reaches with little to no opposition whilst having the shortest eta defence within it's core.

The only way to then break or bring down that nested core will be superior numbers, which yet again returns to a block mentality.

[G.K Zhukov]

I agree with Ronin.

The game needs 1) more players 2) randomness 3) gals of atleast 15, prob 20. 4) Minimum 8 ticks to attack someone. 5) tools for actaully catching cheaters. 6) Get Zeus, Cochese and Tacticus to work on it 7) A bit more armour to the ships, so you actually can roid people without killing them completely off, after tick 1000, and still get a profit on it. (like r4).