[Discuss] Allowing mission changes in-flight

[Banned]

I'd like to suggest that one can change mission from attack -> fake attack (and defense -> fake defense) on a fleet in flight.

This would have multiple purposes:

Allow alliances to better cover galaxies (ie fewer eta ~2-4 recalls because people 'have to go'). This allows less active alliances a better chance getting roids off gal raids. This is a good thing.

Allowing defenses to change in-flight allows alliances to play chicken with eachother. The impact here is not as large as with attacks.

This also counteracts in-gal defense, which is bound to be more powerful next round with the larger galaxies.

[Cochese]

Fully agree.

This crap about no remote mission orders has always been utterly moronic. Get some better encryption you fools, etc.

[Gerbie]

Nah, activity should be rewarded. If you cannot be online to recall at a low eta, then tough luck.

[jerome]

Why is there a "Fake Attack" option then Gerbie ?

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by _ryzekiel_

Why is there a "Fake Attack" option then Gerbie ?

Obviously it should be removed; active players don't have nearly enough advantages.

[Cochese]

Originally Posted by Gerbie

Nah, activity should be rewarded.

Yes, let's continue to force people to rearrange their schedules and sleeping patterns around a "game" supposedly played for "entertainment. You know, like every other popular game makes you do.

Oh wait...

If you cannot be online to recall at a low eta, then tough luck.

Tough luck if the power goes out, your ISP dies, or you can't get to a computer due to work and generally more important things.

Or, if you're a heavy sleeper like me, hoping your alarm wakes you up (or you don't shut it off in your sleep) at 4am after getting three hours of sleep, just to click a button.

This is clearly an important part of suceeding at "games played for entertainment" on the intarweb.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Gerbie

Nah, activity should be rewarded. If you cannot be online to recall at a low eta, then tough luck.

And what, pray tell, is the personal reward of activity in the case of being on at eta 1, at 59:50 to recall?

[macros69]

I dont feel activity should have any more benefits. Whats a bigger benefit for this game than being able to organise defence straight away. I quite like this idea personnally. Being active is a personal choice we should increase activity i think so that everyone is on the same playing field and definetly not encourage inactivity. I dont see how this would encourage inactivity because surely you will have to be active to change it from attack to fake attack no?

[arbondigo]

I agree with Banned

Originally Posted by Gerbie

Nah, activity should be rewarded. If you cannot be online to recall at a low eta, then tough luck.

Like was said earlier in the thread, you send your attack away, but then something crops up where you can't be around for the land. Instead of hindering your alliance's chance of getting roids by allowing the planet you hit to send defence, you just change it to a fake attack whilst in flight. This also allows people to actually have more of a life outside of PA, which is a good thing.

[Kargool]

I disagree with you. Its nice that the galaxy gets more important again

[x-dANGEr]

Originally Posted by Whoeversaidthat

Tough luck if the power goes out, your ISP dies, or you can't get to a computer due to work and generally more important things.

Well, that happenedn with me sometime and all my fleet got TOAST(ISP down), but i think the suggestion you are talking about will mkae very much hadred for galaxies to make it on their own, you are attacking #1, before 2 ticks, you order to change the attack to #2, it is ****ing hard....

[Banned]

Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

Well, that happenedn with me sometime and all my fleet got TOAST(ISP down), but i think the suggestion you are talking about will mkae very much hadred for galaxies to make it on their own, you are attacking #1, before 2 ticks, you order to change the attack to #2, it is ****ing hard....

That is not what I suggested at all.

[Kal]

what about an option to automatically switch to a fake attack if there is no login at eta 1, same with defence, though i expect most would not use it for defence

[Cochese]

Originally Posted by Kal

what about an option to automatically switch to a fake attack if there is no login at eta 1, same with defence, though i expect most would not use it for defence

This isn't necessarily good.

If I have launched, and JGP scanned at eta 4, and there is no defense whatsoever, I'm fine with going to sleep and waking up long after the attack landed. This would mean my attack wouldn't land, when I really wanted it to, because I didn't login at eta 1.

I think the point was that, (especially on multi-wave attacks) if you see defense but following wave(s) don't have any, you don't want to pull and leave them to get stuck with the in-gal defense fleets instead of soaking it up yourself and pulling at eta 1.

Take me for instance. I launched the first wave, with three people behind me. There was pre-launched in-galaxy defense at eta 6 (the last tick I was around before going to bed). Had I pulled then, before going off, they could have reset their defense and screwed over the waves behind me. So, I stayed on course hoping my alarm would wake me up at eta 1 to recall.

It did not, and I lost all my pulsars/daggers (50k/10k respectively), though the following two waves both capped roids because I didn't pull, and soaked up the in-gal defense (at a high price however).

Since I *was* there at eta 6 to see the defense, I wanted to be able to switch to fake attack, so I could go to bed and not hope I didn't turn off the alarm in my sleep--as I often do--resulting in yet another crashed fleet.

Hence this suggestion.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Cochese

This isn't necessarily good.

If I have launched, and JGP scanned at eta 4, and there is no defense whatsoever, I'm fine with going to sleep and waking up long after the attack landed. This would mean my attack wouldn't land, when I really wanted it to, because I didn't login at eta 1.

I think the point was that, (especially on multi-wave attacks) if you see defense but following wave(s) don't have any, you don't want to pull and leave them to get stuck with the in-gal defense fleets instead of soaking it up yourself and pulling at eta 1.

Take me for instance. I launched the first wave, with three people behind me. There was pre-launched in-galaxy defense at eta 6 (the last tick I was around before going to bed). Had I pulled then, before going off, they could have reset their defense and screwed over the waves behind me. So, I stayed on course hoping my alarm would wake me up at eta 1 to recall.

It did not, and I lost all my pulsars/daggers (50k/10k respectively), though the following two waves both capped roids because I didn't pull, and soaked up the in-gal defense (at a high price however).

Since I *was* there at eta 6 to see the defense, I wanted to be able to switch to fake attack, so I could go to bed and not hope I didn't turn off the alarm in my sleep--as I often do--resulting in yet another crashed fleet.

Hence this suggestion.

i agree but i also want to protect the people with power cuts or isps that die

[Tyroka]

Originally Posted by Kal

what about an option to automatically switch to a fake attack if there is no login at eta 1, same with defence, though i expect most would not use it for defence

and all of a sudden there wouldn't be much of a chance ever to kill your attacker.
If attacker doesn't login the attack won't land, if attacker does login and calculates the battle he/she will know whether it's worth to land or not (most likely).
It's a totally different thing to be able to change status compared to automatically make it fake just cos u don't login. I agree with the possibility to change mission in-flight (not between attack and defend tho) but then u do something yourself actively. I do not agree with it being done automatically.


(and I'm one of those that have trouble waking up by my alarm, 3 times this round I've overslept, 2 of them lost a lot of ships (for no gain))

[Kargool]

Kal, please dont change this one.. it works all fine.

[Envious]

Putting my alarm clock several meters away from bed so i actually need to get up to turn it off generally works fine for me. That should be the simplest implementation for solving your problem, cochese

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Envious

Putting my alarm clock several meters away from bed so i actually need to get up to turn it off generally works fine for me. That should be the simplest implementation for solving your problem, cochese

i used to do that

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Tyroka

and all of a sudden there wouldn't be much of a chance ever to kill your attacker.
If attacker doesn't login the attack won't land, if attacker does login and calculates the battle he/she will know whether it's worth to land or not (most likely).
It's a totally different thing to be able to change status compared to automatically make it fake just cos u don't login. I agree with the possibility to change mission in-flight (not between attack and defend tho) but then u do something yourself actively. I do not agree with it being done automatically.


(and I'm one of those that have trouble waking up by my alarm, 3 times this round I've overslept, 2 of them lost a lot of ships (for no gain))

yes, but why wouldn;t someone check to see if they were defended against - it might be they oversleapt, in which case this would mean less activity is required which is surely good, it might be there power failed or isp died, which makes this good. atm people only land if its worth the risk or if the oversleep or have some other factor. People oversleeping should not eb the way to kill ships, its a fundamental flaw in the game because of the high level of activty we now have, the game as a whole needs radical changes to but the empahis on skill or instinct rather than activity.

I am a fan of what spinner did in round 10 with hidden stats so bcacls coudln;t be used, however this was to easy to crack firstly there was my bcalc then i cooperated with lockhead to make his php one. However before this happened I liked the fact that when i did my scans I had to do some calculations in my head or make an educated guess etc. fleet priorities also added to the uncertainties so i'd like them back in some form as well.

but basically i;d like to make activty less important and skill more important I see this as the only real way to increase the player base

[Cochese]

Originally Posted by Envious

Putting my alarm clock several meters away from bed so i actually need to get up to turn it off generally works fine for me. That should be the simplest implementation for solving your problem, cochese

You're missing the point though, but fortunately Kal seems to have gotten it:

Originally Posted by Kal

but basically i;d like to make activty less important and skill more important I see this as the only real way to increase the player base

Winner!

[Envious]

Originally Posted by Cochese

You're missing the point though, but fortunately Kal seems to have gotten it:

Ah ok, i thought you mentioned that incident because you wanted a solution for a problem, i totally missed it was just general whining.

SCNR

[Cochese]

Originally Posted by Envious

Ah ok, i thought you mentioned that incident because you wanted a solution for a problem, i totally missed it was just general whining.

You'll note I didn't start this thread or propose the idea, and that I only used my experience(s) to illustrate a point.

If I was whining about something, trust me, you would know.


Anyways, the point remains. I'd really like PA to be more about skill, and less about activity.

There should be ways for people with limited amounts of time (and those who like sleeping normally) to stay competetive, in order to make the game more broadly appealing--and thus, increase the playerbase/universe size.

[Envious]

Originally Posted by Cochese

Anyways, the point remains. I'd really like PA to be more about skill, and less about activity.

I totally agree that would be something to aim for.. I'm just not sure it would really increase the playerbase. Because

a) time is much more common among potential online players than skill according to my experience

b) something to think about: the peak of players in PA was r3/4 and i seriously think the game has grown more complex since then, emphasizing skill a little more already. so the game attracted more players when it was even less about skill and more about activity.

[Cochese]

The game was more popular then because it was free.

Simple as.

[Alessio]

Alot of people wouldnt even recall anymore if this was an option..

It only annoying... it soaks up defence.. if you want to soak up defence then I think the other player should do something for it and not change missions thingy and go to bed..

just like thingy said.. activity should be rewarded..

if people have to go.. then they should recall... or take a chance.. That is a part of PA and gets people involved in the game.. this makes incomings more confusing and it would make PA more boring for the attackers..

[cycle o path]

How about something like this:

When issuing orders the option exists to set an auto recall unless you log in at ETA<5 and tell them to land. This way, if you know that you will be online to check JPG scans then you have the security of knowing that a computer faliure will not lose you all your ships but if you are not interested in scanning, you don't need to select the option. (Not that I can really think of many occasions in which I wouldn't JPG scan exept of course for the good old suicidal retal missions - fun for all!)

I think that some sort of in-flight conformation of attack would be a good thing.

[Alessio]

Thats just the same thing as the first idea.. change mission orders..

Its really frustrating for deffers.. I think.. mass eta 1 recall from that point on.. (with the ability to land) it would only slow down teh stuff in PA

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Alessio

Thats just the same thing as the first idea.. change mission orders..

Its really frustrating for deffers.. I think.. mass eta 1 recall from that point on.. (with the ability to land) it would only slow down teh stuff in PA

it would make attakcing easier though as in theory it would mean people dont; recall anymore they leave their ships flying but change orders to fake attack.

atm defence is to easy so this might be good.

[macros69]

yeh i still agree with this idea personnally i say approve it kal

[Kal]

ok hows this - we give people the ability to change an attack to fake - but only allow that change, no others. This means galaxies can still be covered and hence makes attacking easier which is a good thing

I also suggest that there be an option that an attack changes to fake if the attacker does not login between eta 1 and eta 4 (the time that a jpg works effectivly). This basically means if someone doens;t logon then their ships get to live.

[mist]

why only that?

[Kal]

Originally Posted by mist

why only that?

i'd like to make attacking easier rather than making the playing field level, but i'm probably wrong

[god113]

Originally Posted by Kal

ok hows this - we give people the ability to change an attack to fake - but only allow that change, no others. This means galaxies can still be covered and hence makes attacking easier which is a good thing

I also suggest that there be an option that an attack changes to fake if the attacker does not login between eta 1 and eta 4 (the time that a jpg works effectivly). This basically means if someone doens;t logon then their ships get to live.

I'm not so sure about the eta4 thing. I mean, there have been countless amounts of times that i've left it at eta 6 knowing the gal can't cover. If there is a limit, at least let the person change it?

So if I knew the gal can't defend and had to go out for the day a few hours after launching, then I could set it so it wouldn't do this..

[Kal]

Originally Posted by god113

I'm not so sure about the eta4 thing. I mean, there have been countless amounts of times that i've left it at eta 6 knowing the gal can't cover. If there is a limit, at least let the person change it?

So if I knew the gal can't defend and had to go out for the day a few hours after launching, then I could set it so it wouldn't do this..

no one is forcing you to use the auto change to fake attack feature - the way i would do it is that you set a tick when u launch that if u have not logged in by it automatically changes to a fake attack - this means that if people oversleep they don;t die etc but they control when they would be able to log on - in fact maybe a range of ticks you have to login during would be better.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Sandman

About the fake attack / mission change thread.

Would it not just be possible to have to confirm all orders before landing? (and so negating the need for the fake attack) with maybe a prefs option of auto confirm (with a seperate autoconfirm for defence as default enabled)..
For example: You could launch, and until you click confirm its a fake attack.. or you could launch+autoconfirm, and until you click unconfirm its going to land etc.

Just an idea.

i like that idea

[Tis]

i very much dislike the idea of someoen launching a 'defence' fleet at me, then switching it to attack at eta 1...

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Tis

i very much dislike the idea of someoen launching a 'defence' fleet at me, then switching it to attack at eta 1...

thats now what he meant...

[Doorsdown]

i don't think it was ever said it could be changed from def to att or vice versa

just attack to fake attack

or

def to fake def


but it would be nice to be able to switch from fake to normal attack that way if you feel you can't be up for scan/landing you can set fake to help cover but if you are there you can make it real...once again making it more skill than actividy

[Chika]

I think we should be making ideas to have MORE battles in PA, not LESS battles.
This idea is bad simply because, it adds another lazy factor. If a DC does a good job and defends you, I don't think you should have the option to shaft him by changing to a fake attack. The way it is now is fine. If you fake attack at the start, OK. If you didn't fake atatck, oh well. Recall now and come back later and recall. Lazy at its finest - Kal's suggestion, having the game recall for you automatically anyway if you don't log in. lol. Like I said, I want MORE attacks. This clearly will result in less battles.

[Chika]

Originally Posted by Tis

i very much dislike the idea of someoen launching a 'defence' fleet at me, then switching it to attack at eta 1...

LOL. I agree that would suck. But in the same breath - Thats NOT, in any form, what this discussion is about..

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Chika

I think we should be making ideas to have MORE battles in PA, not LESS battles.
This idea is bad simply because, it adds another lazy factor. If a DC does a good job and defends you, I don't think you should have the option to shaft him by changing to a fake attack. The way it is now is fine. If you fake attack at the start, OK. If you didn't fake atatck, oh well. Recall now and come back later and recall. Lazy at its finest - Kal's suggestion, having the game recall for you automatically anyway if you don't log in. lol. Like I said, I want MORE attacks. This clearly will result in less battles.

this would result in more successful attacks, and thus makes defence harder. Changing somethign to fake attack doens;t really change anything if a person is active (they could just recall 1 minute before the tick at eta 1) This does help less active people cover attacks though which is surely a good thing. It shouldn;t be the less acitve people, or the people's who's conenction goes down who loose the fleet. Perhaps what might be good is to make it more worthwhile to have actual battles - bring XP into actual combat in a way that isn;t just about roids.

[Chika]

Originally Posted by Kal

this would result in more successful attacks, and thus makes defence harder. Changing somethign to fake attack doens;t really change anything if a person is active (they could just recall 1 minute before the tick at eta 1) This does help less active people cover attacks though which is surely a good thing. It shouldn;t be the less acitve people, or the people's who's conenction goes down who loose the fleet. Perhaps what might be good is to make it more worthwhile to have actual battles - bring XP into actual combat in a way that isn;t just about roids.

Kal,
With a system like this, nearly every attack will be successful because people won't land unless they are sure they win. More Successful landings, but LESS landings. If you want to sacrafice more PA gameplay then go ahead. But I doubt that is the goal. And why make it harder to defend? And why has awarding inactivity become an issue? Switching your missions is a bad idea. It encourages inactivity. It also encourages less agressive gameplay. The only people who benifit is people who really don't take the game that serious. What serious player would want a fleet that they use for attacking normally out for 7 or 8 extra hours if they knew that they were not getting through after the first tick. YES, we all know that you should stay until at least eta 4 or 3 anyway. Thats where I got the 7 or 8 extra hours from.

[demiGOD]

i kinda like how we attack/defend right now, and any complications added to how we attack/defend will lose everything that is straightforward in this statistics/math-driven strategy and style of the game

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Chika

Kal,
With a system like this, nearly every attack will be successful because people won't land unless they are sure they win. More Successful landings, but LESS landings. If you want to sacrafice more PA gameplay then go ahead. But I doubt that is the goal. And why make it harder to defend? And why has awarding inactivity become an issue? Switching your missions is a bad idea. It encourages inactivity. It also encourages less agressive gameplay. The only people who benifit is people who really don't take the game that serious. What serious player would want a fleet that they use for attacking normally out for 7 or 8 extra hours if they knew that they were not getting through after the first tick. YES, we all know that you should stay until at least eta 4 or 3 anyway. Thats where I got the 7 or 8 extra hours from.

so u r telling me that the only reason fleets die theese days are becuase people oversleep or their internet conenction dies? why are any of us bothering then, the whole game sounds like a bit of a waste of time if its that dependant on activity

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Kal

so u r telling me that the only reason fleets die theese days are becuase people oversleep or their internet conenction dies? why are any of us bothering then, the whole game sounds like a bit of a waste of time if its that dependant on activity

It's not. My entire fleet died 3 times in round 12, all due to miscalculations or stupidity. These were all early on and I learned from my mistakes.

I agree with the main thrust of Kal's post. If the game is all about activity, it's not worth playing. Activity would still be necessary, but it wouldn't kill you to get some sleep.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Banned

It's not. My entire fleet died 3 times in round 12, all due to miscalculations or stupidity. These were all early on and I learned from my mistakes.

I agree with the main thrust of Kal's post. If the game is all about activity, it's not worth playing. Activity would still be necessary, but it wouldn't kill you to get some sleep.

thats my point - u make a mistake in your decision so you would confirm your attack - if you allways decide not to take a risk then u probbaly won't have much fun.

This is how i see sandman's proposal working.

I launch fleet - i get up between eta 4 and eta 1 - do scans - make decision to procede - confirm launch, do nothing or recall depending on how much i want the fleet back and how much my alliance needs the other attacking fleets in the raid to land.

alterntivly

I launch fleet - i goto sleep - my alarm clock is broken - my ships stay safe but the whole opportunity for getting roids was rmeoved - on the plus side though I still managed to help my alliance cover the attack

[Envious]

Originally Posted by Kal

I launch fleet - i goto sleep - my alarm clock is broken - my ships stay safe but the whole opportunity for getting roids was rmeoved - on the plus side though I still managed to help my alliance cover the attack

ehm no. the plus side is you saved your fleet in that case.. because you would have helped your alliance anyway, as you could not foresee your alarm clock breaking.

there's a case 3:

you don't know if you can be around before landing to check if it is safe.. but you can send an attack, knowing it will either return safely, or, if you make it in time to confirm landing, you might even get roids. whereas now you would have to send either fake attack and have no chance of roids, or not attack at all (in hope of a later opportunity), letting your alliance down

[Kal]

indeed, I fail to see which of the options has bad things associated with it

[Envious]

i didn't say it has bad things associated, just adding to the analysis