Galaxy defense

[silverx2]

there is a discussion currently in regards to if mines currently underpowered in general when it comes to passively defending a planet galaxy. Some feel that mines need to have be changed back so that small teams(4-5) cant clear them as easily. What this suggestion is meant to be is an entire new way the galaxy defenses should work.

The main part of this suggestion is the addition of Npc units to the game, With very specific coding as to be used only in a defensive manner. As an alliance gains control over a planetary galaxy the planets in the galaxy will have a new building option called Emergancy Defense Force(EDF) what this does is allow each planet to build X number of NPC vessals for defense, that will scale with planet level. These ships will have defenses less then racial hunters, and will have a set attack damage similar to how combat drones currently work. each entrance to that galaxy has a beacon The leader of the alliance in control is able to set a single waypoint in the galaxy, Anytime an alliance member gets a scout ping from inside the galaxy that gets relayed to the npc who then go from said way point till they find the enemy units at which point they attack as a fleet, if the opposing alliance leaves the npcs return to the waypoint after X minutes they return to their homeplanets any ships that were destroyed would need to be rebuilt by the defending alliance.

How this would work:

Alliance Alpha currently holds all of the planets in Galaxy 1, They have 3 planets each able to build 3 EDF ships they are 4/5. Alliance Beta enters Galaxy 1 and begins to clear forces, this triggers the EDF within a minute all 9 EDF ships begin to converge on the enemy team at which point Beta team can either fight or run.

What this does is gives an added element of strategy to the defenders, as well as a semi intelligent challenge to the attacking force, hopefully taking the place of giant minefields all together.

Balancing issues:
How many ships per planet, at what point would that force alone be unstoppable instead of just a hurdle
The cost of said ships, it has to be more expensive then a normal ship of that size
The actuall Off/Def of the ships to go inline with how many would be available
How fast should those ships move, since they will be moving in perfect unity should they be slightly slower then the average player, otherwise it would be to hard to get away from them
Would the EDF ships shoot till death or run away? Do they regenerate?
What Reward should the attackers recieve when they kill an EDF ship? EXP and Cash would need to be minimal due to the Weakship, intelligence factor. Possibly a pool of exp/cash based on number of ships which would be divided by the number of attackers So say there is a fight between 10EDF ships that would give a pool of 1000 exp and 2,000,000 cash that would be divided evenly among all those in the attacking force once all EDF ships are destroyed.

Thoughts/comments?

[RCK]

I like it, need page insights

[Purify]

I like your idea... well thought out, shouldn't be that hard to code.

My thoughts on these defence ships:
They should be kamikaze ships meaning they fire until dead. Easier to code too.
They will not all be in unison because they come from different planets at different distances to they would come in kinda as a wave.
When they make it to the waypoint and there is nothing around to shoot they should fly back to their planets.
The cost should be substantial depending though on the number a planet can hold.
For killing them players should gain stats and XP, but not 'Kills'. Kinda like PRing or force clearing.
The opping alliance should not be able to see the waypoint.

My big question would be... how smart are these ships??? If they run into a bad guy on the way back to the planet do they attack or keep running? Running seems easier to program.

Also one more twist, the ships should be mostly shield defence... as mines are armor defence. When the ships are parked back on their planets players can transfer shields to and from them and the planet.

[silverx2]

thanks for the feedback

Def kamikazi type ships, sort of like big mobile combat drones, the waypoint part is meant to have them all go there first and once all the available EDF ships are there then they start moving to intercept.

ideally they would never run into someone on the way back to the planets as anyone inside the galaxy not part of the home alliance would trigger messages that would alert them.

Questions i can think of is what happens if an attack team splits up, should they attack the highest exp person? the person that has been in the galaxy longest? that would prevent one person from camping a warp and keeping them occupied at the border.

i like the shields idea.

[silverx2]

its so depressing that nobody else commented(positive or negitive) :-/

[Travdan]

From my perspective, there are no new mechanics that will make the game appealing from a cutting-edge technology perspective. The people who play the game (as far as I can tell) like it for what it is. Significant deviation from the original game will only serve to alienate long-time players. If people want to play a different game, they will likely choose something other than SMR.

What then is the purpose of adding something like NPC ships? If it is merely an effort to prevent stagnation, then I think it is the wrong approach. Better advertisement for SMR is the only way to increase and revitalize the player base.

[silverx2]

the excuse that its going to alienate the long term players does not really hold water, as everything alienates them. you could change the name of a ship nobody uses and someone would get upset about it.

the problem with that is the game slowly dies off instead of evolves and grows, which i think is part of the problem with SMR.

It was the same thing for so long, that people kind of got tunnel vision, then one day Massive changes happened pretty much over night and that sort of put the game in a deeper hole it still has not come out of.

the only way to really get it back to its former glory player wise is to change things up a bit, and make the game Fun, which by and large for the most part it currently is not, you are welcome to disagree but the slowly diminishing player base kind of backs up my point.

[Travdan]

then one day Massive changes happened pretty much over night and that sort of put the game in a deeper hole it still has not come out of.

the only way to really get it back to its former glory player wise is to change things up a bit

You are providing a counter to your own argument. The game is fun, but SMR will never be able to compete with a modern online game. If people want to play something different than SMR as it is, they would play one of these modern games. People who play SMR don't do so because it's always evolving and cutting-edge.

Breaking up the constituent players into two categories, we have the following reactions to major changes:
- New players who stumble across SMR will be ambivalent toward any major change
- Long-time players, from my perspective, will lose interest if SMR's identity changes (as it's no longer the game they know and love)

In this frame of reference, perhaps you can understand why I feel like any major change will only hurt SMR's sustainability. And your anecdote seems to support this.

[JettJackson]

what smr should work upon is promoting as nostalgic. A bunch of changes would alienate those who like the game the way it was, case in point 1.2.1 to 1.5 ...

[silverx2]

then there is no point in looking towards advertising because nobody, or at least very few people is going to want to play a game like this starting fresh, but thats just my opinion.

now im not suggestions 1.5 type changes. as i said before that was too much to fast and really just made the problems worse. this is one thing very specific with only planetary defense in mind.