Random Suggestions...

[Shady_FA-]

One of the reasons I took a break playing this game was because of the staleness, and the more things change, the more they stay the same. The sit at fed until planets are reasonably strong and then mass park game is getting old, and it needs to change.

A few things need changing in my opinion.

1. The ability to arm, attack, and fed. The beginning of an alliance war is pretty much just like this, every game. All the birds sit in fed, they come out for 1-2 hours, do their dirty business, and fed unharmed.

2. Mass Parking. Once planets are relatively strong, the whole alliance sits on one planet, making planet busting relatively useless unless you are certain you hit the right planet. Once all planets become lethal, many alliances just do not bother attacking planets at all.

3. There needs to be some reward for interaction. Right now there is absolutely no need to go attack anyone's ships who oppose a legitimate threat to yourself. As a result, many times when a fight can go either way, it doesnt happen, and as such, nothing does.

These are the main problems right now that I find for alliance wars, big or small. It's fun and exciting at first, but I think there are ways we can make it more fun and less stale. This is just a general brainstorm, I'm sure we can come up with more, there are other small problems (easy port upgrading, long refresh times, single mining, everyone going evil, etc) but these are the big ones.

So here are some suggestions respectively to make interaction better.

1. Fed fighting fixes (Right now it's way too easy to just buy weapons, hunt/op, get into an altercation and run and hide)

- Each fed only gives federal protection to those of their own race: Already suggested, also in original SM, I dunno what happened to it. Guess it was shot down, so here it is again.

- Once you buy weapons/drones, you ahve to keep them for at least 6 hours: This stops fed fighting, and forces people to stay out in the open, which increases the chance for interaction. It forces you to fight with a risk of dying, which makes it more fun. Instead of hiding in fed, you will be forced to hide in dead ends or corners, and it also forces you to use turn management better. There is a big disadantage for solo players, but I think there should be a disadvantage.

- Gain half as many turns while in federal protection if you have bought weapons for the next 24 hours: This won't entirely stop fed fighting but it will come at a price.

- Allow presidents to close fed for certain alliances or races: This makes it worthwhile to go good, and become president, something that has little benefit as the game is right now.

- Make planets build faster: Maybe with slaves, maybe just in general, but it would lead us to problem #2.

2. Mass Parking. Right now with a lot of planets, the cool strategy is to just get everyone on one planet. While the one fight that occurs eventually is huge and monstrous and evryone has a great time, there is no real reward to going and busting any other planet if you are sure, or busting at all if you don't know.

So some suggestions:

- If an alliance owns all the planets in a galaxy, that galaxy OFFICIALLY becomes the alliances: This may seem meaniningless, but it will become useful for future suggestions. Plus it's a surefire way to determine a winner. If an alliance manages to take all the planets, then they can truly say they won, rather than all this debate game after game.

- The more drones on the planet, the less ships it can hold: Right now what is the point of PBing if you are not sure if it's the parker? To knock off the probability until you are sure that you find the one parker. But sometimes, the planets get too high and you never actually find the parker. Or you do find it, but the cream is too tough to kill. So building a level 70 means only 10 or so can land on the planet.

- At least one person on each planet: This makes sense as if you own the galaxy, there should be at least one representative on each planet. If there is no one on the planet, it becomes unclaimed after 24 hours.

- All planets make some sort of profit that goes to the owner of the planet: This does NOT stop mass parking, but rather makes people want to PB for territorial purposes. Of course the higher the planet, the more profit it makes. Also it'll change the way planets are built, as right now most planets are built mostly the same.

I don't think Mass parking is illegal, or a bad tactic, however I think there should be other strategies that can be done.

3. Interraction. The biggest problem right now. It's so easy to just pick on somoene who is 0/15, or with 12 exp, but when there is an even match, whether 1v1 or 8v8, what exactly is the point of fighting? There is no benefit to risking your ship, and the longer it stays the same, the more people you see running away when u see an even match. So what we need, is a way to make people want to fight in these marginal situations. A lot of these suggestions will have to do with the cloak.

- Increase bounties/federal payments: Goes without saying. If the price is right, people will be taking more risks.

- Once a person gets decloaked, he/she cannot recloak for 60 seconds: This goes well with the next suggestion.

- Dropping forces uncloaks you: I can't see how this hasn't already been implemented.

- Higher experience depending on the ship you kill: The kill formula right now is strictly based on level, why not make it so you are rewarded for killing bigger ships?

- If 1 person fires a weapon at 2 people, it should have higher accuracy, and the 2 people should have less accuracy: This makes sense logically, seeing as how the minority has more targets. This would allow 5v7 battles, 9v12 battles, those kind of battles that you never see unless it's the last day of the game and there's nothing to lose.

Many of these are probably uncodeable, or people will not like them, I just think there is a legitimate reason to want some sort of change. it's good that we are doing our best to get more players, but many of them grow bored.

I hope this will lead to some sort of discussion, rather than no, this idea sucks and such. Either way, I'll add on more as I think of them, it's essay time.

- Shady

[Shtoopid]

interesting stuff, would be definitly interesting to see some more fights, these last two games have been sorely lacking in targets.

[lawrenceofarabia]

I like this list. a lot. count me in.

[Baalzamon]

to be honest...the majority of the ideas I don't really like, more for personal preference then anything else..,.but a few of them jumped at me
~The fed protection to only the race...i like this idea, but I think its impracticable (if thats the right word) what i think would be good, would be a sort of permit thing that was discussed a while ago, but make it so that you're automatically protected in your own races fed, and just need a permit for another race's fed
~6 hours is a LONG time to have to sit for with weapons and drones..especially for those of us who play before school, and between school and practice...ie High School kids, and college kids...
~Presidents closing to races is a great idea...alliances would be tough since members of the alliance would be in the race, but I think this idea is a great one overall
~Build faster with slaves is still an idea that i like and support whole heartidly
~More drones=fewer ships on planets...isnt a huge point of building planets up so that you have a safe place? I think that, for the most part, planets should be left alone...but again, thats just me
~One person per planet...this would be tough, especially with low level planets, but I like the idea
~planets profit...this is kind of already in affect with bonds on planets
~increasing bounties and fed payments is a great idea all around...the more money offered for killing the better...that'd be more interaction, assuming it was a decent ammount
~Cloaking off for 60 seconds...personally, I liked new SM's way...I think it was 20 seconds, but I think i could be wrong...60 seconds is a really long time, i could see how people would say its the right ammount, but sit there and time 60 seconds, its longer then it sounds.
~dropping a force uncloaks is a good idea, i'm sure its been brought up before, and should be in affect, IMO
~I don't really understand your logic on the accuracy deal...if I'm walking around and i have a pistol, and two people jump me with pistols, chances are i'm going to die...i don't have an advantage because i'm alone and they arent

I'm sorry if I shot too many of these down, or was unclear on explaination...just figured I'd get my two cents in

[Shady_FA-]

baalz in reference to the last one, I never once said that the person with 1 pistol should have an advantage, im just saying the chances to hit should be higher. Now maybe the 2 guys shouldn't have their accuracy lowered, but the 1 guy has two targets therefore he should hit more. It doesn't mean he's gonna win...just more accuracy.

I don't expect every idea to be implemented, like I said this was jsut a massive brainstorm without much thought, the idea is to discuss them.

So crush them all if you want, and make your own suggestions, but I do feel that these 3 problems are making the game stale and we should do stuff to make it less so.

[Baalzamon]

alright, i didnt really understand it, thats why i started talking about pistols...thanks for clearing that up

[piratedan]

well if you wanted to modify the fed parking to only be in races you have peace with, but perhaps allow alskants to park in all feds maybe that would work out as a way to keep balance. This way racial peace actually has a benefit.

[adam_phg]

or u can put alskant fed near planet galaxys and the rest a bit farther away, this way peopel will actaully enjoy alsk peace.

[RandyOrsolo]

I like a lot of your suggestions; for now, I'll just quote the ones I disagree with:

- Allow presidents to close fed for certain alliances or races: This makes it worthwhile to go good, and become president, something that has little benefit as the game is right now.

In lieu of that, I might suggest taking it in a different direction; reduce the council amount to 7 (or 13...and odd number), and make it so only good aligned people get on the council.

- Make planets build faster: Maybe with slaves, maybe just in general, but it would lead us to problem #2.

I don't see planet building as a huge problem right now for most alliances; the speed is fine. I was going to suggest it be a bit slower, if anyghing.

2. Mass Parking. <snip>

- The more drones on the planet, the less ships it can hold: Right now what is the point of PBing if you are not sure if it's the parker? To knock off the probability until you are sure that you find the one parker. But sometimes, the planets get too high and you never actually find the parker. Or you do find it, but the cream is too tough to kill. So building a level 70 means only 10 or so can land on the planet.

While this would help strategic thinking in terms of who parks where, I would go against this suggestion due your other balance below:

- At least one person on each planet: This makes sense as if you own the galaxy, there should be at least one representative on each planet. If there is no one on the planet, it becomes unclaimed after 24 hours.

Might change it to every 48 hours, but good suggestion.

- All planets make some sort of profit that goes to the owner of the planet: This does NOT stop mass parking, but rather makes people want to PB for territorial purposes.

Perhaps it makes the bond interest slightly higher, I don't like the idea of getting something for nothing.

- Increase bounties/federal payments: Goes without saying. If the price is right, people will be taking more risks.

I think they were toned down after they kept on getting higher.

- Once a person gets decloaked, he/she cannot recloak for 60 seconds: This goes well with the next suggestion.

Again, I would disagree, due to a change you suggested below:

- Dropping forces uncloaks you: I can't see how this hasn't already been implemented.

I'd suggest it's because we don't have an active coder. But I totally agree (call me cloak biased, but again, it's getting something for nothing).

- Higher experience depending on the ship you kill: The kill formula right now is strictly based on level, why not make it so you are rewarded for killing bigger ships?

Disagreed. Different ships require different tactics to kill, but not necessarily harder ones.

[SnakeBite]

Some good all round ideas.

Firstly I'll start with what I like :

Fact that players can only fed in their own feds. This makes it so that you need to plan a bit more before feding since it may be 2 or 3 warps away.

Official planet gals - A nice goal for each alliance.

Dropping forces decloaks you - Dont know why its just nicer and makes it so that 1vs1's with a DM of higher level is a bit more balanced.

Dont like :

60 seconds recloak - Way too long. I think 10-20 secs is fitting.

Keep weaps 6 hours - Think this is pointless as lone hunters ect can't quickly log on and hunt a bit.

Allow presidents to close fed for certain alliances or races - Especialy dont like this idea as it means that that fed can change while a player is afk for a while and would mean a pod. Mabey make it so that he only loses protection once he leaves that fed or something.

Make planets build faster - They're at a nice speed. Making it faster would only mean that wars would be alot more realiant on numbers and less on strategy.

At least one person on each planet - Would make it unfair especialy in begining of game as allainces can go through a gal bust all the planets and pick up 6 -7 kills...


If 1 person fires a weapon at 2 people, it should have higher accuracy, and the 2 people should have less accuracy - Although this balances numbers a bit it not only takes away the advantage an active alliance has but it also means that fleet fights involve a bit more luck...

Some other idea's I dont like but they're not bad and I couldn't think of a valid reason I dont like them so I rather left them out.