Loss of AT vs Improve defences

[Chronus]

My solution (needs tweaking, just a raw thought)

Bring back the lack of limits on AT, and link strikes and defenses...

make it so one must be within 25% of the other be it higher or lower....

ie 1tril strike, requires a 750bil defense
ie 2tril defense, requires a 1.5tril strike



this will make it more expensive to just build a stat and mass as you will then need something that is massable, the resell rate of weps/shields would need to decrease to prevent buying then selling when done or at least make it not really worth it.

Now it would need something for when strikes/defenses are massed and sabbed though as the ratio would fall

it would also mess raiders up a bit, as they'd not really be able to build defenses (a solution would be to just make strikes contingent upon defense size)

just a thought

Wouldn't this create the same problem that exists on the ascended server?

I started my main account from scratch. I didn't buy an account. When I was a noob, I got an attacked alot, I got massed a time or two but I was persistent and built a strong account. If I can do it under the unlimited attack turn era, other people can too.

[~crypt0n]

both way are good...but i really dont </3 this ATs rate

[Tekki]

Linking strike to defence is all well and good but what happens to a strike when the defence gets massed?

You mean they then have to rebuild to go massing back? And let’s say that I’m okay with a 1.5t defence but am being farmed by someone with a 10t defence, I then gotta build my defence more to mass theirs ‘cos I want to build the strike?

Or if I’m a young player. I have enough UU to mass someone but not enough to build my defence AND strike, hence I just have to sit there taking whatever abuse it is ‘cos I can’t attack.

While the argument to link strike and defence is easy and nice and provides a feel good for those who have been massed/farmed by those with nothing to directly strike at, there are more situations IMO where it’s not advantageous. I would be for linking them though where alliances are set to hostile or there is an alliance war on as a methodology of making wars winnable. But linking them just biases the game towards those with disposable UU.

in the mean time I'd be more for equalisation between attack and defence cost and power and a few other changes as detailed previously.

[Sarevok]

1. Equalise the strength of attack and defence supers
2. Equalise the cost and strength of upgrades to attack and defence planets
3. Equalise the cost and strength of attack and defence weapons
4. Then look at the percentage death rates for attack and defence supers as well as the damage taken to each in attacks
5. come up wtih some way of killing strike supers without declaring blood realm
6. increase effectiveness of sab when there are no defence weapons

To try and improve your points, but let me know if it's ruining the thought process.

1) I think this is already done Tekki.
"Super Assimilators 89,000 Naquadah"
"Super Repulsors 89,000 Naquadah"

2) Or better still, make defense upgrades slightly cheaper for planets, then attack. Since attack is in essence 3x stronger

3) Below shows what she means. Attack weapons are 10points stronger, and defense weapons are almost 10% more expensive
"Mobile Assult Planet 5,760 555,800 Naquadah"
"Self Aware Ni-Planets 5,750 599,200 Naquadah"
From that to this
"Mobile Assult Planet 5,760 599,200 Naquadah"
"Self Aware Ni-Planets 5,760 599,200 Naquadah"

4) Current rates are as follows "These have increased slightly, to 3.5% on attack, 2.5% on defence."
That is the maximum. However, since you only need 1/3 of the defense to damage, it should be atleast ATK: 4%, DEF: 2% (or something similar)
Reason for this being. Defenses are usually massed offline (especially those over 1T), so the attack can repair/retrain, where as the defenders power is always dropping.

5) Give us the ability to attack super attackers. So that those whom run around with a 3T attack, and a 10b defense can be gotten back at. Something like when they have no defense, and spies < 10% of attack units, you can attack attack supers directly, similar to attack defense supers, but at 3x the losses.

6) When the defender has no defense. It's harder for them to combat sabotage. So wepaons destroyed is 2x more, then with a defense (for example)

[Tekki]

Um for 1 I was focusing on the fact that 1 armed defence super does not give the same power as 1 armed attack super. The difference probably is completely from the weapon but haven't looked into the calculations at all to tell. If it's from the weapon no need to change it, if it's from a deficiency in defence supers abilities then we do need to adjust their relative strength.

[spoiler]Personally I'd also remove the adjustment of 15AT and death rates once the defence goes to 0 But that's me. This is ONLY for once the defence goes to 0 though.

At the moment the death rate of 1 AT is about 1/15 of using 15 Ats. But I'd change it ONLY for unarmed soldiers back to 1 AT killing lots

-shrug- it's not the discussion though.[/spoiler]

[jedi~tank]

Well, as i'm sure MANY of you are aware, there has been a recent large drop in the number of available AT on the market.

From what i can gather, this is to prevent the random massings etc that happen with large quantities of AT. However, this also cripples the inactive farmers, slowing everyones growth to a standstill.


So, i want to get a poll, and which way people think Jason should so with reguard to this. Should he keep the current lack of AT to reduce the number of random massings, or should he simply make defense alot more effective one way or the other.


Please vote, and if you choose "Other option" please state why.

NOT

[Sarevok]

Well, as i'm sure MANY of you are aware, there has been a recent large drop in the number of available AT on the market.

From what i can gather, this is to prevent the random massings etc that happen with large quantities of AT. However, this also cripples the inactive farmers, slowing everyones growth to a standstill.


So, i want to get a poll, and which way people think Jason should so with reguard to this. Should he keep the current lack of AT to reduce the number of random massings, or should he simply make defense alot more effective one way or the other.


Please vote, and if you choose "Other option" please state why.

NOT

What's the reason then?

[Vertigo1]

Linking strike to defence is all well and good but what happens to a strike when the defence gets massed?

You mean they then have to rebuild to go massing back? And let’s say that I’m okay with a 1.5t defence but am being farmed by someone with a 10t defence, I then gotta build my defence more to mass theirs ‘cos I want to build the strike?

It doesn't have to be a 1:1 ratio, but some linking would be nice. At the very least, make it a pain in the ass for the snipers to go on a massing education spree "fur the lulz". I'm all for a little fun and games, but give the other guy something to shoot at ffs! Playing around with zero defense is just cowardly IMO.

[Tekki]

Linking strike to defence is all well and good but what happens to a strike when the defence gets massed?

You mean they then have to rebuild to go massing back? And let’s say that I’m okay with a 1.5t defence but am being farmed by someone with a 10t defence, I then gotta build my defence more to mass theirs ‘cos I want to build the strike?

It doesn't have to be a 1:1 ratio, but some linking would be nice. At the very least, make it a pain in the ass for the snipers to go on a massing education spree "fur the lulz". I'm all for a little fun and games, but give the other guy something to shoot at ffs! Playing around with zero defense is just cowardly IMO.

In the case of snipers or those doing it for the lulz, wouldn't it then be better ot attack their strike supers? Those things they think are safe.

[MaxSterling]

Sorry, just doing one or the other or even both won't fix the game. All it will most likely do is screw up the game even more.

ATs = game activity. The less ATs, the less active the server is. Since the end of the server war, I've yet to see the number of players online go above 350. The majority of people that are really applauding this change are the ones that are looking to make money by selling in-game resources. The rest of the people that applaud less ATs are the ones that have decent accounts and don't want to put in the effort to keep their accounts at the top. If you want to stay at the top, you should be the one raising the bar. Don't let them fool you into thinking it's all motives about strategy because if that were the case, they'd have reduced their accounts enough to go to pergatory. They wanna keep their big, fat army sizes and just bank and train. It takes a lot less effort to stay at top if you cripple everyone else's opportunities than it is to keep pace with the most active players.

As for those people complaining about attack supers being untouchable... here's the solution. Build a defense. You build a defense, they lose supers. Guess what... I'm not a rocket scientist, either.

If there's any changes that I'd like to see...

1.) Swap these ME values...
Attack Mercs Killed (1)
Attack Soldiers Killed(2.5)
Attack Super Soldiers Killed(15)
... with these...
Defence Mercs Killed (20)
Defence Soldiers Killed(50)
Defence Super Soldiers Killed(300)

That way you gain more ME for building a defense. "ME chasers" would not exist because all they will do is give everyone else more ME than they make in a massing. People would mass for war reasons, not using ME as an excuse. Might give a little bit incentive for people to build a defense, too.

2.) Attack/Defense losses should be based on ratio. If I have twice as many defenders than you have attackers, then you should take on twice as many losses. Then the planet and MS bonus should be added in as modifiers to that initial loss. If the ratio is larger than a certain amount, then all of their defenders/attackers are dead. Makes using your covert capacity for spying that much more important. Nobody wants to blind hit a 40T defense with 1m attack supers only to suffer the ratio of losses.

3.) In order to get people to build defenses, make it so they must have at least 1% of their army trained as defenders. If they go below 1%, then the miners start leaving the mines and become raidable UU at an exponentially increasing amount. When the cat's away, the mice will play... Sure, people can just create armies of only attack soldiers and lifers... but what good would that be if they have no UU to rebuild their strike? They'd need to raid to recover their losses, which is how the game should be played.

I'm sure there's a lot of things wrong with those ideas, but those were just a few that went through my mind. My account is for sale, so the same amount of time went into those ideas as the admin put into the AT update. I guess I should thank him because now that it will be much more difficult to achieve an account like mine, the price may go up... but at the same time, there will most likely be fewer players within a few months.

[Chamaileon]

Max,

I agree that Ats=activity and that the people getting the rewards are the AT sellers either in market or for money.

I think the weapons should be equal for Attack/Defense.
Planets and Mother-ships are a good addition for the strategy seekers.
As they both add to Attack and Defense possibilities.

The ratios need to be looked at again and even at their base value.
1 turn massing ratios definitely need to be looked at.

As for the people who go around massing/attacking with no defense.

I would say that if the have no def, kill their covert, sabotage their attack weapons and then have an extra sabotage mission for killing unarmed attack supers. The ratio for that mission should be conservative so as not to totally crush small players. But people who don't set defenses leave their gates open to sabotage. The point for this is that their attack supers are not totally untouchable. You should at least be able to make a dent.

I think that the turns have been decreased way too much. There needs to be an increase. 16 turns per is a joke.
**question** Weren't the amount of turns available through market trades higher before the Server War started? I know they dropped b/c of the amount of usage to around 100 per 5bil or so. So if you traded for all 5 you got 500.

Esplin.

[Vertigo1]

As for those people complaining about attack supers being untouchable... here's the solution. Build a defense. You build a defense, they lose supers. Guess what... I'm not a rocket scientist, either.

The problem with that is the loss ratio for attack supers is grossly out of proportion for the loss of defensive supers, hence why people are asking to make defensive units more effective. As it is, they're worth about as much as an attack mercenary in terms of usefulness. Being able to go after their attack supers, after all of their defense is wiped out, would just be the icing on the cake. (Effectiveness of this should be based on things like how many defensive units they have, covert stat, and how much of their MS remains post defense destruction.) Massing shouldn't be a "cake walk".

Also, bring the turn count back to what they were before. As mentioned before, decreasing the amount of turns we get per turn change will only cause the prices on the market to sky rocket out of being affordable to anyone outside of folks with huge army sizes.

[Exit]

As for those people complaining about attack supers being untouchable... here's the solution. Build a defense. You build a defense, they lose supers. Guess what... I'm not a rocket scientist, either.

The problem with that is the loss ratio for attack supers is grossly out of proportion for the loss of defensive supers, hence why people are asking to make defensive units more effective. As it is, they're worth about as much as an attack mercenary in terms of usefulness. Being able to go after their attack supers, after all of their defense is wiped out, would just be the icing on the cake. (Effectiveness of this should be based on things like how many defensive units they have, covert stat, and how much of their MS remains post defense destruction.) Massing shouldn't be a "cake walk".

Also, bring the turn count back to what they were before. As mentioned before, decreasing the amount of turns we get per turn change will only cause the prices on the market to sky rocket out of being affordable to anyone outside of folks with huge army sizes.

Yes.

[Sarevok]

1.) Swap these ME values...
Attack Mercs Killed (1)
Attack Soldiers Killed(2.5)
Attack Super Soldiers Killed(15)
... with these...
Defence Mercs Killed (20)
Defence Soldiers Killed(50)
Defence Super Soldiers Killed(300)

That way you gain more ME for building a defense. "ME chasers" would not exist because all they will do is give everyone else more ME than they make in a massing. People would mass for war reasons, not using ME as an excuse. Might give a little bit incentive for people to build a defense, too.

3.) In order to get people to build defenses, make it so they must have at least 1% of their army trained as defenders. If they go below 1%, then the miners start leaving the mines and become raidable UU at an exponentially increasing amount. When the cat's away, the mice will play... Sure, people can just create armies of only attack soldiers and lifers... but what good would that be if they have no UU to rebuild their strike? They'd need to raid to recover their losses, which is how the game should be played.

I like these suggestions Max.
Only problem i can see, would be those with massive attack planets. Such that they may only have 1/20 of the defence units in attack. However, to counter this, those attack planets can be taken. So perhaps not to bad, as it provides a way to get back at them as well

[saadsel]

yes.

i agree with increasing the strength of the defenders. they are the guys on your homeworld with all the resources right there for them, so basically they should be the stronger part of your army. ME should then also be based on how you defended. the bigger the def, the more ME you would get if attacked

increase the AT's again to what it was, 320 is a bit low. what could be done is maybe just limit the amount of 1at hits during massings...ie: you still have unlimited turns to mass ppl, but say after 60 or 80at's used on a player the damage and losses to the attacker increases 3 to 5 or 7times and there could be a massage about how the supers miss their mammas and wane go home and so on thus the higher losses or rather that the attack force will get less effective. let this run for 24hours before it reset's and you can go again with those xx amount of at's before the damage taken double and triples again. this would lead to more organised massings not just one guy that has alot of at's and time on his hands.

give any of the big players( or even mid-sized players) enough turns and naq and they can pimp the whole of normal in a matter of hours..depending on how fast his clicking finger is and the speed of his internet :/ (and the amount of beer at hand )