BETA UPDATES 2010

[MaxSterling]

http://gatewars.com/help.php#Calculations
Though i'm not 100% sure MS damage/losses is included.

Well, the army losses were in there and that's the main thing. I'm trying to come up with a way to increase a defense's efficiency. Perhaps reduce their weapon decay by half since their on their own planet and can better care for their weapons thus making a defense last twice as long or have the weapon decay % effected by the realm alert level (x% X RAL)?

By efficiency, do you mean ability to last longer? Or just damaging attacks more? I made a suggestion that you could have say 1% of your banked naq as auto-repair naq for a defence. Such that it would almost simulate an online battle, and would help defences last longer, but no body really liked the idea, stating it would then become to hard to mass. I'm not sure if this is what your after, or something else

Well ironically, Realm Alert Levels drain your income already. At least this method would provide a reason for the income drain. By reducing the weapon decay, the weapons will last longer, thus making it take longer to completely zero a defense and thus increasing the number of attack soldiers lost during a massing. Plus if a massing takes longer, there's a better chance the nox will kick in and give a player an opportunity to login and repair.

People already complain about how few attack soldiers are lost during a massing. This would at least increase the number of attack soldiers lost.

Please stop adding bonuses...

[Sarevok]

http://gatewars.com/help.php#Calculations
Though i'm not 100% sure MS damage/losses is included.

Well, the army losses were in there and that's the main thing. I'm trying to come up with a way to increase a defense's efficiency. Perhaps reduce their weapon decay by half since their on their own planet and can better care for their weapons thus making a defense last twice as long or have the weapon decay % effected by the realm alert level (x% X RAL)?

By efficiency, do you mean ability to last longer? Or just damaging attacks more? I made a suggestion that you could have say 1% of your banked naq as auto-repair naq for a defence. Such that it would almost simulate an online battle, and would help defences last longer, but no body really liked the idea, stating it would then become to hard to mass. I'm not sure if this is what your after, or something else

Well ironically, Realm Alert Levels drain your income already. At least this method would provide a reason for the income drain. By reducing the weapon decay, the weapons will last longer, thus making it take longer to completely zero a defense and thus increasing the number of attack soldiers lost during a massing. Plus if a massing takes longer, there's a better chance the nox will kick in and give a player an opportunity to login and repair.

People already complain about how few attack soldiers are lost during a massing. This would at least increase the number of attack soldiers lost.

Hmm, i like that. From the time you last set your realm alert above None, you accumulate Naq in a separate, repair bank. This is used to repair weapons until depleted? However, the repair bank is only 1% of your total bank size

[Wepwaet]

Link to the AT planet idea for Forum to peruse as promised... (page 3 has the info on costs with regard to planet slot upgrade progression and how the costs stack up to other bonuses at the top end of the scale)

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=145449&start=30

[MaxSterling]

Hmm, i like that. From the time you last set your realm alert above None, you accumulate Naq in a separate, repair bank. This is used to repair weapons until depleted? However, the repair bank is only 1% of your total bank size

No, there is no repair bank. There should never be an automatic repair bank. The naq taken from RALs is just used to reduce the decay amount. For example :

Realm Alert Level
None = 100% weapon decay
Low = 87.5% weapon decay
Medium = 75% weapon decay
High = 62.5% weapon decay
Critical = 50% weapon decay

The higher the RAL, the longer you weapons should last. This pertains to defensive weapons only. Realm Alert Levels have no effect on attack weapons.

From my attack logs...

Putting down the chronicled battle report, you cross reference and call for the corrosponding military armory reports to see the state of your weapons after such a battle...

Your Targeted Spacial Distortions went from strength 5,750 to 5,711 (now 5711/5750 and 1 percent damaged)

That would be my weapons on RAL = None
if my RAL = Critical, weapon decay would be 50%, so they would be 5731/5750
if my RAL = High, weapons would be 5726/5750
if my RAL = Medium, weapons would be 5721/5750
if my RAL = Low, weapons would be 5716/5750

Enough with the friggin bonuses, Admin!

[Sarevok]

What Max said[spoiler]

Hmm, i like that. From the time you last set your realm alert above None, you accumulate Naq in a separate, repair bank. This is used to repair weapons until depleted? However, the repair bank is only 1% of your total bank size

No, there is no repair bank. There should never be an automatic repair bank. The naq taken from RALs is just used to reduce the decay amount. For example :

Realm Alert Level
None = 100% weapon decay
Low = 87.5% weapon decay
Medium = 75% weapon decay
High = 62.5% weapon decay
Critical = 50% weapon decay

The higher the RAL, the longer you weapons should last. This pertains to defensive weapons only. Realm Alert Levels have no effect on attack weapons.

From my attack logs...

Putting down the chronicled battle report, you cross reference and call for the corrosponding military armory reports to see the state of your weapons after such a battle...

Your Targeted Spacial Distortions went from strength 5,750 to 5,711 (now 5711/5750 and 1 percent damaged)

That would be my weapons on RAL = None
if my RAL = Critical, weapon decay would be 50%, so they would be 5731/5750
if my RAL = High, weapons would be 5726/5750
if my RAL = Medium, weapons would be 5721/5750
if my RAL = Low, weapons would be 5716/5750

[/spoiler]
Ah, i understand. So the higher it is, the less damage you take. So instead of the maximum being 2.5% damage/hit, it would be(with critical) 1.25%?

[MaxSterling]

Ah, i understand. So the higher it is, the less damage you take. So instead of the maximum being 2.5% damage/hit, it would be(with critical) 1.25%?

Correct.

Goddamnit... stop adding bonuses!

[Sarevok]

Well, it would make more sense then what happens now (what, they like throw naq at the enemy to keep them at bay?)

[MaxSterling]

Okay... did I read that covert power is gonna take a dive? 90% reduction in power? How is that gonna effect sabbing missions since weapons destroyed is based on remaining covert power? Instead of 100k weapons we'll now be only destroying 10k?

You can't really compare covert and AC power with the rest of the stats because covert and AC are based on tech levels which pretty much double with each level. I wouldn't mess with the power, but perhaps the formula per tech level, IE start covert level 1 at 25 or 50% of what it currently is at. That will drop covert power down 1-2 levels.

Another thing I'd like to see is a cap on total MS power with a removal of the MS tech % bonus... how many guns can you fit on a MS? I think Motherships should be treated like planets. Each planet size can hold X number of defenses. Each MS tech could hold X number of slots. A MS should increase size in order to fit more weapons. If techs were used to increase size, then they should not be reset after each ascension, either. Once too many MS's reach the cap, introduce a new technology that will be extremely costly and will halve the number of slots used, but double their power. Each slot will also have an increase in price.

For those arguing about fleets, fleets were already given a boost in power with the last update. I think that is sufficient. As it is, there are many players out there that can take a planet with 500k planet defenses with their raw fleets. Platforms were added to bring in an element of surprise. I think fleets are fine the way they are. Granted the update will increase that number, but the number of fleets needed for the update won't be much more than those people currently have.

At least lowering covert won't add any bonuses...

[BenjaminMS]

Okay... did I read that covert power is gonna take a dive? 90% reduction in power? How is that gonna effect sabbing missions since weapons destroyed is based on remaining covert power? Instead of 100k weapons we'll now be only destroying 10k?

You can't really compare covert and AC power with the rest of the stats because covert and AC are based on tech levels which pretty much double with each level. I wouldn't mess with the power, but perhaps the formula per tech level, IE start covert level 1 at 25 or 50% of what it currently is at. That will drop covert power down 1-2 levels..

As for this... since the covert power in this game is already that big, don't worry. Even with 5 spies you can sab millions of weapons due to the insane amount of power behind it.
As for the levels, currently untill level 18 the increase is 100%, but after that the power increases at 41,something%

Another thing I'd like to see is a cap on total MS power with a removal of the MS tech % bonus... how many guns can you fit on a MS? I think Motherships should be treated like planets. Each planet size can hold X number of defenses. Each MS tech could hold X number of slots. A MS should increase size in order to fit more weapons. If techs were used to increase size, then they should not be reset after each ascension, either. Once too many MS's reach the cap, introduce a new technology that will be extremely costly and will halve the number of slots used, but double their power. Each slot will also have an increase in price..

Uhm... okay? What it is with 'tech', is that a race is supposed to lose all the tech and knowledge upon the ascension of the 'controller' (in other words, the player). Since the knowledge of how to fit more weapons in a ship is a technical one, it is relative logical it is lost. As for your suggestion, that will break in the end the game even more

For those arguing about fleets, fleets were already given a boost in power with the last update. I think that is sufficient. As it is, there are many players out there that can take a planet with 500k planet defenses with their raw fleets. Platforms were added to bring in an element of surprise. I think fleets are fine the way they are. Granted the update will increase that number, but the number of fleets needed for the update won't be much more than those people currently have.

You know what it is with 'fleets'? The costs - not the power. We all know fleets can easily take planets - it is that in the end planets can be easily loseable, while the one who takes it in the end spends perhaps just the half of it in fleet building and fleet slot cost in comparison with the one who builded the defenses.

[Sarevok]

For those arguing about fleets, fleets were already given a boost in power with the last update. I think that is sufficient. As it is, there are many players out there that can take a planet with 500k planet defenses with their raw fleets. Platforms were added to bring in an element of surprise. I think fleets are fine the way they are. Granted the update will increase that number, but the number of fleets needed for the update won't be much more than those people currently have.

Well actually, first the power was doubled, then techs were introduced.
So the power went from 100% -> 200% -> 260%.

Another thing I'd like to see is a cap on total MS power with a removal of the MS tech % bonus... how many guns can you fit on a MS? I think Motherships should be treated like planets. Each planet size can hold X number of defenses. Each MS tech could hold X number of slots. A MS should increase size in order to fit more weapons. If techs were used to increase size, then they should not be reset after each ascension, either. Once too many MS's reach the cap, introduce a new technology that will be extremely costly and will halve the number of slots used, but double their power. Each slot will also have an increase in price..

Uhm... okay? What it is with 'tech', is that a race is supposed to lose all the tech and knowledge upon the ascension of the 'controller' (in other words, the player). Since the knowledge of how to fit more weapons in a ship is a technical one, it is relative logical it is lost. As for your suggestion, that will break in the end the game even more

Actually. I agree with Max on this. Planets have what you could call a soft cap on them, like total army size. Whereby each time you go up 100k over 500k, the costs double. MS has no such cap, and the adding of slots is a linear progression.
In other words, basically, cost of next slot is slotY = Y*10,000naq for example.
0-1 = 10,000 (slot1)
1-2 = 20,000 (slot2)
2-3 = 30,000 (slot3)
3-4 = 40,000 (slot4)
and so on. Eg slot300,000 = 300,000 * 10,000, which is 3b naq.
However, planet defence costs are far different, and the formula would look more like this
numberOfSlotsBelow500,000 * 90,000,000 + numberOfSlotsBetween500,001&600,000 * 180,000,000 + numberOfSlotsBetween600,001&700,000 * 270,000,000 and so on.

[MaxSterling]

As for this... since the covert power in this game is already that big, don't worry. Even with 5 spies you can sab millions of weapons due to the insane amount of power behind it.
As for the levels, currently untill level 18 the increase is 100%, but after that the power increases at 41,something%

Well from what I heard from people playing Beta, 1T covert power is now 100b covert power. If that's true, then it would definitely have an effect on sabbing. Looking at the calculation it's your power minus their power modified by realm alert, divided by weapon power. There is a major difference between 2T - 1T and 200b - 100b.

Uhm... okay? What it is with 'tech', is that a race is supposed to lose all the tech and knowledge upon the ascension of the 'controller' (in other words, the player). Since the knowledge of how to fit more weapons in a ship is a technical one, it is relative logical it is lost. As for your suggestion, that will break in the end the game even more

I used the word "tech" for lack of better word at the time. Compare my version of a MS "tech" to a size upgrade on a planet. It's not necessarily a tech, but a size upgrade to allow more slots on the MS. If you remove the size upgrade after ascending, you run into issue with motherships having more slots than a MS level 0 can handle since MS's stay with your account after ascending.

](*,) You know what it is with 'fleets'? The costs - not the power. We all know fleets can easily take planets - it is that in the end planets can be easily loseable, while the one who takes it in the end spends perhaps just the half of it in fleet building and fleet slot cost in comparison with the one who builded the defenses.

Which is why you remove the current version of MS techs, thus reducing their total fleets. Adding 30% to total MS power to "help new players" was the dumbest idea. Admin stated planets are not meant to be kept. If you really want to keep your planets, it's not that difficult to farm the naq to build defenses and platforms. 45T naq to build 500k planet defense isn't that difficult to do. I have 3 dual planets each with 500k planet defenses. I keep two merlined with one in the open with 3 very efficiently built platforms to minimize my repair costs should someone decide to suicide their fleets on them.

I'm probably the wrong person to discuss costs with, since I have no problems farming the resources needed for whatever I need. I've farmed 50T naq within a day and regularly farm 30T/day, so the costs for platform/planet defenses are nothing but a minor inconvenience to MS upgrades for me.

Actually. I agree with Max on this. Planets have what you could call a soft cap on them, like total army size. Whereby each time you go up 100k over 500k, the costs double. MS has no such cap, and the adding of slots is a linear progression.
In other words, basically, cost of next slot is slotY = Y*10,000naq for example.
0-1 = 10,000 (slot1)
1-2 = 20,000 (slot2)
2-3 = 30,000 (slot3)
3-4 = 40,000 (slot4)
and so on. Eg slot300,000 = 300,000 * 10,000, which is 3b naq.
However, planet defence costs are far different, and the formula would look more like this
numberOfSlotsBelow500,000 * 90,000,000 + numberOfSlotsBetween500,001&600,000 * 180,000,000 + numberOfSlotsBetween600,001&700,000 * 270,000,000 and so on.

I'm not sure if you entirely get what I'm saying...
Tiny planets can have 10 total defenses on it
very small can have 100 total defenses on it... etc. etc.

For MS's I'm thinking more along the lines of...

MS Upgrades
0 - 100 Total Slots ( volleys + shields + fleet bays )
1 - 1000 Total Slots
2 - 5000 Total Slots
3 - 10,000 Total Slots
4 - 50,000 Total Slots
5 - 100,000 Total Slots
6 - 250,000 Total Slots
7 - 500,000 Total Slots
8 - 750,000 Total Slots
9 - 1,000,000 Total Slots
10 - 2,000,000 Total Slots

Something along those lines... so for me, I'd need MS Upgrade 9 for my current MS, which has over 800k total raw slots. How you use those slots is entirely up to the individual, but they can't total more than the upgrade level.

Admin... stop adding bonuses.

[Sarevok]

As for this... since the covert power in this game is already that big, don't worry. Even with 5 spies you can sab millions of weapons due to the insane amount of power behind it.
As for the levels, currently untill level 18 the increase is 100%, but after that the power increases at 41,something%

Well from what I heard from people playing Beta, 1T covert power is now 100b covert power. If that's true, then it would definitely have an effect on sabbing. Looking at the calculation it's your power minus their power modified by realm alert, divided by weapon power. There is a major difference between 2T - 1T and 200b - 100b.

He did also say that it has become much more powerful

Uhm... okay? What it is with 'tech', is that a race is supposed to lose all the tech and knowledge upon the ascension of the 'controller' (in other words, the player). Since the knowledge of how to fit more weapons in a ship is a technical one, it is relative logical it is lost. As for your suggestion, that will break in the end the game even more

I used the word "tech" for lack of better word at the time. Compare my version of a MS "tech" to a size upgrade on a planet. It's not necessarily a tech, but a size upgrade to allow more slots on the MS. If you remove the size upgrade after ascending, you run into issue with motherships having more slots than a MS level 0 can handle since MS's stay with your account after ascending.

And thus should be a permanent upgrade imo.

](*,) You know what it is with 'fleets'? The costs - not the power. We all know fleets can easily take planets - it is that in the end planets can be easily loseable, while the one who takes it in the end spends perhaps just the half of it in fleet building and fleet slot cost in comparison with the one who builded the defenses.

Which is why you remove the current version of MS techs, thus reducing their total fleets. Adding 30% to total MS power to "help new players" was the dumbest idea. Admin stated planets are not meant to be kept. If you really want to keep your planets, it's not that difficult to farm the naq to build defenses and platforms. 45T naq to build 500k planet defense isn't that difficult to do. I have 3 dual planets each with 500k planet defenses. I keep two merlined with one in the open with 3 very efficiently built platforms to minimize my repair costs should someone decide to suicide their fleets on them.

I agree with the techs thing. It was silly, and was never going to benefit the smaller players, since they can't afford it. As i said somewhere, for the same cost, larger MS can get a bonus equal to a smaller MSs total power.

Actually. I agree with Max on this. Planets have what you could call a soft cap on them, like total army size. Whereby each time you go up 100k over 500k, the costs double. MS has no such cap, and the adding of slots is a linear progression.
In other words, basically, cost of next slot is slotY = Y*10,000naq for example.
0-1 = 10,000 (slot1)
1-2 = 20,000 (slot2)
2-3 = 30,000 (slot3)
3-4 = 40,000 (slot4)
and so on. Eg slot300,000 = 300,000 * 10,000, which is 3b naq.
However, planet defence costs are far different, and the formula would look more like this
numberOfSlotsBelow500,000 * 90,000,000 + numberOfSlotsBetween500,001&600,000 * 180,000,000 + numberOfSlotsBetween600,001&700,000 * 270,000,000 and so on.

I'm not sure if you entirely get what I'm saying...
Tiny planets can have 10 total defenses on it
very small can have 100 total defenses on it... etc. etc.

For MS's I'm thinking more along the lines of...

MS Upgrades
0 - 100 Total Slots ( volleys + shields + fleet bays )
1 - 1000 Total Slots
2 - 5000 Total Slots
3 - 10,000 Total Slots
4 - 50,000 Total Slots
5 - 100,000 Total Slots
6 - 250,000 Total Slots
7 - 500,000 Total Slots
8 - 750,000 Total Slots
9 - 1,000,000 Total Slots
10 - 2,000,000 Total Slots

Something along those lines... so for me, I'd need MS Upgrade 9 for my current MS, which has over 800k total raw slots. How you use those slots is entirely up to the individual, but they can't total more than the upgrade level.

Yeah, it was more to show how planet costs go up at an exponential rate, and fleet hanger costs, liniar

[BMMJ13]

](*,) You know what it is with 'fleets'? The costs - not the power. We all know fleets can easily take planets - it is that in the end planets can be easily loseable, while the one who takes it in the end spends perhaps just the half of it in fleet building and fleet slot cost in comparison with the one who builded the defenses.

Which is why you remove the current version of MS techs, thus reducing their total fleets. Adding 30% to total MS power to "help new players" was the dumbest idea. Admin stated planets are not meant to be kept. If you really want to keep your planets, it's not that difficult to farm the naq to build defenses and platforms. 45T naq to build 500k planet defense isn't that difficult to do. I have 3 dual planets each with 500k planet defenses. I keep two merlined with one in the open with 3 very efficiently built platforms to minimize my repair costs should someone decide to suicide their fleets on them.

I'm probably the wrong person to discuss costs with, since I have no problems farming the resources needed for whatever I need. I've farmed 50T naq within a day and regularly farm 30T/day, so the costs for platform/planet defenses are nothing but a minor inconvenience to MS upgrades for me.

I agree with that. Already planets give a large amount of boost, making them too hard to take would allow some to build up 10 duals that are untakeable. With the 12% to 20% update, admin is already basically giving you the defense of 900k on an old planet for the price of 500k, seeing as the fleets necessary to mass them are that much more. I don't believe anyone was talking about making fleets more powerful, or cheaper, however I don't believe they should be made more expensive myself (though I am bias). I myself have probably spent close to the cost of actually building my fleet slots as I have massing with my fleets with the cost of repairs, cost of selling the fleets when done, and the fleet losses due to platforms or motherships, so it's not like fleets are built then they can mass freely. I would need a minimum of 10 tril in my bank to mass a planet at the top end of my fleets, and even then if they have a platform I could easily lose a good portion of that.

As for Planets vs Fleet Costs:
1-500k for Planets is no change, after 500k it doubles every 100k, making it's growth after 500k Exponential.

Fleets grow by 1 tril for every 10k.
500 bil for 10k, 1.5 tril to get 20k from 10k, 2.5 tril to get 30k from 20k, making the inital 100k the most significant increases compared to what they were before, while after a while, increasing 1 tril to a huge number does not make as much of a difference.

But then look at the size difference, Fleets are most expensive increases for small players/small built up, while Planets are most expensive for those with quite a bit built up (45 tril for the largest size). I think planets need to continue to be exponential, to avoid making them untouchable with a certain amount of defense, however it shouldn't be quite so fast. 0-500k is the same price, why not make 500k-1 mil the same price, and then every 500k after that it doubles.

[GeneralChaos]

I like the update to the spy logs, that show the alliance, no more oh i didnt know, the naq they have out, needs to be split, its kind of hard to read when it just says, 297564453543 instead of 297,564,453,543.

Any idea on when these updates will hit main, i know some of them are in testing, but surely some could be rolled out early, such as

Min attack turn update
Time and date on attack logs
Intel update
Sabbing update

I still stand to say that the houses are a bad idea, and really do hand the advantage to anyone in an alliance, and will further throw the balance of the game out, if you go solo or a new player you have no chance at bonus, granted it will be funny to see every alliance in the game in the Attack house, for those who play the game any different they are going to get destroyed with the house update, either spend $$ have no defense or basically leave the game, as you got no chance, to bad after so many years thats how it will end.

[Sarevok]

But then look at the size difference, Fleets are most expensive increases for small players/small built up, while Planets are most expensive for those with quite a bit built up (45 tril for the largest size). I think planets need to continue to be exponential, to avoid making them untouchable with a certain amount of defense, however it shouldn't be quite so fast. 0-500k is the same price, why not make 500k-1 mil the same price, and then every 500k after that it doubles.

Yeah, i'm ok with leaving fleets as they are, or removing the techs, if the doubles become more then just 100k, like 200+k each jump.

Also, just as a note, the cost to defend 10 planets with defenses, at about 1m on each, is about 3x that needed for the hangers of the fleets.

I like the update to the spy logs, that show the alliance, no more oh i didnt know, the naq they have out, needs to be split, its kind of hard to read when it just says, 297564453543 instead of 297,564,453,543.

Any idea on when these updates will hit main, i know some of them are in testing, but surely some could be rolled out early, such as

Min attack turn update
Time and date on attack logs
Intel update
Sabbing update
Clickable planet names
Confirmation check boxes for relation resets

Ya forgot two other goodies

I still stand to say that the houses are a bad idea, and really do hand the advantage to anyone in an alliance, and will further throw the balance of the game out, if you go solo or a new player you have no chance at bonus, granted it will be funny to see every alliance in the game in the Attack house, for those who play the game any different they are going to get destroyed with the house update, either spend $$ have no defense or basically leave the game, as you got no chance, to bad after so many years thats how it will end.

Well, the values have been adjusted to make it more realisted. A good thing maybe to 1/2 to 1/4 of the tech bonus power, since they give like 80% bonus. If this was like 25%, it would help bring done some of the massive powers.
Also, solo people should be able to choose a slight bonus imo. Sorta like commander bonus. You have no alliance, so you get to add either 1% attack, 3% defense, 5% covert, or 8% AC.