Beta Site changes - ascended superweapon & attacks

[Shooting Star]

and if can be sold after bought, a) it would be like an ebay business and b) could never be used if 'bounced' between 2 top accounts.

6) superweapon - IF BOUGHT - cannot be sold. must be used or expired.

Therefore, basically the superweapon must be used? I am not sure how much I like this. If the weapon must rotate, and it is impossible to defend, all that will end up happening is the top players constantly be hit.

So basically, if someone shoots the thing at you, you can sell to someone, but as a buyer you can't sell it onwards correct?

You have it. Forum did it that way because I (stupidly) threatened to have me and Sinister ping pong that bad boy back and forth between ourselves so that we couldn't be hit by it. But you can ONLY sell it if it is used against you, not if you bought it. Having had it used against me in the development server (it took me two turns to recover because I knew it was coming), I can tell you that it is very much the double-edged sword. And yes it is worse for the big guys than it is for the little guys. Thank God, you can only be hit by it once every thirty days.

[Jack_White]

and if can be sold after bought, a) it would be like an ebay business and b) could never be used if 'bounced' between 2 top accounts.

6) superweapon - IF BOUGHT - cannot be sold. must be used or expired.

Therefore, basically the superweapon must be used? I am not sure how much I like this. If the weapon must rotate, and it is impossible to defend, all that will end up happening is the top players constantly be hit.

So basically, if someone shoots the thing at you, you can sell to someone, but as a buyer you can't sell it onwards correct?

You have it. Forum did it that way because I (stupidly) threatened to have me and Sinister ping pong that bad boy back and forth between ourselves so that we couldn't be hit by it. But you can ONLY sell it if it is used against you, not if you bought it. Having had it used against me in the development server (it took me two turns to recover because I knew it was coming), I can tell you that it is very much the double-edged sword. And yes it is worse for the big guys than it is for the little guys. Thank God, you can only be hit by it once every thirty days.

Well, so far, good work forum, and the Beta testers!

[Hensenshi]

and if can be sold after bought, a) it would be like an ebay business and b) could never be used if 'bounced' between 2 top accounts.

6) superweapon - IF BOUGHT - cannot be sold. must be used or expired.

Therefore, basically the superweapon must be used? I am not sure how much I like this. If the weapon must rotate, and it is impossible to defend, all that will end up happening is the top players constantly be hit.

So basically, if someone shoots the thing at you, you can sell to someone, but as a buyer you can't sell it onwards correct?

You have it. Forum did it that way because I (stupidly) threatened to have me and Sinister ping pong that bad boy back and forth between ourselves so that we couldn't be hit by it. But you can ONLY sell it if it is used against you, not if you bought it. Having had it used against me in the development server (it took me two turns to recover because I knew it was coming), I can tell you that it is very much the double-edged sword. And yes it is worse for the big guys than it is for the little guys. Thank God, you can only be hit by it once every thirty days.

I figured you were ready for it, but was hoping otherwise. Now you don't get to see how long it would take you to recover had you not expected it.


As far as I can see, the only point of the weapon will be to basically knock every top player down every 30 days. Would much rather that Mojo and Sinister ping pong it around. At least make it somehow defendable.

[Munchy]

and if can be sold after bought, a) it would be like an ebay business and b) could never be used if 'bounced' between 2 top accounts.

6) superweapon - IF BOUGHT - cannot be sold. must be used or expired.

Therefore, basically the superweapon must be used? I am not sure how much I like this. If the weapon must rotate, and it is impossible to defend, all that will end up happening is the top players constantly be hit.

So basically, if someone shoots the thing at you, you can sell to someone, but as a buyer you can't sell it onwards correct?

You have it. Forum did it that way because I (stupidly) threatened to have me and Sinister ping pong that bad boy back and forth between ourselves so that we couldn't be hit by it. But you can ONLY sell it if it is used against you, not if you bought it. Having had it used against me in the development server (it took me two turns to recover because I knew it was coming), I can tell you that it is very much the double-edged sword. And yes it is worse for the big guys than it is for the little guys. Thank God, you can only be hit by it once every thirty days.

I figured you were ready for it, but was hoping otherwise. Now you don't get to see how long it would take you to recover had you not expected it.


As far as I can see, the only point of the weapon will be to basically knock every top player down every 30 days. Would much rather that Mojo and Sinister ping pong it around. At least make it somehow defendable.

Don't forget though, with this weapon update also comes descention. Would players really go off hitting top players knowing well that as a result their account will be sat on, and pretty much permananently descended, assuming ofcourse they are not multies? It would seem very suicidal to me to go such a route.

[Brendone]

Here is a suggestion for the superweapon. I know you made it so that 10% of your resource planets stay and that's all well and good, but I think another possibility would be to have a 'double account' in that, you can create weapons and train planets that are 'out of phase' because we see in the show, that that makes them basically untouchable to ascended beings. The out of phase weapons and planets would not count towards anything for you, in fact, make them cost double or triple (the cost of making them go out of phase) so that building them slows your account growth significantly. Then, if the superweapon is used on you, the out of phase stuff shifts back and becomes your account. If you never get the superweapon used on you, having all that out of phase stuff is totally useless to you, it wouldn't count towards rank, power, using it on people, it would just sit there, and unable to get back or sell unless the weapon is used on you. Just a thought, ascended beings should be able to hide stuff away from each other (if the show is any indication that is).

[Funky White Boy]

The increase to the Command Star power will have the effect of doubling the top strikes within the game. This will unbalance the ascended game considerably. There is no way that the smaller players will be able to build a command star which will hope to match theirs and if it adds the same again the top strikes of 150 Billion will have 300 Billion
This will allow even more raiding of planets and further increased growth to the top players. The smaller players would have real problems here.
If we are going to increase the Command star power could we restrict its additional effects on ground troop to say 20% afterall it has to get through the atmosphere. That would still make it possible to hit them it would give the top players a strike of 180 Billion instead of 300 Billion, this is more defendable

It would however still make it worthwhile to build a decent command star for this additional effect.

[samson1111]

Here is a suggestion for the superweapon. I know you made it so that 10% of your resource planets stay and that's all well and good, but I think another possibility would be to have a 'double account' in that, you can create weapons and train planets that are 'out of phase' because we see in the show, that that makes them basically untouchable to ascended beings. The out of phase weapons and planets would not count towards anything for you, in fact, make them cost double or triple (the cost of making them go out of phase) so that building them slows your account growth significantly. Then, if the superweapon is used on you, the out of phase stuff shifts back and becomes your account. If you never get the superweapon used on you, having all that out of phase stuff is totally useless to you, it wouldn't count towards rank, power, using it on people, it would just sit there, and unable to get back or sell unless the weapon is used on you. Just a thought, ascended beings should be able to hide stuff away from each other (if the show is any indication that is).

this is a great idea. If the prices would be like 3-4 times more expensiver... it would slow down a bit ur growth, but u could recover much faster from the superweapon

The increase to the Command Star power will have the effect of doubling the top strikes within the game. This will unbalance the ascended game considerably. There is no way that the smaller players will be able to build a command star which will hope to match theirs and if it adds the same again the top strikes of 150 Billion will have 300 Billion
This will allow even more raiding of planets and further increased growth to the top players. The smaller players would have real problems here.
If we are going to increase the Command star power could we restrict its additional effects on ground troop to say 20% afterall it has to get through the atmosphere. That would still make it possible to hit them it would give the top players a strike of 180 Billion instead of 300 Billion, this is more defendable

It would however still make it worthwhile to build a decent command star for this additional effect.

1000x is a lot... maybe 50x should do it.

I have 18B def on my MS with only like 30 shields now.

and I would sugest multiplier on buying MS equipment... if the MS gets stronger. Cause I think I'll start clicking the Star Capacity Upgrades much more often from now on

[Brendone]

The 1000x stronger will help everyone equally, and is actually more beneficial the newer you are, because you can double your defence/strike more easily. It's a lot cheaper to buy some mothership weapons to match what you have at lower levels when the capacity costs next to nothing. In any case, even though it makes the top players have double strike, everyone's def could be doubled, etc etc etc. It may be a little bit high, but I don't think it's that excessive.

[samson1111]

The 1000x stronger will help everyone equally, and is actually more beneficial the newer you are, because you can double your defence/strike more easily. It's a lot cheaper to buy some mothership weapons to match what you have at lower levels when the capacity costs next to nothing. In any case, even though it makes the top players have double strike, everyone's def could be doubled, etc etc etc. It may be a little bit high, but I don't think it's that excessive.

I dont belong to the top players of the ascended... but I want to see a new player, that will have a stronger MS then me.

Imagine, when the new players will build their MS's... and some1 much stronger will come to farm them... imagine those MS repairs. It will be to costly for them... and it will end up like this: the stronger players will have double strike... and the small players will have a big repair bills.

Even I dont (I mean really DONT) want to see a top player hitting me... with that kind of a MS :S... ouch it hurts me now

[Maulwurf05]

The 1000x stronger will help everyone equally, and is actually more beneficial the newer you are, because you can double your defence/strike more easily. It's a lot cheaper to buy some mothership weapons to match what you have at lower levels when the capacity costs next to nothing. In any case, even though it makes the top players have double strike, everyone's def could be doubled, etc etc etc. It may be a little bit high, but I don't think it's that excessive.

Problem is, the more powerful players can easily have such a strong MS that it will smash weaker ones and still have more than enough power left to double their strike while the MS of the weaker player will have no effect at all ...

Hi Samson, long time no see ... and you beat me with your post !

[Shooting Star]

I admit that it was I who suggested increasing the effectiveness of the Command Stars (though I was not the only one). I also agree that 1000x is a bit excessive. I would recommend dropping one of the zeroes in that and making it 100x. It would bring it more inline with the power of an MS on main (and yes, this is coming from a person who is currently having his massive strike doubled by his Command Star).

[Funky White Boy]

The problem is the top players will have the capacity to have massive Command Stars which will completely destroy the Command stars of lower ranks, it would actually make training defence troops almost completely pointless. You may as well just double the strike of those players attacking lower ranks. Effectively this will be an inverse rank modifier. Players attacking from above will have 200% of attack strength this will then be modified by the other rank modifier.

Each attack weapon will have a capability on mine for instance of 4.2 Billion, 100 attack weapons are 420 Billion attack for a cost of 260,580,000 DMU. One of the top ranking players puts 300 attack weapons on his for 1,080,174,000 DMU wipes mine out but still leaves an extra 420 Billion+ to hit ground troops

Consider that 420 Billion offence this is equivalent to 226,256 of my best trained defence supers at Level 39! Total cost in Weapons and training alone 58,125,166,400 DMU let alone the 1.1 million planet investment!.

It is 223x more in terms of DMU to build planet based defences to 420 Billion vs Command Star ( only 100 weapons ) let alone the cost in terms of the planets themselves. Needs to be a maximum of 10x increased in strength not 1000 times

[Hensenshi]

Here is a suggestion for the superweapon. I know you made it so that 10% of your resource planets stay and that's all well and good, but I think another possibility would be to have a 'double account' in that, you can create weapons and train planets that are 'out of phase' because we see in the show, that that makes them basically untouchable to ascended beings. The out of phase weapons and planets would not count towards anything for you, in fact, make them cost double or triple (the cost of making them go out of phase) so that building them slows your account growth significantly. Then, if the superweapon is used on you, the out of phase stuff shifts back and becomes your account. If you never get the superweapon used on you, having all that out of phase stuff is totally useless to you, it wouldn't count towards rank, power, using it on people, it would just sit there, and unable to get back or sell unless the weapon is used on you. Just a thought, ascended beings should be able to hide stuff away from each other (if the show is any indication that is).

Ascended is designed to be basically that everything can be hit, so being able to hide stuff defeats the purpose. Besides, that'll only help the bigger guys. I'll just invest one days income into weapons that are "phased" and then if I was hit by the super weapon it'd take a few turns at max to repair.

1000x on the Command Star might be a bit much, but 10x is no where near enough. 200x or so should be enough. I normally have the rank 2 Command Star(currently too lazy to repair it). With the rank two Command Star I should be able to basically double my strike with it.

[Funky White Boy]

If the Command star doubles the strike then the Rank modifier should be allowed to compensate for this more.

Example: Say I have a 60 Billion defence( a typical mid range defence ). I do not believe this should be taken out by a 35 Billion offence from a higher rank who decides in effect to not waste DMU on strike planets and potentially loose more strike planets ( which is what most of us want ) Instead I will choose to build a huge Command Star which will wipe out my opponents easily and add a further 35 Billion to my offence. There are strikes out there of 150 Billion these will effectively now be doubled to 300 Billion, quickly and relatively cheaply.

There is absolutely no way that the mid ranked players will be able to build a big enough command star to stop the top ranks from wiping it with the consequent doubling of their strike. It would be very difficult indeed. The top ranks would be able to raid the mid ranks cheaply and easily.

If this happens then the rank modifier would have to be made stronger still to compensate for this doubling of strike. Since I was raided last I have had to redouble my defence. I know for a fact the Top 15 strikes have a range of around 75-150 Billion, now they will be 150-300 Billion. It will effectively mean that those wishing to defend themselves will now have to aim for a defence of at 150 Billion.

Unlike main there is no way of making your planets unraidable, this is the main difference between the games. These is no safe haven for the middle ranks, we cannot place these planets out of reach of the higher ranks and this change will make it even more difficult still. Maybe if we had an equivalent of Miners which say cost 100 times as much to develop but could be safe from raiding that might help but that would not be popular either particularly at the top.

There are many in the top ranks who love to raid us middle guys which is fair cop you learn to protect yourself better improve you skills. If this change to power is implemented this will have a major impact on the balance in favour of the higher rank raiders. I suggest if this occurs then balance it back out with a stronger rank modifier the other way

N.B I suggest Forum look at the maths. A command star to conventional strike with a 225 fold differential in favour of command stars (for a strike of 420 Billion seems a little bit unbalanced in my view)

[Shooting Star]

If the Command star doubles the strike then the Rank modifier should be allowed to compensate for this more.

Example: Say I have a 60 Billion defence( a typical mid range defence ). I do not believe this should be taken out by a 35 Billion offence from a higher rank who decides in effect to not waste DMU on strike planets and potentially loose more strike planets ( which is what most of us want ) Instead I will choose to build a huge Command Star which will wipe out my opponents easily and add a further 35 Billion to my offence. There are strikes out there of 150 Billion these will effectively now be doubled to 300 Billion, quickly and relatively cheaply.

There is absolutely no way that the mid ranked players will be able to build a big enough command star to stop the top ranks from wiping it with the consequent doubling of their strike. It would be very difficult indeed. The top ranks would be able to raid the mid ranks cheaply and easily.

If this happens then the rank modifier would have to be made stronger still to compensate for this doubling of strike. Since I was raided last I have had to redouble my defence. I know for a fact the Top 15 strikes have a range of around 75-150 Billion, now they will be 150-300 Billion. It will effectively mean that those wishing to defend themselves will now have to aim for a defence of at 150 Billion.

Unlike main there is no way of making your planets unraidable, this is the main difference between the games. These is no safe haven for the middle ranks, we cannot place these planets out of reach of the higher ranks and this change will make it even more difficult still. Maybe if we had an equivalent of Miners which say cost 100 times as much to develop but could be safe from raiding that might help but that would not be popular either particularly at the top.

There are many in the top ranks who love to raid us middle guys which is fair cop you learn to protect yourself better improve you skills. If this change to power is implemented this will have a major impact on the balance in favour of the higher rank raiders. I suggest if this occurs then balance it back out with a stronger rank modifier the other way

Keep in mind that there is a significant modifier for attacking down in the ranks; that has not changed. And the Command Star is also affected by that change. Say I have a 100 billion strike but my attack modifier down is 60%. The most my Command Star could add to my strike is 60 billion, giving me a total of 120 billion.

I am not saying that I don't agree with stronger rank modifiers to attack down, now that it is nigh impossible for extremely strong players to drop rank effectively (since influence power counts for half of your rank). But it is also a way to make Command Stars a money sink for the higher players, and to slow down their growth in other ways, which I think is also Jason's purpose.

Another of Jason's goals is to make ascension a more one on one type thing, something I think is rather naive, given the alliance system in main, but there you have it. He also doesn't want it to become a "become #1, stay #1" type of server. The only way I could see that changing anytime soon is if Jason upped the conversion rate between APP and LF and let it continue increasing (I am hoping he would give some of us top guys a little LF to compensate for this). Of course this opens up whole new problems of the out-of-control spiraling of power as people continue to make bigger and bigger ascensions in main.

Now I am just spitballing ideas here and see what sticks. I was thinking of something like critical or Nox in main being applied to ascension as a partial defense against the super weapon. I don't know what percentage of income it would take (I would recommend at least 50%) or graduate it to determine how much protection you get (40% of your income gets 20% of your planets as resource, 50% gets, 30%, 60% gets 40%, 70% gets 50%, 80% gets 60%, 90% gets 70%). This is an idea that is more beneficial for the smaller guys than it is for the bigger guys. Those who don't have large incomes don't lose out as much and could possibly have more income after they are hit by the superweapon (if they chose the 70% income planet route). It could slow the growth of the bigger players tremendously as they would have to take the risk of keeping their full income and having all of their planets untrained (except for the 10% resource) or to give up some income in order to have the effects somewhat lessened. Like I said, this is just a "top of the head" idea.

I have a few others but I will end this post at its current length and throw out more for discussion later.