StarGateWars Forums

(just gonna post this in it's own thread)
I have an open critique on how planetary defences vs fleets work. It has been something I have thought since I started playing 4 years ago.

In my opinion (feel free to disagree) the game fosters planet sniping, always has. Now with the resale value of fleets, and a bank, a sniper account is freely able to mass planet defences, sell fleets for instant refund, bank naq, and wait until he wants to do it again. I myself have done this. And it feels like a game exploit.

Now I don't propose to make it so that planets are unable to be stolen/massed. However I would argue that the balance in the system needs to be recalculated.

Couple of thoughts on this.
1) You place a platform on a planet, and that planet is beaten by say...100 damage points. That platform is instantly zeroed. Why? Shouldn't the platform simply take standard losses. The attacking player didn't steal the platform, only the planet.

2) Devastating damage only disguises the damage inflicted. It really is aesthetic only. Why should a planet that inflicts devastating damage lose defence facilities at the rate they currently do (or at all)?

3) Why in this equation of devastating damage do fleets only need repairing (short of the difference being so massive it exhausts all the weapon points of the fleets, which is highly unlikely). Overall, combined with resale value, there is no danger in maintaining fleets short of MS massing. But snipers sell fleets after massing, and then are free to resume at their leisure. The defender has to re-buy defences, and considering the cost as well as effort, you can see why planets are seldom worth fighting for, unless they're merlined.

I would argue that in order to return balance the game needs a few tweaks.

1) Fleets should incur losses in battle. A ratio of fleets to defences lost is only fair in the scheme of things. Fleets shouldn't be immune to losses. Nothing else is. It would make planetary battles make more sense, and would even the playing field on cost of defences and fleets.

2) Devastating damage needs to do something other than hide damage totals with a random % chance of wiping fleets out. Either it should eradicate any damage by incoming fleets, or decrease the losses incurred.

3) Platforms shouldn't be zeroed. It doesn't make sense that they currently are. I can find no argument against this. Yes, they should incur losses when beaten. But zeroed...really?

Anyway, feel free to argue, this has been the culmination of 4 years playing experience and discussing it with more players than I care to count.

I dont know what kind of fleet power you are accustom to seeing or using, but Ill tell you this, massing a planet defense that requires more than 250k fleets is not cheap..so maybe reconsider just a little of what your saying in regards to the game "fostering" planet strips..do not invest heavy in something you can lose is my advice.

I use around 100k (played with members around the 200k), and I can see where the repair bil goes. But even that repair bill falls short of the comparison.

Think of is this way, how many defences is that planet losing when being attacked with a fleet count of 200k. Above 10k per 15 turn. So assume it's what...70k per defence. The cost is still massively one sided.
I just don't understand why fleets are immune to losses. I mean, surely they shouldn't be.

Edit: This thread is mainly being created because I just smashed about 25k defences off someone and it cost me hardly anything. And I'm in purg. And he was doing devastating damage to my fleets. But all of this doesn't matter because he loses sooooo many more defences than my repair bill will ever be.

Jedi~Tank wrote:I dont know what kind of fleet power you are accustom to seeing or using, but Ill tell you this, massing a planet defense that requires more than 250k fleets is not cheap..so maybe reconsider just a little of what your saying in regards to the game "fostering" planet strips..do not invest heavy in something you can lose is my advice.

Thing is, it's much more costly to the planet defence.
As Sylus said, lets say you destroy 50k huge planet defences, that's 3.5T/hit lost resources. The total cost, to buy 250k fleets is 5.75T. So after 2 hits, even if your fleets get wiped out on the 3rd hit, you've still done over 10T in damage, for the loss of about 6-7T fleets
Even 500k costs only 11.5T to build. This many fleets would destroy at least 75k planet defences. Again, 3 hits costs the planet 15.75T, and if the fleets get destroyed on the 4th hit, a fleet cost of 13T

Yeah Sarevok you're right on the money. And even then, the 6-7T fleet loss is only factored in if they are wiped out. Which is a rarity. Even when dealing with devastating damage.

So I still believe that either devastating should do more than just hide damage totals. And second that fleets should always incur a % loss.

Sarevok wrote:

Jedi~Tank wrote:I dont know what kind of fleet power you are accustom to seeing or using, but Ill tell you this, massing a planet defense that requires more than 250k fleets is not cheap..so maybe reconsider just a little of what your saying in regards to the game "fostering" planet strips..do not invest heavy in something you can lose is my advice.

Thing is, it's much more costly to the planet defence.
As Sylus said, lets say you destroy 50k huge planet defences, that's 3.5T/hit lost resources. The total cost, to buy 250k fleets is 5.75T. So after 2 hits, even if your fleets get wiped out on the 3rd hit, you've still done over 10T in damage, for the loss of about 6-7T fleets
Even 500k costs only 11.5T to build. This many fleets would destroy at least 75k planet defences. Again, 3 hits costs the planet 15.75T, and if the fleets get destroyed on the 4th hit, a fleet cost of 13T

Massing planets costs a lot more than just 1 shotting a planet. If you do not want the 1 shotting to be so beneficial to the masser, either don't put so much naq into something so easy to mass, or put more naq in where it is not easy to mass. I know there are some people who's platforms/defenses have killed probably millions of fleets.

I don't think Sarevok is implying one shotting. I think we're both discussing the repair cost of fleets, which 90% of the time incur no losses, to that of constant massive defences being stripped away. The cost is stacked solely on one side of the board.

And of course the cost of building fleets is fairly negligible if you factor in resale, which is 90% I believe.

So with heaps of fleets, vs heaps of defences.

For the defender, the planets are more expensive to maintain. The defences are more expensive, and higher amounts dont have the decent resale value, hell mindblowing is almost a 50% loss. These planets ALWAYS incur losses, they COULD do devastating damage but even if they do, probably wont destroy the fleets, and even should those fleets end up beating their planet, any platform thereon is instantly zeroed (for no reason).

For the attacker, they have fleet building cost (which they get 90% back), and there is such a slim chance of losing those fleets it isn't really a factor.

As it stands, so massively one sided. You could argue that the attacker has to spend naq to increase fleet capacity, but the attacker never loses this capacity. It is permanent, and therefore not a factor in cost.

I think you both fail to realize how fleets actually work or the cost involved. All fleets vs planet hits are based on a % that admin has stated time and time again, if you are in a certain range your fleets blow up, if you are in a different range you can't engage the planet, and another you can mass it down. Neither of you talk about repairs, which are often many times more than the cost to build the fleets.

There is no point where repairs cost nothing (unless it's actually a 0 defense), nor are the cost of defenses equal across different planets. Also, besides a random bug, platforms are not instantly zero'd. They need to be massed down and often lead to fleets getting blown up.

Yes, planets are not impossible to mass, though if you invest enough into defenses and platforms they very well can be, or you can stick to just using merlins and no matter how much someone wants to mass them it's impossible. Planets give a boost, which given their nature can be dangerous, however the boost they give you to some can be worth that risk. Otherwise, why would you build them? On the other hand, fleets have 1 main use and 1 use only, and that's massing planets. They do not provide any helpful arrangement to an account besides maybe adding to a motherships attack power, however if they are caught and massed they can start to become quite expensive to keep.

I don't know what planets you have been hitting, but I've lost all my fleets many times and even more times I've been caught with fleets out losing a % of the total. There are risks for both parties involved, more so maybe for planets, however they are getting a boost from their planet merlined or not. With fleets, only way to protect them is sending your mothership away where you can't use them for 24 hours.

BMMJ13 wrote:Massing planets costs a lot more than just 1 shotting a planet. If you do not want the 1 shotting to be so beneficial to the masser, either don't put so much naq into something so easy to mass, or put more naq in where it is not easy to mass. I know there are some people who's platforms/defenses have killed probably millions of fleets.

This is true. However, my point was. If you can mass someone with your fleets, 2-3 times, then in most cases, the costs to the defender, are greater then the building and repairing costs of the aggressor

Sarevok wrote:

BMMJ13 wrote:Massing planets costs a lot more than just 1 shotting a planet. If you do not want the 1 shotting to be so beneficial to the masser, either don't put so much naq into something so easy to mass, or put more naq in where it is not easy to mass. I know there are some people who's platforms/defenses have killed probably millions of fleets.

This is true. However, my point was. If you can mass someone with your fleets, 2-3 times, then in most cases, the costs to the defender, are greater then the building and repairing costs of the aggressor

My point is why should it be cheaper? You have merlins already, why does defenses have to be untouchable as well.

BMMJ13 wrote:

Sarevok wrote:

BMMJ13 wrote:Massing planets costs a lot more than just 1 shotting a planet. If you do not want the 1 shotting to be so beneficial to the masser, either don't put so much naq into something so easy to mass, or put more naq in where it is not easy to mass. I know there are some people who's platforms/defenses have killed probably millions of fleets.

This is true. However, my point was. If you can mass someone with your fleets, 2-3 times, then in most cases, the costs to the defender, are greater then the building and repairing costs of the aggressor

My point is why should it be cheaper? You have merlins already, why does defenses have to be untouchable as well.

No no do not tell him that according to him Merlin is a good thing and its good people can hide their planets and have them fight for you you know he is a sad thing lol.

BMMJ13 wrote:

Sarevok wrote:This is true. However, my point was. If you can mass someone with your fleets, 2-3 times, then in most cases, the costs to the defender, are greater then the building and repairing costs of the aggressor

My point is why should it be cheaper? You have merlins already, why does defenses have to be untouchable as well.

Proportion of costs is not balanced.

Sarevok wrote:

BMMJ13 wrote:

Sarevok wrote:This is true. However, my point was. If you can mass someone with your fleets, 2-3 times, then in most cases, the costs to the defender, are greater then the building and repairing costs of the aggressor

My point is why should it be cheaper? You have merlins already, why does defenses have to be untouchable as well.

Proportion of costs is not balanced.

No but neither is Merlin but your not working to change that are you :p.

Nimras wrote:

Sarevok wrote:

BMMJ13 wrote:

Sarevok wrote:This is true. However, my point was. If you can mass someone with your fleets, 2-3 times, then in most cases, the costs to the defender, are greater then the building and repairing costs of the aggressor

My point is why should it be cheaper? You have merlins already, why does defenses have to be untouchable as well.

Proportion of costs is not balanced.

No but neither is Merlin but your not working to change that are you :p.

I must agree with Nimras. As long as those with planets have merlins, which give the ability to protect a planet from anything and still get stats and limited only by your ability to continue to merlin the planets, actual defenses should not be cheap to build else everyone will build defenses that are impossible to take. Currently there are many planets which are close to impossible to take, as well as some which are only takable by a few people. It should not cost as much to mass a planet as it does to build the defense as that defenses is providing more benefits than fleets do and if people really want their planet to be safe they should use the in game merlin system or build the defense higher to stop people.

BMMJ13 wrote:

Sarevok wrote:

BMMJ13 wrote:

Sarevok wrote:This is true. However, my point was. If you can mass someone with your fleets, 2-3 times, then in most cases, the costs to the defender, are greater then the building and repairing costs of the aggressor

My point is why should it be cheaper? You have merlins already, why does defenses have to be untouchable as well.

Proportion of costs is not balanced.

I must agree with Nimras. As long as those with planets have merlins, which give the ability to protect a planet from anything and still get stats and limited only by your ability to continue to merlin the planets, actual defenses should not be cheap to build else everyone will build defenses that are impossible to take. Currently there are many planets which are close to impossible to take, as well as some which are only takable by a few people. It should not cost as much to mass a planet as it does to build the defense as that defenses is providing more benefits than fleets do and if people really want their planet to be safe they should use the in game merlin system or build the defense higher to stop people.

If you balance the costs, you don't need merlins. IMO, costs are unbalanced, thus i support merlins for now.
And they were introduced to counter the double power boost of fleets, firstly the double power increase, and then the 30% from techs.