why are colony's (defenes) nerfed?!

Comments

• Ipps Member Posts: 77

  August 2004

  Good job spiceant!  I haven't played in over a day, so I'm not really sure what's been happening.  Anyway, I think you should have gotten experience for Zerok dying.  But the reason I think Toonces got rid of that was because people would minimize Starport and leave their ship behind their turrets 24 hours a day so they would get loads of experience while logged off.  Maybe Toonces could create a way for the game to differetniate between idle players on a planet and non-ilde players.
• Tempunaut Member Posts: 34

  August 2004

  Hmm.. I do think that exp should be gained for flak cannon kills to go to the owner of the cannon or mine that delivers the final blow. I know what you are saying Ipps, that someone could just rake in the exp, but there is alot of talk on this messageboard about defending colonies being pointless because they can still get invaded even with the max amount of hardware on the surface, and the opportunity to gain actual experience will be another incentive to defending properly rather than just saying "Oh well, it got invaded... I'll just go take it back now". I mean you can gain exp from colonies while offline from building stuff... Also, if you have a corp colony and you personally have painfully flown back and forth to a starbase buying and placing turrets then would be a reward to you alone, as all corp members benefit from the exp build.

  I also would like to see the recently changed news flashes that now say "deployed defenses" to something like

  NEWS FLASH! 8-18 10:57PM Tempunaut's deployed defenses shot down ZeRoK!

  So you can still laugh at them if you happen to be online

  I'd like to know what admin thinks they happen to read this post.
• Lendorien Member Posts: 10

  September 2004

  Maybe a viable solution would be not to give xp bonuses on flack and mine kills the same way as ship to ship combats.  Mine and flack kills be say, 10% of ship kills. It'll help prevent the point racking and at the same time, give the colony owner at least SOMETHING for his losses.
• xenor Member Posts: 4

  September 2004

  Here's an idea that might be worth some discussion:

  What if in order to take over a colony you first had to set up some kind of assault base, and maintain it for, say, 2 days, before you could launch an assault.

  That way, the colony owner would have time to destroy the assault base (which would itself be defended with flak or whatever), before being under attack. This would put the onus on the attacker to plan and require a financial investment in the form of the assault base and any defences deemed necessary.

  Any thoughts?

  -----------------------------------------------------
  If at first you don't succeed, use a flamethrower.
• spiceant Member Posts: 44

  September 2004

  pirate's are build for fighting and invading good guys building colony's like me not really untill my planets grew me rich.

  Me, Myself and no-one else

  everyone is stupid but we considder that normal
  http://www.ferion.com/?p=84375, a turn base'd space game
• Tempunaut Member Posts: 34

  September 2004

  I hear ya xenor, the problem with MMOs is that you clearly can't play for 24/7 and sod's law will state that an invasion will take place when you're gonna be offline. However, I think your idea, although i do like it, would take some of the 'Shoot-em-up' aspect of the game away, and would turn the game into something it isn't... But perhaps something like this could be inplemented on one of the servers or something, although I feel it would be difficult to code into the game...
• xenor Member Posts: 4

  September 2004

  Yeah, i see what yr saying about it changing the game type, and having done a little coding myself, it does sound just the sort of thing that while simple on the outside will require a rewrite of whole chunks of code.

  The whole issue if balance is always a tricky one, but the core of the issue (as I see it) is that a colony requires significant time investment to establish, and an invader can wipe it out in very short order.

  In fairness to the attacker, this has to balance with the time invested by the attacker in building their ship up to the level where it is capable of this assult.

  For example, a ship that would take 2 days to earn should stand approx 50/50 chance of taking over a colony that is 2 days old. That said, different amounts of play time could tilt the balance significantly, and it would be near impossible to take over a day 1 colony if you didn't start until day 5.

  I think the answer lies within colony defences. As mentioned, this game is primarily a shooter, and in my shooter experience, the limited AI of computer controlled defences is enhanced by artificially making them more powerful (more hit points), more accurate, or faster. So although on paper a turret that hits for say, 50 points versus a player that hits for 10 points sounds unbalanced, in practice the human player regularly thrashes such defences. Whilst they are stronger, they aren't any smarter.

  So in order to balance a human player with an AI, you either have to:

  a) take advantage of the computers natural advantages (speed, accuracy) to make it artificially stronger.

  b) improve the AI so that computer controlled players/installations behave more like a human, which when implimented properly make for satifying opponents.

  This in itself is a balancing act, and AI can be notoriously difficult to code. If unbalanced, they appear either stupid, or too fast/strong (even though it's the inteligence that makes them seem this way).

  Anyway, I've derailed my train of thought, but it just occured to me that perhaps a good defence to trial would be purchaseable guardian AI bots that would patrol the surface of the planet. The code would exist for the bots as they currently exist in space, and it would make it more difficult for the long range picking off of turrets if they responded and came to get you.

  -----------------------------------------------------
  If at first you don't succeed, use a flamethrower.
• Ipps Member Posts: 77

  September 2004

  xenor, I like the idea of gaurdian bots and I've seen it posted here before. I think it's definitely something that should be added to the game.
• death.adder Member Posts: 12

  September 2004

  Damn I love that idea.   Lemme just be a devils advocate for a min.  How much would they cost a hour/day?  Where would you rent them?  or could you just purchase them?  Would you be able to reshield them?  And last, but not least, would military control their abilities on the planet.  After these are answered, then we should approach Toonces about the possible upgrade.  Just my thoughts.