Dave's Galaxy

[Chenier]

What I don't want is say someone my size with 800 planets to be easily able to overwhelm players with only 100 planets. On some planets I can make fleets of 80 super battleship, if I start sending out masses of fleets how long would that player last? As is PD generally only cost me the equivalent of a few hundred destroyers before they are damaged enough to stop. Considering my latest attack fleet consist of 40 fleets of 50 battleships each, what player not close to me in size is really going to be able to put up a defense on their planets to have a hope of stopping that?

Makes me question the point of playing this game.

[De-Legro]

Makes me question the point of playing this game.

Hopefully as the game progresses there will be actual challenges to owning a planet, like morale or whatever. Then the mad rush for planets might slow down, but I know what you mean. Flyingmana has less planets then I, but not by much and he has FAR more populations and wealth generation. Scout defence is the only thing letting me even stay competitive, I lose that and I risk losing about 300 planets.

[Qyasogk]

What I don't want is say someone my size with 800 planets to be easily able to overwhelm players with only 100 planets. On some planets I can make fleets of 80 super battleship

No planet should ever be able to make 80 super battleships in one turn. That would be like the U.S. building 80 air craft carriers in a month.

Maybe there should be an upper limit into how many resources a planet can store? Or a limit to how quickly these larger ships can be built?

But even then, if you're playing a war game, and you have 800 factories and I only have 100, I'm going to lose everytime, no matter what the outcome.

What we need is more of a progressive scale (like D&D) where the higher up you go, the longer it takes you to advance to the next level.

Right now the only people are losing their systems are those that have quit the game.... and that's not good either.

[De-Legro]

No planet should ever be able to make 80 super battleships in one turn. That would be like the U.S. building 80 air craft carriers in a month.

Maybe there should be an upper limit into how many resources a planet can store? Or a limit to how quickly these larger ships can be built?

But even then, if you're playing a war game, and you have 800 factories and I only have 100, I'm going to lose everytime, no matter what the outcome.

What we need is more of a progressive scale (like D&D) where the higher up you go, the longer it takes you to advance to the next level.

Right now the only people are losing their systems are those that have quit the game.... and that's not good either.

Which is exactly why I don't want to see a quick fix to scout defense. Does it make it almost impossible for active players to fight each other? Well yes and no I'm online everyday, and recently Flyingmana manage to take 3 planets from me, either by capturing them on the first turn he arrived, or because I have so many planets under attack I missed some.

But the damage that could be done to lower player if we remove this without addressing the power balance issue is significant. What is really needs is some sort of practical limit to how many planets we can expand to, and how far from our core planets colonies can be. I would recommend some sort of soft cap rather then a hard one, but while ever it is possible for player to have 3000+ planets we will have issues.

[Adriddae]

In the way game is being handled right now, I would push for a reset. That everyone will be more or less equal when they start. When one player starts dominating, another reset should be called.

Or another method... Have a technology that destroys the galaxy(ends the game) when you have the capacity to fulfill a huge amount of resources. And then keep track who was the top player. Sorta like one big board game tournament.

[Kai]

I think all of your suggestions are awful. It would help to be more specific but most of them make me want to throw up.

Anyway the problems are that
- player who is active every turn and has no life is invulnerable
- but completely removing the scout defence would cause big players to instantly win

[Vellos]

On a sienote... baz was pirating my merchants and trespassing through my PD without permission... so I declared war on him. I didn't realize that he's actually a pretty big empire. Here's hoping I can resolve the issue quickly.

[Adriddae]

On a sienote... baz was pirating my merchants and trespassing through my PD without permission... so I declared war on him. I didn't realize that he's actually a pretty big empire. Here's hoping I can resolve the issue quickly.

Yeah I found his pirates all the way up to where I am. I'll help you if he starts attacking with large fleets.

[Chenier]

I think all of your suggestions are awful. It would help to be more specific but most of them make me want to throw up.

Anyway the problems are that
- player who is active every turn and has no life is invulnerable
- but completely removing the scout defence would cause big players to instantly win

I'm active every turn. I still think that 99% of the players could wipe me out quite easily, unless I do nothing but scout defense then I guess I can hold off for a while with only losing a few planets. But then again, I wouldn't. What's the fun in that? I'd rather just be destroyed and get it over with.

[De-Legro]

On a sienote... baz was pirating my merchants and trespassing through my PD without permission... so I declared war on him. I didn't realize that he's actually a pretty big empire. Here's hoping I can resolve the issue quickly.

Problem with pirate fleets is they attack everyone you pass, not just your target You might want to find out if you were his target and remind him to leave his fleets in something other then pirate until he arrives.

[Gustav Kuriga]

Speaking of baz... that's my ally. Prepare for war!

[Qyasogk]

I think all of your suggestions are awful. It would help to be more specific but most of them make me want to throw up.

Anyway the problems are that
- player who is active every turn and has no life is invulnerable
- but completely removing the scout defence would cause big players to instantly win

I'm quite honored to be the latest person here you've taken a !@#$ on. You really know how to be a dick!

Your first point is wrong, and your second is inane.

1. Player who is active every turn is not invulnerable, because either a) getting a chance to capitulate the system if you've wiped out their fleets, or b) getting a chance to capitulate if the attacker has a large enough force to overcome the defenders force.

2. It's a territorial resources/conquest game. Whoever has the most resources wins. Unless you want to add technology differentiators (like the nuclear weapon was in WW2) that can be something to give an outmatched opponent the chance to have some other advantage.

[De-Legro]

I'm quite honored to be the latest person here you've taken a !@#$ on. You really know how to be a dick!

Your first point is wrong, and your second is inane.

1. Player who is active every turn is not invulnerable, because either a) getting a chance to capitulate the system if you've wiped out their fleets, or b) getting a chance to capitulate if the attacker has a large enough force to overcome the defenders force.

2. It's a territorial resources/conquest game. Whoever has the most resources wins. Unless you want to add technology differentiators (like the nuclear weapon was in WW2) that can be something to give an outmatched opponent the chance to have some other advantage.

For point 1 he is referring to the current state of the game, and is quite correct

For point 2 he makes a valid point, most games of this nature have some sort of system to try and provide balance between large and small players. Otherwise attracting new player becomes almost impossible because even if they aren't wiped out soon after starting, they quickly realise that there is no chance they will ever catch up to the established players, and leave out of frustration. I've done freelance work on quite a few games of this nature and one of the big design questions revolves around this, and also how to balance paying players VS the free players that don't generate income directly, but are necessary to give the paying players targets and make sure there is sufficient players on the servers. So far Dave doesn't have the second problem, but he will still need to address power imbalance between big players and small players if he wishes to continue to attract new players.

[Chenier]

Well, it seems that right now, the first thing players do when they see a new player prop up is send a fleet to crush him.

Why? Is it for an easy planet?

The gains of conquest should perhaps be lessened somehow.

[De-Legro]

Well, it seems that right now, the first thing players do when they see a new player prop up is send a fleet to crush him.

Why? Is it for an easy planet?

The gains of conquest should perhaps be lessened somehow.

It used to be easy to grab, and still is but you have to send a few more ships. Still if they use scout defence you are screwed. Main reason, its a society level 50 planet or more when you arrive, it takes 50 days to get a colony to that lvl and you likely would have a smaller population as well. I try to only target newbies that haven't logged in for a week or two, no need to chase people away from the game.