I completely disagree with you. Everyone at the start is on the same playing field. The only thing is sure you can be attacked but its no different than as it is now. Everyone is on the same level at that point and has to defend or hide equally. At the start players need to focus on trading and not colonizing. Stay in fed space as long as they can. By the time they should start building they should have the credits and ability to defend a sector to make it a more permanent home.

Its not as big of a deal as your making it out to be.

You are right in the fact that everyone is on equal footing in some regards. But skill and experience wins every time. You know that it is better stay and trade in fed space. you know how to maximize turns while in fed. But if you were to go against a less skilled and experienced player, you win every time. The owning of the sector may be the only thing that lesser skilled player has to his advantage.

I may be over reacting to this one little thing. But really its a long list of changes that has been made. Not all of them bad and in fact most of them needed. Its just that they all seem more and more restricting. As it is now there really isn't much to do in the game other than build. Attacking legitimate targets seems to be happening less and less, except for the lower ranks. Since these changes have happened there seem to be little need for the clock now. I don't think anyone is using 8 hrs, plus there was a comment in the shout box that there was some shock that 11 players were online. Tarnus you have said that you worry about to many limitations being placed in the game. This is just one more to the long list. I don't know how but there has to be a way of finding a reasonable of what was and what is in regards to the rules.

I actually pushed for this one. I looked at 15 kills in the last few days, and more than likely 13 of the 15 were build kills... that I see as abuse and is wrong.....

Now I don't like the idea of the team bounty as much but as long ad a huge team mate can supply credits to a smaller team mate it creates a real skewing situation. I don't mind a battle but a battle of unlimited credits is hard to beat.

There are many issues that I am pushing for changes. Some things I like somethings I don;t. In time we will get the right combination. But something as small as a build kill was a good change. Despite what you may think, it was done for the greater good of the game.

Its not that I dislike the idea, but combined with everything else that has changed. With the other changes I do see it having an affect at the beginning of a round. What I did forget, that this is a one small part of the game and there is a progressive process going to get these issues resolved. On its own this is indeed a good change, one that really should have been done a while ago. My real issue with this is, how it affects the game play combined with everything else.

One thing we seem to be missing from this discussion are the newer players, not about this change but the discussion of the game over all. You may be aware of things they are saying in messages to you and PJ. The rest of us how ever are left in the dark about their problems, to a point. I am in no way asking for that info to be shared, rather more encouragement from the admins to have them come to the forum. Once they are here, they can be involved in the process of working these issues out. New players, experienced and the very experienced players all bring a unique perspective. I do like the activity I am seeing hear by instinctstage, and would like to see more players like that here in the forum. And its not just the admins that should be pushing to get more involvement on the forums, all players should help in that regards.

Kudos! Yes, I would LOVE to see more involvement by all. It does help with the game progression. I can't do it all, nor can PJ see from other user perspective. Course its all about balance... we all love new toys and new ways to wreck havoc, but we do so at our own peril at times

If players would base enough planets in a sector to own the sector. Build kills wouldn't be happening as much. The info should be in the FAQs or help files somewhere. If they don't read and heed then they could learn the hard way. There has been ways in place to prevent this without the changes. Sorry if a player is playing a game without reading at least the available info/instructions, they shouldn't complain about getting "Build killed" or some of the other problems.
Just my opinion
Satman

As I said before.... the original intent of it was to give a person a way to attack a player that was in their sector. Not as a tool to kill a players ship. It was being abused way too much. I was even guilty of it, and probably taught many players how it worked in the past. Now its been eliminated the floating noobs in real space won't wake up in sol. It wasn't so much that it was used... it was abused... to increase a players kill count. The abusers know who they are. Like I said again, sissie kills. Don't expect to see it back. Now there maybe something else to replace it, but what ever it is, it will be more fair and balanced.

That wasn't really stopping the build kills. Some teams were having lower ranked people come in and take the majority of the planets and blow them up. Then the bigger player could come in, create new planets, base them and then kill everything in the sector with ease. The ability to give those lower ranked players tons of money so they could do this also facilitated the process.

Hey thanks, MadMardigan666. It's a little intimidating for a newbie to start shooting off ideas, but you've all been really supportive. Basically I'm aware I haven't explored all the facets of the game so things that don't necessarily make sense to me now are probably in place for a good reason, I'm just unaware of it. So it's difficult to speak up and say "WTF is this all about?" without fear or sounding like a jackass.

Don't worry about sounding like a jackass to the developers. It takes quite a bit to sound like one to us.

There IS one person you can look at for how NOT to say things to the developers. I won't name any names but I think most people know who that is at this point.

Speaking of WTF moments...

"The Federation has issued warnings concerning the Empire of The First Horseman. The First Horseman has control of 950 planets and should be considered very dangerous. All sectors should increase sector defenses immediately."

950?

Let's say I want to be competitive at this game... Am I gonna have to be going around touching base with hundreds of planets every 3 days and doing all sorts of micromanagement on this kind of scale?
I like having a little nest to go to, and dotting them about the galaxy seems like fun. But there seems to be a fair amount of chores to take care of to maintain the empire.
It could get bloated pretty quickly. How do you guys manage all this stuff?

Thats called being a CRAZY SOB. Super builders are a little off. Do you really think they are tagging 950 planets every 3 days. Nope... they know they will be grabbing indys so they tag the important stuff and then tag as they can. And grab all their indys over time... if you want to manage that many planets more power to ya. Thats not for me. And you can be competitive with less planets. You just have to spend time being a pain in their rear to keep their numbers down.

In an older version of the game I am playing I have just over 800 planets. I put spy's on all those and use them to help with planet management. Its a little easier there due to the old sector numbering. You need to map your SG, talk to Lord Tonto he has a couple of really good ways to do it. Basically, I use them to see what planets have gone independent, as the spy menu will tell you the owner of the planet, in this case independent. It also gives the sector name. You only need to touch the planets in the first few sectors of your sg. The spies will tell you whats gone indy, then you go there and reclaim it. I find it a little easier than using the log.

Don't forget... Lots of auto routes

Auto routes?

I don't know about all this... I enjoy watching my little empire grow, but I don't want to be burdened by running around managing it... A lot of games include an option to get a colony manager to do this sort of stuff once you're past the growth stage and moving on to conquest. Any plans for something similar? I don't feel too inclined to get too big if it means I'm going to be chasing my tail to prevent indies all the time.