One of the things Tarnus and I talked about is SHIP experience.

This is totally different from overall experience. Overall experience wouldn't affect any attacking or defending abilities but SHIP experience would.

Ship experience would be based upon how well you attacked and defended with that particular ship. There would be two different experience values for every ship you owned.

Attack Experience

The first value is attack experience. This is experience you get when you attack other players planets and ships. You gain experience when you win an attack. The amount of experience is based upon how difficult the other ship or planet was to attack with the ship you used. So you would gain very little attack experience if you attacked ships and planets a lot smaller than your ship. If you attack and win against same level ships and planets you get normal experience. If you attack and win against higher level ships and planets you get much higher experience.

Also the amount of experience you gain is based upon how well your ship survived the combat. The more damage your ship takes compared to the level of ship you fought determines the amount of experience. If you took a lot of damage and survived an attack with a higher level ship you would gain a large amount of experience. If you took a lot of damage and survived an attack with a much SMALLER level ship then you could LOSE a large chunk of experience. In other-words, if you have a big nasty ship but forgot to buy fighters, torps and energy and a tiny little ship comes in and whacks the crap out of you then you LOSE a lot of experience for letting something so silly happen.

Defense Experience

The second value is defense experience. This is experience you get when you are attacked by another players ship. The same things apply here as well. If you are attacked by a lower level ship and win you gain little defense experience, etc., etc.

What does this do for the player?

Attack and Defense experience would be used as a modifier when you attack or are attacked respectively. The more experience your ship gains from successful attacks means the ship will have a better edge in the attacks. The more experience you gain the more accurate and more damaging your attacks will become. The same thing applies to defense when another player attacks you. The better you are at defending the less damage you will take and more successful at evasion. This means a ship with an experienced crew can be much more effective.

When you change ships the crew does not change with you. They stay with the ship when you put it in storage. Each ship has it's own crew and it's own attack and defense experience. You could own two Endeavorer's with the exact same tech levels but the more experienced ship will be more effective at attack and defense.

If you capture a planet and a ship on that planet then the crew of the ship will escape into the planet population. This means you will have to train a new crew for the ship. You will not get a trained crew when you capture the ship.

We thought that a ship should gain it's own experience. In many RTS games the more kills certain units make the more accurate and more damage they inflict on enemy units. Ships in the game should work in a similar manner.

This same thing could also be made to apply to planets with a defense experience value. The more experienced a planet becomes at defending itself the more accurate and more damage it can inflict on attacking ships and the more successfully it can reduce damage.

Actually I was just taking the existing system of exp gain and adding a divisor of 50 to it. That would determine the pilot level.



I'm not quite sure you understand, valience. Take another look at my example of Torpedoes at 140 while pilot level is 150.



notice i made the efficiency 100%, not 107%. I could have been clearer, admittedly, but to clarify here, when I said i don't recommend double efficiency i wanted to imply that I don't recommend anything over 100%. So the infinite efficiency, in my example at least, would never arise.



naturally as one used to leveling up in video games i had initially thought of making the exp grow exponentially, but then you would also have to adjust how much exp is earned as you proceed up the ranks. killing someone equal to you at 10,000 score gives you 50 exp (example only) when killing someone equal to you at 10,000,000 score would have to give you much more than 50 else it would become unrealistically difficult to maintain player level and ship level, there simply aren't enough people at the same level to continously kill and upgrade ship efficiency. So you'd have to adjust the experience system to increase exp gained at higher levels, while this might not be a huge problem, i avoided it in my idea because i wanted it to remain as simple as possible.



That is a good thought, but not one so easily acted on. How long have you guys been batting around the whole NPC thing PJ?

I'm not as much a fan of the SHIP exp idea as much, but with a little more debate you might swing me.

I am little confused as to how you define "same level". A planet may have its tech levels at 250 on all options, you need a ship close to have 300 or better for attacking and around 280 for defensive techs. These numbers are just me guessing at exact values, but are somewhat close based on my experiences on the main server. And its based on taking the planet in one attack and not multiple attacks. The Ship may have an average tech level of 292 where as the planets average tech level is 250. A planet is always going to be smaller than the ship, as its not beneficial to build huge planets. The longer a game goes on the difference will only increase. Also something to think about, is when you get into attack mode and hits someones "sg base" with 50 planets in it. A smart builder will put the planets tech levels between 230 and 250. Money produces faster that way and you can consolidate on more frequently. Once again, as time goes on, ships get bigger but planets remain the same.

Player A decides to attack player B, both are very close in close in score. Both have attack ships with an average tech around 300. There is no longer any advantage to attacking player B. Now you need a third and a costly ship to attack planets, as it is now you need an A&R ship and you main attack ship.

Alright, yeah, Tonto, I missed the thing about not going over 100% efficiency, though I could actually understand doing that since you're going to be more experienced with the smaller stuff, and ought to be able to squeeze more effectiveness out of it with your greater expertise.

And yeah, the experience thing really isn't too bad for now. If your idea progresses much farther, of course, we'll have to do a lot of fine tuning.

PJ... the idea you explained has the potential to be good, but I must ask how much experience a player starts out with for defense and offense.

For example, it's not a player's fault if they aren't attacked much and so don't have a very high defense experience. I may consider taking that out.

On the other hand, it is a good mechanism for players that are continually persecuted. This would over time make them harder to hit. But I still don't like it, for the following reason.

If a player is hit, they're already taking damage. It'd be kinda cruel to do that and then make their experience go down so they're even more suceptible to attacks in the future. I mean, it's already a cruel game (build for three months, lose everything in three days), this would make it even more so. And you really get into a vicious circle. I can imagine hoardes of players ganging up on the guy with a lower defense experience for an easy win, and that'd push his/her experience even lower.

And you must think, don't we learn from our mistakes? That's what's on all those motivational posters they paper the walls of my school with anyway. So it doesn't make a lot of sense to lose experience when you lose a battle, but then, if you don't set it up that way, the system loses most of its value (the players that are in more fights, regardless of outcome are benefited).

The theory isn't bad, but I do disagree with parts. You must see that it unavoidably just helps the players already winning battles to win more. Quite honestly, they aren't the ones that need help (not really saying players should be rewarded for loss either, just pointing this out), and this may become another tool for a team to use to simply dominate the game.

And though, again, the driving idea behind it is good, I must also point out that this doesn't really fix any exploits, which was the original purpose of the thread.

Oh, and one last time, I'm not advocating gaining experience for losses (that has a lot of potential for abuse itself), I was just sorta playing devil's advocate mentioning it.

The ship and planet based experience would be for EACH planet and ship the player owns. It is NOT an overall experience level used for everything. Also, every planet and newly constructed/captured ship started out with zero experience and can only gain experience in combat.

If you have 50 planets then you will have 50 different defense experience levels. One for each planet. The more a planet beats off an attack the more the experience can go up making the planet harder to take out. If a player has to hit a planet 100 times to try and take it the defense experience for THAT SINGLE PLANET will go up slightly every time the planet isn't taken. You could have a 5 planet sector where only two of the planets have high experience and the other three are newbies with zero experience because they were never attacked.

The same thing is true for ships. If you own 10 ships then each ship will have its own attack and defense experience. I guess you missed my example of two Endeavour's with the exact same tech levels but totally different attack and defense experience. Even though they are both identical ships in every way the one with more attack and defense experience will be more effective at attacking and defending itself. This is because the crew of each ship LEARNS through combat. A ship with a new crew will not fair as well against the same class/tech ship with a well experienced crew.

No, actually, I understood all that the first time. I don't know why you just reiterated it or why you think I didn't understand it.

EDIT :: I should note that this is LordTonto. I accidently posted while logged into Roin's account on the computer. This is not Roin.



a defense level for EVERY planet and EVERY ship that EVERY player owns. That's a ton more dynamic stats you'll have to keep track of, what kind of affect is that gonna have on the game?



This seems like it would benefit the builders far too much, especially since the game is currently favoring them a considerable amount over attackers, trades, and the occasional spies. Alot of times a planet will have high shields and an attacker will have to launch several offensives against it to win. With it gaining experience and attack and defense efficiency with every assault it might swing from 'nearly impossible to beat' to 'impossible to beat.' It would force the use of Nova Bombs more frequently on planets which severely hurt attackers because if they fail 100% the attacker's ship is damaged and the bomb is wasted, if they fail partially you lose many of the credits on the planet and still might not be able to beat it, and if they succeed the planet is gone and the credits are too, meaning the attacker has gained nothing from the assault. I'd prefer that builders and attackers were kept on an equal level in the game. Personally I don't even like the 30 level bonus that planets get in combat. Especially since a planet that can defend against any given ship costs less than half to build.

I kinda think that the quickest way to fix the exploit of larger players funding smaller players would be to make things significantly more difficult for builders. If planets cost as much as ships you can be certain players won't be maintaining 600 at a time and they damned sure won't have the money to just throw around to the lower level players. This might make everyone want to be attackers, but then there would be nothing for an attacker to attack and they'd go right back to being builders. I'm not saying that planets SHOULD cost as much as ships, but they certainly shouldn't be so much cheaper AND get a 30 level boost in combat. It just doesn't seem to make sense to me.

I'm still uneasy about the ship and planet experience thing, I'd like cumulative overall experience thing. One that takes into account everything. Successful spy infiltration, planets built/planets lost, planets captured, planet disasters, planet maintenence (if they go indy on you), kills/deaths (including SD kills/deaths), ya know, everything. So a player with 0 exp can still gain, even though they would, in theory, have 0% efficiency. Also being the player with the most EXP would be as satisfying as being the player with the highest score. There would be a reason to play besides credits. You'd know the player topping the EXP list is a damned fine one.

Planets don't get a 30 level bonus. The maximum bonus a planet could get is 20 and the planet would have to have 0 tech levels across the board. The planet bonus is a scaled value that goes DOWN as the planet average tech levels go up until they get no bonus.

The reason we are thinking about individual ship/planet experience is because the CREW of the ship is what needs to gain experience. Every ship and planet has their own crew managing things. Just because the captain, you, might be experienced that's not going to mean the crew will benefit from that experience. They have to go into combat to gain that valuable experience. If your ship is destroyed the captain has an escape pod but the crew might not be able to get away and if they do they might never be found. So you will have to retrain a new crew with your new ship. The same for a planet.

Also, planet defense experience will be very, very minor increases because of the current combat system. So planets will not be affected as much by gaining experience.

I think it would drive builders away from the game.

i was ill-informed, i thought it was a static bonus, but my thought that they should get nothing at all remains the same, beings the price of getting a planet to that level is significantly cheaper than the price of getting a ship to that level. If you give a planet 1 trill and a ship 1 trill and watch them do battle it's going to be a wildly one-sided fight.



Possibly but our current game has made it a fools decision to play as an attacker, there is just no winning that way. I'd rather have equal builders and attackers at the expense of some players than a game of nothing but builders. Well, honestly i like it better when there is a team of a builder and an attacker working with the same funding, but that simply doesn't happen often.

Anybody ever think of making a team cash pool. When on a team there is no personal creds. everyone's credits are the same amount and every expenditure is taken from the pool. Then teams would have to function as a unit rather than as individuals (which no longer works because of the bounty thing... case in point, me at 8 million dropping from my team of Red Rockets)

the problem i see arising though is when someone is kicked or dropped... how would the money split.

First, PJ, I don't like to directly contradict like this, but the planet thing is not dynamic. This would probably qualify as a bug. I had no idea it was supposed to be, but it is not.

This is observable, reproduceable, calculable, and verifiable. Since I began playing this game it's been a consistent fact that if I get a ship level 320 and the planet is level 300, we'll have the same stats.

The thing about planets being so much cheaper being a problem that Tonto brought up is not at all a problem later in the game because a player is NOT going to put that much money into a planet (this makes the planet way less efficient producing cash). However, it is true at the beginning, when people don't have many planets and the attacker class is just budding. It's difficult to be an attacker at the beginning because you need a ship so many levels higher (20 is not enough; I've calculated it to be around 35). You can leave it as it is and just say that attackers should wait 'till later, or you can change it. I'm mostly indifferent. I'm just pointing this out.

And Tonto, I [b]completely[/i] disagree that builders need to be weakened. That this game is dominated by builders is incidental. The game is dominated by a corrupt team that employs smaller players to stamp out any possible enemies, and evidently has agreements with the larger players that they will not attack each other. If this team had not attacking power, they'd be crushed quickly by other oppurtunist attackers.

The builders drive the game. I can certainly say that I am not biased because, as everyone knows, I'm an attacker. Without builders, there are no attackers. Without builders, there is nothing. Richer builders means richer attackers. Planets are how everyone, builders or attackers, makes money, and making planets more difficult to build and maintain means fewer planets and less money. You hurt the overall game economy.

And the suggestion that planets should be of comparable expense to a ship is absurd. Many players will only have three or four ships, if that, while fifty planets, easily, could contribute to these.

And as far as the current game making it a "fools decision" to play as an attacker, I must disagree. It is a fools decision to oppose the team in power. That doesn't have to do with being an attacker. That this one team has gotten too strong doesn't have to do with building. If you hurt builders in general, everyone is smaller, not just them.

Don't tell me what is and isn't in the game. I wrote the code and I am looking at it right now. It does scale. You are wrong... again.

I believe you wrote the code. I didn't tell you you didn't write it. You, however, are wrong. You are not even in the game.

Get on the main, and look at the numbers. It does not work. The code is not doing its job. Don't tell me what I have and have not seen.

Why are you so hostile? I am telling you something doesn't work in an attempt to improve the game, and you are rejecting what I've said based on no evidence. You can look at the code, or you can look at the game. I think the game is going to be a more reliable source as far as determining what is in the game goes.

Or, you can just keep telling me that I am wrong over and over again even though I'm not, not bother to even actually check because you clearly have so little respect for me, and allow the problem to continue unsolved.

You have no idea what you are talking about as usual.

I have a complete backup of the database from the current game. I can test anything and everything using different players from the game. Even though you don't think it is working it IS working. I can test and verify over and over again. What you THINK might be going on is completely wrong as you have absolutely NO WAY to see what the actual values being used by the calculations. I do have that ability.

You are completely wrong, again, in this instance.

You haven't seen me hostile yet but when someone who doesn't know what they are talking about tells me, one of the creators of the game, i don't know what I am talking about and how they are more right, then I get irritated.

Yes I have little respect for you because you have absolutely zero respect for the people who wrote the code. You think you are right when you have absolutely NOTHING to back up what you claim other than "I am right.". You always have to be right and it doesn't matter if you are proven wrong with facts you still think you are right.

I am telling you what I have seen over and over again. As I said, I can buy a ship with 320 techs and go to attack a planet with 300 techs and hit attack. Yeah, I know, they're not the real values, they're just a scan, but I frequently see the exact same values for the planet as for my ship.

That's the exact same values, not at all off, over and over again, with just occasional differences. Then, when I go to attack the planet, the stats used in the attack are based on the 20 level boost as well. I cannot defeat planets that I would be able to defeat if they did not get the 20 level boost.

You are completely ignoring the possibility that the coding is flawed. The coding for the testing could be flawed as well. I'm just pointing out what I see.

I am not wrong in what I see. My scanners maybe wrong, but after so many scans with such accuracy, I don't think that's likely.

And it is completely absurd for you to respond in this way. I was attempting to point out what I believed to be a bug. I tried to do it in a cordial manner. I was trying to improve your game, and you just flipped out on me.





Again, I was not trying to be rude. But you must jump on me saying "Don't tell me what's in the game... You are wrong... again."

Ok. I won't tell you what's in the game. When I find a bug, I will not report it, because you wrote the code. You know what is there. You must have intended it to be that way. You are not fallible. I will exploit the bug as much as possible because you must have intended for it to be there.



Why do you think I mentioned this? Do you think I was just trying to insult you by saying you were wrong? Do you really believe that I'm that immature? It seems you do. If you had much common sense, you may realize that I was pointing this out because I believed what I was saying was the case. I was trying to help the game. Obviously, if I believe that I am right, I must have a reason. I was basing my assertion on my experiences.



You give respect, you get it. You've not given me respect from the start.









That's one hell of a way to earn respect. And that's from this thread alone. Consdering all those other instances from other threads, I should probably worship you.

Do you ever wonder why I respect TH and not you? Doubtful, but if so, it's because he doesn't say things like the above. I usually don't either until you piss me off. He realizes that if I'm saying something, it's because I've got a reason to say it. And he also has enough respect for me to realize that I don't do things just to be a dick. If I say that there's something wrong with the game, he's wise enough not to take it as a personal insult, as you clearly do, and instead that I'm just trying to help out the game by helping you guys to eliminate bugs. But you don't think about this. You take things personally, you don't consider my motivations or even try to put yourself in my shoes, and you are completely unopen to the possibility that I may be right.

Back to the game. The best test for what is actually going on in the game is not to run superficial tests or to look at coding. Yes, those are alright measures, especially the coding, but I am telling you that what I see in the game contradicts what you say you see in the coding. That is worth consideration. At least look to see if I'm right.