Even if they work at 50% of their standard efficiency, it'd be a big help.
| QUOTE (Clay @ Jul 12 2005, 01:40 AM) |
| AI Wombats? Now there's a scary thought.... |
You think that's scary, wait until he rolls his Heavy Assault Gophers out
| QUOTE (Ro'a-lith @ Jul 16 2005, 10:54 AM) |
| Amusing typos aside, any thoughts on this? |
It seems logical to allow AIs on platforms. A platform is a static ship and AIs work fine on those.
The reason has nothing really to do with logic, practicality and everything to do with economics of the game.
There are simply too many stellars in the game - don't believe me?
Who would sell a blueprint for $20,000?
Nobody.
Who would buy a blueprint for $30,000?
Everybody.
Why, they only cost a max of $17,500 to produce.
Too many stellars, players can afford troops, they simply choose to put their stellars elsewhere, end of story.
We keep telling people that they should have roughly 1:1 troop:employee ratio or approx 10 troops per complex in a starbase.
Growth should be along these lines, unfortunately most affiliations are in runaway expansion mode. Complaining that they are trying to compete with others is a poor excuse - if your assets are solid, it does not matter if you are small - nobody with sense expends more than they capture/destroy under most circumstances.
Look at a platform - with the firepower they have, they should destroy anything that attempted to board them until the point they are fragged and virtually useless.
With AI's they would simply have a handful of troops and AI's safe in the knowledge that they were under no substantial risk. So we would put some fancy routines in to ignore AI's for boarding fire, but there is no point, as players would do the most to save the most and pay the price at a later date.
It all comes back to economics. We have given players too much rope and looking at many starbases they have simply made nice nooses, mounted the platforms and are awaiting somebody to come along and open the trap door (many with 1000+ complexes have less than 6k troops and most of these are mercs).
We are looking at ways of preventing players from taking easy stellar-saving options and paying the price at a later date.
Why? Surely if they choose this option, it is their's to make - fcuk em?
Because every time it has happened the player has pleaded ignorance of the situation - they believe that they have been acting in the best interests of their assets and are extremely put out that they have lost everything so easily.
So by being draconian, we ensure first of all that growth is kept in check and secondly, players do not leave themselves wide open to a right-proper anal-probing (guess who was playing 'Destroy All Humans' this weekend?
)The more I think about it, the more sense it makes to have employees leave where the troop:employee ratio is considerably less than 1:1. We don't want to dictate how you play the game but we do not want to encourage you to loose your positions.
Cue rant about player attitude that troops are an unnecessary expense and don't do anything.... 20k employees and 2k troops is an unexcusable joke.
Instead, though, it looks as though we will be left with stripping our starbases of trained troops. I'll send out the invites for invasion, I guess.
| QUOTE |
| Instead, though, it looks as though we will be left with stripping our starbases of trained troops. I'll send out the invites for invasion, I guess. |
How about recruiting more mercs? Just today I note that you have spent $48k in modules in just two transactions.... There is just so much poverty that can be pleaded
Note also that Balmoral is selling loads of marine and soldier blueprints for the various races at the bargain price of $40,000.
As for using mercs on platforms - yes we could, but using 16,000 mercs on a platform when you could use 4000 crew? I know I'd rather have the extra 8000 MU for ship items. Likewise, recruiting 16,000 mercs for each 2000 hull platform... I have no compunctions about paying their wages, but even our largest merc recruitment base only picks up 300 a week.
Marine and soldier blueprints at $40k, you say? I will need around 20 to even approach a decent troop training rate. I don't have $800k to spend.
| QUOTE (Mica Goldstone @ Jul 18 2005, 08:44 AM) |
| We keep telling people that they should have roughly 1:1 troop:employee ratio or approx 10 troops per complex in a starbase. Growth should be along these lines, unfortunately most affiliations are in runaway expansion mode. Complaining that they are trying to compete with others is a poor excuse - if your assets are solid, it does not matter if you are small - nobody with sense expends more than they capture/destroy under most circumstances. It all comes back to economics. We have given players too much rope and looking at many starbases they have simply made nice nooses, mounted the platforms and are awaiting somebody to come along and open the trap door (many with 1000+ complexes have less than 6k troops and most of these are mercs). We are looking at ways of preventing players from taking easy stellar-saving options and paying the price at a later date. Why? Surely if they choose this option, it is their's to make - fcuk em? Because every time it has happened the player has pleaded ignorance of the situation - they believe that they have been acting in the best interests of their assets and are extremely put out that they have lost everything so easily. So by being draconian, we ensure first of all that growth is kept in check and secondly, players do not leave themselves wide open to a right-proper anal-probing (guess who was playing 'Destroy All Humans' this weekend? )The more I think about it, the more sense it makes to have employees leave where the troop:employee ratio is considerably less than 1:1. We don't want to dictate how you play the game but we do not want to encourage you to loose your positions. Cue rant about player attitude that troops are an unnecessary expense and don't do anything.... 20k employees and 2k troops is an unexcusable joke. |
Well, I have never read so much stupid ramblings before...
First of all, how many starbases has been lost to invasions already??? Aha, two or three in the last couple of months??? And most took heavy damages and have taken out considerable number of enemy troops...
What could be the reason of this??? Those nice little tanks lots of players have in thousands in their starbase?? Or are it those huge number of RDB's??
We are talking about the space age. People are not using that many troops, they ar using Warbots, Tanks, RDB's and the likes of it. The USA defeataed the Iraq armies who was counting in hundreds of thousands with relative few troops??? Why because they got the technology uperhand.
Mica, production is everything. Your own actions (turning heavy hulls into 4 times as expensive) are the source why players have more factories then ever. Players NEED the extra factories, to build more hulls, more weapons, more tanks.
Lets assume an base with 40k income. Doing some small time research (100 complexes). If he is in copying mode, he will consume some 20k stellars for the technology alone. That will leave him with 20k stellars spare. Thats 10k for the employees and 10k for the troops. Half of those employees are needed to run the 100 research so thats leave 5000 for the complexes. So an total of 600 complexes.
6 for control, 60 for starbase shield, 100 for the security, 100 for the stellars, leave 500-6-60-100-100=234 for the for mines, resources and factories..
The example is silly, but so is you idea to run 1:1 troops:employees.
Now, comes an smart base. 2000 complexes, which 1000 factories, I will churn out (with 200 at tanks) 250 Battle tanks per week, I stockpile for an couple of months and assault with 4000 tanks plus 2000 troops.. Who is going to win???
If I got 2000 good troops on my starbase with 2000 tanks or RDB's nobody is going to assault me with troops.. They will get slaughtered. (I have seen an battle in which 2000 troops get slaughtered by an small number of RDB's).
What they will do instead of start hammering on my starbase and destroy it.
Also bases need read money to run, and most players want big bases because they are simply more fun.