I was thinking about green badges just now - and I realized that with no restrictions on planets being invaded there is a possible exploit to get near unlimited green badges. You contact a member in your legion that you have a scanned planet in common (I have 5 legion member's planets currently on my scans) - then one of you leaves the legion. One player drops the planet's defense to 0 - then the other player invades (getting a badge) - then the original owner retakes it (also getting a badge). Granted this can be done only once a day - but if you both traded off the same planet daily you'd receive constant badges. This would work better if you were in different legions originally - since you'd have to do this daily and I doubt most legions would put up with it if they knew you were doing this.

The thing is - almost anyone could do this with anyone. If you ever get a chance to talk with a player who's planet you've taken - as in they attack you in response and you can see them in your news - or someone sets off a planetary trap of yours or if you can somehow track down any enemy player who's planet is on your scan, you can setup this arrangement (and why would they disagree? especially if they are a much lower rank).

I'd say that the badge should only work one time per planet - that way you can invade a planet you've never had before and get one and you can also retake a planet you colonized and get one too. If you could only get one badge per planet - the idea of exploiting this would probably lose any appeal.

its a ton of credits just to get a mediocre building. I think it's kind of hilarious to see everyone in the game go balls crazy over the newest addition just because they have a "gotta-catch-em-all" complex.

Well still that's 30 green badges a month - and if they add new buildings to the game later you'll have a ton stored. I don't think this would be that hard to accomplish - and I have a ton of credits that I don't mind parting with. The cost of invading a planet to me is much less my daily take (maybe not for larger players).

Yeah, somebody already mentioned this possibility in another thread. I'm sure they'll come up with something, your idea sounds good enough.

My legion has actually already been using this exploit for some time - but NOT for green badges, since we've been doing it to return planets that lower-ranked legion members have lost due to an invasion. The higher-ranked players capture the planet, then allow the lower-ranked players to reclaim it.

Whilst I understand this is a green-badge exploit, it would penalise lower-ranked players for being a lower rank. If they lose a planet to a larger player, they're being penalised simply for being small. Don't get me wrong; i'm a member of the Paladins, and we're a legion that works actively against cheats. But I don't see a problem with helping legion members that need help getting a planet back. Perhaps Green Badges should only be awarded for invading planets that you haven't previously owned?

There's already a system to track whether you've earned a badge off a player within a certain amount of time. Surely that system could be adapted to put a badge timer on a planet.
A month, even a week, in addition to the cost of invading the planet back and forth would make the process tedious and expensive enough that it wouldn't be worth the reward.

Restricting the badge awards would not stop you from giving planets back to other players.

Isn't that what the OP says?

EDIT: Actually he said ones that you haven't invaded before, but that's probably even better.

Green badging a planet like a volleyball becomes cost-prohibitive at higher levels. If you get one in the process of helping out a legion-mate though, it should be your reward for doing a good deed.