Many players complain about the limitations of the game. The point ia to build, conquer and grow. The more you do that, the more slanted you realize the game is.

The argument for any changes often becomes big guy versus little guy. The little guys don't understand that many people pay for this game and that is what keeps it running. Without the big guys charging their credit cards, there would be no Galaxy Legion. They also don't understand that we put a lot of time into the game and just like anything you put time into you, when that time is wasted, you feel cheated.

The big guys on the other hand feel left out because we often get the short end of any improvements. We have worked hard to get where we are and yet a lot of the improvements don't even reach us or the real problems we have are ignored. At the same time we need to realize that if the game is to hard for the little guys, they won't play and the game will not grow.

The solution is to stop making things about size, rank or power. Here are a few suggestions for changes that are based on standards other than size, level or power. These ideas are based on constants that would make it equal for everyone.

Resource Caps-
Currently the resource caps are based on numbers that few know and even fewer understand. One resource capacity is based on rank while another is based on planet sizes or numbers. On top of that we are encouraged to build better planetary technology. which increases our production. That technology does not increase capacity though. The biggest problem is that the cap makes players about level 250 have to long in every 3-6 hours to use up their resources. If they do not they become targets for mass hacking and raiding.

Solution - 8 Hour storage capacity. The storage capacity is automatically set to 8 hours giving you time to sleep, work whatever. It would be 8 hours whether you were level 50 or level 500 so no one can claim an advantage.

Worthless Artifacts - Artifacts that are very helpful to low level players but useless to high level player. On the other hand, artifacts that are a serious defense against a low level player are speed bumps for high level players.

Solution - Artifact scaling. Instead of a trap that does 400 damage (which is like sneezing on me), a trap would do damage equal to 40% of the attackers power. I my case this would be about 4000 damage done back on me. Instead of a NPC that gives 50 research points, it would give 2% of your hourly research production. Scanning artifacts that only add 50 scanning are worthless to most players but adding 5% is the same for everyone. This would protect and benefit low levels and high levels.

Cloak - This has been a big one. As scan increasingly outpaces cloak, cloaking is becoming worthless. It is now impossible to hack many players because cloak has not kept up, especially at the higher levels. My unbuffed scan is about 6000. The cloak needed to defend a planet against that that would be about 5 of the medium level satellites.

Solution - A way to protect the low levels and the high levels would be two fold. First, offer some way to immediately and permanently increase current cloaking stats. Something like an NPC that dropped a permanent 10% cloak bonus to planets. Second, no more scanning research until cloak is closer to equal. Lastlly, change the mix so that players find better planets and need to invade less.

Damage cap - It is ridiculous that I can 2 shot a level 500 NPC with 3500 hull and shield but a level 50 player with 400 hulls and shields takes 8 attacks. I understand that we want to make it easy on the little guys but pandering to them is insulting to everyone. That is all but publicly posting "I am coding the game to give low levels a free cheat when fighting bigger ships".

Solution - Make the damage really what it costs. Add a hit or miss roll if you like to give them a chance to dodge the damage but if even half my 8000 attack points hit someone with 400 hull and shields they should be obliterated.

NPC Sharing - Currently sharing an NPC limits many of who can attack it. The current system encourages large players to shun smaller players. It also hurts larger players when they don't have enough people in their legion can attack because of rank restrictions.

Solution - This really is a big one. If you take the restrictions away, base the experience on rank (a percentage instead of a base amount) then everyone wins. The little guys get to help and the big guys don't blow them off. Most of all, this would help the little guys see us as big brothers instead of big bullies and that would make a HUGE difference in the game. If you are worried about the low levels getting modules above their rank, add tiers to the NPC modules.

HUNDREDS of 1-10 person legions - A good legion helps you grow faster and stronger, understand the game better and enjoy the game more. Being in a small/crappy legion doesn't help anyone. It actually hurts people because they are in a legion that can't help them defend their planet or fight back against a mass attack.

Solution - Cut the number of possible legions off until all legions are at LEAST 50% full. For example, 200 legions are the max, until they are 50% full no new legions can be created. Also, disband any legions that have more than 3 inactive players to keep people from filling a legion up with fake accounts. Last and greatest suggestion is make legion sorting start with the fullest legions and work done. For example a legion with 49 members and 1 open spot would show up before a legion with 35 members and 15 open spots. That would help newbs to find better, fuller legions instead of having to go through 20 pages of crappy new legions.

Should I take that planet - I have more than 500 planets in my database. Many are held by players that haven't leveled in weeks if not months or don't even play anymore. The problem becomes I take a planet from a little guy because it is hard to tell if he is inactive or just little.

Solution - When a player is inactive for more than 2 weeks, notate it somehow for everyone to see. It encourages everyone to play more consistently and helps us leave the little guys that really are trying alone.

Basic Misunderstanding of the Game - I think that a lot of the reasons people think they are being cheated is because they don't understand how it works. Trying to find what Dan said or explained in one post in the hundreds of threads he has contributed to is impossible. Not knowing can be misinterpreted a lot of ways.

Solution - Add a page to the help section, not the wiki, that explains the calculations used for all the basic gameplay.

I really like most of the suggestions. Though I would disagree with the idea of requiring legions to be 50% full to start new ones. Maybe 25%.

I do like the idea of encouraging legions to be made up of a mix of high and low ranking players. Encourages mentorship, which can only help the game. It would keep more lower level players active and striving to improve. Much like any MMO with guilds or clans or whatever. The salty players vet in the boots.

I think the biggest obstacle is the attitude of us versus them. If high levels could help the low levels and vice versa, they would get along a lot better.

I like many of these ideas. As it stands now there's realy no reason for someone rank 200 to be in a legion that mostly consists of members ranke 150 or less. He's only hurting himself unless he has at least 5 or 6 other active people over rank 200 in that legion as well. It's why the dysonians do such good npc farming, because they can all see and hit the big bosses and no one is pulling up small ones.

I have to side with paul though, the 50% thing for legions i disagree with. I do think there should be a minimum number needed to create a legion, say 10. But personally, having only 10 or 15 members in a legion is a big disadvantage, since your not going to get the needed bonus to your planet defenses. The game numbers revolve around you having that max or close to max legion bonus on your planet defenses. THose that don't have it are in a serious disadvantage.

Kaos you have some very sound suggestions here, I'd suggest a few changes but overall these are some thigns I'd like to see in the game.

1. On the scaling artifacts you mentioned changing the damage to a percentage, I like this completely but I'd go another step and get rid of the H trap completely, sitting out for a hour is a bummer, I'd rather take 5k damage than sit out for a hour bored silly. But I'm drifting off subject regardless several of the artifacts most of us scrap daily could be of much more use if they gave a precentage bonus instead of a flat amount.

2. On the cloak I have to agree 100% we need some changes, back at level 150 I thought 1k cloak on my planets was a awesome defense, now after reading exactly how the scanning of planets works today I'm down right nervous and certainly not spending any cash on planet artifacts.

3. Currently the advantage a small ship has is to great exactly as you described.

4. The change to the resource cap is good but I'd go up to 12 hours, on week days I'm back at the computer fist thing in the morning well within the 8 hours but not the weekends.

5. I'd add in Blitz's idea about recycling planetary structures, every single player will sooner or later upgrade there planetary structures give us half credit for the existing buildings as we tear them down to build the new.

kaos great ideas but on the legion part i would say the search would be better if you could filter by average rank, highest rank, or lowest rank and then sort that list by number of active players.
i think simply sorting by the most full would stear players to large high rank legions where they would not fit in, making it hard for low level players to find a legion of proper average level.

i like the H trap. to be able to stop an attack in its tracks is is a great tool.

I think it can be done without having to be removed from the game entirely, but it definately needs to be nerfed hard. Not so much in it's effect, but in it's quantity. As it stands now, it's a great thing to have on while logged out to deter those random battle tab attacks. The problem is when you want to get into an all out slug match with someone. I got into it with some DS last week and i kid you not we spent 2 days going at it with each other before I could wear his traps out. He never did wear mine out, even when I had multiple people attacking me. I can imagine what it must be like with higher ranked players. They probably pull more traps in a day than anyone can feasibly attack them just by sheer amount of artifact generation. This one thing alone is killing pvp more than anything else. I say give it a 1% or .5% chance to get a draw from an arti pull. Hell mabye even .1% chance, considering how many arti pulls higher ranked players can have to accumulate them. Any time you go against someone that hasn't been attacked in a while means you have a mountian of halc traps to burn through and the only realy feasable way your going to get them is if they're offline long enough for you to eat the halc, then the KV then go back to finish them off before they log back on and reset them.

it might be nice for certain artifacts to scale in their chances according to rank or total artifact production so higher levels don't get too many while lower levels don't get too few.

yea I let my artifacts fill up and I haven't gotten a trap in over a week

Most importantly +1 to resource cap fixes...i am utterly exhausted from checking my game every 4 hours....

I have never understood what the point was in resource caps at all.

no im not a big player but they work hard to get up there for those artifacts to do default amount of damage of 40% is unfair to the hard workers not everything needs to be fair

If you're working hard in Galaxy Legion something is seriously wrong with you. That's all I'm going to say, i could play GL in about 20 minutes do what i need to do, resource caps are the reason i don't invade so many planets.. although I've had a fetish for it recently.

Dan pay attention to this thread!
Kaos +10 for you!

I love this game. Especially that fact that Dan listens/reads and try's things out. Occasionally going back when it doesn't work out.

If this game is going to last years and really be a source of long term income to Dan then the new players need to be encouraged and also weeded out if they stop playing. The method of indicating inactive should be balanced with a switch/toggle to "go away". Say your going to be without access to the game for weeks or months on end. (service to country; scientist out in the 'wild'; work/school) But maybe it's simply messaging Dan that you will not be able to play until X date and then your 2 week inactive status will not go into effect until 2 weeks after X date. I noticed that Noah stopped playing and posting for a long time and then came back on. I wonder if people in the Navy who go out to sea can play this game.

If you take a planet from a much weaker player who doesn't retaliate (like I did in the past week) which surprised me; I wish I could have sent him minerals and encouraged him that it was part of the game (ie no hard feelings; don't worry about credits for months to come).
I was new to the game and just had one of my best planets stolen. Noah befriend me and sent me 1 Kurenite. I didn't worry about credits for months. I do not believe Noah stole the planet but I was ready to quit and that 1 Kurenite allowed me to upgrade my ship and not worry about credits so I stuck with the game.

Just my two cents.

You know the easiest way for a player to get a few planets that others will not take it to just increase the galaxy size. It would also help those with a lot of planets.
Oh and you might want to do % but at the beginning a bonus of 125 scan is what you want not 5% of 10 so I'd do a 125 or 5 % which ever would be more.