In regards to this, do people think a change to halcs would help?

I still advocate for a complete removal of halcs and having calming amps which last 2 hours. Allows you to play however you like when actually online, but doesn't make you practically invincible like the current system does.

I'd give this a +1... PvP might actually be rescuable with something like this.

I don't think halcs/calming amps should be changed, but I do not think things are "OK as they are," either. It's... complicated.

Some players really care about their KDR, and/or are emotionally invested in not getting disabled. Active players who feel this way put in a lot of effort to protect their record: they build a ship that is as annoying to kill as possible, halc/calm whenever able, set their ship so legionmates can't repair/stay disabled when going offline, retaliate like maniacs when somebody touches their ship (so as to leave a bad taste in attacker's mouth), etc.

If that's how you want to play, I think you should be allowed to. If you are willing to log in every 6 hours to reset your halc and calming amp and reduce the number of options available to you when you play, that's some dedication; I think you've earned it.

I mean, it breaks my heart when somebody who really needs the production refuses an invasion attempt on a Massive, 7x Arti Exotic because "Thanks, but I'm just about to go to bed and don't want to blow my halc!" But if that's how somebody want to play... eh, I guess I'll risk the disable and try the invasion myself.

THAT BEING SAID:

I can definitely see how halcs are incredibly frustrating to casual/non-PVP oriented players.

Currently, if you want to get kills but can't find ships with actions, you have to churn your BT for a few minutes, then come back in 2-3 hours hoping those players cycle back (and that they haven't reset their halcs). For somebody who is highly active and enjoys PVP, this is no problem at all -- one of my favorite things to do is disable somebody who's halc I set off a few hours ago, 'cause it means a rage comm is more likely.

But if you are a casual player or one of those "I only PVP when I have to" players, you just don't have the time/energy to go through with that routine for a few extra red/yellow badges... so eventually, you just halc up yourself, because -- why bother? Why spend 50 energy on ship after ship (along with tons of Null Fuses, since many players know to set their Kri Traps first) for nothing? For somebody like me who is regularly online both at work and at home and able to log in whenever, it's no hassle. But for somebody who maybe logs in twice a day and doesn't want to spend their limited time being red-blocked by 80% of the ships they go up against, it has to be incredibly disheartening. Telling somebody to "just be more active," doesn't cut it, because people with an interest in the game but limited time shouldn't be essentially shut out of an entire aspect of gameplay.

So yeah -- I think it is a problem.

But if I feel that way, why don't I want to see Halcs/Amps changed, you ask? Well, because I think the "halc problem" is a symptom, rather than a disease. The disease is that there is so little incentive to engage in PVP after a certain point once you have your PVP modules/allies upgraded. If we had the same kind of incentive to PVP as we do to NPC and Base, I guarantee you we'd see a lot more players with actions.

Red Badges: once you are done with your Tri-Blasters, you are essentially done getting tangible rewards for player kills.

• Your legion only need a few dedicated PVPers or to be part of a battle group to get all the bases it needs.
• Red Badges feed the Darmos Ally, but who, other than the most active players in the most active/powerful legions even has the Drone? (and furthermore, once maxed, it eats Relics, not Reds)

Yellow Badges: Once you are done with your Arsenals and Assault Sentry, then what?

• I love Heist Upgrades! But unless you are highly active -- either in PVP or as an ice fisher -- you have to disable somebody first to get them (which comes back to the red-block issue), so understandably, they just aren't worth it for most people.
• What is the incentive after you've maxed Thraccti? Is there anything that eats yellows?

Blue Badges: Once you have maxed Bainar, are you really going to risk a crit-counterhack for a structure that only give 150 cloak per space when there are so many other options available? Yeah, didn't think so.

• Seriously, if Dan added a "final upgrade" to the Nexus Command Center for 50-60 blues that gave 5% cloak and +2 artifact (or simply +3 artifact), people would be hacking each other all the live long day. Loads of players would creep out from under their halcs for that!

You refute your own argument. Not enough incentive to PvP, so you wish to introduce more incentive... And yet a Massive 7xMR is not enough incentive. This is clearly not going to be the fix, then.

Players who log in every 6 hours don't "deserve" to stay invincible:

1. The 6 hour MINIMUM invincibility timer is easy to keep up with. The 6 hours assumes the very minute that someone's calming amp drops, someone triggers their halc which is unrealistic.

2. Normally these players are going to be logging in at least every 8 hours. It is very uncommon that they will be disabled this time after the 6 hour minimum; they are practically invulnerable to attacks 24/7

3. Many players will "ride" the combat reputation, making combat reputation mean very little. On the rare chance they get disabled once, say overnight, then when they wake up in the morning they PvP and kill say 5 guys easy peast. They've got 24 hours now with no halcs or calming amps, during which time they get disabled four times if we're really pushing it. Their combat rep now remains "Insane" without them really being a PvPer.


The biggest incentives to PvP, in my opinion, would be flat out % buffs. A red badge item which improves your attack (Say 10% for 4 hours - costs 10 reds) and a yellow badge item which improves your total arti production (Say 5% for 24 hours - costs 10 yellows). Your idea for the blue item (though I think artifact:2 and % cloak is just fine, a 1.5:1 structure with cloak might be a bit too overboard).

But I don't think incentive to PvP is going to fix the problem; far too many people don't care that much. It may, however, alleviate the problem.

2377 decks actually cant fit all the fancy stuff I like to fit on
I run full complement of atk/def for invasions and tagging stuff and reactors along with my engineers so I can do LMs without using refills. I ride with about 1.4k cloak and 700 scan usually. But yea,, crit hacks are a constant nuisance for me.

That being said, I like the suggestion kirk made, if we have one for basing/npcing for dark badges, why can't we have one for PvP?

And I think this may be where we differ -- I just want to see some relief, some "alleviation." I don't care if even half the players are halced every day!

It's true that some players just don't care/hate PVP, and that can't be helped -- and I agree with you: there is no incentive enticing enough for players like that. At the same time, if not being clobbered 3 times a day (maybe just once when they log off before going to sleep) makes the game more enjoyable for some of the more active-but-pacifist ships in the galaxy, I don't have a problem with their perma-halcs. I'd rather have them playing and hanging out in the chat than see them quit altogether. GL is a social game, and PVP is only one aspect of it, after all.

Moving away from the lazies/anti-PVPites, I think most normal players would respond to incentives (as I've suggested numerous times, or perhaps the buffs you suggested), which would at least cause them to halc up less often. And this is really all I want. I don't want to see halcs go away, I just think the 80% halc rate (!!!) some players are reporting is way too high. Players "retiring" from PVP once they've gotten all their maxed modules/allies, only to come out for the occasional legion mission is a real thing (you guys know who you are!), and it isn't healthy for PVP; if those same players who could be bothered when there were shiny Tri-Blaster or Sentry/Bainar upgrades available were stirred a few times a week for repeatable structures/buffs/whatevers, I believe PVP would become considerably less halcy/more healthy.

Of course, those players are less likely to be the laughable creampuffs who die in just a few shots that everybody wants, but hey, more viable targets are more viable targets.

Yep, I think you have summed it up very nicely. People play in different ways and have different schedules and priorities and that is good.
I think altering halcs and/or calming amps will just force more people out, so more incentive to PvP for those who *might* be that way inclined is a great idea.

So true. A small ship with no modules may theoretically depend on its small size to cause you to miss, but why should more helmsmen help make a ship without any "evasive" (defense) modules harder to hit or cause it to deal more damage to an opposing ship? For that matter, why can ships with no weapons whatsoever but lots of crew deal any damage to other spaceships at all? Shoot kinetic spitballs out the airlocks? Just saying that it might help the game if "crew power" was rationalized somehow, particularly at lower levels. Today's forum readers and strategy followers are well aware of the potential advantages of a small ship build, but new players who don't read the forums or have the resource advantages of resets are at a serious disadvantage when they pursue the standard "guns, hull and defense" approach that leads them to larger ships early on (or even the SSB approach since they don't have the resource advantages resets frequently have). I think the ideas for damage cap correction have merit, but wouldn't mind if there were also some consideration given to the logic of the current situation. We can keep on the current course and watch the game slowly wither and die or listen to some of the suggestions for changing the damage cap approach to not strictly favor resets who crush any genuinely new players coming into the game.

On the halc/calming-amp note, I really have no problem with the way things are today. When I want to work "hard" at PVP, I've always been able to find enough targets to max my TM-imposed number of actions. The way people complain about halcs you would think that would be ridiculously hard, but it's not. The only thing I see a change doing is making some ships less inclined to repair anytime soon after a disable as an alternative strategy to avoid constant disables and "maybe" making getting to that TM limit a bit easier for the hard core PVPers. To some extent, I like the fact that folks have to work a little to PVP and that ships aren't just slapping each other silly every time someone goes offline. I fear that changing that significantly would drive out some of those non-PVP oriented ships who would get tired of being disabled much more frequently than they already are and that we would eventually end up with even fewer ships who would just be constantly bashing each other for stats or badges. We already have trap probes easily available through some NPCing to help us when ships are at 3/5/5 or less so we don't waste lots of energy on the halc'd ships and I've always thought that was helpful enough.

I think that's a very legit view.

My counter would be that you are a very active player when you want to be, so getting daily badges or even to TM limit really isn't an issue -- and I'm not concerned about players like you, because you'll just move on to the next ship. Change up scan. Come back later -- one way or another you'll always get your badges. My concern regarding the overuse of halcs has to do with the lower activity people who just don't have time to churn and burn BT, who are effectively shut out of PVP unless they are OK putting their limited time, energy, and null fuses toward something they will fail at the vast majority of the time.

The new Lepus daily requires Blue Badges and has yielded a positive change already, by the way: I was just hacked by somebody whose combat rep suggests they don't ever PVP! So along with Battle Market repeatable structures/buffs, missions might be an option, too. Hey -- whatever works!

this, as the topic of this thread is the issue with damage cap.

This argument started out as a statement purely in favor of suggested damage cap changes (which I thought was the topic under discussion and I put in a plug for the ideas)...but admittedly morphed a little as I was writing it and as I was thinking about juiceman's comment I quoted and about the resets that have learned to build ships with no attack and/or defense modules whatsoever on most of the time....only crew for attack and/or defense in a space battle game which sounds kind of silly (to me). I personally think a ship with no evasive modules should be a "sitting duck" -- maybe hard to hit, but not increasingly harder all the time as they recruit more crew but don't add any modules so the damage potential should remain static, not shrink with additional crew. We've lost the drive to get other modules (other than scan) and so we're seeing more extreme SSBs created by knowledgeable resets....particularly at the lower levels that new players can't effectively compete against. It occurred to me that if there were some rationalization of the current build strategy (i.e., ships had to have certain levels of modules installed to support that big crew), SSBs would be less dominating since they might actually have to get some modules to support their battle efforts and not just be in invincible lump of rock. But that would involve some reimagining of how PVP works. Imagine how maneuverable most spacecraft would be without thrusters or how effective in battle they would be without weapons....no matter how big or small they were....if you packed them only with crew. Additional hands and brain power only go so far in an unarmed ship incapable of evasive action. (I know already that some out there will want to support the present system by presuming that there is an "assumed", invisible level of weapon or evasibility that takes 0 decks, that the researched modules are only "upgrades" to the base models instead of the things required to actually perform battle maneuvers, and that become infinitely more effective as infinitely more crew is added and will say it with a straight face. That seems to be the fantastical logic people use to justify virtually infinite crews in tiny decks already. Imaginary sci-fi spacecraft are luxurious, but even they have limits on the crew they can hold. In truth, any real-life warship I've been on has had very cramped crew quarters as they give priority to the equipment that helps them fight over crew luxury. In fact, most try to minimize the crew it takes to operate them so they can devote space to essential equipment. There are no luxury cruise liners in a real naval fleet.)

I highly doubt the game mechanics will be rethought at this late date in the game's life cycle, but I'm not sure that logical conclusion of this setup (artis + time alone = strength) was really intended in a "spaceship-building" game. Why even have most of these researched modules then? Just to mislead many naive new players into chasing them? Equipment needs to play a larger role in the game, but doesn't due to the damage cap (and, of course, the limits on equipment but NOT crew).

I also support the idea mentioned in one post of an arti that lets you take off decks. It makes the issue of deck size a strategy that you can adjust. Not an "I made a choice early on I can never make a adjustment to" scenario. (Imagine if the outcome of every chess game was the result of what opening you chose. Chess would be obsolete already.) One newer piece of equipment - the Darmos drone - particularly makes you want it. Once the drone turns into an ally, you have some unused deck space it would be nice to reclaim.

And, I do think the PVP damage calculation needs to be seriously reworked and not just for a forward crit hit. The problem also lives in the "reverse hit" scenario where a deck disparity can cause a smaller, almost unarmed/undefended ship, to consistently do more damage to a larger ship than the larger ship does to it due to the damage cap based-thinking. This just doesn't make a lot of sense (to me anyway). [ADDENDUM: I know this is going to draw some fire, but how about the potential for no damage cap at all based on decks/rank and instead just relying on relative attack and defense to calculate damage in battle? To me, it makes little sense that a spaceship building game actually has a toxic path that leads to ships that don't actually use most of the ship modules, but instead rely entirely on arti drops to provide attack and defense. Yes, I know this would gimp SSBs entirely, but the SSB concept invalidates the space ship building aspect of the game and turns it only into an artis + time game and I think I've already pointed out the logical absurdity of the tiniest ship builds that have no weapons or defense at all besides crew can appear relatively powerful -- especially early in the game. SSBs aren't impossible to kill anyway at higher levels (yet), just energy wasters. If they show up on my BT, they get attacked like anyone else if they're not over-trapped. Also, the game is just getting weird even for me (an LSB). My hull is way more brackets than modules. My attack is way more crew that weapons. My defense is way more helsmen than defensive modules. And the "quality" of the modules I've installed no impact on the "abilities of the crew". TO strength is constant regardless of what weapon they're firing. Helsmen effectiveness is constant regardless of what thrusters they have to work with. Brackets provide the same hull boost regardless of the type of hull you have installed, etc., so I haven't added a new ship mod other than a mission/seasonal module in practically forever. My ship has long had an "LSB, but only arti based playstyle" where the only difference in the game is the early decision to be large to help me conquer more planets and get even more artis. The actual ship building aspect of the game is dying as most new ships are either resets or are advised to stay small and join an arti-based legion. You basically get to the point where you wonder why there are even modules other than scan and cloak (other than the fact that modules USED TO BE important in the early game...the resets have made even that aspect seem irrelevant). You inevitably question why you can't get rid of the modules and reclaim the decks and reduce your upkeep as they become a smaller and smaller percentage of your capability and as new modules get introduced with skyrocketing upkeeps. I really do think it's time for a re-imagining of ship builds or this game will simply fade away as people slowly lose interest. I still PVP, but only really get "excited" over the chance to steal a planet and get more artis. Side Note: One reason I PVP less as I ranked is I began to see only the same people a lot and, at least for me, I don't want to bother them "too often" just for stats sake so they don't end up abandoning the game and even further reducing the PVP pool.]

On the topic of damage caps, one thing that has always perplexed me is why the damage cap for bases remains stuck at 600 for every base over level 6. You would think that level 7, 8, 9, and 10 bases that are bigger would have larger damage caps, but no, and I've never understood why that is. If you employed the same model in PVP (fixed damage cap say at 4400 decks), it might encourage folks to build large ships again.

Changed the thread title to more accurately reflect the direction this discussion has taken.

Just want to note that Cuniculus uses yellows for its ability (3 of them...not much considering it's only 3 raids over a period of 30 hours).

whatever core solution which could lead to split like:
rank 1-200 -> currently filter for new players mainly due to PvP interaction experience and reset players.
rank 201-2200 -> common pool, pretty well filled with content
rank 2200+ -> less players, some new content, still should benefit form boost and make it appealing to play further

so much effort, positive and negative on forum, to get response from Dan.. result is the same.