some suggestions

[The-Joe]

The game needs players.

I see usually between 13 and 30 players online. Now that's not a good thing. Why is that so?
1. The game is rather complicated at start. New players have a hard time at the beginning and get discouraged.
2. Small players are not protected against bigger players since their planets and facilities are highly vulnerable
3. The graphics are a little old for today standards
4. Old players leave because they are frustrated or bored

What is it to do?
1. Place a few decent designs in the starting fleets for the new accounts. This way, new players may get to start the game without the designing phase required.  They will learn designing and choices later in the game. I would suggest some designs able to do encypts up to lvl2.
2. Planets  should be somehow protected against overwhelming odds. My suggestion would be to calculate cloaking for planets based on the difference in power of the attacking fleets. Is no mistake i propose cloaking planets by default up to a point. So a planet with 10 bill workers should be seen only by commanders with 50 bill worth of ships, or something like that. Researching subspace scanners should improve that but only up to a point. I would not apply the same principle on space stations since there is a already existing cloaking technology, and there is a real risk to have most systems blockaded by system fleets.
3. Old players may like the existing interface, new players may not. A change of interface could be done and leave the choice for the players to choose the interface.
4. Some optional graphics would be nice. A client program to the game may solve the problem. That program may increase the graphics aspects without heavily slowing the game by creating too much traffic. However i would leave the choice to the players. The game should be playable both by html as it is (low graphics) and using the client (better graphics).

I would really enjoy seeing 500-1000 players online.

[Spayed]

only thing i agree with is planetary restrictions... a 10 bill planet can take 1 trill marines to conquer, how do you prepose that somebody with ships worth 50 bill take that planet.

other suggestions are good.

[The-Joe]

10 bill workers - 50 bill was an example. Actually may be better to cloak all planets below 100 bill workers. That would prepare people to enter the "shark pool". After 100 bill... it's up 4 grabs.

[Renshaak]

I like Joe-RO's UI idea, but could understand where such a large undertaking may not be particularly feasible to Emi--at least not until more players are on.  One way to keep players would be through simple UI changes that make the play smoother / less tiresome.

Here are a number of tedious things that just suck time and make the game dull.  Technically, most would be pretty simple to implement.
= Mission Contracts: 
  - Add checkbox filters for Segs, Workers and Creds to the System screen (or a filter that impacts the system screen).  Few things are more tedious when grinding and not ready to collect segs than having two seg missions appearing forcing you to use the mission contracts page when you could one-click attack on the System view.
  - Add same filters to Mission Contracts so you could, for example, show workers and credits but not segs.
  - Show item payoffs for the missions that are in your system on the Mission Contracts page.
  - Add "System-only" to "Galaxy, Quadrant, Nearest" dropdown to show only those that can be accepted
= Ship Design:
  - Add cloning and editing of own fleets -- allows you to replicate your own designs rather than tediously rebuilding each
  - Create component packaging where multiple items could be bundled into one packet to add to your ship-- main use would be in higher Sships where you'll be adding the same shield and computer stacks to every design
= Stations and Planets
  - When (re)building stations/mining/planets place textboxes / updown controls next to each structure to enter the level to which to rebuild.  Some of us got carpal tunnel this round rebuilding 20 levels of replication and dozens of levels of various planet upgrades.
= Market:
  - Add two buttons, "Bid Minimum" and "Buy Now" and apply to all checked items
= View/Edit fleets
  - change radio/option buttons to checkboxes and allow selling multiple fleets at once (much in the way you can resupply multiple)
= Probes: 
  - Get rid of pinpointers and just let the multi's find them.  It's just plain dull to click scan over and over and over and over and over. 
  - OR if this is some mechanism to slow the few who can't get many pinpointers, add a "scan until __ found or __ probes used" option.


Some points in the game just ^@#@$ you off.  I'd rather have fewer Time Loops (not that I see many) and have them more likely pay off AND not have to click 70 times to get through them.  Same idea goes for others, too, but TL is THE WORST.


PvP is hurting the game.  At higher levels, it's very difficult to do much other than attack each other's planets.  Couple that with diminishing encounters--the top players get bored and drop off.  At lower levels, a few people are having fun wiping out many who then get frustrated and quit rather than filling the game.
= Ship resale:  Change so ships are resold through CHOAM or the Black Market.  CHOAM buys back as it is right now, except there's a chance that your ship will be recognized as an attacker and instead confiscated--perhaps even paying partial restitution to the attacked.  Black Market pays less but is no questions asked.  This evens PvP out at the lower levels.  To offset the higher levels' barriers to PvP, researching ship disguise / CHOAM payoffs or chop shops can allow full price resale through CHOAM with reduced likelihood of confiscation or Black Market Intimidation could improve the price that the black market will pay.
= Get rid of counters or make them effective.  Most every time you have a counter, the attacker has planned for that (wiped you out while offline and now has pships or sold his ships or self-nebbed/alliance-nebbed/friend-nebbed) or because you've been wiped out, you can't rebuild in time to use it.  Bounties are in a similar boat.  I've never been able to collect one (rarely even look for that reason) and when I was a noob got bountied so I stopped attacking--basically they drive off noobs from learning PvP and do nothing to the experienced aggressor.
= You're onto something with Planets, Joe-RO.  I don't have many ideas on how to fix it, but we saw this round that they are too indefensible.  You either have to befriend the top player or lose your planets and stations.  There needs to be more middle ground than one person dictating the entire game.
= Similar to planets, perhaps marine losses should be counted towards nebbing.  Right now a player who is many times more powerful can sell ships then just board you until you run out of money.
= Just like council protection, nebs should expire when the player attacks another.

[ebola8mystinkymonkey]

    I definitely feel like the senseless attack on noobs is dragging new people away from the game. I have referred two friends to the game and a few other people, and they all dropped out because within a few days of joining, they were attacked by someone. They just didn't get "into" the game. Perhaps there should be a grace period from when a noob starts out of 1 to 2 weeks, or are at least a level of achievement over 15 or 20 in level that will allow them to get interested in the game long enough to do get involved enough to play. I think it would be splendid to have more than 13 or 15 people playing. I certainly would like to see more than 100 people online if not more.

    Additionally, I also feel that the whole idea of attacking while nebbed sucks. It sucks that people are self-nebbing each other, or asking friends to do it for them. Why not remove the neb if you attack someone else? Granted there is a counter, but in most cases the other guy drops down in FP so that all you can really hit is a few pships and nothing more than that. It's a crappy way of playing the game and offers a dreadful imbalance. Perhaps the game should allow you to counter your enemy with the same fp he attacked you with - regardless of whether he powers down. That is, if I attack someone with 10 bill and then power down to 500 mil, when they counter - it is done with the same ships I had when I was at 10 bill. If they try to sell their ships after attacking a player, then make it a negative credit incentive if they do it. I.e., only give them 10-25% of their value so that they think twice about doing it. If I knew that selling my ships was only going to give me 10% of the credits I put into it after attacking someone 24 hours ago - I probably would stick to someone in my own general experience range.

    - I also feel that there should be some kind of limitation on the whole power down strategy. Perhaps fp is not enough to limit how powerful someone can be to attack. Should it perhaps be a combination of fp, gp, and level or experience?

     - I do like the idea of cloning and editing of own fleets ( and deleting your own fleets too )

     - A little automation with the build station level to: xx would be nice too.

     - A few optional graphics would be nice too.

     It's my 2nd round, and there is a LOT of competition with other games ( i.e., bullfleet ) which are all vying for our attention. Despite my loyalty - it would be nice to have an applet or something that would be a little nicer  with graphics ( with keyboard commands too ) or at least give us some skins to choose from.
     The game is great. I love it, and I love playing against others. I've told many people about the game, but I've come close to quitting a few times because of how frustrating it can be. I don't mind getting attacked at times, and I certainly welcome the competition. However, it all boils down to making the game friendly enough to allow more people to join and play. That way - there are more people in our general stature that we can pvp against and know that it;s a fair fight - without having someone who's 100bil fp go after someone who's 10 bill fp. In the end, if you're making some money off of this game from the donations - then you're going to swim in it if we get to a point where we have 100 - 1000 people playing. That would also enable you to jack up the jackpot to say $500 vs just $100... Once again - more players...

     I too would really enjoy seeing 500-1000 players online.

[Jan`go Vhett]

For the graphics it would be possible for Sir Emi to do something like Astro Empires.
They have under player options the ability to change where it looks for the Style Sheet.
So then player can have on on their hard drive that they could use to change how the game looks, introduce new images for the planets, stations, mining facilities, or whatever.
This also helps make the game run faster and would entirely take care of people problems with graphics.
Then players like Qualopec and Arretu could make some new images and get together with someone who can modify the original css, assuming they don't now how, and release new skins for SO here on the forums.

[TNTTony]

    In the end, if you're making some money off of this game from the donations - then you're going to swim in it if we get to a point where we have 100 - 1000 people playing. That would also enable you to jack up the jackpot to say $500 vs just $100... Once again - more players...

     I too would really enjoy seeing 500-1000 players online.

I really like this post ebola. Many developers forget that in order to attract players and in order to make money from games...you must first spend money. If Emi spend some time and money making some decent changes to attract players, this will only give him a better income stream. More players = more income for emi.

[The-Joe]

Last round i saw a fresh batch of new players, now none of them is active. Two of them said to me they were donating 20-30 usd a week. Now, none of them is active. That means they lost interest.

[blakranger51]

These suggestions look great! Take note, E, these are some good things that would be great to implement soon.

[SirEmi]

Some very interesting ideas.

I agree that new players should be more protected as they advance in the game. They should get the chance to learn the game without being zeroed on their fleets. We could make it so they get two weeks of protection from remote / bounty attacks, and also modify the protection system by making it a combination of fleet power / commander level to determine if the other player is range.

[Spayed]

any attack restrictions on the top players, or planets for that matter will not get any support from me, we have hardly any pvp as it is.

i agree that there should be some help and protection for new players, but that shouldnt translate into restricting attacks for other players.

[TNTTony]

I would add that newbie protection will be cancelled if they attack people...and how about one week? Two weeks is a long time in SO.

Also, I don't mind attack restrictions...but not for people in Top 30. Top 30 should be fair game.

[Spayed]

it would have to be the top 30 in total power. because somebody can have a massive planet but no normal power so it wouldnt be good to give him protection.

[Saturn 7]

Yeah I agree with Tony on that, as soon as they make an attack their protection goes. And top 30 shouldn't get protection either, if thats not possible to implement, then maybe over a certain amount of total fire-power.
As an extra idea about newbie protection.... how about each new account gets a one off chance to have one station super shield that will last 1 week. This is mainly for new accounts that start later in a round, this will give them a chance to have a station last more than a few days. This super shield will give one station immunity from attack for that week.
This should only be given once when they first join, not each round.

[Spayed]

haha we werent talking about giving the top 30 the protection, just that there should be no galaxy attack restrictions for the top 30 people because anybody in the top 30 should be able to defend themselfs