Forum - Space Odyssey MMORPG - a massive free online space game

The project objective is to diversify and make the PvP battles more interesting and unpredictable, while lending a hand in the PvE battles.
Tactics, battle tactics with the fleet commanders. The idea is to assign fleet commanders to your fleets if you want / have them, making the battle more interesting.

What are fleet commanders? Well they are special people you find / hire or meet. They specialize in all sorts of combat stuff, while lacking other stuff :) Basically they give a bonus to something while in the same time taking a penalty on something else...

For example, a Marine Boarding specialist may give 5% bonus to hitpoints and 1% to marine power while decreasing the attack by 5% all per level. Also, on certain levels they gain certain abilities, like something to disrupt the shield absorbsion of the enemy fleet he is fighting, or to reduce their accuracy, or attack  :))

Of course the battle report will detail all kinds of stuff the fleet commanders did in the battle, making it more interesting to read...

Anyway, these are the project details:

Fleet Commanders
 -> Can be hired at the market (lvl 1-10), found in rare encounter (lvl 1)
 -> specializes in one area while reducing another
 -> each level increases bonus / penalty
 -> special abilities with certain levels (like decreasing enemy stuff, attack, accuracy, absorb etc)
 -> gain exp in battles (100.000 exp for each level.  10 exp for lost battle, 35 exp for won battle)


If you wish, please suggest here any fleet commanders you may want to be introduced, like so:

Name: Will be randomly selected from cool names :)

Example

Specialty: Marine Veteran
Bonus / penalty / level: +5% to fleet hitpoints, 1% for marines power, -5% to fleet attack
Special Abilities (when this fleet is attacking or is attacked. Penalty goes to the paired enemy fleet):
   -> Level:5    Name:Evade        Action: -20% to target attack
   -> Level:10   Name:Penetrate   Action: reduce target shields by 1/4 (note: reducing their shields will make their marines more vulnerable, because ship shields are also the marines personal shield level)
   -> Level:20   Name:Disable      Action: Disable the enemy weapons :)) ( note: at this level you would have a -100% attack penalty, that means 0 attack so the enemy should too :))

sounds great
but are fleet commanders going to be one time use? or will they be 'reusable?'

When the fleet with the commander is destroyed, we are thinking the commander has a 75% chance to escape with a pod, if he escapes, there is another (20%-level) of being captured by the enemy if enemy is another player, and there will be a technology "escape pods" that will improve the chance of the commander escaping by 5% per level, maxing at 75% + 25% = 100% = level 5...

So if he escaped, you can assign him to another fleet, if he was captured then the enemy will braiwash and use him...

 :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow:

any ETA for this update?

and what if i sell my fleet? what happens to commander for that fleet?

what wil be the cost of hiring commanders? will it be incresing as game progresses or will it be related to something or static?

also there should be a limit on how many commanders you can have+ how many commanders you can hire in 24hrs and an ability to kill.. um i mean fire them when they are inferior to a new available (afordable) commander :)

and heres my go for the commander :D

Specialty: Gunner (can be made rookie/experienced/veteran and so on by changing bonuses)
Bonus / penalty / level: +2% to fleet attack, +1 to accuracy, -1% from fleets hp
Special Abilities (when this fleet is attacking or is attacked. Penalty goes to the paired enemy fleet):
   -> Level:5    Name:Fast shooting        Action: 10% attack bonus
   -> Level:10   Name:Sniper   Action: 20% accuracy boost (works like an item- commander ability adds a whole point to accuracy)
   -> Level:20   Name:Gun master      Action: has 50% chance to do double damage(if chance thing is posibble to code-ifnot then just double damage)

 :wow: this sounds great :wow:... any idea when testing will start and when it will go onto the main server?

ETA I would say two weeks, please suggest commanders and abilities to make it faster :)

You will have something like a commander pool, kind of like the Your Commander screen, but listing the fleet commander abilities / level / etc, and their pic of course, we will have specially designed pics for each of them...

If you sell the fleet he is commanding he won't be affected, you can assign him to another fleet, it's like assigning generals to command regiments, you can re-assign or un-assign them at any time...

Cost to hire: This one is simple, a minimum price based on the fleet commander level, and auction, so maximum price will be set by the players that overbid each other to hire him... new category in marketplace to hire them, and they come there to be hired.

In the fleet commanders pool area, you will be able to dismiss them if necesary, however you can have multiple Gunners or Boarders, but their level will be different, so if you lose one, you could replace him if you have more, or make more fleets, like if I have 10 boarder commanders I could make a boarding Armada... imagine 10 fleets each with a lvl 20 Boarding commander  :wow:

Your Gunner commander sounds good, it can be coded, but probably change the special ability to affect the target, e.g. -20 % acc to enemy/ 50% change the enemy does 1/2 damage... :)

Not sure this update will be better for the game. Sounds like your going to make it impossible to defend ..........

Some questions anyway. :-)

How will bonuses from Fleet Commanders interact with bonuses from CP and Mods ?

ACC = ACC * (1 + CP + Mods + FleetCommander) ?

Is it possible to have Fleet Commanders effect %'s from the Tech Tree, such as Warping Away/Preventing Warp, Scanning/Cloaking, Warp Travel, etc etc.

Is it possible for us to name our own Fleet Commanders ?

Well the fleet commanders should not have a big impact on the battle as it is now, just add some tactics by giving  a bonus and taking a penalty... We will balance to not be invincible or too powerful... you see I like to board, maybe other do too, so why not focus more on boarding by boosting my fleet for boarding with a boarding commaner. It's a way to force the opponent to fight on your own grounds... something like that.
Other may want to focus more on attack and accuracy, but have weaker ship hulls and defenses...


Yes, something like that.


We are focusing on the battle fleet commanders at this time, maybe for the future.


I don't see why not...

how will it affect CP mods and motherships mods because take the example you gave

so say i put 5% in attack mods would this cancel out that penelty because it would make ship mods a lot easier to get because if you can get a lvl 20 commander you have doubled the power of your ship by only 1 commander and mods in attack


also can you use commanders in missions

Your Marine Veteran will break the game in so many ways it's not funny.

Can we not have these on the War Server ? :-)

that thought occured to me too, but id rather learn a bit more before i agree with you.

I totaly dislike this idea, it will unbalance, people will get an attack commander on kamikazi fleets which have already 0 HP.

Against swarmers gettin 20% less acc means they will get below 0% accuracy.

You cant ever defend anymore as you dont want to keep commanders on your ships when you log off and people can use the commander they want. Giving the attacker huge bonusses.

Especialy a 50% change to, all changes to...... are bad, this is a strategie game, if I wanna gamble I'll go play poker.

If you want to give your ship 2% more attack and you get 2% less HP for that, you can just redesign your ship right?

Disable enemy weapons is insane. I will put it on my brand new kamikazi ships with 0 HP and I will just wipe people without the chance of getting hit ever. Especialy on a marine bonus ship it means enemy ships cant harm you with guns, and their shields get reduced making them unable to keep 80% and you get a bonus to marines. Sounds to me like immortal ships......

As the example of the swarmers getting below 0% accuracy, if you can reduce something from your enemy it will automaticly ruin the game as you cant defend against it. Imagen I get a nice high lvl cdr and I'm gonna tease the low midrange players with lvl 20 commanders, they wont stand a chance.

Especialy when you know someones location in galaxy you can keep attacking them till you drained all items, and you will get a view of his commanders, without leaving a counter, so then you can use items and a commander to give you a double bonus.

In my opinion a very bad idea.

Correct me I am wrong, but the Disable weapons ability comes just as you hit -100% attack, that means, you get exactly 0 attack = 0 damage on your kamikaze ships... and remember the disable weapons applies only the the fleet your commander fleet attacks or is attacked by.

The Gunner is not balanced correctly I agree, the bonus should be equal to the penalty, I personally think this could make the combat more interesting... if I can just find the right commanders and abilities...

And of course the fleet commander mortality rate could be increased to let's say 50% if the fleet he is commanding is destroyed and cap the  escape pod tech to 25%, now assign a Gunner to a kamikaze ship and see how many battles he survived... maybe the defender gets to capture him and use him against you  :))

Please explain how it will break it, also please note that the Marine Veteran will not affect any fleets he does not come into contact. His decreased attack ability etc does not affect the fleet the entire battle, e.g. if a 1000 attack fleet attacks him, it gets the -20% to attack, etc., however if the same fleet gets attacked in the same battle by another fleet it does not get that penalty... so once again the fleet commander ability does not incapacitate the paired ship, it only works when the fleet commanded fleet attacks or is attacked, it's not like the items that affect the stats at the start of the battle, but rather during the battle...

He affects the fleets he gets into contact with, but not permanently, the other fleets can't take advatage of it... he just makes the other fleet fight like he wants to... with transporters.

There will probably be extensive test server done by me and others before we will implement the fleet commanders to any server...

I'm not one to give away trade secrets. I'm sure the other strategic players out there see the potential for ruin. Commanders are a fun idea however, but I wouldn't make them as powerful as you are suggesting. I think +/- 1% per Fleet Commander level would be more in line with the game progression thus far. Allowing variables in any given formula to be set to 0% by the opponent is bad.

And keep the Commander Level cap at 20.

Fleet commander battle report test (boarding commander lvl 20)
Attached (commanded) to commanded fleet for identification.

Test report for Thr Command Project => understanding how it will work / balance.

Invader g (#5)

Engaged Units
Fleet Name                   # of Units    Attack          Defence       Hitpoints
Xander V.23 (commanded)    12        0+             0+       6.488.786.062
Xander V.23                      12    1.361.649.499+    0+    3.244.393.031
Xander V.23                      12    1.361.649.499+    0+    3.244.393.031
Xander V.23                      11    1.361.406.866+    0+    3.240.397.473
Xander V.23                      8    1.360.678.972+    0+    3.228.410.799


Defender Unidentified Fleet (#)


Engaged Units
Fleet Name    # of Units    Attack    Defence    Hitpoints
Sea's Serpent MK 12    1.053    381.338+    0+    1.131
Areabots Of Venus MK 4    9.927    49.926+    0+    5.457

Our long range scanners report 5,245,857 enemy fleet power!


Engage

Fleet commander Benjamin Franklin is commanding Xander V.23 (commanded).

Assault Note


g(#5)'s Xander V.23 (commanded) fleet engaged Unidentified Fleet(#)'s Sea's Serpent MK 12 fleet on the battlefield.
=> Fleet commander Benjamin Franklin evaded some of the enemy damage... <=
=> Fleet commander Benjamin Franklin penetrated the enemy shields... <=
=> Fleet commander Benjamin Franklin disabled the enemy weapons... <=

The fleet Xander V.23 (commanded) did 0 damage to fleet Sea's Serpent MK 12.
g(#5)'s Xander V.23 (commanded) attack failed.
The fleet Sea's Serpent MK 12 did 0 damage to fleet Xander V.23 (commanded).
Unidentified Fleet(#)'s Sea's Serpent MK 12 attack failed.

Transporter stuff in boarding... let's say it didnt make it...

g(#5)'s Xander V.23 fleet engaged Unidentified Fleet(#)'s Areabots Of Venus MK 4 fleet on the battlefield.
The fleet Xander V.23 did 54.171.639 damage to fleet Areabots Of Venus MK 4.
g(#5)'s Xander V.23 fleet destroyed 9.927 of Unidentified Fleet(#)'s Areabots Of Venus MK 4 fleet.
The fleet Areabots Of Venus MK 4 did 35.684.309 damage to fleet Xander V.23.
Unidentified Fleet(#)'s Areabots Of Venus MK 4 attack failed.

Note: Third fleet attacks first enemy fleet and destroyed it. First enemy fleet is unaffected by the first attack on the commanded fleet, however it does suffer a penalty to accuracy because of second shot.

g(#5)'s Xander V.23 fleet engaged Unidentified Fleet(#)'s Sea's Serpent MK 12 fleet on the battlefield.
The fleet Xander V.23 did 1.190.943 damage to fleet Sea's Serpent MK 12.
g(#5)'s Xander V.23 fleet destroyed 1.053 of Unidentified Fleet(#)'s Sea's Serpent MK 12 fleet.
The fleet Sea's Serpent MK 12 did 7.227.881 damage to fleet Xander V.23.
Unidentified Fleet(#)'s Sea's Serpent MK 12 attack failed.


Compliments to the designers of Xander V.23  :)
Tributes to Benjamin Franklin on his birthday on 17 January  :)

Then private message me on the forum with the trade secrets, I won't tell I promise  :19:  :lock:  :lightbulb:

Unless I read it wrong you said that you could have 2 marine commanders in one fleet would that also include the ability to use 2 differnt types of commanders on a fleet like 1 marine and 1 acu ?
Also i think if you are going to do this the cap on commander abilities should be a little lower otherwise it will be the superfleet problem but even worse. And if i were to design a ship with 99% abs would that counteract part of the commander ability used against me by 19% ? Lastly please let us use the test server to try this at least a month before you go live with it to find problems and to really see if it upsets the game bad.

hmmm i dont know about this idea it will need to be balanced and needs about a month of testing.

the boarding commander needs a big tweek i think if i get my hands on a few of those i will be the fox with a glock in the hen house waiting for the farmer 2 show up.

i will wait for the complete list of commanders you can buy before i can give anymore comments.

how about instead of directly affecting your opponents ships, just affecting your opponents bonuses? commander, mothership, and item

they could take off a percentage of that, or simply negate all bonuses your and you enemy's for the battle.

ehh then you never know what your going to get. also, it makes zero sense to have a commander modify the enemy ship in any way. they control their ships, not the enemy's. idk how it will be possible to balance all of these bonuses in such a way that everyone will be happy so instead i propose commanders yield special abilities that players may choose between before or durring each battle which are gained at predetermined levels such as 1, 5, 10 and 20 with the only constant bonus being something like +1-3%/lvl to the commander's chance to escape. an example set of abilities in corresponding order for the marine commander would be: Med-Evac, Proximity Jump, Spec Op and Combined Assault

Med-Evac = -X% to casualties weather commander is attacking or defending (default defense action)

Proximity Jump = X% chance to warp in directly next to target fleet and board before first combat round and if failed has Y% chance to mis the combat altogether and Z% chance to somehow take extra damage

Spec Op = X% chance to go completely undetected for the combat duration (undetected = not getting shot at) but suffers a Y% penalty to number of marines in boarding party which increases with ship size

Combined Assault = the ability to focus the boarding parties of the commanded ship after the first round of normal combat onto w/e fleet the player chooses (note that this ability would require the player to choose before the final combat resolution)

some alternative abilities are:

Second Wave = an offensive ability that allows a ship to send an additional wave of boarders after the initial standard combat. the second party suffers penalties so size because it now draws from a smaller pool of marines and also suffers an X% additional decrease in size because of moral/logistics. (note that if the ship was captured/destroyed in the first go, the second wave would target the next logical target that ship would otherwise engage)

Counter Offensive = another defensive marine ability which would allow any defending fleet which has been boarded X% chance to launch its own boarding party after a successful defense (note that this definitely mixes things up for attackers that previously never had to worry about their ships being captured in a boarding action)

Fighter Pods = marines are deployed in small armed insertion pods that double as missiles doing damage at 100% acu = to the number of marines deployed before boarding their target (note that this damage may destroy the fleet in which case X% of marines are recovered)

*Note* none of these ideas are refined or tested but i think that for the most part they provide a healthy solution to avoid giving players ridiculous % bonuses and penalties plus they mix things up and add additional strategic elements (which, unless i'm mistaken, is emi's goal). idk, lemme know if any of u guys like this idea, i've got plenty more where these came from.

Emi I would just get that commander on a strong ship keep hitting very weak encrypts till I have a decent lvl (when ships turn immortal) and I will have an immortal fleet........

And doing this will just ruin the entire thought of getting rid of the need of grinding, as only by grinding you can train your commander.

When you make a boarder with no attack and accuracy (the real boarders) no matter how much acu or attack you gonna drain it wont have any effect.

Still against this. Worst update so far in my eye's

i didn't really understand the first part, but about the thing of a boarder with no atk, acc. maybe a ship has to have them, like for ever 1 bil atk, u gain equal hp + X%, X being the commander level. that way in order to use the bonuses, u cant just design a pure boarder.

right... well i guess my ideas weren't a big hit. w/e i'm happy as long as things get "spiced up"

this is directed at anyone that thinks that commanders will unbalance things :)



to get your commander youll have to do (20*100.000)/35=57.143

and this is only if u win every single mission

if it takes about 6-7 seconds for a single contract it will take you lots of time to get a single commander to lvl20- and if u want to get more than one to lvl20 youll have a few weeks of grinding on your hands

now back to my gunner :D
i know it seems hes a bit overpowered or something but i think it could be posibble to produce more commanders by using the same name

for example :

Rookie Gunner
Bonus / penalty / level: +0.25% to fleet attack, +0.25 to accuracy, -0.25% from fleets hp
Special Abilities (when this fleet is attacking or is attacked. Penalty goes to the paired enemy fleet):
   -> Level:5    Name:Fast shooting(rookie)        Action: 2% attack bonus
   -> Level:10   Name:Sniper(rookie)   Action: 4% accuracy boost
   -> Level:20   Name:Gun mastery(rookie)      Action: has 25% chance to do 1.5x damage

Experienced Gunner
Bonus / penalty / level: +0.5% to fleet attack, +0.5 to accuracy, -0.5% from fleets hp
Special Abilities (when this fleet is attacking or is attacked. Penalty goes to the paired enemy fleet):
   -> Level:5    Name:Fast shooting (Experienced)       Action: 4% attack bonus
   -> Level:10   Name:Sniper (Experienced)  Action: 6% accuracy boost
   -> Level:20   Name:Gun mastery (Experienced)     Action: has 50% chance to do 1.5x damage

Veteran Gunner
Bonus / penalty / level: +1% to fleet attack, +1 to accuracy, -1% from fleets hp
Special Abilities (when this fleet is attacking or is attacked. Penalty goes to the paired enemy fleet):
   -> Level:5    Name:Fast shooting (Veteran)       Action: 6% attack bonus
   -> Level:10   Name:Sniper (Veteran)  Action: 8% accuracy boost
   -> Level:20   Name:Gun mastery (Veteran)      Action: has 25% chance to do double damage

Elite Gunner
Bonus / penalty / level: +1.5% to fleet attack, +1.5 to accuracy, -1.5% from fleets hp
Special Abilities (when this fleet is attacking or is attacked. Penalty goes to the paired enemy fleet):
   -> Level:5    Name:Fast shooting (Elite)        Action: 8% attack bonus
   -> Level:10   Name:Sniper (Elite)   Action: 10% accuracy boost
   -> Level:20   Name:Gun master (Elite)     Action: has 50% chance to do double damage

i admit the bonus/penalty values could use a bit more tweaking- but this was only meant as an example of what could be done with a single blueprint for a commander :)

oh and the more experienced commander the bigger the starting bid - as in rookie starts at lets say 50mill, experienced at 150mill, veteran at 300mill and elite at 500mill(only an example) :D

I did the math al3xazz. There is no thinking involved, Fleet Commanders as postulated above would be a complete disaster. As a side note, what do you mean, 'only if you win every single mission' ??? People fail missions ? Odd ... but ok.

We introduced the Mission Multiplier so people would not have to sit at the computer for 5 hours a day mindlessly grinding missions to stay competitive. Now you want to introduce a mechanic that makes people have to do that .... Not a good idea.

If you based Fleet Commander XP on time rather than missions it would be better.

I'd even consider dropping the adv/disadvantage Fleet Commanders can give to a max +/- 10% on any one stat. So your looking at 0.05% per level.

oops- my bad

my suggestions go only towards the main server- and it would be quite teribble to add comanders that can give huge advantage for a player on wars- and yes i agree with Tzarkoth that on wars server commander xp shouldnt depend on completing missions- it should be more like xp gain for players- a set ammount every day- then players will just have to keep their commanders around long enough to get them to lvl20 (lets say 10k exp per day- that means lvl20 will be reached in 200days) :)

nice, alex. i think 200 days will work for the wars server.

and i think this would make things interesting. i dont see how it would mess up the game in the long run or "ruin the game"... ^_^ i just click the button that says attack, and occasionally use items, with high percentages...

Specialty: Energy Physicist
Bonus / penalty / level: -5% Travel-Time Turns, -1.5% Accuracy, -1.5% Marines from everything besides the Marine System
Special Abilities:
   -> Level:5    Name:Super Lubricant        Action: There is no reduction for specific attack (Regular, Board, Scout, Raid)
   -> Level:10   Name:Upgrade                 Action: Your Shields are boosted 5%
   -> Level:20   Name:100% Efficiency      Action: No reduction for multiple fleet attacks. No turns are used to travel about the galaxy. Sadly you lose 30% of your accuracy, because the "Engine's efficiency is key" according to Le Franz.

Last commander will be put on a decoy to get rid of the penalty's bad idea

You can only have one fleet commander commanding a fleet, so if you use 10 fleets you can have up to 10 FC on a battle.
But in the fleet commander mess hall, or the FC pool you can have more specialists of the same profession to choose from...

I belive that with some hard testing and balancing we can avoid immortal fleets  :))

Hm, let's see the exp... 20 levels * 100.000 exp / 35 exp = 57.142 battles at let's say 10 turns to find / do a battle... 570.142 turns / 1440 turns a day... ug... 395 days... well you can do battle with 10 commanders, that makes it faster and of course get more exp to them with mission multiplier... or
you also use turns to train your commanders... 1 turn trains 15 exp to one fleet commander... use 133.333 turns and you have a lvl 20...

I don't see any problems with FC really, it's worth a try it could make combat way more interesting, we can make them die like ants or be super heroes, it's up to us :)

"that makes it faster and of course get more exp to them with mission multiplier... "
does this mean the multiplier is going to be on SO also by next round ?

The higher your encryption level the more missions you can do for 1 Turn. Say it costs on average 10 turns to fly to a new system, then you can do 10 - 100 missions at that sector. That is anywhere from 1 to 5 turns per mission. Let's call it 2 ... I can average a 750 Missions per day.  Factor in bonus turns from voting, Encounters and items ... So in less than 3 months, possibly 2 months, my FC's will be all level 20. People with less encrypt will be slower, people with more faster.

Now at lvl 20, I have a Fleet Commander that can ZERO someones atk. If said defender has swarmers out front, then I can just use a mission ship to board their fleets and steel/destroy all of them with ZERO chance of failure. Ergo Swarmers become useless. You can't defend with Swarmers, you have to defend with Mission ships, and we all know Swarmers eat Mission ships for breakfast. So unreserve Swarmers to kill anyone you like, then reserve at end of the day to keep them from being destroyed.

Cannot defend with Swarmers, cannot defend with Mission ships ... Cannot defend at all .. Cannot defend, no use in growing, no use in growing equals no use in playing.

That is one specific example of the hundreds of ways in which FC's as they stand will be bad for the game.

Also, if you put in FC's, in 2 months I'll have advantages 5 - 20 times more effective than the bonuses I have slaved over the last 6 months to generate. It'd be ok on SO Main I guess to completely rewrite the game mechanics, cause it resets every couple of months .. But on SO Wars it aint going to be fair no matter which way you look at it.

If the bonuses were capped in the 10 - 20% range then that would extreme, but ok .. Better to cap em in the 5-10% range.

Better yet to not base growth on clicks/hour ... Better yet to reduce number of necessary clicks per day  ... So .. all in all .. Still not happy with FC's as they stand, the whole mechanic and idea needs to be revamped imo.

wow i actually understood that and i dont like the sound of no defense at all

Well - your kind of stealing my ideas here, as Im in process of writing a game and my commanders are fairly central to it :P  But I think Ill probably use a Medieval genre to start .. so I can share a bit I guess.

This is a good concept, the detail presented wont work, but its only a first pass .. so dont feel bad Emi, man if I had a dollar for everytime Tz has shot down my ideas before they were half formed :P

However, a rose isnt just a thorny stick - so yeah, theres issues here, mainly in the detail - but I generally like the concept.

Theres also a bunch of stuff in the concept that I think may be a problem, and I dont think any amount of tinkering with the details will resolve the issues.

1.  You cant really allow zero's, so modifiers should be multiplication not addition and subtracion.  You work with code, so you know theres a d**n good reason why you want to avoid zeros in code - also from a game mechanics point of view - zero's are ALWAYS bad. Also 100% is a 1, and that can be a problem in some cases as well - cant see anything specific - but its better to avoid 100%

2. Modifiers need to be within a reasonable limit.  Id suggest you dont want to allow commander mods to get as high as 100%.  Id suggest +/-10 to 20% is more than enough.  A commander who can give +20% is a pretty handy item for sure.

3. I dont really see any reason to have a penalty from the commanders.  A lot of adjustments can probably be designed out the ships they are on easily - making it a waste of time.  You want to make the commanders a useful commodity - and penalties just confuse the issue, possibly making some commanders less than worthless.  Balancing is also difficult if you introduce penalties.

4. XP - lets not re-visit the clicking / grinding pls.  Commander xp accumulated over time is far more satisfactory - that way the longer you can keep your commander alive the more use he will be.  Also players will all be in the same boat, new and old - no-one gets an advantage.

5.  The special abilities I like a lot - but balancing different abilities against each other is going to be very difficult.  I think its worth the trouble though - but you may not find everything out by play testing it for a month - when its live youll probably have to go in and adjust it again - obviously players dont usually like that - but if you want interesting abilities then your unlikely to sort it all out quickly - theres likely to be some way to exploit something that takes a long while to figure out.

THis is all the general stuff I think - Ill make a separate post to suggest some details.

Emi, as youve presented it commanders will have two sets of modifiers, one set of permanent modifiers and one set of activated special abilities (Im assuming when you log off you can chose a default action for your commander).

As far as permanent bonuses are concerned, theres only really three combat abilities to chose from, attack, hit points and marines. 

The problem with accuracy and absorb is that they are absolutes, they have a discreet range between 0 and 100% - well 0 and 80% for absorb, adjusting them is always going to be messy and may result in unexpected issues ..

So attack, hit points and marines are all nice linear open ended values, good to apply modifiers to.

Id suggest commanders increase 3% in bonuses per 2 levels, this gives you a wide range of commander permanent bonuses.

Artilliary Commander  +3% Attack
Armour Commander +3% Hit Points
Marine Commander +3% Marines

Then you get a bunch of subsets;

Infantry Commander +1% attack, +2% marines
Tank Commander +1% attack, +2% hit points
Assualt Commander +1% marines, +2% attack
Mechanized Commander +1% marines, +2% hit points
Wing Commander +1% hit points, +2% attack
Stormtrooper Commander +1% hit points, +2% marines
Special Forces Commander +1% attack, +1% marines, +1% hit points

Special abilities that affect enemy ships can be ok, just need to make sure they arent over the top.

Marine Commander Abilities (any Commander with 1% or more marines bonus);

Lvl 5 - Evac Wounded: Reduce your marine casulties by 1% per commander level.
Lvl 10 - Extreme Prejudice: Increase the casulties of enemy marines by 1% per commander lvl.
Lvl 20 - Take Prisoners:  Capture 1% per commander level of the remaining enemy marines, this happens after combat is resolved.


Artilliary Commander abilities;

Lvl 5 - Concentrated Fire:  This fleet attacks position one of the enemy fleet with 1% per commander level of its attack power.  The remaining attack power is directed at the opposing fleet in this position.
Lvl 10 - First Fire:  Your ship fires first on the enemy ship(s) with 1% per commander level of your attack power.  Destroyed ships are removed.  Then a second round of combat ensues, where the remaining enemy return fire, and you return fire with your remaining attack power.
Lvl 20 - Scattering Fire:  Your fleet fires on all enemy fleets with 1% per commander level of its attack power.  Only one fleet in an armada may use scattering fire.


Armour Commander abilities;

Lvl 5 - Interception:  The enemy fleet in positon one fires on this fleet with 1% per commander level of its attack power, the remaining attack power is directed at the correct target.
Lvl 10 - Defensive Perimeter: The opposing enemy fleet divides 1% per commander level of its attack power evenly across your other fleets, the remainder is directed at this fleet.
Lvl 20 - Defensive Support:  The enemy fleet immediately above this fleet applies 1% per commander level of its attack power to this fleet, but that attack power is then halved, its remaining attack power is directed at the correct target.

Anyhow - some ideas.

Lvl 5 and lvl 20 bonus make the enemy ships fire an additional shot at this fleet and lvl 10 divides the attack vs this fleet. Doesnt look that usefull :P

personally i think that we should stay away from % bonuses and modifiers altogether, but if they are to be used, they should all be positive and extremely minor. essentially, if they give bonuses, the commanders are glorified items and their bonuses should reflect as much or be taken in an entirely new direction. one new direction is unique abilities (i listed a few examples earlier).

*note* a special ability is not just another % bonus, it is something that alters the normal game dynamic for example flipping hp and atk, taking marines prisoner, retreating from battle, firing before combat etc

The enemy fleet doesnt get "an additional shot" basically its attack power is divided between more targets.  WIth up to 20% of its attack being redirected as the defender choses.

If anything these abilities are a bit over powered.

Heres an example;

Your fleet set up is as follows;

Swarmers (Armour Commander) - Defensive perimeter (reduce dmg vs this fleet by up to 20%)
Swarmers (Artilliary Commander) - Concentrated Fire (attack enemy position 1 with extra fire power)
Big HP Boat (Armour Commander) - Defensive Support (reduce dmg vs your 2nd swarmers by up to 20%)
Big HP Boat (Armour Commander) - Interception (take up to 20% of enemy fleet ones firepower)

In this example, up to 40% of your opponents attack power from their position one fleet is redirected - minimising your swarmer losses.  Your second swarmer rank has damage vs them reduced by up to 20%, and your position one swarmer attack value is boosted up to 20%.

They are pretty good abilities, Im not sure if your just having a joke or not - each ability reduces the attack power of a specific enemy fleet by up to 20% - the attack power is actually redirected though, rather than being ignored. 

I can definitely say I woud have a use for this guy - distributing some of my enemies fire power how I want is a nifty ability.

i think the fleet commander is a great idea but i don't think they should carry a penalty. thats just silly. when my brother goes out on a patrol he definatly gives them a bonus for range and accuracy, and he sure doesn't inflict a penalty on his own people. i have no clue why anyone would think that a specialist or "expert" in a particular area is going to inflict penalties. also i think the weakest bonus should be 5% and go up from there. :sniper:


                                                                                                 :spider2:

hey what about a custom commander option? sorta like the ship builder but for commander bonuses and abilities then emi can start small and just keep adding abilities for people to mix and match. players can use fleet commander points (fcp) to buy different abilities at different values or they could choose one for each level slot. an alternative for balancing could be that better commanders level at slower rates or cost a ridiculous amount more. as for wether or not this feature would unbalance things, the ability/bonus pricing would be done in such a way that things would be fair.

*note* it would also be possible to take negative modifiers in exchange for other bonuses to represent years of the commander's training/childhood spent elsewhere. a simple real world example of this would be dropping math in high school in order to take additional music courses (while these have little so combat application, u can get the basic idea).

(200'th post)

This idea sounds great but needs tweaking. 
I think bonuses should max at 30-50%.  Items max at roughly 35 and the commander would be a glorified item that is permanent.  As for XP gain, perhaps they could gain xp while you are offline as well to give the less active players a chance.  Say, 1xp/10 mins (96/day) 
I wouldn't mind seeing some other abilities as well.
Scavenger - Recieve 2X Items from missions.
Bounty Hunter - Recieve 2X Bounty Hunter Award.
Scholar - Gain XP faster
Tactical Commander - Increase swarm bonus
Drill Sergeant - A percent of rescued workers from Endangered Planet Missions become Marines for free.
Shipwright - Gives a discount on un-reserving fleets.

I also like the idea of building commanders.  And get rid of the penalties.  Just make the bonus lower.

i like those ideas prophet, but the more swarm bonus, if maxed at 3-50% like u said, would completely unbalance everything. then u could get 8k ships that are supers and they would be unbeatable.

bump  :P  when is this going to happen?

With some luck when the current round is done :12:

Commanders and governors and other npc's should be used on planets and space stations. As an example, a "drill freak" commander should give a 1-2% bonus on planet ground combat. A "Fighter Ace" Commander should give bonus to space station fighters and so on.

yea i agree with the 20 cap how would this commander sound
Name/type sharpshooter
commander level 1 acc bonus 5%     -2%damage
commander level 5 acc bonus 10%   -5%damage
commander level 10 acc bonus 16%  -7%damage
commander level 15 acc bonus 21%  -10%damage

wouldnt be very effective... since most supers have maxed accuracy

yea but then u would use it in a fleet that doesnt have maxed accuracy

acc bonus 21%  -10%damage

but the -10% damage would basically mean the ship has 11% accu  :confused:

its pointless... just use an accuracy item

yea but the item goes away after a wile or does it

use it once... but items can be found anywhere.

I'd rather use an acc item and get myself a better commander with marine bonuses  :12:

thats ur oppion

heh, maybe its just server differences... in WARS boarding is the most common attack type. There would be almost no use to an accuracy item, but like you said, its my oppinion.

ok...seeing as how the proposal for this was from like 8 months ago, im starting to doubt if its gonna happen...