Deathmonger

Yes I know decoy hides it. I was thinking more of something that deliberately provides false information to the other vulcher, to lure them into attacking and then they get surprised. That would be amusing and might discourage vulching. Maybe decoy could have this feature instead of just hiding the energy to Arnk's point. Let's say we were to morph the decoy/port module into something more of an Illusion Projector. Here are some ideas: - A fake coffin generator. Looks just like a coffin field, but doesn't do any damage - Fake or mini cobalt dropper - Fake bricks

Energy scanner is a tool used by vulchers to attack people when their energy is low. It has no counter. So. here's an idea for a new emitter item: Energy Scrambler Emitter Instead of displaying the normal recharge energy, this is replaced by a number that counts up from 1 to 200 and then cycles back. This makes the target always appear as though it is "in the red" energy-wise, but it actually may be at full strength. Vulchers will now find themselves attacking someone with this device and be very sorry. A simpler implementation of this might be to just show full energy all the time. Anyway , the idea is to deceive energy scanner users.

This thread will be studied thousands of years from now in ethics classes.

lotion

This thread fails for failing to account for damage/energy cost. If you don't deal with that, the above chart would suggest that Giga is a good gun, when in fact it is an energy pig.

I likes my bases like I likes my women.

There are few people left who remember how fun HS balling was around 2004-2005, but it was.

Put a ball goal in center please.

B6 is the best base here. Use that + B5 and B7 from that 2007 map in your other thread.

If there was an addon with consumables that you could use to spawn them onto your own team, it would be cool, especially in base. Either AI ships or autoturrets for defenders.

The only other thing you could do is lock the spec freq when you lock all the other freqs. I think the real problem is the jp calculation which doesn't seem to make sense. If there was a bigger reward for the smaller freq holding out you'd have less hopping. Right now people just try to get on the winning team because it doesn't seem to make much jackpot difference if you win against a larger freq.

When the last flag is picked up but before locking the freq, get the other team's total exp. Sort the winning team's players in lowest-exp-first order, and switch players to the other freq until their losing team's exp is higher. This will ensure that you have a small vet defending team vs. attackers who have the advantage of numbers, which is what people want when they're asking for privs again. If you don't like that sorting, reverse it and move vets over. If you don't like biasing it at all, just move random people over until the other freq is balanced.

I've always wanted an anti-field field and an engine shutdown field. An anti-field field would give you a field counter, and an engine shutdown field would be just plain hilarious.

I might have mentioned that when energy infusion was made ineffective, it exacerbated the nerfing of recharge issue. That has driven EG-style suiciding gameplay. I concur, I was just setting up the opposite argument that "less variation equalizes player ships, so you can't buy skill anymore". You can't *use* skill anymore either. The most fun was when pub fought against small but powerful priv teams. It kept both newbies and vets interested in the game. There ought to be a way to adapt the current gameplay back into that model. For example, develop a balancer that manages two assymmetric freqs that are determined by the net worth of current players. The "pro" freq would have the top 25% of the current pop based on worth, with everyone else in the other freq. The balancer would automatically switch players between freqs to maintain balance as players log in and out.

I find the most effective weapon against lancs is the cluster bomb fully shrapped up. There ought to be an anti lanc rush weapon counter. Like a special low velocity supershredder L4 gun that drains your energy but packs a wallop if it hits. Maybe it's only available on the shark to give it a basing purpose to counter lanc rushes and assassinate defensive lancs.

There are a lot of things that have improved over the years. For example, basing is fixed at long last. Every flag game today is more epic than in the old days. The evener works well, flanking is no longer a problem, priv abusers are gone. Dr. Brain stated some principles awhile back that have been followed, such as: 1. Getting rid of anything that distracts from flagging. 2. Balance ship settings to emphasize skill instead of customizations. However, like Dr. Snyder I think this has had some enjoyment consequences. 1. The gameplay originally focused on customizing ships to perform different roles. Customization now takes a back seat to Extreme Games-style attach-rush-spam guns flagging where every ship is mostly the same effectiveness (within a small range) and it's numbers and aggression that count. 2. The range of customization available for the ships has been greatly reduced. Before you could create extreme configurations for speed, accel, recharge, items, etc. Now the difference between a a regular and sig reactor isn't so significant. Sigs themselves reduce the range of enhancement available through normal items. You may say this is "balance" or "emphasizes skill instead of money" but I think the more extreme customizations were more fun. 3. While items became less and less effective, and bountying for income was eradicated, prices went up across several resets. This means players spend several times more hours to buy less effective items. I think this inflation is what caused a lot of vets to drop out. 4. Recharge in general was nerfed. This contributed to the decline in bountying and made basing tactics for both sides revolve around suiciding. 5. I miss the variety of gameplay from bountying to chasing bountiers to balling to turretting to break up flagging monotony. 6. Many of the newer items have such massive penalties that you're better off with the lower-level items (e.g. reactors). You may call this balance but it really restricts the available configurations. In summary I would better enjoy today's game mechanics combined with a rethought items system designed for a greater range of configuration, at a lower price point, and reintroduction of lost gameplay features like turreting.

For those who say this won't work, this is how the US two-party political system works ...

It's the Hyperspace surprise ending. Surprise, it ended! RIP HS.

Is there anything more to be said here?

I have always thought an engine shutdown item (field, brick, etc) would be amusing and add a new dimension to basing.

Could you make it scatter greens that accomplished the boosts? Or can greens not be controlled that way? That way you wouldn't have to deal with a field radius, just a green dropper.

Deathmonger No No

How about make it so that you can only drop bricks on and brickwarp enemy lancs?

Programmer failure.

A better balancing metric than exp might be the players' net worth.