Suggestion: Turf Flags

[Aileron]

I suggest that the zone switch to turf style flags.

 

The specifics of my suggestion are as follows:

1. A single turf flag is placed in the flag room of a present base.
   
2. If ASSS can support it, I would suggest the flag is cycled throughout the bases hourly.
   
3. (If the flag tile can't be moved, you could place the flag itself in an inaccessible room. Then, you can have warp tiles linking the FRs to the room. The server decides which base is active for that hour, and opens up the link between that base and the flag tile and keeps the other ones closed.)
   
4. The players on the team that holds the flag should get rewarded every minute. The reward calculation should be the current calculation for winning the flag game divided by about 20. (Because flag games are about 20 minutes long)
   

My reasoning behind why this change should be implemented are as follows:

 

The current system has a drastic cycle between high and low populations. If the flag game has been going on, it gives players an incentive to stay, but when it is over, players have an incentive to leave. Thus, the pop tends to crash cyclically after each flag game. If we shift from a single large reward to multiple smaller rewards, we will have one steady population. This is better than a cycle. A healthy population of 30 players will invite more players to the zone. A population of 50 would attract more people than 30, but not *much* more. A population of 5 will attract *no one* and the zone is dead for a few hours. A steady population of 30 is preferable to the 50-5 cycle.

 

Also, having a turf flag will make it impossible to carry out a lot of the things which cause problems...splitting of the flags, warp outs, etc. You would eliminate the need to have flag droppers, which is one of those things that nobody wants to do. It would also eliminate most of the incentive for ragequitting. If you get cleared, so what? You'll have to try to attack again, but it doesn't eliminate everything your team has done for the past 15 minutes.

 

There would be some negative consequences. You would be disrupting the current style of play first and foremost. Also, there would be less reward for executing a successful leak. Freq hopping would become more commonplace, though the rewards for doing so would be lower.

 

Overall, I'm making this suggestion because the positives would outweigh the negatives.

[Dr Brain]

My Conquest idea (talked about in another thread somewhere) was motivated from a similar viewpoint. I wrote about 70% of a module, but real life has pulled me almost entirely out of SS. No one else has seemed especially interested in taking up the mantle of finishing it, so I imagine it's about as finished as it'll ever be.

[spidernl]

I could use the source. I've been brainstorming about new gameplay types. Conquest has some of the (potential) characteristics I'd like to see, one being rewards for small objectives. Capturing a point on the map could 'instantly' reward a (couple of) player(s), meaning that you don't have to stay in for the entire game to make money.

It also encourages not "stacking" frequencies, since there wouldn't be a heck of a lot to do if you're one of the many good players on a team fighting mostly new players.

[Dr Brain]

Attached.

hs_conquest.c

[spidernl]

Ah, neat. I'll have a look when I have more time.