Several times players have asked me how they could possibly have lost a system to a veteran player when the system had been taken from SP confed and had not been probed or detected as nearby since being taken. After some investigation in response to allegations about possible cheating, I thought it might be useful to share some insights about ways that very successful players in the game have been able to take other player planets by surprise.

Some players have a lot of planets, with as many as 49 planet systems of one planet each. They use these many planet systems as a means to detect other planets as they are "dropped" into the game. This gives them a lot of nearby planets to find. However, they do not want to leave these nearby planets, so capture and obliterate them. However, the most effective players do not, as I had once thought, appear to capture all the SP conf planets they can find. Instead, they clear all planets which are nearby to their systems, and then record the coordinates of SP conf systems that they find and leave them if they are not a threat to existing planets they hold. Then, they periodically visit these systems with a spy to see if anyone has taken them. These planets can then be taken and used to follow a chain, often with new SP conf planets found and NOT TAKEN, but with coordinates saved for later use when a player takes these.

In this way, a strong player can appear out of nowhere and take a system which they appear to have not spied or detected, but which had been detected earlier as an SP conf system. This takes a lot of planet capturing, but since it is lower cost to take planets from other players than from SP Conf (less defense), and more fun as well, this provide strong vets with some interesting opportunities, especially when players leave chains of planets behind them. (Follow the chain and leave the SP Conf planets other than a few of them here and there, as needed, to replace lost planets over time).

While some vets might object to me sharing this information, I felt it would be useful to help players better understand that it is not cheating, but simply Smart like a Fox playing that can enable some players to appear from nowhere and start capturing planets which may or may not be part of a chain (they might have been nearbies to an earlier player chain). Also, if you leave a ship near a sun, even if there are no planets, that sun might be for coordinates that were known by someone when it was an SP confed system or when it was taken from another player, so even if the warp does not show up there, some player might be able to find it as that set of coordinates was known previously.

I do take all allegations of cheating seriously, but some players have just figured out strategies designed to trick or trap others, and they are not cheating, but only playing smart.

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"Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most."

Perhaps this should be in New Players forum

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Make your move, reindeer games.

actually, it really helps. foolong just lost 30k troops for hidding an assault in a sun

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The Mighty Face of Clay Has returned!

And if your path shall part from mine,fare well, and may the power of :pie: protect you.

iDG for good, or until they get sick of my sh$# :D
The best defence is Insanity

Well, this was a new insight for me, and since I am not a new player, I think it might help a lot of players with understanding better why it is not cheating or magic, but just smart playing that is causing their losses.

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"Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most."

if needed i could make a copy of it in the new players forum

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Power corrupts. Absolute power is even more fun

Might be wise. It would help new players a lot.

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"Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most."

i agree with that, imo, when someone schools ya, its better to figure out exactly how he/she did so, and imply those tactics into your techniques, rather than mope about it

__________________________
The Mighty Face of Clay Has returned!

And if your path shall part from mine,fare well, and may the power of :pie: protect you.

iDG for good, or until they get sick of my sh$# :D
The best defence is Insanity

have you made this post after my answer about possibilities to find planets without showing it in news, or someone else also told you something similar?
Indeed I can say that keeping such "safe" SP planets is not easy and percent of sucess is not too big. First you need to be very active and find and capture a lot of planets to secure several SP. And second, most of these SP will be destroyed right after capturing and maybe 1-2 systems out of 10 will bring you a chain

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Country music, whiskey and OK

I remember when player could truely have "safe" planets. My how times have changed.

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-People in the dark cause accidents, accidents in the dark cause people.

-Eternal Light "Yeah, You pretty much just "Head F****d me".
-Eternal Light"Ill get training them now your highness"

Yes, times have changed. However, I have another idea that might make planets a bit less exposed than they are now. Iiridayn, at my request, is working on a change to planet drops which would make planet drops random, but with the change that the system would try five times to find a random spot which is not within nearby range of any existing planet system. Some planets would still drop near players planets if they can't find a random "safe" space after five attempts, but planet count should go up and annoyance to players finding a new system appearing near their planets should go down. Some planets will appear as nearbies, and some chains will exist, but less than we have now and there will be more planets available to find over time via probing as well.

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"Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most."