Next round, I would like to propose TWO OPTIONS for you to VOTE on regarding planet upgrade costs. Both options will involve planet upgrades increasing in cost as you buy higher levels of planet upgrades (more planets), but with the difference between the two options being the starting price for upgrades and the maximum number of planets.

OPTION 1: First upgrade, from 25 to 26 planets, costs 25 credits. Each additional planet upgrade costs 5 credits more than the prior upgrade, so 27 planets from 26 costs 30 credits, and so on. At 36 planets, the cost will be exactly the same as it is today for 36 planets (550 credits), but at 50 planets, the cost will be 2125 credits under this system versus 1250 credits now. The maximum number of planets will remain at 50 planets total, for 2125 credits cost for this upgrade.

OPTION 2: First upgrade, from 25 to 26 planets, costs 5 credits. Each additional planet upgrade costs 5 credits more, as with option one, so 27 planets from 26 costs 10 credits, and so on. At 44 planets, the cost will be exactly the same as it is today for 44 planets (950 credits), but at 50 planets, the cost will be 1625 credits total versus 1250 credits now, or 2125 credits under option 1. However, there would be NO MAXIMUM number of planets under this option, so players can upgrade to as many planets as they want and can profitably hold with this option (the increasing price will provide a natural limit, with no artificial limits needed).

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

i vote 2?

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YAY its about time we get active
Cows. I hate cows worse than coppers.
Okay, folks, hold the applause and drop your drawers. I'm George Nelson, and I'm here to sack the city

Oh, sorry, you don't need to vote here. I am working on preparing another survey with several questions for you to consider. However, this was sort of a little bit complicated, so I wanted to clearly explain the two options here. I will get the survey out to you later this week.

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

why is an change in this area needed, this current system is effective and makes it so those with credits can only use sooo many a month, Instead of trying to get credits via this way maybe trying to get credits via new upgrades would be better, also a small tax on resources via market would make a better than this i believe

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Naltsa Abe, The one, the only, the craziest welshman in the game!

You may have the troops and the assaults to go with them, but always remember....

I have crashed the server!!!

I don't like it when the optimal strategy is obvious. I prefer to have people make choices and tradeoffs regarding what level they want to upgrade planets holdings to in the game.

Right now, it is pretty much a dominant strategy to always upgrade to and hold 50 planets.

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

holding 50 planets is not that easy, can be easy but can always be found, why would anyone need to hold more than 50 planets, if they have enough credits to hold that many they can buy troops for cheaper and faster trade off

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Naltsa Abe, The one, the only, the craziest welshman in the game!

You may have the troops and the assaults to go with them, but always remember....

I have crashed the server!!!

Why would anyone hold 50, and not 44. Why then 50 and not 54 or 56? Is there something mystical and magical about 50?

I once held 100 planets for an entire round, before we had limits on number of planets. Yes, it was hard to keep them full, but actually, the more planets you have, the easier it is to find more planets and the faster it is to get an assault to new planets (you have more launching points on the planets you already hold).

So, it is not necessarily harder to keep 50 planets full than to keep 25 planets full.

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

why not then if your gonna bring in this type of thing with more planets needing more credits, How about you, if your gonna increase the amount of credits per round don't you increase the amount of time the upgrades last for, then the upgrading of accounts can really take effect, however the probe etc should either stay as they are or price should rise

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Naltsa Abe, The one, the only, the craziest welshman in the game!

You may have the troops and the assaults to go with them, but always remember....

I have crashed the server!!!

increasing time upgrades last for is hard, as we would have to increase round duration, which is probably not a good idea. Zygi has everything pretty hard coded to round duration.

Increasing cost of upgrades for probing? Had not really thought about it, but for probing, might be okay. I want to encourage people to probe, however, so not so sure that is a good idea.

I also want to encourage players to do some upgrading of planets, but not always to maximum, so having cost of first planet upgrades being cheaper and then cost of higher level upgrades costing more makes sense to me, and is consistent with the theory of diminishing returns to scale, which tends to keep real life economies or companies or engineering designs stable.

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

what about increase round winner prizes ??

lol - already done in a massive way for December round. Prefer not to do it in a fixed and inflexible way.

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