Changes for January 2006:
1. Shields will increase to 400% maximum effect. Done
2. Interest will be paid on all resources, at 1% per day. Done
3. Warp detection building will be added. Cost of building not yet decided. Done
4. Fighter maximum design strength will be upgraded to 9 attack, 8 defense. Done
5. Turret attack upgraded to 5k average damage per turret from 3.5k now. Done
6. Buildings for vital, silicon, gold, and uranium. Same cost as iron mine. Done

What will not change which had been discussed previously as possible changes:
1. No change in warp (other than warp inhibitor building)
2. No change in planet upgrades or technologies costs or options

Points for attacking HWs unchanged (based on resources used up in attacks), but with higher shields, less HWs per round will be lost, so HWs will be slightly more safe to keep. With buildings for resource production, and interest for resources held on planets (which will be credited every 15minutes with resource updates), the value of having a HW will increase. With higher value and lower risk, these changes should be enough to bring back HWs as important element of the game.

Turrets and fighers both slightly stronger, with balance shifting slightly towards turret, but less than 15% net change in attacker versus defender overall costs relationship versus current situation. Definitely makes turrets worth having now, but cost to kill turrets relative to cost to build is still cheap compared with cost to take out HW defenses by assaults.

HWs will be stronger, but no HW will be invincible even with these changes and max turrets and max defenses. The strongest HW in the game could still be taken down by a determined clan effort, but only a few strong HWs will be taken down in a single round. Diplomacy and clan efforts will be even more important as HWs are important to have, but definitely at risk of being attacked and lost.

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

so what will be the effect on the defense formula for planets?
With 400% added in

This is gonna change training....again

__________________________
Founder and Lord Admiral of The Legendary Swarm.

Go For It.

LOL. Yeah. It will have some effect on training of assaults. Lets see, a 10x planet will have:

50k T&E * (1+shields/5) = 50k * 3 = 150k defense, so 15% experience per SP confed attack

A 15x planet has: 50k T&E * (1+shields/5) = 50k * 4 = 200k defense so 20% experience.

Not sure what is optimal for training (someone else can figure that out), but 10 attacks on a x15 planet would give exactly 200% experience, or 14 attacks on a 10x planet would give 205% experience. My advice would be to gain some experience naturally in capturing planets (like 20%) and then train the ship the rest of the way with a 10x planet. Cost would be lower than training from scratch.

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

A change with fighters is very good - it was a noncence before.
I also like the change with warp inhibitor.
Turrets and other builings are also ok, i don't care it a lot.
I don't like shield increased and i don't like interest on all resources

__________________________
I will defeat you. When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, i'll be waiting.

Yeah, I understand. But, you also would not like the game if there were no targets either, as it would be extremely dull just to have everyone holding trained assaults and only a few occasional fools having HWs (oh yeah, and me too, but I might also fit in the fool category also).

This way, you will have a number of potential targets to select over time, similar to the situation we had back in the summer, when there were a lot more HWs and a lot of interest battles and challenges.

With more than 80% of players voting in favor of interest on resources, and even strongly preferring interest at 2% per day, I think my changes have been fairly reasonable on balance.

As you pointed out, changing more than one thing has the risk of being overkill, but I think the 1% per day on resource interest is a reasonable compromise given increased shield effect.

Also, keep in mind, shields are no where nearly as powerful as they were one year ago when Zygi's old formula was in effect. Then, a large HW was invincible. Now, even the largest possible HW can still be defeated by a strong clan in a joint effort. I have confidence in LTC's ability to prove this point with some large HW within the next few rounds.

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

Hopefully TS can prove this on LTC hws for a change also

__________________________
Founder and Lord Admiral of The Legendary Swarm.

Go For It.

What HWs? Why do you think they do not like interest on resources? What resources on planets would they have left to be able to earn interest on now?

Everything they have is on trained assaults, which are waiting to find YOUR homeworld now!

So, build your homeworlds, yes, but make sure you have turrets in place for defense as well.

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

Building Hw's is a necessity and most of changes are very welcome. But it is not a single change. It is a mix of many efficient changes. And this mix is already too strong.

__________________________
I will defeat you. When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, i'll be waiting.

I disagree, This mix seems reasonably sound, Of course this will not stop the homeworld dogers, or the outer space fleets, but 1% interest on 1 million troops is 10k, seems low but i think it will help alot

__________________________
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!!!

Interest rate is a very good decision,although i preffered it on non-deffensive resources only. Well, that's not a big deal. But raising shields is really not the idea i like.

__________________________
I will defeat you. When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, i'll be waiting.

You may be right. If so, we will make changes in three months to restore balance. For now, I think that the changes are needed and we need to take strong action to stem the loss of incentives for HWs.

As for future changes, I do not expect to change the shield formula again. This is enough. Maybe more than enough, but at least enough. I also expect to keep interest on resources, but the RATE of interest may be too high. You and Filas both thinks it is too high. You may be right. For the next three months, this 1% per day rate will remain in effect. After that, I will consider making a reduction in the rate of interest if there are a lot of HWs and the risk of losing a HW is lower than it is today. For now, we need to change mindset and the higher rate of 1% per day is probably on the low end of what is needed to bring back HWs.

For most players, losing a HW is a very big cost and loss. Attackers spend more, but they get points. Players who lose a HW get nothing but pain and loss. Incentives for attackers have not changed significantly, although the level of pain they can cause from attacks is less, and the challenge of taking out a large HW is greater now with these changes.

I know you think I have gone too far, and I fully admit that you may well be right, but I think these changes are needed and there is support from a majority of the SL community as well for the changes. I also have not gone as far as many players would like in these changes, but I believe the changes will be enough to bring back HWs to the game now.

I also believe that in April or May, I will need to cut back the rate of interest paid for assets on HWs, as we will find that Runka is right, that we have gone too far. So, I will even admit that I believe Runka is right, in the LONG TERM. But, I believe in the SHORT TERM (the next three months), we need a strong push to change mindset and to bring HWs back, and I am willing to give too much interest in the short term to get HWs to come back to the game and reward pioneers willling to take risks in having HWs. I prefer to move too far now, rather than too little, as too many HWs will not harm the game, but too few targets will make the game stagnant and boring. When we have more HWs, and people are less fearful of having a HW, THEN we can look at reducing the interest paid on resources to a lower amount.

I will also keep my planets as visible targets to give those in LTC and other clans who are annoyed with me for these changes something to shoot at to express your annoyance and to keep me from personally benefiting from changes (while creating an environment where it is safer for others to build up HWs as people will be targeting my planets instead of other players' planets).

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