I was thinking about the training ticket the other day after thinking about some other things- got me to thinking- where does SP come up with all these troops from that we kill? Why is it so easy to obliterate a planet?... I'll save the planet one for a different topic.

So I had the thought, robots. SP is actually a robot entity, and it is easy for it to pump out tons of robots. Now for training- why would we be sending in soldiers constantly, killing off a lot of them to help our captains train, so we should have robots too. We use the robots to allow our captains to train in warfare against other robots. Of course you can't use robots against another player because of the three laws concept, which is why they don't provide defense and your robots don't attack you also, that is why still need troops. You could use troops to attack robots also, but typically saved for attacking other troops.

I am thinking that robots are non-transferable/purchasable, they are coded for your use when you build them. They are easy to build, so have easy to have plenty of them. This provides merit for activity and not just accrue and then purchase ships with robots.

Overall Purpose: Increased training capacity, game play background story compatibility

Implementation possibilities-
Option 1- A new building, Robot Factory. Depending on level of story building/realism could have it consume Sili/Iron/Gold/Uran... produces robots. Newb player's starting planet has one to start.
Option 2- Replace Vital with Robots. Remove the Vital requirement to build troops, especially since there isn't a continuing use of it to keep the troops alive, I can just slap troops on a ship in space and they are happy forever, probably in cryosleep. Beside the point. Adjust build rates as needed.
Option 3- Insert your comment here.

Game play mechanics-
I envision robots coming out the ying-yang for a player if they want them. That is one of the shortcomings for a new player, waiting for troops to build to be able to capture SPs. If as a new player you started off with a million robots, and preferably a 500k assault, you wouldn't have to sit there waiting for a few days to be able to get up to your 15 planet requirement, all you'd have to deal with is the time it takes to get to the planets, which is also why newb arena needs more SPs if you want a player to be able to spread out.

Points consideration- SPs are not worth all that much, capture normal ones all day long and don't get that many points. Training does provide more points, considering higher defense, but with an unlimited supply of robots, you shouldn't be able to easily take 1st place still just with training. There is still a time factor, want to be rewarded for the time spent.
Currently, training 10 ships awards 30k points for, let's say 20 minutes of work. Crashing those 10 awards 200k points for 1 minute of work (not counting staging). It seems reasonable, if we speed up the process by raising the defense of a left SP so you can train faster, then perhaps drop the value.
Additional Points consideration- Currently with 50 20x planets you could produce ~ 40M T/month (not considering buildings/interest). So at base calculation you could create about 20 assaults/month, crashing them for 400k points. With robots, all you would need T for is to fill the assaults, making those 40M T capable of filling 80 assaults and raking in 1.6M points.

Attack/Defense balance consideration-
If have the Robot Factory as a building, could require a certain level of defense to have it operate and have it only buildable on one planet with a longer build time for the building. This requires the player to have at least 1 classic HW type planet. Perhaps lvl 1 is like a turret, only requires 1M defense to be active (easier for a new player) and has a lower level of production. If a new player starts with 1M robots and can store T as defense, then if they can get 24 planets, they could hit 1M defense within a day and a half to continue their robot production. Then at lvl 2, with 15M defense it ramps up more, or 20M, or something- hash out those details.
This provides a need for a classic HW, buildings help provide additional incentive for HWs, and attacking is just as valuable, so I think it maintains the balance.

Market considerations-
Value of troops would stay the same, I would think since still valuable as defense and still necessary for the valuable attacks. The cost of a trained assault would change though, this would make its value basically time based instead of resource based (aside from iron) so the buyer/seller have to decide how much their time is worth.

I have said it before, there are a lot of inactive HWs out there, this could help reduce them. Iiri can consider and weigh in on coding difficulties.

Currently it is essentially not possible to add a new resource to the game - queries are scattered throughout many (many) files and 8 is often hardcoded. Similarly, changing the function of V would have to wait until the codebase is a bit more centralized (SSOT principle, please).

That said - lore-wise and in terms of consistency I would rather have SPC planets not get free T (any resources at all) when left. I recognize this is fundamental to current training, which is a major reason I'd like to replace the current training system with something different .

I am not entirely opposed to making SPC produce; while that would produce a similar gameplay style to "farming inactives" which I don't approve of, my objection around that is more related to it being a means by which a player account can boost another than the inherent gameplay of it. Others might weigh in on if farming SPC seems like it'd be valuable, or too risky to be worth it, etc. Fundamentally it somewhat removes the upper limit for farming planets (though you'd have to capture them again), which does benefit vets over newbies. Still, lore-wise the "players are space locusts" theme seems to fit .

On the topic of reducing resource costs to train assaults - I'm essentially opposed. I'm not a huge fan of point inflation, and making T produce 4x more points seems contrary to my intentions.

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SkyLords Head Programmer

Spelled: I I R I (not irii, irri, or iri).

Force of nature.

Remove SPC gaining defense when you leave them. Newbie arena stays how it is, Real arena has SPC at 50-100k defense. Maybe a few more resources particularly vital. This would not require any massive coding changes but would reward overall activity to have trained assaults. Those who do not capture planets will have to crash untrained assaults. A building that allows trading troops or vital for ship experience would still be huge as a secondary idea.

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I am here to help in anyway I can! Let's have fun!

I had a similar option to that in the tickets for training that Iiri has-