*Re: Death**
Csaj
FINALLY! Thank you Siggy!
I have been chomping at the bit for 13 days waiting for someone to ask how we plan to tackle this touchy subject. We put a great deal of thought into this as should be expected.
Many MMORTS games have put in a lordship system where players never die, they just get overrun and never are given an opportunity to break free from the bondage they are forced into. This type of system has two major flaws, winning players don't get the satisfaction of a total victory and the losing player has the highly unfun task of slave duty for the remainder of the game (keeping in mind that the game as a whole has no end).
How then do you allow a player to be killed without causing the player to quit? The answer was mentioned by <I'll enter player name here when I find it again> when he posted can I build up a second base in case I lose my first one? Yes, and the best part is you don't have to "build" the base yet. You give this contingency base a budget and let your minions go about making preparations. In the unlikely event that you are… *cough* *cough* "displaced" lets just say, you have the option to enact your contingency plan which will cause the leader of your empire (you) to abandon your current base (taking any research you have completed with you of course since its just a simple data transfer) and travel (we tried travel times as a punishment but they were highly annoying especially after having to abandon an empire) to the site that your minions have picked to build your backup base.
That is the story told, how it is achieved is the player restarts on a different planet, and probably in a different area of the galaxy with their research data intact and have 24 hours to spend their contingency budget (money you can opt to put into "building" the backup base) any facility or item constructed with the contingency budget builds instantly and comes stocked with colonists allowing for a quick buildup back to your former glory. Players who use their contingency plan are placed along side others who have used their contingency plan to protect newer players from getting placed near advanced players.
What do you think?
I will no doubt change something in this post when I wake up tomorrow because the screen is starting to blur and I doubt everything I typed makes sense.
Csaj
Late night posting…. bad. Smiling
Instead of just editing my earlier post I'll address the issues and questions as they arise. Havoc's correct with the random refugee planet aspect, there is a contingency budget in the budget screen that allows you to set aside money towards your contingency plan.
You put money into your contingency plan *Start Storyline* Your people use that money to build a backup base somewhere else in the galaxy *End Storyline* You get defeated, enact your contingency plan, and spend the next day using the contingency budget to build buildings and units at a rapid pace *Start Storyline* You arrive at your backup base already thriving *End Storyline*
In response to BlindBravado: Perhaps we have different ideas of the word grind, playing for a year then restarting with nothing, would be a grind to us.
Hopefully this answers some of the confusion =)
Aurelius
This is another favourite subject for me:
Your contingency plan does not take the minerals with you. The restart is in fact, a double edged sword by design to prevent some of this "exploitation". When your contingency is activated, you are placed at a new location, your diplomatic ties are broken, your minerals are non-existent because they were destroyed with your colonies. So consider: You have a game where you built the awesome engine that can get your huge ships between two planets in 5 minutes. HOWEVER, now that you have been displaced, you need to find a source for the minerals you based those alloys that you used to build that engine.
You get a nice boost of a restart, but planning for contingencies is going to involve a lot of strategy.
To see it in action is really cool because it makes that ticked off player get back online as fast as possible and most times build alliances to go seek some revenge. Revenge is a wonderful reason to fight.
EDIT: There are limits in place for the budget as well. It is currently one of the FEW hard limits in the game just because of its exploit capability.
