You guys can't agree on anything, and I'm completely confused on how people get into the attack itself... I hope Zorg can choose the right thing to do.

A must i think is that its limited to Alliance members or those on your friends list.!

This is what I think. I think that, when you scroll over the option of ACS attack on a planet, and click it, you would choose the ships you would send. And then you choose the time you want the attack to start. (1 hour delay, 2 hour delay, etc) Then that person will take and send a maximum of 5 requests to other people that would want to join in the attack. Whoever agrees to go will choose the ships they are sending, and will launch at a time so they will all meet at the same moment.
The calculater would at up how many resources each ship that would take to build, and give the earnings equally, depending on how many resources those people's ships were worth. Say, if 1 person sends 50 BattleCruisers, another sends a 30 BCs, and the last sends 20 Bcs, then it would be devided as 50%, 30%, 20%. That would apply if you WIN.

I think that the ACS attack should be like that. It limits the size of the attack, only by the size of the participating members' fleets. It also gives a good reward system, and the only problem that the people would have is fighting over who gets the DF from the planet.

Here is my take on this...

ACS Attack should have a limit of around 6-7 (I would settle for a max of 10, though) players, Alliance/Friends only. Sorry, but I'm not a fan of having 500 people attacking everyone.

Resources stolen should be divided based on the percentage of the total cost of each fleet. If my fleet makes up 70% of the cost, regardless of which type of ships they may be, I should get 70% of the stolen resources. Ship types and amounts should not matter. Not very difficult to do, I don't think.

When making an ACS Attack, you the option should show in the final Fleet screen (Where you choose Attack, Transport, Deploy, etc) where you simply check the option and launch. After choosing Continue is that final page, a new page should load with a list of all Alliance members and Friends, where you would then choose which players to send an invite to. After selecting which ones, you hit Continue once again and your fleet will launch and the invites will be sent. These will be sent under Private Messages to each person. Messages would read:

<Player Name> <Player Coordinates> has invited you to join an ACS Attack Mission to <Target Planet's Name> <Target Coordinates> set to arrive at <Arrival Time>. Click <Here to Accept> or click <Here to Decline>.

After clicking Join, you will be brought to a "special" fleet screen where you choose your available ships (All ships HAVE to be on that planet to be eligible to join) and the fleet speed you wish to send (If, as in the above example, the original ACS fleet lands at 12:00 and your fleet will arrive at 12:30 at 10%, the 10% option should be unable to be selected, to make it simpler to join. Destination Coordinates and arrival time of the original fleet should be listed as well. Only fleet speeds that will allow you to arrive in time will be available). This all needs to be on one page, so you can easily edit which types of ships to correctly match the time (I'd hate to have to keep going back to my messages to accept and choose a correct fleet composition). If your fleet will arrive at 11:30, your fleet will be withheld for 30 minutes, so that it will arrive at the determined time. This will put the selected ships in a sort of "Limbo." They cannot be sent, but they have not left the planet (Therefore, any attack that is made on you will still effect those ships) unless you Recall the ACS Attack offer (Through the Fleet screen). After selecting the ships and ship speed, you will hit Continue once more and a message will be sent to the original attacker, notifying them that you have joined and displaying the fleet sent.

If you choose the decline the offer, a message will be sent to the original attacker, notifying them that you have declined and allowing them to send an invite to someone else (You should be able to send the offer to the same person a maximum of 3 times, after that, the person should be removed from the list for the duration of the Attack. This is to allow people to Recall and send different ships, but keeps the spamming to a minimum). Likewise, if they do not accept the offer within one hour, the invite will be revoked and the original attacker will be able to re-send it. They will also be able to cancel any invites that have not yet been answered manually.

The Overview message for the ATTACKERS should simply read:

One of your <fleets> from the Planet/Moon ___ [X:XXX:XX] is traveling towards Planet/Moon ___ [X:XXX:XX]
Mission: ACS Attack (Number of players involved)

The fleet sent by everyone else should NOT be shown the each attacker, further increasing the amount of coordination needed. It also keeps the Overview from being cluttered for the Attackers.

The Overview message for the DEFENDER should read:

An ACS Attack Mission is heading towards ___ [X:XXX:XX]
<Player 1's Coordinates> <Fleet being sent (Like a normal attack, roll over to see it)
<Player 2's Coordinates> <Fleet being sent>
...Etc.
<Total Number of Players Attacking> <Total Fleet Size>

It keeps it organized and well written, so the Defender isn't seeing 10 separate messages, but it still allows him to see what is being sent.

WSA should be calculated using an average of each Tech level. If you have two players with 15 Weapons and one person with 10 Weapons, the Weapons tech should be 13.3 (Round it however you want). Combat Reports should look similar to:

Attackers: Player 1 [X:XXX:XX], Player 2 [X:XXX:XX], Player 3 [X:XXX:XX], etc.
Weapons: (Average)% Shields: (Average)% Armor: (Average)%
(Show as one entire fleet and calculate damage accordingly)

Defender: Player A [X:XXX:XX]
Weapons: % Shields: % Armor: %

The attackers have/defender has won the battle !
The attackers have lost a total of X units.
The defender has lost a total of X units.
A debris field containing X units of Metal and X units of Crystal has formed in orbit around the planet.

This keeps the Reports clean and understandable and it also keeps the Defender from knowing exactly who sent what, unless they are online to seethe attack coming. If possible, if the Attackers win the battle, list the total amount of Resources stolen from the planet and then show (Depending on which attacker it is) the amount they have stolen, personally.

Example:

The attackers have won the battle !
A total of X units of Metal, X units of Crystal and X units of Deuterium were stolen from the defender!
You receive Y units of Metal, Y units of Crystal and Y units of Deuterium.

The "You receive" line will be different for each person and each person will only be able to see what THEY have stolen and the total amount of resources stolen. The Defender should only see the Total taken from him. This requires each person to receive different Combat Reports, so I hope it's not too difficult to add.

If one person cannot hold the amount of res they have won, the excess should be given to the person with the largest percentage of fleet sent. If their cargoes are full, the second highest percentage, then the third, etc. This will continue until all the stolen res has been given or until all holds are full, in which case the excess will be left to the Defender.

If you've got any questions about something, post it and I'm sure I can answer it. I just can't seem to think of anything else to put at the moment, lol.

P.S. I'm sorry about the length, lol. I like to go into detail

That's about the same thing as I was thinking, all except the number of people. I believe that it should stay limited to 5. Anyway, good job at getting it all straight!

hmms, you thought it out well, but there are a couple of things i think should be different.

it shouldnt be limited to people on yours friends list and alliance, because some people have friends outside the alliance and dont like adding them to friends list because they can see your online and offline points, i have quite a few... you should alter the invitation part so that you type in the name of a player/players you want to invite (like the search box) and the invitation is sent to that person/people

also, i think the fleets should be seperate for each player, sort of partitioned, and each player uses their individual techs, otherwise if you are flying with a low ranked friend their low techs may drag yours down to a low average and make you lose more ships than you would with your own, which is definatley a bad thing

change those two things and its perfect

I'll go with the changing it to anyone, AS LONG AS THERE IS A LIMIT. If there is no limit to the number of people joining, it should only be Alliance/Friends. I believe this is CRUCIAL to having it work well without having random people doing ACS attacks with 70 different players that they don't even know.

As for changing it to individual fleets, the Combat Report would be so clustered, it wouldn't even be funny. Making it a single fleet with a single tech puts ease on the developers, since it is really, fundamentally, no different then if one person had sent all those ships. As for a weak player bringing the average down...If you are on an important ACS attack and you are worried about a single person dropping your Techs...Why would you choose someone with low Techs? That's just my opinion on the matter.

what if that weak player is your friend and is asking you for help, but puts your ships at risk at the same time?

also, remember the number of players will be limited by range/travel time, but i agree ther should be a cap, like 5 or something, and you can invite anyone

Shandris wrote:what if that weak player is your friend and is asking you for help, but puts your ships at risk at the same time?

Then I believe you should weight the odds accordingly. ACS Attack shouldn't remove all danger, it should just allow players to expand who they can/cannot feasibly hit. Planning and cunning should still be present, just as it is with regular attacks.

But the limit on players is fine. Preferably 5-6, but, if really necessary, 10 would work. After that...It's a bit too much.

Did I kill the thread with the wall o' text?