But there's still the other half who do have honor still, sir...

yep. playing with honor is hard to do when you see so many players leave fleet down. that is why i go for inactives more than anything with ECs only and not Probes.

And yet still, the question is avoided..

Basically this thread = some people who are whining about a tactic very few players actually use, and is nowhere near as amazing or game breaking as it sounds.

I will give you realistic view.

750,000 probes are needed to do loot of 2.500.000 metal 1.250.000 crystal 625.000 deuterium.

if you have 18 slots then the total number of probes u need are..

750,000 x 18 = 13,500,000 probes. that will cost you

metal 1,350,000,000 crystal 10,125,000,000 deuterium 675,000,000 that takes around 1,215 EC to hold the res.

which is equivalent to 2,430,000 game points.

now keep wondering how many raids does a midrange player has to do to get that many res.

now about how fast it is.

it takes 25 sec to do across the galaxy raids one way so 50 seconds one way.

so u can raid 18 planets per 50 seconds. lets say it takes 5 mins to send all the fleets out. so roughly 6 mins if you play this game for 60 mins you would be doing 18 x 60/6 = 180 raids. Thorr the raid king does a magnificent 200-250 raids in a day.

so within 3 hours you would have not only be able to do more than what thorr does. but also you would have cleaned the entire universe. something to go at it isnt it?



PS: one important fact one might over look. 750.000 probes takes about 1.2 mil deut per raid. so i doubt its that much of a profit.

the people that use this tatic do not go past 25 systems and use roamers to minimise deut cost

not cost effective to raid with loads of probes over distance...fact..Zorg will be changing this to stop servers getting wiped clean and leaving next to nothing for new players to raid and build up...fact (at least in Massacre for now)....so let's think up other ideas on ways to improve game play or introducing new players etc

SPY wrote:being a big shot u can afford a fleet of 200.000 probes.
hence its easy for u to carry out the raiding with those fleets.

put yourself in the shoe of a starter player. who only has Large Cargo ships and Battle Cruisers. How do you think they will servive on when u clean of planets with probes inactive planets?

You are not thinking for others but only for your selfish need.

the question is more why do they just have lc and bc ... as a starter they should be raiders , not fleeters!
they need to build like everyone else (you don't need bc to raid just sc,lc,ec ) ...

this game is all about strategy and grabbing resource, it doesn't matter if its on an inactive or active player, if its resource it will eventually belong to the top dog......

the whole point you shouldn't forget is the high deut cost it requires to mine with probes , after about 10-20 systems its not really worth it... (even at 10% speed) this tactic is purely for resource farming your immediate locality, and don't even think about the use a roamer scenario...

if you're worried about attracting people to the game , then consider opening new universes , maybe some starter ones ... accept registrations for 1-3 months then run it for a further 9-15 months before it closes ... have proper stats tables for mining/fleeting/raiding and similar for alliances ... make the alliance side more fun... (have 4-5 of these continually on the go running/starting/ending) . Leave the existing universes alone and market them as the advanced longer term FREESTYLE areas they are...

ec + bc was simple example for a raiding fleet for anyone in the game. let it be sc or lc.

about the planets without defenses. it only takes about 15 mins to do those raids with EC. i suppose that is too much to ask for from anyone of your caliber.

anyways i have explained my concerns about starter players. you obviously forgot how it was for you when you first started this game. apparently you only see what benefits you at the moment.

lets just put this on vote. and let the vote decide what to do about this. this game is not just about a few players idea of proper game play.

ps ... as a starter dont you send your probes along with your cargos to gather that bit extra res on a confirmed defenceless inactive....


continue with this vein of restrictions nonsense and you'll be imposing limits on the minimum resource to be allowed to recycle... where will it end ... massive decrease in fun , most of the fun is being able to Quickly Raid when you're starting not having to wait for the fleet to turnaround an hour later...


pps why are probes so cheap in extreme if it isn't the intention to allow them to be used in raiding....

consider making them more expensive instead

wait you honestly think probe raiding is fun!!! :-0