In my opinion it is possible to play the game in a sleazy, underhanded fashion and still be somewhat objective. I try to not let my emotions make my decisions for me, and I try to take the route of greatest benefit within the realm of being a "not-so-nice guy". The concept of vengeance can still sometimes play a role in determining one's targets without detracting too much, if anything, from the returns.

That being said, I always found it to be more consequential to my enemies for the form of attack to be hacking coupled with the invasion of the planets obtained. They lose research points and planets. If you were to just disable them, they would only lose what it costs to repair their hulls, which in most cases is quite negligible. The experience gained would be the only benefit. I find it more beneficial to get experience from completing missions, which will also pay out with credits, artifacts, and tier rewards among other things. Of course I try to base my decisions not only on what my opponent might lose, but more so on what I stand to gain from the interaction. If I hack them, I gain exactly what they lose: research points and planets.

One of the hardest parts of staying objective is knowing when you have to bend over and take it like a man until you are no longer on someone's newsfeed. I don't particularly care about hull repairs or a weak battle title that nobody will rightly see when I'm constantly cloaked. I'm more worried about people that actually raid. It almost never happens, but it seems to be the only other consequential form of attack aside from hacking. It seems prudent to prevent the loss of artifacts by actually mounting a defense and it is a good idea to do at least something to deter future attacks and raids. Raiding is one of the few reasons being disabled can actually suck, however rare it may be. The people attacking and possibly raiding you will almost always be higher ranked if you hack. my favorite strategy is to make it supremely wasteful to even try disabling me. I stack defense as high as possible to make it a waste of resources to kill me. Often they will realize that it took a full load of energy just to 'prove a point'. Often they can't even finish the job. I don't see the point of installing weapons when they would have to be pretty much brain-dead to disable themselves while on the offensive and I don't really take the offensive myself unless I'm invading a planet. If you know the person attacking you can't actually win when you have weapons installed, they can be a deterrent in that your opponent will get less experience from attacking you because they are losing, but this isn't often the case when you pick suitable hack targets and you have hulls installed. You can rest assured though that, if they are pissed, you will end up disabled one way or another and possibly raided. If you aren't getting raided, there is usually no reason to even repair your hull.

I think artifacts are key in mounting any kind of defense against the higher ranks that are actually worth hacking. The pacifying artifacts can make it so you don't even have to fight and they are incredibly common. There are a myriad of ways to creatively use almost all the artifacts to mount a defense. Remember though that traps WILL put you on someone else's newsfeed if that is something you are trying avoid. It will also put them on yours, making them available for future attacks if it seems beneficial to prolong the conflict.

Mounting a defense and conflicts in general are only small aspects of why I think artifacts are the embodiment of sheer awesome. They can also provide permanent bonuses to almost every stat, which seems like it will be pretty important around the time of the next update in order to make yourself stronger than your rank would imply. They supply crew you probably wouldn't otherwise have that can help deter raids. They help with invasions, scanning... Just about everything really. There isn't really an artifact you can't find a use for if you adopt the playstyle of an a-hole. Research is obviously important as well, but I think a lot of people end up under-investing in artifacts once their research costs become exorbitantly high.

The invasion aspect is pretty simple. Invade the best planet possible instead of the one belonging whomever might be the most annoying opponent at the moment. Use artifacts, overwhelming offense. Voila. I don't feel like typing a whole tutorial on invasion and planet defense, but yes it is definitely involved.

There are obviously pros and cons to being an a-hole. Honestly, there are probably more cons. The research obtained from hacking usually isn't all that great considering the energy investment. The planet locations you obtain and invade will probably be under attack until you flux them. The defensive structures required take up space and you get less resources. Your rank will be slightly behind where it could be, but you'll be strong for your rank.

There are pro's as well. It's more fun. Lets face it the point of playing an online game is to actually play with other people and against other people. If this were a single player game there is no way in hell anyone would be playing it. You will be stronger than almost anyone else your level... less xp, more research, an emphasis on artifacts... do the math. People will eventually take your less favorable planets so you can settle/invade better ones. This is partly because of critical fails on hacks but also because of the general enmity and violence involved with the playstyle. Your good planets will have good defenses... I haven't lost more than 1 decent planet yet, but I find myself constantly crossing my fingers someone powerful enough won't find them.

I don't actually think I'm really that far behind where I should be in regard to what rank I am. Sometimes you just don't have enough planet fluxes and you have too many enemies and you just have to go back to farming missions and researching energy and ranking the efficient way.

Wow you are really working hard to become the robert haynes of GL. Why do you keep making an effort to ruin the fun of other people? There is nothing wrong with PvP, only you are taking it to a whole new purpose. If you are only able to have fun by spoiling other peoples, i strongly suggest you get some serious professional help. Playing only to ruin the fun of other people is not cool.

Well I see conventional PvP as purposeless. It's not like I'm picking on lower levels or holding vendettas against people and singling them out in some effort to annihilate them, though the idea had crossed my mind; it's not really in my best interest. I'm just playing the game like anyone else might. I don't really see why people get their panties in a wad more from the notion of the idea more than when it's in actual practice. If you like the idea of hacking being totally pointless, ask the developer to take it out of the game. I'm not paying money to change my 'profession' in the game so this seems like a perfectly reasonable way to specialize.

You are the first person I have met who has the same idea as me: Play to win and play for fun. Vendettas get in the way and I'd rather be a turtle loaded with graviton shearers. It's fun for me that way. And I agree that hacking is the best mechanic in the game for odds/ends.

And on an unrelated note, who's Robert Haynes?

Google wouldn't tell me anything that seemed to fit. I googled "serial killer robert" and got Robert Yates, who is apparently from the city where I live. I'm guessing that might be what he meant... Interesting. A lot of people in this town do seem to give me a creepy white-trash serial killer vibe compared to where I used to live.

He is a douchebag that comes in Epic events in War Metal and ruins them by breaking the event rules. Every Epicboss has a damagelimit set by the initiator. Rewards in epics are tier based, and the best loot comes from being within 10% of the nr1. robert haynes often does double the allowed damage so all other in the event (up to 1k ppl) get screwed out of their rewards. Not only that he also loves to gloat about ruining other peoples fun.

This is a perfect example of someone who plays only to ruin others fun. There is nothing wrong with PvP/ raiding/ hacking etc. Ony it is impossible for me to see why clobbering someone who is much weaker is fun let alone do it with a group. Fun in PvP for me comes in taking down an a more powerfull opponent, even if i take a lot of flak.

Creating a group or using tactics which only goal is to ruin the fun of other players is despicable. IMO you can have plenty of fun with hard core PvP without messing it up for others

I don't see why I'd hack someone lower rank than myself either. The research would be garbage and the planets probably wouldn't be quite as nice. I think I've gone after a weaker opponent when someone expressly asked me to via a comm.

I think that if there was a range limit of who you could and could not attack would balance things out. If you were level 150 - you couldn't attack/invade/raid anyone that was outside of your class - like someone level 40. I was disabled once by someone at level 160 - when I was only around level 25 - due to an alert by his legion member that was my strength. I think that if you can't see/attack them in the Battle menu - they you shouldn't be able to attack/raid and even invade those worlds. I'm level 49 now - and I recently conquered a planet that was owned by someone that was level 53 - but I could have just as easily invaded a planet the was from someone level 8 - and that from just random scanning.

So what? You gonna pay several billion creds of new scanning tech and do a scan blitz just to find great planets already owned by low levels that you can't attack?

I may come back and add some more thoughts later, but here's my quick input:

1. Both limited attack and unlimited range have their good and bad. If it is too limited (no alerts, no bounty hunts), then you waaaaay encourage turtling. People will always do it anyway, and it is an acceptable game strategy, but at least they will pay for staying low just to pick on other low lvls who joined behind them. (I see tons of lvl 1 people in my legion who have been there for 2 weeks already!) On the other hand, not having limited attack range tends to cause a race to the top levels... so that they too can dump on all the folks smaller than them. The developers said they worked hard to make sure you needed a little bit of everything in this game. Pure energy builds can't take over over night. And that's a good thing!

2. I personally wouldn't play the game to be intentionally annoying, but it is an interesting concept. Why not let the dark side play out.... especially if they are identified! How often have we ran into this type of player in other games where they do it seemingly with out conscience or forethought? At least he is being up front about it. And I can respect that!

Edit: Necro-ing this.