Why jump through all these intricate hoops? Occam's Razor applies here - to paraphrase, if you have multiple solutions to a problem then the simpler, more elegant one is preferred.

Why do you think the guards are invulnerable? They can be warped away. Right now they just repair and reguard which is no different.

Repair has a 5 minute timer. You'll run them out of TMs/Nanos eventually.

And, if remember that your solution is not always the most "elegant" one. Your idea, frankly does not make sense...

Why would Wormhole Emitters work, when even Zolazin Saboteurs, masters of stealth and sabotage, cannot get past the deflector?

Not at all - a sab is a planet effect aimed at a planet. A wormhole is not a planet effect, it's actually a ship arti but you have to point it at a planet to use it. Vortex Deflectors should deflect all planetary effects including sab effects.

It's just like Starchart Purgers, which are also not planet artis, they are scan database artis but you have to point them at a planet to use them. When invincible planets appeared, the inconsistency was discovered and fixed and they are no longer considered planet artis. The same needs to happen here.

But the ship is in the planet's orbit, and thusly protected.

See last post - because wormhole emitters are not planet effects, they are ship effects requiring a planet as a target.

Sabs are planet effects

Is it?? My ship is guarding the planet but I'm zipping around in and out of orbit all the time, i'm not a satellite like the other planetary structures that have been installed.

Oh and wasn't I the one who was protecting the planet, not the other way round. I think the planet's busy defending itself and has asked for my help!

All opinions aside:

It is working as intended as of now(that is to say per the orginal concept and construct of dan). If you wish to suggest a change because you feel it shouldn't work this way, go to suggestions and post as such, that's where we discuss the matter of "should be"s outside of programming errors.

This is NOT a bug.

Looking forward to trolling, flaming and talking to you there.

To answer the original post of this thread- See viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1331 10 lines of text down.

Not to get off topic about the halc and calm amps, but since you keep bringing up Wormholes as a possible solution, it really needs to be stated how broken they are too. They are ineffective for the very reason you stated earlier, the guard can just return within 2 seconds. Real time combat with them is virtually useless.

It has been suggested on other threads that they be improved; perhaps by adding a very short timer effect that disables your ability to guard. The "guard planet" icon button would be greyed out for 30 seconds. Heck, even 10 seconds would make them a bit more useful. This is especially true when you consider the energy cost to use one. By the time you wormhole just 2 guards (60 energy), you could have MADE a planet (50 energy)- Irradiated, Plasma, Demon, etc. Heck you could have made 2 Sentient Worlds (25 energy). You could have purged 12 planets from your datebase (and the list goes on). That is a lot of energy for the guard just to return. For the freaking invincible guard to just return!

Gotta say -1 to that idea

I will admit I am a bit more sympathetic to your point when you presented it as defending your OWN planet. Initially I got the impression it was a stolen planet. I believe you said that the attackers "didn't want the planet BACK." In which case, I stand by my earlier answers.
However, I can see how it would be very frustrating trying to defend your own planet and you keep getting killed off of it. If that is the case, then I would suggest a different strategy.

1. Flux the planet
2. Don't flux it, do personally guard it, beef it up, and use a vortex each day
(if they want the farm kills from you, make them spend a ton of energy shooting their way through the planet in order to target you)
3. If you suspect they actually do want the planet back, then you could go with the clone population tactic (at least for real time fights)

Good Luck!

Don't be too sympathetic - this last time just gone was a stolen planet. I was a defender and not the owner, who was offline, so we were trying to keep it for him until he came back and buffed it. However it has happened the other way too where the planet was ours and we were defending an invading legion.

I thought of the timer too and I think that would be a much neater idea. Let's face it, in 'real science fiction' if you were flung off by a wormhole it would take you more than a few seconds to find out where the heck you were, then get back to the planet and guard again. Having a 30 second timer would be perfectly sensible and would also give you about the same delay as a disable/repair.

I'm not saying remove the target ship and disable option BTW, I'm just saying make the halc and zero consistent across all game play. Guarding a planet is a defensive action - you shouldn't be penalised for it, and you especially shouldn't be left helpless and unable to return fire if your planet and you are under attack.

The concept of "guarding a planet is a defensive action" after the action has started could be debated. If you are beaten back the first time, then the second time could be considered an offensive action as you chose to reengage the enemy. Never the less, I could picture the nightmare scenario you are explaining. Even as a highly pvp ship, I will use calm amp as a strategic option for doing certain things (like when I go on my scan runs and don't want to be disturbed or containment missiled. Or, dare I say, attacking bases )

Anyway, yeah it would suck to have a planet come under attack while I had my halc on, get killed off the planet, and still have no way to shoot back. On the other hand, if I were online long enough for them to shoot me off the planet and for me to make the decision to re-guard, I would already have stacked artifacts on the planet in question and clone spammed the hell out of it.

There's nothing wrong with making suggestions. Dan is pretty responsive to the community in my opinion. If that fails, then you just have to change your playing tactics.

My 2 cents. Back in the day I defended a planet all day being attack by DOO2 because the person that took it left without immune the thing there for they warped us away. Then the heavy hitters decided to join in. I can say I was killed over 20 times.. my rep took a bit hit. I got it back eventually. It Sucks. But its apart of the game.

If the planet is Vortexed, and you have a Calming amp/Halc on, How is the person supposed to regain the planet?
This rule was CHANGED, to make it fair...

And that is the whole point of the post - that the changes have not made it fair, in fact they have now made it easier for an invader to cripple you by rendering you unable to return fire while they invade your planet.

My proposal, and that of some other people as well, is to not add a million exceptions to the halc and zero code, but fix the Vortex/Wormhole Emitter behavior so that they work together more realistically. Just like Dan had to fix Star Chart Purgers so they worked correctly after he added invincible planets.

Instead of adding all these exceptions and strange behavior to halcs and zero tallies that in the end break the game, make halcs work the same everywhere, make the zero tally work the same everywhere, and change how Wormhole Emitters work. That is - make Wormhole Emitters a SHIP effect that takes a planet as target (like Star Chart Purgers, which is a scan db effect that takes a planet as target), and add a short timer (15-30 secs say) to the Guard button so that anyone who is warped away from a planet cannot instantly reguard again (would be like the USS Enterprise having to find where they've been warped to and return).

That would make the Wormhole Emitter a semi useful arti once again.

Again, move the arguments to suggestion forum. THIS IS NOT A BUG
THIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR THIS

I would be happy to argue with you once you move over.

Read the README - this forum is for general game issues/bugs - this is a general game issue, relating to inconsistent game behavior.

I'm not interested in arguing with you, I'm just reporting inconsistent behavior that negatively impacts game play in certain cases.

No, this is for issues with-in the game that are /PAY ATTENTION NOW/ NOT WORKING PROPERLY/AS INTENDED!

The situation you're whining about IS WORKING AS INTENDED by Dan.

Why should an attacker be forced to use an artifact just to remove you from the planet because you're using a halc/calming amp?
You make a conscious choice to return to defending the planet, so they're forced to use a second artifact and so on until they've ran out of Emitters, and you've won because the Emitters are ineffectual.

So, if you're making a suggestion, we have a Suggestion Forum. if you have an actual problem or issue, then start a new thread and explain it without whining~

have a nice day

Can you please just do everyone a favor and READ the topic before posting?? If you go to the top of this forum and look at the post by Dan entitled READ ME FIRST, it quite clearly says "This forum is for general game issues/bugs." at the bottom of Dan's post. It does not say ANY of the stuff above that you have clearly just made up on the spot.

This entire post is about a feature that was working as Dan designed and coded it, but which has become a problem due to the complex interactions introduced into the game by changing the way Halcs work (which I am sure Dan designed quite deliberately to work a certain way and then changed, not once but several times). This has happened numerous times over the past couple of years as the game evolved - just because something is working as Dan originally designed it back then doesn't mean it's still correct now. This is an issue in game that results in a tactical advantage to the attacking legion, when the intent was to nullify a tactical advantage of the defending legion.

You've just said it yourself - Emitters are ineffectual, so FIX the EMITTERS, don't add a bunch of exceptions to half a dozen other places in the code!

Are you a reset Ryoko? Who were you before?

You seem far too definite in your opinion to be a rank 60 in a legion of 14 players that's only been going 5 months....

Who are you really?