I'd like to posit another more difficult possibility to overcome, and yet, may explain the difficulties tracing the multi-account players .

They are not multi-account players. They are using other players accounts to play the game . For example - An accomplished player gets 2 or more friends to join the game who have no interest in playing . The friends give the player their user name and password and bingo the player has two or more ships/accounts to use and co-ordinate attacks against single ship single account players. These accounts have no connection to each other and any friends who play are removed to keep the legion at nil so no one can discover the violation and report them .

This could have innocently started when a player leaves on vacation for a few days giving his best friend his account info asking him to watch over his ship . Then the best friend gets attacked and needs help. Now, the best friend would normally call on his player friend for help. So, why shouldn't he do it now ? 2 ships against one Wow what if I had 3? or 4? How many tabs can I open at once and keep track off on the same screen. Oops need a bigger monitor . Sorry I'm rambling .

That ramble was supprisingly insightful.

if someone is stupid enough to share their passwordz... let them. the ship represents a real person so i dont see this as multi-accounting. its more account hijacking. stop worrying about these guys and focus on those that ARE exploiting/cheating with FAKE FB accounts. i would like to see a new forum for a wall of shame. name, rank, offense, and punishment.

Ms.MAM --
You describe what i believe happened to me.
The man used his two young sons accounts. Now why a parent would let their young child on Facebook with the lack of privacy is very questionable. Of course he could have set the accounts up to add more ships to his team at home.
Or just maybe he was trying to get his sons to play the game. Either way the way he went after me with three ships really pissed me off.

the situation you suggest is as I only think it could be called #&$#, but at the same time its a bit of a tough luck one too. But I think if we had the option to "report" players for things such as this we could be able to crack down on it

I have had something similar happen. I have about 500 cloak and am level 93 with a 'savage' reputation. I keep a couple traps on me when I get them from my artifact shipments.

So...this person has a 4 player alliance. He sends one of his level 1 multis to attack me and pop one trap. Then he sends his level 2 to pop another one. Each of these have a 1 player alliance...the main who is running them. There is no WAY these level 1 and level 2 players could have me appear in their battle queue. I certainly have never attacked them.

Now he gets a free and clear shot at me as they cleared artifacts that were supposed to last a week.

I'm sorry, this is utter crap and should be considered an exploit/cheating.

Regards,
Sean

Again, please use the contact option to send all reports like this. Include any player names you are aware of.

Hey! I have an excellent idea how to keep traps useful even against multi-account players!!!

New algorithm against 3 ship account: x (main), y (alt), and z (2nd alt).
1. y attacks my ship. Trap would be gone ONLY y attacks again but it WILL stay if non-y attacks.
2. z attacks my ship after y attacked, trap still triggers because he is not y..
3. now x thinks that traps are clear so he makes an attack only to be trapped simply cuz he is not z and y that cleared the trap..
4. Now, 3 ship account are ALL trapped but open to attack AGAIN when trap on him expires.
5. The 1 week trap will STILL be active against ANYONE other than 3 man account.

That new algorithm will make 1-week trap much more useful and even more useful against massive assault on the defender either multi-accounters or legit large legion... Voila!! Multi-accounter players can't cheat to clear traps anymore to clear the path for main player to attack.. A small nerf to legit players who wanted his/her friends to clear traps so he can make an attack. I don't mind little nerf at all and it'll remove real incentive for multi-accounters down the road.. It also strengthen the trap..

For example, I got attacked by a pissed off player with 400 legions. I put Halycon trap on (1 week). That trap will protect me for next 4 hours COMPLETELY against 1 or 400 legion members within 4 hours. But after 4th hours, they may attack again but who didn't attack me YET will still get trapped up to 1 week duration.. Same goes for 400 hp missiles. A guaranteed 400 hp damage to anyone who didn't hit me within 1 week duration.. But maybe as a trade-off for improved algorithm, reduce 1 week duration to 1 day duration trap maybe to weaken the trap power..

Just an thought hopefully to reduce the incentive for multi-account players..

Or, a simple algorithm:

Trap Trigger chance = ( % of hull+shield damaged ) + 15%

That way, the chance for a trap to trigger will get more likely as the ship gets closer to being disabled. Ships that do little damage against you (the first ships) are not likely to trigger the trap, but it will be guaranteed as the ship is damaged further.

Math FTW, ill be sure to test it out as soon as it gets applied to the test server or watever its called

Lol! That's even better and much more simpler and less requirement of memory usage (to memorize ship names, etc). I love that idea!! Weak alt ships will do almost nothing. They could have some use ONLY if primary player weaken my hull first then send in alt scouts for chance to trigger my trap but there is always a risk to primary player to get trapped. More risk.. But FAR FAR FAR better than current trap system that a first hit is a guaranteed trap being sprung..

My approach is just a simple guaranteed trap being sprung to anyone who didn't hit me yet but that would make my trap overpowered.. Your simple algorithm retains the trap power level while increasing it's usefulness of catching worthy opponents while ignoring weak decoys.

love the idea as well... those larger ships with over 400 hull points with have to watch their backs too! that omicron could go off just when they are close to death themselves!

I like the idea of a trap not going off first attack. That's the true trap! "Oh you made it through my shielding! Eat Omicron Punk!"

This change has been released. Please see latest news for full update.

woot we wuv you dan

Nice! But one thing.. I hope this change doesn't apply to the Quantum firewall. It should go off on the first hit because most weak alts still cannot sneak in to hack us anyway. Plus if it applies to firewall, the chance for firewall to trigger would be at lowest (15%) because hackers tend to hack FIRST before going into any physical combat..

Nope, the firewall will still always go off on the first successful hack.

Dan: Good job on the trap thing.

Actually, i was just thinking, since u r the host / master, whenever we discovered a multi, and report to you, can u disable all his accnts and ban his fb accnt from ever joining GL again?

I rmbr i used to be a mod-assist on a MMORPG, and whenever we discover multis, we ban tat accnt and every accnt similar to tat nick. Last resort IP ban or p-ban (permanent ban).

And trust me on the fb multi accnts report thing... i tried reporting SO MANI accnts and nothing gotten back to me at all.........

IMO, we should also consider have a tag on players with suspected multis to be 'taggable' and alert dan on it. It would require some adjustment such as adding a new pointer / field and storing it. And of course maybe false reportings / abuses.....

The other way is simply to create a permanent forum topic, and post all multis there (since we are not very big game yet i suppose). This way, we can mass hit tat multis, until dan can pban him for good / removal of all multis accnts.

Another way to discourage multis - Dan can always not delete his accnt but make him all stats 0 and all planets seeable and we can simply farm him for xp! LOL. Tat would be cruel..... and if he multi somemore, simply ip pban him for good! MUHAHAHAHHAAH!

*yeah, the very tired mindstate of seeing too many multis.........all the way from runescape's time*

Well. It's alot easier just to design games that don't give any incentive to multi-acount set-up.. Castle Age is one of good example that you are equally fine as single player or multi-account player that doesn't unbalance things.. Trap change is first good step to remove one of incentives from multi-account players that is good way to design game with long-term goal in mind..

I'm the only one seeing same thing?