Hello everyone. I wanted opinions on the following- Allow raids as soon as a ship's shields are down.

Currently, a ship has to be disabled to get raided, which generally means yellows come along with reds (barring legion alerts and ice fishing), while other badges are relatively separate/unique. Allowing raids as soon as the shields are down would allow someone to get a yellow without the extra work for a red.

Hacking is relatively easy, and in the worst case, a few artifacts (quantum flares, etc) are all that is needed to start hacking. Furthermore, I am under the impression that hacks are generally more desirable than raids (low ranks liking research and high ranks hoping to crit hack a good planet off of an enemy). Even with the change, the easiest yellows could be obtained would be with a Krionite Torpedo (rarer than flares and clouders), and even then, the comparative crews could come into play (cannot be reduced with artifacts the way scan/cloak can).

From a game designer's perspective, the change would raise the value of shields slightly, since I am under the impression that hull is usually valued more than shields.

Anyway, constructive thoughts, counter-points, or other related discussion would be appreciated.

Krionite Torpedo
Somewhat rare but....
Personally, when I PvP, about 20% of the effort goes into finding proper target(probe and tap people to avoid halc as much as possible, and sometimes run into targets that only had 1 or two traps that I thought is unlikely to be hacled but are etc)
30% goes into shield
and finally 50% goes into hull


If I already spent half the effort, why won't I get the red?

I like the idea. It would increase the value of shield.

But also, this will decrease the value of 'disable' (only for red)

as a hi-ranking well developed player who has SSB i appreciate the generosity of your suggestion.

that said, maybe because i'm getting old and conservative, I disagree.

yellows eventually based on the reward system have a greater and lasting value than red badges... so it doesn't bother me that they cost more on occasion.

That leaves aside those you find dead on your BT or as seem legions like to do en masse, the vulture raid... you know when a guy is alerted, taken out and everyone who needs a yellow goes for it on the spot?...

Speaking as a yellow badge contributor as well as occasional buyer, I like doing the deed as it were to get the badge and I like making people work for it hard.

Btw i'm a physicist atm and I still feel that way

As it stands, to be able to raid, your target's hull must be below 10. Not 10%, just 10.

Maybe change it up a little so that it's something like < 50%?

Not sure what that meant in relation to the original post's comments on Krionite Torpedos.


Hmm, unless I am misunderstanding you, I do not put nearly as much effort in to "finding proper target" as you do. Also, I was under the impression that on average, when forced to choose modules, most ships lean toward hull over shields and with XCharge giving half the amount brackets do, shields are often about half or less of hull. For me the finding/shield/hull split is closer to 10% (at most)/30%/60%. Why I would not spend the 60% extra effort (beyond my extraordinary laziness) would be 1) Some might not need reds/kills (we can get reds without yellows, so now we would be able to get yellows without reds), 2) hopes of getting through shields and raiding before tripping halcs (again, making shields more valuable), 3) not wasting my action count on disables when I want yellows, etc. (I could probably come up with more, but those are the ones that popped in to my head in the first few seconds.)


I considered that, but I was under the impression that unless your legion was fed bases, reds were valuable enough on their own. Do you think the yellow is sufficient added incentive to get disables? I was kind of hoping that this change would get people who did not like disabling others (for whatever reason) to participate in some form of PvP a bit more.


Heh, on one hand, I was hoping the change would encourage more people (particularly people closer to my rank/strength) to retaliate. On the other hand, the real "generosity" of the suggestion was so that I would have to disable less ships. Both because I am tired of running into TM limit for kills when I want raids as well as because I really do not feel like disabling players 3+ days in a row. I can imagine that if I am tired of disabling the same people, they are tired of seeing me disable them. Perhaps, this suggestion is just me looking for something new in PvP.



I am not sure I understand what you mean here; could you expand on it? If you mean the current system encourages discipline and hard work, then I agree and that reasoning is one of the reasons I was hesitant to recommend the change.


Heh, I enjoy doing those.


Actually, that counter argument is something I had considered. I just figured that the red would be sufficient reward for the aggressor and that being forced to keep one's shields up in addition to hull would increase the challenge/fun for the defender.


Trying to be as least judgmental as possible: Why?!?


Interesting modification. Something to consider.

I just think it's not a very good idea... until the ship is disabled and unable to fight back, why should you be able to raid them and steal their stuff? Just makes no sense whatsoever to me.

Bases on your posts, the premise for your idea seems laziness -1
If you had suggested a purple badge or something for say "neutralizing" a percent of an enemy ships hull or something like that, an option available after a ships shields are down, then I might be behind something along the lines of that

Trying to be as least judgmental as possible: Why?!?

in going Uldri while I seriously considered governor I decided it would benefit my legion more to be a physicist. Part of the decision was the alari towers require you to be certain classes to upgrade. Physicist was one of those. Lastly while I prefer hull in terms of when i'm offline, my shield is high enough that a 30% boost constantly I felt might be worthwhile in terms of defense. While the jury is out on that part, the only people disabling me as a rule are at least several hundreds rank higher and in one case, even with 50% hull boost between a few mods, it didn't affect his desire to take me down so its either a neutral or a plus in terms of the extra shield I figure. I won't be a physicist forever anymore than uldri.. I'm partial to litheor and talth

The torpedo instantly depletes shield which allows a direct raid regardless of target strength. Not particularly fair for some of the well built ships(or SSB ones)
On an average day, for each red badge, I spend:
about 15-30 energy on tapping after a probe and/or just too big in general
about 15-40 energy hitting a guy who happens to be halced (I hit ships if they have 2 or less trap. I'd be adding at least half of this to tapping if I didn't so there is no significant difference) and/or happened to be a SSB/have way too much def. The former happens roughly 1/3 of the time whereas the latter is rare. The former takes more like 20-50 usually, so it's reduced here according to encounter rate.

and finallu about 150-200 energy to disable(there are ones that take 400, but there are also 50s)
so of the 200-250 or something energy, over 20% is spent on targets other than the one that I do happen to disable.
But you are right, the shield hull ratio is off, maybe it's more like 25 55, but still, almost half the effort would be such a waste

Only change I would consider making to raids is you have a 5 minute window to raid someone after you disable them.
Only because it's not quite fair for someone with a slower connection who just killed you but in the 3 seconds it takes for them to use a TM then click raid, you've repaired.

If you want to raid after the shields are down then there should be a penalty based on the amount of hull is left.
Fully disabling would still have a purpose to increase your chance of raiding.

-1. The point of raids is to get them AFTER the ship is disabled. If you can't be bothered to kill the person yourself, wait for someone else to do it for you.

I like it. Anything that makes shields more valuable for anything other than slightly better ticks while NCing is good in my book.



I'm also down with these suggestions.

if anything i like to see the timer on raids removed lol i can see it on hacking but not with raids

i think the current raid mechanic does not need any adjustment ... i get plenty of yellows every day.

3848 raids were made by the top50 raids leaderboard last week ... 4680 the week before ... and 5573 the week before that. presumably the drop.off is due to folks getting the necessary badges to cap their thraccti ally.

i do like the idea of making shields a bit more relevant in pvp action.

despite hacking being easier ... there are only 29 current holders of The Elite medal (neglecting those who have reset or otherwise disappeared) ... while there have been 66 leaderboard Marauders to date.

now hacking is something that i am loathe to burn TMs on due to the chance of a crit.hack fail. so, if the crit.hack fail chance was eliminated whenever the target's shields are down ... that might be compensation enough for me to pursue the Elite medal.

First, I am more interested in the game mechanic rather than the fluff behind said mechanic, although I understand combining the two is common mistake. Second, if taking down someone shields then raiding them makes no sense to you, then you might need to experience more of the Sci Fi genre (or the pirate genre for that matter).


Moving past the fallacy, your counter proposal does not quite have the elegance of Devastation or Tree's suggestions.


Ah, I see. That is an excellent counter-point that I only tangentially considered. I generally considered that red badge modules boosts attack, yellow badge modules mostly boost hull, and I like attack more than hull, which led me to consider reds being equally or more valuable than yellows. Yes, I suppose if I ever seriously proposed this change, I would have to more closely consider the value of the market items.


Yes, addressed in the initial post. To reiterate, Krionite Torpedos are relatively rare compared to flares and clouders, and the target's crew strength is taken into account. In short, still not easier than getting blues. Fear considers me a "hi-ranking well developed player who has SSB," so I am fully aware of how "fair" this change would be.


Excellent, something for me to consider.



Thanks to all of you who provided me with food for thought as well as to the others who gave me a sense of where the community stands. I might broach this topic or a similar topic again in the future. (I will monitor this thread, but I probably will not comment again unless someone makes a particularly relevant post.) A few seemed to like the proposed change, but several more seemed to either not like it or not care. One of my goals that several people seemed interested in was to make shields more valuable, so I might get around to opening up a discussion on that. (At this point, I do not have another good idea on how to make shields a better choice.)

ohh btw those that don't know soon ppl will soon no longer be able to keep a second tab open to do those raids so my idea on removing the timer lol will be wanted soon.

since you need to wait or lose the target.(they are still in testing phase)

Pirates during Colonial times often raided ships. This we all know. But pirates would not destroy the target ship. Instead, they would weaken their defenses just enought to safely board the target ship (not necessarily destroying it).

Point is a ship didn't have to be "disabled" to be raided.

I think you have that completely wrong. Pirates had to immobilize their prey and weaken their ability to defend themselves so the pirate ship could get close enough to board and raid. In other words, disable it. Our ships don't get destroyed, they get disabled. Raiding is fine as is.

Although The Elite is 8000 while Marauder only needs 5000 so hacks are actually ahead 29 to 24 above the 8000 line currently on the leader board. Obviously this could be several factors such as people stopping once they have the medal, it being easier to farm blues at low levels than high, yellows having a much more valuable structure than blues, etc.