I was going to write something about this about 2 weeks ago because I saw the potential problem and heard of certain legions stacking their legions with Saboteurs and I just had a planet taken from 3 Saboteurs.

I put at least 3 to 5 defensive Obviation shields on my planet and average about 5k cloak but how do I defend against 5 to 10 Saboteurs when I'm trying to get production ? I don't want to have to stack my planets with a bunch of defense and population.
The population buildings take up to 6 spaces so I generally don't put them in but how do I stop a bunch Saboteurs from taking my shields if I have 5 - 10 of them ?

There needs to be either a limit on the amount of Saboteurs that can be in a legion and or every person in the game can have the ability to have to put some kind of defense for them.

This class is too powerful to take a planet with no limits.
It takes a planets defense from 10k to almost 0 because that legion used some Saboteur ships.

Realistically a few ships that landed on a planet couldn't get past every guard or army on the planet to disable all of the shields so there could be a 90% chance of a success rate on the planet in question.

I knew this was going to happen to me because it's happened to other guys in my legion but I just kept forgetting to post it.

Seriously we all need some kind of defense for this.
A legion could have 10 low ranks that don't have to be builders because their ship costs are so low and can easily afford it and take planets all day long with no problem.

Seems very unbalanced here.

While we're on the subject of planets being taken some of us have close to 200 planets and have no idea what kind of planet was taken or the resources it had.

It really sucks that I have to ask the person what it was when my ship would have the information in it's data bank of what it was even though it's fluxed.

Believe it or not, i actually agree with you on this. There are some tricks which you can do to minimize the impact that sabs have on your planet. The thing is, if there is enough sabs in a legion then it doesnt matter what you do.

well it should not completely destroy the structure. As I said before it need to weaken it. say 50% but completely disable it is crazy.

Even if it were destroyed there would still be some form of a resistance. have it compound just like all the other affects that got nerfed. the flare and cloder only reduce stats by half life, and bombing a planet I think would have the same affect. Specially if it is well fortified.

I know saboteur can only use the ability one time and then has to wait so many hr before using it aging. So by making it only reduce the % of damage done, each structure depending on what it was would say take 3 saboteur to completely destroy it reducing the beneficial bonus of the structure to 15-20%.

I'd have to disagree. To accomplish this then you're adding something similar to hit points to structures. I wont say what i've done with planets but its proved to be pretty effective against sabs. 3 sabs to destroy a structure and it makes them more or less useless. I think blitz is on to something when it comes to either a cap per legion, aside from that, devise a better strategy to defend against them.

dan can put a limit on how many times a planet can be sabotaged. but limiting the number of saboteur in a legion might be too drastic.

+1

I agree. This needs to be addressed.
Also I really wish Dan would let us easily extract our planet database info into spreadsheet form.

Now that I'm a saboteur. I will say it's hard to get all the saboteur's together to take a planet. I've only used it twice in over a week that I've been a saboteur. Although I will say if you attack members of a legion and make a name for yourself; then someone buys the location of your excellent planet - don't be surprised if saboteurs walk back to their computer to be online at an appointed time (like I have) and find the planet has been attacked, taken, and fluxed in less than a minute.

The best way to get saboteurs to act together is to make a name for yourself in their legion.

Also no need to worry about me being a saboteur for too long as my upkeep is 3.6B currently (rising with each improvement to my ship) and I'll have to switch to builder soon enough; probably when the war with GP is over with.

That's another point I'm trying to get across here. There shouldn't be very many able to be in one legion.

Two Saboteurs can take out 2 of the best shields in the game. There should be a failure option if the ship's attack isn't high enough. I can put 3 of the best shields in the game and I'll have about 10k defense so if there is a limit of 2 Saboteurs they have a " chance " to take 2 of my shields because they are the best in the game.
They shouldn't be able to be taken out so easily.

Lets say that I do take 2 of my 3 shields and there is a new rule of 2 Saboteurs in a legion. That's 2/3 'rds of my defense taken if they succeed but I still have some defense left as I should be able to have.

I do put all of the defense I can on all of my planets that I'm able to. It still isn't enough to lower the success rate of a planet invasion.

Legions can stack Saboteurs with low ranks right now and clear out shields with one click ... way too easy than it should be.

Each kind of shield should have a certain resistance to each Saboteur in my opinion.

The number of saboteurs in a legion isn't something that should be dictated by Dan. The 8 hour clock and being on at the right time (and inability to be builder) is a huge deterrent. I don't like limiting them in anyway but limiting how many can attack a planet makes much more sense to me than limiting number of them in a legion. You have multiples not only to attack heavily fortified planets but also to be able to attack multiple smaller planets in a given day.

or better yet a saboteur should be penalized in pvp. I know your gona say no way. but think about it just using it as a comparison. they would have a stronger def but crappy ship on ship atk and I mean heavily 30-40 % less damage to a ship, and instead of destroying the planet structure, give them a 75% invasion bonus, that way their atk is boosted by invading.



This I believe would solve both issue with the class. because it is how it would work if it was a real class, you don't send your bombers out to the front line to battle other ships, their roll is to hit select ground targets. by imposing the atk Bonus it give them a much more successful chance at succeeding in the job there designed to do. By giving them an atk de buff towards other ships well that's just the class.

Its all part of the balance, and i kinda like it as is.

Currently, you have three main paths for defending.. and all the combinations you can mix in to them. Im sure im missing other ideas.

1) Shields. Lots and lots of defence, and with decent population they need to burn energy like hell to take the planet. The numbers look big and scary, and many people will not attack just for this. These work by costing energy to your enemy.

2) Cloak. Hope to hell they cant find it. If they do, chances are nothing will save the planet. Just a likely, nobody will ever see it.

3) Artifact defences. Stacking on those pylons and such. Gives a lower defence score, but is impossible to completly negate. Makes you immune to those pesky level 200's with crimson missiles, but not as effective vs high levels with lots of attack.

What sabotage does is force you to add population to your planet. Everything is takeable/destroyable by anyone given time and resources. Planets can not and should not be exempt from that.

Defences try to put the cost too high to be worth taking. 6 Obviation barriers might be godly defence numbers, but most of the time 3 + population is going to be much more effective in energy cost to take the planet.

Adding PVP penalities to the zolazins who smack your planet down wont help. How many zolazin combat specalists do you see? If its really an issue, change the cooldown. It wont stop planet losses, but suddenly they cannot hit every target they see. Each hit would be legion planned and sanctioned.

Just my 2 cents, feel free to disagree.
I lost a colossol gaia to a bloke with 7 crimson missiles a few weeks ago. Its frustrating as hell. But consider the total energy he would have put in to take that planet... If you cant have a chance with those odds, you may as well remove invasion flat out.

I say let them be. It is all a part of strategy, if you havent figured out how to better defend against it then you need to spend some more time in the think tank. Saboteurs wont stay saboteurs for long, it is more of a low to mid level choice. Eventually the benefits do not outweigh the costs. Besides it is one of very few options the lower players can take to get ahead of all those other super high ranked players.

At your concern over the embarrassment of having to ask what was on the planet. You play this game alot, you post on the forums alot, im sure you could find the time to make a spreadsheet of your planets. I know alot of players have.

I have to agree with you with the population but it would have to be about 3 - 7 k to stop most legions. We could take that population down pretty quick with our ships having 11k attack and using 1 Quantum Bio-Vaporizer cuts the population in half . I took a population down from 2.5k to 0 alone with it being defended by 3 guards and it had a Planet Vortex Deflector so I couldn't use any artifacts.

I cloak all of my planets around 5k at least. Some are 6k plus but the planet that I got taken was hacked so that didn't help there.

I'm rank 781 and I can't remember the last time that I saw a lazuli pylon. They need to be access again by the higher ranks via ship drops.

Wow ... I can't believe that you think they shouldn't be hindered a little with those cluster missiles being used.
What if a legion had Saboteurs too ? The cluster missiles get the job down all by themselves until you run out of them from the mission.

I still don't agree with you 100% but you have some good points .

I like using this idea, tie in the sab's ability into their ships attack and compare it against the planets defence, very similar to the invasion formula, maybe slightly more favourable to sabs then the invasion formula but if a planet has 10k defense a low level sab with say 1k attack power should only have a small % of succesfully destroying a defensive structure. Perhaps to compensate sabateurs for this change their timer could be reduced to 4 hour or even 1 hour cooldown.

first off you have to scan.... i do a scan blitz, i am lucky to come up with 1 really decent planet.... never scanned colossal, never scanned anything over 3x mega rich.... (which... i had to give away to my legion because i am not strong enough to take it there is a growing disparity between people that have money to spend and those who don't...

and yet you sit here and whine about loosing a few planets.... because you chose production over defense..... while the rest of us have 1 unit of production, the rest is defense and and cloak.... to a vain attempt to keep you taking it at will

heres a tissue

You don't know what your talking about. All of the major legions have them except us because the lowest rank ship that we have is 324 right now.

I'm not sure what his upkeep is but I guess we could turn him into one.

This is a class that is made for low to medium ranks and is too expensive for the higher ranks to be because of the upkeep cost.
We have to be builders whether we like it or not to be able to fight ships at our ranks.

As I stated above, I put all of the defense in the game available to put on a planet so a think tank isn't needed and I'm ranked 781 so I think I know what I'm doing by now.
There are quite a few guys that I know that hardly cloak or put defense on and that's why I have a problem with this.

I stack my planets with everything and lose production because of it and you have the nerve to say that to me ?
Like I said , you don't know what you're talking about or who you're talking to.

We all have lives out here and to write all of the planets down on a sheet of paper takes way too much time. I like to log in and play and leave. I don't come in here to work.

Instead of it saying " One of your scanned planets is no longer visible. Its owner has used a device to remove it from your database " , it could say the name of the planet and what the resources were.

using a comparison of a saboteurs attack to a planets defense is pointless. They are using a special, race only, ability. It is a special trained tactic. Like a stealth insertion team. We all now the navy seals didnt have to fight their way through all of Pakistan before getting Osama. Perhaps that analogy is a little overboard but the fact of the matter is it helps balance the game. It is a strategy and if no one in your legion wants to be a saboteur then that is just too bad. Deal with it. Stop trying to complain until everything is in your favor. I dont see you saying that the Kongol should be nerfed because there is no counter to their permanent attack bonus. There are several races out their, each with their own advantage. It would not be right to take any one of theirs away because it is not conducive with your play style.

OH and of all the planets i own (excluding gassers) i have 2 massive.... all the others the really great ones, all stolen...... and i protect my planets, the big boys have the advantage..... and you have the balls to whine about the sabs because the littel guy is now on par with you?
so how many of these plants did you steal from smaller ranks? who in no way can defend a planet against you? no matter how hard they try?


and if you have no sabs in your legion.... how does poor planing on your part constitute an emergency on Dan's part?
did you care when i lost 3 vlarg - massive exotics during the legion format changeover? no....

how about a big steaming cup of stfu

Listen read before you post .. maybe you have ADD or something

you sound like a real punk .. the kind that don't even need to post in here.

First of all I posted a long time ago that the higher ranks shouldn't be able to scan the noobs planets because you're right .. we have all of the advantages but this class can be abused very easily as it stands.

Read above to look what I had to say and then have a drink of stfu .. ya hear me ?

I would just like to ask 1 question. Why cant you afford not to be a builder? Why not abandon some of those artifact/research planets and steal some more mining planets from the little guys.

But seriously chill out, its part of the game and has been around since the zolazin were introduced. Why are you only now complaining about it?