One of the parts I enjoy most about this game is teamwork. Legion Base attacks are really fun, but not everybody likes to PvP. I propose that base attacks are expanded by including the option to battle NPC Bases.

Instead of using red badges to scan for an NPC Base, dark badges could be used. Since dark badges are already acquired from NPCs, it makes sense that they could be used for scanning NPC Bases. Currently there is an 8 hour timer between Legion Base attacks. I like the idea of a delay between NPC Base attacks, but I think 4 or 6 hours would be more suitable.

Now on to the NPC Bases themselves. There are already a plethora of NPC Factions, so having Faction specific bases works out nicely. Each faction could have unique aspects to their base and unique rewards for disabling their base.

Base stats:
Obviously we don’t want all of the bases to be identical when it comes to attack, defense, shields, and hull and we also don’t want battling NPC Bases to be too easy or too difficult. Since legion strength and level vary greatly, some sort of balancing formula needs to be used to calculate NPC Base stats relative to the targeting legion. More than likely, this formula will differ amongst NPC Factions.

Another option would be to have different ranks of NPC Bases, similar to how Legion Bases have ranks. Each rank of NPC Base could have static or random (within a range) amount for attack, defense, shields, and hull. When scanning for an NPC Base, perhaps make the majority of the NPC Bases the same rank as the targeting legion’s base with the possibility of +/- 1 or 2(very rare) levels.

Rewards:
This will probably be the most controversial aspect and also where the most input is needed. Much like Legion Base attacks reward silver badges, I think NPC Base attacks should either award silver badges, or potentially a new type of badge (could also reward more dark badges).

Additionally, I think it would be neat if the targeting legion gains more than just badges. Since the legion is in effect destroying an NPC Base, perhaps there could be a chance of salvaging part of the base which would then contribute to fulfilling Upgrade Costs for the Legion Base. Different faction bases would be more likely of containing different Upgrade Costs. This shouldn’t be a huge amount, but a few % here and there would be an extra bonus to getting your legion to work together. I’m not familiar with late-game resource availability, so I don’t know what reasonable amounts would equate to. For the more sought after resources/items, a couple of factors can be influenced. The occurrance of a NPC Base disabling resulting in a specific resource/item could be low. The amount of the resource/item dropped could be low as well. Or instead of making either of those super low, there could only be a couple NPC Factions that drop the resource/item. Those NPC Factions could then be rare to appear in an NPC Base scan. Additionally, those bases could be relatively more difficult to disable than the more common NPC Bases.

I’m not sure if Base Raiding should be an option on NPC Bases or not. I like the idea, but I think that it should be differentiated from Legion Base raiding. Perhaps each NPC Faction Base has a different item (or items) that can be raided. This could range anywhere from minerals, artifact points, or research to specific artifacts. Currently Legion Base raiding is only for rank 4+, so that complicates things if NPC Bases don’t have ranks.

I haven’t analyzed the different NPC Factions to identify unique characteristics about their bases, but I figured the lore of the different factions would play a significant role. Input on this would be fantastic.

If something like this has already been suggested, I apologize. Please leave constructive feedback.

+1

I especially like the base stats having a range they can fall into, rather than static stats.

+1 for well written, among other things

This just sound like a normal npc, where the ranks allowed to hit it all 1-all, there are more slots for rewards and its forced spawn rather than random.

The rewards are either silvers/dark badges and/or ctp/energy refills/em, which are honestly not worth the energy put into it, especially if it takes the amount of energy it takes to take down a normal base.

Then there is the part about the base's rank. If I was to do this, then my legion has to deal with ranks 4-8 depending on rarity, just because my leaders built the base up really high and opened the legion to newcomers. We would be screwed and never take one down.

Valid points Littlefluffy.

Currently it does sound a little like a normal npc, but the idea is to create a scenario similar to Legion Base attacks. I’m not set on the methods I listed above, they are more of a starting ground.

The cost vs rewards can be easily remedied. The rewards I listed are just some examples. Ideally, unique rewards will be implemented/created for disabling an npc base and even more uniqueness implemented for faction specific bases.

The base rank is a tricky situation. I completely agree that a high legion base could make npc base hunting completely not worth it. I see a couple ways of addressing this. First, the npc bases could be relatively easier to take down than a similarly ranked legion base. Or second, npc bases don’t have ranks and are scaled to according to the targeting legion’s average stats. There could also be a third option where a combination of the previous two are used. The npc bases could have ranks with a wide range of possible stat combinations that are scaled based on the targeting legion’s stats.

Ideally, NPC Base attacking will be just as rewarding as Legion Base attacking. Albeit with slightly differing rewards.

Perhaps it's related to the level of the legion base. Level 6 legions can find level 5-7 NPC bases. The price to pay for being awesome, but with the prospect of awesome rewards.

sounds a lot like bosses. though i wouldn't mind seeing more variety in boss battles, but essentially most bosses are 10-12 ppl per boss, so have boss that holds more and then it accommodates this suggestion.

Yes, currently it does sound a lot like npc bosses. Ideally, this will be more like Legion Base battling and less like current NPC Bosses.

One of the issues I’ve been trying to resolve is the level of the NPC Base in comparison to the targeting legion. What I think might work is to allow the targeting legion to choose their desired NPC Base level from a drop-down menu and then begin scanning. The faction of the npc base will still be randomized, but at least the targeting legion will be able to lock on to bases that they have a chance of disabling.

Another item is the raiding portion. My initial thoughts are for raids to be 100% successful in acquiring an item, but have the likelihood of the good items be low. Raiding would start on Rank 2 bases. A Rank 2 base would yield 1 raid per ship that participated in the disabling of the base. Each 2 rank increase in a base would yield 1 additional raid per ship. So a Rank 4 base would yield 2 raids and a Rank 6 base would yield 3 raids. Any +raiding bonuses that players currently have would increase the likelihood of obtaining the ‘rare’ items during each raid. I also like the idea of rewarding players who do higher amounts of damage to the base. I’m not sure how much of an influence there should be, but the higher % of damage a player does, the higher the likelihood for obtaining ‘rare’ items during raids.

As stated in my first post, silver badges (or another badge) should follow the current format as disabling a legion base. Since the lowest rank legion base that is available for attacking is rank 2, rank 2 NPC Bases should be the first base that begins rewarding silver badges.

I would also like to implement a new legion base feature called Legion Morale. The Legion Morale bonus would increase legion base production. It would max at 50% and decrease by 10% every 24 hours if an npc base or legion base has not been disabled within the past 24 hours. Each disabled npc base or disabled legion base would fill the Legion Morale bonus by 10%. To prevent higher leveled legions from simply farming low level bases to fill their Legion Morale bonus, no morale will be awarded if the target base is not within 2 ranks of the targeting legion’s base. (50% may be too high or low. These numbers can be adjusted.)

Now for some information on the npc base stats. I attempted to take information from the wiki and average out the stats to as closely as possible resemble real legion bases. The number ranges below may need to be tweaked, but I think they represent a decent start. Keep in mind that the various npc factions will have varying ranges. Some factions will be more attack heavy while others may be stacked with hull. I welcome someone with more legion base attacking experience to critique these values.

Rank 1
Attack: 150-300
Defense: 150-300
Shield: 800-1200
Hull: 1000-1400

Rank 2
Attack: 700-900
Defense: 700-900
Shield: 1800-2200
Hull: 2400-2600

Rank 3
Attack: 2200-2600
Defense: 2200-2600
Shield: 8000-12000
Hull: 13000-17000

Rank 4
Attack: 6000-7000
Defense: 6000-7000
Shield: 28000-32000
Hull: 40000-50000

Rank 5
Attack: 16000-19000
Defense: 16000-19000
Shield: 50000-70000
Hull: 80000-100000

I think NPC Bases’ shields should regenerate. However, I think they should only start regenerating if there has not been an attack on the npc base within the last 5 minutes. I think this is more realistic in terms of how a shield would work. If a shield is taking active fire, it wouldn’t have the chance to recharge because all of its energy would go into holding current strength levels.

I’ve come up with a handful of items that can be used for the common loot for raiding. This list is nowhere close to exhaustive. Ideally, many of the existing artifacts will be available as raiding loot as well. The items listed below work out nicely so that each rank of an item closely corresponds to the rank base that it would be raided from.

Energy Booster I Charge +2 for 12 hours
Energy Booster II Charge +4 for 12 hours
Energy Booster III Charge +6 for 12 hours
Energy Booster IV Charge +8 for 12 hours
Energy Booster V Charge +10 for 12 hours
Energy Crate I Replenishes 50 energy
Energy Crate II Replenishes 100 energy
Energy Crate III Replenishes 250 energy
Energy Crate IV Replenishes 500 energy
Energy Crate V Replenishes 1000 energy
Mineral Recovery I Recovers 2 hours worth of mineral production
Mineral Recovery II Recovers 4 hours worth of mineral production
Mineral Recovery III Recovers 6 hours worth of mineral production
Mineral Recovery IV Recovers 8 hours worth of mineral production
Mineral Recovery V Recovers 10 hours worth of mineral production
Artifact Recovery I Recovers 2 hours worth of artifact production
Artifact Recovery II Recovers 4 hours worth of artifact production
Artifact Recovery III Recovers 6 hours worth of artifact production
Artifact Recovery IV Recovers 8 hours worth of artifact production
Artifact Recovery V Recovers 10 hours worth of artifact production
Research Recovery I Recovers 2 hours worth of research production
Research Recovery II Recovers 4 hours worth of research production
Research Recovery III Recovers 6 hours worth of research production
Research Recovery IV Recovers 8 hours worth of research production
Research Recovery V Recovers 10 hours worth of research production

I’m working on coming up with ideas for faction specific raiding loot. I would like multiple ranks/versions of the unique loot so that all/most of the npc base ranks can be worth pursuing for players of appropriate ranks.

Likewise, it would be a great incentive to have base modules that can be acquired through disabling npc bases. For instance, disabling a rank 3 Rogue Science League base would have the chance to drop a base research module that gives +5 research production more than the regular base research module. These npc base acquired modules could have a limit of 2 per legion base. The faction bases that have these special modules could be significantly more rare to come across than other npc factions and there could be a low % of actually salvaging the module from the disabled base.

Another idea is to have base resource loot. Some random amount of resources based on npc faction and npc base rank are salvaged from the disabled base and placed into the legion base production pool. The extra resources are then distributed to the legion members during the normal legion base shipment.

Another legion-wide reward from disabling npc bases and legion bases could be the acquisition of CT-Lab discoveries. This should probably only be a possibility from disabling a Rank 5 base or higher and it would be extremely rare. Certain npc factions could have knowledge on different CT-Lab discoveries and when the targeting legion disables their base, they have a chance to salvage this data. In current legion base attacks, the targeting legion could have a chance to ‘copy’ 1 CT-Lab discovery that the disabled legion has made. If the targeting legion has already discovered the looted CT-Lab discovery, they are out of luck, otherwise, they are granted the new discovery.

Please provide any feedback that you may have. Suggestions for faction specific loot would be greatly appreciated.

I think it already exist.

XRP warp station.
Rank 600 BASE

there's also the chance to scan abandoned legion bases... seen a few already

I've seen a dozen of them.

I like this idea. +9001