Now, this MAY be quite overpowered, but it seems that players find cloak and scan rather useless in pvp at high levels. The maximums you can get to are over 8k scan without buffs and and i think 4k cloak. What if to make things more interesting you got an artifact every time you level up (call it a medal of honor) that is usable and will give you +5 to any stat when you level up, removing the hard maximums of scan and cloak. This would allow players to be able to find more planets once they colonize over a few hundred. I know i just did a scan run with continuum analyzers, and was capped at around 500 planets. I dont have all the scan modules, so my scan was still under the maximum, but from the way i see it, you have until rank 2000 or at most 3000 until every single planet in your scan list will belong to you, and it will be impossible to gain more resource production without relying on legionmate planet shares, or in the INCREDIBLY unlikely event that i'm sure will NEVER happen, scan multis will be created and ship off planets to the higher level's main account (hope i dont give anyone ideas because i KNOW theres nothing like this in the game NOW...). And yes, it took the current players about 2 years to get past level 1000, but i hope gl will last more than 2 more years, which means its only a matter of time before new players get past 2000 and even 3000.

On a different note, many hackers and pacifists love to hide from other players on the battle tab. This means all cloak. However, there comes a point when you cant hide anymore. This also means it gets more difficult to hack, which severely dampens the playstyles available in the game. It would be nice to be able to get a boost to this stat and actually be effective when hacking or hiding at high levels.

As for attack and defense, i'm sure this stat appeals much more to the more aggressive slow levelers and dedicated ssbs. This would allow thier choice to become more effective and encourage them to get to a higher level.

Yes, i know we already get 5 rank points when we level, and thats great. mine usually go into decks, as i'm sure many other players' rank points do. But we cant increase our scan or cloak (which is what this post is really about), and i think we need a way to increase our scan and cloak especially in accordance with our level. This would also open up the possibilities of rank based npc factions. By posting new high level NPC races with over 9000 cloak, it will be difficult to find them easily without using buffs, and will also allow players who want to keep their scan down to avoid them.

Now, because this most likely wont be retroactive as with most updates with gl, many players would probably be pissed missing out on hundreds of 'medals of honor'. So, what could happen, is on completion of a low level mission, a 5 space module can be installed on the player's ship. What this module could do is add +1 or 2 per level to attack, defense, scan, and cloak. much like the M.O.M. asked for on mothers day. What this will do is simply take your level x1 or 2 and apply it to all of the player's stats. While this may seem like a large bonus, think of it this way. at rank 450, i have over 6000 attack. this will give me 6450, or 6900 attack. about the equivalent as the surge plexuses i have when battling npcs. Pretty much what i'm saying is the higher you level, the less of a bonus this really is, especially with as much artifact production as many of the higher levels have.

What this really will do is provide bonus attack and defense for the lower levels, and then give the bonus scan and cloak bonus to the higher levels, so everyone wins.

(of course, none of this will be a problem if the research tree is extended, or android cartographers (scan) and android spys (cloak) are added.)

While I agree with the need for fixing the scanning and cloaking in certain aspects, this would be way overpowered and break other aspects of the game ...

-1

First, to respond in order of what you typed, the maximum scan you can get without buffs shouldn't be the determining factor for anything. The four basic buffs allow scan levels to be somewhere in the 12k-14k range. That's a lot of scan power. Second, +5 to any stat when you level up? Is that on top of the +5 rank points? If so, that's excellent for those of us that go for auto-ranking. Or, for a player that wants to be a hacker, do you really want people running around with 20k scan? That would make cloaking planets even less effective (granted it wouldn't make it obsolete, but still less effective, in the above case it'd make a fully cloaked planet still findable by ~25%). Third, you don't keep planets in your scan and then just keep scanning, you use the star chart purgers. Personally I wait until I can purge a couple hundred planets before I attempt to scan. There is no point at which a person would be forced to have every planet in their scanners occupied by themselves.

I do agree there should be more opportunities for players to increase their own personal cloak. As for attack and defense, you get these from helms/prisoners/rank points. No reason to take on even more.

As for an NPC with over 9000 cloak, that wouldn't be difficult for those of us at endgame to find, but the vast majority of GL wouldn't be able to find it in the current system. An NPC with this much cloak, IMHO, isn't needed. That's too much cloak.

As for the retroactive thing, that still doesn't help. Even if it was +1 for each level, that means that those of us at endgame are going to get, on average, almost a thousand to every single stat. Granted, that's not a whole lot compared to what's already there, but still, that's just a little unbalanced (in a number of areas, the other being, why does everyone else get +5 and those of us high level only get +1 or +2 ... even though neither should happen).


This whole idea does not offer anything to anyone other than making everyone's stats skyrocket. Seriously, it would be easy to start over, level 1, about 3-5 months later be at level 1000 with a crap ton of stats. Wouldn't need to worry about waiting to get rescued prisoners and ship bots anymore, just add 5 to deck and 5 to engineer each level, then switch to 5 engineer and 5 tactical and you'd be able to auto rank probably long before rank 500 .....

The only useful thought in here is the ability to add to the cloak of a player's ship. However, if you do that, players will want the ability to add to scan. That is not a good idea. Thus, IMHO, it makes more sense not to be able to add to either stat.

the +5 to a single stat or +1 or 2 per level was not a give the low levels one thing and the high levels another, it was if the +5 wasnt as appealing to you, or was too op, then the +1 or 2 per level option was a rethink of the idea.

And technically, unless dan changed it when i was away, every planet you own counts as a planet scanned, and takes up one space in your stellar charts. so yes, technically you can reach a point when you cant scan anymore even with star chart purgers.

also, cloak is already useless. its huge compared to attack and defense, and offers no protection whatsoever. the only cloak i have on my planets is about 300 from some spy uplinks. i'd much rather have 6000 defense which gives me quite a bit of power after the legion bonus. this way, at least if someone finds it, they have to use missiles or sabs to take it. Because lets face it. if an enemy finds your planets, theyre gonna take em no matter what. i lost a 10x with over 1000 cloak and 11k defense a while ago to a top 10 legion. cloak did not help me at all, and due to sabs and ccms my defense was removed in about 30 seconds. Planets are the absolute WORST possible investment in this game, because they can be lost so easily. i always marvel at people who blow their money on terraformers to improve their planets. It wont be long until some rank 600+ comes along and snags it. but thats besides the point.

The point is, we need more scan and especially more cloak. we need planetary cloak to be smaller. and we need to extend the research tree. i started 13 months ago. i'm now done with over half the tree and on the last tier item for the other half. (logistics excluded obviously). we need more research that we can do. its a pretty sad sight when a 300 has the same tech as a rank 1500. as for scan, you may not have that problem yet, but you will. i dont know your rank, but i'm sure its close to 800 if not over. its just a matter of time before you run out of all the mission based scan buffs and have to rely on the simple npc and artifact draw artifacts to boost your scan.

The reason i want everyones stats to go up is to hold them to the standard to what is a higher level. Higher levels should be harder to find. but often they have no cloak. higher levels should have massive archives of most planets in the galaxy. i find it offensive we cannot even fit 20% into our ships databank. higher levels should have hull that can barely be penetrated. I've encountered the rare case when the player lacked defense so it was like shooting at butter with hot lasers. And as always, high levels should have high attack. again, i've encountered the rare case when the player had no attack. they did about 10 damage to me per hit. tops.

this would make it so being a high level is actually WORTH it. instead of thinking when you level, oh. now i cant fight those npcs anymore. or oh. look. more flamehawks. it seems players are penalized from lack of content when they become high levels. While that still needs to change, the basic issues at hand need to be dealt with first. namely, the hard values of scan and cloak, and scan being twice what cloak is.

i am only level 150 and i have enough insight on the game to know it is severely broken idea....

i would agree if you ask for more cloacking modules. but adding anything that could add an infinite amount of cloack/scan is wrong...;

If ya think about it it:

Max racial scan boost: 20% (explorer)
Max racial cloak boost: 68% (Zolazin Spy)

People never think of that. I haven't done the math (so I could be wrong), but I'd say that gives a nice boost.