Yep, i know its way early for that but i have been thinking of an artifact and making it a mission available artifact for April would be awesome.

This would be a planetary artifact. Call it a production disguise or something clever. When applied to your planet you can set the resource production that is viewed by others to a different value. The actual values do not change.

Example; You have a massive oceanic with abundant mining, x15 mega rich artifact and rich research. You dont want the planet to tempt anyone who may someday scan it or hack it so you apply this artifact and change what the production looks like to be sparse, abundant, very sparse.

Only way anyone would know the difference is if they actually invaded it. So on the flip side if you have some crappy planets you could make them look fantastic thus tricking people into taking them only to find out they suck.

A nice pop up should appear saying April fools if one of these planets is conquered.

I'd rather it be an NPC drop... I have several "substandard" planets I'd prefer to be rid of lol

+1 for the idea

Be a kind of funny idea. Artifact for april fools to abandon a planet. Tell the colonists you were just kidding, they aren't living here.

I do like the idea of the production masking, but I also would like some way to unmask before invading. Perhaps having the pop to 10 reveals it without a notification. This would make the attacker stop and look at the production of a planet before invading (very difficult to do if someone comes to defend it)

We had a ship masking last year... why not a planet masking this year?

Octafari Holographic Planetary Mask
When used on a planet you control, the planet gains the "Exotic" ability for 24 hours. This ability, which is visible on the Abilities tab for the world, causes the planet to appear to be an Exotic - the image changes and the text for the type of the planet changes. The planet itself, does not become Exotic nor gain any other benefit. After 24 hours, the effect ends. The effect ends immediately if the planet is invaded (successful or not) or abandoned.

I could see using it on VM/Sparse gas worlds.

+1 I like this. Maybe do it as a special april fools NPC drop like standard holiday events. I think I would see it more of a trap like one of those year long traps that upon scanning or opening the planet the trap goes off.

Another thought that popped to my mind would be that like cloaking on ships that hide the modules installed and a higher scanning lets you view more, something similar can be applied with this effect applied to planets that a ship would have to have a superior scanning to see the true stats of the planet.

What ever the actual method it is used I am sure many people will enjoy it so +1 for the idea.

I'm definitely in for some tricky or funny april fools artifacts!

i like it yet i fear it....
*feels torn*

haha, i would think it would be more successful if it was like that xecti planet trap... lasts 1 year, if scanned, it activates and changes the planets information for 1 week... that way, theres more of a chance of it fooling someone. otherwise my whole enemy scan list will probably just be exotics on april 1st...

Great idea +1

that~

+1

I was thinking more along the lines of a ship trap that if struck changes the attacking ship to a yellow space chicken or something for a couple of hours!

I love the OP's idea...This would give a great twist to the game. I'll even give it a +2.

The most effective uses of this artifact would be when it's much much later after April Fools and no one expects it. I'd love this

Would this really work? Most people i'm sure would be fairly aware if they had an awesome exotic planet on their planet list. If one were to suddenly just appear, then it would be fairly obvious what had just happened. Especially so if it just so happened to be very badly defended...

This would only really work if someone happened to scan you planet on the same day you applied the trap, and even then, the low att/def would prob give it away - if i saw such a planet i would probably just hold off a day to make sure.

You'd have to make something like this last at least a week, if not a month or more.

Or maybe we could have a trap which lasts for a year and maybe allows you to change where your name, rank and legion goes to: xxx Rank 1, No Legion. So hopefully a lowbie wont be put off taking a crap planet because of such a high rank