When you get a Critical Hack, you get a planet on the enemy's scan list, It's rare but quite rewarding sometimes if you're lucky.
But a Critical Raid on the other hand is almost unnoticeable aside from a small increase in the resources brought in, so to better balance it out, how about the chances of a Critical Raid are reduced but one of two things can happen:
1; you also gain a copy of any artifact that is in their Cargo (in addition to the usual bonus of getting a Critical Raid), the victim of the raid does not lose the artifact. or 2; you gain a random crew member, sort of the opposite of what happens in a Critical Failure when raiding (you lose a crew member). The victim doesn't lose the crew member.
50%/50% chance of either of these happening.

First, raids originally awarded an actual random artifact or actual minerals. It was changed to AP/MP because it was bad.

Second, you don't see how gaining a random crew member by raiding someone else could be abused?

On the first point, I can see how that could lead to problems.
For the second, critical raids are rare enough that it wouldn't be too bad. A few prisoners worth of crew members each day, and some would go to scientists. No more abusable than critical hacks in my opinion.

Rare enough? I tend to get a crit on 1 in 7 raids.

Create your multi ship, trade a planet, have the multi poke the planet, 5 free raids every day. x10...

I figured if I raid 50 times a day, that's only about 2 prisoners worth, and not even where I want the points to go. Then again, I raid despite the crappy rewards, so an overhaul isn't a necessity.

I agree with the dissension above. Also, crit hacks and crit raids really aren't that unequal if you ask me. 4/5 crit hacks I get are crap planets. I actually consider it a punishment because it fills another planet slot with a planet I dont want. So there is really no need to boost the crit raid advantage to even anything out...

Guess you guys have a point here. Ill dismiss this thread.

For the record, I thought the capturing a crew member idea was neat.

i crit-raid about 50% to 75% of my raids at the moment, so yeah, capturing crew members would definitely be to my advantage. crew per rank has gone up from 25 to 28 this month, and i am trying to get it up to 30 by rank 200.

how about crit-raiding for badges ? if you do get a crit-raid, you get one of the other player's badges at random, instead of the normal yellow that you would get. of course, you might just get a yellow off of the other pilot anyway, but it would be sort of neat to steal a silver badge lol. and of course, if you managed to crit-raid a badge, you would not be able to acquire ANY badge from the target for the next 12 hours. not as bad a penalty as the crap planet crit-hack, but it's all i could think of at the moment.

i have no doubt that i am overlooking some completely obvious abuse, but i am also sure someone will point out my ignorance

If you get a crit raid, chances are pretty darned good, you already got a red and you get the yellow for the raid. Hack 'em before raiding and you get the full set before the crit "punishment" you suggest. Also, what happens if they don't have any badges? Or, you and your multi played kickball with a planet you shared and has nothing but greens?

Naw. He leeches off other people's kills.

it's called being energy-efficient ... and suitable for slow-ranking.

but yeah, i see how the green badge abuse could be done.

There is also the fact that Zeroing will get a new defenition..

My men would sooner die then fight for the enemy. Don't really need to say anything since its been stated.

Ah Soviet but if it was be fed into a woodchipper up to their waist or fight for the enemy a few might change their mind...

I think its a interesting concept butas my grumpy co-leader pointed out, the potential for abuse would have to be dealt with prior to implementation..


forgot the but

Raid Critically Successful! You steal 82 Mineral Units from the enemy!
Raid Successful. You steal 151 Mineral Units from the enemy!

How is 82 a crit and 151 a normal raid?

One suggestion though, if you crit hack and gain a planet location, since
you are on a raid (boarding party), why not steal, capture or recruit 1-2 members
on a crit raid.

It could be in the form of an android helmsmen or scientist.

Who here has lost crew member on a crit raid fail, or given up a planet
location on a crit hack fail?