You are assuming the cap is low. As I said 100 brackets/rank is really high, I don't even have it, yet.

The idea is to make everyone different, not the same. Right now, everyone does the same thing, Add artifact production, stay small for lower damage cap and grow infinitely strong. Have inifinitely largeenergy bars so they never run out, attack to take any planet out there and hull greater than some bases.

SSB should be weaker than LSBs as they are they can essentially be the same strength or stronger with the a lower damage cap. As ICBLF said it would be a cap on everything so you have to choose to be defensive or offensive. Having the same amount of crew in a smaller ship shouldn't make you equal to a big ship. Crew adding to attack and defensive is a bit mind-bottling imo, but that is the way it is. That being said they are sacrificing space on their ship to be faster and avoid being hit which is displayed in the damage cap, but as is the lack of space is not really a sacrifice in anything that would make sense irl. No ship would switch out modules to perform a task, it's too time consuming to be realistic. If they wanted to just stick with the scan/cloak and % modules they would be a few thousand weaker in defense/attack/energy/hull/shields but they would make it up with a bit extra aph.

Those who pay have several advantages, several modules are GP only (radiant cannons, trinity cores, F.A.T.H.E.R, etc.) They also can buy planet upgrades and storage. Their advantages wont be affected by the cap.

Actuly by limiting the number of helmsmen you are limiting the Trinity Cores as they add a % to your defense.

a % non payers don't have.

So if the cap is so high as you suggest - how would that really change the current things? If strong ship like you have not reached it yet - it shall not affect the general playerbase, it shall only downgrade the small percentage of people who have preferred to invest really hard into this game. Sounds more like a little jealousy towards them too.
Instead of being jealous of strong ships - be glad they are out there and strive to become like one of them. That is the best karmic thing you can do, especially for yourself. Plus any suggestion like this, in my experience, results in a downgrade way more drastic than you initially anticipated, leaving you biting into the your own fingers - oh why did I even ever suggest anything.

My belief stays the same - do not downgrade anything. It limits freedom, it shall make players leave, and noone wants that. Instead, there are so much other content of a different kind, that can be implemented to make this game a strategy again.
I'll give you a small example - you can add content that is restricted to players who have certain % (percentage) of their stats implemented in this and that. You can add content that requires so much energy ships with only high attack/defense shall not be able to do. You can add content that requires so much attack even strongest offense ships will need to work for in order to do. And you can add all those together to encourage teamwork.

I am sorry to say this, mate. The above ideas are nice, but they lack long term, general vision of the whole game, playerbase and its finances.

100/rank is a mere suggestion, most don't have 50. The few who do wont take 1000s of ranks as you said to add more, which is my point.

Jealously has nothing to do with this. I already have one of the strongest ships in the game.

The point is to limit the freedom, complete freedom to grow EVERYTHING INFINITELY is what is we have currently and it requires no strategy. Just accumulate artifact points. That's it. whether you have 200 planets with 1000aph or 600 it is doesn't matter the end result is the same. Modules with non limited stats from artifact points becomes marginal and obsolete. Being hit with 30 TiBs wont reduce my total strength by 25%.

Players are leaving already, the game gets stale, because there is no strategy like there was in the beginning. Where you couldn't install everything, when you didn't have the energy to autorank, when you used research to advance your ship not just build credits. When you were limited

I agree. I also see a larger problem of a simple lack of content. There's nothing to strategize *about!*
It would definitely be more interesting if there was more than one path in building my ship, but there's simply nothing to *do* with said ship. Like you said, mindlessly click stuff. All ship interactions require a single response from me - mindlessly clicking.

The only thing I really find interesting about the game at the moment is developing planets, because it actually requires some thought - optimal builds change, rounding up % cloak and other good artifacts takes searching, finding/making good planets is fun.

But there is simply nothing interesting to do with the ship itself, and part of this is due to the glacial pace of new content. Bases haven't been meaningfully updated since they came out, *years* ago. Legion Missions have been the same for nearly a year, even though there's apparently an update for them that's practically written! More and more mechanics of the game are just glazing over, becoming totally calcified and unchanged for months, years:

Research, Mining - Artifacts are the ONLY relevant resource
Bases
Legion Missions
Missions, PERIOD

At this point, the majority of the game's mechanics are in stasis. And what used to be the one crazy guy at level 1000 is now hundreds and hundreds of people. This isn't a question of one guy rushing through the content and bellyaching for more - the game is filling up with players who have run out the content, and at the moment that number gets cleared by people just quitting. (Farewell Mento, Namalak, Grillin, and, and, and)

Other games are simply better at producing content. Game of Thrones: Ascent released a massive, game-changing Alliance v. Alliance combat system *as a weekly update.* Obviously it's something they've been working on for a while behind the scenes, but they release other substantial game revisions over the course of weeks, rather than *years.*

GL just feels like it's being left to rot on the vine, without any attention given to it. The Thanksgiving event was frankly embarassing - Dan basically just trotted out the same stuff from last year and threw it together at the last minute. Yes, we can tell. The holidays become just an excuse to not make any meaningful changes to the game for three months, and the summer updates were trifling. Essentially, nothing has been added to the game since Legion Missions. As long as that doesn't change, strategic ship builds won't matter a whole lot.

There are plenty of games like that, with no limitations, such as Castle Age. People play it for years and years. There is no need to limit the ships. As I said - so much other content can be added without doing it, that it just makes no sense to make people unhappy.

Now this deserves to be pinned. I am sure admins are working on developing lots of new and interesting changes. Got to keep the fingers crossed, because this is quite a common playerbase losing mistake for FB games - when content runs out. For most of the games it means game over. I hope it is not the case with GL. All the hopes on developers.

You'll have to provide something more substantive than that. The mere existence of games that people play says nothing about the quality of those games or the viability of a mechanic that allows player ability growth to far outpace the challenges in the game. Your idea for new challenges only kicks the cam down the road unless you also can propose a way for those challenges to remain relevant as ship growth continues (as you desire) without limitation.

Namalak was not quit I saw him on my Battle Tab just now, now a very annoying ssb I am angry because I can't scratch him as he is a frigate

Agreed that being an SSB/MSB/etc is a strategic consideration, but it's really the only one. The bottom line for successful ship building is still just 'slap on more points.' If you cap yourself at 2k decks, that doesn't change the fact that you always always always want more AP to make more Rescued Prisoners for more stats. It's not like adding defenses reduces your capability to attack, or having a thick hull makes you less maneuverable. In early levels swapping modules in an out matters, but at later levels it doesn't. If every module on my ship erupted in flames, I'd lose about 20% of my total attack.

I think Dan made a mistake - the BASE modules for your ship should give the percentage bonuses, and the special ones should give regular stats. Then, cap the ship's ability to hold % modules, but don't limit what type. For example:

Your ship can hold 2000 decks of standard modules. Standard modules work like so:

Gun: +10% attack
Defense: +10% defense
Hull +10% Hull
Shield +10% Shield
etc. for each stat

Each module takes 100 decks. You can't have more than 10 of one module. You can only build one per day. You can't keep extras in storage, which means if you want to change your loadout you can, but you have to alter it by one per day. (This means your ship is customizeable, but you can't swap in a bunch of scan, do a scan run, and then immediately swap in attack for invasions)

Mission modules and such would work like normal, but not have heavy % bonuses. They'd just apply stats that would be multiplied by your standard modules. They would be part of the ship's 'special' space like on bases - while limited, this wouldn't affect your ship's classing as an SSB or such, as shown below.

Now your ship is customizable in meaningful ways! You could load up on defenses and be an impenetrable hulk in pvp, be a glass cannon, be a master scanner, it'd be up to you. And since these are just multipliers, it's not like you'd be *terrible* at things that weren't your speciality. You could use all your prisoners for Attack and have your ship multipliers on defense for balanced fighting. Or just go completely nuts on Attack, but then you really *would* be lopsided. Sillixx would actually be useful since you'd get 2 more % modules of your choice! Dogs and cats living together! Race choice would matter more too - you could pick Lazuli so you didn't need to focus so much on hull, or go crazy on hull for Invinciship. But without Defense, that big hull is going to get ripped up pretty easy...

Readusting for Research and early leveing is easy - The first modules you research just give a 1% bonus, then 2, then 3, up to 10 at the top.

There could also be a potential for SSB's or LSB's - Install fewer base modules (maybe minimum 1500) for a smaller ship with a lower damage cap and speedier shield/energy recharge, install more (maybe up to 2500 decks maximum) for a higher damage cap and slower recharges). Maybe refills would be less effective if you went beyond 2k decks too.

You have it backwards. They are a cookie-cutter build. only difference is rank and decks. Take that away everything goes to infinity, besides scan and cloak. There is no loss for doing so either, just more production to get more sooner.

I am not saying I will now start bursting tons of new content ideas for Christmas. To be honest, this is developers' responsibility and job. Plus it is their game, their strategic vision. But limitations above will not do anything good for the game either.

I agree completely with the great Namalak. One thing you are right about - the limitation of damage to be done that is connected with the victims deck size is stupid. Game, on the other hand, is an imaginary way for someone to feel strong. There is no sense of taking this away for the folks

Now these are some great ideas. Plus they can be implemented easily even now too. +1 from me. Cheers.

Have you even played Castle Age? You play within a highly defined box of stats from quests and level ups and a few select crafts that take massive expenditure to acquire.

The only unlimited growth possibilities require massive amounts of energy and stamina to be used in the trade market, and you can only increase so much due to the capping on stat points. The unlimited attack defense and health mechanic is within the past year only. Which is why pretty much all the high level people are MASSIVE spenders as if they weren't they would require WEEKS of regeneration time just to level up because 'autoleveling' isn't even really a possibility there.