This page will contain ideas for new installment of planetwars. Integrated with the winter lobby.

If you have valuable input feel free to post your ideas.

In the future they should converge into design document.

Saktoth's Proposal

The PW wiki is down, i wrote an extensive proposal on there some time ago. Id just link to it, but instead ill write it here, in brief. Almost all CA battles should be PlanetWars battles, it should be just like a part of the lobby and metagame experience, to encourage people to play more, keep people coming back, etc- also because of our limited playerbase. That means we should not make any design changes to the CA gameplay itself which isnt in keeping with CA's design philosophy.

Rewards should flow from the battle-level game to the planetwars metagame, not the other way. Outcome of battles effects outcome of metagame, not outcome of metagame effects outcome of battles. The metagame can include basic planet and economic upgrades, shipyards, fleets, planetary defenses etc which can exist and be interacted with in-game. Fleets determine where you can attack- one fleet in a system means one attack per 'round' (A round is over once all attacks have been made). Thus, the metagame does have some impact on how the game is played, but only its conditions (IE map etc).

Licho: restarted PW trac -  http://planet-wars.eu:8080/trac/wiki/SaktothsProposal Problem is without ingame upgrades, we are left with unbalanced teams due to factions and metagame that in itself probably isnt very fun and engaging, since it all depends on how you fight in-game.

Car: You say without ingame upgrades, we're left with unbalanced teams. How do upgrades help restore team balance? Upgrades reward good players, or those who play often. Consequently they penalize the rest. They don't reward the weaker team. And I disagree that the metagame isn't fun. It's like playing a massive galactic board game where every move results in a CA battle. Super fun.

Few ideas

- let people fight multiple times about a planet (number of victories needed depends on some metadata "fortifications" or whatever)

• Car: This sounds like it would complicate things unnecessarily. All you're doing in essence is turning one planet into three planets. Just add more planets.
• Licho: its to have some safeguard from nubs losing your planet while you gone..
• Saktoth: They'll lose you 'HP' on the planet anyway, which is the same. This will happen inevitably, unless you can 'lock out' your planet from being attacked, or such.

- let people build upgrades on their planet that are visible in game and can be destroyed, but have no impact on CA gameplay

• Car: YES, PLUS ONEONEONE. Please do so. Credits earned can be used to build cool structures that affect the meta game. Ideas:
  • A structure that prevents your planet from being attacked unless there are two links to it.
  • A structure that prevents your planet from falling to the enemy if it's surrounded.
  • A structure that, if/when the enemy kills it (make it no self-d), immediately ends the battle and BLOWS UP YOUR WHOLE PLANET REMOVING IT FROM THE GALAXY MAP lol. This may or may not cause de-links, and if it does then it should be limited to prevent delinking galaxy into two chunks.
  • A structure that gives you extra credits each turn. Or maybe instead, a structure that, if your planet is defended and the structure remains standing by the end of the battle, gives you credits.
  • A structure that can peek into linked enemy planets and see info about them. Or a structure that can peek at any enemy info, as long as it's linked to enemy planets (so if it's in the safety if your network and not linked to any enemies, it is useless at that time). I realize that with easy registration system, intelligence is currently moot since anyone can join both sides.. but I made this suggestion anyway.

I have 700 more ideas, I'll list them eventually.

* Frog: Defiantly do this. In game optional objectives would be really interesting. - if using deploy units, let them be visible on the strategic map - perhaps in the form of invasion fleets that have to move

- possibly restrict players build options instead of giving them free units. (You cannot build unit X unless you have blue print for it)

• Car: Would you really do this to replace the deployment upgrades? I think I could actually support this wholeheartedly if you do. Yes, I like it very much (as a replacement to upgrades). Unlock your potential as the campaign goes on.
• Licho: that needs restrictions to sharing, capturing and ressing :(
• Frog: Don't do it. This would be so much worse than retinue units.
• Car: Okay, I don't care about this that much. I just hate upgrades.

- planet "construction" - let people define their planet position and connections - needs purpose

- more smart options for mercenaries - what?

• Car: I think mercenaries should be strictly "less fun" than joining a side. They should have less units and power than a faction player. This is because our only purpose for having it is for pro players - those who care about the planetwars experience - to play without unbalancing the individual battles or the war. Thus mercenary play should be discouraged for the general public. I recommend not putting too much effort into the mercenary system. Just have it for players like saktoth to be a part of the planetwars campaign without having to register an account on each side to preserve balance. It should be a feature of convenience for this situation. My two cents.
• Frog: There's two things that mercs could be needed for. Firstly there's game balance, when balancing you have to see how the game plays while using the unbalanced thing and while playing against it. Most balance is done in 1v1 though so this isn't much of a problem. The other reason is a basic flaw with planet wars; most people like playing both sides. I'd say that was the reason for almost everyone having smurf accounts. Maybe the side forcing could be removed...
• Licho: most people had 2 accounts to balance teams and not to pick second side. Anyway, current planetwars contains temporary "mecenary mode" - you just say "!merc" and you can play with any team you want, but you are not being tracked by the system (no points etc).

- smarter way to deal with planets: on galaxy start, all planets are visible and they are divided amont two empires. People can select planet they want to inhabit. If all are full, they can co-inhabit some planet with other person. If they lose their planet, evacuation fleet is spawned and they can fly it to some other planet.

- "epic" planets. Those start as chicken infested and must be conqured. After planet is liberated, it can be settled and special structure can be built there. This structure has significant empire-wide impact, like higher income, making starfleets cheaper, making kbots cheaper etc..

- economic system? Perhaps income could be taxed and there would be empire-wide budget controlled by commander-in-chief. He would set taxes and adjust spending. He could build superstructures, massive fleets or reinvest to boost defenses on some planet (with some losses).

Deployment units in fleets only

• Let players construct given number of units on home planet. If planet is attacked those units help defend it.
• If you buy a fleet you can put units into it.
• Fleet travels to target planet. You can invade the planet and deploy those extra in combat using drop pods. If you win battle, keep units and fleet.
• Add various limits regarding volume of units on planet and in fleet, increasable with extra upgrades etc.
• Benefits: enemy can see fleet and its content and can prepare better. Its less likely to deploy units far away from home planet, naturally balancing game towards defense.

Deployment of special planetwars units/caged chicken queen

• Possibly add extra hero units that are only available from planetwars, possibly through team effort.
• Example could be caged chicken queen. Your biolab can produce one and you can send it in fleet to target planet. In-game you can send queen to the middle of map and let it burrow there. If it survives, planet becomes chicken planet and enemies have to fight chickens there to conquer it back.