making the attitude system more convenient

[spacetrace]

we are brainstorming about the attitude system. for the long term we could think about an diplomatic system.

but i think with less programming we could improve it a lot. Here is what i thought:

there are 4 things player want to do with our attitudes:

defense
attack everything (code you haven't shared with anybody)
attack everything but your alliance members (alliance code)
attack everything, even your alliance members, but not some guy you have secret pact with (code you shared with somebody not from your alliance), or help out some alliance and you are not a member.

i think the last situtation is very rare , but that possibility should availble.

the actual attack attitude is kind of obsolet.

my suggestion for more convenience is:
there should be 4 attitudes :
*ultra agressive - just click on it , and it will generate a unique code, which will be not displayed - ergo : you will attack everything - this should be the default - it should replace the actual attack attitude

*alliance loyal - just click on it, and it will take the alliance code without displaying it - maybe this should be automatically set if you leave the starter alliance and join another one.

* defense - like it always was

*and one last button, click on it and only then it will show the code entry field, where you can type in your secret attack code.

i think this would not too much work, but will be more convenient and more inuitive for new players , what do you think ?

[admin]

[admin]

maybe you could enter the alliance attack code in your HQ and only if you have, then this alliance attack code option appears in your fleet screen

[spacetrace]

i thought that there will be no entering of the alliance attack code.
just click on a button, and it will use it - bang

only the alliance leader needs to type in something somewhere.

[admin]

but maybe an alliance doesent want every new member immediately in their alliance-attack-code-group?

[spacetrace]

[spacetrace]

the suggestions above are just for making the actual attitude system more convinient and coherent, but i have already future thoughts and technical solutions for a future diplomatic system. this will surely take some effort (not too much i guess, but at the time we have so much to do)
for a faster way of implementation we could just leave the "treaty conform" button away, it would work too (just use the extra code button for trans-alliance coorperation)

it works like this:

5 buttons:

[defense] [agressive] - [alliance loyal] [treaty conform] [extra secret code]

every button just adds or removes stuff from the attack code (which is not visible for anyone )

the defense button adds *defense*
agressive removes it
alliance loyal adds *aac-youralliance* (which not known by anybody - it would be an internal thing)
treaty conform adds *treatycode-alliance1* *treatycode-alliance2* ... of all alliances your alliance is in peace
extra secret code adds *extra* (only known to you and somebody else) to the attack code.

the trick is now, that you will not fight against a fleet which shares at least one element of the attack code.

examples:
*i have only the agressive button pressed - result: empty attack code - i will attack every fleet (even those with an empty attack code)

*i press the defens button and the alliance loyal - result: i will fight against all fleets exept those that have defense and the alliance code.

* our alliance is in war with ally 1,2 and in peace with ally 3,4 , when i press the treaty loyal button , it will add the alliance codes of 3,4 - i will not fight againt them but against fleets from alliance 1,2

*agressive, alliance loyal - fights against all fleets (including defensive and fleets that are in peace with your alliance) exept own alliance (in this system all players bases would have defense + alliance loyal and they wouldn't be attacked by someone with this attitude)

by default the base of a player has *defense* *alliancecode*, so that you do not fight against them if you have pressed the alliance loyal button or/and defense.

you understand the system?!

it is very flexible and allows even more constallations than the existing system, but you just need to click the icons. i think it is more intuitive.
imagine this constellation:
alliance A is in peace with alliance B but in war with C
alliance C is in peace with alliance B

how could C fight against A but not against B if A and B share a attack code? not possible! in the new system this would be no problem just declare war against A and make peace with B and everthing goes its way


the only thing that you cant do is: stealing of the alliance attack code (spying) maybe we find a way to include it into the system, or - if not - it would be the price to pay for this system

what do you think?

[vyor]

both are very good

[Senor]

i think its a great idea to make the attitudes easily understandable and visually appealing. Basically i understand that this system would essentialy create 3 toggle buttons.
with this new system wouldn't it be pointless to even have the alliance leader select the alliance code. since he is the only one who can see it anyway, then wouldnt it be more sensible to lose the custom alliance code alltogether and make it random-generated instead when an alliance is created. so nobody sees the code.
of course then it would be really impossible to spy the attack code of enemy.
(im really tired so its a bit of a rant)

anyway for me the main question is about being able to steal the enemy attack code by planting a spy in their alliance. i feel that its a really cool game mechanic that is based on player creativity.

i would like to know what other players, especially vets think about this. and also about other stuff the admins are working on. I feel that good changes are happening in spacetrace and im very hopeful for our future. I know that this game has a lot of potential and we will have more players in not so distant future when everything that isworked on will be implemented. and i think its very important that admins get feedback from people who play this game. so i urge all veterans who are left to speak up and give their opinions. and not just on this topic, but for everything else also.

Cheers!
senor.

[spacetrace]

i know that the stealing alliance code is fun. but i think the new system is so cool, that i want to program it.

for the new system, there could be a spy research which allows to borrow the alliance attack code for some hours/days (if you are in the other alliance) ...

[T2]

I'd certainly be willing to try another system.
The current system has some good points to it although hard to understand at first and prone to unintended attacks against WH's, unintended battles with neutral alliance members or worse, battles within your own alliance.

[admin]

its a bit complicated to koop the spying aspect. and i want to koop it, cause it is a really funy option.
and a research for spying would not be good. cause you cannot do anything against it.

i think at the moment it is like that, that (as a spy) you get into the new alliance when you are lucky and after a while, when you have enough trust, you will be reviealed the precious alliance attack code... so the leader still has control about, who has it and who hasnt.
also, he can create a new code all the time, or another system with changing codes every day or so.....

when you are allowed to steal the code automatically, then no leader would allow new members so easily anymore

thats the problem with both options, cause, if you enter the code automatically, then you can always get it somehow ( look in the sourcecode or such)

there has to be done something with the codes, but i think we need some more thought, befor implementing anything new.

[spacetrace]

i think i really want to implement this , because i think it is really cool. The "steal code"-feature is cool, but as i said , i think the improvements are really worth. For the future we could have a really cool diplomatic system. So ... i would like to program it...

[spacetrace]

the first thing i want to implement is to make the attack attitude really work.

what means:

if you set your attitude to attack it will attack always:

you would fight against every fleet that has attack, defense or a foreign code - just always.

i think this is much clearer.


the drawback is that noobs, that want to attack together need to make an attack code to attack in a team.

i want to implement this very soon. any veto???? (pls. answer to this!)

[Senor]

i think its good. it didn't make much sense before when two agressive attitudes met nothing happened.

I like.

[vyor]

In the current system you can still do a joint attack if theres communication between multiple groups, but it wouldn't work for every scenario listed. right now noobs can still join together(MAFIA lol). I can see a way that there could be a way to steal an attack code with tech, make it like the com/alliance/flag trooper. But this system could make multiple treaties come up automaticaly. It is also much easier.

[spacetrace]

another thing is - in my opinion to make the incoming screen more clearer, by showing the relative information (what will this fleet do to my
+fleets) instead of the absolute information (attitude pic)

i think it's much clearer this way (see the pic)

in the tooptip you would have the absolute information .. so what do you think????



p.s. the tooltip will be more funky and will show the picture of the attitude (defense/attack)

here is the old way:

with the old system it is not easy to see which fleet is hostile... (in fact the enemy fleet 2 has defense but would fight against your fleet 1 which has attack and your fleet 3 which has a code)

[Senor]

its simpler and easier to understand.

i like

[vyor]

Much better, a lot cleaner and simpler to understand.

[spacetrace]

it's ready

the incoming and attack-attitude thing. we cannot upload it yet, because we have to change all the manual entries.

but this is how it will look like: