Space Clouds

The Emperor contest rework

First and foremost, this idea is still in its planning stages so anything posted here may change at any given time. The purpose of this thread is to give players a chance to weigh in at an early development stage.  We welcome any questions, concerns, and suggestions.

Why are we doing this rework?

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a redesign for the Emperor contest. The current contest hasn’t been very fun or competitive for some time now. Long ago, the goal of every endgame team was to become Emperor of the universe. Today, the Emperor contest is a shell of its former glory. What used to be a very cool system that rallied players together to fight against the team claiming the throne has devolved into a system where players do not feel it is worth their time to even bother with it. We want to give the title of Emperor meaning again.

What exactly is changing and why?

We are planning to move Anatolia, which will be surrounded by a cluster of galaxies (more on those later) to Wild Space. This means that the galaxies will all become buildable. We made this design choice because permanent drones have become less powerful compared to player ships over the years and a small squad can take down 30 permanent Drones without too much trouble. As such, Anatolia requires a 24/7 active watch from the claiming team. While there is nothing wrong with the Emperor system being dependant on a team’s activity to some extent, the current lack of interest in defending Anatolia makes it clear that the player base would prefer a new system.

Anatolia will still be the galaxy where the Palace rests and it will be surrounded by a cluster of galaxies. We haven’t settled on a layout of the zone just yet, but you can expect something along the lines of this:

All these systems, including Anatolia itself (which is in the center), will have multiple planets of a new kind in them that doesn’t allow the construction of colonies. The planets will also have no resources other than a small amount of Nuclear Waste (which is required for the bases that will be built to stay fully operational). We’re taking these steps to ensure that players do not take these systems to make profit off of them, but only if they want to compete for the Throne.

The lore behind this area is that the war for the Throne has annihilated all surrounding star systems, leaving only ruined worlds behind.

How do you claim the Throne and how do you dethrone another team?

Anatolia and its surrounding galaxies will become buildable.  This means that becoming Emperor will be a King of the Hill contest. At the start of the universe King Midas will be the Emperor of the universe. Anatolia (and likely its surrounding galaxies to a lesser extent) will be defended by a good amount of Midas-type stations that players will have to BvB. We’re doing this to prevent players from instantly claiming Anatolia when the universe resets.

Once King Midas has been dethroned and his galaxies laid to waste, players will be able to own the Emperor zone for their team. With ownership also comes the standard rules that apply throughout Wild Space: you must own an adjacent galaxy for 24 hours before you are able to lay BvB kits in the galaxy you want to assault. The only difference is that you can only own the galaxies in this area by using outposts. The reason we don’t want them to be ownable by linking them up to a team’s HQ is simple: we don’t want a team to absorb these galaxies into their teamspace, making it more difficult for other teams to assault. The only way to dethrone a reigning team will be to blow up their palace, which they will be able to defend with their own stations.

What will the rewards for becoming Emperor be?

A team will get absolutely nothing from owning Anatolia and the palace until they build a Crown ship and manage to dock it in Sol. The rewards for becoming Emperor will be as follows:

  • Ability to create one Unclean Imperial Seal every 24 hours on the palace. (already ingame)

  • A 10% tithe to the reigning team that applies to colonies, sales to AI bases and credit scoops. (already partially ingame)

  • A team-wide aura that will give a percentage boost the reigning team’s experience gained, shield, energy, speed and possibly an increase in hull space. We are still considering whether to apply these boosts to their bases as well (we haven’t decided on any values yet).

  • The director of the team that has successfully docked the Crown in Sol will be given the opportunity to create an item of their choice (keep in mind that we do not intend to create new item types, as that would take a lot of development time). If said person would rather not design an item, they will be given a custom holo projector (which will be awesome, we promise).

Closing words

Once again I’d like to remind you all that this is in its beginning stages and nothing is set in stone. Any and every kind of feedback will be highly appreciated so feel free to comment!

Also, this rework will not go live until we are absolutely sure that BvB is stable and will cause no lag. The last thing we’d want is another Anatolia that is unkillable not because it’s so strong, but because your client crashes before you’re be able to kill anything… *cough* old Andaman Drones *cough*.

 

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