in recent days i've been online, there seems to have been a swell in the number of flag cap success and attemps, I THINK ITS GREAT! we need somthing other to do than just shoot each other outside s9 (and thanks to the update) and s7. I myself am not a big fan of the DEF bots, when im capping or trying to defend, I DO though, think they are fantastic for protecting the new players. Since we may not be seeing the mission system until, who really knows, i think there are some solutions I may have thought up to reduce, and or eliminate the need for DEF bots in flag route sectors (IE 1,4,3,6,2,12).

Solution one (for those who think new player protection is needed): Have 3 homesectors, 2 absolute homesectors, owned and controlled by the nation, and 1 frontier sector, which would still be undercontroll but would not be all explored. (IE: hidden sectors that lead to trade routes all nations can access, but give easy access to the nation that its closest to). 1 of the home sectors would be a new player sector, easy bots, and would have DEF bots to protect from meaningless slaughter. The Home sector would be under controll of HCP goverments (HCP= Human Controlled Player) which means, they would need to organize defense against enemy ships. And the Frontier would be an advanced botting sector. Better goods droped from bots, but no DEF bots, and you're likely to encounter other nations there. The deal with weather the flag was cappable or not would deal with if there are experience players on or not. ( I might add, this is only like a dream situation, if it could happen, f**king awesome.) Experienced meaning most likely able to defend. This would be determined on score. if only one extreamly good player (based on score) were logged on, the flag would appear, for that nation. If 2 experienced players were online, the flag appears. The flag appears when the total score the number of people online for that nation adds to a certain number.

I have more solutions, but ill post them later becauese I have more HW to do.. kekekeke. right.


::EDIT:: Most other solutions are variations of this.

Problem is, we've had swarms of people all trying extreamly hard to kill those defbots. All to no avial. There arn't many ways around them, especialy with all this lag.

I tend to like the way it is at the moment, sure taking on the def bots directly leads to death most of the time, but there are ways to avoid that and it promotes team work.

As for newbie slaughter, from what ive seen, caping teams tend to leave them alone as they ussally are around the bots, and dont get involved. In the event they do involve themselfs, it tends to be a good experiance for them. Even experianced teams can be vulnerable to a well equipt newbie. As most attempts involve stealth rather then burte force.

I must say im a bit worried about caping being removed as well(thats even if its being removed). At the moment its great fun to get a team together, and make arrangements for a cap. Hopefully if it is removed, another "team activity" will replace it.

Id like to see more Secro and Nutral teams going for caps.
Even while the experianced players are defending. Remember even if a flag is mined. 2 people can demine the site with the right weapons.

I think the NPCDEFs are a lot better in this release. There's a good balance of newbie protecting and fair flag defense. Kudos on dev who worked on improving them.