Settlement degredation

[Anthraxus]

This came to me on my way home.

What if Settlements were given a degredation stat, which would indicate the welfare of that particular settlement.  This stat would drop over time (I'm thinking like 1 point on a scale of 100 each day).  Anyone who visits a given settlement can donate money to build that degredation back up.  Alliance members of the governor donations count 1.5. Governor's donations count double.  The stat functions as a sliding scale on the value of mineral sales at that settlement.   A settlement at 100% pays out current rates, while a settlement at 1% would only pay out 1% of current rates. 

Cost to repair a settlement is inversely proportional to it's coordinates.  In other words the settlements closer to the center of the map would cost substantially more to repair than settlements at the edge of the map.  I'm thinking that a base cost for repairs would be something like 50 Ð/point at the edge and 5000 Ð/point at the center. 

This would do several things:

• It would encourage alliances to setup "Territories" in the outer ranges of the map to get access to cheaply maintable settlements.
• It would discourage (lightly) the Hub from trading hands quite so much.
• It would encourage more communication between alliance members to keep certain high pop settlements under control.

[bavin]

But it would leave us who are not in a alliance out in the cold

[benh7777]

This would promote more alliance strategies and activity which would be a good thing. At the same time helping control md. However like bavin says, what about all the players not in an alliance? There are some players that prefer to go solo and this would force them to join an alliance otherwise be left behind in the game.

[Anthraxus]

Not necessarily.  The current STO hub tactic would still be functional, even for singles.  The advantage of being in an alliance simply means that you are likely to have more people helping to spread out the cost of maintenance on a network of settlements.  And those high pop settlements towards the center of the map would most likely get that same kind of communal treatment as all of the non-allied people would be spreading the cost of maintaining them, so you aren't likely to ever have to pay for more than a few degradation points.  It's a little pricier per point towards the center, but all of the newbies and singles will still be going there, as well as the small membership alliances.

[pawanalur]

You could rebuild ruins for a fee of credits and you would own it like a settlement or a new homestead to which you can teleport from the 1st one anytime. Just like a teleporter.

Or you could have pieces like Martian bricks or use the elements you mine to repair ruins.
Eg. Grenarite dragonium would repair 2%
     pottasium 0.5%

The one who completes all 100% first will own that place as mentioned above.
It could even break down by 1% or 2% after a limited amount of time so that people work their best to repair.
If it is allowed to breakdown completely it could turn to non repairable ruins.
You could save it on a map once you reach 50% so that the quickest way from your location to it would be in some different colour to help you reach there.

[Anthraxus]

I went ahead and merged pawanalur's topic with this one, as it is really a variation of the degradation idea, although I like the idea of specific mineral donation required to rebuild the settlement.  I actually wouldn't mind replacing the normal method of taking over an ungoverned settlement with this mechanic, and the addition of a settlement becoming ungoverned it if drops below 50%.

I don't think it would be programmatically efficient to do the colored pathing, for the same reason that we can't do the traveled path coloring.  It puts too much of a load on the server.

[benh7777]

I would agree with this change.

[Anthraxus]

As a variation on this kind of thing, particularly with changing up mechanics on settlement ownership, what do you all think of an option to "Attack to Neutralize".  basically how I see this working is that you could attack to neutralize a settlement, which would adjust the defense of the settlement down 5-10 points, but winning the fight would simply damage the settlement instead of switching ownership.  Enough neutralizing attacks will push the settlement down to the point that it automatically boots it's current governor.  Then the attacker can take it over directly, but still has to rebuild it back up.

[e76]

I still think my idea of unsuccessful attacks degrading the settlement would be a good idea. Doesn't seem that different, but it was rejected before.

[Anthraxus]

Ah, I knew I had seen something along these lines before, but I couldn't remember specifics, and couldn't find the thread.  I'm not sure how I feel about unsuccessful attacks degrading settlements.  maybe a 50/50 chance of a minor degredation for unsuccessful attacks.  My only hesitation is that once the ammo suggestion is put in place, it removes the restriction of only being able to attack a place once a day.  So if you had the help of a bunch of low stat players, they could work on degrading a settlement by just burning ammo on guaranteed unsuccessful attacks.  I don't necessarily want to make taking over settlements that easy.

[e76]

 So if you had the help of a bunch of low stat players, they could work on degrading a settlement by just burning ammo on guaranteed unsuccessful attacks.

Is that a likely scenario? Could be, but it certainly wouldn't occur to me to try that. It certainly isn't the way I play the game, although perhaps others take alliances(which I assume is what you mean) more seriously than I do. I am not sure where the multiple attacks idea came from, but it wasn't what I meant. I also think that an attacker would not know ahead of time the state of the settlement. It really would not make that much difference in attacking strategy than what is in place now. Lower level players already attack higher settlements now anyway, it just might give them the chance, albeit a small one, of gaining a settlement.

[Anthraxus]

Whenever someone makes a suggestion, I try to figure out all ways that it could be broken or abused.  That is why I was looking at how this modification may be abused.  I don't know how likely it is that it would be abused by alliance, just pointing out the possibility.  I like the idea, in general terms, I'm just trying to find the best balance to be struck.