Discovery 4.87 Universe Map

[Sabru]

Geographers love maps. =)

from my mainly IMG point of view, I would like to comment:

1. OC moved away from Taus:

Hm.... I can see where this comes from. But the time of Alpha raids is over and even though now many IDs actually receive the ability to raid home systems, there is that "+1 system" reason not to do it.

Since there is an OC base in T23, it should not be too much of a problem, though.

Somehow I would wish for OC caps to show in Taus more frequently (like in the good old times), but I assume that this will occur even less often.


2. S13 Hardcore-Warzone-Mess

S13 will be hell.
OC and Sairs in there, wow. Courageous decision.
Add to that that S13 cannot be entered by hidden routes (Chugoku corridor) and not avoided at all any more.

Therefore a few changes need to be made to this system:

• GMG will be totally outgunned by GBs and caps. Their snubs that are irply unbeatable in the fog have no chance in explosive gas clouds. Turn the clouds off to give snubs a chance! GMG is lorewise the boss in there... with OC and Sair caps, they will be a floor mat.
  
• Make the defenses at the gates and lawful bases strong. Like... strong enough to scare away big ship campers. This bottleneck can be blocked by a cap and there is no way to get around it.
  
• Place the OC and Sair bases nor closer than 30k from lanes or gates in the periphery. Jumping on an unlawful when people appear on the player list should not be too easy.
  
• Make these unlawful bases undockable for caps?
  

Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to that hellish system. And I'll have a lot of chars there... muahahah... but it needs to be designed carefully because like this, it can be a bottleneck that is incredibly hard to master for the traders that have been streamline-forced through there.

3. S13-Berlin hole deletion:

Good riddance.


4. +1 system for OC-Sair raids

Meh. The distance has already been upped in the last version and it gets +1 system again? I do not think it is a good idea to make this past conflict even harder to play.

A capraid takes ages to get there, and lasts for 15 minutes. Flight time is 30 minutes, and then you get focussed on and die in 1 minute. Fun and time spent are in no good relation.

Reducing hub function of Leeds

Good call.
Focussing and streamlining trade traffic to the lanes makes sense to increase interaction. E.g. the Leeds-Cambridge hole took away a lot of chances for encounters.


General thoughts:

System size reduced

Good call and necessary. Especially the Omicrons are so big that they deter people from playing there.

Blocking bases need to be reevaluated

With many hole-connections cut, blocking bases will get more of an impact.
I would like to repeat my call for clear rules about base positioning that take gaming experience and smooth game flow into account. Cutting off playing areas by player bases has proven to be a very bad idea, and as players will never understand that, people need to make them understand and follow the rules that are necessary.

I have to go now, I will post more later, likely.

any Sair-OC war in the sigmas will be interesting. My main TAZ trade route runs right throught all 3 of the sigmas.

at least i would have something to look at

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