Posted 19 January 2015 - 09:45 AM

As much as they are detested, we have to admit that Ghost Drops (or Turret Drops) are a double-edged sword. We need them to happen to kick off a conflict, but they can be open to abuse by taking a planet too far in favour of a large attacking or defending force.



I have an easy solution that can utilize Ghost Drops to be a viable solution WITHOUT it getting too far out of hand: put in LIMITS as to what percentage of attacker wins can be affected.



ATTACKING - maximum sectors taken by GHOST wins is 8 of 15 (53%). This limit then makes it attainable for a smaller defending faction to enter the conflict to try and "save" the planet. The attackers would be responsible for monitoring activity on that planet to see if a defending force is going to attempt to reduce the attackers sectors down by 1.



DEFENDING: Conversely to attacking above, the defenders can only take GHOST wins to a value where the Attackers own 7 of 15 sectors (46%). This encourages the attackers to put resources toward that last sector to push it to 53%.



CEASEFIRE WINDOW: Matches taking place inside the ceasefire cooldown timer cannot have any Ghost drops activating (i.e. matches are always a 1:1 ratio). This prevents a planet sitting at 46% or 53% to be flipped one way or another by an uncontested 12-man group. The idea here is to avoid loading a series of 12-mans into the queue right before ceasefire.



Example:

A planet is sitting at 46%/53% attacker wins and there are 24 attackers and 12 defenders queued inside of the ceasefire window. The outcome of this conflict TODAY would favour the faction with the extra 12-man (defenders win the battle and the ghost drop flips it back to 53%). Under the proposed change, the Ghost drop will not find a match and the planet resolves ownership once the final 12v12 match has been completed.



NOTE: programming would have to look at the state of the planet for the final battle and align the attack/defense sector with the outcome of planet ownership being meaningful. A planet with 46% attacker wins with the final 12-man of attackers going on defense of their sector should not be permitted, since there is no chance of winning the planet in the final conflict of the attack window. The reverse would be true when the planet is sitting at 53% attacker wins (defenders MUST be in counter-attack of a sector for a chance to take it to 46%).





I think this is a great way to make Ghost Drops accomplish the function of creating a need for conflict, while not getting out of hand where it is considered manipulation of population advantages/disadvantages between factions.



I welcome your thoughts on my proposed idea.

