Let me begin by saying that offline protection is necessary in the game. l am not saying it should be removed, but it either needs to be changed in the way it is triggered or additional rules should be put in place regarding use outside of protecting structures.
The purpose of OLP is to protect the faction’s structures and vehicles while they are offline. Everyone can agree on this. However, on the NA Golden Globe it is being used to provide an indestructible deterrent and something to hide around, rather than solely to protect the factions using it.
Let me be clear, these towers are completely being used within the current rules. The rules regarding these structures are:
No alternative / family share accounts are allowed to build Bases (private / faction) near (< 500m) another structure complex with an Offline Protection device built in.
You are not allowed to circumvent our limitation system by splitting bigger factions / alliances into smaller ones (< (less than) 3), supporting them with the current Offline Protection mechanic! You can play and support bigger factions as a small faction but as soon as we see you built an Offline Protection device on that “supporter” structures (in shooting range) they will be removed without warnings!
The intent is very clear that these towers are meant to block off an area of the map and were set up to purposefully use OLP: they would not survive in a PVP environment. Multiple instances of allied factions hiding in the OLP towers can be provided. The factions, while within the rules, use inactive players to keep their structures in OLP. While I can’t verify what I said about the players’ activity, the player logs should support my claims about inactivity. More likely than not the factions supporting and allied with these OLP factions have a legal alternate/family share account in there.
What this does:
Using OLP in this fashion is not in the spirit of the game. Nobody is going to assault bases that have OLP towers in a perimeter around them. This takes away from the game and gives a massive personal advantage (Fair play, rule 4) to the factions allied with the OLP ones.
What could be done:
A common sense rule could be put into place. This falls in the realm of exploiting the game mechanics and rules and could be judged by admins on a case-by-case basis.
Offline protection time can vary (up to 35 hours) by the time faction members are active in-game. For example, 5 faction members active for 3 hours each would earn 15 hours of OLP time when it is triggered. I’m not sure if this is possible with the current game mechanics, though.
For the number of members, only active members (within 24/48 hours) are counted. A faction using inactive or family share accounts does not count for the 3 members required for OLP factions as quoted above.
These are only a few ideas for improvements to prevent abusing OLP and taking away from fair gameplay. I am sure there is a solution to be reached before legal,1-man faction OLP buildings dot the pvp landscape.
Thanks for your feedback.
We all know that AG and OP is currently not the healthiest thing for PvP.
Hard to track. Hard to decide.
Nope, sadly not possible.
It would either mean we turn off playing with Family Share accounts completely or it’s again a rule which needs some reporters to us which means not accurate again.
For the future two things I want to push:
You can’t build OP anymore (and wiped from OCD of course). You can only trade / win / find OPs. (Next season)
Maybe Eleon can implement that not only a faction is counted for the check if the OP needs to be on or off if they are offline but also Alliances. So only if the whole faction AND their alliances are offline the OP is active.
I think this will solve all OP abuses but also means that all these cheap “sattelite” alliances are a problem then. But, rather your problem than our maybe.
So right now it’s hard to find a solution except as the one we have at the moment and worked more or less: report missplaced structures and we remove them instant.
Maybe Eleon can implement that not only a faction is counted for the check if the OP needs to be on or off if they are offline but also Alliances. So only if the whole faction AND their alliances are offline the OP is active.
This is a great idea and would absolutely solve OLP problems, though maybe make some more issues for alliance. Perhaps, if this was put into place, Alliance’s benefit would be that OLP does not drop for allied Alliance factions being online.
I hope you do understand that big alliances will have exact 0 hard time getting hands on an extra OLP. It will be difficult only for small factions which are not in an alliance. And overall, removing OLP from crafting will make things exponentially difficult for small fishes compared with big fishes.
RexXxuS, if you have access to server files, why dont you write a periodically executed script to implement option 2?
As a large faction owner, the time we use OLP is maybe 1 or 2 hours a day if I’m being generous. This would not impact us, OLP is more for smaller factions. I do agree with your point, though.
RexXxus I just feel like you misunderstood the common sense rule or maybe I misunderstood you. For example here, I was recording this actually but cor came down to golden globe and I fought them for a bit. Later I see their ships underneath sna towers which are always olp. They know what they are doing but it is a gray area. Hence the common sense rule, meaning the people that do stuff like that or aft with the hws seizure on base would be punished. I understand the difficulty in deciding, but I would only push the rule through if I had clear, undeniable proof.
And what is your proof? SNA has 4 members so they are safe regarding our rule.
What you are looking for now is to measure the real activity of players or as one of your member suggested “allow Homeworld and GG only for active members”.
Another idea would be to extend the rule of less than 3 member etc. to include the activity of players.
Ok you have to understand: we do not know if a structure has OP built in or not. That information is only part of available for now (egs recycle).
Stealth is for now also only working in space.
So with a massive workload for @Jascha we could use the egs recycle detection method to see if a structure has OP, then decide if the faction is active or not, then check if alliances are near or not, then if alliance are online or not, and so on.
I am not trying to drive you mad. I have written myself few scripts to manipulate Empyrion Blueprints, to modify my own blueprints. If you have access to a base BP, if it is saved in server files, detecting and removing OLP is a trivial job. Ofc, I have no idea if base BP is saved on server, or whatever information is saved on server, cause something must be saved there, I assume.
On Eleon’s end the obvious solution is to simply disable the firing of base weapons. The shield could also be disabled, and use mechanics similar to other games (exa. 7 Days to Die) where the blocks themselves become invulnerable. At the very least the weapons not firing would eliminate this problem for the most part, even if it still leaves an AG loophole.
With current mechanics, the OLP timer should simply be decreased to 18-24 hours of protection if no one logs in, and (if possible) players should have a minimum online presence of 30m-2hrs before OLP will kick in. In this way a faction would have to maintain basic activity levels every day, and wouldn’t simply be able to log in/out to refresh OLP. I don’t like the idea of players having to earn OLP, or OLP operational time, but I think limiting it to at least one person logging in per day for a minimal set period of time, is a fair call. This could also be used in conjunction with your donator options, such as the holiday pass, giving an incentive to use it to protect smaller PvP factions that are legitimately going to be offline for an extended period. Of course that would need its own limits as well.
RexXxus the only proof I could give us them being at the base, and I understand I can’t really show the activity of said faction but it seems to be olp 99% of the time. If there is a way that we could implement a check on faction activity that would be extremely helpful. Im glad you are taking our input though and I hope eleon can come up with a fix for this. Thanks for running a awesome server despite the negative people.
“With current mechanics, the OLP timer should simply be decreased to 18-24 hours of protection if no one logs in, and (if possible) players should have a minimum online presence of 30m-2hrs before OLP will kick in.”
No matter how many schemes server owners will use, abusers will find a way around.
IMO, HWS should try to address the abuse mechanics itself, if you are in an alliance and your alliance cluster is defended by an OLP while some alliance members are in game, remove the OLP.
Offline protection is a problem on Golden Globe. Maybe you should wait more than a couple days to complain about someone else doing what you did for the previous several weeks, longer from what I hear. This is the first week since I restarted on this server that TAW, ACP, HPG, and DIV did not have almost 24 hour a day offline protected buildings. Thank you guys for removing that.
To anyone currently using offline protection, do you really want DIV to put theirs back up? A wise man once said “treat others as you would like to be treated.”
Corsairs do not keep any bases or SV or HV on Golden Globe. The small spawning pad still there is just a core and square surface, how is that a problem exactly? It is true that people are now parking miners under the OP towers when they leave, but if not being able to destroy unmanned HVs is ruining your PvP I can put it somewhere in the open for you to enjoy.
Like I said above, I only park 1 unmanned miner there when not in use. We cannot mine next to bases. We leave when you bring 3 to 1 numbers after us.
I will just delete everything there when I get home. I can’t believe a 10x10 square pad is bothering you so much. We have always left our miners behind, didn’t realize destroying unmanned HVs was so fun for you. I will not park anywhere you can’t reach them.My bad.
When you are on Golden Globe, you hide between the OLP towers. Leaving stuff there, not leaving stuff there, has nothing to do with it. You knowingly accepted alliance with factions that were only put there for OLP towers. You have no valid point, and are really bad at sarcasm.
So this whole post is because of a 2 man faction who attacks you every day for weeks even when outnumbered, watched you run to your OP protected glob of bases for safety, now because, rather than warping immediately, I flew near the towers to lure 4 of you away from a 1v1 in space (actual PvP took place) then after your pilot in space ran away from the fight I flew straight towards a TAW fighter, attacked, then warped out? Just wow.