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[Soundwave]

Edited for further explanation.

Proposal
Currently on the alliance page you have a choice to upgrade Offense and get... nothing. And there is no choice to research Engine techs, let alone benefit from them. The proposed changes are not meant to make the game inherently more fun, just to streamline the Alliance projects since it seems disjointed to have alliance techs that quite literally don't do anything.


Currently:
Econ- extra cash
pop- extra rocks
recon-radar
war- ship reinforcements
def- docks
engine- nothing
off- nothing

Suggested changes:
Econ- extra cash
pop- extra rocks
recon-radar
war- access to alliance dock, and "balanced" ship reinforcements (takes 18 ticks to withdraw ships, and gives out Scavs, Hawks, puns, and Destroyers)
def- Defensive ship reinforcements (Discharger & Lurkers)
engine- takes 10 ticks to withdraw ships from docks.
off- Offensive ship reinforcements (Atlas & Nems)

Explanations

Economy
So glad that bank interest was taken out of the game. Getting random cash bonuses are nice, no need to change that right now. Though there is room for improvement.

Population
Again its nice, could be more exciting, but it works.

Recon
Alliance Radar, the concept is golden and works the best out of any of the other techs. If I had one suggestion, it would be that once the tech is completed the radar is the first thing you see when you click on your alliance tab.

War
Ok so what does War do? It lets you build different kinds of ships. So the tech should have something to do with ships. Like give access to docks and simultaneously give reinforcements of Scavs, Hawks, Puns, and Destroyers.

Defense
What does the Defense tech do? Makes your ships able to defend better. So the alliance tech should be about defending. Lurkers and Dischargers are units specifically used for defense.

Offense
Similar to Defense, but obviously with the Nems and Atlas instead.

Engine
Has to do something with ETAs, but what can you reduce without effecting the gameplay significantly? The time it takes to receive ships from the Alliance docks.

Edited material:
Engine tech ship withdrawal ETA now matches current ship withdrawal ETA
incorporated "balanced" ship reinforcements with war tech
Added Proposal Section
Added Explanation Section

[Rommy]

I see very little point in fiddling with the basic composition of the alliance projects.  I think the current alliance projects are logical and I see no need to alter them. Of course, other players may feel differently, my opinion is by no means gospel truth.

(If I could change anything it would be to create a project that gave alliance members a weekly ship bonus. The chance to get a level 3 ship bonus through random happenstance would add a much needed element of chance to the game, I think anyway.)

[Soundwave]

The end result of all completed alliance techs is the same for either the suggested change or the way it is currently. The *ONLY* difference between my suggested modifications and the current alliance techs are that you have to upgrade 2 more Alliance techs to get to the same "end result."

[soxy]

So your basic point is that the game would be better if it were more of a pain in the ass to make an alliance?

I would counter with the suggestion that we should bag this captcha bullshit.  They updated to Simple Machines code recently and stopped the spambots. 

Unrelated to the topic at hand, but poignant regardless...

[Soundwave]

So your basic point is that the game would be better if it were more of a pain in the ass to make an alliance?

Yes. Right now there are no Offense or Engine techs, which doesn't make sense. By all accounts they should be there, but what those techs should do is up in the air and no one wants to make something crazy that may tip the balance of the game, and coding something completely new takes time.

Right now everyone seems to agree that what the techs do atm are good, so if no one wants them to change, but we still need two more alliance techs... The only logical thing would be to stretch out the "workload" of each tech.

I would counter with the suggestion that we should bag this captcha bullshit.  They updated to Simple Machines code recently and stopped the spambots. 

Unrelated to the topic at hand, but poignant regardless...

How does this connect with the topic at hand?

[L8u8k8e8]

I would counter with the suggestion that we should bag this captcha bullshit.  They updated to Simple Machines code recently and stopped the spambots. 

We are running the most current SMF code and as of writing we get about 50 spambots per day that attempt to sign up to the forum. I stop most of them, but the captcha is to make sure they don't get through.

By the way, the captcha goes away after you reach a minimum number of posts.

[soxy]

Yes. Right now there are no Offense or Engine techs, which doesn't make sense. By all accounts they should be there, but what those techs should do is up in the air and no one wants to make something crazy that may tip the balance of the game, and coding something completely new takes time.

Right now everyone seems to agree that what the techs do atm are good, so if no one wants them to change, but we still need two more alliance techs... The only logical thing would be to stretch out the "workload" of each tech.

I'm gonna have to point out that making people do more work and invest more time in order to achieve the same rewards is going to make exactly zero people happy.

My 2nd comment was relevant in that I know L8 was reading this thread..

[L8u8k8e8]

I hardly call a captcha "work". And it saves me work, which lets me work on other more important things.

On the actual topic, I'd like to think of more interesting and creative projects to actually implement, but what soundwave has suggested is a fairly straightforward way to redistribute the alliance stuff so they all do something. It's something I probably will do for next round if no other ideas come up.

[Rommy]

Luke, I usually agree with you, but I gotta go with Soxy on this one. I don't think making this change is going to make anyone happy. The way I see it, Soundwave is simply proposing that more alliance projects are added (at additional cost and time spent completing projects) and the end result is basically the same thing we have now, with dock ETA reduced by 1 tick at the completion of the proposed engine project and the loss of RPS units and scavs as alliance fleet reinforcements. Shaving 1 tick off dock ETA will have only the most negligible effect on gameplay (I mean, 10 ticks or 9 ticks, who cares? With the removal of upkeep the docks are basically useless anyway, the ship reinforcements are nice, but nobody's strategy hinges on when their ship reinforcement withdrawals are going to show up) and removing scavs and RPS units from the reinforcement possibilities does absolutely nothing except take a few ships out of the game. (I realize Soundwave proposed a scheme where an alliance could choose between "balanced" and "worse" ships, but that only serves to make things even more confusing, to no real purpose.)

Instead of making these sorts of changes, maybe we could find some way to make the alliance fleet operational and useful again?

[L8u8k8e8]

Well, like I said, I would like more interesting and creative projects. And I didn't say that the final version would look just like soundwave's suggestion either.

The alliance fleet is... difficult... I might be willing to work on it again, but to be honest, I don't really feel like going through all the trouble I know it will cause. But if that's what everyone wants I can do it.

I'm still open to any other ideas that anyone thinks of.

[Soundwave]

I don't think making this change is going to make anyone happy.

The idea isn't to make people "happy" it is to smooth out the inconsistency of the alliance projects. Right now it is almost like a bug, like when you used to be able to change your production from 0-100% without ever researching Economy. It didn't make anyone "happy" that when it was fixed everyone had to spend their time and resources to actually upgrade economy for something they used to get free.

The way I see it, Soundwave is simply proposing that more alliance projects are added (at additional cost and time spent completing projects) and the end result is basically the same thing we have now

Well the Alliance projects technically should be already there, so I am not suggesting we add more, just that they should be there and do something.

maybe we could find some way to make the alliance fleet operational and useful again?

I completely agree, I don't think my proposed changes are exciting at all either. But until something is actually thought of and tested, it still seems like there should be alliance projects in Offense and Engine.

(I realize Soundwave proposed a scheme where an alliance could choose between "balanced" and "worse" ships, but that only serves to make things even more confusing, to no real purpose.)

I think there may be some misunderstanding here. I just meant balanced/bad as a single group including all the scavs, hawks, puns, and destroyers. An alliance wouldn't be choosing anything besides which techs they want to lvl up first.

[Rommy]

How about an "alliance cancel" option for the engine project? I know we've all had the experience of watching one of our alliance mates crash their fleet because for whatever reason they couldn't get on to cancel, what if alliance commanders had the option to cancel for them?

It could work something like this: For a variable cost (perhaps an M/E cost equal to 1/2 the members total population) someone with the appropriate permission level could issue a cancel order to any fleet belonging to a member of their alliance. The m/e would have to be drawn from the alliance bank, which would give alliances a reason to put something in their banks (which currently isn't happening, the alliance banks serve no purpose except as a place for people who are quitting to deposit resources, in fact I think every alliance actively discourages their members from putting resources in the bank) Along with this, there would be a log for cancel orders, like the docks/bank logs, so the identity of the person who issued the cancel orders would be evident. (This would serve to prevent "moles" from issuing anonymous cancel orders, although I would imagine the permission level to perform this action would be something that alliance commanders would carefully guard, so it probably wouldn't be an issue anyway.)

And for the offense project, what about a weekly unit bonus? Everybody likes getting bonuses  and as I said before, the possibility of getting a substantial unit bonus would add what I think is a much needed element of chance to the game.

[Soundwave]

Those sound like great ideas Rommy! The alliance engine project would work flavor wise because it would develop a super fast "messenger ship" that is able to cancel alliance attacks by intercepting the outgoing fleets. It would cost extra to do because of the super fuel or the fact that the ship falls apart by the time it finds your alliances fleets. (just to be clear, there wouldn't be an actual ship, just the button. Just making it make more sense flavor wise as to why the engine tech would give you a button to cancel alliance attacks.)

I too was wondering how to make the bank relevant again without doing the whole interest thing, and using it for the activation of an alliance fleet retreat would work great.

However I do object to the bonus ships. We already get ships from the war tech and bonus ships from the missions. Having continuous sources of bonus ships would create a headache for calculating peoples defenses.

[Rommy]

Heh, personally I think it would be better if it was harder to be sure about what sort of defense you would be facing on landing. I recognize however, that others disagree strongly with me with respect to that

But I'm glad you like my engine project idea. 

[Soundwave]

I agree that Defending should somehow be made a little easier/ riskier for the attacker. But giving out ship bonus's seems a little unfair. No one can see how many ship bonus's you may be able to cash in at one time.

I also agree that adding in some extra random elements in CW might be good for the game, and preferably make things harder for attackers.