Quantity of accepted Missions should be limited

[Brok Ironfist]

Cool, thanks for the explanation Emi.

So if I have the calculation correct, it would take a 4.5 Baron AV to get a 25% chance of success against a .5 Robber Baron (and a 9.5 Baron AV to get the full 50%)?  And it would take 25 hours for it to complete?

Does the AP cost increase with size, like it does for the regular AV, or is it a flat 100 AP?



The disinfect seems to be quite quick for a .5 robber baron...  Disinfect time of 25 hours versus an install time of 300 hours.  Even a .1 has a disinfect time of 5 hours versus 54 hours of install.  On top of the new abilities to kill robber baron installs makes installing them non-rewarding.  Higher end players can quickly gain the hardware needed for a 9.5 baron AV (researching is a no brainer -- 14 million HPD if my calculations are correct).  So a 50% chance is quite attainable against a .5 baron. 

I'd suggest decreasing the baron install time to no more than two times the disinfect time.  With only 25 hours to disinfect it could easily be done on a weekend, destroying 12 days of installing (let alone the 5000 AP it took to get it done)...  I know a couple players who are regularly gone on the weekends and it will effectively prevent them from using barons.

As a comparison:  to disinfect a .3 FileShare it takes something like 39 hours.  Which in my opinion is much too high.  Those are nearly impossible to complete if someone is monitoring the servers.  When I actually cared about my File Shares I was able to patrol 80+ servers daily and kill anyone who attempted a disinfect.  File shares should be more like the 5.x Adaware that can be done in 18 hours or so...

Honestly, Emi, if this were to be put in place Robber barons will become nothing more than a useless target on our heads.  They need to become quicker and much cheaper AP wise to install in order to allow players the incentive to install them.  Otherwise they'll just be something some newbie will attempt to install only to have it disinfected quite quickly on them.

To be honest, I advocated the barons should be removed from the game.  But if they are to remain and have the missions against them I think there needs to be an incentive for the players to keep installing them.  Otherwise no barons will ever be installed again (not sure if that is the plan, but if we are going to get the new missions might as well allow them to be used)...

A player is gone for a weekend, or for heavens sakes takes a week vacation...

[Brok Ironfist]

Oh, and not to rant Emi.  I think this is a very good idea.  But needs a bit more balancing.

100 AP? versus 5000 AP install 
25 hours versus 300 hours install

[Brok Ironfist]

Oh, and it appears my main server can already handle the 9.5 Barron AV.

So, I guess I'll be able to kill everyone's barons rather quickly...

[siremi]

Oh, and not to rant Emi.  I think this is a very good idea.  But needs a bit more balancing.

What we want to do here is make the players that have RB actively defend them.

Right now, the Robber Baron is a nice way for players to get a stable income, however they will need to watch their servers closely and guard them, or else they will lose the RB income.

We want players to go from passive mode to a more active mode. It's very easy to escape a RB AV attempt if you just change the IP of the RB gateway if you see an attempt to disinfect it, or track the disinfector and stop his process, or install un-breakable defenses.

All you need to do is patrol your servers holding the RB, however one that wants to disinfect the said RB has to do a lot more, first he needs to break in, then start the AV and hope it completes and is successful before the owner of the RB gets the heads up. This is a very difficult task, multiplied many times if the RB is a high version. At RB V 0.5 it would indeed take 25 hours just to complete the AV on the RB. This is most difficult to do if you are attacking an active player, since he will definitely take action against the disinfect.

What we are comparing a 100% install with a disinfect attempt with a 5% chance and 100 AP cost (for an average of 2000 AP / success). Yes, install takes longer time, however it is more easy to defend your install then it is to defend your disinfect process. All this balances out, however tweaks can be made as we go along and see how it goes.

So, in the end, it's up to the players. Install RB and defend it, or don't install and gain HPD in some other ways.

[Brok Ironfist]

I understand the activately defending your baron part... But 25 hours to disinfect seems quite quick compared to the Fileshare at 39 and whatnot.  Especially with a 300 hour install.

I also don't want to have to be tied to the game.  A weekend camping trip puts me out of the loop for a good 40 hours.  A weeks vacation 168 hours.

I take a weekend off and all my barons are toast.  With that in mind I'd never install another baron again.  300 hours is just way too long a time for that. 

You say an average cost of 2000AP... But Process Traces are currently 5% success rate and I complete traces for the most part in 7-10 tries.  Every few attempts I'll have to try another batch of 15 but most are done the first round...

As for unbreakable defenses there are no such thing in this game.  Overloading prevents that.  And with a max timer of 1 hour on password break, there is no such thing as un-breakable.

[siremi]

I also don't want to have to be tied to the game.  A weekend camping trip puts me out of the loop for a good 40 hours.  A weeks vacation 168 hours.

I take a weekend off and all my barons are toast.  With that in mind I'd never install another baron again.  300 hours is just way too long a time for that. 

It doesn't seem to be a game play balance problem, but more like a problem related to the time available to play. I understand that some players may require to take breaks from time to time, and when they come back they would probably want to take the game from where they left it.

I think we can make this work if we introduce a vacation mode, I've been thinking for a while on how this could work.

What will happen when the vacation mode is activated is this:

- there will be a 500 AP cost to activate vacation mode.
- once activated, vacation mode can only be deactivated in 24 hours or more.
- the player will not gain any more AP until vacation mode is decativated

- each owned gateway will change IP and then be put in a "frozen" state. This state will make it so no-one will be able to connect to the frozen gateway or attack it.
- only the vir process on the frozen gateway will be preserved. All other tasks will be dropped, including research and running software
- when coming back online and deactivating vacation mode, vir timers on the frozen player owned servers are updated with time from when vacation was started.
   -> example: went on vacation for 72 hours, when vacation is off 72 hours are deducted from virii on owned gateway run timers. This effectively negates any runtime hours on any RB virii for example, as the run hours will remain like it was just before vacation started.

[Brok Ironfist]

Vacation Mode:  I like it. 

Objections to Robber Baron disinfect withdrawn.

[bontrose]

been forgetting to suggest that one

[ãłþħά-∆9]

Sure bonbon 

So
Does that mean i can start a baron install, then go into holiday mode until it's installed?
Will i be able to come out of vacation mode before the time i set for it?

My baron install just got killed about 24 hours off completion >_>

Decrease the install time/AP cost if there's gonna be antibaron missions...
But if these missions are so very rewarding, will people not be disinfecting each others barons for raw money ten reinstalling tem asap?
I suppose tat a good reason to keep the AP cost wat it is. mmm


*rereads post*

Sorr for the lack of H/y, i have to RAM it for it to work, crappy laptop 8D

[siremi]

But if these missions are so very rewarding, will people not be disinfecting each others barons for raw money ten reinstalling tem asap?
I suppose tat a good reason to keep the AP cost wat it is. mmm

They could try this ofc, but you see the AP to install / disinfect the baron would be about 5 days worth for each mission. The way I tested it, you need two people for this, one that installs a Baron, one that gets the mission since the owner can not get the mission on his own vir. Then, the one that accepted the mission has to disinfect the Baron.

This is a lot of work todo for several reasons:

- the one installing the Baron has to wait XXX hours to install
- the AP cost on both sides
- the HPD reward for the Baron removal is about 7 days income from the Baron

So, it's so balanced that it's a pain to farm, but great if you're just doing disinfects yourself...

[siremi]

So
Does that mean i can start a baron install, then go into holiday mode until it's installed?
Will i be able to come out of vacation mode before the time i set for it?

How it will work is you will be able to start the vacation mode, but your tasks / vir timers etc. will be frozen in time.
It's like time will freeze and you won't get AP and your tasks will be frozen, as well as vir timers on your private servers.
The virii installed on other servers are un-affected.

This means that when you come back and deactivate the vacation mode, you will have the exact same timers as when you activated the mode, giving no advantage just a break as it was intended.

[bontrose]

just a bit of free time in which to go on vacation or take care of buisness