2022-01-13 FYI

[Xantheose]

When the counter-attack comes, the alt empire logs off.

What if an empire which has attacked any other empire remains in a combatant state for a minimum amount of time? At present, when the last player logs off, the empire becomes noncombatant after 3 minutes. That could be an hour if they've just attacked someone.

An hour or two maybe yeah. But can definitely start imagining more unpleasant scenarios for this feature now.

In one hour, we annexed all your empire, and you were here for defending it.

I think 15-30 minutes is enough to do a significant amount of damage to an empire if the attack was prepared, enough to persuade players to not disconnect once they are under attack.

Plus of that, the player should be marked as logged in the online player list during theses 15-30 minutes, to prevent "blitzkrieg once someone disconnected" tactic, which can be very efficient if the attack is focused on shipyards.

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The infiltration tactic

If the spaceships/cities could not fire once placed in "noncombatant state", players still can hide inside cities and ships, place bombs and wait a player to connect.

This is a major vulnerability in every defense system, even Q255, unfixable in game.


Even in a noncombatant state, the spaceships and cities should be defending their areas.

In the counterpart, the noncombatant state would be available only if the ship/city is in a system claimed by the empire that owns it. Every ship outside the empire border would be vulnerable.