First, I want to thank everyone for weighing in on these issues. I normally prefer having these debates on the forum, but the response seemed to be better than we usually get on a forum question.

The most important thing I got from the discussion was the idea of placing Online Fleeing into the Computer, Personal Settings menu. I like this idea very much. This should be a matter of personal preference, I think. Many of the arguments I've received against removing it have been for defensive uses. I didn't hear many people complaining about not being able to ping/torp, but I did hear from people who relied on it as a way to move a ship without towing.

I could add this to the CN menu and also add it as a global to allow quick toggle of auto flee.

Other than that, here are the current plans for SDF and Repo:

Repo:

I intend to have extern repossess ALL ships in FedSpace with only one exception. Ships in tow will not be repossessed. I will not automatically place a ship in tow once it has been purchased, so new purchases are in danger of being repossessed when extern runs.

In the future, if ship buyouts continue to be a problem, I will consider implementing a ship limit or another change to address the problem further.

SDF:

SDF is a difficult tactic to use, and is an advanced tactic that is only understood by veteran players. I don't want to eliminate it entirely, but 3 turns per cycle is just too powerful. I have implemented and tested a solution that has the ability to change the turn cost from between 3 and 4, thereby decreasing its power but not eliminating its benefit. The solution works like this:

When a player flees from an attack, whether online or offline, a flag is set.

When a player uses a turn, this flag is cleared.

If a player lands on a port or a planet while this flag is set, there is a probability that he/she will be penalized a turn. If this probability is 50%, then there will be on average 1 turn cost for every two times a player flees and then ports or lands. This has the effect of increasing the turn cost of SDF from 3 to 3.5 turns per cycle average. The probability can be either gameop configurable, or we can arrive at a well-balanced value through testing and make it static.

If a player has no turns, there will be no penalty. This penalty is only necessary to weaken SDF, and a player without turns is clearly not using SDF.

The explanation for this turn penalty is this: If a player plots a normal course into a sector, they are guaranteed to enter within close range of the planets and ports. If a player flees into a sector, they are not able to plot a specific course and there is a chance that they will enter the sector far from the planets and sectors. In this case, they must use a turn to approach the planet or port at impulse speed. I know it's a bit of a stretch, but it works for me :)

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John Pritchett
Epic Interactive Strategy
www.eisonline.com