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Please raise the sector overload limit by at least 10.

Imo, sector overload is kinda useless and miss the point. I've seen a lot of teams use sector overload to defend against SBs(And it works), which is kinda wrong imo(Not the intended effect). On the other hand, I don't ever recall a team doing something special in order to avoid sector overload(and the lag associated with too many ships in the same sector).

I don't see the point of raising the limit. Imo, sector overload is a complete faillure at reducing the amount of lag and is just an annoyance. I'd completely remove it(Or raise the limit to a point where it's never reached). Really, the game becomes pretty hard to play much before the current limit is reached.

I'd suggest to either remove it or find something else to force people not to crowd a sector too much.


A good start would be to have team based overload. If overload was team based, it would then be impossible to create an overload to gain an unfair advantage. Also, there would be much more incitative to try to split an offense into 2 sectors(lowering lag) since currently, creating an overload is not a disadvantage because it affects both teams at the same time.

Agreed with Vly, the main issue for me is using sector overload unfairly like killing SBs and even TP2 scouts. Which sucks. It doesn't help lag issues at all, in fact, people become more excited when they hear the "PING PING SECTAH OVERLOAD BICTHEZ" alert.

Vlymoxyd wrote:QUOTE (Vlymoxyd @ Oct 9 2008, 02:35 AM) A good start would be to have team based overload. If overload was team based, it would then be impossible to create an overload to gain an unfair advantage. Also, there would be much more incitative to try to split an offense into 2 sectors(lowering lag) since currently, creating an overload is not a disadvantage because it affects both teams at the same time.

Genius!!!

No, it's not. Think about it like this. What if your one sector turtling with bios, and you have your entire team defending the sector while the other teams have the other bases around you and are keeping you in that sector. Your entire team (lets say 30 people) is in the sector, this causes the TEAM Overload to go off. Not fair at all. Why? Because your team is in the only place they can be in, and your punishing them for it. This could also happen with belters, same idea. Don't penalize teams for gathering everyone at one point for superiority.

Belters:
TP2/XRM should only available, if they actually have a sup.

If you bomb tac, SBs are gone.
If you bomb exp, HTTs are gone.
If you bomb sup, they still can TP2/XRM you to hell.

You have to understand that the whole point of sector overload was to give teams an incitative to not overload a sector, which creates too much lag and lowers the overall "fun" of the game. "Penalising a team that all gather together for superiority" was exactly the point of sector overload in order to avoid it.

Current sector overload currently does nothing at all to counter lag and is just an overall annoyance. I'm not sure which is better between team based overload or no overload at all, but I do know that both would be better than the current global overload(Which has the negative effect expected with an overload without the positive).

Summary of what you'd get:

Current overload: Unfair, no effect on lag, disrupt gameplay.

Team based overload: Fair, positive effect on lag, disrupt gameplay.

No overload: Fair, no positive effect on lag, Doesn't disrupt gameplay.


About the fairness of team based overload, a Bios team stuck in their home would have an advantage to keep a good part of their team docked " as a reserve" or out of the sector doing other things. It is actually what sector overload was supposed to do but it was obviously a failure. The attacking team would be disadvantaged if they all attack at once from the same sector as well. So it's overally fair, the Bios team would just need people sitting. The result is less people flying in the sector and less lag. It is actually what was supposed to happen with sector overload, but it doesn't because it's global. If you disagree with giving an incitative for people to stay docked in order to reduce lag, then you should support the idea of simply getting rid of sector overload.

And you know, in your example, if 1 team wanted to make a major push through 1 sector with all their team, they'd get hit by sector overload before entering the bios home while bios could camp as many people as possible without being hit by overload. The team that would be penalised would be the attackers much more than the defenders. But then, the attackers would get the choice to attack from 2 sectors instead of 1, avoiding sector overload(And some lag).


Again, I'd like to repeat that I'm far from being a fan of sector overload and I'd probably choose to remove sector overload before using team based overload. But if we're gonna keep it, at least make it usefull.

So what? We want to penalize teams for being big and using a one sector strategy? Why should every single pilot be at their disposal and out in space helping camp alephs? To not allow them they advantage (a completely viable advantage in a one sector strategy while you wait for tech to get up) is not only insane, but silly.

I thought the entire idea was to balance gameplay, not change the way the game is played via code changes. Commanders are the ones who make the tactics, the core producers set the limits, not the other way around. If you start changing things you don't like because people use it in innovative ways, well then why not just make everyone fly scouts and we'll have 1 sector DM's, since it takes all the higher strategy out of things.

Don't change gameplay. Help foster changes to help INCREASE gameplay. Raise the sector overload, dont enact new things just to have "change"

Well, see, currently we have a broken lag control tool that doesn't control lag while affecting gameplay.
I really don't see how you can both be against its removal or its fixing. I'm fine with either, but for reasons similars to yours, I'd prefer to just have it removed. The idea of forcing smaller attack forces isn't from me, it is from the MS devs who added sector overload(But they failed by making it global).

Maybe I have a different opinion because I was there when the devs added sector overload and always considered it as one of the most messed up feature of allegiance and never as a core one.


But as for you... You seem to want to keep a broken sector overload, but at the same time, you don't seem to want to see it work... I really don't understand. My whole point is: If we're going to keep a lag control feature that affects gameplay(Sb/TP2 defense right now, incitating teams to use smaller attack forces with the changes I'm proposing), at least choose the one that actually reduce the amount of lag!

As for promoting strategies and gameplay, the current situation with a global overload is about the worst possible option.
Exploiting the overload to kill SBs or TP2 scout kills much more strategies than it creates...
I mean, why camp aleph? Why probe rocks? why drop PPs? why have people ready near the base? Just let them enter the sector, set up, then launch 30 figs quickly, pod them all, then go do other things and repeat the same thing as often as is needed!

With team based overload, you'd have the choice between taking damage with a big strike or splitting in smaller strikes and taking no damage. Currently, the choices are the same, but there's no incitative to use the smaller strike. It changes the odds of a team choosing one strategy over another, but doesn't make one impossible. The good thing is: When a team chooses to split up their offense, the result are less persons in the same sector, less lag and an overally better gameplay.

Again, I'm more for the complete removal of sector overload than for "making it work as its supposed to", but I'm still really wondering how you could even seriously want to keep such a broken feature while at the same time, not wanting to fix it.

Sector overload is definatly someone i'd love to Iron out of the CC. Perhaps in the next release(which is going to be a big one) we can look at increasing the current value to someone more workable for larger games. Of course in the core we cant do anything to manage lag in sectors but it would help larger games.