I don't think you fit into my definition of big player. When I say "big player" I mean big spender... I'm talking about the top 100-200 accounts in this game the accounts that are 20m+ and getting bigger. These guys are rich (or they're guys with unhappy wives who hate this game). How many people do you think spends over $1000 a month on this game? 1 person who spends per month $1000 is more valuable than 500 people spending 20..... More people also costs more money to run the game....

So think about it, right now there are 2200 people online... So say there are like 8k active players (and that's being generous I think) say 30% of them spend money (again, generous... or maybe not who knows) so altogether 20% $20 per month for the sub and say $30 for w.e else... average $50 person month... for example... hypathetically....... So we got 1600 people spending $50 per month (again proly being generous here I don't think that many spend that much) that's $80k per month from small spenders.... Now say 5% spend of the player base spends $500 per month that's $320k and even smaller % spend even more... And the rest play for free...... Well they don't need the freebies they just take up space, so make the game worse and they won't wanna play, but the other spenders who have invested so much are basically stuck, they aren't gonna quit after 3 years of progress and spending..... The point is, they're making good money even if cut everything I just said in half, or even a third..... There's no reason they couldn't expand and make the game better for everyone and reduce the ridiculous prices which could make this game enormous in scope, and would even generate more money. But the devs seem content with what they're doing and they want to keep pulling the same amount or more money without expanding the game because that would take a lot of server space, and hard work. TBH I don't blame them they got a great thing going.... Highlighting the Xerj drone always saying "Mama I'm gonna be OK"

Anyway, for you specifically I don't understand the issue. You have 5m points and you're xerj (meaning you can easily and cheaply hunt pirates with extremely low risk of losing anything when attacking with pancors) you should be able to hunt pirates without any issue what-so-ever. The change shouldn't effect you at all, it's only effecting those smaller players who want to hunt pirates with smaller ships, and who have less. Like I said they did the one good change making pirates drop more debris... the ratio for xerj is back to normal.... The rule of thumb is 1 pancor per 100k debris... A pirate dropping 1m debris? 10 Pancor, and maybe throw in some defilers to be sure. Before the change it was 2 pancors per 100k ever since THAT change they made to pirates a few years ago. Thankfully they changed it back.... It's one of only good changes I've seen in this game.

BTW I think there are a few players who spend far more than just $1k per month if you averaged their spending through a year. I would not be in the least surprised to hear some spend 100k per year. I wouldn't bet against it anyway.... Wouldn't bet on it either, but still....

This game will not completely die. The devs only need the largest players. They spend a LOT of money on this game, and the devs do everything in this game to force the large players who have invested too much to quit, to spend more. Once all of these big spenders max their accounts out and have nothing left to spend money on, that's when this game will die. That isn't going to happen in a year. They don't need the smaller players.... In fact, they don't even WANT the smaller players that's why they make every change to make the game worse for smaller players.

It seems they have a certain capacity for their servers and they balance the game in a way to keep the server load from maxing out by making it so bad that people just quit or give up. The only other option is to trudge along like some of us who have invested too much time to quit, or to simply give up. They also seem to ban players they don't like. In fact my entire alliances leadership was banned within the last year.... like 30 people just banned and noone knows why. I try to ask but the people who really understand what's going on deeply are Russian, and the translation always amounts to "They play games".... they as in the devs.... So who knows.

All I know is that 4 years ago it was 10x times worse than 6 years ago and today its 50x worse than 4 years ago. They make changes without telling us on a monthly basis, 99.99% of the changes are terrible for the player..... the only good change they've made in the last 4 years is increasing the pirates and making them drop more debris....... Which isn't really a change, as this is how it used to be a couple years ago before they changed it for the worse. So basically the only good change that I can remember in almost 7 years of playing this god foresaken game, is undoing a terrible change they made a year or 2 ago.

UncleanOne, It is checked when damage from non-fatal shot is applied to unit's armor.

Right that's where I got that last part from. If you're almost dead, then how does it know to check from a non fatal shot if that shot would not be fatal with the damage reduction, but WOULD BE without it.

Hence.... armor = 100 right? That means you have 100 armor + 20% damage reduction..... so the attack must be 120 damage for a kill shot right? So, if it's a kill shot the 20% reduction doesn't count.... so then does the attack only have to be 100 damage instead of 120 since the 20% doesn't count?

That seems ridiculous doesn't it?

(Sorry when I said the 80 I was speaking of it as extra armor instead of armor reduction. Like... If I have 100 armor and the 20% is included, that means I have ACTUALLY 80 armor..... so a kill shot would only need 80 damage instead of the 100... It's KINDA the same thing, but if you look at it that way it would be completely confusing as to when the kill shot bypass of the regeneration would actually take place.... it was my mistake It's damage reduction not extra armor.... But even still it's a little ridiculous that all of a sudden at a certain health dependent on the attack damage your extra 20% just disappears)

And last thing.... What do you mean by the term "burst damage". Could you give an example of this?

So basically Toss just got even more overpowered and all the other races are in hell.

After being here for about 5 or 6 years now..... Is there EVER going to be a change that BENEFITS the players? Like.... EVER?

To the person above me..... Transitionary stage of development? Really? Maybe if the developers have ever made a positive change to this game people might be excited. This game is the opposite of all other games in that all the changes that have ever been made HURT the player, and everyone who has been here for any decent amount of time DREADS new updates.

As soon as I see an update I don't even have to read it, my first thought is DAMN they just did SOMETHING to make this game worse.