Okay, extensive rethink of the Synergy system. The tl;dr version is:
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Rank 4 / 7 / 10 ships should be less crap. Fix tiers and this can be done without unbalancing the game.
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Reputation needs to come back.
Now for a long winded post on how reputation should come back. It’s going to be long, but stick with it; I think it’s worth it. ;)wt
Reputation is divided by race and tier. In effect, each player has fifteen different sets of reputation: Empire Tier 1, Empire Tier 2, Empire Tier 3, etc. then the same for Fed and Jericho. Whenever you earn synergy in a ship an equal amount of reputation goes into the appropriate tier.
Now, how does this encourage people to fly all the ships instead of just jumping right to the end? Prestige Bonuses.
Let us imagine that Tier 2 requires 2,100,000 Reputation to advance through, and that each Tier 2 ship requires 600,000 synergy to max out.
Let us now introduce Player A. Player A has maxed out his Harpy and earned “+10% Prestige”. This means that when he buys the Iron Harpy he gets a +10% boost to reputation earned in that ship. So, when he hits 600,000 Reputation and becomes elite, he has earned 660,000 reputation in Empire Tier 2, and has “+20% Prestige”.
If we follow this trend through, then Player A will max his Iron Harpy, Steel Harpy and Hydra and amass 2,160,000 reputation doing so. This is comfortably enough to unlock Tier 3 (he doesn’t even need to max out the Hydra!) and he can proceed.
Now let us meet Player B , who amassed a small fortune in credits flying Fed and Jericho. He comes in and buys his way straight to Rank 6 in all three Empire ship trees, maxing out the Dwarf 2, Deimos 2 and Hydra 2 and skipping the rest. He has 1,800,000 synergy - not enough to unlock tier 3! Player B must go back and rank up other ships, or use a Premium, to boost his reputation and get access to Tier 3.
The astute among you have likely spotted a potential problem - players like Player B, who are slapdash and don’t max out every ship they fly could find it impossible to progress later on if the reputation requirements are too high. Well, I have an answer to that.
Let’s now meet Player C. Player C never maxed out any Tier 1 ships, but is really enjoying the Empire’s Tier 2 Fighters and so maxed them all out. He has 600K from the Hercules Arrow, 600K from the Deimos, and 660K from the Deimos 2 (due to Prestige from the Deimos). Grand total: 1,860,000 reputation - not enough to unlock Tier 3.
He then goes back and maxes out the Hercules Rage. This immediately boosts his Prestige bonuses with his other ships and the bonus xp is retroactively applied. He immediately earns 180,000 (60K for the Hercules Arrow, Deimos and Deimos 2 respectively) and Tier 3 is unlocked.
Finally, let’s go and find a fourth player - Player D. Player D has decided that he wants to invest in some Premium ships and buys the King Dvergr. This ship, like all Premium ships, can earn reputation as though it were a free ship. This means Player D can max out the King Dvergr and get +10% Prestige that will apply to the Dvergr Knight. Now Player D has two choices; he can either just skip past maxing the Dvergr 2 and press on with the T2 gear, or he can max his T1 ships and get a huge (+30%!) Prestige bonus when he maxes the Dvergr Knight.
Thus, we have nicely shown the role of the Prestige ships - they give us a new way to power through a tier, either by giving us another top-end ship to amass reputation and cash in, or as a way to bulk our Prestige Bonus and let us power through the later tiers without jumping tracks or wasting time on branches.
What do you guys think?