4. Decay Rate For Controllers Is Ridiculous

Decay Rate For Controllers Is Ridiculous


  • Controllers decay ridiculously slow, I understand if you lose a room because you're AI got outsmarted, or overpowered that you want some comeback potential to getting the room back.

     

    But, I took a room when it was RCL5 on 7/7, it's now 7/13. 

    The played quit when I took his room, he has a 2nd room but there has been no attempt to take it back, and no progress in that room.

    Yet, I still have to wait a week+ for it to die.

    I could understand initially it taking as long as it does to decay but I think one or a combination of the following should be implemented:

     

    1. Make it so you can attack enemy controller with less than 5 CLAIM body parts, that way people pre-RCL 7 can clear out enemy rooms and not wait two decades for it to just passively decay.
    2. Make decay rate ramp up. Initially to prevent a controller from going neutral over night or two, make it start high (like it is right now 50,000). Then each successful uninterrupted downgrade should remove the next amount of ticks required. I.E. 50,000 ticks for RCL 6 -> RCL 5, then 40,000 ticks for RCL 5 -> RCL 4, with a minimum being like 28,000 (about 24 hours). Numbers are just an example, but some sort of system that ramps up the speed of how fast controllers decay.
    3. Reduce the amount of ticks it takes to decay if no spawn is present for a certain amount of time. That way if they have been obliterated from the room, then it wont take as long for it to decay.
    4. Or just reduce the overall time it takes for controllers to decay at every level, Right now we have to wait approximately 42hours per level. Assuming one tick is approximately 3 seconds, as I have observed. Meaning even if they only had RCL 4, you'd still have to wait 5.2 days before it decays. Which if you are a new player or a freshly spawned player trying to expand, it really dampens your expansion, to have new players spawn in, then before you can attack them due to newbie spawn they already have RCL3/4+ and defenses.

    Hope I typed these thoroughly enough to understand what I am getting at.

    It's a big frustration to me, and other players I have talked to...


  • I have to agree with Camamoow on this one. I understand the mechanic behind the delay to claim new controllers, but it is rather excessive. In the non-novice areas, it doesn't seem to be such a big issue because expansion is not as resctricted. But the competition for space in novice areas, due to the lengthy controller downgrade time, severly limits expansion until the novice area protection wears off. And, while I understand it is entirely permissable to leave the novice area and join the fray in the main rooms at any time, it makes testing multi-room code in an actual real-world scenario very difficult, what with everyone out to get you.

    Maybe it is because of the recent increase in popularity of Screeps due to the Steam release that so many absent players have claimed controllers, only to leave their base to decay and rot for days on end, but please consider reducing the length of time it takes for controllers to downgrade- especially in the novice areas, where some players try the game for nothing more than a few hours and easily achieve RCL 3 or 4, then up and quit, leaving behind an unclaimable controller for days or even weeks.