Mechanism for merging fleets
in Make It So!
I think it's safe to say that most fleets don't hit most of their daily targets. It's one of those things that distress regular players and can lead to strife within a fleet. It's difficult to recruit active players which can result in stagnant fleets and sometimes mass exoduses. I think the solution would be to make it easier to merge fleets.
As it stands now, it takes a lot of coordination between numerous players to attempt a merging of 2 fleets. Being that as it is, I believe I have a solution that could be set up that could work.
So a new option would be available for admirals called Merge Fleet. In this new window, the admiral would have the option to "Retain Admiralship and Fleet name" or "Relinquish Admiralship and fleet name". There could possibly be more options such as keeping admiralship but open to changing name.
From there, the admiral must select fleetmembers to retain or transfer over (maybe maximum of 30). If they are looking to add fleetmembers, they have to make the appropriate room available). Subsequent to this, maybe the list could be generated of fleets matching criteria. Once a match is found, both admirals would be notified and need to accept the final outcome. From there, however long the transfer might take from a programming point of view will be the delay.
In order to avoid constant merges or whatever, a merging fee could be implemented. (also as a means of compensating the devs for developing this). It could even scale so the more players means a higher price. Perhaps a "pot" could be made so players could contribute dilithium so the burden doesn't fall exclusively on the admiral.
An additional added side effect of all this is that discarded players would then be fleetless; creating a bigger cohort of players to recruit from while reducing the number of fleets.
As it stands now, it takes a lot of coordination between numerous players to attempt a merging of 2 fleets. Being that as it is, I believe I have a solution that could be set up that could work.
So a new option would be available for admirals called Merge Fleet. In this new window, the admiral would have the option to "Retain Admiralship and Fleet name" or "Relinquish Admiralship and fleet name". There could possibly be more options such as keeping admiralship but open to changing name.
From there, the admiral must select fleetmembers to retain or transfer over (maybe maximum of 30). If they are looking to add fleetmembers, they have to make the appropriate room available). Subsequent to this, maybe the list could be generated of fleets matching criteria. Once a match is found, both admirals would be notified and need to accept the final outcome. From there, however long the transfer might take from a programming point of view will be the delay.
In order to avoid constant merges or whatever, a merging fee could be implemented. (also as a means of compensating the devs for developing this). It could even scale so the more players means a higher price. Perhaps a "pot" could be made so players could contribute dilithium so the burden doesn't fall exclusively on the admiral.
An additional added side effect of all this is that discarded players would then be fleetless; creating a bigger cohort of players to recruit from while reducing the number of fleets.
5
Comments
But we need more than this, the ability to switch Squadron leaders, the ability for Admirals to move people from one squad to another. And there needs to be a Vice Admiral rank added, and the Vice Admiral needs to be able to do all the things an Admiral can do, except Disband the fleet.
From a database manager's perspective, it would most likely be the case of:
Move a list of users from Fleet "A" to Fleet "B", and make user "X" the admiral of fleet "B";
If there are no players left in Fleet "A", delete it, otherwise set user "Y" as the admiral in fleet "A"
Once in the fleet, they can manage squadrons as before.
Just my 2 cents. As for the cost - yes, there should be a fee, and a limit on how many times a fleet can be merged in a month, maybe $9.99 or a cost of 1000 dil + 300 dil per users merged in (so merging a fleet with 20 users into another fleet would cost 7000 dil) but it can be sourced from any set of users.
This would help two smaller fleets become one larger, more effective one - in theory, at least.
I would not assess a fee for merging, but I would put a limit on number of merges - like once a merger occurs, something like 6 months must pass before another merger is allowed. But a way to search fleets while in a fleet would be invaluable. My fleet has been looking for someone to merge with us, so that our maxed starbase will benefit the newcomers and they, in turn, will help us meet the dailies which we only have 14 players meeting each day. But without being able to search fleets to see if there are any prospective merge partners, it's nigh impossible to orchestrate.
EDIT: While we wait for the company to do something, I have created the following thread for those interested:
https://forum.wickedrealmgames.com/stt/discussion/19602/perpetual-thread-for-fleet-mergers-consolidation