FRC in Ruins.

During the second week of September, an elite strike team comprising of Empaya's best, infiltrated the FRC, pirating buildings and harming the dominant alliance in the region, Red Cell, and it's buildings as an attempt to weaken their Diversity sectors. However, what appeared to be a simple random pirating attack, soon spiraled out of control, when an RC pilot, did a face turn, hired Squads out of RC's bases, and attacked RC bases. 4 RC bases were destroyed, and another was going to be, had it not been for the timely action of the owner.

There were also many buildings that were pirated, many pilots killed, and many tons of commodities lost. Experts estimate that the economic loss suffered by the alliance may stand in the hundreds of millions.

Technically, RC and Empaya have been in conflict since the last 10 years, but there were not as many instances when either side declared fully-fledged war, not to say there were none. Empaya has been at odds with everyone in the universe, and winning, due the size of their army, and not to take anything away from them, their determination. Empaya plays the long game. They might have their sectors demolished, but after a week, the buildings will be back up, like nothing happened.

The conflict that happened between QI and Empaya, which had among many things, great conflict, destroyed Star Bases, lost workers, killed pilots, ruined sectors, and the first neutral alliance to get territorial claims in all 6 types of planets, having all of them at sustainable levels, led many Empaya sectors to waste, but were up and running again, in a matter of days or weeks.

RC, too has been quick to regain it's sectors, not going down below 3 diversity in the duration of the whole ordeal and now at 5 diversity, at the time of writing. SBs might have been blown, but inside sources tell us that even these are about to be back on their feet.

What happens in the coming days will be interesting to see, with RC sure looking to return the favor, and Empaya looking flinching it's muscles, there will be many skirmishes, and destroyed buildings.

The War Ends.

The War has concluded, with the Empire ordering it's pilots to stop all fighting, and Federation following the lead. The War lasted for more than three months, in which entire clusters were decimated. The faction clusters of EWS, FHC, FSH, and minor damage done to union territories, and the NZ clusters of Lane, Split, to name a few.

All faction leaders, recognising the damage the hostility has caused to the universe as a whole, set aside their differences and worked together towards a new path forward.

The Treaty that the faction leaders came up with, is:

"The war was long. Many folks have lost their interest in the universe because of the war. The leaders of both sides hope that the future of the universe will be bright, and we are working together to make that possible. It’s in that spirit that we draft the below agreement.

1. Both sides agree to end hostilities based on the terms outlined below. 48 hours will be given for ambushers to come online and withdraw.
2. During peace both sides agree that PvP is not acceptable in any of the following locations like:

• Faction space or sectors within one WH jump of faction space.
• On the same tile as any exotic weapons or armor station.
• On the Lahola choke.
• In certain faction controlled systems like Veedfa, Mebsuta, or Silaad.

1. Strictly no PvB, PvSB or Squad vs SB unless specifically sanctioned by the owner or owning alliance’s leadership. This is universe wide not just in PvP sectors.
2. The Empire will transfer all 8 PFC bases to federal pilots and remove all buildings from the PFC within a few days of the treaty signing. The Empire will transfer all 8 PFC bases to pilots nominated collectively by DS, TTG and DW.
3. The Federation will exchange 100m credits to Zodiac for Zodiac’s PFC SB AND Zodiac must make himself known as Zodiac the Useless for no less than 30 days. Zodiac may choose not to rename if he’d rather pass on the credits.
4. Beurso Starbase will be demolished, and Baar SB to be transferred to the federation or a neutral alliance like Lane Legends if the Federation doesn't have someone who wants the base.
5. Any pilot who breaks the treaty will be asked to pay reparations and agree not to repeat their actions. If that pilot who either refuses to pay reparations or is deliberately breaking the treaty repeatedly, then they will be removed from their alliance and made KoS by all parties to the treaty, including their own faction friends.
6. Any pirate who wishes to return to a treaty alliance must cease any piracy for a minimum period of 2 months before they can be removed from any KoS list. Any party may retain a pirate on their KoS list beyond the 2 month period at their own discretion, but may not hunt for that pilot in territory claimed by any alliance for which that pilot is no longer KoS.
7. A pirate may not hold a starbase.
8. All sides agree that any squads launched from a base owned by a treaty alliance are the responsibility of the owning alliance. In the case of that SB owner having recently left a treaty alliance, or the SB having recently been transferred to a non-treaty alliance, there may still be a degree of responsibility attached to the treaty alliance. Any damages caused by those squads must be paid for by the alliance owning the base from which the squads were launched. Any rebuilding work required must also be assisted by the alliance owning the base from which the squads were launched.
9. In the event of a squad attack in P*C, it will be assumed that the Empire, or the strongest faction at the time, is responsible for the event as both sides work together through the investigation of events. Both sides agree to 100% cooperation in finding the errant starbase owner.
10. Both sides agree to no less than 2 joint Operations following the end of war. One to assist the Empire in cleanup efforts and one to assist the Federation. This provision may not be needed if pilots have already been working together successful to remove Vyrex and other issues. Removing this requires agreement from leaders on both sides.
11. Once this agreement is in effect either side may cancel the agreement with not less than 2 weeks notice to all parties. It is our hope that this agreement will stay in place for as long as it is needed for Artemis to become a friendly, fun server. Both sides agree to not cancel this agreement for at least 6-12 months and beyond if not canceled as specified above.
12. This treaty is a living document. With agreement from all parties, this treaty can be adjusted as needed so that it lasts for as long as it is needed. Anyone exploiting loopholes or missing elements in the treaty will not be looked on kindly by the treaty alliances.
13. No participant in the treaty will construct any buildings in territory belonging to another faction or alliance without the explicit consent of that faction or alliance.
14. Both sides will work together to protect skilling critters such as E’s, Lucy, and Z nooks.
15. Even though PvP is not allowed in faction controlled systems, this cannot be used as a tool to expand faction space to unreasonable places or to set up a "New Veedfa" near the other factions borders. However, allowances for building near your own faction space is reasonable. For example, rebuilding the Z skilling base in SPR, or the Federation rebuilding the Grefaho base.

Expectations for the Next War

These expectations will be impossible to enforce, but we are wrting them here to show that all leaders want future wars to be more fair, more fun, and more friendly. This section isn’t meant to blame any particular person or side. We are creating a list of things that we’d like to see not happen in the future.

• When a pilot with a starbase switches sides, that starbase should stay with that pilot’s previous side.
• Wars should be fought within the war declaration system.
• If one side doesn’t want to war, the other side should not force a war with lobby funds.
• Friends in other factions should not be used to scout ambushes for chokes to break on offensive combat.
• Starbases with bad settings should not be used to destroy starbases or launch squads.
• Abusing improper MO settings should be avoided.
• New pilot’s buildings should be avoided. New pilots should not build in neutral or open space to make it easier to avoid shooting at them.
• Starbases with unlocked advanced goods should not have their goods bought out by the opposite side.
• Spying on or participating in the other side's text chats should not happen.
• Wars should end with a good faith treaty at the end of the the official war declaration.
• No faction should attempt to claim entire clusters from other factions.
• Unrestrained squad war such as capturing an entire cluster or capturing a homeworld starbase should be avoided. This may require more specific agreements for Premium space.
• Starbases that are captured in the war will be returned to alliance that held the base before the war, unless otherwise decided by the faction leadership structure. Alliances in treaty negiations will be chosen by their faction leadership structure. An example of a faction leadership structure is Federal Congress.

And so it begins... again

About 35 days ago another circle of inter-faction carnage and destruction started.

With the Empire having taken the Federation by surprise - and apparent disarray within Federal ranks, both regarding strategy, war goals and morale - it is pretty safe to say that the outcome of this war has been decided already, although its official end is probably months away.

As always, combat zones have been spread around the whole universe, and not just confined to the Imperial and Federal zones and strongholds in the NZ. We have reports that there have been many instances when the total outcome of the Federal effort has been nil for a number of consecutive days, with the Federation getting their targets wrong and getting lost by popping up in areas near Union sectors, instead of the Pardus Contingents or Imperial cores. Arguably, however, the Union is helping the Empire war effort, and as such, any Union-affiliated pilot is liable to be shot down.

The Empire seems to be more constant(ish) in its attacks, while the Federal gains seem to be ever-changing.

The novelty of this war is definitely an all-out withdrawal of the Federation from the pardus Contingent which resulted in Empire taking it over without a fight so it may be a bit more difficult to assess an overall combat performance. However, the retreat may have been an elaborate scheme to entrap the Red forces in hostile space because there are numerous reports of combat still taking place there.


We will monitor events very closely and report them here, but there is one piece of advice we can share to our younger readers out there: STAY in the cores, at least, until the war is over.

Watch This Space!

A new team is assembling, some old names have resurrected. In short: Pardus news Agency is back.

More on this later, as events unfold.

Pardus News Update

Well, PNA is less of an "agency" these days!
Corbeau has retired from Pardus, so it is just me left.
Unfortunately I've had my issues in the real world that shifted my focus towards there, and the little time I could spend playing Pardus, I did so, but not for reporting the news.

I will try to get this blog going again!
A few short news bits:
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New Servers.
Recently, the developers have upgraded the Pardus servers. Many players from around the world are reporting a better connection for some reason. Placebo is one heck of a drug folks. Your speed is largely dependent on the ISP. The upgrade also could be a sign of further development taking place that would indeed require higher hardware specifications. (Pardus 2.0? No way.)

Feature poll conclusion.
The feature poll held in February was concluded, and players have voted for Alliance Tasks. These will be the focus of development after the new servers have now been installed.
The feature will largely focus on player-created missions. Although I personally hope that it will also come with a functionality to create chained story missions, possibly even allowing branching storylines created by players.

Removal of statistics.
In a questionable turn of events, most of the statistics related to online players in the past have been removed. Presumably, the new servers did not come with the functionality.
In addition, the obvious conclusion from these statistics are nothing to write home about. Ignorance is bliss, as they say, so perhaps it's better to have them gone anyway.
The only one who seems to be sorely disappointed is Mutated Math Mith, the player known for his self-crafted statistics. Sorry Mith!

Vyrex Outbreak ... again.
Both Artemis and Orion had another Vyrex outbreak. While Artemis seems to have their stuff in order and have exterminated the threat in a matter of weeks, Orion is once again battling an elevated threat of Vyrex.


That's all for now folks.

New feature poll: Alliances!

A few days ago Pardus developers announced that they will be making another upgrade to the game and created a poll for the players to decide which feature it will be.


Here are the poll options and explanations what new features may look like:

This is your time to decide which of the following topics you would like to see us working on next. Voting will be open until February 28th. This thread will remain open indefinitely for comments.

This poll is directed towards a single theme: Collaboration


Alliance command station upgrades
Alliance command stations can be upgraded to have them log and notify the alliance of additional events:

When a timebomb placed by an alliance member is triggered in the ACS' cluster.

When an alliance member triggers a timebomb in the ACS' cluster.

Ships bypassing a military outpost owned by an alliance member in the ACS' cluster.

Damage done to starbase buildings not having any defense and invasions of a starbase owned by an alliance member in the ACS' cluster.

Attacks on an alliance member's ship in the ACS' cluster.

Interferometer effects with new percentages for above events apply. The speed at which the ACS notifies the alliance of new events is increased.


Alliance ruling body
Different types of governments can be selected for alliances:

Autocracy: All power is in the hands of the alliance leader. This is the current form of alliance government. The alliance leader may switch to a new form at any time. Once switched, the new ruling body makes the decision whether to switch type of government once again.

Oligarchy: A council of 5 pilots replaces the current leader position. The votes of the council replace all decisions previously made by the leader. With the exception of changing the alliance's faction alignment and anything targetted at a council member requiring a two-thirds vote (at least 2/3), a simple majority (more than 50%) is required for votes to succeed. This includes electing or recalling a treasurer/application manager, kicking a non-council alliance member, handling the alliance funds (if the treasurer position is vacant), accepting a new member (if the application manager position is vacant), senior membership, modifications to the alliance page, private conflicts. The council also oversees taking credits out of the alliance funds - an amount over a configurable amount of credits taken out by the treasurer needs to be approved. A council member stays in the council for as long as they remain part of the alliance, or until they are voted out, or until they resign. If they resign they may choose their successor; if they are voted out or if they are no longer part of the alliance the council chooses their successor by two-thirds vote. Council seats may remain free, however a council with only a single member will have the alliance government type automatically switch back to an autocracy. If the treasurer or application manager positions remain vacant, all of their responsibilities are taken over by the council and voted on.

Democracy: There is no council or leader position - its responsibilities are taken over by all members of the alliance through their participation in votes. Two-thirds votes are required for electing and recalling the treasurer/application manager, for kicking a fellow alliance member, for changing the alliance's faction alignment. A simple majority is sufficient for anything else.
For both democracies and oligarchies the required participation of voters is based on the members or council members of the alliance currently active.
The feature of the treasurer being overseen doing transactions over a configured amount of credits is added to all types of governments.


Alliance tasks
Tasks comparable to bulletin board missions can be defined to be completed by members of the alliance. The type of tasks ranges from killing an NPC (e.g. a space crystal blocking the way) at a specific location/a certain amount of NPCs/a certain individual, to delivering specific goods to a starbase or building (optionally from a specific location).
Tasks can be given a start and an expiration date. They can be set to be placed repeatedly (e.g. each week). They can be restricted to be completed only once or any amount of times by any amount of pilots. Tasks can be configured to notify specific members of the alliance on completion. The completion of a task results in a payout of the set amount of credits from the alliance funds which has to be approved by the treasurer. Each type of task has a set amount of points rewarded to the pilot completing the task. An internal alliance ranking of the top contributors ordered by said points is added.
A new alliance position "Mission coordinator" is added. Mission coordinators may set up alliance tasks. The alliance leader can set it to include specific pilots, any senior member or any starbase owner.



Each option includes a preliminary summary but is in no way meant as a full feature description.
The selected feature will be first implemented in Pegasus to honor Premium Account players and their essential support for the maintenance and further development of Pardus.

Happy 2016!

Hey everyone!

We wish you a happy 2016!
New round, new chances, and more Pardus!


Noteworthy news:

Contests

The winners have been announced for the official Pardus Art and Writing contests. The theme was "A spaceman came travelling". Thanks to Killer Queen for hosting these!

Writing contest:
1st place: Maryjane Fields
2nd place: Old One Tooth
3rd place: Edward Low

Art contest:
1st place: Solarix
2nd place: Jaw
3rd place: Sekem


Be sure to regularly visit the contests forum, and participate/vote in any running contest!