When I post a challenge, why can my opponents spend more than I spent?
I’d like challenges to limit to the credits and pilots spent. You have to beat me with the same or less.
Not sure what you mean.
A dynamic pilot/credit restriction is bad because if I skip fighters on my retal, then I force the pilot limit down so you can’t use fighters either. Also it will cause problems in processing saved deploys. It will also make map name meaningless.
To prevent others from outspending you, you can
spend to the map limit
make a custom map with the specify credit/pilot limit
Unless you are talking about hacking.
Ah, no, I’m not talking about hacking.
And you answered my question. When you post from a “game” battle you’re posting that MAP and it’s criteria…
OK, that being so, I’d like to see how much my opponent spent in pilots and credits, so I can limit myself to those criteria. Make it a real challenge!
A retaliation wouldn’t change the original parameters… but then again… I’d like a mode where challenges do limit by credits and pilots spent in retaliations. It would be a “duel down” from the strating fleet until the last man standing (so to speak). Each time I beat him, he has to beat me with less, then I have to beat him with less. Until neither of us can build a fleet to beat the other’s with less. The guy who built the “unbeatable” fleet wins the “duel down”.
And because of Cliffski’s excellent challenge system you could post one “duel down” challenge and play it against several people - each retaliation a different “duel down” path. Hmmm… be cool if you could cross post those…
Ok, this is officially the 6th way to play (on my list (which does include the current game mode)). Cliffski, are you busy enough? We keep generating new ideas!!!
I’m not really sure what the point is of beating somebody in terms of pilots.
Pilots aren’t a game balance factor. If you have a cruiser and I have a better cruiser, typically my cruiser will cost more, but they’ll have the same amount of pilots. The person who doesn’t use all their pilots is not at a disadvantage, but the person who doesn’t use all his available has crippled himself. He could have add another ship, or if he hit the pilot limit, he could have upgraded a fighter to a capital ship, or added better equipment on his current ships. But if you have all your funds spent and you have pilots available, there’s nothing you can do with that. Pilots are a far less valuable resource. While pilots set the parameters for a battle, they don’t necessarily add to difficulty and weren’t meant to.
I don’t think someone should be allowed to “beat” a challenge simply because they’ve altered the nature of the engagement. That’s like saying I can win by posting an identical fleet, but making the map smaller or adding an anomaly.
Point for point fighters are generally more powerful than cruisers. In a typical setup, for example, 10 squadrons of laser fighters will cost around 12,000 points but will demolish 12,000 points of general purpose cruisers. The number of pilots limit the number of fighters relative to cruisers.
As a rule of thumb the strongest deployment will come close to maxing out both pilots and budget available.
@Cetiah Nova
Hmmmm… maybe I wasn’t clear, sorry. No the player accepting the challenge has to beat it as it stands. He then issues a response challenge with the fleet he used to beat it (assuming it was less).
Hopefully this is clearer(?), I’ve issued a challenge http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=5320 here and requested people beat it. Easy to do, it’s a spam fleet/invading army thing. Then when you beat it post as a retaliation challenge the fleet you used and put your pilot and credit cost in the taunt. I will then try to beat your fleet with less than you used.
Now you bring up a great point I hadn’t thought of: You could limit the “duel down” to cost alone and not have pilots a limiting factor. Not a bad idea, want to post a Credit Only Duel Down? I’d love to respond.
BTW, had a great weekend “dueling”! For me it makes the challenges have some/more meaning. And I had to build several new cruisers and frigates to compensate for my opponents tactics. Bloated my lists 
but gave me some great ideas for the campaign. And I’m not sure what my best cruiser is anymore.