So the first hotfix is out on Beta 3. Seems like "Worthy Cause" can now only be used on allied or enemy planets as intended, yay! Of course, if you're playing a locked team game, you'll definitely be shipping those envoys off to your closest allied's homeworld to start the money making.
Against the AI in unlocked games, I'm still able to rush up to "Worthy Cause" and use that well. I simply rush my nearest neighbour with all my envoys, queue the Benny Hill theme song, and have them fly around the planet to avoid enemy fire (or, send a few light frigates or LRMs to keep them safe). With this newfound profit, I'll invest in the new relationship techs in the diplomacy tree with the intent of trying to get a ceasefire with this ally asap. If I get "Settlers" researched (not so much for the ability as the relationship increase it provides per use), I can usually lock down a ceasefire deal pretty darn quick. Of course I'm sacrificing my military power in getting 4 civilian labs set up, but in very large games that's not always a problem in the early game!
I have a suggestion for this ability that may combat this potential behavior. I would say leave the income rate as it is and, instead, split the proceeds of this ability so half goes to you and half goes to the occupant of the allied / enemy planet (i.e. every 30 seconds, this ability gives you 150 credits and your opponent / ally / whatever gets 150 credits). This may need to be balanced due to the double advantages of no upkeep and no tax in trading, but it would definitely put a cap on the personal exploitation of this ability while keeping it quite useful for you and your team mates!
I'd say it'd also be nice to have Worthy Cause scale with the population of the planet. At a Dead Asteroid the total is a tiny (50-100 credits) amount, while more population will provide an exponentially increasing reward. Perhaps a fully populated Terran TEC planet pops up to 400 or 500 credits!
Last few issues... For cruiser envoys, would it be possible to:
1. Keep the range of all their planetary abilities the same (it seems kind of weird that Worthy Cause has a larger range than Arbitrate Tariff while Settlers doesn't even need to be in range of the planet at all [actually, I can see players wanting to use Settlers as a quick way to get a planet's pop back up after an attack, so the anywhere-in-the-grav-well range may be ok]).
2. I know I said this above, but the TEC can get all their cruiser techs done in 4 civ labs. Any chance the Vasari or Advent'll come out the same way, or at least not be so far stretched?
3. Fix the Allegiance reading on the Advent's awesome Quell Unrest ability? As it stands now, Quell Unrest increases a planet's allegiance by 5% per use (quite significant!).. However, the panel pop-up when you mouse over that ability reads 0.00 increase. Meh! (yeah this is a bug thingy, meh!)
4. Not sure if this was intentional, but the TEC's Settlers and the Advent's Cultural Assistance provide a relationship boost of 0.10, while the Vasari's relationship increasing ability Mutual Threat only provides a 0.01 boost. I think all of these abilities have a 180 second cooldown, too.
5. Ummm... I love this game. #5 is keep it awesome!
