Please rework econ disband

[Mato]

The eco structure disband cooldown has serious issues and needs to be reworked.

Issues

• The gaming user experience is terrible. For example, disbanding a 160 econ base to 100 econ requires 60 minutes of continuous clicking and waiting.
• The cooldown fails to nerf scorched earth adequately. For example, it only takes 1h to reduce 160 econ (11500 pillage) to 100 eco (4500 pillage) which is enough to remove all profit. Most invasions are done with detection times much higher than 1h.

Leaving things as they are results in a poor gaming experience AND fails to adequately address the issue it was meant to solve. So it is clear that changes are required.

Suggested changes

• Remove the disband cooldown and allow players to downgrade structures without waiting.
• Downgrading economic structures must not immediately reduce the pillage. Instead, the pillage reduction must occur over time.

These changes will help both attackers and defenders. Invasions would be more profitable for the attackers, and active defenders would have the option of reducing the pillage without waiting for the cooldown.

Implementation - Updated
Currently, the min pillage is calculated with this formula:
min_pillage = ( current_base_income - 0.7 * current_base_eco )^2 * 5.

Instead of using the current base_income and base_eco, the game must take into account the rolling averages of base_income and base_eco. The rolling average lags behind the current value, so after the base_eco gets downgraded the rolling average will reduce slowly over time. Also, the rolling average should only be used if the base_eco is decreasing (downgrading structures) and not if it's increasing (constructing structures).

Accounting for all this, the following changes are recommended.

• Change the displayed base_income/base_eco in the following manner:
  updated_base_income = max(current_base_income, rolling_average_base_income)
  updated_base_eco = max(current_base_eco, rolling_average_base_eco)
• Change the min pillage formula to:
  min_pillage = ( updated_base_income - 0.7 * updated_base_eco )^2 * 5.

Notes:

• The updated_base_income should be displayed as "Owner Income" in the base overview page.
• The updated_base_eco should be displayed as "Economy" in the base overview page.
• The rolling averages of base_income and base_eco should be calculated over a 24 hour window, such that the end_time of the window is the current time and the start_time is 24 hours in the past.
• When the base is attacked and conquered, the rolling average windows should be reset such that the start_time is the time of pillage. This means after the base is conquered, the displayed base_eco and base_income will equal their current values.
• Applying a longer window results in slower pillage reduction, and a shorter window results in faster pillage reduction. I recommend 24 hours since that is also the window for closing trades and VM activation. A 12 hour window would help the defenders more, and I feel anything less than 6 hours would be insufficient.

Benefits of this implementation:

• Under normal conditions, players will see no changes to the behavior of base_income/base_eco and the min pillage value.
• When eco structures are downgraded, the displayed base_income/base_eco and min pillage will reduce slowly over time rather than reducing immediately.
• No additional numbers need to be displayed.

[Vig]

I like this implementation. Feels nicer than having to wait.
I think the only addition to this that would be nice if an indication somewhere of what the rolling average income is for calculating pillages.

[WhiteKnight]

The disband cooldown got implemented into new servers to prevent econ structures dropping early on , if anything it should be increased so it gets to point players stop disbanding econ structures to try and reduce margins -.- , which also removes the need for this rolling average that will be useless clutter on screen after first year of a server .

[Mato]

TY for the feedback... I feel it may be better to change what is displayed as base_income/base_eco, instead of displaying additional numbers based on the rolling averages. The "Implementation" section in the OP has been updated.