Two things that really frustrates me about the massively-multiplayer RTS genre is the lack of player protection, and the complete lack of desire to prevent players snowballing out of control in terms of power. MMOs have generally had -some- form of protection for a very long time, whether that be PvP flags, character-level protections, zone protections, or other systems. Why not in MMO RTS games?
Games in Halcyon Online should be fought and won based on merit, skill and strategy, not just who has the force that no one can bring down, because they started playing their game earlier.
Max armada and fleet size
In Halcyon Online, players will manage what are called "Command points". These points are used to determine the max size of an Armada (a player's entire pool of spacecraft), as well as determine their max fleet size. Spacecraft must be organised into fleets by Players before sending them on missions. In addition to this, a player can only have one fleet active at a time to a particular destination. This means you cannot simply create numerous fleets and then target a player. If your target player has far more ships at their planet because all their fleets are docked there, you're going to need more players to help!
Players start the game with a very small pool of Command points, but this can be increased based on research, as well as expanding your Empire (Space stations by themselves help to increase your command point limit). However, there will be a finite max number of command points players can achieve, and so there is a ceiling on just how many ships a player can control at any one time.
Score shielding
In addition to armada and fleet size limits (ensuring players engage regularly in order to continue building spacecraft), players will have access to what we're internally calling, "score shielding". What this means is that players who have a much lower score than another player, cannot be targeted by that player. At all.
This ensures that combat is kept relatively fair between other players, rather than the most powerful players farming lower-score players for resources.
Internally, we're still working out what this difference is and when score shielding will come into effect, but we're playing with values from 50% lower scores right up to 10% lower scores, and what effect that has on the game and gameplay overall.
PvE
I've mentioned it before on this site, but PvE is a game mode I really want to support. Effectively it means that players cannot and will not ever be able to target other players, and instead will use their fleets to go on procedurally-generated missions and engagements, even sometimes being sent to other players' planets to attack AI-controlled fleets.
However, PvE will be a different galaxy altogether - you will not have PvP and PvE players playing together in the same galaxy, as this creates other issues for gameplay and user experience.
In Halcyon Online, I want all players to be able to enjoy the game at their own pace, whether those players just want a nice, relaxing game to play over a few months by practising their empire building and expansion, or whether they want to see who is the best player within a given galaxy.
No matter what your style of play, my intention is that Halcyon Online will support how you like to play, and ensure you can do so with the appropriate protections in place so that the game is enjoyable to you - no matter your score, or when you started playing.