Subversion

History and Origins

As far as Sovereign knows, he devised what was later to be known as Subversion. It was based on an original concept put forward by ngv (not sure if that is exactly correct) on the Strategy Forum, in a Thread that seems to be lost for all time in the last Purge. This brilliant and visionary thread, amongst other things, outlined an idea where 'Ambassador' ships could be sent to a planet, which would then use a Psycological weapon in order to convert enemy ships to the other side. Sovereign, being the fool who built alot of ship stats on his own time, decided to run with this idea and incorporate them into a set of Ship Stats.

Replacing Stealing, Psi EMP (as Sovereign coined it) would work as a kind of 'Stealing EMP', such that it would work as normal EMP weapons worked (at that time using a slightly different formula), however instead of merely 'Stunning' the enemy ship, it would be 'Converted' into firing on its own side, provided the Ship's initiative level had not been passed (Psi EMP typcially fired after normal EMP and as such most types of ship were vulnerable to conversion).

In explaining the concept to Spinner in one of the many emails with proposed Ship Stats attached, somehow along the line the word Subversion came to pass. Whilst Sovereign had a rather a large array of ready built Ship Stats (that still requiring some more detailed testing ofc), Spinner decided to do his own thing and claim the idea as his own, and/or pass it onto Synthetic_Sid's Ship Stat Team for induction into R12 (? - maybe R11). Unfortunately, differences in the combat engine (Sovereign originally developed it pre-PAX, perhaps as early as mid R6) meant that the exact implementation had to differ (as there was no EMP resistance/armour field anymore) among other things. Also, the fateful decision to make subverted ships invincible was also made at this time, without knowledge of Sovereign.

Application

So in R12 there was this mysterious new power that Zikonians had, which promised to make Ship Farming a thing of the past (as stealing wasnt permanant), and promised to liven up battles as sending overwhelming defence (or attack) could no longer be done without careful consideration of the effects of Subvertion weapons in a battle. It promised to bring a new age to combat, where alot more thought and planning would be needed for battles, whilst still making it fun to play (watching people's own fleet kill themselves etc). However, due to unfortunate implimentation with the Combat Engine, and a severely restricted set of guidelines for Ship Stats in which to manouvre (Subversion works best in environments with lots of classes as you can dodge fire etc - an environment which didnt exist around this time due to the oversimplification inherrent in PAX), resulted in Subversion falling well below the lofty standard that Sovereign envisaged when creating and developing the concept. Whilst it very effectively defeated ship faming, Subversion was plagued by problems with Red Defence, the effects of which very quickly brought it out of favour with the playing community (some of whom were still obsessed with brute force stealing, instead of the finesse required for Subversion).

By R13, Subversion had been replaced by a return of Stealing, making it effectively a one-hit-wonder.

Future

Sadly, it seems that Subversion has no future in the current environment of PA. Ship farming has been effecitvely curtailed by the exceptional efforts of a rejuvinated Multihunter team, Player's expectation and desire for Stealing (which in R14 was even given to a limited extent to all races in an experiment by Appocomaster), and of course the terrible experience many players had with Subversion due to Red Defence all effectively combine to make Subversion a thing of the past - naught but a curious flirt with something different.

Sovereign still holds out forlorn hope that one day, in an environment with a more complex combat engine and more diverse Ship Stats, a properly executed Subversion would result in a new and interesting way for players to play PA and once again enjoy the game to a much greater extent.

Sovereign still continues to build Ship Stats.