Okay in response to recent posts about the tweeks being unfair and out of place, here's some suggestions then:

Change up the format for the reward system to be as follows:

(1) Your fleet encountered a black hole and was partially destroyed! = loss of 10-60% of fleet. If only 1 ship, you lose that ship.

(2) Your fleet encounters a black hole and it totally destroyed! = the fleet is totally wiped out and the fleet space being used is immediately opened up for use for another fleet.

(3) Your fleet encounters a nebula for some stunning pictures, and return to base.

(4) Your fleet find some abandoned ships and repair them. = random 1-100 of primary ship type when this one hits.

(5) Your fleet comes across some ship debris. = random 40,000 to 800,000 metal

(6) Your fleet comes raided an empty cargo vessel. = random 40,000 to 800,000 crystal

(7) Your fleet thwarts a pirate raid for a reward! = random 20,000 to 400,000 deuterium

(8) Your fleet found a small cache on a planet. = random 200,000 to 600,000 of one resource.

(9) Your fleet find a huge amount of resources someone left behind! = random 2million to 6million of each resource type.

(10) Your fleet did not find anything important this time out and return to base empty handed.

For each of the research items that really don't have a use once they have obtained the ship, or defense needed, let them add to functionality also in smaller percentages.

Example -
Energy Technology - For every level of Energy technology researched, each base's output would increase 5%.
Hyperspace Technology - For every level of this technology ship speed is increased another 2%.

There's many thing like this to do with the other technologies so they don't become 'dead' once they hit level 5 or 6. Do an addition for each tech so people have something cheap to research and still keep feeling liek they are growing.

Keep the scores for people visible when fleets are out and about. Perhaps add a feature to Zorg Physics to have cloaking abilities to come into play. Espionage would counter that one naturally. a higher Espionage would be able to see a fleet with a Zorg physics being a level or two lower. but someone with a higher Zorg Physics would be cloaked against espionage, etc. etc. This one would require some changes in the costs though.

Either get rid of the resource purchase like you did on Massacre server, or double the amount purchased with rubies to make it more worthwhile.

+50% production on resources and ships for 30 rubies for 7 days

+75% productions on resources and ships for 80 rubies for 7 days

Small moon purchase - buy a small moon range 5k to 7k size for 50 rubies

Medium moon purchase - buy a medium sized moon 7k to 9k size for 100 rubies

Large moon purchase - buy a large sized moon from 9k to 10k for 150 rubies

Moon package - If you have 10 planets, you can buy 10 small moons for each planet for 400 rubies.

Base immunity - All bases are immune from attack for 3 days - 10 rubies (This would not include fleets doing ACS defend missions - just when they are at the base.

Defender shield - Increases all defense stats by 300% for 7 days - 100 rubies

Just a few suggestions.

Good, glad someone took the initiative to start a thread for alternative ideas. Hope others will use this as well

I like your idea.

To keep it simple, i would compromise on the following.

Expeditions are for 1 or 2 hours only.

Ratios remain the same, however: You get roughly 10% of Max Cargo per hour.
Meaning you can get maximum 20%.

This is a very small compromise on Zorg's behalf, but i think both parties would find it acceptable.

It's also easy to accomplish and will not require a complete revamp.

I say revert all changes back except for the amount of resources recieved, if it is too much then lower it.
I would be fine with the lower resource return especially if the resource randomization was removed.
It is never random good as in near the higher amount that one would be able to recieve it is always at the lower end of the spectrum essentially random bad.
What sense is there in doing expeditions if the only results are bad or you are forced to send expeditions out at the max time to get max resources, there has to be some type of reward to go along with all of the risk of losing your fleet.

A full revert would possibly get us into a predicament like we have now where people who want the full change will get pissy and quit because then they will fee like they don't have a say. Scag is right about the resources though. If someone could start a poll about the resource levels suggested, and if it should go back the way it was, or keep them. Something like that. We could really use some feedback from the forums on that one, since I know a lot of people don't want to post anything directly so they don't have to deal with getting flamed.

On Nero's post:

Correct me if I am wrong, just trying to understand what you're talking about.

So they send out say 1 EC, so if they hit the mark, they would get 10% so say 1 million metal?

And if they do 2 hours, they get 2 million, eh?

Now are you talking for one resource or like 1 million for each type? Personally I think doing the random table above, and then doing yours together would work well if that's the case.

yeah so 10% of an EC would be

500,000 Metal
250,000 Crystal
166,000 Deut

Like scag said, this would be a FULL REVERT however the resources are changed from 100% to 10% per hour.

The maximum would be 20% for 2 hours, which i think is still worth the risk of losing EC's.

There is still the issue of what happens if I send Large or small cargos instead?
Plus the rate at which I was losing EC's was horrible and there is no way to turn a profit like that even if it was paying at the old rate.
After the expedition patch I hit 1 time and lost 3 EC's each time.
At the old rates: (1 hit 3 losses)
Gain 4.99 million metal 2.49 million crystal 1.66 million deut
Lost 4.5 million metal 4.5 million crystal 1.95 million deut

Under the new payout rates you would certainly lose your A$$ and have not a single ship left.

scag were you losing 1 in 3 before the patch? or after it? or both?

before the patch it was more random.
I sent 5 expeditions out.
Before the patch I would sometimes lose 1 out of 5 or 0 out of 5 sometimes 2 or 3 out of 5.
And hit any random number of times.
which was a profit most of the time.

After the patch I sent out 5 expeditions twice and lost 3 EC's both times.
And actually a wave of 5 EC's were out during the patch installation and I lost 3 EC's there too which came as a shock that I was losing points without warning.
But could never be a profit at these rates.