Round 4
Round 4 saw the peak of Planetarions life. At it's biggest, the Universe contained around 200,000 planets. However, it is widely accepted that many players cheated by controlling multiple planets. The generally accepted user count is somewhere in the region of 50,000-150,000 unique players.
The game stats and mechanics for round 4 are generally considered to be the worst bar round 5. Ships had amazing amounts of armor, and EMP as primary defense coupled with odd targeting on pod-flak ships ensured that almost no damage was done to any fleets. In addition the roid cap formula and salvage formula were both found to be abusable mid-round and had to be modified. The roid cap formula allowed for tiny red defense fleets to lower cap ridiculously, making capture from dedicated players nigh impossible, especially since it was still possible to send hostile ships in-galaxy. The salvage formula that gave rewards for killing attacking ships meant that people were registering multi accounts and suiciding their fleets on their primary planet as donations.
In the end round 4 was hailed as one of the most interesting, but for the alliance politics that shaped it rather than the mechanics. Many new alliances, such as NoS, Xanadu and Wolfpack, coupled with Fury and Legion being placed in opposing blocks meant that the round was wide open, and remained so until the very end. During the early phase of the round Fury and Wolfpack led the round, seemingly pulling away from NoS, Legion and Xanadu. Things looked particularly bleak when NoS left the alliance with Legion and Xanadu, NAPing Fury in the process. Legion and Xanadu replaced NoS with the increasingly friendly Elysium, forming VeX.
The first signs of major resistance came with a herculean set of waves that threatened to disthrone the Fury flagship galaxy, Thieves & Pirates. Due to salvage and in-galaxy farms sending red defense whenever they weren't covered, they survived, but not unscathed. Later NoS would rejoin Legion, Xanadu and Elysium when the Fury fortress parallel, 11, was launched massively on.
Xanadu and NoS eventually came out ranked highest, but NoS had suffered harsh losses during the final weeks. NoS politics were also what most heavily marked the round. NoS remained NAPed with Xanadu and on good terms throughout the round, including while NAPed with Fury. NoS also allied Wolfpack for a short period when Fury seemed to be crumbling in the absence of Synthetic_Sid. Round 4 was also heavily marked by LDK, crusades of bot accusations against them and the awesome combined military machine of Xanadu.
