Might I interject that I think 10 turns should be the largest penalty for disengaging. I mean, if turns are 6 minutes long, that's an hour you've been cleared off the hex. Think about the player that spends maybe 3 to 4 hours max at one time on the server. 25-33% of his time has been taken away from participating in a large battle over something vital. While an hour may be a speedbump for the nutters, that's a big penalty for others.
Also, let me add this. I also believe that the penalty for being destroyed or disengaging should be the same. I've never understood why a player who had been destroyed gets a break. Ok, sure, he lost his ship. That in itself is a penalty, EXCEPT for the nutter who can buy lots more ships. Doesn't this promote a 'kamikaze' type mentality. I've seen this happen several times during GW servers, and I'm not fond of it. Sure, it is a type of tactic, if his fellow pilots can grab the often wounded victor before he leaves the hex, but how often does this really work?
And finally. I have always thought the death/disengagement rule is all about (1) overwhelming an opponent so that you can take a planet/base/etc without much interference, and (2) promoting a player to fight his best over tactically important sites. If you raise the disengagement penalty to more than 10 turns, the attacking pilots would really only have to runoff the defenders ONCE before focusing on the planet/base/etc. Is that what we really want?? To actually REDUCE the amount of PvP around important sites!! What about those empires that don't have as many pilots to bring to bear? Aren't we putting them at MORE of a disadvantage now? I know it's a mute point if the defenders can continually be successful, but even the best of us have our bad missions. (me flying with Dizzy for example,
) Isn't an hour long enough??
So, to conclude my rambling. I would like to see the death/disengagement rule penatly to be 5/10 turns (30/60 minutes), or a flat 10 turns penalty. That to me is plenty.
Just my humble thoughts,
Agave