Bad change. Terrible from a game design perspective to tie it to one particular pre-made race.

Also, not sure how this fixes the 'abuse' at all. The attack bonus is the same -60 or whatever no matter whether a Revalon uses it or an attacker. The only thing the attacker would have over the Rev is the speed bonus.

Sentinel tag was put in place to help families to remove small nw intruders drafted mid round that could take share and noone could remove them even razing all infra (due to science nw).
-it was complicated since many players didn't know how it was working.
-it was a big advantage for big fams only:
>Small fams had to declare war on big fams to use it and if they were doing it, the big fam could declare back and attack all players 25% their nw instead of 35%, and it was giving a good excuse to big fams to farm them since the small fam declared first.
>Big fams main attacker didnt care to over jump since they just had to put sentinel tag on a 100m nw attacker and he could blow all the plts of a 1m nw banker.

After thinking a long time about how to change that, giving it to Revs only as so far been the best option (would have been complicated to code it for custom races).

Revs from now will have more to do than just expo/build to help their fam

Okay, so if Revs can get a special tag, every main race should get a special tag:

Camaar should be able to get (Celestial) Guardian tag so they can clear big fams corers from their core without breaking NW protection.

Also, Wardancer, Quantam, and Partaxian should all be able to get tagged as Self Sufficient and get attack, income, increased ops, and morale bonus, but also force them to be cut off from intra-fam aid system nor do intra-fam planet swaps.   The player marked SS would in effect be pnaped with his or her own fam and could not attack his or her own fam and neither could the fam attack them.  Make it a permanent for whole round, so that their fam can't mark them rogue later and steal his or her planets.  Make its so the SS player's NW and planet count are deducted from fam's total until end of round where, if the SS player wants, he can contribute his or her planet count and NW to his or her original fam or not.  In fact, you could make it so that after being marked rogue for a period of 24 ticks, the player automatically is marked self-sufficient for the rest of round.  Maybe call the actual tag "Neutral" - a good first step towards implementing the factions idea I've mentioned before.

So...because the game doesn't go 100% in the way you want it so..you're going to retire? Congrats. Enjoy life. Your time is your time, and cannot be dictated to be spent on anything you do not want it to.

Oh, and since you have the magic wand that magically gets things programmed and fixed instantly, instead of the days/weeks that it takes for our dev's to do...could you possibly do us a favor and leave it behind? That would be a major thanks, and we would write about you great things in the years to come.

Jaguar hit it on the head. A ton of ideas are great, but because we have dev's who are just volunteers, it's extremely difficult to get major changes done. What they do, are tiny changes or fast fixes. It takes minimal effort and time from their day. It's great that we even get that.

I would be worried about giving them the advantage.  A Revalon is generally a pop banker, currently requiring science in 3 areas (welfare, income, construction), making investment in military science very impractical.  In contrast, Partax and Quantam players are generally resourcers (only requiring resource and construction science).  This, combined with the higher science bonuses (particularly for Quantam) would allow these races to MUCH easier fund military science to offest the imposed attack penalty for Sentinels and, once again, do exactly what the modification was meant to prevent.

Using what a race normally has as the determination of what it will have isn't a good measuring system because the incentives to change tactics were obviously not around prior to the Sentinel change, so there's no reason a player would need to adjust their strategy to be a Sentinel if a Sentinel didn't exist.

That being said... going to the races...

Quantum gets 70% research, which is amazing for trying to throw in a third science field.  Additionally, they have 20% speed (I actually didn't notice this), something which may not seem significant, but which gives the Quantam a leg up over Revalons in the same way that 20% makes a difference between the Wardancers of old and custom attackers.  Do you really think it's that big a strategic change for a resourcer to build fleet when it already has the ability to pump pretty good science into construction?  Remember, the Quantam isn't trying to wage a war against a jumped attacker.  The Quantam would just be trying to farm low-NW bankers.

As for the Partax... okay, so Partax and Revalons have the same science (I actually thought the Revalon science was lower for some reason... silly me) and speed.  So yes, I'll agree this is definitely a closer fight in determining whether a Partax would be an unbalanced Sentinel.

Now, as I mentioned above, if we assume that both races will be using currently existing strategies, and simply being a Sentinel in addition to their normal strategies, the Revalon is almost always going to be a pop banker, meaning it's going to have insane planet amounts... and consequently, insane morale penalties on each hit.  The Partax, by comparison, is much more likely to be simply a resourcer, and thus could be much smaller and be able to conduct much more attacks.  That's a big difference, because the Sentinel isn't meant to be something you rely on perpetually. You use it a couple times when not using it could ruin your round.

"The only thing I disagree with is the reason you think the 'managing group' is doing what they are doing.[...] I do believe they have the game's best interests at heart and they put in a lot of effort"

Don't get me wrong, I don't think they are doing it intentionally.  The problem is they are so far removed from newbies (new players) or "xenos" (players who love to play differently for the sake of playing differently).   Because their perspective is one of disassociation from the newb or the xeno, the moderators' / developers' perspectives and ideas inevitably end up tilting game dynamics in their own interest rather than the new of 'different' players.  Its a subconscious phenomenon like group think: you see, all groups of like-minded individuals demonstrate group think on a subconscious level - all types of organizations and institutions, from unions to political parties, to non-profit organizations, to video game designers, etc..  The natural tendency is to make whatever system they operate in to cater to the context they usually operate in and the style they are most familiar with.  In the case of IC, it is a fam bank system, as a top-ranked fam filled with vip buddies.  The game dynamics inadvertently comes to favor the outcome for players like them.  It reinforces their position in their organization; the game (and you can say this about the 'game' in real-life communities as well) becomes more complex, more specialized, with steeper learning curves, and fewer opportunities for would be 'newbs' and 'xenos' to successfully enjoy their experience. 

This tendency occurs not because the people in 'power' don't have the 'game's' best interest at heart, but because, inevitably, their perspective as veteran, 'specialist', or streamlined perspective prevents them from considering the newb or 'xeno' players' requirements for change according to their wants and needs. 

In IC, the mods/developers aim is to create more vip features, stifle new tactics that might subvert their efforts to streamline what they think should be the ONLY way to play the game.  You see this everywhere: it comes from a subconscious fear of losing hegemony over their respective realm, whether it is a corporation's market share, a politicians office, a union leader or employee's position, or a veteran gamer's reputation as a veteran player. 

The result is, in IC just as it is in the real world, that the innovation that would suit the majority is thus never developed, and stagnation occurs.  Due to stagnation, those in power end up losing anyway, either because their constituents start voting for another party, or their customers switch brands, or students strike and protest, or the public sentiment turns against the public service unions, or, in the case of IC, the gamer community goes and tries something else...

Wait... you mean I don't get TARP funding after I get raided? 

Sentinel still  doesn't accomplish much. How many revs  does a fam have who's morale can keep up? My fam has an intruder of 25k nw in pw and x number o planets spread around the edge of our core and is expoing more. My banker cleared x planets and now has a severe negative morale hi and plenty more to clear. We will figure out a way to deal with it. But it definitely makes the tag pointless in my eyes.

I have to say I like the way xeno is going about this, even if I don't agree with all of it. But that's actually an analysis that's hardly ever done and which could be helpful, even if to put things in perspective

Does the -50% attack bonus override only race bonuses or all bonuses?  I was under the impression when posting the above that the override only applied to the race bonus, so science and No Fear would still apply.  I could very well be wrong, however.  I'll have to bug a mod eventually to answer that.