Starting today, all accounts born after this date will have a distance modifier applied to their rank.  This only kicks in if both the attacker AND the victim are born after this date.

The further you are away from your home city, the less your rank is recognized and therefor, the less effective their gun/defense is the further away from their home city they are.

The closer you are to your home city, the more your rank is recognized, and therefor, the more effective your gun/defense is.

Your gun and defense is at its best in your home city, followed by sister city, followed by any other city in order of distance.

Example, a Philly attacker will have an easier time picking off a NY target rather than an LA target.

As an existing CL, moving your HQ into a different home city, your modifier will slowly ramp up to your new city's location over the course of 7 days, as it degrades form your old city.

Example: You move from LA to Philly, after day 1, you have 6/7th of your LA modifier, and 1/7th of your Philly modifier.  Day 2, 5/7th LA and 2/7th Philly.  This continues until the end of day 7 when you are now fully Philly.  This will slow down the "Swoop in with a moved HQ to kill off other cities"

This affects only player on player, it does not kick in for IA players or NPCs.

It is our hopes that this will balance all the cities a little more and provide a safety net for those who maintain a distance from each other.

Isnt this very much in favour of DT and CH?

The fact that they are more centrally located and can reach out to other cities easier, is equally offset that they have 2x the number of cities that can reach out and touch them.  

The difference will be small, its not hugely game changing, but it will definitely affect iffy shots when far outside of your home city. Expect a few more missed shots during a take down if not all the proper shooters are lined up with the proper targets, especially if the shots going to be a "close call".  It should give a little more pause for deciding if a war is 100% needed because the chances of neutralizing every big gun on a first wave is now a little more difficult depending on home cities and where people are located.

This should, in theory, give further away cities a better chance at getting in some return fire on botched first waves, which in turn means that the further that two crews are from each other, the less likely they will war over lesser reasons.

Because I feel major changes, especially when dealing with guns or defense that it is best to 'opt-in' with it when you can, so that the change doesn't suddenly impact existing players or situation.  I get a little more leeway when the change affects the future characters rather than the current ones. 

It also allows me additional time to monitor and adjust the numbers a bit to make sure I get it to a comfortable setting while mitigating the risks.

Finally, this will prevent me from having to deal with insufferables who will piss bitch and moan at the feature.  It seems that every time a change is made, countless hours are spent dealing with users who are strongly opinionated about why the feature isn't 100% benefiting them.