Hey Buffarilla,
We're actively working to update the game on a regular basis and make improvements that allow all players to enjoy the game. We're also happy to listen to any suggestions you may have, a good number of the recent features we've added have been based on player feedback. One of which was the recent improvement to rallies, if rallies are still not effective enough against large players, we can certainly investigate this further.
Our 1.7 update is indeed in the works and we'll be sharing more on that soon.
Rallies do not work, as a way to retaliate for the small guys.
Adding the possibility to attack gathering/contest ships has not changed that.
The "Big guns" that raid whole alliances, rarely gather resources. They do not have to, since it is much faster to raid low levels at little loss. Most of the time, there are no gathering ships of the "big guns", to attack. Even if one of the "big guns" should gather resources, he will do it in his own hive. By the time a rally reaches the spot, he will be finished long ago, because the rally moves so slowly. It has been mentioned before that the speed at which the rally moves, makes it less useful. The speed has since been increased, but only for the levels 20-22. Which are the already strong players. The small guys did not benefit from it.
More elaborate explanations can be found at:
"Permissions Needed to Start a Rally?"
https://forums.hunte...showtopic=75288
My own comment in that threat can be read here:
https://forums.hunte...288#entry978585
Currently i can not see, how the rally could be tweaked, to work to retaliate for the low level players.
The win/loss ratio between tier 1/2/3 troops against tier 4 troops, is too high, to be worth it. Tweaking the rally will not change the win/loss ratio, as long as the fighting system behind it stays the same.
In addition, if a low level starts a rally, his research is low level too, which again affects all the troops in the rally, and increases the losses, against a strong player (with high level research).
My suggestion would be, that someone from the HCS staff tries to create an incognito game account, and tries to play as low level on a region like Zeta. Then tests how well things, like the rally, work during game play.