ARS Pops

[Wanderer]

Hm, is the order of what you get from ARS's set when the game starts?  I figured it would be locked into the specific unit, not just a list in the background.

Why do I ask?  Glad you wondered.  I'm scumming around a game trying different tactics and I'm not a real big fan of the autobombs.  In particular, I'm really not a fan of anything suicidal when I'm using warp gates, because I can't 'stream' them into the next system over.  So, I decide to skip that ARS and go after a deeper ARS.

And... it gives me Autobombs.  Wait, wut?

[keith.lamothe]

Yep, it rolls off a random initialized from the map random seed, with no respect paid to which ARS it was.

Those autobombs won't be denied

[zoutzakje]

yeah, bonus ships from ARS are random-ish. I once had to savescum right after getting a bonus ship from an ARS, and it was a different one the next time I got it (a more useful one even ). I do believe it should have been set from the moment you generate your map though. Now you can just savescum until you get a bonus ship you like.

[Wanderer]

yeah, bonus ships from ARS are random-ish. I once had to savescum right after getting a bonus ship from an ARS, and it was a different one the next time I got it (a more useful one even ). I do believe it should have been set from the moment you generate your map though. Now you can just savescum until you get a bonus ship you like.

I'm not entirely sure about that.  I've gotten Autobombs on my last four attempts, 3 at one ARS and once at another.  It must REALLY like the Autobombs.

[keith.lamothe]

I'm pretty sure that as long as the following remain the same:

1) The map seed (this cannot be changed post-gen without editing the .sav file)
2) The set of bonus ship types you have unlocked.
3) Our implementation of MersenneTwister.Next() (this did change once post-3.0, iirc).

Then the next bonus ship type to unlock from an ARS will always be the same.

[Spikey00]

You won a mini-lottery there on four consecutive unlocks... but nope, AFAIK the bonus ship unlocked is random unless you've drawn a lot of bonus ships from the pool already.  When I'm savescumming, it's a different ship nearly all the time.

[Wanderer]

You won a mini-lottery there on four consecutive unlocks... but nope, AFAIK the bonus ship unlocked is random unless you've drawn a lot of bonus ships from the pool already.  When I'm savescumming, it's a different ship nearly all the time.

This would be the fourth ARS I've unlocked, so I guess I've pretty much set it in stone.  The next two unlocks were autobomber then Shield Bearer no matter how often I scummed.  Mind, I wasn't necessarily scumming for the ARS, just happened to run over it, as it were, and then started goofing off with it. :-)

[Shrugging Khan]

SHUN THE SAVE-SCUMMER! This is divine retribution! THE AUTOBOMB IS YOUR PUNISHMENT!

Really, I like autobombs. Cheap enough (unlike mini-rams) to throw waves of them around routinely on a tactical level; and enough damage potential and speed (looking at you, mini-rams!) to actually make a difference. Although they're less fun to use, I actually prefer them over the Nanoswarms simply for their ability to cause actually significant amounts of damage .