Messages

1

AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Questions abound!

« on: June 17, 2013, 08:16:10 PM »

Maws are pretty situational actually.

Because of how they remove ships from combat, if they swallow a low-cap ship like a Railcluster, that's a big deal, but if they swallow something like a Laser Gatling, that's pretty useless.

So it depends what they are fighting more then anything.

D.

2

AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Special Forces guard posts - Kill them or leave them alive?

« on: June 17, 2013, 08:07:02 PM »

It is not that simple as they are reinforcement gates.

You have a behind the lines system that you want to pull your defenses out of to add more defenses to your border worlds? That SF post has to go, otherwise you'll find your command station that system quickly ganked.

If it is a border world you are fortifying anyway, then I agree that I usually leave them alive.

D.

edit: Huh. I just checked and your right. I wonder how long its been like that and I never noticed?

3

AI War / Re: Large Starbases Not Rebuilding Modules?

« on: June 16, 2013, 10:45:14 AM »

The only two possibilities I can think of are:

Taking Damage: You can't repair a structure for a few seconds after damage is taken by said structure.

Beam Count: If the battle is taking place near the large starbase and it only has a few repair beams, the beams might be busy repairing other ships rather then repairing your shield modules.

Note that technically your champion builds the shield module and then the starbase repairs it, so the rules for repairing other units apply here.

Note I can't confirm this from my own experience, I'm just throwing out what could be causing this.

D.

4

AI War / Re: AI War Beta 6.049 "Release Candidate 2" Released!

« on: June 16, 2013, 10:41:53 AM »

Heh, the Plasma Guardian.

"So the AI took a gun. Then it put engines on that gun. You are looking at that gun."

"If something is unfortunate enough to get hit by this gun it will take a lot of damage. Other things nearby will take some damage too. If it hits a forcefield, stuff under that forcefield also gets hurt."

Nice description. 

However, there is no reference to the Plasma Siege Starship (which shares this mechanic) or how the splash damage actually works.

I like the first line, but maybe the second should get the copy paste from the Plasma Siege Starship on how the mechanic works? What is in there now just seems out of place with how specific and descriptive the descriptions on the other ships are.

D.

edit: Assault Transports qualify as military? I just had one trigger a Core Raid Engine. It was only carrying Scout Mk Is at the time so it had to be one of those two units that did it.

edit2: Ugh. That CRE wave just got me. I'm only at midgame and did not have the defenses to handle a 225 unit Mk IV wave. Not when it is spearheaded by 8 Starships and a bunch of guardians.

5

AI War / Re: Raid ships not doing the correct damage?

« on: June 15, 2013, 11:20:24 PM »

Except the AI never sends warheads after you.

The Neinzul Rocketry Corps minor faction does so I could see it targeting the Warhead Interceptor with lighting warheads (that would do nothing I know) but the AI doesn't care really.

D.

6

AI War / Re: AI War Beta 6.049 "Release Candidate 2" Released!

« on: June 15, 2013, 04:37:00 PM »

Nomitation: Zenith Hydra Heads need to get the Immunity Repair trait.

It is perhaps interesting that I can boost my defenses by scattering hydra heads around, but my engineers are never going to forgive me for this.....

More seriously, my understanding of how the unit works is the heads are supposed to last for a few seconds and die, not hang around forever as long as I give them an engineer buddy.

D.

edit: ROFL. Now the Etherjet Tractors are grabbing the Hydra Heads and towing them around for me! 

7

AI War / Re: Very Early Game Wave Starships not fun?

« on: June 15, 2013, 04:09:11 PM »

On a (similar) subject, after the buffs, it seems to me that the danger posed by waves is much more about the starships than fleetships now.  Perhaps the way that starships are added to waves should get a look?

I'm not sure. I think there are two things going on here.

First (barring stuff like the Starship Commander), this is only in the early game. By even AIP 50 (two planets captured), the fleet ship component of a wave is significantly more dangerous then the starship that accompanies it. However, because of their durability, starship are usually the last thing to die when a wave attacks so that it giving the starships a perception of them being more dangerous then they actually are. There's a big difference between "I've been attacking you for 2 minutes and you are still not dead!" and "You are alive because I've been killing other ships for 2 minutes."

The second thing is that if your defenses can't handle a single starship with a wave by the 10 minute mark, you have other issues that lost you the game and the starship with the wave is just the thing that actually killed you. Then by the 60 minute mark, the fleet ship part of the wave has usually gotten big enough that the starship is kind of an afterthought.

Now, I need to actually sit down and see at what AIP the AI starts sending multiple starships with a wave. If the wave costs were not tweaked when the starship changes were made then I can see an argument being made for increasing the costs of starships when the AI populates a wave.

I'm not saying I support such a change at this point, I have not run a game up the AIP scale for a while (being playing around with new features) so I'm actually not sure if I support that change or not at this point.

D.

8

AI War / Re: AI War Beta 6.049 "Release Candidate 2" Released!

« on: June 15, 2013, 03:06:30 PM »

Game 1: Dire Guardian lair 2 hops out. It's in my way so I destroy it, its retaliation spawns destroy me rather easily. 

2 hops out on the current version?  If you have the seed and such so that I can reproduce that I'd like to take a look.  It's supposed to be like 4 hops out.

No, previous version.

It was what made me ask for the more restrictive spawns on the worlds adjacent to the human homeworlds that you put in in patch 6.047.


And on the supply thing, I might just come back to this game once I've actually tried the showdown devices in a more typical setup, that's the sort of crazy that appeals....

 

D.

9

AI War / Re: AI War Beta 6.049 "Release Candidate 2" Released!

« on: June 15, 2013, 02:57:46 PM »

Well.

The RNG is even eviler then ever if possible.

All I'm trying to do is try out these Showdown devices and it won't let me!


Game 1: Dire Guardian lair 2 hops out. It's in my way so I destroy it, its retaliation spawns destroy me rather easily. 

I suppose that's one of the other new mechanics tested......


Game 2: Initial setup is looking good, there's a showdown device 3 hops out, I'm going to make that my first capture. There's a fort in the way but cloak shenanegins get me around it easily. Pop the command station and NUKE TO THE FACE!

Apparently I left my AI types on Random-All and the Scorched Earth AI is laughing at me.

Do Showdown devices require supply? Not that I'm going to continue this game or anything.....

Let's see how Game 3 goes so I can actually test this new mechanic out....

D.

PS: We need a "make the RNG like the player" cheat code, badly.

PSS: Yes, I know leaving it on Random-All is asking for it, but it is stuff like this that keeps this game so interesting......

10

AI War / Re: The point of taking more planets

« on: June 13, 2013, 11:03:22 PM »

Interesting to see you tried the CSGs (core generators) and then turned them back off.

I tend to leave them on so I don't end up in the situation you are describing where taking only a couple planets is a viable strategy.

Having said that, I do also play maps with more connections, usually the Lattice map although I do also play Realistic.

It sounds like to me you might take a look at playing on a map type with more connections, you'll find that as the number of ingress points into your empire goes up, the difficulty starts really ramping up.

Having said, stuff like the strategic reserve that went in was supposed to combat this. Was that last optimal game of yours (8.6 technologists with 5 planets) with lazy AI on or off? With lazy AI off, the strategic reserve is supposed to make it harder for you to win with only a few planets captured.

That's the beauty of having so many options though. Want to spice your next game up? Turn on Astrotrains 3 or something.

D.

11

AI War / Re: So, command stations.

« on: June 13, 2013, 10:20:59 AM »

Disclaimer: Have not played with Shark enabled yet.

Having said that, the Shark plot being enabled is a radical shift in game play.

I generally play lattice type maps with high connections and this leads me to play the defense in depth playstyle as I simply don't have the unit caps to play the chokepoint defense.

This means I lose significantly more command stations them most people, but I plan for that in my defensive strategy.

However, Shark now punishes me for losing a command station by throwing more units at me. This essentially renders defense in depth non-viable as I can't afford to lose a command station now.

For me personally, Shark being enabled is as big a change in gameplay as enabling Fallen Spire, that's how radically different I see the game being when Shark is enabled.

That certainly does not make it bad, and I will probably mix up my games, some with lattice and no-Shark, some with vines/spokes and yes-Shark.

You have to adapt your strategy for the settings you set on game-start, and Shark is a very nasty (and punishing) condition to enable.

D.

12

AI War / Re: Very Early Game Wave Starships not fun?

« on: June 13, 2013, 10:09:21 AM »

EDIT: I think the mistake a lot of people make is building Starships too early in the game. Starships are powerful but they don't bring a lot of bang/buck. I used to do that too. Starships also use a lot of energy so you will run out of that too. As you can see here.

This.

I love Starships and usually run quite a heavy Starship fleet, at least in the mid game.

However, the only starships I build early are the Flagships and that is for the Attack Boost they give my fleet, the other starships have to wait until I have a few systems under control so I can afford to build them without cratering my economy. (Either resources or energy economy can crash easily on starships.)


On the actual topic of the thread, I'm not sure.

Starships were re-worked to give them the 'survivability' trait to make them nice when under player control.

That means that the AI gets the same 'survivability' when starships are under it's control.

Having said that, this survivability is perhaps magnified too much when you get a high mark starship to the face in the early game for whatever reason as you don't have the fleet to kill it quickly.

The two big culprits for this are threat and raid engines. What about adding two more rules to map generation?

- No Mk IV worlds adjacent to a human homeworld
- No Raid Engine within 2 hops of a human homeworld (so 3 hops the closest a raid engine could be).

This would allow a player to be guaranteed the ability to capture at least one more planet (probably 2 or 3 on most maps) before they ran into a mechanic that made them face a Mk IV or V starship. (I don't consider a Mk III starship OP enough to be a problem against the fleet a single human world can support.)

Thoughts?

D.

13

AI War / Re: AI War Beta 6.046 "Activating Vengeful Sanding Machine MkII " Released!

« on: June 13, 2013, 09:57:56 AM »

On closer examination and investigation, I think my starship issues are/were probably actually raid engine issues.

Yes, a Raid Engine, especially on a high mark world, is about the only thing in the game that I treat as an at any-costs target.

My current game had a Raid Engine 2 hops out from my homeworld on a Mk IV world. The very first attack I made was a transport with a cap of Mk I Fighters, Bombers and Flagships on a one-way trip to destroy it.

On a single HW start, that is a lot of resources to throw away, but that is how dangerous I consider a Raid Engine.

As AIP was 10 when I triggered the single wave it sent at me, there was only a single Starship present so I did not have a lot of trouble fending it off.

For those wondering why I sent so much in, the Guard Posts in the Mk IV system were positioned so that the Transport would not survive to deliver my ships to the Raid Engine, I sent the Flagships along to kill the Raid Engine and the Fighters/Bombers were there to keep the Flagships alive long enough to do so.

D.

14

AI War / Re: New stuff on the wiki

« on: June 10, 2013, 11:03:47 PM »

Added your data point.

Also added a comment on not being sure if the cap was per train or per convoy on when the 11th convoy will spawn as you destroy existing Astrotrains.

D.

15

AI War / Re: New stuff on the wiki

« on: June 10, 2013, 08:36:10 PM »

Hi, i hadn't played with trains in a while, so i started a game with them and i guess they're ok, but I thought all the trains were generated at start, and I just saw 4 trains (including a cargo) spawn at a train station I kept in my territory that i was keeping there to lure trains to my death trap.

 Soooo, can anynoe update the wiki page on astro trains with details on train spawns during the game and what influences it?

edit: would be nice also if the wiki page said what the cargos will build on what intensity, on intensity 4 i though they would be sending golems at me () but instead my 120 planet map is now filled with super fortresses ().

Okay, I added a "Train Mechanics" section to the wiki if people want to expand it.

D.