Messages

1

AI War / Re: Core Guard Post Proposal

« on: March 21, 2012, 04:48:15 AM »

My take: Making the core guard posts any tougher (longer to kill) would be more annoying than fun, for reasons already mentioned by other people. Notably: there are already exos, MkV ships, shields, and other good stuff to slog through.

Making some of the posts more lethal is probably fine though.

2

AI War / Re: Warp Gates with multiple players

« on: March 20, 2012, 07:37:57 AM »

You don't need separate bottlenecks. If you leave only one warp gate standing next to your territory, all waves will come through there.

3

AI War / Re: Poll: Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (IV)

« on: March 19, 2012, 10:10:03 AM »

Ok, thanks for the feedback, that's why I asked before the release actually went out   Revised harvester changes:

*** Harvester II:
**** Knowledge cost from 3250 => 2000.
**** Production from 28 => 31 (so +8 => +11).
*** Harvester III:
**** Knowledge cost from 4000 => 2500 (so 4500 total).
**** Production from 36 => 73 (so +16 => +53).

Still aiming for numerical similarity with the econ stations in that econ stations are the stronger early-game pick (and definitely stronger if you don't plan to take 10+ planets ever), which I think is sufficient counterbalance to the command-station-slot cost.  In other words, I really doubt that harvesters being this good will make people never take econ station upgrades, but I do think that harvesters being significantly worse than this would cause harvester upgrades to be rarely taken.

I had not considered the bigger "up front" boost econ stations give when you have fewer planets. That is indeed an advantage. Anyway, I was mostly concerned because... I was remembering a fallen spire game where I had around 20 planets, MkIII Logistics, MkIII Econs, and upgraded harvesters. With +105 per harvester, the resources in that game would go from "no worries, just make sure the spire fleet doesn't blow up" to absolutely trivial. But maybe that's fine if players sink that much knowledge into it. (It was a multiplayer game and I was basically supplying half my ally's economy as well.)

I like the adjustment though, lower rate for less knowledge looks better.

4

AI War / Re: Poll: Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (IV)

« on: March 19, 2012, 03:29:32 AM »

The harvesters seem over the top. I believe that this is what parity looks like, but like you say, Econ stations take up the "slot" of the command station which really is a big deal and they should therefore be a bit better. So harvesters should probably be a bit under parity with Econs,  for example 36/90.

5

AI War / Re: Modular Harvesters

« on: March 14, 2012, 04:10:55 AM »

I don't really want to spend time dealing with harvesters... so as long as the modular nature has no impact on income, fine I guess. I don't see much of a point though, to me, harvesters are just things that 'happen'. Even if they get killed, they cost me some resources to rebuild but I don't have to do anything about them and I like it that way.

I especially like that I can upgrade all harvesters in one go through research.

Exoshields work fine as they are. They're absolutely terrible and need a serious buff, but the concept works fine.

Putting turrets on them may sound neat, but you can't control the location of the resource nodes anyway... so how useful will those turrets be? And if you want turrets there... why not just build turrets there?

6

AI War / Re: Poll: Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (IV)

« on: March 12, 2012, 03:34:41 AM »

The zenith and spire starships cost so much knowledge that I spurt water all over my screen whenever I happen to mouse over them in the research menu.

7

AI War / Re: About that warp jammer...

« on: March 07, 2012, 05:39:42 AM »

A station that doesn't put neighbours on alert (and doesn't receive any waves?) would be very useful. It would certainly justify the big knowledge and upkeep costs.

EDIT: It would need a really tiny unit cap though. 1, maybe 2 of these max.

8

AI War / Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (III)

« on: March 06, 2012, 03:47:54 AM »

Please, for goodness sake, could you quick patch this before the next version comes out?

6436: AI space planes and static defense (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=6436)

Basically, space planes have a radar dampening range less than their weapon range, allowing them to hit stuff without stuff being able to hit back. This allows them to win some really silly match-ups against stationary targets.

That's their whole point. At least I thought it was. Think it is.

9

AI War / Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (III)

« on: March 05, 2012, 09:37:54 AM »

I am cautiously optimistic for the fate of the Space Plane and look forward to trying it out!

10

AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Knowledge Spending: Offense vs. Defense

« on: March 01, 2012, 03:42:07 AM »

MRS really isn't worth 4k. I just don't need it, for anything. On offense, I micro some engineers and get the same result, except they're more mobile. On defense, I build a fortress, which costs 1k less to unlock and shoots things besides. Sure it costs a ton to build, but if you need the ability to repair a large number of ships at the same time, that usually coincides with a frontier world anyway.

I don't think I'd consider unlocking MRS for more than 1.5k. I'd unlock them at that price if I'm too low on resources to build fortresses or if fortresses wouldn't provide enough benefit.

11

AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: What do you do with surplus resources?

« on: March 01, 2012, 03:31:37 AM »

I tend to fill out my caps of starships first, and then go for merc parasites. Reclaiming high mark stuff is not so bad!

12

AI War / Re: General Hacking Discussion

« on: February 28, 2012, 11:00:34 AM »

I guess the reason I find it fiddly and long, is that you're going to be wiping out that world anyway once you're done, so it kind of feels like you're twiddling your thumbs for 10 minutes before doing so.

The other hacks don't have that. With knowledge raiding, you have no intention of taking over that world, and with the superterminal, you've already taken over that world. You're not waiting for traffic lights to turn green, so to speak.

Anyway, it's probably not very important, but I would like to see the variable aspect. 

13

AI War / Re: General Hacking Discussion

« on: February 28, 2012, 04:45:29 AM »

I have to say that the ARS hacking seems unnecessarily fiddly and long, and has a pretty high opportunity cost for what is hardly a tangible benefit. I do like the option to choose your new bonus ship, however.

EDIT: How about this (if it's feasible): instead of always offering 3 bonus ship options to choose from after 10 minutes, add one option for every 2 minutes spent hacking (up to a maximum of whatever). So hacking for 2 minutes gives you 2 options to choose from, hacking for 4 minutes gives you 3 options, etc. Or make it 3 minutes per option instead of 2 if that seems more balanced...

14

AI War / Re: For munition and armor boosters...

« on: February 27, 2012, 03:15:19 AM »

The one time we had speed boosters from an ARS, we always hid a blob of them underneath a cloaker starship in a corner of the system we were attacking. Works great!

15

AI War / Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (III)

« on: February 27, 2012, 03:08:39 AM »

IRE's are at least very good against BIG THINGS.

I once started off with space planes because their thing was 'hard to kill' or at least 'hard to target' and they had a polycrystal multiplier iirc. So yay, dodgy stuff that kills bomber waves, I'll have 200 please.

Found out their damage per shot was so low, even with the multiplier, that they hardly tickled the bombers because of their armor. We... started a new game after we found that out. So... I dunno, more damage per shot, slower reload, more armor piercing?