Topics

1

AI War / Question about Fallen Spire campaign (spoiler possible?)

« on: September 20, 2011, 12:16:49 AM »

So things are all well and good, and I'm off collecting my third shard under decidedly unfavorable conditions, and the damn buggers pop the thing before I even get it out of the system it spawned in.

It's been a few minutes and I haven't gotten any acknowledgment from the game about it, so I'm wondering whether there is one: something like "Whoops, you f---ed up, too bad! Go kill the AIs." or "We're getting another transmission for a new shard sir, hang on." or ... etc.

Figured I'd ask here instead of waiting around arbitrarily long in my game to see what happens. Do I wait around or move on with life?

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Relative importance of AIP vs. remaining systems?

« on: September 19, 2011, 07:07:49 PM »

So it seems like a lot of overall AI anger is determined not only by AIP but by the number of its remaining systems. I'm wondering just how much of a factor that part really is, i.e. is it weighted comparably to AIP when computing reinforcement points, or is it relatively negligible? And also, what is that factor exactly? I mean, in a 40-star game, if you get the AI to where it only controls 10 stars, is it 4 times as mad at you as when you began (ignoring AIP), or...

I need to become more concise. Basically, what I'm really asking is

a) Is taking stars from the AI increasingly dangerous to the point where it would be very unwise to take, say, two of its last three (I realize that'd only arise in a very completionist game), or is it more gently linear?
b) Is this factor even worth worrying about?

3

AI War / Should shields leave remains?

« on: September 19, 2011, 06:54:48 PM »

I realize they're not turrets, but they practically are. I'm in a game where I had a couple of shields set up just right so that the AI had to crawl its way around them through a snaky line of turret death. Anyway, shields got popped, and I had to spend a few minutes figuring out where to rebuild them. I gather one of the primary reasons behind having remains/rebuilders is for convenience factor, as redeploying turrets every time they wipe would be a nightmare. Any good reason not to add shields to that list?

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AI War / Poll of Shame

« on: September 14, 2011, 10:27:26 PM »

I'm new, so for all I know Steam is a recent addition, but I'm gonna go ahead and assume AI Wars has been on it for a while / since the beginning. Also, my bad if the ranges are too high / too low.

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AI War / Detected AI Progress Reducers galaxy map overlay question

« on: September 13, 2011, 11:17:53 PM »

Man, too many words in the subject.

So when I put this on, I see "DC <#>" everywhere, usually DC 1, counting the number of "progress reducers," which can refer to data centers, superterminals, or co-processors...

What's the DC all about? I'm gonna go ahead and guess this might be a holdover from when Data Centers were the only progress reducer. If this is true, lemme know so I can put something in mantis about updating this to say ST for superterminal, CP for co-processor... or was the issue that displaying each of those individually takes too much text space, and leaving it as is was the quick fix?

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Your "must-buy" techs

« on: September 11, 2011, 01:50:59 AM »

Knowledge is one thing I think has been done especially well in AI Wars. In every game I play, knowledge is such an effectively limited resource and the benefits so dramatic, that choosing tech paths is a new decision every time. There's no one obvious I-win-button path that you always want to take.

That being said, there are a few technologies that are almost mandatory for standard games. I'm wondering what techs people will pretty much auto-buy by default.

For me, I (virtually) always pick up the warp sensor, and usually most of the other 250-cost stuff. Scout II's for 500 are also automatic almost always. Mk2 of the "big three" ships usually get purchased eventually, but especially bombers, which I think is almost mandatory (although I've experimented with going down the bomber starship route instead). The one other thing I think I never go without is a level or three of FF tech (and with the HFFs, there's potentially over twice as much knowledge suck as before!)

Oh yeah, and grav turrets. Love those puppies.

There's plenty of other stuff I like to pick up when I can, but those are the ones that get bought in 90% of my games.

7

Game Development / Relevant anecdote

« on: September 09, 2011, 03:36:22 PM »

I read an old entry on Chris's blog or FAQ or something about how Arcen Games will only make 2D games, and it reminded me of the last time I went to a store to buy a console game. I walked into a GameStop in... what, maybe 2004? Early-to-middle-age for PS2, whenever that was. I didn't have any particular game in mind, and so I was just staring at the wall of games. A clerk walked over and asked if he could help me find something. I pointed at the wall and asked "Which of these games aren't 3D?" He said "None of them," and I walked out.

Really, though, it's sad to see how with so few exceptions that's all that the console market (PC to an extent, but especially console) is pumping out. Was, anyway. Like I said, I haven't been up on that side of things in a while.

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AI War Strategy Discussion / EMP-proofing via transport?

« on: September 08, 2011, 09:26:09 PM »

Okay, not sure if this was a bug or a feature, and if a feature, I'm not sure which feature it was.

Had ships in a transport. Had transport cloaked by a cloaker. Had an EMP detonate in system.

IF I recall correctly, the transport and cloaker were both paralyzed and uncloaked (although coulda been a scout that was uncloaked, and cloaker was okay...)

Anyway, transport was definitely blinky red, but to my surprise still able unload units, and to my double surprise, the units were rarin' to go. So my working theory is that you can hide in transports in a pinch to avoid an EMP (I kind of doubt this will ever arise defensively again, but has obvious uses on offense; I'd always waited in a neighboring system when EMPing somebody). So, is this true?

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AI War / Okay, who's *actually* used the doomsday device?

« on: September 08, 2011, 09:20:29 PM »

Preferably without cheats, but I'll take what I can get. Is the effect literally just to do the standard nuke op to every planet?

I know it's in there more as entertainment and not so much as a tool, but I'm curious how one could use it to their advantage. I'm hard pressed to think of a scenario in which leaving me with no FFs/supply/anything but starships and possibly some MkV fabbed ships could possibly convert to a win, seeing as AI homeworlds are largely unaffected by nukes. Has anyone managed it?

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AI War / Do you have scenario-testing tools?

« on: September 08, 2011, 03:53:44 PM »

If you want to see five hundred flak cannons vs five golems, do you guys (read: devs) have a reasonably easy way to set that up short of playing a game to that point? I mean, I noticed that list of cheats, I guess that's a step in that direction...

(Lots of bonus points if that's a hidden feature built into every copy of the game!)

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AI War / How involved is it to create a new AI personality?

« on: September 08, 2011, 02:02:14 PM »

If it differs substantially from existing types, does that require writing a whole new batch of code? Or do you have something in place where you mostly tweak various parameters that could potentially be made external to the program for most personality types...

I ask because just in case it happens to be the latter, I bet there would be demand for opening that capability to the end user.

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AI War / Questions about preferred targets, questions about other things...

« on: September 08, 2011, 12:35:34 PM »

Preferred targets: this was a good inclusion. This could be even better with some added TLC. Wishlist includes things like being able to have a list of priorities, have priority templates you can assign, be able to set the priority without actually targeting the bad guy...

But I don't really care about all that; this is fundamentally a macro game, not a micro game. Completely ignoring that I just said that however, I'm curious about when priority comes into play.

a) When selecting a new target, if a priority target is in your immediate range, it will be selected.
b) Whenever you come in immediate range of a priority target, you switch your target from whatever it was to the priority.
c) (undoubtedly this one) Something more intricate and involved.

Here's my main issue: say I want to do a "fly-by" on a target. I right click it to make it preferred, and then I pilot my ship past the target in such a way that it I am in range and have time to shoot. Invariably, my ship continues blasting backwards at whatever peon is chasing him instead. I realize I could get around this by right click attacking at the appropriate time, but that's often not as tactically sound as the fly-by, and if I'm not careful will leave my ship sitting there for target practice.

Is there any way to accomplish what I want within the current system? This doesn't come up often enough to warrant much attention, but this is maybe the ninth or tenth time I've run into it so I figured I'd write and see what anyone has to say.


On a completely unrelated note, if it's a quick answer, how does "gun loading time" work? It seems like sometimes your ships will fire ASAP and then wait out their reload timer; sometimes there's a very tiny delay (e.g. during wormhole egress), but most crucially, it seems like sometimes you will wait for the length of the reload time BEFORE firing the first shot, most notably when transports are involved in some way. Am I imagining that, or is that a tweak to disallow cheesy transport firing tricks?


Oh what the hell, I actually have a couple more related questions. When popping in and out of transports (trying to pull cheesy transport firing tricks  ), it seemed like some of my guys were flat out disappearing each time. Do your units take some kind of attrition for entering a transport in hostile space, or was it delayed gunfire that hit logically but not visually?

And finally, if someone fires, you move out of range and/or cloak, does the shot hit?


Thank you thank you. I've asked enough damned questions on this forum to fill up my own FAQ.

13

AI War / i think i killed the queen

« on: September 07, 2011, 06:37:09 PM »

So they're launching a CPA and rolling on through my systems, get to my wall of turrets and FFs, big ol' battle. I forget about the EMP I had inbound, it comes into system and gets shot up, all my turrets shut down and then the Mk5s are free to keep pillaging, and eventually my ships and turrets are all rubble... but then...

...nothing happens. The hundreds of AI ships (mostly Mk5 frigs) just sit there. As we speak I'm rebuilding some of my turrets and slowly eating through their forces. Their ships will fire back if I come in range, but they're not moving at all, and there are no FFs up or any likely culprit other than the EMP that went off a good five minutes ago now.

Alternate subject lines for this post:

"I found a bugger."

"I think their commander has fled; there seems to be no-one in charge."

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Fun fact: mk1 bombers especially bad against fortresses.

« on: September 06, 2011, 11:06:59 PM »

This will probably only interest the highly detail oriented, but whatever...

Was looking at matchups in Reference tab between Mk3 AI Fortress and various things. Noticed Mk1 bombers take 2106 damage per shot, while Mks2+ each take 781 (making them about three times better, actual health and firepower aside). Confused for a second, then saw fort is doing 50x400k damage, but with the 0.01 polycrystal modifier, comes out to 4k per attack. Since bombers have 1200, 2400 etc armor, it's reaching the 20% cutoff from mk2 and up, but mk1 takes a relative beating. (I'm guessing the off-ness of the numbers--you would expect 2800 damage and 1600 damage for mk1/2 naively--is due to that game speed mod factor or whatever secret sauce it is in there.)

I mean, in this case it's pretty moot since a decent pack of bombers will own a fortress head to head. But what this suggests is that there are likely some more "hidden" dramatic value cutoffs due to armor rank in certain matchups, probably a couple that would be useful to know...

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AI War Strategy Discussion / EMP Guardians

« on: September 06, 2011, 04:44:12 AM »

So, I haven't played a lot of diff 7 yet, and this is the first time I've run into these nasty things. Little help? I thought I was doing well, and all of a sudden lots of red flashiness, all my defenses and fleet and fancy buildings are dead and buried, and the game's basically over. Is there a way to anticipate/counter/avoid these guys?