Messages

1

After Action Reports / Re: The AI 9 through 10 run

« on: March 25, 2012, 01:04:52 PM »

Well, The AI blade spawners in my game have no issue with shreading my command station, power generators, and engineers under a forcefield, so I have no idea why that behavior is occuring, unless the blades get a larger damage bonus when attacking the forcefield, or have it as their target priority override.

2

After Action Reports / Re: A Land War In Asia (aka "This time, certainly!")

« on: March 24, 2012, 10:51:23 PM »

Shield Bearers are excellent for the production of many kinds of cheese

Wondering when the AI will wake up from that quart of tranquilizer you shot it up with

Well, Whenever that happens I dont expect the result will be pretty......

3

AI War / Re: Liking the new plasma starship

« on: March 24, 2012, 09:05:42 AM »

A while back, When I read the Something Awful forums Lets play, I had thought about how they explained a number of things.

Specifically, The AI had produced Parasites, and then later came out with Parasite starships. The comments on it were as follows

"It looks like an attempt at a larger version of the parasites already encountered. That tiny thing is useless without a fleet to back it up."

This made me think of having a silly number of starships, one line for every single line of fleet ship XD
In addition, all starships (with the exception of the nezuil starships, and fleet starships) would require their corresponding fleet tech to exist first.
So, no parasite starships for you unless you have parasite tech. (I guess you will have to hire mercenaries, eh?)

Then, Seeing as I have an obsession with making *everything* modular, i would have to have an extra line of modular starships (or possibly, with the *super modular* mode, starships in addition to command stations all become modular) Which can, in addition to the obvious shields, would also be able to equip turrets relating to what tech you have unlocked.

4

AI War / Re: AI War Beta 5.031, "Harvest Of The Unloved," Released!

« on: March 23, 2012, 03:00:20 PM »

(Hopefully I didnt screw up the quotes too much....

They've been able to get Riots ever since exos were added, since riots can seed in exos.  Are you seeing them in some other context?  In any event, not a bug, but I'm curious if they snuck in some other way I wasn't aware of.

Alright, That explains it. Yes, it was an Exowave.

I suppose we have to be more careful with new designs, or else the AI will steal, and improve on it, eh?

If it's just for the sake of protecting the harvesters, I figure they're still not really worthwhile unless you've got a 12-harvester world that gets regularly attacked or something like that.  But at least they're not so obviously a bad deal for protection.  The main reason I'd take them is if there were some defensive situation where the AI's getting distracted by my harvesters was proving really problematic.  Not sure how often that happens.

Hmm... Well, I am using them on front-line worlds currently, and removing them further back (like is intended ofc)
Once I get a whipping boy set-up, I imagine that I will be able to remove most or all of them.

Could be an issue when using mine paths now that they last 16 hits.

Maybe... It appears that mines do not have cooldowns, which in the case of EMP mines, seems a bit off, seeing as It stunned around 10 or so of my ships for 3 minutes, but did not effect the rest of my fleet. Perhaps have the EMP mines prioritize lowest-stunned ships?
And speaking of mine paths, I might have to try that, seeing as I have some issues with defence. Do mines hit cloaked units?

I don't think they have any impact on raid engines, I think raid engines directly check "does this planet or any adjacent planet have enemy ships?".

Hmm, So if you take a world next to a raid engine, warp jammers will not help... Well then, I guess I will have to continue to send my entire fleet via transports to the raid engine, take it out, then come back to take nearby planets. Oh well, at least it works now.....
Still, I think that raid engines ought to be effected by warp-jammers.

5

AI War / Re: AI War Beta 5.031, "Harvest Of The Unloved," Released!

« on: March 23, 2012, 01:47:19 PM »

The new mines are quite effective.
Also, When did the AI learn to use Riot control starships? I thought they were human only....

Also, Do warp jammers stop raid-engines from going off? The current game Im in seems to have an AI with a raid engine on around 80% of it's planets...

Oh, and I might actually get some harvester exoshields this time, seeing as they appear to be cost effective now, at least if you have trouble on a particular planet.... Cloaking scales very nicely to late game, so T3 or so bombers don't mean *All harvesters dead, regardless of high maintenance shield*

6

AI War / Re: How did you find out about AI War?

« on: March 21, 2012, 06:32:57 PM »

I think I discovered it a few years back, Browsing for Space combat games, picked up the demo, played for a while, and dropped it.

More reciently, I rediscovered it, and via one of steams insane (90% off I think) sales, I had no choice but to buy it and the expantions.

XD

7

AI War / Re: Thoughts on Spirecraft

« on: March 16, 2012, 10:26:19 PM »

I agree on the comments except for the martyr. Keep that the way it is.

Is this because you think they are balanced, the lowest tier having little trouble annilating high tier ships, Or is it because you know they are OP but still want to be able to use them at their silly OP level?

8

AI War / Re: Thoughts on Spirecraft

« on: March 16, 2012, 06:40:01 AM »

Why not make martyrs deal reduced damage to higher tiers of ships? Like 50% to +1 tier, 25% to +2 tier?

9

AI War / Re: Modular Harvesters

« on: March 14, 2012, 03:06:23 PM »

Yep, and it would also solve the *player playing the normal game * problem.

I see that you have caught on to my "abuses too frequently the 'quoted string of words to force it to act as an adjective or adverb phrase' construct of English" problem.

Oh, sorry, I thought I made that up.

Trololol.

10

AI War / Re: Modular Harvesters

« on: March 13, 2012, 06:04:19 PM »

That's where the "default defaults" for auto harvester building come into play. If a player never even touches any of the module stuff involving harvesters, they will still get a sensible loadout. In this case, these load-outs would be ones that basically behave exactly like the existing harvesters (though possibly with a better economic output than the current stats for the harvesters)
If they never look at their harvesters after they take the planet, they probably wouldn't even notice

Well, I am pretty sure I suggested that part, and apperently that isnt enough, any more than riot starship defaults are enough.

In the current version of my proposal, there is only one mount point type (or more weakly, no overlap between the mount points and what can be built on them). The bug is FAR less likely to trigger in this case, and in fact might not trigger at all.

True

Beautiful! And that solves the "previous saves" problem elegantly.
Make it a new toggle for ship types, and have it off by default for games from previous versions (though it would be set to on by default if the "last game settings cache" does not give a state for it, so brand new games would get them, unless the last game generated explicitly turned them off)

Yep, and it would also solve the *player playing the normal game * problem.

EDIT: Everything else you said are good points about why this type of idea should be considered carefully

Not exactly. Aside from fixing the multi-build bug, the enable-tab would make this totally viable, as it would for my command stations.

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AI War / Re: Modular Harvesters

« on: March 13, 2012, 05:35:11 PM »

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=3477

"We've already talked about having a separate line of modular command stations, actually, it's planned for some point. Balance is a bit tricky, naturally. It can't ever be a case of "obviously go with the modular line, it's just better". Also, the normal lines can't be made modular since one of the basic design goals is that a player playing the normal game should never _have_ to interact with modular stuff, and having the normal command stations have module slots would basically do that due to negative consequences of ignoring them. "

This probably applies to harvesters as well, sadly.

On the other hand, Modular units, If we, 1, fix the modular rebuild system to avoid bugginess(and let modules be killed again) and two, make it a ship-type toggle, then modular command stations, harvesters, and possibly even normal starships as well might be reasonable.

12

AI War / Re: This may seem ridiculous but...

« on: March 11, 2012, 03:54:36 PM »

It's just adding a line of code, though.

Ah, the famous last words of a programmer.

XD

13

AI War / Re: WTF moments

« on: March 11, 2012, 10:27:36 AM »

May I recommend the hamsters control your power levels? My goodness. Exhibit a for why this needs to be fixed in the next expansion.

What ever for? Look at his resources....

Needs to have a full 20 space docks, as well as 10 merc docks pumping out ships 24-7, or something like that.

14

AI War / Re: Nominations for Worst Ship Ever (IV)

« on: March 10, 2012, 10:07:43 PM »

I really dont understand why higher tier harversters were created to start with.

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AI War / Re: Nominations for Worst Ship Ever (IV)

« on: March 10, 2012, 08:45:20 PM »

I like hardened shields. Yes, they have a very similar role to normal shields, but they fair much better against things with no armor piercing. You would start noticing the difference if the AI was allowed to use them, and then you would start to see how their armor can make an impact in combat.

They have 20% more health (last I checked) Vs things without armor piercing. If Their armor is totally bypassed, then they have, I think, 25% normal shield health. So, I really don't see the difference.

Can you elaberate?

20% more effective durability is actually quite a bit. Try listening to a song that's been sped up by 20%, or see the difference when something is 20% cooler, or hear what something is like when it is 20% louder and you will see that 20% increase is quite a bit.

Yes, they do start suffering when under fire from things with armor piercing, but armor piercing is the exception, rather than the rule.

Eh, Well, Aside from slightly altered strengths and weaknesses (Or rather, Stats), Still basically the same thing. Same useage, Same limitations (No wormhole, no repair in combat (Which is still a good idea), painfully slow for anything aside from max-building coverage micro) I really think that they should have something to different them from normal shields, aside from slightly altered stats.