Messages

1

AI War / Re: Somewhat silly question for old timers..

« on: August 31, 2012, 10:08:05 AM »

I don't play AI Wars often enough any more to notice "glaring balance issues". I also don't consider myself an expert by any means.

The only time something really irked me was back when the "shields" mechanic was still in place, and my ships literally could do nothing against the higher mark AI ships. You could see this as soon as the AI got to Mark II/III ships and your MK I stuff suddenly became useless - it doesn't take an expert to notice that your ships aren't hitting jack.

The other thing I really noticed was the formerly overpowered AI lightning turrets/electric shuttles. Good lord, those were rough. Bring a fleet ball in range, and you could watch it carve a semi-circular pattern out of your fleet ball. Again, not something that you needed to be an expert to notice.

Nowadays, I barely have time to absorb the latest round of patch changes before the next ten patches come in, so my perspective is effectively that of a new player.

2

AI War / Re: Should the Triangle Fleetships be balanced with each other? Why or why not?

« on: August 13, 2012, 10:25:10 AM »

No.

I find the game to be perfectly fine without completely upending the core triangle. If you disturb the core triangle, then you also have to stir the rest of the pot.

3

AI War / Re: Discussion about Different Playstyles

« on: August 10, 2012, 11:57:26 AM »

Beyond the first part of the game (when you can knock over a planet using just fighters + some bulletproof fighters), I almost never use the traditional blob. For me, blobbing generally results in heavy losses, which I find hard to stomach. When I assault an AI planet, I generally do so by blowing up guard posts and command center with a small raiding group, then sending in the fighter blob to secure the beach head while the colony ship does its thing. Bombers get used to take out tough targets, such as fortresses. Targets which, if I might point out, are basically invulnerable to other types of craft.

At the same time, I can keep track of maybe two/three distinct groups of units at a time. Fighters + other units of comparable speed, Bombers and my raid starship group. I use frigates in a purely defense role, so they generally don't get a group. Any more and I start getting confused and press the wrong hotkey. and now I've got spider bots flying by a fortress.

So, if there is some sort of proposed bomber nerf, I wouldn't be in favor. As for a fighter buff, sure, great, but what would that accomplish? I don't generally think of fighters as underwhelming or useless.

Can we hear from someone else on this subject who doesn't routinely play 8 or 9 difficulty games?

4

AI War / Re: Project Clarity: Tooltips

« on: August 09, 2012, 12:13:54 PM »

This is a great idea. Last time I tried to get a friend to play this game, the UI was a major stumbling block. A ship stat popup is a huge wall of text as it is currently, and pretty unreadable for a newbie.

Two minor comments:
1) Who really needs to see ship cost when mousing over an existing unit? All I really pay attention to is relative orders of magnitude.
2) If you're going to display ship cap, you may want to display current vs max.

Edit:
Also, don't bother displaying armor since it's currently useless! HA!

Another Edit:
What I'd love to see is an "I like books with pictures in them" version which will tell you with (a very limited number of) icons some basic characteristics of a ship. It would satisfy the compactness and brevity requirement certainly.

5

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

« on: July 11, 2012, 11:01:45 AM »

You know you're having a little trouble narrowing things down when a poll has more options than it has votes.

I voted decloaker and tachyon drone because I simply want to have a few more of them. If you have a lot of systems and the AI has cloaked units, you spend a lot of time sweeping with detectors when you could be out doing something else that's actually fun.

6

AI War / Re: What should I set AI auto progress to?

« on: June 26, 2012, 03:34:54 PM »

I generally play with no time-based AI progress. While I am pretty slow (my games generally run upwards of 20-30 hours), I just don't need another source of AI Progress - I'm not terribly good at keeping it down anyway. Incidentally, I also never play with Spire Civilians (after having tried them once).

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Strategical Advice

« on: June 25, 2012, 10:16:04 AM »

The way I usually deal with AI Eyes is by building a full group (MK1/2/3) of raid starships, and sending them over to the target world to blow up every guard post. Once the guard posts are gone, the AI Eye blows up automatically.

As for which world to take, normally, I would recommend neutering (blow up all the guard posts and the warp gate) then avoiding Kalach until you find the other three AI Co-Processors. Currently, the cost to take it would be +40 AIP, for a world you don't really need.

Joly is on the way to the rest of the galaxy, so you'll definitely want to take it, as it forms an excellent choke point. Use Raid Starships to blow up the guard posts and the command center, then send your colony ship in after your fleet. You'll be able to set up your base and capture the Ion Cannon to boot, with fairly minimal losses.

I also would strongly recommend against taking every world you see, as it will make the later part of your game much more boring (and unwinnable). You will reach a point where you can't progress any further against swarms of MK IV AI ships, and then they'll spank you.

8

AI War / Re: Solution to Neinzul Fabricators

« on: June 15, 2012, 01:40:23 PM »

and if you're getting MkV waves then the younglings are probably the least of your worries

Yeah, good point.

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AI War / Re: Solution to Neinzul Fabricators

« on: June 15, 2012, 11:46:50 AM »

Don't see how the non-decaying of Neinzul ships is a balance concern at all.

You get like what?  ~20 Core Neinzul ships in your fleet that you can't repair or replace quickly?

Doesn't seem like a huge deal.  Any non-Neinzul Core fleet ship would probably be more effective in a fleet.

Yeah, the thing is, I wasn't really concerned about non-decaying MK V Neinzul ships in human hands.

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AI War / Re: Solution to Neinzul Fabricators

« on: June 13, 2012, 11:42:04 AM »

I voted #5, but I'm a little concerned about the effect of non-decaying Neinzul ships. Maybe make them non-decaying in a limited fashion?

11

AI War / Re: Ideas for the next expansion

« on: May 25, 2012, 11:10:16 AM »

So the mechanics that truly make this game shine (and which we need more of), are the ones that present meaningful, but difficult choices.  Specifically, choices with a high risk/reward ratio.  There should be something to gain, and something to lose with every choice - that's what makes a choice meaningful.

Let me give you some examples of (what I consider) poor or bad mechanics:  Devourer Golems, Neinzul Rocket Corps, Roaming Enclaves, etc.

What do these add to the game?  What meaningful choices is the player making here?  There is benefit to turning these on, it just makes the game unnecessarily more difficult, without adding any real benefit to the player.  A meaningful choice is only presented when there's a POSITIVE aspect of said choice - something to gain from it.  There's nothing to gain with any of these minor factions, unless you like extra tedium and micromanagement (maybe some of you do I don't know).

Well, I don't know about the devourer golems (that guy can really clean up the AI forces), but yeah, I agree that the 'minor factions' that add extra guys that only attack you are not what I'd call a "meaningful choice" and I leave them off as a result.

The reason I advocate for environmental effects, wormhole manipulation and that kind of stuff over additional ship types is that I'm just never going to see the additional ship types. There are what, 60, 70 of them? You see maybe five-ten of the bonus types in a game (some on your side, some on the AI side), a few more if you crack open a Zenith Reserve or capture some fabricators. I guess it depends on your gaming pattern, but I generally manage to start and get far into about one or two games of AI Wars a year.  So, for me, the utility of having additional bonus ship types that I'll never see is very low. However, the utility of environmental effects and big fat planetside/asteroid installations is pretty high - because I'll actually use them. If I don't feel like I'll get a chance to use the new toys that come with an expansion, I really have no reason to buy it.

12

AI War / Re: Ideas for the next expansion

« on: May 24, 2012, 10:25:14 AM »

I don't think a lot of new fleet ships are really necessary.  We have quite a large number as-is.  A few new ones may be nice just to keep some variety and flavor being added in, but I'd much rather see more done with the maps and environment the game is played in, as it feels very static and boring.  While there are a few decisions that one needs to factor in before capturing a planet (Metal/Crystal, ARS/Fabricator/Other capturable, Adjacent worlds, ...), There is very little in the way of being able to interact with the planets and terrain, as all it is is a backdrop image with M/C harvesters and wormholes dotted about.  Some things I think would make the environment a bit more interesting and fun to be a part of.

 - Environmental hazards:  Toxic Nebulae clouds, Asteroid fields, proximity to black holes, etc.
 - Anomalies and Events:  Unstable far-jump wormholes that open and collapse during play, slightly altering paths around the map.  Wormhole destabilization, making ships come through more slowly (Staggered) or take damage based on the distance traveled, Meteor showers, Solar Flares, ...
 - Unique Planets and Locations:  Special planets that have unique effects on them that alter the gameplay on them.  Greater speed, increased Laser damage, Nullify cloaking, increase resource harvest amounts, etc.

Things like that to make the gameplay more immersive is what I personally would like to see.

Agreed. We already have an enormous variety of ships, and I don't think I've even seen half of them. I'd also love to see more environmental effects. However, let's avoid banal stuff like increased/decreased speed, armor and damage, we already have plenty of ship types that do that. I do love the idea of wormhole manipulation though. As a twist, some AIs could screw around with wormholes as well, making your life difficult.

I also like the idea of asteroids flying by causing random damage to ships. Or, I don't know, powering down your ships in an asteroid field cloaks them.

Greater interaction with planets might be fun, too. Maybe let people build planetary installations that give you some sort of bonus or fire giant lasers. Of course, if the AI subsequently sacks the system, that's a lot of resources down the toilet.

13

AI War / Re: Core Guard Post Proposal

« on: March 22, 2012, 01:49:34 PM »

I agree with GUDare and zoutzakje on the stalemate issue - I don't find it to be a problem. I don't think I need an additional mechanism to force the AI to attack me with built up troops, there are plenty of those mechanisms in place already. For example, Dyson Sphere, Devourer Golem, pulling your fleet blob out of a system to bait the AI guys in, jumping into a system with a big AI pile up using tractor-enabled ships to snatch up a bunch of AI dudes and bring them back through your wormhole...

I also don't feel like homeworlds need to be made more difficult. They're full of MK V ships and you can enable Avengers if you want to make things harder on yourself. Also, if you find AI homeworlds easy, then perhaps you don't need a mechanism to break stalemates.

14

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

« on: February 29, 2012, 02:49:09 PM »

I very rarely max out resources. However, when I do, I do thing similar to what the others in this thread have said:

- Zenith Trader projects
- Spirecraft
- Extra turrets/mines
- Capital Ships
- Mercs

Mercs are always the default fallback, because they will eat through any resource surplus with no problem, and the ship caps are so ludicrously high that you'll never reach them before you have to shut down the merc dock and build something else.

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Warp Gates - Bug? Something I don't understand?

« on: February 26, 2012, 03:36:21 PM »

Things that function as Warp Gates:

Warp Gates
AI Eyes
Warp Gate Guardians

Probably you missed one of the other two.