Messages

1

AI War / Re: Does the AI Learn?

« on: October 02, 2011, 12:38:09 PM »

Nope, but as I understand it, one of the premises behind the AI is that it's supposed to trick players into thinking it's actually doing clever things. So... one point for it there.

2

AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Best time to take SuperTerminal?

« on: September 24, 2011, 02:38:12 AM »

It all depends on what it is actually keyed to -- it can't be AIP, since that's going down as they're getting nastier. I guess the question is whether it's a) progress floor, b) pure amount of time you've had the terminal "on", or c) total (unadjusted) AIP...?

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AI War / Re: Mercs

« on: September 24, 2011, 02:35:52 AM »

Yep, I think they're mostly to blow your money on once you've capped out everything else (otherwise that would force you to rot at 999,999 or, God forbid, do something useful with the fleets you have ). Cap is ~200 for the three main types at least, don't remember the rest offhand. When I do "have to" build mercs, I usually go for whatever ship type a) costs more in the resource I have an excess of, and b) I don't already have, but that's just me.

4

AI War / Re: Should shields leave remains?

« on: September 21, 2011, 02:17:19 PM »

I know it was my idea, but I've thought of at least one potential counterargument: sometimes you don't want your shields rebuilt. Like in exactly that sort of situation, I might have a CC + a spire civ leader/factory4/fab/other valuable thing that I'm protecting under one or more strong FFs. If the whole thing ends up getting bulldozed over by the AI, once rebuilding I typically will rebuild with no FF, or a weak one at most. If auto-rebuilding exists, now that's actually one more thing I have to remember to do when rebuilding (clear away remains of multiple large FFs or whatever), instead of one less, or else I'll end up dropping lots of resources where I didn't mean to.

That being said, I still think it's worth it overall.

5

Game Development / Re: What video game would give you the most nostalgic feeling if you played it?

« on: September 21, 2011, 02:06:49 PM »

I still play Megaman 2 semi-regularly   and I remember playing with Pinball Construction Set, just barely... coming on a 5.25" floppy in a big flat foldout cardboard box...

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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?

7

AI War / Re: Should shields leave remains?

« on: September 19, 2011, 09:02:54 PM »

Workaround to my original complaint: build a tachy emitter/warp sensor/cheapo turret of your choice directly above the FF once it's where you want it. Sort of like a ball marker, but with giant space objects.

8

AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?

« on: September 19, 2011, 08:09:51 PM »

When playing with Spire Civilian Leaders on, you don't have to control the system the leader is in to get the -3 benefit; it is sufficient to take out the AI in the system. This way, you won't "own" the leader and it won't become an AI target.

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AI War / Re: Should shields leave remains?

« on: September 19, 2011, 07:56:38 PM »

Being able to move them, however slightly, can be really useful: either for slight repositioning if you've made a mistake in placement (e.g. covered some offensive turrets), or more devious tactics.

And I'm not sure being able to rebuild them is something that needs a nerf to compensate for... does rebuilding actually save any money? My understanding (probably faulty) is that rebuilding costs half the turret cost, and once rebuilt the turrets are at half HP, and that repair in general costs the full amount... which is the part I'm actually doubting...

10

AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Selection problems from noob

« on: September 19, 2011, 07:21:00 PM »

Ctrl-# will overwrite that # with currently selected ships.
Ctrl-Shift-# will add currently selected ships to that group # (leaving ships already in that # still there).
Ctrl-Alt-# will remove them from that group # (and you can delete a group entirely this way).
Ctrl-x-# will assign the currently selected ships to # and remove them from all other groups (as near as I can tell).

Other useful tidbits about groups, while I'm at it:

Hitting the # once selects the group (changing your currently viewed system if there are no group members in system).
Hitting it twice selects it and centers screen on the midpoint of the group.
Hitting it three times will select and center on any members of your group in a different system (useful for cycling through and figuring out where stragglers are sometimes).

Less useful:

You can also assign Docks/Fabricators/etc to groups, but this is slightly different than some other RTS's where you can then hit that # to select those buildings. I mean, yes you can do that, but if you add any non-military units to the group, it will default to selecting them instead. What you can do that I find useful is Ctrl-Shift-# whichever building(s) you want, and then any units built from there will be assigned to that group automatically. I generally pick one number and leave it reserved for this purpose, assigning every production building to that group; what this leaves me with is a hotkey for select-all-units-in-system (yes, I know that's already a hotkey), and for cycle-through-all-systems-with-units, and other general goodness. You can assign a building to multiple groups. This helps because in addition to having my one super-group, I may early on have a dock building, e.g. only scouts. Then I have hotkey for select-all-scouts (yes, I realize that's already a hotkey too), and cycle through systems with scouts... anyway, just sayin'.

11

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?

12

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 / Re: Zenith Viral Shredder Balance Feedback

« on: September 19, 2011, 05:31:17 PM »

I'm playing a game now where the AI got tractors as its first unlockable. I've been impressed by the AI before, but this is the first time I've ever actually felt like there's a malevolent force that specifically hates ME and it's living in my computer.

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AI War / Re: Godlike and Double Godlike.

« on: September 16, 2011, 01:55:23 AM »

Here lies dotjd, doa

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AI War / Re: Poll of Shame

« on: September 15, 2011, 10:16:58 AM »

wow, < e^0 up through > e^7 actually works really nicely