Messages

16

AI War / Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver

« on: November 26, 2012, 12:23:47 PM »

And if one of that planet's "focus" ships was an anti-bomber ship? And its second "focus" was an anti-"anti-bomber" ship?

Nukes.
*Sagenod*

17

AI War / Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver

« on: November 26, 2012, 09:20:53 AM »

OMD under glass on a world with an Eye, a common enough scenario.  How do you propose taking it out otherwise?

You do it piecemeal.
Transport in the bomber, glass the ... glass, then warp out and bring in the fighters.

18

AI War / Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver

« on: November 25, 2012, 02:24:40 PM »

Raiding should be valid to take down the big bads on a planet, because if you take that away, then you may as well just load all your bombers on a transport and go hog wild and just rebuild them after the fact.

So... raid starships are an "I win" button? 

19

AI War / Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver

« on: November 25, 2012, 12:13:03 PM »

I fail to see the problem. It forces one to use a different strategy to deal with the OMD. How is that a bad thing? The Raid SSs aren't supposed to be your swiss army knife for everything

I didn't say that's a problem.
Raid SSs having 0,2 multiplier vs OMDs AND OMDs nearly 1 shotting Raid SSs IS  problem

"I use Raid STARSHIPS to destroy OMDs, which is designed to kill STARSHIPS."

What.

20

AI War / Re: New colony ship: Armored

« on: November 25, 2012, 02:03:26 AM »

However, even with group move, there is a tiny delay between wormholes where colony ships are not cloaked.

Only if the colony ship goes through first or last.

21

AI War / Re: New colony ship: Armored

« on: November 24, 2012, 11:22:16 PM »

Protip:
Send multiple, empty, decoy transports.  The AI shots at the one in the lead first.

22

AI War / Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver

« on: November 24, 2012, 09:09:51 PM »

I approve of both ideas!

23

AI War / Re: Discussion: Player Economy

« on: November 23, 2012, 03:24:45 AM »

Oh crap

Right, so a different harvester gets upgraded, and removes the ability for the player to decide WHERE those higher mark harvesters go.

24

AI War / Re: New Red AIs, changes to the AIs and adjusting the AI types' difficulty levels

« on: November 22, 2012, 08:05:31 PM »

You want me to do 10/10 double scorched earth, or would one be sufficient?
How much cheese am I allowed to use?

One would be sufficient.

And all of the cheese.

25

AI War / Re: Discussion: Player Economy

« on: November 22, 2012, 01:53:52 PM »

What happens when a Mk3 is blown up?

It's rebuilt. Rebuilding has priority over upgrading.

Except that harvesters don't leave remains.

Not to mention the 5 or so minutes during which it will not auto-rebuild because there are enemy units present.

26

AI War / Re: Making the difficulties less granular

« on: November 22, 2012, 01:53:17 PM »

Actually, 5 should be the "target" difficulty.  You've got just as much "harder" as you do "easier" at that point.

But admittedly, we can collapse 2-6 and put the target at 4 fairly easily.

I approve.

27

AI War / Re: Brainstorming for Expansion 5

« on: November 22, 2012, 02:01:41 AM »

I'd like to see a smarter AI.  Not an AI with more toys, but an AI that reacts to the player better and can press an advantage and exploit the player's weaknesses.

We have some of what I mean with the return of player-allied enclaves, but I'd like to see more of that.

I'm going to highlight this again because I think it's awesome and would make people cry.

I'd really like AI War to have that "really smart AI" aspect again, as I think we've all been around it that we know its weaknesses and it isn't that deadly omniscient presence that it used to be.

28

AI War / Re: Discussion: Player Economy

« on: November 22, 2012, 01:15:29 AM »

My point is, econ stations are inherently for large empires, due to the opportunity cost of building them (i.e. not being able to leverage logi or mil stations for the defense bonuses, relegating econ stations to interior worlds).

Hence why I'm trying to press for making harvesters better for the small empire (up to ~6 worlds, rather than for the ginormously huge empire of 14+ worlds).

29

AI War / Re: Discussion: Player Economy

« on: November 21, 2012, 11:54:35 PM »

Why is it necessary to have the border world if I'm playing in a snake (or X, or other easily chokepointed map type)? If I'm going to make a fortress world, the command station type that I use doesn't really matter, because:
1. It's going to be on the wormhole leading further into my space, or otherwise far from the wormhole(s) enemies will enter the system through.
2. It's going to be buried under as many forcefields as I can throw on it while still blocking the wormhole(s) leading into my space to a reasonable extent and leaving a few to cover the home command station.
3. I'm going to have at least half, and probably more, of my turrets (and any other defensive structures I have) on that planet.
4. It will have a major minefield around any entry wormholes, and some strategically placed tractor beams and gravity turrets to hold enemies where I want them to be.

Nice way to strawman my point.  You can do that for ONE chokepoint, sure.  Try a half-dozen or more in the more open map types, where you can't drop half of your force fields and turrets in one location.

Then the command station type matters.

My point was that the MINIMUM number of worlds that you need to take to make full use of econ stations is 14.  I'll even grant that you could get away with 13 (12 econs + homeworld).  That is not a small empire.  That's a fairly large one.  A 240 AIP large empire.

I'm also not convinced that the economy needs to be significantly readjusted. I can have a ridiculously strong economy if I spend ridiculous amounts of knowledge to get there, and that's fine. I can also have a very strong military for about the same amount of knowledge, and play with a weaker economy. Neither way is particularly better than the other. From what other people have said, the expected number of planets that would be taken is somewhere around ten or fifteen

You're a bit high these days.  It's more like 6 to 12.  Anything more on 7.6 and up and the attacking waves will murder all of your defenses and your fleet, giving you just enough time to refleet before they hit you again.  Add in things like exo-waves, hybrids, or other fancy tools for the AI and your AIP ceiling* comes down even more.

Unless you're playing Fallen Spire, in which case, the plot gives you the tools necessary to defend your massive, massive empire.

*That is, the value of AIP above which it becomes "losing slowly" or worse.

30

AI War / Re: Discussion: Player Economy

« on: November 21, 2012, 04:26:19 PM »

On a side note, Keith stated (awhile back, I'd have to find the thread) that the reason harvesters were uncapped and at the time remaining so was because of auto-rebuild maintenance.  Having to discreetly choose harvester rebuilds was tedious and aggravating, and the idea was pushed aside.

Harvesters could be auto upgraded to the highest possible mark like now. If MarkIIIs are capped then MarkIIs would be built. No manual stuff needed.

What happens when a Mk3 is blown up?

Does a Mk1 on the other side of the galaxy upgrade to a Mk3?