Arcen Games

General Category => AI War Classic => AI War Classic - After Action Reports => : Diazo August 17, 2010, 07:22:53 PM

: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 17, 2010, 07:22:53 PM
TL.DR: Posting a record of my game as I play it so expect lots of text as I'm actually writing this post as I play in an alt-tab window.

Hybrids are fine. Preservation warden faction possibly too weak. Enclave starships are not an early game unlock.



--Post start--

Alright, I wasn't sure where to put this as this is as much about beta feedback as it is an actual after action report, but here we go anyway.

Having played several short games recently to test out specific features I felt it was time to play a game all the way to it's conclusion and as we seem to be over the worst of the balancing issues I'm feeling good about starting one.

I'll be updating this post as I play this evening rather then making multiple posts. I also intend to be quite wordy, both describing what I'm doing, but why.

So, game start:
80 planets, realistic
AI 7 Neinzul Viral Enthusiast, with Avenger, Hybrids (not Advanced)
AI 7 Neinzul Cluster Bomber, with Avenger
All ship types and minor factions enabled.
Fast & Dangerous Combat, 1AIP/30mins
Neinzul Youngling Commando as my special.

Alright, wanting a game that will somewhat forgiving of my mistakes, I go for AI 7 opponents on a standard 80 planet map.
Since I'm playing with as much Neinzul stuff as I can, I select my AI types rather then go random as I usually do. I also take the youngling commando for this reason.
I get lucky and the commando is up in the top right corner of the map with only 2 warp points.

And here we go!

My first unlocks are harvester exo-forcefields and enclave starships. At only 500 knowledge, exo-ff are perhaps the best unlock for the very early game when losing a harvester can be more then 10% of your production lost. I also do enclave starships because I'm going to try and use younglings as much as I can and they go hand in hand.

And less then 2 minutes in, I've already bottomed my economy out. :/

What's this? Raptors already? Going to have to move tachyon emmiters up the priority list.

3:30 game time, send my first wave of scouts out using auto-explore (nice feature  ;))
Well, the good news is that there's an ARS a mere two hops away in a Mk I system! The bad news is there's a special forces alarm post there that covers one of my ways out from my homeworld. The other way out is covered by a Mk III ion. Hmmmm......

5:15 game time, wave of 40 bombers/raiders/fighters warps in, it's not an actual wave, just special forces?
Either way, build some youngling commandos (speed 140) to deal with it, then build more turrets.
I lose a couple basic turrets to this wave.

5:45, another wave of 40 ships. Even after these two waves, the threat meter is still up at 127 which I find a bit high for me not having launched any sort of attack yet. 50 threat is more the average from previous games.

7:33 Alright, map generation may need a look see, I got a couple more waves and my threat is now down to 41 and no more attacks are coming in, it looks like about 200 ships were turned loose as soon as the game started via border aggression/CPA/system caps/something.

9:28 Odd, threat shot back up to 68 a bit ago, then another small wave just hit me, taking threat down to 39. I'm starting to think I don't quite understand how special forces work (with that special forces alarm post 2 hops away and all.)

Anyways, if small waves are going to keep coming in like that, time for grav turrets. I know it's a preference thing, but for me the 2k knowledge for Mk I grav turrets is worth it.

12:00 Homesystem looks pretty secure, time to attack. It looks like I'm going to have to take out the world next to the special forces alarm post and eat the resulting wave. The other way is blocked by an Ion Mk III which I don't want to tangle with yet. And the command post is right there, time to build up my turrets, then send a load of younglings in to pop that.

23:11 Energy issues, yay. Anyways, can only build 100 commandos at the moment, so time to attack and see how they do.
And they get the command station to 50%, accomplishing not much.

24:11 Turn off my starship factory to send 198 commandos through.
And the command station goes boom. And the special forces alarm goes off. 434 threat, I can handle this.

Trying something new, giving the space dock and FRD order on the system I just popped the command station in and spamming commandos just to see what happens.
Hmmm, as a usual tactic, I think this fails. Entrenched defenses around the guard posts just shred the commandos. The MLRS guard post is just ouch against the commandos. They end up taking it out, but I lose a lot of them doing so.
It does blunt the 434 ships that the special forces alarm called in though. Maybe half reached my home system at most.

And the first actual wave is Cloaked Ships, lovely, time to unlock decloakers it looks like.
It's easily handled as I'd built up my defences to handle the special forces wave I touched off earlier.
Next wave is just fighters, no biggie.

Time to capture the system, this early I can't justify anything except the Econ command center, and I unlock Mk II crystal harvesters as I've been bottomed out on crystal pretty much the whole game.

System capture goes smoothly and I turn my attention to the other planet bordering my home system, it's got the Mk III Ion so I plan to pop the command station with younglings and build a command station and let the ion clear the system

Or not, in return for about 300 younglings I maybe killed 50 ships and no structures before calling the attack off. The 5 hybrids on the command station didn't help anything.
Time to transport dump on top of the command station.

ARGH!
A hybrid just walzed in and popped my command station in my first colony system. My defences made it run away before it destroyed everything, but it still got the command station :/

Oh, my FF wasn't finished building yet, pulled my fleet out too soon.  :-[

This is 1:00:00 gametime now.

Hmmm, for some reason a single hybrid came in early before the main wave.
I've beat the wave off, lost some turrets and the command station and that was it.

Oh, friendly roaming enclave just spawned in my home system.

And goodbye friendly roaming enclave. Warping into a system with an Ion cannon and 3 defensive hybrids isn't such a great plan.

Alright, took the second system by brute forcing it and did capture that ion cannon.

Unlock Metal extractors Mk II now also.


Ion cannons take out turrets too which is nice. Not guard posts though :/

A Hybrid just tried popping my colonies command station again, with the FF now built, it turns and runs without doing any damage beyond a dozen turrets.

Again, for some reason a solo hybrid came early. The main wave of hybrids came a few minutes later and they popped my second colony command station as the defences are not up yet.

Just hit 1:30:00 game time, still trying to build my second colony system up.

And my threat just spiked from 120 (remnants of the hybrid attacks I think) to 488 and I don't know why.

Nevermind, I've just been introduced to the Preservation Minor Faction, this is going to hurt.  :-X

Or not?  ???

According to the scoreboard I just killed 923 Warden Preservation Bombers in the past couple minutes and I lost a single basic turret. They were throwing themselves at defenses designed to stop hybrids and a system with an Ion cannon in it, but at first brush they are too weak.

Not so the 500 commandos that followed them in a few minutes later.  :-\

Alright, I've got my second colony system secure, and that's it for tonight. The fun stuff with the Neinzul structures will have to wait until tomorrow.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 17, 2010, 11:05:09 PM
Wow, thanks a lot for doing this, lots of bugs/balance-problems don't come out unless people actually play through, and it's helpful to see the play by play.  And often entertaining, when my creations gank one of your command stations unexpectedly ;)

On the Hybrids, they don't actually conciously try to all go in one wave, they just coordinate with other hybrids that already have an attack mission against the same planet.  So if only a single hybrid has an attack mission against a given planet, it basically doesn't wait at all.  When picking an attack mission it sizes up your various border planets by things like "does it have non-replaceable mark IV production capacity", "how many human planets that are currently not border worlds would become threatened if I took this", and "how many resource extractors does it have", and then does a weighted-random pick between them.  So if you have one super-valuable planet (i.e. your homeworld in this case) and one relatively minor planet, and there are 10 attacker hybrids, it would not be terribly unlikely that 9 would get a mission for your homeworld, and the lone other one would get a mission for your other planet and not wind up waiting for anyone.

On the preservation wardens, bear in mind that their spawn rate and their youngling-production rate are directly related to the number of resource extractors you have.  You don't have terribly many right now so not a huge deal, but if you get up to 100, 200, 300 extractors... let's just say they'll become a fairly major threat, or at least they will if I coded it the way I think I did ;)

But thanks for the note on the number and strength of the warden bombers; they should be stronger and less numerous, I'll look at that.

: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 17, 2010, 11:13:00 PM
By the way, I should emphasize: one of your goals in a preservation warden attack is to catch and kill the warden, because otherwise it goes away for a while, builds more younglings, then comes back and attacks again.  The game will keep gradually spawning wardens (at a rate proportional to your extractor count), so they keep piling up and the "wave" sizes will get bigger from the number of wardens as well as the rate at which wardens produce younglings.  But if you take out a warden, that's the last generation you have to deal with from him ;)
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 17, 2010, 11:15:06 PM
Do the wardens sit a system away or something?

I don't remember seeing anything like an actual Warden Starship.

(I've killed AI war and am about to log for the night or I'd check myself.)

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 17, 2010, 11:20:26 PM
They look just like your normal Enclave Starships (no ff's like hybrids or anything, these are pure Neinzul units).  Their basic behavior is to spawn on an AI core world, move toward your territory, release their younglings when they get to a planet adjacent to one of yours, and actually enter your territory very briefly and then turn and head back to an AI core world.

To catch one you'll want scout coverage and a good mobile strikeforce.  It helps to have, ah, "suppressed" the AI population in the nearby systems, so your fleet doesn't get tied up too much.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 18, 2010, 07:26:21 PM
TL;DR: Summary of both my game sessions on Weds night.

Preservation Wardens spawn rates seem high.
Warden Bombers absolutely eat Ion Cannons, this intentional?
Maurauders Minor Faction shows up and eats my fortress alive. (Non-issue probably)
Fortresses absolutely destroy younglings of any sort as well as hybrids. (Haven't found a warden starship yet.)
The hybrids and preservation wardens contribute to a slower game. You can't take risks and expose a flank because these factions will make you pay for it, you have to have at least some defenses up everywhere. Note that slower does not mean grindy at all, it's just against the AI alone you could expose yourself for a bit and usually get away with it, but not any more at all.
Viral Clusters may build too fast still, only seen one so far, will test further later tonight.
Viral Clusters also stop raiding of any sort cold, you have to stop and clear the Cluster building off any warp point you use, no if ands or buts.
Hybrids are a freaking stone wall once a bunch of them gather. They are okay as they are in small groups, such as when they attack, but I've got 15 camping this system I'm trying to take and it's stopped me cold for 70 minutes game time now.

---Post start.
Alright, time for night 2. Update to 3.183 and we're off.

Gametime 1:47:00

And immediately go rescue my system from the Wardens Commandos. Only a couple hundred of them, but they are shredding my defenses unlike the Preservation Bombers that I killed off last thing my previous session. I don't actually lose my command station due to the FF, but all my turrets and extractors are gone. Time to stop and rethink my defenses it seems.

Ohh, warning when Preservation Wardens or Hybrids are in a system, nice.

And this Warden Starship that is supposed to be one hop away? Well, all these preserver starships are coming from this warp point.....

Ummm, oops. That was a Mk IV system with a Neinzul Cluster on the warp point..... SHould have checked my galaxy map.
I'm in no actual danger as I've shifted my entire fleet here now, but this will delay my next attack by quite a bit.

And now the preservation wardens are trying the other way into my home system, but with a Mk III ion, they aren't getting anywhere.

And another roaming enclave just spawned, once again friendly to me.

Alright, Wardens have retreated for now, however stationary turrets didn't cut it, so time for fortresses.

And 5 minutes later the wardens are back with a fresh wave.

WTF?! A wave of about 125 Warden Preservation Bombers just 3 salvoed a Mk III Ion cannon to death. That's 6 million HP. Are Ion cannons supposed to be this weak to bombers now? I haven't actually attacked on since the bombers got the buff against them, I've been capturing them.

This absolutely guts my defense in my second colony system and I'm now scrambling.

Yup, there goes my command station, 2 salvos from the warden bombers did in both the FF protecting the station and the command station.

Okay wow, did the Maurauder Dagger Frigates get a buff? 32 Dagger Frigates vs. Mk I Fortress and 160 Fighters. I lose the fortress! (in about 15-20 seconds and it started at 100% HP). If the Dagger Frigates were a bomber of some sort I could maybe understand, but they aren't are they?

2:00:00 Gametime, still rebuilding from the double hit of Preservation Wardens and Marauders at the same time.

On the plus side, a hybrid just warped in, fortress took about 10 salvos to destroy it, never even reached my other defenses in system.

And now the Wardens are back for round two, as expected, the fortress makes short work of them.

And the next hybrid wave just got stomped, I'm almost back to the point where I can go on the offensive again.

K, gametime 2:15:00 I start moving my fleet to start my next offensive. The system I really want to take borders that Special Forces Alarm post again so I'm going to clear the system with the special alarm first.
I was going to take it anyway, but would have liked to take it 3 systems from now but that special alarm has got to go. It borders 3 (not including it's own system) worlds (including the one I already took) that I'm going to be capturing.

And I get the scouts in and see 15 Hybrid Hives, hmmm...
Oh, 6 are leaving, nice.

Alright, this will be the first system I'm attacking that has the Viral Clusters built, let's see what happens.

Ow. Well, a hybrid wave just warp into my face shortly before I started my attack. As my main fleet was all there, the hybrids died but I lost about 150 ships.

K, going to try picking off the Viral Cluster with Younglings.

Ummm, that really didn't work. This is only a cluster Mk II and after two waves, the first 198 youngling commandos, the second 198 commandos and 198 bombers the viral cluster on my entry warp point is down and I have a threat count of just over 1000. Oddly enough, the swarmers are going on a long (6 or 7 system hop) circular route to come at me from a different warp point then the one I'm sitting on. The fortress in the system is eating them alive and it's no threat, but why are they taking such a long route?

K, gametime 2:27:00. I'll have to wrap it up here for a couple hours. See summary at top for my thoughts.

Alright, second session for Wednesday night.

Building up my forces to max, with the viral clusters, anything short of a sledge hammer is not enough to keep ahead of the swarmers replicating.

Although a warden starship finally poked it's head through and I killed it. Helped that it pretty much flew into my main fleet on it's own.

I've taken too long though, 15 hybrids in the system with the special alarm post I'm attacking. But hello there devourer golem! Why yes I'll get out of your way if you destroy those hybrids for me!

This is odd, do devourers not attack force fields? It destroyed the attendant fleets but didn't fire a shot at the hybrids themselves.

And the hybrids made short work of my attack fleet. Total loss of my entire fleet. Looks like I'm going to be doing this system the hard way. At least I got a guard post down, although the special forces alarm is still up.

3rd friendly Neinzul Roaming enclave just spawned. Nice, helped out in defense against a Preservation Warden wave. And now it's going to attack a Mk II system, at least it's the one I've soften up slightly. It's also the system with 16 hybrids in it and while it at least gets off the warp point, it doesn't get far. It only launched 140 younglings upon warping it, don't think it killed anything at all.

Long time to totally rebuild my fleet, I've decided to decoy the hybrids and pop the guard post/command stations then clean the system up by using transports to dump bombers on the guard posts.

3:30:00 game time I send my rebuilt fleet in after the special forces alarm post. It's on a warp point so right beside a Viral Cluster, the cluster only spawns 36 swarmers, way lower then what the post on my entry warp point spawned.

I get lucky and the special forces alarm does NOT alert when it dies. I don't have much of a fleet left, but the hybrids are off the command post chasing my decoys so I go try to pop that also.
Never mind, there are 2 shield guard posts in the system. And the hybrids catch up. I did get the special forces alarm post, I lost ship cap of Mk I & II fighters, Mk I bombers, Mk I cruisers, Mk I youngling commandos and 3 flagships to get it. I'd say not worth it, except I have no other way to go so I have to absorb these loses to progress at this point.

And now that my fleet's dead, 150 resistance ships attack. Hybrids are decoyed but I haven't rebuilt much yet. Nope, no good. Shield guard posts have too much HP for me to pop quickly, going to have to wait for a fleet rebuild.

And there's the first hostile enclave that I've noticed. Again, the fort just destroys the younglings so no actual threat really.

And my fleet rebuild is done. Going to try and sneak-build a fortress while my fleet decoys the hybrids this time. But that will have to wait until tommorow as it is midnight here now.

Until tomorrow.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 18, 2010, 08:06:28 PM
Ok, for 3.184:

* Neinzul Bomber (and Preservation Bomber) attack power cut by 50%.

* Neinzul Preservation Warden rate-of-building-younglings cut by 50%.



They feel that they have made their point ;D

I didn't realize the difference would be quite *that* dramatic.  Mostly I was counting on the bombers getting shredded before they got to fire a second salvo.  Anyway, the point is for them to be dangerous early on, but not actually in lethal concentrations until you're a nice big empire.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 18, 2010, 08:08:53 PM
Well, for all that I'm taking unexpected hits from them, they haven't reached my home system even once and all these combats are taking place in systems right next door to my home system.

So yes, they are a shock that I'm having to adjust too, but they are by no means as bad as the first pass Hybrids or Swarmers were.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 18, 2010, 08:10:01 PM
And that's a bit odd on the dagger frigates having the fortress for lunch.  They have a base damage of 4800 and a multiplier of 2 against HeavyDefense types like a fort.  Unless you were dealing with a fairly high number of the frigates, that shouldn't be a landslide at least.  Hmm.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 18, 2010, 08:23:12 PM
K, so if a single dagger does 9600 dmg a shot against a fort, it should have taken 32 daggers 9.1 salvos to destroy it, 9 salvos is 63 seconds. That sounds reasonable, the marauders generally have strong ships.

I want to say it died a lot faster then that, but I wasn't actually watching the game clock so I'm not sure. I don't actually have the save to recreate it so I guess leave it as it is and call it a once off.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 18, 2010, 08:34:14 PM
Yea, seems like the preservation bombers aren't over-the-top, just way past the mark I was aiming at.  Honestly the early preservation warden attacks are supposed to be fairly easy to deal with, even a bit puny.  You're not messing up large swaths of the galaxy, after all.  But they'll crank it up ;)

And the marauders are quite strong in the right fights, perhaps a bit high on the balance scale, but that's largely because they have a pretty limited scope and don't have the snowball effect of something like the wardens or the hybrids, nor the overwhelming backing of the main AI forces.

Any word on the friendly enclave that spawned in your territory?  From the first one it seems possible that they're not building up enough of a force to be effective and/or lack decent survivability.  On the other hand, it was pretty stiff odds.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 18, 2010, 09:02:26 PM
Nope, I didn't see where the second friendly enclave got to. It had a choice of a Mk II, Mk III or Mk IV world, none of which I've beaten the defenses down on.

I'm just starting in on the Mk II world now.

Based on it's location I suspect it warped into the Mk III world and just died as there is an AI Fortress in the system and Fortresses render younglings all but useless in that system.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 19, 2010, 11:14:32 AM
Alright.

After sleeping on it for a night, here's my thoughts on my 3.182/3.183 game at 3:45:00 gametime or so.

1) Fortresses are an absolute hard counter to anything Youngling, including Hybrids and Preservation Wardens. After the first Preservation Warden wave which caused me to unlock fotresses, I don't even bothered reinforcing my planets now when Hybrids or Wardens attack, although I do have an FF Mk I and 40 turrets backing the fortress up.

2) Hybrids and Preservation Wardens in the same game are a much bigger increase then expected as compared to playing against either one solo. They are generally fine, it's the fact that you fight the hybrids off, fight the wardens off, rebuild, go to attack but you have to fight hybrids off again. This leave very little time to attack the AI, or you have to mount partial attacks which is hard in the early game.

3) Hybrids still have the ability to stonewall a system. Due to delays caused by mistakes against the early Warden and Hybrid attacks, the system I am currently attacking has 12-16 hybrids in it at any given time. This has reduced me to sending my entire fleet in, get a single guard post (or other structure), and then lose the entire fleet. Repeat as needed. Entire fleet means everything I have including Fleet Starships and my single Mk II unlock so far. I'm going to look and see if I can come at the system from another warp point when I start playing again.

4) The easy Neinzul AI type with the Cluster Swarmers is not an easy type even if you nerf it hard. This is because with the Cluster Structure on every warp point, you cannot raid, period. You sending anything through except scouts, you spawn swarmers and have to stop and deal with them or they replicate really, really fast. (Have to test transports still.) This spikes the difficulty because you can't raid that data center/alarm post/raid engine/etc. 2 or 3 hops away, not without sending your entire fleet after it and then it's not a raid anymore, it's your main push.

5) Younglings are fun ships to play with but they need something more. Enclave starships can heal younglings only? Or younglings health doesn't decay in proximity to an enclave starship? I've pretty much stopped using my youngling commandos because I build them and then something comes up and by the time I get back to them they are hurting already. The regeneration chamber being reduced to 1k knowledge may resolve this.

I'm considering starting a new game with only the preservation wardens and no fortresses to see how that goes. At the moment, I'm worried that fortresses are turning into a "must-have" due to even just the Mk I fortress shooting so many missiles they just render youngling ships useless.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 19, 2010, 11:37:58 AM
Thanks for the continuing feedback :)

The devourer can't hurt core ships, and Hybrids (and their modules) are core-level.  Their subfleets are not, as you have discovered.

Thanks for the balance feedback on the fortresses.  Honestly I think it's entirely appropriate that they pwn large groups of younglings, as they're intended to be able to deal with large swarms (thus the multitude of missiles).  But perhaps some youngling types should have much better bonuses against heavy defense so they can at least do good damage against fortresses.

Hybrids still have the ability to stonewall a system.
Yes, this is basically one of the main goals they are trying to achieve.  You know how lots of players greatly prioritize being able to defend their empire from one or two chokepoints?  That's what they're doing.  If you make that impossible by virtue of surface area, you probably will be able to get around the really nasty clumps

But they can be drawn into a "gap in the wall", so to speak.  You've already seen how they can be decoy'd, and that opens up a lot of possibilities.  You could use the time to sneak-build some fortresses, like you mentioned, and that could give you heavy enough firepower to at least start whittling them down.  You can also bait them to cross over a wormhole to one of your planets and just as they cross it you could warp over some lightning warheads to do some brute-force destruction (Yes, it's AIP, but not a lot of it).

I think I probably will reduce hybrid firepower again, at least for the lower tiers, since it does seem like they're a little over-the-top on that.  But there's something else I think would better help their "fun" factor: have some kind of chance for, say, half of a defender "chunk" to switch to attacker types when they think they have an advantage.  This could give the player too much ability to "bait" them and destroy them in defensive action, but it also has a good chance of replacing a "stalemate" with a "battle of helm's deep", and you either lose quickly or win a close one and now have a new chance to make progress.

Good point on the fundamental non-easiness of the current viral cluster implementation.  I'm thinking that it will need to be changed from seeding on 100% of wormholes to seeding on perhaps 66% of wormholes at Diff 10 and scaling down from there.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 19, 2010, 11:59:24 AM
Thanks for the continuing feedback :)

Hybrids still have the ability to stonewall a system.
Yes, this is basically one of the main goals they are trying to achieve.  You know how lots of players greatly prioritize being able to defend their empire from one or two chokepoints?  That's what they're doing.  If you make that impossible by virtue of surface area, you probably will be able to get around the really nasty clumps

Yes, I focused on this system because it had a special forces alarm post in it. I have actually managed to kill that so I can look at other systems now that they aren't covered by the alarm post.

Thinking on it some more, one of the reason I think hybrids stick out so much is that in terms of threat, they are backwards from the rest of the game.

What I mean is everything else starts out slow and gets nastier based on the AIP (or extractor count for the wardens). Hybrids however start out strong and get weaker as you kill their structures, with the evolving supposed to counter this. I almost want to suggest reducing the hybrid spawn rate, but increasing their evolution rate. I'd much rather be facing 5-6 stronger hybrids then the 12-16 weaker ones I am.

I hesitate to do so for two reasons, first, in my current game, I did spend a good hour on my heels scrambling to counter the new preservation warden attacks before I unlocked fortresses.  This gave the hybrids time to do what they are supposed to and create a roadblock. The other reason is I have not played a game to the finish with hybrids enabled, the late evolutions may be nastier then I'm expecting.

We'll see how it goes.

D.

edit: Fix the quote tags.

: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 19, 2010, 12:06:27 PM
Well, the hybrids will get significantly stronger over the first part of the game as they go from 0 population to 1 set of spawns up to a full population.  But when they hit that its a bit of a plateau, and as you take out the hive spawners on mk IV+ worlds that population cap decreases.  But the maturation process will make the survivors much, much more fearsome.  Some of the  much nastier things they do have not been implemented yet, I'm kinda still in wait-and-see on their basic behavior.  One of the things that one of the builder classes will do at super-high maturity is build more hive spawners, potentially bringing the population cap up to a point higher than at the start of the game; potentially much higher.

But yes, they are very much the reverse of the normal AI and other challenges in the game in a lot of ways, this is one of my goals for them :) But they do need to be _reasonable_ at least for the early/early-mid game :)
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 19, 2010, 12:16:14 PM
I do suspect they are at, or quite close, to where you want them.

I need to do some scouting but based on the map layout, I suspect I am pretty much throwing myself at the system that contains most of the spawned hybrids in the galaxy.

Add in the extra hour I gave them in this game to get ready, they are pretty much doing what they should be I suspect.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 21, 2010, 11:37:48 AM
TL.DR: Saturday Morning Game Session finished.

Patch to 3.188
Fortress cluster penalty means no more then one per system (per mark anyway, haven't unlocked Mk II to test multiple marks.)
Hybrids actually got a devourer golem to 78%
Cluster Swarmer structure's attack is acting as a mini-mass driver making starships die quite fast. This intentional?
Cluster Structure does not get auto-attacked, have to right-click it. No AIP, would prefer it get auto-attacked.
Control nodes need a look, only 1 auto-rebuild remains rebuilder built, newly captured system just spawned 2 of them.
Youngling Tigers die too fast.
Bomber Cluster structures also need a look, still have 2AIP to kill and a gun even stronger then the Swarmer Structure's.
Siege Starships are very nice, maybe too nice.



---Post Start

Alright, it's been a couple days but I'm still here ready to go.

First I patch from 3.183 -> 3.188.

Game time 3:51:00

Next I want to shift my offensive to a different world without 15 hybrids now that the special forces alarm post is down which means I need to fort my world up.

Time to look at cluster attack penalties and fortresses.
With a single fortress in system, it will do 4000 damage to the distribution node.
With two fortresses built they do 798 damage.
The fortresses have a listed cluster attack penalty of 0.20 and 20% of 4000 is 800, so close enough.
It also means 2 fortresses in the system do less damage then one fortress.
I cheap out and reload my game.

And I've moved over to the other system I'm going to attack.
Only 6 hybrids which is nice, but the command station is right on top of my exit warp point, so the hybrids are also.

And at 5:15:00 here's the first CPA of the game. Not really worried, my front is small enough I only have to really defend 2 planets. Just this is another thing that will slow my attacking down.

And a fortress? Hmmm.

Well, I got the fortress and about half my fleet out.
Sheild guard post in the system though, so I can't just pop the command station.
Time for another rebuild cycle it looks like.

Oh, what's this a planet with no hybrids on it?
I had intended to leave it alone so I'd kind of forgotten about it, but at this point I'm going to take it for the knowledge.
So, switch up my fleet again to take this 3rd system out.

And now there's a devourer golem in the first system with 16 hybrids, can I take advantage?
Looks like not, it's coming for my system so I'm pulling my ships back.
Wow, the hybrids actually got the devourer golem to 78%.

Rebuilt complete, time to take this 3rd system without hybrids in it.
Yay, command station popped without issue.
Well, small issue. For some reason my startships were priority targets, my fleet ships have taken maybe 85% losses max, but my starships (3 fleet, 5 light) are all dead already.
I didn't notice this, will have to watch and see what's doing this next attack.
And the human resistance spawned this attack also, and they are actually quite helpful now that the command station is popped in helping clean the system up.

Is it intended for viral clusters to have 83000 range? Especially with a 32000 attack on a 2 second reload. (for a Mk II, a Mk IV has a 200,000 attack), I'm essentially just having to eat losses from that and wonder if that's what destroyed my starships and as I'm still using Mk I ships, that means it's one-shotting me.

Thankfully the human resistance doesn't spawn the Viral Clusters, so that's the only thing left in the system.
Odd, my ships refuse to auto-attack the viral cluster. They destroy the swarmes as soon as they spawn, but the Cluster Structure does not get auto attacked.
This is annoying because a large part of my fleet is fighters to control the swarmers that spawn, but I can't tell the fighters to attack the Cluster Structure because they then will not attack the swarmers.
I'm probably only doing about 60-70% the damage to the cluster itself that I should be because I can't get the fighters in on it.

Game time 4:47:54 I finally get my 3rd colony's command station build.

I'm not sure why, but the 1st system with 16 hybrids now only has 4 hybrids in it. That should be low enough for me to punch it out.

Looks like it is, got it, took out a viral cluster and a drone spawner and got a good chunk of my fleet out.

Now waiting on knowledge to unlock another Mk II ship before I launch my next attack, I should be able to start chasing down hybrids once I have that rather then just running away.
It will be bombers because I'm assuming they are the best against the Hybrids force field. Going to check that next time a hybrid attacks though.

Hybrid attack! Time to check damages (all Mk I ships):
Fighter: FF: 600 Hull: 3000
Bomber: FF:4800 Hull: 200
Frigate: FF: 2000 Hull: 2000

Hmmm. Forcefield has 500k HP, Hull has 1.5million. Bomber is best to just chase the hybrid off, but fighters do better if you are actually trying to destroy them.

And the CPA is released. Going to be defensive for a couple minutes, still not finished building my Mk II bombers.

That was interesting, a hostile and a friendly roaming enclave just went at it. Well, their fleets did.

Alright, CPA threat back down under 100, offensive time.

Die hybrids die! Mk II Fighters & Bombers make short work of hybrids now.

I watched my starships this time, the Cluster Structure is doing 150k damage or so a shot to my light starships. At 2 seconds reload time, this is pretty much a mini-mass driver, this intentional?

And at 5:51:00 game time, my 4th colony's command station gets built. Oh right, the ARS that was here. I had to take this system anyway due to it's location I'd forgotten it had an ARS after fighting with the hybrids for so long. Anyways, I now have eye bots. Going to try popping a cluster structure with a wave of them I think.

Ummm, control nodes seem iffy. I've only got 1 auto-built remains rebuilder node built, this system I just captured auto-built 2 remains rebuilders.

Youngling Tigers (the tank type) need a longer lifespan. Hostile Enclave launched a wave of them at me, they died before they could cross the system to me.

Wow, totaly fail on the eye bot rush, they lasted about 10 seconds.

Which means Siege Starships are my next unlock. I always used dreads, want to try these out.

Scouts just found the first Bomber Cluster Structure I've seen. Not in a position I can attack it anytime soon however. Same system has my first counter-attack guard post also.
Looking at this Bomber Cluster, it's supposed to be similar to the swarmer structure right? The one I'm looking at still has a 2AIP cost to kill and it's a Mk II, but it's attack is still 83000 range and 100,000 damage. Even without any bonuses against starships, that's effectively a Massdriver. Good thing I don't have to attack this system anytime soon, if ever.

Just found a Bomber Cluster Mk IV. 200,000 attack? I do see their spawn rate is lower then the Swarmer Cluster, but not that much lower.

Wow, spider turret clusters are painful once you lose your scout starships. I got the Swarmer cluster without too much difficulty, although with losses including my scout starships. Took 3 times as many losses just running for the warp point as I did closing and taking the Swarmer Cluster out.

Still rebuilding. Next attack will include the new sieges. No cluster structures left in the system so they shouldn't die immediately.

And the mining golem makes it's appearance. It's going to destroy the system with the only Neinzul Rocketry Corps structure I've scouted out so far. Nice overall I guess, but I was wanting to see how that structure worked. I'll just have to find another.

Still waiting on my scout starships before I attack because of that spider turret cluster.

6:54:00 game time, here we go. Dump my full fleet in.

And I must say, I like sieges. While they still aren't as fast at killing a guard post as just dumping my fleet in would be, doing it while taking a lot fewer losses is nice.
If anything, they are actually OP now.  :-\ They still outrange 99% of fixed defenses and now they kill most defenses just a few salvos. They've pretty much made Mk II or higher frigates a late game, if ever, unlock for me as they stand.

Large Control Groups also seem iffy. I have an 800 ship group and sometimes 5 or 6 ships don't register the select when I press it. The throttle again? Seems to happen more often while combat is going on.
Never mind, I have enclave starships along with repeat build queues.

And I didn't lose any starships this time because all, I'm assuming because all the cluster buildings were already dead from previous attacks.

And now I've got my little cluster of 6 systems secured, I'm going to move onto scouting the galaxy and figuring out where I'll go from here, so I'm taking a break for now.

I'll be around.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 21, 2010, 03:34:42 PM
Been looking forward to the update :)

Fortress cluster penalty means no more then one per system (per mark anyway, haven't unlocked Mk II to test multiple marks.)
Cluster modifiers (good and bad) apply only to the specific mark level, so you can have a mk I, mk II,and mk III in one system with no cluster penalty.

Hybrids actually got a devourer golem to 78%
Hehe.  Proper manipulation (or just dumb luck) of hybrid positioning, density, and maturity in preparation for a devourer pass-through could be one way of actually killing the thing off :)

Cluster Swarmer structure's attack is acting as a mini-mass driver making starships die quite fast. This intentional?
I had no idea they had a bonus against starships, and the code says nothing about it.  I'll check that in-game and see what's going on.  They're not actually supposed to have any multiplier against anything.

Cluster Structure does not get auto-attacked, have to right-click it. No AIP, would prefer it get auto-attacked.
...
Bomber Cluster structures also need a look, still have 2AIP to kill and a gun even stronger then the Swarmer Structure's.
Bear in mind that there are actually 4 types of clusters (leaving nests aside, since you don't have a nester AI):

* Neinzul Viral Cluster (I-V)
** Seeded by the viral enthusiast (NOT the cluster bomber).
** Seeded at every wormhole, with the mark level of the planet.  (I intend to change this to 66% of wormholes at diff 10, 33% at diff 1)
** Generates viral swarmers when angered, and there is only one "mark" of viral swarmer, so the increasing mark levels of clusters just generate them faster and in greater quantity (but much less than other clusters since it's supposed to be an easy type).
** Have a (relatively, for clusters) low attack. (I intend to cut the range from 83,000 to 25,000, and probably the attack power by another half; originally they hit every bit as hard as the other clusters)
** Generates no AIP on death. 

* Neinzul Cluster (I-V)
** Seeded by the cluster bomber (NOT the viral enthusiast).
** When the cluster bomber is doing an initial seed, it has seeds exactly 1 cluster per planet (randomly picking a wormhole, guard post, or the command station), and has a roughly 48% chance of seeding this "normal" type; uses mark level of planet.
** Generates youngling commandos, weasels, and vultures when angered, of the corresponding mark level, and the higher mark clusters also generate faster and can store more.
** Hits like a two-trailer semi, which makes more sense than for the virals since there's only one per planet and they're from a medium type.
** Generates 2 AIP on death.

* Neinzul Privacy Cluster
** Identical to a Mark III Neinzul Cluster except:
*** Has a roughly 4% chance to be picked for a planet.
*** Has a 4000-range tachyon emitter.
*** Is angered by scouts; all other clusters basically ignore scouts (though I think a ton of decloaked scouts all at once may trigger them).

* Neinzul Bomber Cluster (I-V)
** Identical to a Neinzul Cluster of the same mark except:
*** Has a roughly 48% chance to be picked for a planet.
*** Only generates Neinzul Bombers, much like how the viral clusters only generate viral swarmers; there's only one mark of Neinzul Bomber, so the increasing mark cluster mark levels just generate them faster and in greater quantity.

Anyway, so only the viral clusters lack the AIP-on-death, and this is intentional (because for the others there's only one per planet).  To my knowledge the current behavior should allow auto-targeting on the viral cluster, but for the next version I'm actually going to explicitly set the "PlayerAutoTargetLevel" to"DirectOnly" for _all_ the clusters because of one rather important fact: if they get hit, they get angry.  If they get angry, you get swarmed.  Therefore it should be a conscious decision for the player rather than making them pull their hair out trying to keep their long-range units always busy so they don't wake up the viral cluster (or whatever) on the other side of the map.

As for the strength, I'll look at whether that needs to change.  It certainly doesn't need bonuses against anything, that's for sure, and I'll see if it's somehow getting them despite the code in the actual unit definition.

A final note on clusters is that "builder" hybrid classes will occasionally build a neinzul cluster (relatively low mark, but based on the hybrid mark not the planet mark).

Control nodes need a look, only 1 auto-rebuild remains rebuilder built, newly captured system just spawned 2 of them.
Hmm, may be related to the recent throttle changes to make sure command stations get to execute their control node logic.

Youngling Tigers die too fast.
I agree, I've thought that since I first saw them really.  I imagine they'll either get faster speed or longer life or both.

Time to look at cluster attack penalties and fortresses.
With a single fortress in system, it will do 4000 damage to the distribution node.
With two fortresses built they do 798 damage.
The fortresses have a listed cluster attack penalty of 0.20 and 20% of 4000 is 800, so close enough.
Thanks for checking on that :)

Oh, what's this a planet with no hybrids on it?
I had intended to leave it alone so I'd kind of forgotten about it, but at this point I'm going to take it for the knowledge.
Yea, one of the things they "rank" planets on is the number of resource spots, so you're likely to be able to "punch through" the pretty-much-worthless worlds if there are juicier targets for them to defend.

Well, small issue. For some reason my startships were priority targets, my fleet ships have taken maybe 85% losses max, but my starships (3 fleet, 5 light) are all dead already.
I didn't notice this, will have to watch and see what's doing this next attack.
Like you say later, the clusters could do that if they're somehow getting bonuses against starships.  Do the AI have any siege starships around?  They are super-focused on killing starships and are pretty effective at doing so.

Is it intended for viral clusters to have 83000 range? Especially with a 32000 attack on a 2 second reload. (for a Mk II, a Mk IV has a 200,000 attack)
A viral cluster's attack power is defined as 8000 * techLevel, so MkIV would be 32000.  The 200,000 would have to be a MkIV non-viral cluster (50,000 * techLevel for those).  Or are you seeing something different?

I'm essentially just having to eat losses from that and wonder if that's what destroyed my starships and as I'm still using Mk I ships, that means it's one-shotting me.
Yea, the non-viral clusters are basically not-quite-infinite (but generally practically infinite) range ion cannons in that respect.

Odd, my ships refuse to auto-attack the viral cluster. They destroy the swarmes as soon as they spawn, but the Cluster Structure does not get auto attacked.
This is annoying because a large part of my fleet is fighters to control the swarmers that spawn, but I can't tell the fighters to attack the Cluster Structure because they then will not attack the swarmers.
I'm probably only doing about 60-70% the damage to the cluster itself that I should be because I can't get the fighters in on it.
Hmm, I guess I see why that's a problem, perhaps I'll have to add some logic allowing it to be auto-targeted once it's already angry about something else (but not before, because it would be really, really annoying to have ships "accidentally" trigger these).

I'm not sure why, but the 1st system with 16 hybrids now only has 4 hybrids in it. That should be low enough for me to punch it out.
Ah, some of them probably hit a high enough maturity level that they needed to go some distance away to get an appropriately high-level equipment factory, or something like that.  They'll be back :)

Hybrid attack! Time to check damages (all Mk I ships):
Fighter: FF: 600 Hull: 3000
Bomber: FF:4800 Hull: 200
Frigate: FF: 2000 Hull: 2000

Hmmm. Forcefield has 500k HP, Hull has 1.5million. Bomber is best to just chase the hybrid off, but fighters do better if you are actually trying to destroy them.
Yep :)  Interesting numbers.

That was interesting, a hostile and a friendly roaming enclave just went at it. Well, their fleets did.
Cool :)  Yea, that'll happen.

I watched my starships this time, the Cluster Structure is doing 150k damage or so a shot to my light starships. At 2 seconds reload time, this is pretty much a mini-mass driver, this intentional?
Basically yes. If you're seeing 150k that's a MkIII non-viral, meaning it's only on mkIII planets and only 1 per planet and only because it's the sole bonus that AI Type has.  150k is a lot to fleet ships and low-mark starships, but nothing like the 900k orbital mass driver against golems and big starships, etc.

Which means Siege Starships are my next unlock. I always used dreads, want to try these out.
I think you'll find them pleasingly effective if you can keep them alive :)

And the mining golem makes it's appearance. It's going to destroy the system with the only Neinzul Rocketry Corps structure I've scouted out so far. Nice overall I guess, but I was wanting to see how that structure worked. I'll just have to find another.
There should be at least 5 more somewhere.

And I must say, I like sieges. While they still aren't as fast at killing a guard post as just dumping my fleet in would be, doing it while taking a lot fewer losses is nice.
If anything, they are actually OP now.  Undecided They still outrange 99% of fixed defenses and now they kill most defenses just a few salvos. They've pretty much made Mk II or higher frigates a late game, if ever, unlock for me as they stand.
Wait until you try to use them while under fire (hybrids or clusters or other aggressive defenders) before making too many judgments ;)  But yes, I'm sure they're at least moderately OP, this is partly intentional as I've found it's much easier to get positive player feedback when aiming high and tuning down than the other way.

Large Control Groups also seem iffy. I have an 800 ship group and sometimes 5 or 6 ships don't register the select when I press it. The throttle again? Seems to happen more often while combat is going on.
Never mind, I have enclave starships along with repeat build queues.
Yea, if you mean box-selecting a group, assigning it to a control group, and/or issuing direct orders (move, attack, etc) to them, the throttles really have nothing to do with that (just the auto-logic, for the most part).

And I didn't lose any starships this time because all, I'm assuming because all the cluster buildings were already dead from previous attacks.
Yea, taking out the clusters is a very, very good idea, and they're not overly difficult to kill (200,000 HP per mark level is my understanding).

And now I've got my little cluster of 6 systems secured, I'm going to move onto scouting the galaxy and figuring out where I'll go from here, so I'm taking a break for now.
Hmm, looks like this one might actually survive.  Something must be done ;D
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 21, 2010, 03:53:08 PM
By the way, seen any more preservation wardens lately?
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 22, 2010, 02:15:36 AM
Been looking forward to the update :)
Glad to hear it.  ;D

Fortress cluster penalty means no more then one per system (per mark anyway, haven't unlocked Mk II to test multiple marks.)
Cluster modifiers (good and bad) apply only to the specific mark level, so you can have a mk I, mk II,and mk III in one system with no cluster penalty.

Pretty much what I expected. I just hadn't actually really *used* anything with a cluster penalty since way back when cluster penalty/bonus was introduced so I was testing. Forts are not one of my usual unlocks.

Hybrids actually got a devourer golem to 78%
Hehe.  Proper manipulation (or just dumb luck) of hybrid positioning, density, and maturity in preparation for a devourer pass-through could be one way of actually killing the thing off :)

Cluster Swarmer structure's attack is acting as a mini-mass driver making starships die quite fast. This intentional?
I had no idea they had a bonus against starships, and the code says nothing about it.  I'll check that in-game and see what's going on.  They're not actually supposed to have any multiplier against anything.

This is actually looking like me expecting something different. I was expecting a structure that used the swarm as its main 'weapon' and had a direct-fire weapon kind of added as an afterthought. You guys are giving it a pretty powerful direct-fire weapon which I was not expecting.

Nothing wrong with this, it was just so different then what I expected so I posted as I did.

Cluster Structure does not get auto-attacked, have to right-click it. No AIP, would prefer it get auto-attacked.
...
Bomber Cluster structures also need a look, still have 2AIP to kill and a gun even stronger then the Swarmer Structure's.
Bear in mind that there are actually 4 types of clusters (leaving nests aside, since you don't have a nester AI):

* Neinzul Viral Cluster (I-V)
** Seeded by the viral enthusiast (NOT the cluster bomber).
** Seeded at every wormhole, with the mark level of the planet.  (I intend to change this to 66% of wormholes at diff 10, 33% at diff 1)
** Generates viral swarmers when angered, and there is only one "mark" of viral swarmer, so the increasing mark levels of clusters just generate them faster and in greater quantity (but much less than other clusters since it's supposed to be an easy type).
** Have a (relatively, for clusters) low attack. (I intend to cut the range from 83,000 to 25,000, and probably the attack power by another half; originally they hit every bit as hard as the other clusters)
** Generates no AIP on death. 

* Neinzul Cluster (I-V)
** Seeded by the cluster bomber (NOT the viral enthusiast).
** When the cluster bomber is doing an initial seed, it has seeds exactly 1 cluster per planet (randomly picking a wormhole, guard post, or the command station), and has a roughly 48% chance of seeding this "normal" type; uses mark level of planet.
** Generates youngling commandos, weasels, and vultures when angered, of the corresponding mark level, and the higher mark clusters also generate faster and can store more.
** Hits like a two-trailer semi, which makes more sense than for the virals since there's only one per planet and they're from a medium type.
** Generates 2 AIP on death.

* Neinzul Privacy Cluster
** Identical to a Mark III Neinzul Cluster except:
*** Has a roughly 4% chance to be picked for a planet.
*** Has a 4000-range tachyon emitter.
*** Is angered by scouts; all other clusters basically ignore scouts (though I think a ton of decloaked scouts all at once may trigger them).

* Neinzul Bomber Cluster (I-V)
** Identical to a Neinzul Cluster of the same mark except:
*** Has a roughly 48% chance to be picked for a planet.
*** Only generates Neinzul Bombers, much like how the viral clusters only generate viral swarmers; there's only one mark of Neinzul Bomber, so the increasing mark cluster mark levels just generate them faster and in greater quantity.

Thanks for the added details. Quite different then what I was expecting.

Anyway, so only the viral clusters lack the AIP-on-death, and this is intentional (because for the others there's only one per planet).  To my knowledge the current behavior should allow auto-targeting on the viral cluster, but for the next version I'm actually going to explicitly set the "PlayerAutoTargetLevel" to"DirectOnly" for _all_ the clusters because of one rather important fact: if they get hit, they get angry.  If they get angry, you get swarmed.  Therefore it should be a conscious decision for the player rather than making them pull their hair out trying to keep their long-range units always busy so they don't wake up the viral cluster (or whatever) on the other side of the map.

Makes sense. If some of the other types keep the AIP, they all should be Targeted Attack only to keep it consistent.

As for the strength, I'll look at whether that needs to change.  It certainly doesn't need bonuses against anything, that's for sure, and I'll see if it's somehow getting them despite the code in the actual unit definition.

A final note on clusters is that "builder" hybrid classes will occasionally build a neinzul cluster (relatively low mark, but based on the hybrid mark not the planet mark).

Control nodes need a look, only 1 auto-rebuild remains rebuilder built, newly captured system just spawned 2 of them.
Hmm, may be related to the recent throttle changes to make sure command stations get to execute their control node logic.

Youngling Tigers die too fast.
I agree, I've thought that since I first saw them really.  I imagine they'll either get faster speed or longer life or both.

Time to look at cluster attack penalties and fortresses.
With a single fortress in system, it will do 4000 damage to the distribution node.
With two fortresses built they do 798 damage.
The fortresses have a listed cluster attack penalty of 0.20 and 20% of 4000 is 800, so close enough.
Thanks for checking on that :)

Again, just checking as I haven't actually used anything with the cluster penalty/bonus in forever.

Oh, what's this a planet with no hybrids on it?
I had intended to leave it alone so I'd kind of forgotten about it, but at this point I'm going to take it for the knowledge.
Yea, one of the things they "rank" planets on is the number of resource spots, so you're likely to be able to "punch through" the pretty-much-worthless worlds if there are juicier targets for them to defend.

Ya, I got too focused on that one planet, should have looked at switching targets sooner.

Well, small issue. For some reason my startships were priority targets, my fleet ships have taken maybe 85% losses max, but my starships (3 fleet, 5 light) are all dead already.
I didn't notice this, will have to watch and see what's doing this next attack.
Like you say later, the clusters could do that if they're somehow getting bonuses against starships.  Do the AI have any siege starships around?  They are super-focused on killing starships and are pretty effective at doing so.

No siege ships in that system, so I'm pretty sure it was the clusters.

Is it intended for viral clusters to have 83000 range? Especially with a 32000 attack on a 2 second reload. (for a Mk II, a Mk IV has a 200,000 attack)
A viral cluster's attack power is defined as 8000 * techLevel, so MkIV would be 32000.  The 200,000 would have to be a MkIV non-viral cluster (50,000 * techLevel for those).  Or are you seeing something different?

Well, I can't check the structures I've destroyed. Seeing what you typed up above about the different types of clusters, I suspect I'm getting the different ones confused. I'll keep better track when I can pick the game back up Sunday evening.


I'm essentially just having to eat losses from that and wonder if that's what destroyed my starships and as I'm still using Mk I ships, that means it's one-shotting me.
Yea, the non-viral clusters are basically not-quite-infinite (but generally practically infinite) range ion cannons in that respect.

Odd, my ships refuse to auto-attack the viral cluster. They destroy the swarmes as soon as they spawn, but the Cluster Structure does not get auto attacked.
This is annoying because a large part of my fleet is fighters to control the swarmers that spawn, but I can't tell the fighters to attack the Cluster Structure because they then will not attack the swarmers.
I'm probably only doing about 60-70% the damage to the cluster itself that I should be because I can't get the fighters in on it.
Hmm, I guess I see why that's a problem, perhaps I'll have to add some logic allowing it to be auto-targeted once it's already angry about something else (but not before, because it would be really, really annoying to have ships "accidentally" trigger these).

I'm not sure why, but the 1st system with 16 hybrids now only has 4 hybrids in it. That should be low enough for me to punch it out.
Ah, some of them probably hit a high enough maturity level that they needed to go some distance away to get an appropriately high-level equipment factory, or something like that.  They'll be back :)

That's fine, I'm actually getting up to where I can actually call my fleet a fleet. Bring it!  8)

Hybrid attack! Time to check damages (all Mk I ships):
Fighter: FF: 600 Hull: 3000
Bomber: FF:4800 Hull: 200
Frigate: FF: 2000 Hull: 2000

Hmmm. Forcefield has 500k HP, Hull has 1.5million. Bomber is best to just chase the hybrid off, but fighters do better if you are actually trying to destroy them.
Yep :)  Interesting numbers.

That was interesting, a hostile and a friendly roaming enclave just went at it. Well, their fleets did.
Cool :)  Yea, that'll happen.

I watched my starships this time, the Cluster Structure is doing 150k damage or so a shot to my light starships. At 2 seconds reload time, this is pretty much a mini-mass driver, this intentional?
Basically yes. If you're seeing 150k that's a MkIII non-viral, meaning it's only on mkIII planets and only 1 per planet and only because it's the sole bonus that AI Type has.  150k is a lot to fleet ships and low-mark starships, but nothing like the 900k orbital mass driver against golems and big starships, etc.

Again, this system is destroyed by now. Will try to confirm this when I resume in other systems.

Which means Siege Starships are my next unlock. I always used dreads, want to try these out.
I think you'll find them pleasingly effective if you can keep them alive :)

Well, it's looking like I'll have to raid the Clusters first before bringing the sieges in, but they are potent all right.  :D

And the mining golem makes it's appearance. It's going to destroy the system with the only Neinzul Rocketry Corps structure I've scouted out so far. Nice overall I guess, but I was wanting to see how that structure worked. I'll just have to find another.
There should be at least 5 more somewhere.

Sounds good. Will report once I find one.

And I must say, I like sieges. While they still aren't as fast at killing a guard post as just dumping my fleet in would be, doing it while taking a lot fewer losses is nice.
If anything, they are actually OP now.  Undecided They still outrange 99% of fixed defenses and now they kill most defenses just a few salvos. They've pretty much made Mk II or higher frigates a late game, if ever, unlock for me as they stand.
Wait until you try to use them while under fire (hybrids or clusters or other aggressive defenders) before making too many judgments ;)  But yes, I'm sure they're at least moderately OP, this is partly intentional as I've found it's much easier to get positive player feedback when aiming high and tuning down than the other way.

Alright. Will keep an eye on sieges.

Large Control Groups also seem iffy. I have an 800 ship group and sometimes 5 or 6 ships don't register the select when I press it. The throttle again? Seems to happen more often while combat is going on.
Never mind, I have enclave starships along with repeat build queues.
Yea, if you mean box-selecting a group, assigning it to a control group, and/or issuing direct orders (move, attack, etc) to them, the throttles really have nothing to do with that (just the auto-logic, for the most part).

Well, it's what I meant, but in error. I had a control group with enclave starships with an active build queue. I'd have to hop away and select something else. I'd come back and a couple ships would not be selected when I hit the control group on the keyboard. It was the newly build ships from the enclaves though, they weren't part of the control group. I just overlooked that.

And I didn't lose any starships this time because all, I'm assuming because all the cluster buildings were already dead from previous attacks.
Yea, taking out the clusters is a very, very good idea, and they're not overly difficult to kill (200,000 HP per mark level is my understanding).

Ya, while clusters are not instant death for starships, the fact that their direct fire weapon can hit both fleet ships and starships makes them pretty much the absolute priority target. Ions and Mass drivers can only hit one or the other, so the tactics are very different.

And now I've got my little cluster of 6 systems secured, I'm going to move onto scouting the galaxy and figuring out where I'll go from here, so I'm taking a break for now.
Hmm, looks like this one might actually survive.  Something must be done ;D

Well. I got about 30 mins of gametime in trying to scout and didn't get as far as I'd like. Only have scouts out about 3 hops, 4 in a couple places.

By the way, seen any more preservation wardens lately?

Yes, preservation wardens send their waves in as usual. I don't even bother switching to the system to check anymore as the fortress is so effective in wiping them out. They could swamp anything else with numbers and be an issue, but with the fortress up, they aren't even an annoyance, I just don't notice them.

And that's it for today. Game will continue tomorrow.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 22, 2010, 06:13:48 PM
TL,DR: Sunday game finished.

No major notes so far beyond what my previous posts had.
Cluster structures (all types) look to be inline with what you guys are intending. Still a bit OP, but I'm playing with the 83000 range still.


---Post start.

Alright, time to get the sunday game underway.

First however, my current galaxy. (http://members.shaw.ca/diazo/AIwarCoN.jpg)

Quondeskin is my homesystem. Joadmai was my first colony that I triggered the special forces alarm to capture. Ashde was my second colony that had the Mk III Ion that I captured before it got destroyed.
Shlocuini is the system that had the 16 hybrids, special forces alarm post and ARS.

At the moment I'm trying to scout and failing pretty badly. Going to go neuter some systems so that I can get my scouts out farther.

Okay, wow. Maybe the viral clusters will be different, but the bomber cluster essentially interdicts any starship from that system until you can destroy it. Good thing the startship build time was decreased, I'll be going through more of them now.

Interesting, looks like there is an AI homeworld in that dead end cluster in the bottom right of the map.

Pushing down towards the suspected AI homeworld now.

Game time 8:30:00, there goes the mining golem, that hurts my AIP, a 30 aip increased from that system the mining golem just destroyed. Pushes me up to 190 AIP.

Well, crap. I misread that devourer golem's path and it just warped into my rebuild system, bye-bye reinforcements. :(

1300 CPA warning just came up, will have to call my fleet back to deal with it, don't have that many defenses built.

Also just got the notice that a rebel colony only has 2hours of invisibility left. Now to find the system.....
Erg. It's 6 hops away at the closest point, with 4 unscouted systems. They do have really nice ships though, so I think I'll try to save them. I've also been pushing the AIP a little fast going after this AI homeworld, can't really afford 100 aip if the colony gets destroyed. We'll see how it goes.
I'm only 2 hops from one of the AI homeworlds, but that will have to wait with the CPA and rebel colony now.

This is odd, are the Mk IV systems next to AI homeworlds supposed to have Mk V guard posts?
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 22, 2010, 09:41:37 PM
FYI, I was in the unit defs and took a look at the clusters compared to mass drivers... and realized the grisly mistake I had made ;)  A MkV non-viral cluster had like 40% more dps than a mass driver, and it can hit just about anything.  Anyway, the clusters are getting a pretty stiff nerf for next release.  We might tune them back up, we'll see.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 22, 2010, 10:16:10 PM
FYI, I was in the unit defs and took a look at the clusters compared to mass drivers... and realized the grisly mistake I had made ;)  A MkV non-viral cluster had like 40% more dps than a mass driver, and it can hit just about anything.  Anyway, the clusters are getting a pretty stiff nerf for next release.  We might tune them back up, we'll see.

Alright.

I hadn't actually run into any Mk V's yet, only some Viral Mk IV's but I do agree with this change.  ;D

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 23, 2010, 01:08:31 AM
I actually continued Sunday night for a bit.

Totally focused on deep striking to save this Rebel Colony 6 hops away.

Using transports to ferry in reinforcements, I actually got a command station up 4 hops deep, so only 2 hops from the rebel colony. That's as far as transports can go.

The last planet between me and the rebel colony has 7 viral clusters though.  :(

And I still haven't gotten a scout through to the planet with the rebel colony yet, hoping for nothing unexpected. (Raid engine would really ruin my day.)

I won't get to the rebel colony tonight, going to have to reduce this system that's in the way totally I think.

Wow, I got lucky on this deep strike, just found the second AI homeworld.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 23, 2010, 09:24:24 PM
TL,DR: Monday night game complete.

Gotten lucky this game I guess, scouted 28/80 planets, found both AI home systems already. No Factory Mk IV yet though.
Rebel colony saved, total fleet wipe. Only my sieges and Mk I fighters left alive. Rebel colony did exactly what it's supposed to, gave me a hard time limit I was working under and I could certainly feel the pressure. A nice change from the usual double check everything before you go.
Military stations are nice for deep raids, they can actually take a pounding without being instantly destroyed. I've had a couple military stations survive attacks econ stations would not have.

---Post start.

Here we go for the Monday night edition.

I've gotten unreasonably lucky this game it seems in finding both AI homeworlds so easily. I'm almost tempted to find a Mk IV factory first regardless but we'll see.
Still have this rebel colony to rescue.

Game time 10:18:00, Colony loses invisibility in 52:00 and I'm still 2 hops away. Let's do this.

And colony rescued at 10:33:00 game time. I popped the grav turrets on the system in between then transport rushed across. System had an Ion cannon, got a bit scary when my only defender of my building command station is sieges and there's a special forces post in the system....
And except for the sieges and the Mk I fighters I left in my own systems for defense, I have a total fleet wipe. This is going to be a long rebuild cycle.

260 AIP after capturing the system with the rebel colony, time to go data center hunting.

Odd, how do ships decide if they are going to retreat? Just had a wave of frigates come in, get halfway to my command station and turn around. (I'm running defenses at the command station only this game.) They actually had a chance to do some serious damage.
Except a preservation warden wave came in, overtook them and my defenses splattered them, then the frigates turned around. Could be a coincidence but....

Engineers don't require supply anymore? Must have missed that change.

Ouchies, didn't realize the wave multiplyer was this bad. Biggest wave so far was only about 200 ships, just had a 2000 ship wave appear. A 24x multiplyer will do that.  :o
Two ion cannons in the system, so the wave bonuses stack upon each other.

Got to log for the night now.

D.

: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 24, 2010, 10:53:33 AM
And colony rescued at 10:33:00 game time. I popped the grav turrets on the system in between then transport rushed across. System had an Ion cannon, got a bit scary when my only defender of my building command station is sieges and there's a special forces post in the system....
And except for the sieges and the Mk I fighters I left in my own systems for defense, I have a total fleet wipe. This is going to be a long rebuild cycle.
Sounds like a wild ride :)  Really ironic that the sieges are the survivors since they're more fragile even than a number of fleetships.  I can just imagine the sieges backed up against your new command station on the rebel colony planet, not at all sure how they're going to survive if an attack comes ;)

Odd, how do ships decide if they are going to retreat? Just had a wave of frigates come in, get halfway to my command station and turn around. (I'm running defenses at the command station only this game.) They actually had a chance to do some serious damage.
Except a preservation warden wave came in, overtook them and my defenses splattered them, then the frigates turned around. Could be a coincidence but....
Hmm, weird.  Chris wrote the general retreat logic and I've never needed to change it so I wouldn't know.  Perhaps it sees all those losses and gets out of dodge ;)

Engineers don't require supply anymore? Must have missed that change.
So did I ;)   Will look at it at some point.

Ouchies, didn't realize the wave multiplyer was this bad. Biggest wave so far was only about 200 ships, just had a 2000 ship wave appear. A 24x multiplyer will do that.  :o
Two ion cannons in the system, so the wave bonuses stack upon each other.
Ah, yea, multiple multipliers makes the AI stop messing around.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 24, 2010, 08:17:47 PM
TL,DR: Tuesday Night game finished (cut short).

Starships are apparently decent emergency sources of resources.
Fortresses once again are far and away the best defensive structure.


---Post start.

Game Time 11:26:00, 261 AIP.

Wow, 2000 ships is nothing to sneeze at. After trying various strategies, I end up scrapping a fortresses from my core systems and crash-building it on the planet with the 2000 ship wave. I ended up have to scrap a couple sieges to get the resources needed, but this is the system with the rebel colony, I have to hold this system at all costs.
The ion cannons are also destroyed, so I won`t get a huge wave like that again at least.

Time to continue the fleet rebuild.

You can`t load resistance frigates or fighter/bombers into transports? really?
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 25, 2010, 10:22:03 AM
Hmm, the Tuesday updates seem cut short, maybe the AI ate him ;)

And yea, I guess the resistance stuff can't load, I imagine we can go ahead and change that, but not for the next release since we're already in the middle of the initial unity-port-marathon.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Giegue August 25, 2010, 06:10:51 PM
I find most of the neizul units to be... that same. they all die easily, and they all do little damage. yeah, they cost little, but could you have the enclave function as a neinzul repair unit instead of the stationary one?
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 25, 2010, 08:38:22 PM
Yes, got called away from my game Tuesday, had to cut it short.

Still trying to rebuild my fleet. Went ahead and built all the resistance frigates and fighter/bombers to bring them across, then discovered I can't load them in transports. :/

There's still 3 AI systems between the system with the rebel colony and my own systems, it was 6 hops away when the rebel colony spawned so it's way out on it's own.

Started the rebuild of my own ships, but only got about 15% rebuilt when I had to quite.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 28, 2010, 11:31:59 AM
TL,DR: Saturday game in progress.

Patched to 3.189

Wow, Preservation wardens just threw a 1000 ship wave at me, that's different.
It was a system with 2 forts in it so it wasn't actually dangerous, but that's a big change from the 100 or so waves previously.
Mining golems, grrrrr.
And wardens are actually a threat, lost a fortress to the second preservation warden wave. Well, second 1000 ship wave, they still throw tiny waves at me pretty frequently.
Wait, that's the roaming enclaves throwing 1000 ship waves at me, don't really see any changes to the wardens.

Speed 1 outside the system boundary is low. You do need to operate out there occasionally with the Mauraders and Mining golems.


 ---Post Start

Nothing really of note yet, I've started on one of the Mk IV's next to an ai Homeworld. It's got 2 forts but only a single Ion Mk I. The other option has only a single fort but 3 ions, including a Mk IV. Redundant as I don't have a Mk IV factory really, but it works on my fleet just as effectively.

Both planets also have Mass Drivers and Warhead interceptors. Going to just have to chip away at it.

Interestingly, there's no Shield Guard post and the command station is right by my entry warp point. Normally I'd just pop that and clean the system up, but I don't want to alert the homeworld yet.
Well, alert as much since my fleet does while it's in system.

Wow, I'll have to start paying attention to preservation wardens again, they just sent a 1000 ship wave in my direction. Fortresses still owned it, but that's an actual threat now.

I'm thinking I may conquer some planets for resources after this first homeworld dies. I only own 11 planets and it's taking too long to rebuild my fleet. I am taking pretty bad losses on this Mk IV system but I see no other way to crack it.

And both fortresses are down, but I lost every fighter and bomber I sent in. Rebuilding again.....

13:09:00 CPA warning just came in, I should be okay.

CPA's threat is down to 300. Fortresses really do make defense easy.
The knowledge spent on them is hurting my homeworld assult though. I don't have a lot unlocked so I'm sending in bombers/fighters alone with an EMP to clear the warp point.
Mass Driver on the other side of the system so starships would just die and that's a lot of my knowledge useless at the moment.

The second mining golem just came up also.

what?! PSKHFP:khfpiuwbibesdipuPIPIUPIAUFPIAUSDGVPAFDG[B9OAEW4[N0GENA9RGBN[DISUBFNIDZS;UVBPAIEWRNGO'AEING;OAER G'OAEINGPIAUFBDVPUYZSBVPUI;ABG IPAEGIUPAERB[AEOIN[OERUGBAEIO'UGBA[I'OSJG A['DSOUGIBEA[IPUGBAEIW;PGUBAEI;GUBEA;UIGNEBAR;GNAEWR;AEWFomgwtfbbq!!!!!  >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

The mining golem is on my system with the rebel colony in it, this is going to suck. GRRRRRR. I can't afford the 100AIP and my fleet is 8 hops away doing a homeworld assult and 3 of those hops are AI system still that I bypassed. Which means scrapping and rebuilding in that system and another dely on my AI homeworld assult.

Well, attack with insufficient forces so they die and rebuild in the Rebel Colony system I guess.
Oh, only 40 million HP? Did these things get a nerf in one of the golem rebalances?

And it looks like fighters are my best option against the mining golem.

Another oddity is that my threat has been stuck at 340 for 15=20 minutes now. It's the last of that CPA I'm pretty sure, but it doesn't take the ships that long to reach me I would think.

Alright, 342 fighters, mostly Mk II and III vs Mining Golem: Round 1, FIGHT!
Well, eventually, Speed down to 1, ugh.

Okay, the speed to 1 is excessive. Because my spacedock is down at the bottom of my system and the mining golem moves at 6, my speed 1 fighters could not make the turn to fire on the golem.
I understand the need for the slow down outside the system, but 1? With the mauraders and mining golem spawning so far out, we do need to operate out there at times.

Okay, preservation wardens are a threat now. Another 1000 ship wave, including weasels. My fortress just went boom.
The fighters I'd left on defense got there before I lost anything else, but that's still a nasty surprise.

Okay, my next wave of fighters was actually able to engage, mining golem's at 90% hp.

And Round 3 is going to be a Fortress Mk II vs Mining Golem.
Once again, the fortresses reign's supreme. It was a Mk II fortress mind you, but it was doing about 500k damage a salvo, the mining golem only has 40million HP. The golem didn't last long.

Back to my homeworld assult, at least I got a decent fleet rebuilt while fighting that golem.

Wow, an enclave starship just warped in and spawned 1000 younglings. These must be the 1000 ship waves I'm seeing, not the preservation wardens.

Odd, just noticed something with Neinzul Rocketry Corps. The first mining golem destroyed a system with a Rockety Silo. The silo survived being immune to nukes but it seems confused being in a destroyed solar system. It's still spawning rockets, but they just sit on the silo, they don't come to attack me even though I own an adjacent system.

Alright, after the delay dealing with the mining golem, I'm just going to brute force this Mk IV so I've popped the command station.

Tried to sneak build a command station to capture the mass driver so I can bring my sieges in. Missile guard posts have a long range.  :-\

And that will have to be it for now, I may get a chance to pick this up this evening, so close to that first AI Homeworld.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 28, 2010, 11:36:13 AM
Ah, I'm sure the AI will enjoy a nice lunch ;D

Btw, just checking, is this on 3.189?
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 28, 2010, 03:08:57 PM
Glad that the roaming enclaves are giving a decent showing for themselves now :)

The preservation wardens probably won't be launching overly big attacks unless you get a lot of harvesters (sounds like you're going to be increasing that number) and/or you let lots of them get away alive.  We'll see how they do the rest of this game and for other folks, it's pretty simple to tweak them upward threat-wise (with a bias towards keeping them as-is at low harvester count, since they seem plenty bad enough then).
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 28, 2010, 03:41:33 PM
Also keep in mind I have fortresses all over the place and those are pretty much an absolute hard counter to younglings.

I would want to see feedback on preservation wardens going up against players without fortresses before I would want to see them buffed too much.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 28, 2010, 03:50:00 PM
Yea, I would want to see that too, though since fortresses are always available and the wardens are optional I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that a player who really ticks off the wardens will  need to unlock at least MkI fortresses if they want to manage the problem well.  But it shouldn't be a hard requirement, for sure.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 28, 2010, 04:41:26 PM
TL,DR: Saturday game continued.

Popped the LRM guard posts and got my command station built which means the mass driver is mine, so here come the sieges.
However, there is still a Neinzul Bomber Cluster V to deal with before I can clear the entire system.

As this is now a friendly system, I'm going to transport rush it. At a range of 83000, I'd lose a lot of ships just crossing that distance normally.

.... That Neinzul Bomber Cluster Mk V just did 80% damage to a Light Starship with one shot, 25% damage to a flagship with one shot. That's at least equal to a mass driver, ouch.

1500 bombers just spawned from this Bomber Cluster!!!!
Two command stations die before I can adjust my forces.

Nasty, nasty surprise that was, especially their speed (150). With all the high speed units around, I'm starting to think the military command station needs the "slow enemies, slightly speed up allies" buff and the logistics station need a "super speed allies" buff and produces 8 metal/crystal or something.

The "slow down enemies buff" is becoming to important with all the super-fast younglings flying around.

Anyways, with that bomber cluster out of the way, my sieges go to work clearing the system.

And I finally get a scout into the AI Homeworld.
Think I got lucky on the guard posts, no counter attack and 4 spire shield. High HP, but not a great attack to hurt me with.
2 fortresses though. At least the mass driver is close to my entry warp point, can pop it with minimal difficulty.

Hmmm, this other system has a broken artillery golem only 2 hops from the AI homeworld.
I think I'm going to go capture that, should be very useful on this homeworld assult.

After clearing the Mk IV adjacent to the homeworld, AIP is down to 204 from all the data centers.

And this golem wasn't worth it. I've committed too much now to not use the golem, but it's not worth the effort I don't think, I was only running an energy surplus of 100k or so, need 600k for the golem to activate. Crash building energy reactors now.....
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 28, 2010, 05:02:25 PM
However, there is still a Neinzul Bomber Cluster V to deal with before I can clear the entire system.
Wait for it... wait for it...

1500 bombers just spawned from this Bomber Cluster!!!!
Boom! ;D

Yea, the core versions of the clusters can cause some really serious problems, which why it's good they only show up on the AI homeworld and adjacent core worlds.  The bomber variant is only used on 47% or so of those, too; the normal variant produces core younglings (the bombers are roughly mark III equivalent) but fewer of them and a mix of types rather than pure bombers.

My suggestion for dealing with those is a lot of lightning turrets on the probable-target wormholes; with those using the staggered-fire mechanic they should get very good coverage on the bombers (though have to be careful about the bombers wiping the turrets in extremely short order).

Logistics stations help too, as you note; they are very helpful for dealing with younglings, though not every game has younglings (as AI units).
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 28, 2010, 05:04:10 PM
By the way, it takes a Mk V bomber cluster about 30 minutes (iirc) to go from empty to full, so it can't rapid-fire waves like that.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 28, 2010, 06:30:30 PM
Ya, I'm playing VS a Viral Enthusiast and a Cluster Bomber though so I've seen a lot of them.

For where it was, the 1500 ships was not out of line at all being that it was a Mk IV next to a homeworld but it's still a shock the first time you see that. It was even worse because it was an in-and-out to just get the Cluster Bomber structure to clear the way for my siege, only had a part of my fleet close enough to help out.

Anways;

----Saturday game continues here and is done for now.

As I committed to this artillery golem still waiting for my energy reactors to build, including the zenith I just grabbed off a trader.

And another rebel colony just popped up. Only 4 hops away through Mk I and II systems. I'll go deal with this while I wait for my energy balance to increase. The 55 metal/crystal will be nice also.

And a cross planet attack. Lots of stuff happening all at once here.

And a cluster of 5 neinzul cluster structures of varying types in a system I've previously cleared? Are the Hybrid Builders enabled now?


I'm getting closer finishing this game but I've got a ways to go still.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 28, 2010, 09:25:12 PM
And a cluster of 5 neinzul cluster structures of varying types in a system I've previously cleared? Are the Hybrid Builders enabled now?
;D

Yea, they've been enabled for several prereleases.  How many of those are viral clusters next to wormholes?
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 29, 2010, 01:52:07 AM
I'll have to look.

The cluster that made me notice was in a system I'd previously partially neutered in my deep strike to capture the first rebel colony. I came back through it to the second rebel colony that's just spawned and noticed 5 Cluster structures (of various types) off on their own kind of in the middle of nowhere that had been built.

It's only a Mk I or II system, so even the 5 of them are not actually a threat at this point, but something I noticed.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 29, 2010, 07:45:18 AM
Well, actually the Hybrid builders are not restricted by the mark level of the planet on what they can build, but even a top-tier builder can only place like a MkIII cluster (iirc), and you're probably dealing with ones that can plant II's at most.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 29, 2010, 12:18:30 PM
Ummm.

Wow, do the hybrids pick a 'fortress' system or something?

In a Mk I system I had previously mostly neutered, only leaving 2 guard posts off on the edge and the command station up, I now come back to it needing to deep strike past it again.

It now has:
6x Neinzul Clusters (I did leave one of these up my last time through)
5x hybrids (at least one Mk IV hybrid) (Were none last time.)
9x Force Field Generators (Again, none left last time I was here.)
10x Hybrid Module Factories (None last time.)
25x Core Turrets (None last time.)
25x or more Mk III turrets of various types. (Remember, Mk I system)

Do Hybrid builders ever leave the system they assign themselves? I have left this system alone for several hours gametime now so they had the time to build all this, but this is still a serious roadblock now.
Note that those Neinzul Clusters are all on top of each other, I'm looking at 3k swarmers spawning if I get close at all.

I'm seriously stumped. Note that I can bring at best 50% of my fleet to attack this system, I have serveral worlds near the AI homeworld that I'm defending with my fleet instead of turrets.

I'd look at nuking it if Clusters and Hybrids were not both immune to it, as it is, lighting missile spam incoming.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 29, 2010, 04:50:48 PM
Wow, do the hybrids pick a 'fortress' system or something?
Not as such, but the emergent interaction of how it answers the questions "what worlds are eligible" and "what worlds are valuable" can tend towards this.  It can be a major pain in the rear if you try to maintain disjoint territories and aren't don't "clean out" the hybrids if they try to build it up.

It now has:
6x Neinzul Clusters (I did leave one of these up my last time through)
5x hybrids (at least one Mk IV hybrid) (Were none last time.)
9x Force Field Generators (Again, none left last time I was here.)
10x Hybrid Module Factories (None last time.)
25x Core Turrets (None last time.)
25x or more Mk III turrets of various types. (Remember, Mk I system)
;D ;D

Do Hybrid builders ever leave the system they assign themselves?
To my knowledge the "build structure on planet X" mission only lasts until the construction module has been deployed, and then they re-execute the planet-picking logic.  But depending on the circumstances this particular world could be really appealing to them, or one of very few planets that are eligible at all, or both.

I have left this system alone for several hours gametime now so they had the time to build all this, but this is still a serious roadblock now.
Sounds like the builders have been doing their job well ;)

Note that those Neinzul Clusters are all on top of each other,
Yea, they basically pick one of the guard posts or wormholes or the command stations; though they have logic for placing something like an HBC so that it covers two wormholes (putting it out in the middle of nowhere).  This has the effect of making heavily neutured systems more likely to get those kinds of super-stacks.  I think they should have some chance of planting a new guard post if the planet has less than original_count+1 or something like that (though I don't think we actually track the original number right now).

I'm looking at 3k swarmers spawning if I get close at all.
Are the clusters all viral clusters?  Or do you mean "youngling" instead of "swarmer"?

I'd look at nuking it if Clusters and Hybrids were not both immune to it, as it is, lighting missile spam incoming.
Yea, lightning warheads are probably a better bet here, though the nuke would help clear a lot of the stuff out.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 29, 2010, 08:16:33 PM
Yes, they are all Viral Clusters, 2 Mk II, 4 Mk I.

---Sunday Game Start (In progress, see next post)

I'm now bashing my way into the system, but I have question on lighting warheads.

I assume the circle shown on a warhead when you hold Z down is the explosion radius correct?

Because of how close the cluster structures are together, I can get them all in the radius of a Lighting Mk II, except I blow it up and they take no damage and they are not tagged Immune to AOE.

I then built a Mk III lighting to take a Mk II cluster out and giving the missile a right-click attack on the Cluster, the Mk III does kill that structure, and that structure alone.

I know you've mentioned in another thread something about the Cluster structures handling AoE differently because they do spawn when aggro'd, but I would figure them being immune to lighting missiles is not intended.

Using a Mk II lighting missile, a direct target attack does destroy the cluster, but I held Z down this time and the missiles "attack range" covered all remaining structures, but only the one I directly right-clicked took any damage.

Alright, too many lighting missiles later the clusters are down and I can actually operate in the system without taking massive losses.

That got my sieges in, I've broken the system now. Still just planning to neuter it though.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 29, 2010, 08:46:33 PM
Ah, yea, sounds like a residual thing from the virals being non-autotargeted; basically I changed aoe damage to not splash-damage things that ships don't normally auto-target, as otherwise you could wind up popping command stations accidentally because your grenade launchers were shooting at its guards, etc.

This is one of those tricky things where it's not easily obvious what the player wants; basically I'll just need "ShouldGenerallyNotBeDamagedByAOE" (for viral clusters and the like) and "ShouldREALLYNotBeDamagedByAOE" (for command staitons, etc) and "ShouldDamageThingsByAOEThatAreNotGenerallyDamagedByAOE" (for lightning warheads, etc).  I'll probably shorten those somewhat in the actual code ;)

As for those 6 clusters, mark I clusters should only store about 7 swarmers (if I'm reading this code right) and mark II about 37.  So they're more dangerous as guns than spawners, unless there's a bug making the code numbers wrong, or the initial spawn of swarmers manages to replicate before the exterminators get them.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 29, 2010, 08:48:53 PM
Another thing that is very weird is that those construction modules are not supposed to be able to result in viral clusters, just normal ones.  And the AI Types can't influence this because their code is entirely in mapgen.  Curioser and Curioser.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 29, 2010, 09:07:49 PM
TL,DR: Sunday night game finished.

Just went back and checked, they are "Neinzul Cluster -AI 1 - Neinzul Viral Enthusiast" so no, they are not Viral Clusters, I missread the AI type I guess.

Even with the system broken, I'm running out of time and I'm still two hops from the Rebel Outpost.

Next system and 4 clusters and 6 hybrids now. Not easy either.

And the system with the rebel outpost has 3 more clusters.

50 minutes left, this is going to be close.

28 minutes left, sieges are about to range on the command post in the system with the rebel colony.

ARGH!!!! ALARM POST!!!!!!  >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

Ugh. I had enough issues scouting this far out that I didn't get a couple of adjacent systems scouted before popping the command post. It's 'only' 400 threat from the alarm post. I can deal.

And with 19 minutes to go on the cloak, I get my command station up, at 18:59:00 gametime.

Alright, deep breath time. Got my command station, FFG and a few turrets up in the second rebel colony system.

Let's finish getting this golem online and take this homeworld out.

Well, getting my deep strike fleet back will be easy, the survivors fit into one transport. Going to have to unlock some turrets with the knowledge though to leave any sort of defense behind.

Tigers are still weak. Friendly Enclave spawns a bunch on my command station, they don't make it out of the system.

Spacedock is up and there's a Special Forces Alarm post right next door. Bleh.

Anyways, I don't have to take another system next to the alarm post, so I can ignore it.

Back to Z-gen building for this golem. Net incoming of -2500 metal and crystal.  :-\

Hehe, a roaming enclave just dumped out a full wave of 1000 younglings. The devourer golem right there said "Thank you!"

The 3rd mining golem just popped up, once again on my system. Fortress should be able to deal with it though.

And the AI likes this system also, and maruaders too! Busy system this is.

Yay! Z-gen up and running!

And it's CPA time again. 1800 ships this time.

CPA dealt with by my fixed defenses, I may still be turtling too much. :/

Mining golem still wandering towards me.

Artillery Golem ONLINE!!!! 8)

Time for some Golem VS Golem combat! Going to try shooting the Mining golem with my new artillery golem.

BOO!!! Only did 25% damage to the mining golem for a 20% self-inflicted wound.  :-[

Ahh well, at least I know how it works now.

Mining golem is down.

I think this artillery golem is too expensive, period. I'm running +800 gross in both metal and crystal, with one Z-gen and nothing being built, my energy reactors put me at a net loss of resources.
I own 14 planets so it's not like my empire is small or anything at this point.

I'll look at the golem some more tomorrow, but I'm done for the night now.

/wave

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 30, 2010, 09:06:18 PM
TL,DR: Monday night game finished.

Gametime

Still debating what to do about the artillery golem. Going to pop a bunch of Data Centers with it in the other Mk IV adjacent to this homeworld instead of raiding them.

After that, the golem will probably just sit, at least until I cap the AI homeworld, 12 resource points in there. I'm hoping that gives me enough economy to actually repair the golem.

Well, the golem is very nice, just pot-shotted a couple data centers but now I'll have to repair it.

At this point, it's going to be a game of take a couple pot shots, repair the golem, take a couple pot shots, repair the golem, repeat. The high cost of the golem means it's the golem or my fleet I use, I can't support the golem with my fleet, at least not yet.

Or not, golems cost too much to repair, going to assult this homeworld the normal way.

EMP missile and a wave of bombers get the two fortresses, that spidernest is next.

Spider nest is down, too far though, tractor turrets came back up, none of my attack got out. I was only using fighters/bombers so not my entire fleet, but it still hurts.

Slowly picking the system apart, 3 guard posts down now.

Achievement! Persistent - 24 hour campaign.  8)

Mass Driver and Warhead Interceptor are both down, the only ion in the system is a Mk II. I was also able to get the warp point guard posts thanks to the emp so we're moving along.

Bug? Engineers are not assisting my space dock, just sitting in space. I have the auto-frd node built for them. They are auto-repairing damaged units as they come in though.

And I've got enough cleared I can bring my sieges in. Time for them to go to work.

Ya, siege's are a little OP at the moment. A Mk I Siege one-shots most turrets on this homeworld.

Homeworld's down to 2 guardposts and another CPA warning just came

CPA's on it's way.

And first AI Command is down!  ;D Here comes the avenger!  :o

Odd, what's the Avenger's pathing logic? It's not coming straight at my homeworlds, does it try to clean sweep my colonies first?

Anyways, the avenger is about to hit my first roadblock I've set up. My fleet on the AI homeworld and the 2 colonies it's munched up already have the sheild down to 85%.

Fortress Mk I + Mk II and 5x HBC Mk II as soon as it exits the wormhole.

Well, the HBC were a failure, I need cannon fodder in front to use those.
The fortresses got the force field to 65% though.

NOOOOoooo..... my zenith power generator! The avenger also just got the artillery golem, not that I was going to use it again. :/

Second roadblock time, 2 forts and some HBC again, but with some cannon fodder in front, maybe the HBC will get more then one shot off.

.......... wow. That avenger is, umm..... Took the avenger 7 hops to reach my homeworld, it spent 6 of those hops under continuous fire from fortresses, most hops with both a Mk I and a Mk II fortress.

Only got the avenger's shield to 10% before my command station went boom.

I killed the AI command station at 24:59:09, I lost my Home Command at 25:29:06. That's at least 20 minutes of continuous fire from fortresses on the avenger and I didn't get the shield down.

Going to make another try tomorrow, I have a save from just before I killed the AI command station.

But just, wow. This is my first time seeing an Avenger and it makes the golems I was complaining about look like weak little tin cans.

Anyways, that's it for tonight. Already have some ideas for alternate strategies on the Avenger to try, but it'll have to wait.

/wave

D.



edit as per below: ya, going to post a SS once I finish with markers showing what was what. I don't have an easy way to upload pictures so I'm not doing it every post.



: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Fruden August 30, 2010, 11:50:08 PM
 This is an interesting to read post but.... needs more pictures!!!

 Anyway, i have to agree about the golems, the energy costs and repair costs are completely crazy, even with 10 worlds and 1 zenith generator. In the very few games i activated some since their recent changes i ended up putting them on low power and leaving them to rot in a safe corner :(
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Spikey00 August 31, 2010, 12:16:51 AM
I'm glad the avenger sounds like it's not too bad in realistic gameplay terms.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 31, 2010, 12:39:18 AM
Ummm, maybe?

The big chunks at the front taken out of the avenger's shield was the remnants of my fleet assisting my fortresses. Without that fleet support, the fortresses were not enough. :/

I think it's doable, the biggest thing was I killed the AI command station when I had maybe 5k metal and 5k crystal in reserve. Wait to get a stockpile of resources and I'll see how I do.

D.

edit: Just because I want to see what I'm up against, and since my defense is based around fortresses.

Avenger: 600,000,000 HP (400 million force field, 200 million hull)
Fortress Mk I: 2000x60 Attack, 3.0 sec reload. (No bonuses): 40,000 dps
Fortress Mk II: 3500x80 Attack, 3.0 sec reload. (No bonuses): 93,333 dps
Total DPS from fortresses: 133,333 dps.
Assuming continuous fire from both a Mk I and Mk II fortress: 75 minutes to destroy an avenger.

I'm going to have to get my fleet involved in this also to destroy this blasted thing.

edit the 2nd: Fortresses actually have a 2x bonus I think, which is still 32.5 minutes though.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Fruden August 31, 2010, 01:23:29 AM
 For the pictures, you can attach up to 4 (not too big, so jpeg, not png) per post with the options at the bottom of the post screen, no need to use a picture host at all here!

 As for the avenger, heavy beams shoot right through but don't damage it at all. If you've got impulses, polarizers, munitions boosters, and to a lesser degree bombers it helps a bunch but mostly it's a matter of swarming it with giant piles of ships. Also, for some reason, if you directly target the components on the avenger lots of shots will disregard the force field and destroy them anyway. It helps a lot if you can get rid of its heavy beams in the first minute or two, unless that was fixed recently. Laser turrets were the only turrets that seemed to do alright against it because of their minimum hit chance and high health.

 I also liked to have 1-2 mobile repairs with a cloaker following the fleet since the avenger switches targets and its possible to fix some of the ships back up (especially bombers and other high hp ships obviously). And for its pathing, from the map select the ai homeworld its on, and hover over your homeworld to figure out its path. Weirdly enough, if you select your homeworld and hover over the ai homeworld, the path is not always the same, and it uses the path from the ai homeworld to player homeworld perspective.

 Good luck and keep us posted!

edit: mines work pretty well too
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 31, 2010, 01:56:14 AM
Part of my issue is I found the AI homeworld early, I only have 28 of 80 planets even scouted and I've got attack paths to both homeworlds already.

So I really low on knowledge and I took Youngling Commandos as my special ship to try them out.

So no fancy toys which means I'll be throwing ship after ship at the avenger. I'm hoping bombers get their bonus against the avenger's force field, that would be huge. Don't even have MRS unlocked yet, let alone cloakers.

My options are Forts Mk I & II, Fighters Mk III, bombers Mk III, Siege Starships Mk I, MLRS Turrets Mk III, Missile Turrets Mk II.

I have HBC Mk II unlocked also, but they don't do anything you say?

As for the path thing, it is somewhat random. I had a single planet in a dead end cul-de-sac that the avenger went down, nuked my command station, turned around and went back towards my homeworld.

I've got 2 or 3 alternate strategies I'll be trying tommorow.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 31, 2010, 09:02:02 AM
Ah, the Avenger.  Yes, if you aren't seriously prepared it eat you, and probably not even for dinner ;)  Sounds like you qualified as at least a decent lunch, though.

Sorry about the HBC's-not-hitting-Avengers thing, not sure what's going on there, will endeavor to fix that once we're out of unity port mode (theoretically before, but Chris is going to be on paternity leave soon and I don't want to ask him push any new versions unless it's something critical).

But yea, there are tons of things you can do to improve your chances; fyi anything with a bonus against turrets gets that same bonus against any ship module (including those onboard forcefield generators).  Sieges will probably do fairly nice damage, though good luck keeping them alive.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 31, 2010, 09:06:45 AM
Oh, and the pathing thing really is trying to take a straight line path to your homeworld (exactly the same logic as the evil-dysons), but it's not impossible that it would detour a bit.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 31, 2010, 11:15:47 AM
Ya, my siege's were in range when it spawned, I think they did most of the initial damage while the rest of my fleet played decoy.

After that, I had no resources to rebuild them so.......

This next game's going to fun.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 31, 2010, 08:30:11 PM
TL,DR: Tuesday night continued next post.

Alright, me vs. the Avenger.

After my stunning defeat last night, time to go and crunch the numbers before I actually engage and also check what the HBC actually does.

First, the HBC *does* damage the Avenger, but not as the tooltip says. HBC Mk I says '100% chance for 100,000' damage on the Avenger Shield Module as well as the actual hull. In actually test firing however, the HBC only does 50,000 damage to the shield. I had nothing else firing on the Avenger at the time so I'm pretty sure about this.

Except that upon reloading and trying again, the HBC now does nothing to the shield.

Alright, it seems that HBC's can infact damage an avenger, as long as something else takes the shield below 100% first. And even then they are not getting their 2x attack bonus. The tooltip says they will do 100,000 damage, but they actually only do their base damage of 50,000. This is true for both Mk I and Mk II HBC, don't have Mk III unlocked.

The only thing I can see is that while the Force Field and Hull of the Avenger are not immune to Area Damage, the weapon turrets are, which would make the turrets themselves immune to my HBC's. The area damage calc going screwy somehow?

The missile turret does do it's listed 5600 damage to the shield module.

Done gathering data, time to number crunch.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 31, 2010, 08:43:41 PM
All modules are by default immune to AOE, to avoid some micro-craziness if you fly Riots into a lightning turret field, for example.

Forcefield modules are supposed to be an exception to this, in that they should take the damage intended for their protectees regardless of their module status.

Sounds like I need to look into why the attack modifiers are acting weird.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 31, 2010, 08:59:26 PM
TL,DR: Tuesday night game continued next post.

Ya, and why if the Force Field is at 100%, the HBC do in fact do no damage. (Can someone else actually confirm this?)

Anyways, looking at the numbers, on a pure damage basis, nothing even comes close to the sieges. 24000 dps vs the shield, 48000 dps vs the hull. The next closest is the HBC, using no bonuses as it seems to get none, comes in at 10000 dps shield/hull. Third is MLRS turrets Mk III at 4000 dps shield, 8000 dps hull.

Fighters Mk III are only 500 dps shield/hull and bombers Mk III are 1800 dps shield, 4500 dps hull.

However, as this will be a long fight, looking at the dps vs. cost ratio is interesting. On a per resource basis, MLRS Mk III are by far the most efficient at 2 dps per resource point. Fighters second at 1.2 dps per resource point and bombers are third at 0.75 dps per resource point.

However, I'm still fortressing all the systems. Because the fortress outranges the Avenger it doesn't die, so it will be by far my most effective unit. Everything else will die.  :-X

Looks like it will be a fortress every system, with MLRS/Fighter spam every other system or so.

Here we go, this will take a while to setup but I'm giving it a shot.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 31, 2010, 09:07:30 PM
If you can pick off the avenger's weapon modules it will greatly reduce the rate at which it slaughters you (to much closer to "just" a superfortress).
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 31, 2010, 09:21:14 PM
TL,DR: Tuesday night game continued next post.

I did look at that but I have Eye Bots Mk I and Snipers and that's it for units that ignore force fields. So I'm just going to batter that shield down.

Although a 3rd rebel colony just popped up, but this one's on it's own, at least until I get this Avenger down.

Alright, I don't think my defenses are quite there, but I want to see how this does.

For this first go around I have:

Mk I,II,III fighters/bombers to cap.
3x Flagship, 1x Light Starship, 5x Siege (Which I plan to transport rush out to save them.)
138x MRLS Mk III Turrets
1x Fortress Mk I, 1x Fortress Mk II.

All units position to be in range of the Avenger's spawn point.

Alright, after everything but the fortresses are dead, the Force Field's at 70%. Long way to the warp point, I'm hoping the fortresses get that to 60% before it leaves the system.

Building my next choke point.

WTF? It's following a different path then yesterday. This really screws me over.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Fruden August 31, 2010, 09:40:19 PM
 Well... i guess there's no point in not saying it but... there's 2 cheap ways i've found to deal with the avengers.

 First is simply to destroy both ai homeworld command stations at roughly the same time. Both avengers will spawn, but the game is won anyway, there is no requirement to destroy them.

 But that's boring. To kill an avenger cheaply, make snipers on its path and target them at the heavy beams. They have a bonus against those and while it will take some time, eventually the beams will be destroyed. Once they are.... build 3 force fields over the next wormhole it wants to cross or the next command station it wants to destroy and assign an engineer to each. The avenger won't have enough dps to get through and will stall there forever. Build some snipers or a fortress out of range and forget about it, after some time it will be gone.

 Anyway, as for the heavy beams, i made a topic in the bugs forum (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6911.0.html (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6911.0.html)) with a save and picture.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 31, 2010, 09:45:21 PM
But that's boring. To kill an avenger cheaply, make snipers on its path and target them at the heavy beams. They have a bonus against those and while it will take some time, eventually the beams will be destroyed. Once they are.... build 3 force fields over the next wormhole it wants to cross or the next command station it wants to destroy and assign an engineer to each. The avenger won't have enough dps to get through and will stall there forever. Build some snipers or a fortress out of range and forget about it, after some time it will be gone.
Yes, that's a very valid tactic; it's not intended to be a smart unit, just an unbelievably strong one ;)  Having units that can hit the beam cannons before the forcefield is down is a big boon, and at that point simply blocking it with forcefields becomes possible and desirable.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo August 31, 2010, 10:09:50 PM
TL,DR: Tuesday night game finished.

Ugh.

The avenger taking a different route and going around 2 of my defense points hurts, bye bye home command station.

Reload and this time it goes the long way, giving my fortresses time to shoot.

Interesting note, with the force field getting smaller as it takes damage (force field at 33%), I'm destroying turrets on the avenger with normal weapons that are not force field immune.

Lol, a wave just warped into my next defense system that I'm preparing for the avenger, it didn't last long.

Alright, Avenger force field down, on the second system out from the AI home world.

And the 3rd system out has my Zenith Power Generator, going to pop my own command station to get the avenger through this system ASAP, no defenses here and I want to keep the Z-gen alive if at all possible.
I built my command and z-gen far enough away from the warp points it won't range on the Z-gen without my command station there for it to chase. (hopefully).

Grrr, it's still chasing my artillery golem which I also stuck in this system.

Alright, scrapped everything except the Z-gen and an FFG covering it, Avenger has turned around so I get to keep my Z-gen.

Next system is my next choke point. Avenger shield down and hull at 72%.

ARGH! It warped out of the system I was hoping it would die in at 4% HP.

This is going to put a hole in my perimeter defenses when it goes off.


AND GOT IT!!! :o :o

I killed it 5 hops from the AI homeworld, 2 hops from my homeworld.

Took:

MLRS Turret Mk III x276
Fighter Mk I & II x396
Fighter Mk III x138
Bomber Mk I & II x396
Bomber Mk III x138
Siege Starship Mk I x5
Flagship x3
Light Starship x1
Fortress Mk I & II x5

Note that it didn't actually kill the fortresses, but that's me building them in every system I could.
The fortresses were what did it. When I reloaded the Avenger took the longer path through my systems instead of going through an AI system to bypass my second choke point.
With their range and the slow movement of the Avenger, I'd say the fortresses alone did 60% of the shield and 40% of the hull.
Except for the system with the Z-gen in it that I wanted the Avenger out of ASAP, it was always under fire from both a fortresses Mk I and Mk II, I even built the fortresses in the AI home system before blowing the command post.

Which is why it taking the longer route let me get it this time. With the shorter route it could also take, I had a system and a half less time for my fortresses to beat it down.

Alright, deep breath. Time to put my defenses back together. I may have gotten the avenger, but I still lost 5 systems and need to capture the AI homeworld now.

And this rebel colony has 90 minutes left on it's clock.

And that's it for me tonight, got my empire kind-of pieced back together.

That 3rd rebel colony is going to go boom, but I only have 2 systems to clear before I'm attacking the 2nd AI homeworld so I'm just going to eat the 100AIP. It's also 4 hops away behind a Mk IV system and 3 unscouted systems.

Anyways, I'll try to finish this off tomorrow.

D.


: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe August 31, 2010, 10:18:05 PM
Interesting note, with the force field getting smaller as it takes damage (force field at 33%), I'm destroying turrets on the avenger with normal weapons that are not force field immune.
Yep, that's a neat little detail that's possible with AI War's forcefield mechanic (which is more detailed than most "shield" mechanics, in this way) :)  I might actually put some of the cannon mounts a bit closer to the edge to make it possible to take them out at a higher ff percent.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo September 01, 2010, 08:10:18 PM
Alright, I'm not going to get a chance to play today so instead, have some screen shots.

These are of my current galaxy, so about 20 minutes gametime after the Avenger died.

The first picture is of the AI home system.

Note where the Exo-galaxy wormhole the avenger spawns from and the distance between the two points.
When the Avenger warped out the closer wormhole, that's an AI planet still and it managed to reach my home command station.
When it went to the other side of the system and out the wormhole that leads to my system, giving the forts more time, that was when I was able to kill the avenger.

The second screenshot is my galaxy view with me numbering the interesting systems. Note how few systems I have scouted, only 28 of 80. I've found both AI homeworlds early, only 1 ARS and no Advanced Factories.

1) My homeworld.

2) The Mk III Ion cannon I captured early in the game, that then got one-shotted by the warden bombers. Link (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6741.msg52673.html#msg52673)

3) The wall I it early in the game with too many hybrids that I had to leave and come back to. Link (same as #2) (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6741.msg52673.html#msg52673)

4) The first rebel colony outpost that I rescued. Note it is 6 hops from my nearest system. (14) Link (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6741.msg53748.html#msg53748)

5) The second Rebel Colony that I rescued.

6) The third rebel colony that I'm not going to rescue. It's 4 hops away behind a Mk IV system, and 3 more unscouted systems.

7) The first mining golem destroyed this system, leaving just the Neinzul Rocketry Corps Silo, which seems broken. It spawns missiles, but they just sit on the silo. I had to go through it to rescue the first Rebel Colony and the missiles ignored me until I deliberately got close enough to aggro them. Link (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6741.msg53529.html#msg53529)

8) The system that I had previously cleared and then came back and found it had been forted up by Hybrid Builders. Link (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6741.msg54736.html#msg54736)

9) First AI homeworld that spawned the avenger.

10) The bad route (for me) for the avenger to take. It could go through this system, or through system 11. When I had reloaded (again) and the Avenger went through system 11 is the time I killed it.

11) Artillery golem found here. Link (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6741.msg54591.html#msg54591)

12) System that used to be one of my fortified perimeter systems that had been nuked by the Avenger dying. Note how far it got against me even on my fourth reload. That thing was an absolute beast.

13) The second AI homeworld. Haven't scouted it yet but the Mk IV next to it gave it away.

14) My Launch point for pretty much anything at all. My attacks on both AI homesystems and the first two rebel colonies launched from here.

And that's it for tonight, see you guys tommorow.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe September 02, 2010, 08:27:27 AM
Many congratulations on taking the avenger down; there are tactics which make it easier as you've seen, but it's pretty intense no matter how you cut it :)
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo September 02, 2010, 08:50:22 PM
TL,DR: Thursday game finished.

Yes, the avenger is the absolute worst unit in the game, in terms of having to fight it anyway.  ;D

(I want one!)

Anyways, it's Thursday night, time to see if I can wrap this up.

Need to do some fixing of borders and rebuild my fleet as I've got pretty much no mobile units left after the avenger has roflstomped me.

Ummm, wow. I thought that last fortress system was bad. This system has:

14x Force Fields Mk I
16x Force Fields Mk II
7x Neinzul Cluster Mk I
23x Neinzul Cluster Mk II
6x Neinzul Viral Cluster Mk IV

Ummm. I'm going around....
Which fortunately I can do.

It's not like my alternate route is easy mind you, 7 Zenith Starships and 8 Spire starships for starters.

The 4th mining golem of the game just came up, again, ignoring it.

And I got 4 guard posts down in the second AI homesystem, but wasn't able to finish it off.

Ah well, I've got this, just needs one last push.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo September 04, 2010, 01:19:27 PM
MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!

Got the second AI home command down!!

and Wow, this is by far my most epic game of AI war so far.

Gametime: 29:32:33
AIP: 701 This AIP includes the second AI's command station death aswell as the 100 AIP from the 3rd rebel colony I did not rescue.
14 Systems captured, 2 of those being rebel colony systems I would not have captured otherwise.
Youngling Commando as my special ship.

Attached the endgame stats at the bottom. Note my fortress kills, 37.5% of my total kills are from my fortresses, which would include the Avenger. On defense, nothing comes even close to touching a fortress.

Anyways, here's my overall thoughts on the game:

First, my setup was 80 planets, AI 7 for both, single planet start, youngling commandos as my special ship, all minor factions on, one AI with hybrids enabled (not advanced). I actually don't think the advanced hybrids option was available on the version of AI war that I started my game on. I played the capture only what you need to win the game style.

Hybrids: Not sure I can comment, I played the early game with the pre-nerf hybrids and found them quite hard, but broke through. Mid-game was on the patch where the AI was actually scrapping the hybrids, end game with what the hybrids are at today, my defenses were so powerful they essentially didn't matter any more.
Except for fortress systems. Due to how the map was split, with the first AI off by itself on the bottom, I gave the hybrids hours worth of gametime to build fortresses systems. I have a couple systems bordering my defensive line that have x30 Force Field Generators and x20 Neinzul Clusters that have been build by the hybrids. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not, I did give the hybrids 15-20 hours of gametime to fortress those systems, but the only way I can see to break that is Missile spam which would shoot your AIP up.
I'd be okay with leaving the hybrid builders as they are, if we could see hybrids from adjacent systems like we can a devourer so we could go "Oh, need to clean those hybrids out" or "I won't need that system, let them build".

Fortresses: How much more can I wax eloquent about these? I'm going to try and play my next game without fortresses, but I think these have spoiled me. Depending on how my game without fortresses goes, I'm probably going to start making them my first or second unlock. They make defense so much easier.

Preservation Wardens: Ummm, no comment? It may have been because fortresses hard counter these so easily but I didn't even notice these. I'd stopped even bothering to switch to the system when the preservation wardens attacked it. They are supposed to get more powerful the more harvesters you have running and my gross metal (not net) when I won was only 800. Maybe they'd have been a worry if I had more systems?

Roaming Enclaves: Now these I noticed. They weren't powerful enough to actually affect anything, but they were closer then the preservation wardens, especially after their buff in the last patch. Getting 1000 younglings thrown in your face makes you stand up and take notice. With how weak younglings are, these are pretty okay, if younglings get a buff (as has been talked about in other threads), these may need further tweaking.

Buildable Enclaves: A nice feature, but hard to use with hybrids enabled. These are designed to support deep strikes out of supply, but because hybrids come after you no matter where you are in the system, deep striking is problematic and much harder then it would be otherwise. I did unlock the Mk I of these but never got to use them as intended because you really need Mk II or III to make deep strikes effective and I never had enough free knowledge to unlock those. These could be *very* powerful, but in very limited situations.

Neinzul Clusters: Now these are interesting. They are actually enough of a threat that I stopped trying to even deal with them normally, I just missile-ized them. I did deal with the first few systems worth normally and they were a pain. (Keep in mind I was playing a Cluster Bomber and a Viral Enthusiast). With the massive range on their gun, these became my primary target in a system, even before mass drives, fortresses or ion cannons. I'd say they are pretty close, especially in the anti-siege starships role. The swarms they spawn are also about right, they never actually overwhelmed me, but I never risked attacking one of these without most of my fighters present, which is how they should be working imo.

Siege Starships: Too nice. As soon as I'd gotten all the Clusters and Mass drivers down, I brought in my sieges, supported by my flagships and the system was done. 5 Mk Sieges and 3 Flagships could clean out a Mk IV system once I'd killed the Clusters and Mass Drivers. It did take a long time, but I didn't lose a ship. I'm not sure if this is working as intended, maybe make a range increment so Mk I sieges can outrage Mk I & II laser turrets, but Mk III laser turrets can match a Mk I siege's range? The concept of the siege's is good, just at the moment a single mark I siege can clear all the structures in a Mk IV system, except for a very select few, and I see that being OP for a Mk I ship of any type.

New guard posts: Good concept overall, but there was only 4 types of guard stations in my game. Counter Attack, Shields that made the Command Station immune, Long Range Missile because they could fire back on my sieges, and everything else. Because my sieges outranged all the other types, their differences didn't matter, it just took a few more or few less siege shots to kill them. I'm thinking the others could use some sort of on-death effect, maybe trigger a reinforcement wave, spawn a single powerful missile, or something else that's not just "guns, but mounted differently."

Mk IV and V systems: I don't know if it's due to the recent ship cap changes or because I'm used to a harder difficulty AI, but I found Mk IV and V systems to be easy to crack with the fleet size I had by that point. Especially with sieges. Probably not so much Mk IV worlds, but Mk V worlds need something. Maybe a faster reinforcement rate with your fleet in the system, give the AI home command station a more powerful version of the Cluster's main gun, just something to spice it up. I had more issues with the systems that the hybrid builders had fortified then I did with either AI homeworld.
Or just buff Mk V ships? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think the latest round of ship cap reductions for the AI per system has made the late game Mk IV's and V's easier then intended.

Avenger: This is a nasty piece of work. Having said that, it's also pretty much balanced for what it is, a single ship that's overwhelmingly powerful.

Golems: Broken in economic terms. Even after capturing the second AI homeworld and it's 12 resource points, I could not afford the metal and crystal to operate one, let alone repair it. On their actual use I think there are about what they should be from the one engagement where I did get to use it, but they simply cost too much to use.

Rebel Colonies: Perhaps my favorite minor faction now. When one of these popped up, the game when from a slower paced "okay, hmmmm, that looks good, let's do this" to a "EVERYONE HERE NOW, ATTACK!!! GOGOGOGOGOGO" type of game play. It's a very nice change to mix things up while you rescue the rebel colony.

Younglings: Weak as they are and need something. Make them stronger, decrease their self-attrition rate, increase their ship cap, something. They aren't broken really, just weak.


Overall, a great game though. That avenger was nasty to say the least, but it's right where it should be. I ended up spending a lot of time activating a golem I ended up only using once and I was always rushing around after one of the minor factions as I had everything enabled.

More thoughts to come as I think of them.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: keith.lamothe September 04, 2010, 01:55:04 PM
Congratulations! :)  7/7 makes for an easier "base" game, but with all those minor factions and AI plots thrown in it's quite a challenge.  The Avenger battle was pretty epic ;)

Thanks for the various thoughts on balance/interestingness of stuff, I'm looking forward to finishing up this Unity port so I can get tweaking on those.

Hybrids: Not sure I can comment, I played the early game with the pre-nerf hybrids and found them quite hard, but broke through. Mid-game was on the patch where the AI was actually scrapping the hybrids, end game with what the hybrids are at today, my defenses were so powerful they essentially didn't matter any more.
Except for fortress systems. Due to how the map was split, with the first AI off by itself on the bottom, I gave the hybrids hours worth of gametime to build fortresses systems. I have a couple systems bordering my defensive line that have x30 Force Field Generators and x20 Neinzul Clusters that have been build by the hybrids. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not, I did give the hybrids 15-20 hours of gametime to fortress those systems, but the only way I can see to break that is Missile spam which would shoot your AIP up.
I'd be okay with leaving the hybrid builders as they are, if we could see hybrids from adjacent systems like we can a devourer so we could go "Oh, need to clean those hybrids out" or "I won't need that system, let them build".
Yea, there's a lot of stuff that needs to change with these, but it's good to see that they're basically working well.  One issue is that as you go through the galaxy and take stuff out they will actually lose strength (until their builders start planting more hybrid spawners, which they don't do with "advanced" off, though I'm not 100% sure they do it at all yet).  I think I'll make the AI homeworld get more spawners and the rest of the galaxy somewhat less so as to make it a bit harder to take out their core production capacity.

Fortresses: How much more can I wax eloquent about these? I'm going to try and play my next game without fortresses, but I think these have spoiled me. Depending on how my game without fortresses goes, I'm probably going to start making them my first or second unlock. They make defense so much easier.
Yea, I think they're at a good place, except perhaps they should cost more knowledge or something to assign an appropriate tradeoff to their awesomeness so that they aren't obvious-unlocks unless you're really getting pounded on the defensive.

Preservation Wardens: Ummm, no comment? It may have been because fortresses hard counter these so easily but I didn't even notice these. I'd stopped even bothering to switch to the system when the preservation wardens attacked it. They are supposed to get more powerful the more harvesters you have running and my gross metal (not net) when I won was only 800. Maybe they'd have been a worry if I had more systems?
Yea, they need to mix weasels in for one thing, and probably just need to produce more and more powerful ships.  But it sounds like their basic functionality is alright, just a magnitude problem.

Roaming Enclaves: Now these I noticed. They weren't powerful enough to actually affect anything, but they were closer then the preservation wardens, especially after their buff in the last patch. Getting 1000 younglings thrown in your face makes you stand up and take notice. With how weak younglings are, these are pretty okay, if younglings get a buff (as has been talked about in other threads), these may need further tweaking.
Yea, will keep that in mind re: youngling balance.  I need to fix some problems with the Enclave pathfinding, but other than that they seem pretty good.

Buildable Enclaves: A nice feature, but hard to use with hybrids enabled. These are designed to support deep strikes out of supply, but because hybrids come after you no matter where you are in the system, deep striking is problematic and much harder then it would be otherwise. I did unlock the Mk I of these but never got to use them as intended because you really need Mk II or III to make deep strikes effective and I never had enough free knowledge to unlock those. These could be *very* powerful, but in very limited situations.
Yea, combined with hybrids it's a bit tough to deep raid, but they can provide helpful punch to a normal attack by continually replenishing the youngling part of your fleet.  There's also the Mark IV version which costs an absurd quantity of K but obviate the need to find and capture an Advanced Factory (which, iirc, you didn't in this game).

Neinzul Clusters: Now these are interesting. They are actually enough of a threat that I stopped trying to even deal with them normally, I just missile-ized them. I did deal with the first few systems worth normally and they were a pain. (Keep in mind I was playing a Cluster Bomber and a Viral Enthusiast). With the massive range on their gun, these became my primary target in a system, even before mass drives, fortresses or ion cannons. I'd say they are pretty close, especially in the anti-siege starships role. The swarms they spawn are also about right, they never actually overwhelmed me, but I never risked attacking one of these without most of my fighters present, which is how they should be working imo.
Yea, the Cluster-Bomber is supposed to be a pretty respectable opponent as an AI Type, and the Viral Enthusiast more of an enhanced annoyance (which hopefully is all it is now with the range and damage nerf on those), so sounding good :)

Siege Starships: Too nice. As soon as I'd gotten all the Clusters and Mass drivers down, I brought in my sieges, supported by my flagships and the system was done. 5 Mk Sieges and 3 Flagships could clean out a Mk IV system once I'd killed the Clusters and Mass Drivers. It did take a long time, but I didn't lose a ship. I'm not sure if this is working as intended, maybe make a range increment so Mk I sieges can outrage Mk I & II laser turrets, but Mk III laser turrets can match a Mk I siege's range? The concept of the siege's is good, just at the moment a single mark I siege can clear all the structures in a Mk IV system, except for a very select few, and I see that being OP for a Mk I ship of any type.
Yea, the main problem with this isn't the sieges, I think, but the fact that the AI doesn't respond with sufficient aggression to take them out.  Or did it?  I imagine the hybrids did the best they could, but they can't be everywhere.  When you were sieging a guard post, would its guards come after you?  I'm thinking it might not be out of the question for firing sieges to provoke a tag-teamer-like response, but not sure.  As for the range, if anything I'll reduce it a bit; those longer range turrets are supposed to be able to shoot back.  The idea there is that you need to cover the sieges with forcefields; either teching up to Riot II+ or bringing ff generators which are slow and cut the siege's attack power by 3/4 (but doesn't make them useless, by far).

Mk IV and V systems: I don't know if it's due to the recent ship cap changes or because I'm used to a harder difficulty AI, but I found Mk IV and V systems to be easy to crack with the fleet size I had by that point... I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think the latest round of ship cap reductions for the AI per system has made the late game Mk IV's and V's easier then intended.
Yea, there have been a number of reports lately of those IV and V systems just not having the kick-in-the-teeth effect they used to, will need to rebalance with the ship caps some more (not by making them higher, necessarily, but the AI needs some more tools to counter-balance).

Avenger: This is a nasty piece of work. Having said that, it's also pretty much balanced for what it is, a single ship that's overwhelmingly powerful.
Yea, from your experience it sounds just about right; my intention is to replace a cannon or two with some more varied armament so that aoe-immune and super-long range stuff has more to fear, and to check on the pathfinding and logic and make sure it's being appropriately one-track-mind.

Golems: Broken in economic terms. Even after capturing the second AI homeworld and it's 12 resource points, I could not afford the metal and crystal to operate one, let alone repair it. On their actual use I think there are about what they should be from the one engagement where I did get to use it, but they simply cost too much to use.
I think I'm in agreement on the sheer energy cost being an issue, at least, but Chris has been handling the rebalancing here.

Rebel Colonies: Perhaps my favorite minor faction now. When one of these popped up, the game when from a slower paced "okay, hmmmm, that looks good, let's do this" to a "EVERYONE HERE NOW, ATTACK!!! GOGOGOGOGOGO" type of game play. It's a very nice change to mix things up while you rescue the rebel colony.
Yep, they sound like they're doing their job exactly right :)

Younglings: Weak as they are and need something. Make them stronger, decrease their self-attrition rate, increase their ship cap, something. They aren't broken really, just weak.
Yea, I'm inclined to make them build cheaper and hit harder; they're not actually supposed to be a normal swarm ship so they shouldn't live longer or come in greater numbers (from the human players), but it should be possible for an in-system space dock or human-enclave-starship to pump them out at absurd rates of speed and have them actually matter on the damage output side (nanoswarms aside, that's a niche ship).  Tigers are also worse off than the others in most cases.

Overall, a great game though.
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for the AAR :)
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Spikey00 September 04, 2010, 01:56:35 PM
Heh, congratulations to your victory Dazio.  ;)
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo September 04, 2010, 03:43:01 PM
Congratulations! :)  7/7 makes for an easier "base" game, but with all those minor factions and AI plots thrown in it's quite a challenge.  The Avenger battle was pretty epic ;)

Thanks for the various thoughts on balance/interestingness of stuff, I'm looking forward to finishing up this Unity port so I can get tweaking on those.

Hybrids: Not sure I can comment, I played the early game with the pre-nerf hybrids and found them quite hard, but broke through. Mid-game was on the patch where the AI was actually scrapping the hybrids, end game with what the hybrids are at today, my defenses were so powerful they essentially didn't matter any more.
Except for fortress systems. Due to how the map was split, with the first AI off by itself on the bottom, I gave the hybrids hours worth of gametime to build fortresses systems. I have a couple systems bordering my defensive line that have x30 Force Field Generators and x20 Neinzul Clusters that have been build by the hybrids. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not, I did give the hybrids 15-20 hours of gametime to fortress those systems, but the only way I can see to break that is Missile spam which would shoot your AIP up.
I'd be okay with leaving the hybrid builders as they are, if we could see hybrids from adjacent systems like we can a devourer so we could go "Oh, need to clean those hybrids out" or "I won't need that system, let them build".
Yea, there's a lot of stuff that needs to change with these, but it's good to see that they're basically working well.  One issue is that as you go through the galaxy and take stuff out they will actually lose strength (until their builders start planting more hybrid spawners, which they don't do with "advanced" off, though I'm not 100% sure they do it at all yet).  I think I'll make the AI homeworld get more spawners and the rest of the galaxy somewhat less so as to make it a bit harder to take out their core production capacity.

I think I'm going to try dual hybrids with advanced off next game to see where these are at. Hybrids are really only a threat early to mid game, by mid to late game, you have enough stuff around that it's the entrenched systems the builder build that are the only real threat from hybrids. And since I haven't seen Hybrids in the early game in 4 or 5 patches.....

Fortresses: How much more can I wax eloquent about these? I'm going to try and play my next game without fortresses, but I think these have spoiled me. Depending on how my game without fortresses goes, I'm probably going to start making them my first or second unlock. They make defense so much easier.
Yea, I think they're at a good place, except perhaps they should cost more knowledge or something to assign an appropriate tradeoff to their awesomeness so that they aren't obvious-unlocks unless you're really getting pounded on the defensive.

How about keeping the existing fortresses, but boosting them by a Mark (with a bit of a knowledge increase) and making a new, weaker Mk I fortress? That's perhaps too big a change at this point and maybe redundant with the turret changes X is talking about, but I often found myself wishing for a unit I could just build to secure a secondary system without having to build a ball of turrets.
Preservation Wardens: Ummm, no comment? It may have been because fortresses hard counter these so easily but I didn't even notice these. I'd stopped even bothering to switch to the system when the preservation wardens attacked it. They are supposed to get more powerful the more harvesters you have running and my gross metal (not net) when I won was only 800. Maybe they'd have been a worry if I had more systems?
Yea, they need to mix weasels in for one thing, and probably just need to produce more and more powerful ships.  But it sounds like their basic functionality is alright, just a magnitude problem.

Ya, with these scaling based on harvester numbers they should be very weak early game and pounding you late game.

Roaming Enclaves: Now these I noticed. They weren't powerful enough to actually affect anything, but they were closer then the preservation wardens, especially after their buff in the last patch. Getting 1000 younglings thrown in your face makes you stand up and take notice. With how weak younglings are, these are pretty okay, if younglings get a buff (as has been talked about in other threads), these may need further tweaking.
Yea, will keep that in mind re: youngling balance.  I need to fix some problems with the Enclave pathfinding, but other than that they seem pretty good.

Agreed that they are good as-is, if the younglings get a buff as mentioned below, these are probably right where they should be.

Buildable Enclaves: A nice feature, but hard to use with hybrids enabled. These are designed to support deep strikes out of supply, but because hybrids come after you no matter where you are in the system, deep striking is problematic and much harder then it would be otherwise. I did unlock the Mk I of these but never got to use them as intended because you really need Mk II or III to make deep strikes effective and I never had enough free knowledge to unlock those. These could be *very* powerful, but in very limited situations.
Yea, combined with hybrids it's a bit tough to deep raid, but they can provide helpful punch to a normal attack by continually replenishing the youngling part of your fleet.  There's also the Mark IV version which costs an absurd quantity of K but obviate the need to find and capture an Advanced Factory (which, iirc, you didn't in this game).

Never even found a Mk IV factory with my scouts. Considering I scouted something like only 1/3 of the map not too surprising. But I never even though about going down the tree to unlock Mk IV enclaves, with how few systems I took, I didn't have enough K as it was.

Neinzul Clusters: Now these are interesting. They are actually enough of a threat that I stopped trying to even deal with them normally, I just missile-ized them. I did deal with the first few systems worth normally and they were a pain. (Keep in mind I was playing a Cluster Bomber and a Viral Enthusiast). With the massive range on their gun, these became my primary target in a system, even before mass drives, fortresses or ion cannons. I'd say they are pretty close, especially in the anti-siege starships role. The swarms they spawn are also about right, they never actually overwhelmed me, but I never risked attacking one of these without most of my fighters present, which is how they should be working imo.
Yea, the Cluster-Bomber is supposed to be a pretty respectable opponent as an AI Type, and the Viral Enthusiast more of an enhanced annoyance (which hopefully is all it is now with the range and damage nerf on those), so sounding good :)

Yes, the Viral Clusters were actually not a big deal at all, it was really the other clusters I worries about because they deserved the worry. This sounds like it's exactly what you were going for.

Siege Starships: Too nice. As soon as I'd gotten all the Clusters and Mass drivers down, I brought in my sieges, supported by my flagships and the system was done. 5 Mk Sieges and 3 Flagships could clean out a Mk IV system once I'd killed the Clusters and Mass Drivers. It did take a long time, but I didn't lose a ship. I'm not sure if this is working as intended, maybe make a range increment so Mk I sieges can outrage Mk I & II laser turrets, but Mk III laser turrets can match a Mk I siege's range? The concept of the siege's is good, just at the moment a single mark I siege can clear all the structures in a Mk IV system, except for a very select few, and I see that being OP for a Mk I ship of any type.
Yea, the main problem with this isn't the sieges, I think, but the fact that the AI doesn't respond with sufficient aggression to take them out.  Or did it?  I imagine the hybrids did the best they could, but they can't be everywhere.  When you were sieging a guard post, would its guards come after you?  I'm thinking it might not be out of the question for firing sieges to provoke a tag-teamer-like response, but not sure.  As for the range, if anything I'll reduce it a bit; those longer range turrets are supposed to be able to shoot back.  The idea there is that you need to cover the sieges with forcefields; either teching up to Riot II+ or bringing ff generators which are slow and cut the siege's attack power by 3/4 (but doesn't make them useless, by far).

No, it was not until the guard post was destroyed that the ships at said post would free themselves to attack my fleet. One thing I don't think I was clear on, I cleared some structures before bringing my sieges in. If there were any (non-viral) Clusters, Mass Drivers or Long Range Missile Guard Posts, I didn't bring the sieges into the system until those were down. It was not a matter of warp my fleet, clear the warp point, bring my sieges in. If I had tried that, my sieges would have died fast. I did have to prep each system before I could bring the sieges in. Now, where there's only 3 structure types that I have to clear before bringing the sieges in I'm not sure if that really changes anything.
  
Mk IV and V systems: I don't know if it's due to the recent ship cap changes or because I'm used to a harder difficulty AI, but I found Mk IV and V systems to be easy to crack with the fleet size I had by that point... I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think the latest round of ship cap reductions for the AI per system has made the late game Mk IV's and V's easier then intended.
Yea, there have been a number of reports lately of those IV and V systems just not having the kick-in-the-teeth effect they used to, will need to rebalance with the ship caps some more (not by making them higher, necessarily, but the AI needs some more tools to counter-balance).

Ya, I'm not sure what the changes should be. I'm thinking if the turret changes go through, the Mk IV and V systems get their turrets caps reduced less then the lower Mk systems? Still need some sort of mechanic change though, when you attack you aren't fighting the system, you are fighting that guard post, then that guard post, then that one.......

Avenger: This is a nasty piece of work. Having said that, it's also pretty much balanced for what it is, a single ship that's overwhelmingly powerful.
Yea, from your experience it sounds just about right; my intention is to replace a cannon or two with some more varied armament so that aoe-immune and super-long range stuff has more to fear, and to check on the pathfinding and logic and make sure it's being appropriately one-track-mind.

Heh. Any changes to the avenger would be interesting but also not change much. You are throwing your entire empire at the thing as it is to stop it, that's not going to change.

Golems: Broken in economic terms. Even after capturing the second AI homeworld and it's 12 resource points, I could not afford the metal and crystal to operate one, let alone repair it. On their actual use I think there are about what they should be from the one engagement where I did get to use it, but they simply cost too much to use.
I think I'm in agreement on the sheer energy cost being an issue, at least, but Chris has been handling the rebalancing here.

Ya, something needs to be done. I keep harping on this because I spent something like 3 hours game-time to bring it online just to find out I can't use it.  :'(

Rebel Colonies: Perhaps my favorite minor faction now. When one of these popped up, the game when from a slower paced "okay, hmmmm, that looks good, let's do this" to a "EVERYONE HERE NOW, ATTACK!!! GOGOGOGOGOGO" type of game play. It's a very nice change to mix things up while you rescue the rebel colony.
Yep, they sound like they're doing their job exactly right :)

Agreed!  :D

Younglings: Weak as they are and need something. Make them stronger, decrease their self-attrition rate, increase their ship cap, something. They aren't broken really, just weak.
Yea, I'm inclined to make them build cheaper and hit harder; they're not actually supposed to be a normal swarm ship so they shouldn't live longer or come in greater numbers (from the human players), but it should be possible for an in-system space dock or human-enclave-starship to pump them out at absurd rates of speed and have them actually matter on the damage output side (nanoswarms aside, that's a niche ship).  Tigers are also worse off than the others in most cases.

So they will get something, good.

Overall, a great game though.
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for the AAR :)

My pleasure.

Will probably be a few days and a few messing around games before I start my next big one. That last one was only 2 1/2 weeks from start to finish.

I'll still be around of course.  ;)

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Spikey00 September 04, 2010, 05:05:11 PM
I hope you don't play alone all the time--I'm already getting a bit tired with my solo--I wouldn't know how you would go on about playing solo all the time!  :\
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: Diazo September 04, 2010, 10:05:07 PM
Problem is I don't even have the vaguest idea of what my schedule is.

I did try a couple multiplayer games way back when but was not able to finish either because I couldn't ever hook up with the same people to finish.

Next summer's the earliest I might be able to lock my schedule down enough to get a multiplayer game going.

D.
: Re: Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff
: superking September 05, 2010, 02:32:07 PM
but its difficult to find players who share your timezone/avaliablity  :(