AI War Beta 5.005, "The Balancer," Released!

[zebramatt]

I'm inclined to suggest we not change the Raids!

[Sunshine!]

Bomber starships can't shoot fleetships.

Also, raids are a problem, and have been for quite some time, but I don't have a solution.

[TechSY730]

The any unit with he ability to shoot through force fields is such a difficult thing to balance, especially because of how humans are stuck with ship caps but the AI uses ship caps merely as a ratio for spawning, and is free to spawn WAY more than the ship cap.

What's worse is that typically the AI can get more defenses on their planets FAR faster than humans can, which inherently skews usefulness further.

[Philo]

Just make the AI Raid starships take the same amount of hits as human Raids. At least they seem to take more hits or am I right?

Also, I think at least giving the Home base some kind of good protection against Raids would be good. Like say, it would take 10 hits from a Lvl 2 raid to kill your home. So if there was a pack of 2 raids (which there many times is) they'd only have to both hit 5 times which would still make them very very dangerous.

[TechSY730]

Just make the AI Raid starships take the same amount of hits as human Raids. At least they seem to take more hits or am I right?

Also, I think at least giving the Home base some kind of good protection against Raids would be good. Like say, it would take 10 hits from a Lvl 2 raid to kill your home. So if there was a pack of 2 raids (which there many times is) they'd only have to both hit 5 times which would still make them very very dangerous.

AI Raid starships are identical to Human Raid starships. It may not seem that way, because the AI can reinforce their defenses faster than you can, but they are the same.

Giving the Raid starship a penalty against command grade seems like the way to go. It would still keep their usefulness against taking out moderately tough stuff under force fields, but neither the AI nor the human players could use them to easily kill command stations.

Also, they could do with a slight armor nerf. Maybe give a VERY slight HP increase to compensate for that.

[BobTheJanitor]

Just make the AI Raid starships take the same amount of hits as human Raids. At least they seem to take more hits or am I right?

I haven't puzzled it out, but there's something the AI has in the way of guard posts or somesuch thing that eats through raid starships. Whatever it is, humans don't have the same tool so AI raids seem to last forever while ours tend to get punched through like tissue paper. Although, part of that is probably also a bias in perception. Since you're probably watching a raid starship shoot down your command station while waiting desperately for something to kill it, it seems to last forever.

[x4000]

We may need to actually split them, like we did with fortresses, for much the same reason we did with the fortresses.  In this case to make the AI raids artificially weaker, rather than the other way around.

[zebramatt]

Good idea!

My latest game seems to indicate (much like an after battle report I read on here somewhere) that SC Penetrators need a nerf!

Also, not sure if this is on Mantis (I'll check a little later) but SC Martyrs don't currently appear as part of the friendly mobile military count on Galaxy View.

[BobTheJanitor]

Poking around my shipdata dump, which may be getting a bit out of date now that I think of it, the only big thing I see that might effect the balance is missile guard posts, or possibly beam guardians. They both have an 8x bonus vs. ultra-light. Just about everything else that is good vs. ultra-light hulls both sides get access to. Missile guard posts are pretty common though. Just guessing, but maybe that's what seems to chew up human raid starships so quickly while the AI versions last a while.

[orzelek]

I remember before first buffs when raid came near missile post.. it died. Simply and after 1-2 shots. After raids got buffed they live a bit longer.. but still quickly die.

[BobTheJanitor]

Giving the Raid starship a penalty against command grade seems like the way to go. It would still keep their usefulness against taking out moderately tough stuff under force fields, but neither the AI nor the human players could use them to easily kill command stations.

That would be one way to solve it. It would be great for the human team, since rarely do you want to go into a planet and only kill the command station and then leave. That's just a way to rack up AIP with no other benefit in return. But it might be too much of a nerf for the AI team, since their main usefulness for raids is doing exactly that sort of thing. Hmm... balance is always a tricky puzzle.

[RogueThunder]

Giving the Raid starship a penalty against command grade seems like the way to go. It would still keep their usefulness against taking out moderately tough stuff under force fields, but neither the AI nor the human players could use them to easily kill command stations.

That would be one way to solve it. It would be great for the human team, since rarely do you want to go into a planet and only kill the command station and then leave. That's just a way to rack up AIP with no other benefit in return. But it might be too much of a nerf for the AI team, since their main usefulness for raids is doing exactly that sort of thing. Hmm... balance is always a tricky puzzle.

Yeaaa... Yet right now if a few AI raid starships decide to b-line your home command is there seriously anything you can do unless your fleet was incidentally already there? Spire campaign seems to like doing that one to me... I couldnt care less if they kill normal command stations. I can rebuild those... even if their effectiveness there is also a bit rediculous.

[TechSY730]

Giving the Raid starship a penalty against command grade seems like the way to go. It would still keep their usefulness against taking out moderately tough stuff under force fields, but neither the AI nor the human players could use them to easily kill command stations.

That would be one way to solve it. It would be great for the human team, since rarely do you want to go into a planet and only kill the command station and then leave. That's just a way to rack up AIP with no other benefit in return. But it might be too much of a nerf for the AI team, since their main usefulness for raids is doing exactly that sort of thing. Hmm... balance is always a tricky puzzle.

I'm not suggesting an absurdly low penalty against command grade like .05 or anything. Only a moderate penalty. Somewhere between .25 to .5 seems about right.

Keeps them deadly against command stations, especially the Mk. I versions, but slows their TTK against the higher Mks and the Home long enough for you (and your defenses) to react. Even at .25, they can still deliver some pain against command stations, so they remain a noteworthy threat.

[Zeba]

All I will add to the discussion is you should have had a merc factory trickling out merc fighters so when you eventually get a massive incursion on your home command station you can just sic them on the offending bastages and waste them. Too many players seem to completely forget about the merc factory and its wonderful always available mk 4 ships.

[Bugsydor]

All I will add to the discussion is you should have had a merc factory trickling out merc fighters so when you eventually get a massive incursion on your home command station you can just sic them on the offending bastages and waste them. Too many players seem to completely forget about the merc factory and its wonderful always available mk 4 ships.

Hi, I am new here, but I have been lurking here for a few weeks. A problem I have with your solution is that I seldom have that kind of resource reserve available. Maybe I just build too many spider turrets. XD

Anyhow, I am currently on my second game, the first game with all expansions turned on. Is it normal or okay to want to do all of one's fleetship manufacturing from Enclave Starships?