Author Topic: Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2  (Read 5188 times)

Offline x4000

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Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2
« on: April 10, 2018, 11:29:00 am »
Please comment! :)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ecRBCt-pqZYT06ndFg9NkT0UM1b4CSTGBtzuHqZzdYc/edit#heading=h.1d0rwzhqt0nl

Do you like it?  Feel like this would solve the "something is missing" feeling in AIW2?  (Obviously this is not in place of the defensive warden-style fortresses that Keith is planning for players, or some of the other defense-oriented changes).  But even with those defensive improvements, something felt like it was definitely missing, and that's largely because logistics is too simple compared to the first game.

Well -- this would be the replacement for logistics, which was fiddly in the first game.
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Offline zeusalmighty

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Re: Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2018, 12:56:34 pm »
I love this idea and wish I could test it out right now! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Presumably we would get a significant amount more hackers than we currently do hacking points? In any case, they would need to be generously distributed as they are a non-renewable resource (wait, does that apply to the AI too?)

So would there be a toggle to switch between galaxy map interfaces and hackervision--this makes sense to me, because there's already a lot going on in the galaxy map that superimposing hacking stuff there to would make it difficult to decipher. I like the description of planets growing in proportion to the amount of things you can do there. And the possibility to change the pathing of hackers/anti-hackers by creating/destroying network paths excites me because it gives players a way to change the map without disrupting the flow of the physical wormhole transits.


The "ghost fleet" hack is EXACTLY the kind of tool I want--make the wardens/hunters freak out and expose a juicy target to be captured.

Would there be some way to track hackers while looking at a specific planet? Something like a ratio of hackers/anti-hackers might be helpful in case the player needs to decide whether or not to move the hacker somewhere else or get kicked

Curious what others think about this but I can't help but wanting to see what this looks like in practice. Hope this or something comparable is viable!

Offline zeusalmighty

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Re: Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2
« Reply #2 on: April 10, 2018, 01:04:18 pm »
Ahh, AIP increases anti-hackers, glossed over that. All the more reason to keep it low!

Offline x4000

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Re: Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2
« Reply #3 on: April 10, 2018, 01:31:23 pm »
Cool beans!  Lots of changes were just made to it after Keith's feedback, so you might want to take another look at the document.  Major changes:

1. Fixed a note about the scouting that was wrong.

2. Removed some "existing" hacking things that are not presently used.

3. Range buffs and debuffs aren't feasible right now, so removed.

4. Fuel and power buffs have been removed.

5. It now just uses the regular wormhole network, rather than letting you add and remove nodes, etc.  That could be interesting for later, but is soundly out of scope for now.

6. No actions can be undertaken by the antihackers except for blocking you and kicking you.  No actions themselves.

7. The name "hacker" needs to change in some way, but not sure just how.  These are no longer people, they're some sort of... controlled things.  Hacker drones, for now.  But something better is needed.

8. For all the major/minor/etc tier things, those now have a baseline cost that was minor, and then just get stronger based on however many guys you put on it.  Simpler, but I hadn't been sure that was going to be possible.

9. The gravity mechanics have been changed in their details, and since those block exit from a planet when strong enough, anyway, the black hole effect that is separate was removed.

10. Sabotage for AI buildings has been added.

11. Build speed boosts have been added. So these can work like engineers, and baseline build speeds can be reduced, potentially.

12. Tachyon and cloak reinforcement have been added, though without details yet.
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Offline etheric42

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Re: Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2
« Reply #4 on: April 10, 2018, 01:47:59 pm »
7. The name "hacker" needs to change in some way, but not sure just how.  These are no longer people, they're some sort of... controlled things.  Hacker drones, for now.  But something better is needed.

Malware?

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2
« Reply #5 on: April 10, 2018, 01:53:50 pm »
Sounds interesting.

Offline x4000

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Re: Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2
« Reply #6 on: April 10, 2018, 01:58:06 pm »
7. The name "hacker" needs to change in some way, but not sure just how.  These are no longer people, they're some sort of... controlled things.  Hacker drones, for now.  But something better is needed.

Malware?

Something like that, but we need to be able to pluralize it.  And we often have a positive thing we're doing with it, so people might get confused.
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Offline Magnus

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Re: Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2
« Reply #7 on: April 10, 2018, 02:38:45 pm »
Ghosts. As in Ghost in the Shell.

Offline zeusalmighty

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Re: Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2
« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2018, 03:16:28 pm »
How would anti-hackers be affected by AIP reducers? Would they lose them at the same rate?

Offline etheric42

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Re: Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2
« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2018, 04:33:20 pm »
Vectors?  As in viral injection vectors?

Offline x4000

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Re: Chris's Crazy Hacker Engine (CCHE) for AI War 2
« Reply #10 on: April 10, 2018, 05:00:14 pm »
Right now it's looking like this is on ice, but ghosts or vectors are both good.
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