Against Vigilant Foes

[Faulty Logic]

In theory the AI HW strategic reserve and mini-exos could be buffed, but at least the latter sounds like it basically performed to spec; took your superweapon to avoid death in that one case.  Cheddar Shields to Full Power, Mr. Scott!

Cheese shields for the cheese cannon. I mean, an artillery golem? In the base game? I suppose I'm asking for it, but still. Though I could have just savescummed, as well.

As far as buffing 10/10, the main thing that sticks out to me is that it let you get away with too much hacking.

Too much hacking? That's crazy talk.

The CPAs are another obvious area to ratchet up the pain

Trust me, they were painful. Though instead of MOAR ships, fixing the carrier logic, and having them behave more intelligently (attacks everywhere iff lots of ways in, otherwise giant hammer). And above all, don't have them hang around on my wormholes. They don't last.


I also had Champion & Co. with the nemeses too afraid to attack my main choke, no other place to go, and a habit of waiting on the other side of my wormhole.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I'm a little surprised the threatfleet stuff was letting itself get other-side-of-the-wormhole'd so much.  It's supposed to "stage" about 3 hops back.  But it does have two separate trigger points: "do I have enough strength in threatfleet total to hit this planet" which starts "the move", and "do I have enough strength within a suitable range of this wormhole to hit the planet on the other side" which actually starts the attack.

Sounds like you caught it between the two stools, and beat it senseless.

[Faulty Logic]

Does it account for pathing? Trying to hit a planet behind my choke, double checking at the entrance, and taking the better part of valor?

Because I could totally see it getting caught between "I can kill that planet two hops away" and "the planet between me and it is too scary."

Or maybe the fact that there is no planet three hops away from a human or neutral world it can get to.

[keith.lamothe]

It actually does a pretty thorough job of checking the whole path, and not picking a path that goes through something too scary (if that means it can't get to anything interesting, it just stays put 3 hops back).  If you'd like to "check its work", so to speak, advanced logging will generate LogicLog_AIMechanic_ThreatFleet.txt , though obviously only for what's currently bouncing around as threatfleet in the sim at the time.  Logic checks happen roughly once a minute, iirc.

[Faulty Logic]

Checking the logs, it was trying to get to a planet three hops away from my space. But it couldn't, because my chokepoint was in the way. And it just kept trying, forever, without picking the farthest it could get to. And thus I could arrange for accidents pretty easily.

[keith.lamothe]

Aha, right, because your position split AI space into multiple unconnected chunks.  Thwarted in the graph theory, once again.

Hmm, guess this means rewiring it.

[TechSY730]

Aha, right, because your position split AI space into multiple unconnected chunks.  Thwarted in the graph theory, once again.

Hmm, guess this means rewiring it.

Similar sorts of abuse to the special forces can happen too.
(Time for multi-group fleet-grouping logic for both of these mechanics, maybe?)

Anyways, yea, sounds like 10/10 is nearly there. I mean, artillery golem immediately after a core guard post destruction (which would of probably eaten into your fleet counts after that battle by quite a bit) ouch.

[Faulty Logic]

As far as buffing 10/10, the main thing that sticks out to me is that it let you get away with too much hacking.

I would strongly consider having it deploy things that let it get to my fleet. I was rarely in fighter or bomber range.

Things like a pulse of speed booster drones, translocators, or a temporary radar jammer II.

Supply-interdictors could disrupt the more beachhead-oriented hacking (and disable my repair-everything miniforts).

And (much) later, you could have it send straight-up EMPs.

[Toranth]

As far as buffing 10/10, the main thing that sticks out to me is that it let you get away with too much hacking.

I would strongly consider having it deploy things that let it get to my fleet. I was rarely in fighter or bomber range.

Things like a pulse of speed booster drones, translocators, or a temporary radar jammer II.

Supply-interdictors could disrupt the more beachhead-oriented hacking (and disable my repair-everything miniforts).

And (much) later, you could have it send straight-up EMPs.

Supply-interdiction and EMP would both stop the hack, as well.  For K-Raiding, that's not *too* bad, since you can resume, but for ARS hacking, that'd make it impossible to ever finish.
Spawning speed boosters or translocators might be neat, but it kind steps on the toes of the Experimentalist AI type.  Maybe warheads?  Or upgrade what can be spawned... instead of 1000 fleetships, try some Spirecraft or a Golem. 
But, yeah, a little more variety would be nice, since it'd require a broader range of defenses to handle.

[Faulty Logic]

Supply-interdiction and EMP would both stop the hack, as well.  For K-Raiding, that's not *too* bad, since you can resume, but for ARS hacking, that'd make it impossible to ever finish.

S-D hacking doesn't require supply. Both hackers could get EMP immunity (and the EMP suggestion was only for the ranges where you are assumed by the game to have stopped hacking).

[keith.lamothe]

On this game, one of the points I believe you said you were trying to answer was the necessity of a single or double choke.  My (flawed) memory indicates you got through with a 5-planet surface area, including direct access to your homeworld?

[Faulty Logic]

On this game, one of the points I believe you said you were trying to answer was the necessity of a single or double choke.  My (flawed) memory indicates you got through with a 5-planet surface area, including direct access to your homeworld?

5 ways in, yes. No direct access to the HW, though; the AI had to push through a hub first.

FortI and militaryI on all of them, all mkI turrets on Occam's Razor, all 3 alien modular forts on Clockwork.

[keith.lamothe]

5 ways in, yes. No direct access to the HW, though; the AI had to push through a hub first.

FortI and militaryI on all of them, all mkI turrets on Occam's Razor, all 3 alien modular forts on Clockwork.

Ok, so you had a partial choke to get at the HW (Occam's Razor), and a partial choke to maul anything coming from the AI HWs (Clockwork).

Not quite wide-open, but a lot closer to it than one would expect (from much choke/no-choke feedback) in a winning 10/10 game.