Author Topic: Do not pass Go....  (Read 9178 times)

Offline Wanderer

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #15 on: June 12, 2012, 10:28:46 pm »
Oil?  This is 10/10, buddy.  Combustion below the order of a tactical nuclear warhead won't even warm a steak.
A lot of oil?  No?  Hm.

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Maybe there should be an achievement named "The L. Prosser Award" with a couple crossed battle axes for the icon.
I like Hitchiker's as much as the next guy, but wow can you pull some trivia out of the blue.  :D

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EMP mines on the probable teleport-to points in the vicinity of your space docks (or whatever battlestations consume for sustenance)?  They don't seem to have the immunity, but maybe their nonstandard movement causes them to not trigger them.
Yeah, no joy on Teleporter vs. Mine.  Their movement doesn't actually move across a minefield, so they never trigger.  They CAN get caught by AoE from others, but never themselves.

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My guess is it's the Zenith Descendent's getting +40 effective AIP for the purpose of offensive waves *dodges thing on your foot*.  It's listed in the wave calcs but I don't think it's ever been on the wiki *gets nailed by the other thing on your foot*.  ZDs also get bigger waves and fewer reinforcements in general, but that's at least already on the wiki.
I need more things on your feet.  That's some brutal... and feeds once again into my argument that many MANY of these items were weighted towards early game pain with late game mediocrity.  However, this information helps, thanks.  If you don't get a chance to pop this on the wiki, I will eventually.

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About this time is when I realize INFILTRATORS DONT HAVE CLOAKING.
"Then, Lancelot, Galahad and I jump OUT of the rabbit... er, um..."
... At the time, it felt more like 'in a bikini'...  :-[

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There is a throttling on how many ships can do the targeting routine per second; more are allowed through if they're close enough to another ship of the exact same type (and controlling player) that's already done the full target check to just piggyback via "aggregate targeting", but it's still finite.  Not sure if that's what you're seeing here; I wouldn't expect ships to be able to fly through a system in the time it takes to get a target list.
Oh, they can and do.  I witnessed it a few times once I was able to figure out what the problem was.  It depends on how tight the wormholes are but even on a 1/4 system distance some leakage was expected when the mob 'freed' from the first entry.  The ever-flowing swarm rarely did it but if the youngling's balled up for a second chewing up reinforcements then blasted in about 50 or so would usually clear the far wormhole.

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Captured via towel and reprogrammed to be constantly happy. "140 Herring Sandwiches to Earth in 0:42"
But, I wanted to ride the herd and see the King!  Someone get me a bird.

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In a sane world, a navy refits between campaigns.  Here, there's nothing left to fit, so it refleets.
"Admiral, the entire fleet, it sunk due to your orders."
"I know.  Build another."
"Wait, what?"

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On the threatballs, I'm curious based on something I heard another player talking about months ago about how to short-circuit them: how about parking a relatively high-attack-power chunk of fleet on the enemy side of the wormhole (once it's clear, I know easier said than done in the midst of stuff) under cloaker-starship cover.  Or just the whole fleet without cloaking cover as long as it isn't enough to cause the enemy to threatball just one planet further out.

The idea being that the threat will dribble in and get eaten by your stuff as it tries to park, so a large threatball doesn't form.

Naturally if that actually works I'll probably have to fix it to be smarter, but was wondering if it works ;)  My guess is that it would rely on the AI still having something fairly high-firepower on the planet you're trying to anti-threatball, as otherwise the presence of your om-nom force would cause at least some minor threatballing on the next planet out.
It might have been me, I've been using this tactic off and on. 
First: Threatballs won't form against AI held planets, ever.  They come in to support the AI world, under any circumstances.  This allows you to do a dribble-kill.  Mind you, 1000 ships of dribble = massive fleet action.
Second: You can force a threatball to move if a wave hits and you have forces on the enemy side of the gates.  I hadn't thought 140 Vamp Is would be enough to do it, but push enough threat into a system and a threatball will escape to attack just about anything that it was parked waiting for more help for.

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Hmm, spider turrets might work well too; particularly if the threatball logic doesn't exclude "ships I have that are engine-dead" from the firepower calculations.
I don't believe ED ships end up in the threatball calculation, because they're not considered 'waiting' at the wormhole, merely 'available' in that system.  If you correct it to determine threatballing against AI held systems then they would be part of the overpowered calculation, yes.

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When the quantity of rogues behind you have to start lining up to take turns backstabbing you, the element of surprise is somewhat diminished ;)
"Excuse me, Lord Mishmash.  The Thieves Guild has a contract on you."
"Well, Senechal, how many are they sending?"
"Well, sir... the entire guild."
"HAH!  That should be easy, alert the army!  Take positions!"

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On a side note: It didn't count as a 10 planet game.  Well, ALRIGHTY then.
Ah.  Ehm.  Well, it wasn't actually a 10 planet map, you see? :)  The grid-based maps have to produce a rectangle (maybe even a square, I forget).  Counting is the way to show the AI that you're not reliant on computers.

Sorry about the confusion there, I could have put 2+2 together when you said "and clearing the 10 world achievement" and "Maze A" :)
So I eventually figured out.  Might fire up a 10 planet Tree and just knock it out.  Btw, it's square.  Minimum planet count is 16.  I'm kinda surprised it didn't drop to 9, actually.  And I'm knot reliant on komputors.  I kin khount!
« Last Edit: June 12, 2012, 10:47:11 pm by Wanderer »
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #16 on: June 12, 2012, 10:33:40 pm »
So... do we have a name for the next release yet? I am partial to The Wandering AI.
*snort* Now, it can't be quite THAT bad, can it?  ;)
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #17 on: June 12, 2012, 10:51:41 pm »
It's listed in the wave calcs but I don't think it's ever been on the wiki *gets nailed by the other thing on your foot*.  ZDs also get bigger waves and fewer reinforcements in general, but that's at least already on the wiki.

Probably should fold the +AIP values into that article that says what AIs get what multipliers to wave/reinforcement size but here's what's in the code:

Was going to edit the wiki and then realized something... are these in ADDITION to the multipliers or do they replace them?  My initial assumption was this replaced them, and that's most likely wrong... and puts my foot in my mouth for my earlier comment on mediocrity in the late game...
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #18 on: June 12, 2012, 11:08:29 pm »
It's listed in the wave calcs but I don't think it's ever been on the wiki *gets nailed by the other thing on your foot*.  ZDs also get bigger waves and fewer reinforcements in general, but that's at least already on the wiki.

Probably should fold the +AIP values into that article that says what AIs get what multipliers to wave/reinforcement size but here's what's in the code:

Was going to edit the wiki and then realized something... are these in ADDITION to the multipliers or do they replace them?  My initial assumption was this replaced them, and that's most likely wrong... and puts my foot in my mouth for my earlier comment on mediocrity in the late game...
Both the +effective_aip and *size modifiers have been in place since before I came aboard :)
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #19 on: June 12, 2012, 11:15:29 pm »
It's listed in the wave calcs but I don't think it's ever been on the wiki *gets nailed by the other thing on your foot*.  ZDs also get bigger waves and fewer reinforcements in general, but that's at least already on the wiki.

Probably should fold the +AIP values into that article that says what AIs get what multipliers to wave/reinforcement size but here's what's in the code:

Was going to edit the wiki and then realized something... are these in ADDITION to the multipliers or do they replace them?  My initial assumption was this replaced them, and that's most likely wrong... and puts my foot in my mouth for my earlier comment on mediocrity in the late game...
Both the +effective_aip and *size modifiers have been in place since before I came aboard :)
Ah, so it's both.  Yeah, that'd explain a bit about those early game waves... :)  Thanks again!
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Offline Oralordos

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #20 on: June 12, 2012, 11:57:02 pm »
So... do we have a name for the next release yet? I am partial to The Wandering AI.
*snort* Now, it can't be quite THAT bad, can it?  ;)
You've managed to defeat the AI on 10/10 twice during this release. So many of the changes are from your suggestions. I highly recommend at least referencing that achievement in some way. So yes it is THAT bad.

Offline Wanderer

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #21 on: June 13, 2012, 04:01:25 am »
So... do we have a name for the next release yet? I am partial to The Wandering AI.
*snort* Now, it can't be quite THAT bad, can it?  ;)
You've managed to defeat the AI on 10/10 twice during this release. So many of the changes are from your suggestions. I highly recommend at least referencing that achievement in some way. So yes it is THAT bad.

If it makes it any better I used easy AI types.... *scuffs foot* ... and shut off CSGs for one of those... *scuffs the other foot*
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Offline Oralordos

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #22 on: June 13, 2012, 01:57:00 pm »
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My guess is it's the Zenith Descendent's getting +40 effective AIP for the purpose of offensive waves *dodges thing on your foot*.  It's listed in the wave calcs but I don't think it's ever been on the wiki *gets nailed by the other thing on your foot*.  ZDs also get bigger waves and fewer reinforcements in general, but that's at least already on the wiki.
I need more things on your feet.  That's some brutal... and feeds once again into my argument that many MANY of these items were weighted towards early game pain with late game mediocrity.  However, this information helps, thanks.  If you don't get a chance to pop this on the wiki, I will eventually.
So... do we have a name for the next release yet? I am partial to The Wandering AI.
*snort* Now, it can't be quite THAT bad, can it?  ;)
You've managed to defeat the AI on 10/10 twice during this release. So many of the changes are from your suggestions. I highly recommend at least referencing that achievement in some way. So yes it is THAT bad.

If it makes it any better I used easy AI types.... *scuffs foot* ... and shut off CSGs for one of those... *scuffs the other foot*
You really are going to need new things on your feet, especially if you keep abusing them like that.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #23 on: June 13, 2012, 03:13:19 pm »
Oil?  This is 10/10, buddy.  Combustion below the order of a tactical nuclear warhead won't even warm a steak.
A lot of oil?  No?  Hm.
Maybe if you opened a wormhole on the AI homeworld to the elemental plane of oil...

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I like Hitchiker's as much as the next guy, but wow can you pull some trivia out of the blue.  :D
Well, I had to google for the full name, for some reason I thought it was Edward J. Prosser ;)

But yea, the necessary mental conditioning to be able to hold a couple of full codebases in memory has some... questionable side-effects.  Particularly when combined with a large amount of audiobook (and recorded-radio-show, in this case) listening.

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Yeah, no joy on Teleporter vs. Mine.  Their movement doesn't actually move across a minefield, so they never trigger.  They CAN get caught by AoE from others, but never themselves.
Hmm.  Probably need to either make them hit mines while tele-moving or just mark them immune-to-mines officially.  I lean towards the former, to add a choice for dealing with teleporters, but it also removes a choice for using them (mine bypass).

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I need more things on your feet.
Maybe the RNG needs to seed thing on your foot-shops...

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That's some brutal...
Oh yes, and is one of several reasons why the Zenith Descendent should be bumped from Easier to Moderate, I think.  The Spireling definitely should be too if it hasn't already.

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"Admiral, the entire fleet, it sunk due to your orders."
"I know.  Build another."
"Wait, what?"
"Don't worry, it's the third go, but this one will stand up."

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First: Threatballs won't form against AI held planets, ever.  They come in to support the AI world, under any circumstances.
Ah yes, that would do it.  Probably makes nerf+beachheading all bordering AI planets a viable tactic, though that probably puts a ton of planets on alert (which may not be bad).

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Second: You can force a threatball to move if a wave hits and you have forces on the enemy side of the gates.
Yea, I used to do that a lot with a spire fleet against 5k+ threatballs (played with cross-planet-waves on high AIP) that wouldn't dive against the city unless a huge exo was going through (the combination was too effective for comfort).  But if I snuck the capital ships around to come out a different wormhole on their planet (going through the one they were camping "worked", but didn't leave much spire fleet) they would bumrush the anvil and as long as my hammer caught up it went fairly well.  Of course, later I just took to EMP I or II'ing the threatball and letting my capital ships have lunch.

Hopefully we can actually get 5.036 out the door sometime soon; getting AVWW 1.1 out the door has absorbed Chris like it was some kind of gelatinous cube, but that's pretty much the only way officials get done ;)
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Offline PokerChen

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #24 on: June 13, 2012, 03:33:05 pm »
My guess is it's the Zenith Descendent's getting +40 effective AIP for the purpose of offensive waves *dodges thing on your foot*.  It's listed in the wave calcs but I don't think it's ever been on the wiki *gets nailed by the other thing on your foot*.  ZDs also get bigger waves and fewer reinforcements in general, but that's at least already on the wiki.

Probably should fold the +AIP values into that article that says what AIs get what multipliers to wave/reinforcement size but here's what's in the code:

Well, that will become additional entries on the mega-table. You've mentioned it previously on the forums, I think, but we missed it.

Also, considering that the name infiltrators does imply cloaking....

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #25 on: June 13, 2012, 03:53:53 pm »
Well, that will become additional entries on the mega-table.
That is quite a mega-table; looks very nice :)
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #26 on: June 13, 2012, 04:46:30 pm »
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Yeah, no joy on Teleporter vs. Mine.  Their movement doesn't actually move across a minefield, so they never trigger.  They CAN get caught by AoE from others, but never themselves.
Hmm.  Probably need to either make them hit mines while tele-moving or just mark them immune-to-mines officially.  I lean towards the former, to add a choice for dealing with teleporters, but it also removes a choice for using them (mine bypass).
I personally lean towards 'as-is'.  Mine Bypass with AoE succeptability.  What'd I'd personally like to see is them unable to teleport inside a Grav Turret's range... or a similar turret specifically built to stop TP's into a certain radius.  This way I could drop them on homeworlds which just can't have a Logistics III and still buy myself a LITTLE time before the teleporting assault team(s) land on their heads.  It'd also be a nice midpoint between having to use Log IIIs or no defense against teleporters except FFs on the wormholes, too.

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That's some brutal...
Oh yes, and is one of several reasons why the Zenith Descendent should be bumped from Easier to Moderate, I think.  The Spireling definitely should be too if it hasn't already.
Between that and the repaired paralyzers (they're NASTY in bulk in AI hands) I'd definately kick them up to Moderate, if not Hard.

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Ah yes, that would do it.  Probably makes nerf+beachheading all bordering AI planets a viable tactic, though that probably puts a ton of planets on alert (which may not be bad).
I currently have a significant temptation to try this out on Cross Planet waves, using the entry planet(s) as attrition roads.

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Yea, I used to do that a lot with a spire fleet against 5k+ threatballs (played with cross-planet-waves on high AIP) that wouldn't dive against the city unless a huge exo was going through (the combination was too effective for comfort).  But if I snuck the capital ships around to come out a different wormhole on their planet (going through the one they were camping "worked", but didn't leave much spire fleet) they would bumrush the anvil and as long as my hammer caught up it went fairly well.  Of course, later I just took to EMP I or II'ing the threatball and letting my capital ships have lunch.
On FS that makes sense with the EMP Missiles, but in a normal game by the time you're looking at an EMP missile you've already got enough problems that the little missile isn't going to save your fleet.  Then it comes to time vs. AIP cost and the value of the fleet vs. a wave gate in AIP for the MK II/III.  You don't really need a LOT of firepower however to push a hanging threatball though, if you've already got invaders in the anvil.  A reasonably sized cloaked squad (Cloaker starships + transports can handle it) with some starships and the like to boost the FP will push almost any threatball through as long as there's invaders.

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Hopefully we can actually get 5.036 out the door sometime soon; getting AVWW 1.1 out the door has absorbed Chris like it was some kind of gelatinous cube, but that's pretty much the only way officials get done ;)
Ah, no worries.  Most of the recommended changes wouldn't have come into play for this one.  I murdered the AI in its sleep this round.  I still need to do that 10 planet one though, so that may happen here shortly.  Thinking 3 HW tree map...
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #27 on: June 13, 2012, 05:38:56 pm »
I currently have a significant temptation to try this out on Cross Planet waves, using the entry planet(s) as attrition roads.
It's a pretty different way to play.  One advantage is you no longer need to gate-raid for the most part (iirc you can still use it to control possible spawn points).  You might even like combining it with no-wave-announcements for a game that really feels different (toss in unexplored-map for gratuitous punishment), but that might get to be a bit much in high-difficulty play.

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On FS that makes sense with the EMP Missiles
Yea, speaking of a really different way to play ;)  It gets to the point where "nuking every planet on the way to the homeworld" is actually a seriously-considerable tactic.  But generally that's also past the point where your capital fleet is more dangerous than a nuke and the warheads will really only save you a few minutes if that.

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Most of the recommended changes wouldn't have come into play for this one.
Quantity-wise, perhaps, but I think the "all AI HWs get exactly 2 from the set of eye, Core-CPA, and Core-Raid" rule would have at least made your day more interesting.  And each AI player would have had 1 less datacenter.  And the base wave sizes would be somewhat higher even at modest (50ish) AIP.  And the AI would have heavily preferred longer-time waves.  And the MkII waves would have been partly MkIII.  And carriers would have been much  more dangerous (though I think you probably weren't getting carriers because the individual waves were not that large).

Short story: it wants a rematch, punk ;)

Now if Environ would stop having last-minute performance problems...
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #28 on: June 13, 2012, 05:49:34 pm »
I currently have a significant temptation to try this out on Cross Planet waves, using the entry planet(s) as attrition roads.
It's a pretty different way to play.  One advantage is you no longer need to gate-raid for the most part (iirc you can still use it to control possible spawn points).  You might even like combining it with no-wave-announcements for a game that really feels different (toss in unexplored-map for gratuitous punishment), but that might get to be a bit much in high-difficulty play.
Well, on the short maps I'm goofing off with, yeah, it might be reasonable, particularly since I'm not gate-raiding at all on the mini-fights.  On the big ones... errr... I'm not too sure.  My biggest concern is satellite system defenses.  How does the Warp Blocking station interact with Cross-Planet waves?  I assume it's useless?

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Most of the recommended changes wouldn't have come into play for this one.
Quantity-wise, perhaps, but I think the "all AI HWs get exactly 2 from the set of eye, Core-CPA, and Core-Raid" rule would have at least made your day more interesting.  And each AI player would have had 1 less datacenter.  And the base wave sizes would be somewhat higher even at modest (50ish) AIP.  And the AI would have heavily preferred longer-time waves.  And the MkII waves would have been partly MkIII.  And carriers would have been much  more dangerous (though I think you probably weren't getting carriers because the individual waves were not that large).[/quote]
True, the Brutal Guardpost rule would definately make it more intense, but one of them had that (Raid + Eye) already.  The other one I was deepstriking didn't have either and yeah, definately would have made things more intense.

There was only one datacenter in this little galaxy, so I'm not sure that would have made a difference here, though with -0- data centers this would have been a different game, particularly with the expanded wave time.  I'm not sure I'd have seen much, if any, of the MK III waves.  Only one of the AIs could use it (the MK II Homeworlder) and even then my highest 'running' AIP was 41, and that was right before the double-punch on the homeworlds.

You're right about the carriers, and was something I'd only noticed mid-game.  A carrier only forms when a single wave goes past a certain volume.  With all the mini-waves adding up to carrier volume it didn't actually carrier anything.

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Short story: it wants a rematch, punk ;)
*Laces up the gloves* Anytime yer ready, ya little weasel!  I'll bounce you around the ring like a hackey sack!
*aside to the coach* Get me my mouthpiece and have an ambulance on standby, this is gonna hurt...

For those curious, I'm goofing off with a 10/10 on a tree at the moment vs. the Core and Grav Driller.  Why them?

A) I HATE the Grav Driller.  Kicking those achievements out in a small system will make me a happier person, because I intend to simply blow them up and not have to deal with them.  In a larger galaxy that many Gravs dying would hurt AIP rediculously.
B) The Core?  Well, why not? ;)

I'm not doing my usual AAR for this one though, I'll post up a short form of the fight afterwards.
... and then we'll have cake.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Do not pass Go....
« Reply #29 on: June 13, 2012, 06:32:21 pm »
How does the Warp Blocking station interact with Cross-Planet waves?  I assume it's useless?
The warp-jamming part is meaningless on cp-waves, yea.  But recently-added alert-suppression still works, though that's really not helpful for the run-of-the-mill satellite defense.

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There was only one datacenter in this little galaxy, so I'm not sure that would have made a difference here, though with -0- data centers this would have been a different game, particularly with the expanded wave time.
Actually I think the new logic would have made it have a minimum of 1 per AI player, so 2 in the galaxy ;)  May need to fix that in the new logic.

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With all the mini-waves adding up to carrier volume it didn't actually carrier anything.
Interesting, I suspect that that 5200 ship wave would have only spawned 5000 ships then: basically any time the AI has 5000 ships on a planet any attempt to add another AI ship to the planet causes the new one to disappear in a puff of logic (unless it's a hybrid or avenger or whatever... I hope).  The carriers were added to cause increasing wave sizes to not murder the underlying hardware, but if those more graceful rules don't work it takes the gloves off.

I suspect the problem would have been academic in your case ;)

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a 10/10 on a tree at the moment vs. the Core and Grav Driller
Sounds like hardcore dental work ;)  And probably about as pleasant.
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