Game Start! 3.182 beta feedback stuff

[keith.lamothe]

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

[Diazo]

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.

[Diazo]

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.

[keith.lamothe]

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

[keith.lamothe]

By the way, seen any more preservation wardens lately?

[Diazo]

Been looking forward to the update

Glad to hear it. 

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! 

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. 

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

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.

[Diazo]

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.

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?

[keith.lamothe]

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.

[Diazo]

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.

[Diazo]

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.

[Diazo]

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.  
Two ion cannons in the system, so the wave bonuses stack upon each other.

Got to log for the night now.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

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.  
Two ion cannons in the system, so the wave bonuses stack upon each other.

Ah, yea, multiple multipliers makes the AI stop messing around.

[Diazo]

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?

[keith.lamothe]

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.

[Giegue]

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?