Oh. Dear. Lord.

[Wanderer]

Think I figured out why the Insta-U-Turn is so phenomenally bad of a sudden.

Since threat now behaves more intelligently when "stonewalled", removed the /10 modifier that turret firepower was given when evaluating whether a threatball should attack. Before it was better that they just get it over with, but now it's better that they regroup with other threat and look for an opening.
 

Recent beta release.  I'm going to have to say I wasn't a fan of the adjustment in the first place but now I'm REALLY not that joyful about it!   

Yea, it will require a bit of strategy/tactics change to deal with, but rather that than idiotically simple to manipulate/stall threat, right?

Well, we've generally disagreed with each other about how 'smart' the AI should be about when it'll commit against something.  For an enemy with 'endless resources' it sure is damned cagey about attacking. However, this change has the effect of necessitating the equivalent of BHG'ing any system that's expecting waves.  I don't currently have the trader available to use that option.

Not saying that further tweaks can be made to make threat even more interesting, and/or less annoying to deal with while still being intelligent, but personally, I'd rather fight trickier and sometimes a tad annoying to deal unit intelligent behavior then dumb, easy to game behavior.
However, the best is fun (or at least interesting to deal with) and intelligent behavior.

Constant threat at the level of fleet-stopper is not annoying, it's aggravating to the nth degree.  Part of it is that I've invested a lot into defense and I expect said defense to eat the threat when it waves in.  1/5th or more of any wave immediately beelining to get the hell out of there falls under the header of 'why did you show up in the first place?'  Particularly when it's already proven that it has enough firepower to break said whipping boy before, with just a little help from some MK IVs guardians.

I'm all for interesting, but this is just time-eating, not interesting.  Every wave I have to go out and break a threat-ball immediately, before it gathers strength.  I could play with CPWs and just expect to deal with it that way instead.

On the subject of intelligence, I only want my AI so intelligent.  I want to play a perfect game against the computer, I'll crank up chess.  I want to play amazingly adaptive response, I'll play a human.  At this difficulty level you need to be able to make some expectations about what will and won't work before you go in, things you've learned at earlier levels.  This is a massive game changer to me.  SF changes I like.  They're a bit heavy handed, but I like 'em, and certainly fall under the header of smart/interesting.  This... this not so much.

Words... I need words to explain why this is such a pain in my arse.  Ah, let's try these.

I go through all this work to setup a whipping boy, blowing up warp gates, eating huge AIP gains for it.  I break threatballs and SF forces floating through my backfield so I can get things done... and now, when the wave hits my defenses I've got MORE threat and MORE floating things that I just dealt with and my investment into defenses doesn't work unless the AI can obliterate them in the first place.  Why the heck did I just bother?!

There's a balance point here... I feel like we missed it.

[TechSY730]

Agreed on several things. (in how it applies to AI war), in particular

1. The minimum time until the AI considers retreat needs to be bumped up some. The 30 seconds of the past may have been too much, but the 3 seconds of now is too little. (the firepower ratio where it retreats may need some adjustment as well, as well adjusting as the halfing of the firepower estimate of its own firepower for higher level AIs)
2. I also agree that a /1 adjustment to turret firepower consideration (no adjustment) was a bit much. /3 maybe? /4?

[keith.lamothe]

On the wave retreat behavior, to clarify, is it:

- Retreating after 30 seconds?
- Retreating more or less instantly?

[Mánagarmr]

On the wave retreat behavior, to clarify, is it:

- Retreating after 30 seconds?
- Retreating more or less instantly?

Wait a minute here...why would waves suddenly start retreating just because threat-mechanics (30 minutes camping, then form fleet) changed? I don't follow here.

Could it be that when the wave hits, the threatball feels it can join in on the fun, and when the wave gets obliterated, threat decides to bugger out? Or...am I missing something?

[keith.lamothe]

On the wave retreat behavior, to clarify, is it:

- Retreating after 30 seconds?
- Retreating more or less instantly?

Wait a minute here...why would waves suddenly start retreating just because threat-mechanics (30 minutes camping, then form fleet) changed? I don't follow here.

Could it be that when the wave hits, the threatball feels it can join in on the fun, and when the wave gets obliterated, threat decides to bugger out? Or...am I missing something?

The decisions "do I retreat from attacking the planet I'm on" and "do I attack the planet I'm waiting to attack" key off the same number: human firepower on the planet in question.

Previously, turrets counted 1/10th as much as their actual dps warranted.  After something like a year and a half of pestering, this was changed to no longer be so   I felt it was time to try that because the threat logic was recently changed to be more intelligent than just sitting on a single wormhole forever if it has no chance of success.

[TechSY730]

I think the firepower calculation that was being used for "am I too out-firepowered to go in?" is the same one that is used for "am I out-firepowered enough that I should retreat from this attack?".

P.S. Ninja'd

[Mánagarmr]

Ah, that would certainly explain the "on planet" behaviour then. I zee.

[Toranth]

Think I figured out why the Insta-U-Turn is so phenomenally bad of a sudden.

Since threat now behaves more intelligently when "stonewalled", removed the /10 modifier that turret firepower was given when evaluating whether a threatball should attack. Before it was better that they just get it over with, but now it's better that they regroup with other threat and look for an opening.
 

Recent beta release.  I'm going to have to say I wasn't a fan of the adjustment in the first place but now I'm REALLY not that joyful about it!   

Looks like it means that Black Hole Generators are mandatory on your grinder systems now.  Hope you like having the Trader turned on.

Edit:  Any chance of getting the BHG to be a Knowledge unlock instead of Trader goody?

[Mánagarmr]

Edit:  Any chance of getting the BHG to be a Knowledge unlock instead of Trader goody?

Wow...that's...actually not a bad idea at all. Hmm. Intrigued.

[Wanderer]

5:45:00 The fleet cleans out Dyson Misery and then heads back to support Nero's Fiddle which is under significant assault.  The reclaimers have cloaked past the mini-forts and have heavily hit the spider-bank on the edge.  Eventually FRD is required for Zombard hunting.

5:50:00 3 mins, 30 secs till 2k ship CPA.  Threatball on Wonder Woman is at ~200 ships, including a 39 unit carrier from an earlier U-Turn.

Econ at 265k/747k.  I'm banking for repairs and rebuilding Nero's Beachhead until the CPA is cleaned up.

5:51:42 245 ship wave announced for Matrix.  There's... something horribly wrong with that value.  My guess, it's a mono-wave of something BIG.  The fleet heads to support.  The CPA releases 30 seconds after the wave so I want it cleaned up quickly either way.

5:53:22 Econ: 399k/945k.  the wave lands.  242 E-Bomber IIs and a smattering of IIIs.  Gyeads.

Support threat immediately comes in.  140 cutlasses and a handful of other trash.

5:53:54 CPA launches.
258 MK II
19 MK I
1,246 MK III
577 MK II from reserve.

Fleet's been hiding under the FFs so they're intact, and most of the cutlasses are down (or ran away again) and we're down to only 109 E-Bombers.

A huge amount of threat released off Marlboro, 866 ships, and another 125 on No Way Out.

They're both behind me.  The beach-head is going to get TOASTED.  I immediately ship the fleet out to Nero's and let the turretball handle the remaining e-bombers and starships.

5:55:00 Turretry on Poker is dealing with drifters coming in from Arrakkis.  631 enemy ships have landed on Nero's Fiddle so far.  The fleet's ALMOST there.

88 of those ships are Siege Engines.  Seriously?  That's like critical mass there.

5:56:30 90 ships are on Poker, seriously threatening the defenses.  20 of them are reprocessors just tanking the mini-forts, another 5 are medics which are doing their best to keep things alive.

Meanwhile, on the Fiddle, the spider-bank has been assaulted.  Just too many ships to try to stop them all.  The fleet is concentrating on shredders to try to keep them from multiplying but it means they're ignoring serious firepower ships, like the 54 Ebomber IIs, the 166 Bomber II/IIIs, or the 69 siege Engines.

With only two Corvettes and nothing else left, the fleet attempts to retreat to Poker.  Only the two corvettes make it ( a I and a II).  Homeworld fleet rebuilds are being shipped to FRD on Poker.

Only one corvette makes it through Poker and heads to Strana (homeworld) for repairs.  Poker is now defending from 181 ships and falling.

5:58:12 Poker command falls.  Defense is now on the homeworld.

Econ is at 1.3k/715k.  Manual metal converter activation ignited.

I've been wondering where the majority of the threat is, they're still in Nero's Fiddle.  Apparently the Human Resistance showed up to give a hand with what I THINK used to be ~100 ships.  They're fighting off on the edge and I have nothing left on that system to support them other than scrap metal.

Wonder Woman is also sitting on 860 threat now, 412 in firepower.  Only 366 threat still on Nero's.

The 825 ships on WW include 160 bombers (mostly IIIs), 383 Cutlasses (also mostly IIIs), 27 Siege engines, an Imposion Guardian III, and sporadic other inclusions.  They're not committing against the turret-ball.

6:00:00 An attempt to get back to Poker fails miserably, I send my scouts over so I can get eyes on it.

There's 192 ships just parked on Strana's wormhole.  That's great.

Wonder Woman is now up to 1000+ ships as a threatball.  The frigates are catching up.

Fleet is about half rebuilt.

6:00:45 The threatfleet assaults Matrix. 937 MK III with a smattering of IIs engage and the Missile Frigates are making quick work of anything without radar dampening.

6:01:00 AIP: 92 due to autoprogress.

6:01:14 Econ down to 16k/203k.  Final Corvette II should be off the lines shortly and the fleet will attempt to take back Poker.  The Turret ball will have to hold on its own.  The assault is down to 685 ships but the Lightning/Flak FFs are about to drop, which means the massive tractor wall will fall shortly... and the cutlasses have been wailing away on those turrets non-stop.

6:01:33 The fleet is rebuilt mostly, missing a bunch of flagships.  It'll have to do.  The fleet prepares to assault the Poker threat remnants.

6:02:00 With two FF IIs still alive protecting the tractors, the turretball is down to only 146 enemies, but all the short/mid range turrets are dead. Still 289 threat out there, but most of it's on Nero's Fiddle.

Unfortunately, we revolving doored the Poker fleet, and they poured into Strana as my fleet moved to engage them.

6:02:45 Econ is famine.  What we've got is what we've got.  Turretball trying to rebuild.

Strana is defended with minimal casualties, maybe 1/2 of the main fleet but no corvettes.  Time to get Poker online, need the resources.

6:04:30 No, SERIOUSLY you silly rebuilder, START WITH THE Command Center!!!  Dangit.  I can't even force it to do the command center first.  Twiddle.  C'mon...

6:05:00 Finally.  Sheesh.

6:06:42 The fleet's holding off the threatball formed up on Fiddle waiting to get into Poker.  Econ is at -4.5k/s  -5.5k/s.  Yeah, this'll take a bit.

Well, that's one of the rearward barracks emptied out at least.

6:08:45 Mil I on Poker comes online.  Can get that econ back up and running there again once the harvesters build.

6:09:40 Still rebuilding fleet/turrets/miniforts.  Twiddle.

6:10:22 1,350 enemy ships to Matrix in 140.  Turretball still trying to rebuild, too, mostly the FFs.

6:11:56 Fleet's rebuilt but Poker will drop like a rock if I move the fleet to support Matrix.  I'm going to bait the enemy in.  Fleet heads back to Strana now that the majority of the defenses are rebuilt on Poker, just waiting on mini-forts.

Wave lands.  350 ship carrier + 468 Cutlass, 254 Vulture, 158 Bomber, 120 Frigs.   Think the fighters died in the alpha.

Even with the fleet retreated, the threatball is not committing.  Hm.

6:12:33 Carrier pop was a mess of fighters and a few starships.  There's a Spire II and a Raid II that were hiding in this mess somewhere too.  Still no threatball committal.

6:13:00 Down to 633 wave ships but still no committal by the Fiddle threatball.  I'm not willing to commit the fleet until I know I don't have 300+ MK III's breathing down my neck.

6:13:30 The wave is mostly destroyed.  147 ships left.  It's time to deal with the Fiddle.  The fleet moves out to take that threatball on at point blank range.  The heavy tractor at the entry wormhole has kept escaping threat to a reasonable level.

6:14:00 the fleet hits Nero's Fiddle.  ALpha strike.  1/3 of the bombers, 1/2 of the fighters down for the fleet. I sic the fleet on the zombards attempting to escape.  With the FF's down on the Corvettes I retreat the fleet, 286 enemy ships remain, some are zombies.

I get out with 20 bombers, 18 frigates, 3 corvettes,  no Neinzuls, and 26 fighters.  Ow.

Medics are repairing the enemy fleet in Nero's Fiddle and there's shite I can do about it.

Econ's still on the floor.

Well, I was able to block the CPA but now I have to dig back out of the hole.  See earlier maps, nothing's changed and I've got dinner plans so I'm just going to post this for now and I'll try to make it 'pretty' later.

[keith.lamothe]

Wow, quite a battle there

[Wanderer]

Wow, quite a battle there

Tell me about it, and I'm not even done with it.  Those CPAs are getting viscious cleaning out the MK III barracks behind me.  I'm going to have to pop the other one before I seal the breach I think.

[Wanderer]

-- State of the Universe --

Alright, where am I?  I've just reclaimed Poker and need to re-establish Nero's Fiddle (and clean out that other 500 ship barracks behind me before it gets rediculous).  The fleet's a tattered wreck after the first assault on Nero's Fiddle, they're rebuilding in a famine econ.

AIP is 92, threat is 286 (mostly MK III), no wave, and I seriously need to get another system before I end up completely stagnated.  Either Sox for the other Whipping Boy or Roulette for the Shield Bearers.  Both by preference.  Next research is Riot IIs for Tazers on the Whips.

Light 'em up.

-- Rebuilding the fleet --

6:15:25 The Raid I fleet is still viable, so there's got to be a target for 'em while I wait.  I decide I'm going to punch the Tach Drill through Cyborg next over in the northern cluster to my west to see if I can get scouts a little deeper over there.

There's a mob on the gate entry from Wonder Woman however.

6:17:03 The Raids trade one raid for one tachyon down and head home for repairs.

They don't make it home through Wonder Woman however.  There's a small battery on the Matrix gate.

6:19:52 Turn off starship construction once the last corvette is rebuilt to allow fleet to rebuild.

6:22:10 The fleet's finally rebuilt, sans Flagships and Factories.  I'm going to try to end-swing the blockade at Nero's Fiddle by going around the south and coming in from a different gate.

6:23:53 Wave announces for Matrix, 719 ships.  They're on their own, but hopefully some of the WW threatball will commit.  The fleet just arrived in Sox, having passed through Neverending Story and Misery on the way.  I'm going to let the fleet do a little cleanup work here in preparation to take it before moving north to Earth and then to Nero's Fiddle.

6:25:00 The fleet, down to 4 corvettes, 74 Frigates, and crapall else after duking it out in Sox against the SF stream as well as the local guardian defenders tucks tail for home to refleet.  More threat heads for Nero's Fiddle from the backwash of assaulting Sox.

6:29:00 Wave defeated, Fleet ready again, this time with Factory ships.  Econ still in the dirt.

6:31:00 Main fleet arrives on Sox again.  Most of the defenders are gone but the SF stream is strong here.  Lot of frigs with some zombard support.

6:31:00 AIP: 93 from autoprogress

6:32:54 The fleet clears Sox of all Tach and non WHGPs.  It's time to assault Earth.  175 ships of MK III Earth.

6:34:00 With the fleet having hammered into EArth and Earth now having 222 ships instead of 175, we did decent damage.  The fleet's retreated to Sox to handle any 'leftovers' that might come their way, recharge corvette shields, and rebuild fighters.  About 50% of the fleet survived first wave.

The enemy has chased us to Sox in force, with over 100 ships and rising.

6:35:00 At 54 ships left, the fleet realizes it's going to die.  Hoping the corvettes can use the frigates as a screen they run for homeworld.

That barely works, 3 Corvettes make it home.  The sheer firepower obliterated the fleet.  These are mostly SF units.  Looks like I need to bait them to their death again.

Meanwhile, Poker's been assaulted by the other portion of Earth that moved out.  The threatball on Nero's Fiddle still won't move, but these guys decided to attack.

Poker doesn't last very long.  I'm going to end up in an Econ Spiral here.

6:39:30 With the loss of Poker's resources I turn off the starship builder again so hopefully I can get enough fleet to evict the 60+ MK III ships parked on Poker.

Right now 440 SF troops are just parked in Sox, another 283 leftover threat from the CPA are chilling in Nero's, and 65 threat from Earth are hanging out on Poker.  I've got a mess.

6:42:23 The fleet, finally rebuilt, heads for Poker.

6:43:22 Eviction complete, minus a few hobos hiding under their cloaks.  I send in a rebuilder.  Over half the fleet was lost retaking Poker but at least the starships didn't fall.

6:44:30 An energy crisis has arisen with the loss of Poker.  That's just great.

6:45:19 As the Mil I on Poker comes online, the cloaked ships re-appear and blow it to pieces.  They ignored the fleet and were just waiting for the command center.  Tricksy hobbits.

6:45:50 The SF buildup in Sox is up to 500+ ships.  The backdoor is no longer open.

6:47:12 Fighting with Poker's problems has led me to the next issue.  Flat econ and 1,713 ship wave for Matrix.  I've definately econ spiraled.

Gods,a 713 ship carrier.  That thing's viscious.

6:51:00 With fleet support the wave is stopped with reasonable losses at the LRM lines, basically the last defensive point.

Sox is now a parking lot of nearly 600 ships.

6:52:30 the fleet heads after Nero's Fiddle.  Front door.  They barely survive the alpha strike... and aren't able to kill all the medics, one remains.  Only two corvettes are still alive.

6:55:00 Another wave hits Matrix, 107 ships.  Odd... all Reclaimers.  Great.

77 of them push up to the Basics and lay waste to them in a salvo.  63 make it to the laser banks and pretty much flatline those, too.

49 make it to the MLRS turrets and bypass the HBCs completely.

They're finally stopped about halfway to the mini-fort/LRM line.  Yeesh.

6:57:00 Wanderer says Fuggit.


Alright, there's a few things here that are seriously fouling me up... one of which is photobucket changing their site around and it screwing up horribly.

I've attached the save.  Keith, if you get bored enough, can you check out two things for me?

First, why is Sox a parking lot?

Second, why won't the threatball on Nero's Fiddle commit to anything?  Is it because of all the dead turrets?

100 planets I think is just too large a galaxy at this level, at least for me.  I can't drill/picket everything I want to and the extra planet or two between me and the first ARS is just too far to really work with.

The new SF are kicking me around like a ragdoll.  They are BRUTAL, and a massive delay between CPAs.  The next CPA will kill me, once again I'm dying to stagnation/econ spiral.

The new spire corvettes are too much of a research investment to use, particularly as a starter ship.  To really get the power out of them you need to drop a ton of research into turretry and the corvettes themselves.  They're a fun toy but the K cost is too high for the DPS delivery and they're inanely expensive on rebuilds.  The raw numbers may tell a different story but they're just not powerful enough for what they cost.

I did not have the critical mass of fleet to really fight this war.  This was a critical issue.  I just don't have the numbers in MK II ships to actually take on threatballs.

Medics and Reprocessors.  Oh gods, Medics and Reprocessors.  They're brutal in the hands of the AI.  You can't 'whittle' against a fleet with medics in it, it's kill or run.  Reprocessors are just tanks.  You beat on them all day in the volume the AI gets them and they just don't DIE... and then they cloak past your heavy defenses and pop up right in your face with all those HP.  Combine these two monsters and... yeah.  Ow.

I'm starting to think you may absolutely need to have Champs to play at this difficulty to avoid econ spirals.  Rebuilds against massive SF fleets and the like are just brutal.

I'm going to go enjoy a few games without taking the time to AAR them, and get a better handle on dealing with these new tactics without using the Champs. I'll get around to Champions, but in general I usually avoid superweapons in most of my AARs.  You've watched me bang my head on the desk here, now I'm gonna go have some fun with it until I get a better handle on things.

Y'all are welcome to pick up the save and see if you can get out of the hole I've dug here, however, I honestly won't take offense. 

[zoutzakje]

I am kind of tempted now to try out that save, but I got 3 games going on already. Besides, if a regular 10/10 player can't do it, I'm not exactly sure I can I'll practise some more with 9/9 first.
Still, you survived for about 7 hours. That's quite something.

[keith.lamothe]

Alas, Don Quixote has hung up the spear.  There's always other windmills.

I've attached the save.  Keith, if you get bored enough, can you check out two things for me?

First, why is Sox a parking lot?

When the SF doesn't have an active "go crush human" mission it rallies to a random planet 3 hops deep in AI territory.  Just so happened it picked Sox after your last tangle.  If you provoke them into a defense mission again and then retreat, once the mission clears they'll roll the random for a rally planet again, and thus probably not re-park on Sox.

Second, why won't the threatball on Nero's Fiddle commit to anything?  Is it because of all the dead turrets?

That's because... because... um, er...

*Squish*

There was a bug.  It's fixed for next version.

As you guessed, it was due to the remains units under your control.  The threatfleet group there wasn't satisfied that those turrets were dead enough, so it was sticking around to finish the job.  Only it couldn't.

Your Sirius Cybernetics Complaints Department Representative is certain you'll be elated to know that once the bug in question was dislodged, the threatfleet blob immediately moved along its planned circuitous route around your borders to attack and flatten Macross, and then proceeded on schedule to Poker (I didn't watch that one).

As part of our referrals incentives program, you have received a substantial credit at the Sirius Cybernetics Complaints Department Gift Store for your assistance in exterminating the human race.

(i.e. thanks, that bug was probably causing all manner of problems)

Medics and Reprocessors.

And Siege Engines.

Zenith Descendents probably need a promotion.  Or two.


Well, thanks for leaving your forehead imprints in the brick wall in order to facilitate study and analysis.  For science!