The AI 9 through 10 run

[Wanderer]

So with plans in the northeast stalled out until I take Llama, I decided I was going to invade Huge and get the Autobombers going on Macross for further defenses before I begin a campaign in the northeast.

I also decided I was going to gut the WHGPs in Shawshank and SuperTerminal while I was at it... that lasted 1 whole minute before I tossed that out the window.

The Warp Gate was popped on SuperTerminal to help with wave issues and the new Econ I was put up at 9:38.  A new Space Dock was brought online on Macross dedicated to AutoBombers, with them set to FRD near the entry wormhole from under the forcefields.  AIP at 59.  Radar Jammer's up to 52% and the Rebel Response Fleet is about 50% built.  I've built one HBC on Huge to help deal with minor drifting along with a FF and a pair of gravs.

Hm, that's interesting.  Mines + Autobombers are almost counter-productive.  The Leading Edge hits the mines and EMPs.  The Autobombers select their targets from amongst the leading edge and go barreling in to suicide... into the EMP'd targets and then the rest of the non-EMP'd milling around get a free ride.  Hm.  I'll try posting the AutoBombers at a longer distance, hoping they'll pick more valid targets.

At 9:49 the Fleet escorts a Colony ship towards Llama.  It's time to start fighting the northeast campaign.

That worked better with the auto-bombers at range and letting the turrets handle the leading edge emp'ers.

Mr AI wiseguy bought himself an Ion II for Cyborg from the traders.  He's just having a good time for himself today.  I dispatch the Raid SS unit to go help deal with that while the fleet continues on.

I choose to drop a Logistics I into Llama since it's a major crossroads.  however, I just realized I haven't dealt with the neighboring warpgates yet.  The Raid SSs make a high-speed run for Llama to help protect it.  Worst case scenario I have to escort another Colony ship down.  I power down the station for the moment at 67% built so I can get a chance to pop the warp gates without getting flattened.

With the four attached warp gates down, AIP is at 100.  One of the newfangled Anti-Warp stations probably would have been an excellent choice here, but my research is at 4750 and I want to get up to MK III on a few ships soonish so the MK IV Factory isn't simply a paperweight.

I move fleet construction facilities out to Llama as well, shutting down the ones on Macross.  The couple of fleet ships there I simply scrap for rebuild.  The Rebel Response fleet is fully built and the rest of the fleet ships (Scout Starships, 1 Cloaker, etc) head for Llama as the new staging area.  I also prepare a ship design hacker on Llama.  Double duty, it can also get the local research.

I modify auto builds on Engi Is, 10 for Macross now and 15 on Llama.  See where I end up with that, might need to move a few around.  I also scrap the 3 hiding on Huge.

AIP 100 904 ship wave for Macross.  Excellent.

I only get 13 to build on Llama.  That'll be good enough.  Lower that to 10 so I have a few spares.

Heh, whoops, Ship-Hacker doesn't get research, that's the K-Raider.  Science II it is.

I position the fleet against the wormhole to Llama from Hacker and get the Ship Hacker into position under the 4 Riots.  The Rebel Response fleet is hanging back on Llama to help protect the station.

Okay, that's annoying.  When I'm moving my Riots around, if they collide with the ship hacker, IT moves instead of the Riot moving off the collision.

Using the fact that Llama had a repair bay sitting next door, I was able to be a lot more aggressive with the Maws, retreating them for repairs and then coming back in with pretty much impunity.  By pushing forward and falling back with the fleet, I was able to engage the main force as they came out without getting over extended.  When it fired off a Tachyon Burst the fleet went minefield hunting.

The volume of troops being sent at us, particularly with mine-field kill losses (even though they could see them, they drove right over them to kill other ones behind them) forced me to bring about 200 ships of reinforcements in from Llama.  The Riot shields also saved the Hacker by giving me a little response time when one of the random-location spawns got behind me.

AT 10:12 the ARS hack is complete.  The Rebels head for Davion to deal with the EMP and warpgate and we prepare to take control of Hacker.  The main fleet heads for Davion and pops that, too.

The Speed Booster and Spider V fabs on Hacker are set to send their troops to Llama and 2 Engi Is go to help out.

AIP is 136.

Only CSG-Cs are left... and Desperado is the target of choice for that for its fabricators... and I realize I never did pop the CSG-E back on twycross so the Rebel Responders head for that...

10:20: 3388 enemy ships to Macross.  AIP 136.  Ow.  Here we go.  The Radar Jammer II is only up to 82%.

3 Carriers (1000, 1000, 328) come in with the invasion force, only 930 are actually loosed early, and they're mostly Missile Frigs.  The EMP minefield isn't anywhere near as powerful as I'd hoped, particularly when Carriers can escape and unload their payload.

I've attached a screenshot below of how the minefield actually plays out against the enemy.  I'll definately have to re-distribute the minefield.

Another 2750 ship wave lands at 10:23, 1700 ships in carriers.  The minefield is nowhere near rebuilt yet either, but the edges are tagging enough of them.

Watching this wave hit there's a secondary area I need to mine out for carrier drops.  That can be done pretty easily, actually, and will give me a secondary EMP area.  That will work rather nicely, actually.  I'm >< close to opening up harvester cloakers just to keep all of the enemy on the 'straight and narrow' path of destruction.

Next step: The assault on Kirk and Desperado, with the final target of Earth in mind... along with those tasty looking Spire Archives.

However, I'm now packing a ton of Research, ending up at ~13,750 K.  NOM NOM NOM NOM!

So, Bomber III and ... hm...  Maw IIIs to be researched... and IV'd at the shiny new factory on Davion!  If anyone is familiar with Battletech, the Factory IV on Davion is kinda amusing.  It would only be more amusing if it had picked one of the construction world names I'd used in the world files.

Problem though is I'm VERY low on Engineers.  Hrm.  With the Rebel Colony Fleet built, I don't need 5 engis on Twycross anymore... I leave them one.  I don't want less than 5 Engis on homeworld for security reasons.  Macross needs the 10 its got to speed after-wave repairs.  Llama needs its 10 for fleet rebuilds.

So thats 5..6...26... cap of 39.... 28 for the 2 there...  Where the heck are these engis hiding at?
Oh, right!  The minefield rebuilders.  Leave 2 there and drop 3 more at the Fact IV.

I create another main-fleet sub-group for the SpeedBoosters and Sentinels.  They'll be hanging at system edge as much as possible.

At 10:30, I'm merely waiting for the MK III/IV troops to build.  I decide to go see what kind of havoc I can cause with the Rebel Response fleet... they head for Kirk alone.

That plan gets changed when I am merely screwing around in Confederation with them (MK II) and they start losing troops to a mere 80 ships.  Also, another wave announces, 1,133 ships this time.  Those two waves earlier were max-timers.  HAH!

The Rebels do clean out some of the mess in Confederation though, including a few random posts and a fort I.  I leave the two Counterstrike IIs behind, I just don't want to deal with that anymore.

The Rebels head back to Macross to pick up some R&R for the lost ships while the fleet continues to wait.

The map right now:

[Wanderer]

10:42: 1,103 ship CPA announced.  I have around 500 ships reinforcing Shawshank and SuperTerminal that will need to be cleared before arrival.  Rebels are shipped to Homeworld to start backfield clearance.

The only other piece of import will be Llama holding so I don't lose the Hacker/Davion arm.  The main fleet will stay positioned there until this CPA is over, same way the Rebels will remain at Homeworld until I'm sure it's safe.

The main fleet:
186 Acid Sprayers (I/II)
332 Bombers (I/II/III/IV)
98 Fighters (I)
186 Grenade Launchers (I/II)
98 Missile Frigates (I)
49 SpiderBots (V)

Maw micro:
18 Maws (I/II/III/IV)

Standoff unit:
36 Zenith Sentinels (I/II)
78 Speed Boosters (V)

Rebel Response:
41 Resistance Fighter/Bombers
41 Resistance Frigates

Raid Squad:
6 Raid SSs (I/II)

The Rebel Responders hit and cleared Shawshank, lighting up the planet on entry of 260 units.  The locals instead of staying to fight ran to attack the homeworld, but were chewed up pretty good by the Rebels.  The rebels were parked on homeworld to deal with inbounds and get repairs before heading for SuperTerminal.

Hitting ST however cost me some Rebel ships, primarily from the minefield and then the guarding Guardians.  Hitting the rest of the ships required them to do some heavy kiting instead of standing and brawling.  By the time they were done the rebels were down to 66 ships after clearing out 500+ mixed MK II/III ships and were pretty badly banged up.  Unfortunately, some of the freed threat from ST decided to go after Huge.  Time to see how well one HBC can really hold up.  Which ended up with the result of: Not too shabby, stopped 17 MK III ships that were only fleet ships.

CPA:
MK I:5
MK II: 718
MK III: 44
MK IV: 99
MK V: 87

It's draining some of the coreworld.  YES.

A massive threatball is starting to form against Llama in Batman on the Riker Road.  Another one in Blackstone, another arm spinning off from Llama.  Meanwhile, I land a perma-scout on Earth finally.

Some of that freed CPA went for Huge.  It appears to be holding its own against the 15 or so ships.

847 threat is built up, and it's against the 3 ways into Llama.  Great.

I stole the Engineers from Macross briefly to rebuild the Rebel Resistance fleet.  I want to use them to bait the inbounds off the Confederation wormhole while the fleet handles the rest.

Basically setting up a 3 way war.  The Rebels will handle the attack currently in Confederation.  Once they've got the attention of the threat there, the main fleet and maws will move to Blackstone and wipe out the parked threatball.

That SHOULd get the threatball in Batman to invade Llama and get stalled up on the grav turrets in place, allowing the Sentinels to hammer on them until the main fleet and maws can come back and help out.  Should end up flanking right into the side of the forces from Batman going after the station.

With the Rebels on Shift-Click kiting the fleet hits Blackstone... and Batman won't engage.  Dangit.  However, they clear Blackstone with little trouble and get repairs for Batman.

I retreat the Rebels out for repairs, since the majority of the Core Ships were in Confederation.  The main fleet prepares to smack Batman and heads in.  There's a lot of MK V in here, too.

With reasonable losses (20% or so) the fleet erases the 350 threat parked in Batman with the Maws absorbing about 250 ships or so.  They just need to soak Confed and we're good to go.

At 11:00 we've cleared the threatballs, Radar Jammer II is up on Macross, and I'm preparing for a run at Desperado.  Kirk nearly cleaned itself out FOR me in that CPA and I plan to take advantage of it.  There's still 217 units on Earth but there's not much I can do about that quite yet.

Construction has started on the armor inhibitor on Macross.  Fleet is just waiting for refills of the MK Is that were the cannon fodder.

When the main fleet hit Kirk, the Rebels went on FRD, hunting starships and guardians while the support team pulled back and simply hammered away at random things.

The main fleet went guardpost hunting in Kirk, cleaning the system up.  A lot of FFs in here but I wanted it emptied.  In particular SpireShieldPost Vs are rather HUGE.

Blowing the two warpgates off Kirk to protect Desperado, the fleet heads for Desperado to finish pounding the world into pieces.  A colony ship in a transport is shipped from Llama.

I don't build out the command station yet as I don't want to lose the fabs yet.  The fleet needs R&R before I'm ready to do that and after cleanup in Desperado (sans CSG but having blown the command center) they head back to Llama to get replacements and repairs.

A pair of Suicide Guardians did some pretty heavy pounding on the Rebels on their way back to Macross so they'll be out of the game for a bit.  Besides, I need to rebuild my metal back up before I can use those fabs on Desperado.  Only 34 F/Bs and 21 Frigates made it home from the Rebels, and they dragged a small threatball onto the WH from Craps' Cmd Center.  We'll deal with them eventually.

The Main Fleet with auxiliaries being fully R&R'd, they head back down to Desperado.  It's time to finish this.

Side note: Be careful when using Speed Boosters, you can spread your fleet out more than you expect.

I decide to Build a Mil I station on top of one of the Fabs most likely to be attacked in Desperado.

With the capture of Desperado and the removal of the CSG-C, the AI HWs are now open game.  AIP is 172.

I set the local Space Plane Vs to be defenders for Desperado, FFs on the station and the fabs, and a few gravs on the inbound gate.  The Blade Spawner MK Vs will end up in the Support Auxiliaries and the Bomber MK IV SSs, if they even get built, will be part of the main fleet.

To be spiteful, Kirk is a 0/0 resources  planet.  Fuuuuunnyyyyy...  Desperado is a mere 1/1.

Debating on options, I decide Engi IIs probably would be a good investment at this point.  I'm literally out of Engi Is to position anywhere. 

11:20.  Wave of 1,667 heads for Macross with AIP 172.  At this point, I'm thinkin' that a short-timer.  Max-Time waves will be BRUTAL.

Next stop: Earth.  Time to neuter it.

The entire fleet heads into Earth, trying to 'awaken' it and drain off some of the defenders.  I don't want to argue with the 4 Ions and the rest of the heavy artillery on the planet wholesale yet but I need to be able to get the Raids in.

I'm able to drain off 50 ships or so, heavy on the Guardian.  The fleet however isn't in so good a shape so they head home to LLama... which without speed boosters takes a while.

Out of curiousity I check to see if the fleet was able to pop the Tach Guardian on the inbound to Earth, and they were.  Ooooooooohhhh...  What can be eaten by Space Plan in there...

I decide to help the Raids survive I'm going to use the Space Planes and cloak-assault the Mass Driver before it gets the Raids into trouble.  My concern though is that awoken ships from Earth will go for Desperado.  Fortunately, I have something that can deal with that.  The Rebels are rebuilt and they head to protect Desperado from fallout.

I power down the Space Planes so there's no 'accidents' and they head for Earth to go do some headthumping.  85 MK V Space Planes are barely able to kill the Mass Driver before they're erased from the universe, but they did their job.  Also emptied more off of Earth, got them to 121.

Waves are looking to be about 3,400 ships on average.  Those EMP mines (I've built out the field) are working very nicely as we pop carriers who have moved further off the initial build point and another 400-500 get EMP'd on that burst (unless they're teleporters).

Next attack on Earth was the Raid SS assault.  Four Ions, 6 Raids, GO!  they're also going to try to pop the Core Booster hiding under glass but we'll see what happens.

Two Raid SS's were lost as they hit the first two Ions just from core-post fire.  The Bomber IV up their tailpipes wasn't helping so I abandoned the Core Booster hit and ran the 4 left for LLama for resupply.  The Ions are down however.

Those Infiltrators are suddely looking useful.

With the main fleet rebuilt, it's time.  They head for Desperado to stage for Earth... with a minor detour to whack an EMP Guardian chilling out in Eridani.  No reason to tempt fate.

In one shot, however, all my speed boosters were taken out by a flak guardian (I think).  GYEAH!

While waiting for the fleet to repair in Desperado, I'm reviewing my options for the Spire Archives and deciding I don't want to try to defend them from the AI waves.  Free K or not, it's just not worth it, particularly for the price of losing them.  It was a nice dream but no way Jose.

1000 ships fly for Earth.  It's time.

Initial contact including triggering the Neinzul Spawner loses 200 ships out of the gate.  Ranged Auxiliaries are mostly intact.  The Rebels are hunting the problem children down while the main force deals with the firepower.  We really need to take that core booster down.

I call the Raid SSs down from LLama to deal with the booster under glass.

Kirk must have respawned an EMP that I didn't see.  One just went off on Desperado.  I'm in trouble.  Luckily Space Planes are EMP immune.   I send the Rebels for support anyway.  I didn't have to, though.  The few drifters were easily dealt with by space planes and a bomber SS IV.

The Raids easily dealt with the Core Booster under glass once the local starship defenders were dealt with by the main fleet.  Only significant problem left will be the fortress/ff combo over the command station and popping a core spire shieldpost.  the Fortress is positioned so it can't really protect anything, so the fleet goes to work on the rest of the system.

750 ships left and only the command station and fortress defenses are left.  69 ships left too.

I tried to do a Maw run against the underlying fleet at the fortress.  Apparently I've soaked a lot of parasites as my fleet is turning against me.  I have the fleet fall back to LLama for both R&R and to clear the parasite nanites.  AIP is 194.

Tech III happens at 200, and that's when things get UGLY.

I haven't had a serious wave in a while, bunch of short timers hitting over and over, but nothing worthy of discussion.  Of course, when I say a small wave I mean ~1500 units.  Then there's the I laugh at you waves of 420 or so.

Fleet's rebuilt but there's a 300+ ship threatball forming on Batman.  Clear that before we head back south for Earth... and Speed Boosters, with a health of a whopping 8800, die to a sneeze.  Yeesh.

The fleet took a massive beatdown of the polycrystals getting that Fortress out from under two FFs with all the Guardian support, but finally, we cleared the cmd center of protection.  Lost one of my Bomber IV SSs too.

Remember my last whoops, I start clearing the 5 WHGPs before i leave, shipping replacement bombers (about a 1/2 fleet) back down from Llama to help.

At 12:11, Earth is completely Neutered.  The only thing standing is the Command Station and some token guards on the cmd.

Waves are looking healthier again, 2500 to Macross.

Having some spare research (3750 K available) and the defenses holding nicely, I decide to bring MK II Missile Frigs online.

AH!  Finally, a REAL wave, 4200 ships to Macross.  Come get some!

... Have I mentioned the EMP mines once you've got an intelligent layout for them to pop carriers in are a TAD overpowered?  Mind you, either they're slightly overpowered or not worth buying, though.  What's really the killshot on them is the Carriers are expected to get the ships out of the defenses.  By having another minefield at the next deployment area not only are the mines 'reset' for the next 1000 ships, but they're not free yet.

That wave, however, blasted through all the FFs covering the AoE net and blew apart almost all the midrange turrets too (Basics and Lasers).  AoEs need more Cowbell!  errr, forcefields!

Back to backs of 4k each would have escaped the front net.  Hrm.  Needs more firepower... what to do?  Well, I could send the Grenade launchers home.  That might not be a bad idea.  We'll see if it comes to that with the additional firepower.

Also, with 4k in research on the next planet (I'll need one for the Riker Road) I can pop open Riot IIs and Tazers.

Alright, Riker Road...

Batman's nerfed, HotStar and Krupp are pretty banged up too. Krupp's a 4/2 planet and will be a good staging area that won't keep the coreworld alerted and is as close as I can get.

Tau needs the 5 (5?!) Ion cannons on it still popped but otherwise is nerfed.  That leaves me Three Kings (coreworld) and finally Riker.

Three Kings is a nasty nasty little planet.  BHG, AI Eye, 3 Ions, and 11 guard posts, 2 of which are SpireShield Vs.  Toss in 5 more regular FFs and it's a right mess.

But, *I* have rebels!  Who, amongst other things, ignore BHGs.

So, push down to Krupp, and move the construction units.  I'll even drop off a fab and Fact IV warpgate there.

Pop the two warp gates next door and have the AI move to Tech III.  That should get frickin' ugly.

I can't seem to keep a permanent scout presense on Riker yet.  Seems to have about 200 ships at the moment.  3Kings has 58, including all those WHGPs and the like.

I may need to do a K-Raid for more defenses at Macross.  I'd like to bring Lightning IIs online, and with the extra K I could bring Basic IIIs online too for 3000 k.

The real question is where do I dare pop a K-Raid at?

Alternative would be to go take out Earth and Kirk, Raid off Eridani's warpgate, and setup shop in Kirk and soak the 9000k off Kirk since the Exo-Gate only warp-gates Earth.  If I REALLY wanted to be a schmuck I could go to Earth and savescum away any wave that came at Earth, too, and soak the hell out of the K... but I could get 3k for free from Earth with supply from Kirk.

That'll throw AIP to the moon though, which is counter productive to me doing this to increase defenses.

What could I do with that 12,000 K though... hrm.

Let's dream a little dream.
Lightning IIs: 1500
Basic IIIs: 1500
FF IIs: 2000
Fort Is: 3000... Fortresses, hrm...
Lightning IIIs: 2000
2000 left gets me... Hrm....
MLRS IIs: 2000

That's a LOT of firepower uppage, and I'm going to need to do something about the Tech III upgrade.  A couple of fortresses would go a LONG way towards equalizing the balance of power though in Macross.

Alright, with that dream over, if I wanted to K-Raid I'd have to K-Raid at... Blackstone.  The 'off-planet' spawns would spawn in Liao and have to come through the Blackstone gate defenders.  It'll be a wild ride though with having done a double ARS hack.  Dammit, now I'm curious.  Savescummable experiment sounds like a plan to me.  First a little prep work, clear the WHGPs, which is never a horrible thing, also any minefields.

12:32: WHGPs are clear as is the minefields.  Save game.
Okay, turn off the Armor Inhibitor on Macross (48%) and get a constructor built for some gravs to help the fleet defend and get a MK III Research up and running.  Get the fleet repaired and rebuilt.. and we're good to go.

Wow is he TESTY.
72 K in and already 127 ships spawned on the planet.  Wowsas.  My sentinels are doing what they can to pick off the enemy.  They're spawning as MK IIIs at the moment.

It's a veritable flood of enemies being dumped at me constantly.  I've got 5 Engi IIs doing work to try to keep the fleet repaired, in particular the maws, the 'ace in the hole' that I'm abusing to hell and back here.

For some reason my hacker got moved around, not entirely sure how the hell that happened but it cost me some time, both because it moved and to get it back off the front line and under Riot I shield protection.

By 2000 K I'd started to get into a Rhythm.  The Main Fleet basically held the front door from the primary forces coming in from the cmd center.  The Rebels were on reaction, immediately responding to any starship level threat (zombies and raids) or any large spawn near the K-Raider.  The Maws were my 'busy time' build, retreating to keep at 100% health and then immediately moving off to gobble up whatever else may have spawned or helping to alleviate the weight on the front line.

The Sentinels were pounding away at anything and everything so anything at range I let sit at range and get itself beaten on.

At 12:44 the K-Raid was completed.  I'd lost minimal ships (maybe 100, at most) and had no issues in the backfield due to the cutoff I'd prepared with the grav-field for Raids and the fact that the enemy couldn't get past the fleet.

Any time a blob started to build up the Maws were there to inhale the mass and then we moved on.  With them and the Rebels as reaction fleets no significant inroads were ever made towards the K-Raider.

However, there's one thing I DO want to mention.  THAT WAS FUN!  Reacting all over the place to the wild mage positionings and the randomness of the guardian assaults was a lot of fun.
I've sent the Rebels home for R&R (they lost a ship) and to do a backfield cleanup before a CPA hits (it's due).

I have 4,250 K now.  Fortresses or Riot IIs...

I'm thinking fortresses.  The EMPs are doing a decent to reasonable job of stalling up the enemy and the Tazers can't stunlock, but Fortresses are a significant weight of firepower.  I think it's definately fortress time.

To make sure my econ bites the dust I drop three right behind the Basic turret lines, hopefully the fortresses will be able to repair them fast enough to keep firepower up and happy.

12:53 The backfield is finally cleared and the Rebels head to Macross to celebrate and honor the fallen... 3 Fortresses are now online on Macross.  A fourth begins construction.  The Main Fleet starts to move for Krupp.

13:00 Krupp falls.  Warp Gates go down on HotStar and Tau.  AIP is 228.  Tech III.

Docks are disabled on LLama.  Krupp is now the factory planet once it's built up.  The Rebels are still rebuilding from the last backfield clear.

The Rebels will have to clear the way home to not release threat against Llama, which is basically defenseless now.

The AI just got Eyebots.  I need Tachyon Turrets.

13:07: 1,823 ship CPA.  Oh boy.

Krupp is completely abandonable, and I believe I shall do so, and fall back the entire fleet to Llama.  Bring the Llama construction back online for now.  This is gonna get ugly and I need to deflect this before anything else significant occurs.

Backfield has about 180 units.  Rebels will be busy.

Even as I leave Krupp, the enemy is already attacking it.  How nice.

I blow the local cmd station hoping they'll leave some of the infrastructure intact, and they do.  I only got 1000 in K off Krupp before I abandoned it, I'll deal with the rest after the CPA.  I decide to drop a Fortress on LLama to help out.

At 13:13, 4 minutes to the CPA... I'm hungry and this will take a bit.  I'm gonna go find myself some dinner.

[Wanderer]

Looking over the CPA available deployments, I'm a little afraid for Desperado.  It's going to soak roughly 200 core ships.  It can't hold to that.

Add that to the backfield having roughly 200 ships to deploy and I've got a bit of a problem.  I've got 4 minutes to clear the backfield and get the Rebels to Desperado.  VERY Tight timeline, but I might save the fabs with the gravs.

At 2:45 left they're done in SuperTerminal and running for Desperado, all the way across the galaxy.

To complement the CPA, 2500 ships are waved about 6 seconds off the CPA release.  Amusingly, getting the Rebels to Desperado woke most of Kirk ANYWAY... *rolls eyes*  and for some unknown reason they went and visited... Earth.  Well, alright, if it floats yer boat.

CPA:
MK I: 6
MK II: 221
MK III: 57
MK IV: 75
MK V: 60

Not too bad.  I was able to bait a bunch of the hate in Kirk into Desperado to deal with on my own time.  I'm having to do hit and run attack against Kirk with the Rebels but the rest is holding.  With hit and run + kiting I clear Kirk and most of the threat against me. Rebels head to Macross for R&R, peeling the hate off the LLama gate in Confed while they're at it.

With that done, time to rebuild at Krupp.  With the Armor Inhibitor on Macross at 90%, I let it ruin my econ to complete for a bit.

I finally land a permanent scout presense on Riker.  We're gettin' there.  Now, for the Rebels to go start punching a hole into 3Kings.

First stop, the Mass Driver and the EMP Guardian.... right after I get a few starships off their butts.  The Rebels do their job and they do it WELL.  They tear through the guardians and local posts, taking out all but two of the Ions and 3 guardposts.  They head back to Macross for R&R while it's the Raid's turn.  They go after the remaining ions, guardposts under glass (ignoring the two spireshieldposts) and the guardians under the ffs for when the Rebels get back... well, that was the plan.  What happened was they got hung up on a Passive Post V and died to the guardians... but that's one less post for the Eye.

I've got to ground down two SpireShield Guardposts who each have some guardians underneath.  One in particular has a STarship dissassembler which means I need to Raid that to death for the Bomber SSs to come into play.

Waiting on the rebuild, I explore Riker, looking at my options for attack.  Oddly, the enemy put the Mass Driver on the entry wormhole.  That's in my favor.  There's a parking lot of guardians at the entryway though.  One thing in my favor is the Fortress is off to the side, and not covering the entryway.  Good, I can fight my way in evetnaully.  There's 3 Ions in here, they'll need to be Raided once I can clear the entryway.

Well, the Rebels are finished and are simply waiting for a wave to die so they can move out.  They'd taken a pretty bad beating but it was worth it.  They'll have to fight their way home, I don't want to create threat for Llama if I can help it so they'll scour the systems along the way... well, that's the theory.  They beeline for Llama for repairs. XD

The Raids clear out the starship eater and 8 Bomber Starships (I/IV) and the Rebels start working over the Spireshieldposts while the fleet camps out in Tau to eat whatever might show up.  Using the same trick, the Raids come in, clean out the under-shield guardians, and leave, with the bombers/rebels pounding on the second shield, I'm taking 3Kings with little losses at this point.  Oh, everyone pretty much needs repairs, but no losses yet.

With econ filling up I turn on the last trader toy in Macross, and start the Armor Booster going.  The Bombers however are locked into 3 Kings until I pop the BHG.  With the Eye down, the fleet heads into Three Kings.  Time to eat a BHG.

After taking down everything but the Command Center and warp gates, the fleet is waiting for a ton of Mine based EMP to wear off before heading back to Krupp for R&R before starting on Riker.  I scrap off 20 ships instead of waiting... and I let the booster go too long, ate my econ.

14:00 update:
Riker's open, Earth's just waiting for the final blow, Macross is holding.  I've got this...

It's kind of fun watching 3000 ship waves die on inbound into Macross.  Between the EMPs, 4 Fortresses helping to prop up the turrets with health, hidden rebuilders under heavy ffs, and then watching the Dyson ships sail in to do cleanup on anything that's having trouble with is just a thing of beauty.

Hm, got at least 5 minutes worth of rebuild still, let's see what's going on in Riker.

See attached screen shot to see what I see.

The entryway is a mess.  There's about 100 MK V ships/guardians/posts right on entry.  There's a good 10 free-floating battleship level starships, and once I clear THAT, then I can get some work done.  I could flash the entry (send in the fleet and immediately back out after say 5 seconds of fighting) and hope to bait out a huge chunk of that, which I'll do.  Once I've gotten that done I'll send in the Rebels for Mass Driver Removal and popping any Ions/posts that are reasonable with the fleet camped in 3 Kings.  From there I'll have to figure it out, but primary is to clear that entryway.

Still rebuilding...  3500 ships to Macross.  I laugh at you!  *Beach-head hits* WHAT?! I didn't turn that on?!!!!! (J/K).

Of course, just to make a liar of me!  BAH!  They tore down all the FFs on the AoE cannons this round.  Must have been a heavy bomber wave. 

4k in research just sitting there quietly.  Hrm... Missile Counters or Riot IIs?  Missile Counters or Riot IIs... HRM HRM HRM.  Shutting down the entry wave and supporting the EMPs or shutting down the Eyebots?

Death to the Eyebot!  Research Missile Counter-Turret... forgot I'd had more research!  ROFL.

Now THAT'S an endgame chokepoint!  AIP 241.

So, Riker.  With the auxiliaries holding back in Three Kings the Main Fleet alone heads in to 'flash' Riker, hoping to pull a bunch of targets out and not let them threatball against an AI system (they don't evaluate threat-balling when it's an AI friendly system).

Got nailed by a tractor guardian but it DID work.  Lost over half the main fleet though.  With the entryway clear, the Rebels attack, taking out the Mass Driver, a nearby guardpost, and attracting the attention of half of the starship guardians.  With those engaged, the Raids ready for an anti-Ion run while the fleet stays posted up in Three Kings waiting for inbounds.

You know what counters Rebels?  Cockroaches.  GYEAH!  Whoops!  Let the Raids run RIGHT over the Cockroach spawner.

Raids and Rebels succeeded in their primary missions however, they engaged the Ions and cleared out the heavy hitting Bomber IVs.  The fleet after Cockroach cleanup will be retreating to Krupp for R&R while we rebuild the Auxiliary fleets.

Buggers stole all my speed boosters!  ARGH.  They really need a health boost.  Riker's down to 171 troops... that's an improvement from the nearly 300 they had earlier.

Only 5 Rebels made it home to Macross for R&R.  Full rebuild on the Rebel fleet it is.  Won't be able to count on them for a bit.

For some reason, a massive attack wave went after Desperado.  I have NO idea what set off an attack wave into that other than the Rebels passing through, which would usually go after Llama.  About 80 ships.  The HBC and the Space Planes ate them but I don't know why they dropped by.

Ah, now, THAT'S handy.  The Spawner post is immune to Sniper Shots, but NOT Energy Waves.  Oh, how I suddenly love my sentinels.  Just have to leave the blade spawners behind until we pop that.

14:30 soon.  It'll be CPA time in about an hour.  Need to keep that in mind, the backfield is getting pretty full, it's already at 500 ships.  I'm getting some really random incursions into Desperado too.  Guardian II just shows up with a little backup for no reason.  The AI is getting its circuits crossed.  Must be feeling its impending doom.

14:35: A 1500 ship wave that I thought would be pretty ignorable simply due to volume landed 1000 bombers on me and erased the 7 FFs covering the AoE turrets VERY quickly.  They didn't last much longer after that but the heavy fortress defense doesn't exactly work well against Polycrystal.  The rest of the turrets made short work of the wave, barely giving the allies time to arrive and help out, but something to keep in mind.  I'm not exactly sure WHAT to do about that, though I have some ideas... including pushing the AoE line back and letting the EMP'd enemies die to longer range turrets and having the 'passthroughs' run into the AoE line.

Meanwhile, the main fleet's rebuilt, but the Rebels are far from ready.  Time to go engage Riker.

So much for the Sentinel vs. Cockroach theory, I can't target the bloody thing.  It's not on its list of immunities unless it's under Artillery Ammo as a generic.  Well, I lost over half my speed boosters but the Neinzul Spawner's now DEAD.  Noticing a post under glass I call for the raiders while the rest of the team works the other posts.  The ranged squad gets itself off in a corner and start beating on the Cmd Center ffs.

Realizing most of my troops have relcamation damage, I pop them in and out of the wormhole before doing that, though...

I seriously need more FF power on Macross but we're holding.

Found a bug, but not a critical one.  When your scouts have displayed a minefield underneath a forcefield, the sentinels are able to shoot at the mines.  Also the blade spawners are still shooting at powered down units and not doing damage to them.

The assault on Riker goes well in spite of a few muck-ups, with the polycrystal boys finally taking out the fortress around 14:45.  Only about 1/3 of the fleet lost for the final assault.

KABOOM AI Riker.

Now, no reason to get silly, I let the fleet regroup at Krupp and resupply.  then start shutting things down, and regroup again in Llama, reactivating that world as the construction world.  There's around 260 Core Ships that have moved into position to protect Earth between Kirk (alerted from Desperado) and the 64 on the homeworld.

Well, I also want to savor this...

RUN LITTLE AI!!!! RUN YOU LITTLE TART!!!!  HUMANITY HAS DECIDED TO END YOUR WORLD!  BOY, I PUT YOU TOGETHER, I'M ABOUT TO TAKE. YOU. A. PART!!!!

Heh, Earth went to 154 when I wasn't looking.  Niiiiice... wow, he's reinforcing EVERY turn right now, LOL.

Punching through 250+ Core ships at Kirk hurt.  Now for the final blow.



The mad rush for the enemy worked nicely, as the fleet ran over the defenders and the maws mopped up the distracted defenders enroute.  FOOM.

Bye Bye, 10/10.

I'll discuss my opinions, thoughts, evaluation of the run, etc in another post.

[Wanderer]

So, 9/9 through 10/10.  I do hope you all enjoyed me documenting my travails in far too much detail for most people to actually enjoy thoroughly.  Some of it was stream of consciousness, some of it was tactical and strategical thoughts, some of it was simply ADD daydreaming.  Some of it might even have been useful!

I will admit:  No chokepoint, no win.  It's that simple.

Alright, enough of that.  Let's get to the meat.

First up, let's talk about pacing.  The pacing difference and ramp-up felt horribly wrong.  9.0 to 9.3 was a LOT harder of a 'bump' than 9.8 to 10.  Tech II is a brutal starting point for your enemy.  The 9.3-9.6-9.8 ramp up was reasonable.

What needs to happen, in my opinion, is for the 9.x's to MIX wave techs until it hardens to Tech II.  This isn't a bad idea in general, in my opinion, allowing for a smoother ramp in difficulty as AIP pushes the AI up in technology.

Let's head back to 7/7.  I believe at 240 or so it jumps to Tech II.  Instead of this being a hard jump on waves, make it a percentage of units.  At 240 say 10% goes to Tech II on an inbound wave.  Increment this by 10% for every 2-5% increase towards the next tech level, having them be 'hardened' into Tech II only about halfway through the increase to Tech III.

Apply this same structure to the 9.x with 0 being the 'crossover' point and pacing will make more sense, even pushing the 'start' point to negatives if you like as you go up the slope.  For 10, make the Tech II hardened right out of the gates.

Next, wave mass pacing.  Gah, no.  This is working but the min-max time wave differentials are inane.  Seriously, I'm looking at wave differences of 400 ships to 4000 ships.  At the same AIP.  If you can handle mid-max waves the smaller waves are literally ignorable.  Mid to Min waves are also at least half, if not more, of the waves presented.  Now, this might make more sense on a multi-front scenario, where sometimes you have to bring your fleet over to help defend and sometimes not.  However, let's look at this with perspective: At 9/9 you have a 2 minute warning for a wave.  Your fleet being able to respond to multi-front warfare in two minutes is improbable.

That means your entry points, one or all, must be hardened and you need to keep it down to a small number of normal wave entries.  I'm not discussing CPAs or CrossBorder or Threat or Special Forces here.  That's a different form of defense, as you've seen me do.  I'm talking straight waves.  Under 95% of circumstances, even in multi-front warfare, you'll have one, perhaps two, whipping boys to soak waves.  Even on Standard Maps I usually have a single wave point (higher AIP, of course, for warp gate whacks, but still).  This means 80-90% of your defenses are in a single place, so you can go out there and do something besides constantly come home to defend the base.

Wave variety is good.  Wave density is bad.  Massive Bomber choice waves (even on Schizo) really hosed me up until I rethought some of my defense.  Massive Frigate waves inhaled the mid-range turrets and made me get Fortresses as a damage soak and a frigate killer.  Things like this invite variety and strategy.  400 ships running into a defense built for 4000 (x2 for doublewave) doesn't do anything but give me salvage rights.

Now, the other side of wave pacing that seems a little weak is the wave volume in general.  Early waves are tight, solid, and are significant threats while you're building up.  We're good there.  It's once the pace starts to build that it falls off.  In 10/10, even with single chokepoint, I should have been relying on the Dyson and Rebels to keep me alive, not just keep my economy solvent.  Part of this was the miniature waves really not doing anything.  Part of it was max-time waves left the whipping boy alone for 10-15 minutes at a clip then came in like hammers.

So, my recommendations on this:
- Up minimum time to half-wave and lower maximum time to 3/4s. This gives you variety without the underwhelming feeling the smaller waves give you.

- Alternative to the above: Adjust wave density for number of entry points.  What I mean by this: If the AI only has a single player planet gated, make it go to full wave.  If it's got 2 planets, 1/2-2/3 time waves.  At 4 planets, 1/3-2/3 waves.  At 6 planets, 1/5 - 1/2 waves. ETC... Planets, not gates, to make sure we can't cheese a massive wormhole system with minimal defenses. 

In lore, think of it this way: If the AI has that many points of entry, it'll try to keep the pressure up all over, but not be able to bring it's full resources to bear on any one target, because it's pushing at them all so it has to split the resources.  If it knows it's only got one point of entry, it's going to wait to bring the sledgehammers.

- Waves need a higher generic multiplier. 

2.5 should be for 8/8, not 9/9.  Start 9/9 at 3.0.  If the sloping tech increase above doesn't get any traction, start 9.3 at 2.75, and then increment exponentially towards 5.5x at 10/10.

- AIP needs to have more affect on the multiplier than a simple multiplier.  It needs to get exponential.  There's no "race" feeling as you get further into the game.  A 2x multiplier on the waves as you go from AIP 20-40 is HUGE.  A miniscule multiplier of the same effect as you go from 200-220 is.. well... miniscule.

WorkingShips in AIThreadWaveComputationLog.txt is based on (AIP * Diff) / DiffMod.  I'd rather see something like: Diff*(AIP/2)^1.1 / Diff mod or something equivalent.  Taking a later planet is negligible right now.  The math there is wrong for the right curve but you get the idea.  Early moves need to come 'down' in price, later moves need to be equivalently expensive.

Okay, that's the wave pacings and the differences I see there.  Next topic that's near and dear to my heart: Core Raid Engines and Core CPAs.

YOU CANNOT PLAY A 'NORMAL' GAME WITH THE THREAT OF MULTIPLE RAID/CPA ENGINES ON A HOMEWORLD AT HIGH DIFFICULTIES.  There, it's been said.

A normal game, with the intent of bring AIP up to the 250-300 levels at the time you're attacking the homeworlds, is unfeasible at higher difficulties until after you've scouted out the homeworlds and confirmed these aren't an issue.  If CSGs are on they can actually just wreck the game outright, causing it to be a loss to the RNG and not the strategy, tactics, or methods used.

What solutions exist?  Well, honestly, I'm not sure.  I have my personal preference but Napalming the code probably isn't a good idea.  However, I did have some less invasive ideas I'd like to offer as alternatives.

First, if CSGs are on do NOT protect Core Raid Engines and CPA Engines with the shield generators.  Allow us the chance (and pain) of assaulting a coreworld early to get these things down before we blow out AIP to try to take down the CSGs.

Second, no more AI Eyes + CPA/REs, please.  At least not on Homeworlds, unless they're included as part of 3...

Third, Limit the # of Raid Producing guardposts to 1 at 7+, 2 at 9+, 3 at 10.  If you like include the AI Eye in this list of 'unit producing posts' as part of the maximum.

Yes yes, proper scouting, I know.  If you're properly picketing and what not on normal maps you won't see homeworlds until you've got your MK IV scout out.  That's a bit of a difference than in the early game realizing you've got a problem.

The existance of a Raid Engine on the homeworld shouldn't force an entirely different style of play to survive and win, particularly if the expectation on an 80 planet map is you won't even see these planets until over halfway through the game.  They should be a puzzle to defeat, not a defeat if you didn't even know the puzzle was coming. 

Reinforcements.  I scour planets a lot but until 10 I didn't really feel the reinforcements as much more than a nuisance to get rid of in the backfield before a CPA would hit.  I know you're working on getting the logging down and to help clean it up and I'll try to get more involved in this (as I did earlier in the game) but reinforcements feel... off.  I know, I used to end up stagnated at 7/7 too and have learned how to deal with it, but it needs a cleaner slope from 8 through 10.  10 felt... right.  I had to fight anywhere I wasn't on the ball and taking care of.  9.8 I sneezed at.  That doesn't feel like a clean progession.

Dyson WIN! 

Well, alright, not exactly.  I'd worried about Gatling = AIP being too weak but it's not, at least not if you don't let them dilute.  However, for people who play Connect the Empire the Dyson's practically useless.  What would be nice is a way to put a flare down for your allies asking them nicely to "Gather here" instead of free-floating the universe aimlessly.  They could of course decline but the utter randomness of them means that you have to be very selective in making sure the AI has cutoff planets if you don't want your allies wandering the boonies for hours.

That said, 250 gatlings at 250 AIP is still a VERY powerful force... en masse.  Toss in Rebel Resistance Fighters and you've got a MEAN set of backup on any defensive point.  Their friendly density in a galaxy should probably be affected by difficulty levels as well as the scenario settings.  The scenario settings affecting both spawn rate and density should still be considered, however.  Bit torn on this, now that I can adjust them down to 2/10 or 1/10 to lower their effect on my defenses but still be able to play with them.  On the flipside, I don't necessarily want to lower the pop count on the ENEMY dysons, just the friendly ones.  Not quite sure of the best way to achieve that.
ARS Hacking...

... This is debateable and it depends on your vision for it.  Early hacks before you've been able to take an ARS or two and/or K up your main fleet are difficult and very costly.  If the idea is that hack #1 should be survivable for an early fleet, well, it's not... not if you consider that said early fleet is needed for a lot of defensive actions.  If the idea is that it's meant to force a choice early to bypass until later, it's working as advertised.
Trader Toys:
Alright, seriously.  5 and a half hours to bring the Z-Gennie online on average.  These things are too expensive.  If they were unlimited I could see the price tags being there to restrict the # of purchases.  As it stands they're inane.  Yes, they are powerful.  I'm honestly not sure I ever got my econ back from just building as many tertiary reactors as it would take to make up for the 400000 power I got from it for 3 million in econ.  Halve the prices on the trader toys, please.  My power problems stem from my limited planet taking, I live with that.

While we're at it, I'm all for the AI using the trader against you.  I just don't like it costing AIP when it does.  Double the amount of 'money' the AI has for the trader but remove any AIP costs for removing what it buys, or at least halve the AIP cost.  Random BHGs and Warp Gates are painful enough as they stand, they don't need to get a higher price tag when you've scouted properly to avoid those costs.
Minefields:
Personal annoyance.  I'd REALLY like to be able to string a line of mines between two wormholes without having to Place a unit on one wormhole, pause, set it to travel to another wormhole, and then swapping back and forth between Shift-Click with mines and Alt to see it's path place them 1... by 1... by 1... by 1... by 1... by 1.... by 1... by 1... by 1....

The Craps Mine-path took me 30 minutes to place.  Yes, it was highly effective and worth my time.  Yes, I think Click-Shift-Drag-Release to drop a line of mines that are TIGHTLY placed would have been a LOT more pleasurable.  So would Ctrl-Click and Alt-Click being a LOT tighter in dropping mines.  I can pack mines placed by hand into an area at twice the density of a mass-click.  Mines need to be tight, not loose.
Carriers:
Carriers DILUTE the enemy forces too much.  Because those forces are not in the fight, it's more like fighting four 1000 ship waves back to back instead of a single 4000 ship wave.  I believe the general design and purpose of them should be re-considered.  If nothing else give half the ships in the carriers gunports.

Carriers were actually making my defenses easier once I was able to abuse their mechanic by placing EMP minefields at their pop points.
Satellite worlds:
These matches taught me a LOT about how to keep satellites better protected.  It will also lead into the next comment about the Rebel Colonists.  That said, it requires a LOT of micro.

One of the mainstays, as I understand it, of the game design is world position and decision.  Of course, sometimes you take an abandonable world.  However, many worlds aren't meant to be abandoned.  It's a constant tug-o-war between AIP and world control.  With that, Satellites in the far flung empire that's part of the decisions of the game are very hard to defend from even transient traffic, nevermind concerted assaults such as a single world freed by CPA.  I know, I'm beating the dead dog trying to get him to stand up and run, it's just a frustration that the amount of micro required to even keep these worlds reasonably safe from drifter traffic (20 ships should NOT threaten a system) requires a significant investment in turrets or a response fleet capable of being anywhere quickly.

As an example, to hold off 25 drifter ships entering Desperado it required an HBC (1/12 of that turret's cap), 10 Grav turrets, and 85 Space Plane Vs (1/3 died).  They had came in from 3 planets away when my Rebels breezed through Confederation and Cyborg, skipping two nearby planets where I'd expected them to go (Llama or Macross).  Mind you, two of those ships were guardians which is why the stakes were raised, but that's simply drifter traffic, and a lot of firepower to shut them down.
Rebel Colonist Units:
Holy mother of... these things are the BOMB.  No seriously.  They're overpowered.  Don't believe me?  At 110 speed and instakill immunity, you can kite an entire MK V planet until the Missile Frigates blow apart anything chasing them and the bombers blow away anything that's faster that gets close (like cutlasses).  They trash MK V Guardians.  They walk up to 200 ships and ask them for a light while holding a gun to their head.  Any mark.

Add to that the risk of losing a colony is pretty minimal.  Since the 2 hour cloak kicks back in if you lose the local command station, they're near impossible to remove.  They're like tics.  Pretty much the only way to lose one is if you end up EMP Guardianed.

They need a balance point.  Get rid of the re-cloak if the system falls.  You want 'em, protect 'em.  Or god help you.  Make it 150 AIP on loss, too.  They should be worth more than some random human prison camp that gives you a pittance of resources (which I really don't know why they're worth 100 AIP on loss anyway).
Turret upgrade pricing in K:
Nonono.  The entire K cost of turret upgrades needs to be reviewed and rebalanced.  C'mon, MK II Flaks costing 2500 k while HBC I's only costing 500?  Houston, we have a problem, this does not compute.  For the record, HBC Is at 500 is where I see the balance point, not the Flak IIs.
EMP Mines:
I hate to say it because these were a joy to use once I got a handle on them, but they're too powerful.  Drop 'em to 1000 K and halve the effect.  I've got a save against a major wave you can see that I'll send to you if you want it, I'm not sure you want a 10/10 endgame at 30 minutes to complete posted publically.

While we're discussing mines, K cost for AoE damage is really high, but I haven't really used them yet to decide if it's the right value.  However, price to price, I'll take EMP every time.  Dilution because of the way the waves attack of Dmg and Emp isn't really an option, you'll basically pick one or the other.
Random Wild-Mage crap on later Raids:
MOAR PLZ!  Just, keep it interesting, instead of cruel. That was FUN though.
Maws:
Alright, let's be brutal.  A large portion of why I beat 10/10 is because of Maws.  I didn't defeat the AI HWs because of Maws, I didn't lay waste to the coreworlds with them...

I beat the early game because of them.  The power of Maws is in the vacuum.  However, MK I maws vacuum just as well as MK IV maws.  The only difference in them is the volume of the hold and their HP to not drop the marbles.  5 MK I maws can literally EAT a 100 ship wave in about 40 seconds... and have room to spare in the hold.  Distract with fleet and Maws are gods.

Apply this suction to later waves/attacks of a 1000 ships and it's not quite as overpowering.  Here's where I think the MK ramp needs to be modified.  A MK IV Maw merely gave me four more vacuums.  I think it should affect vacuum RATE as well.

I believe currently a Maw takes 2 seconds to vacuum a ship.  ~1 second to acquire the target, another second to tractor it in.  This vacuum rate should be modified to be a linear 1 second drop for each mark, starting at 4 seconds to vacuum at MK I. This makes higher MK Maws both more effective as well as having a larger hold, and lowers the impact early game maws have, but late game maws are still making as large an impact.
Finally...

Thanks for the game.  I know this is a long and lengthy criticism, some of which are core mechanics.  I've tried to be as objective as I can be about where I feel the imbalances are and why.  If any of this comes off as obnoxious or nasty it's more tiredness and text than anything else and I've tried to clean up anywhere I realized I was coming off as an ass. 

I had a LOT of fun doing this and working out the different slopes and the like.  So, again...

Thank you, and thanks for listening.

[zoutzakje]

congratz on the win ^^
It was a long story indeed, but I don't mind. I often write text walls myself.

what's your next game going to be?

[TechSY730]

Congrats on the win! Taking on 10/10 is no small feet.

I would like to echo some of the things in your analysis "wall of text" post I agree with.

I agree that wave multipliers should be increased across the board. I also agree that the random variation among wave sizes is too large (aka. min due to randomness and max due to randomness is too large). And finally, about the 9.6 to 10 jump not being that noticeable, I voiced my concern about that effect when the 10 difficulty lost its insane multiplier to wave sizes a few dozen versions back. Good to see that someone else has noticed that as well.

For the mixed Mk. thing in waves, that would be cool, and it would aid greatly to the granularity of wave difficulty, giving more ways to increase difficulty, but I'm not sure it is necessary to change such a core design choice to achieve a large but not unreasonable jump from 9 to 9.3.
It sounds like you may be interested in a new AI modifier to use an exo-wave like fleet composition in waves, and more ways that schizophrenic waves can vary.

As to turrets, yes I agree that their knowledge costs could use a balance pass.
And for the satellite world defense problem, given the scenario you described, I think it is pretty clear that most turret lines are still underpowered for what they are supposed to do, making defending satellite worlds from even small amounts of wandering threat take an unreasonable amount of investment (it should require an investment to hold it, but not that much...)

Anyways, I know that none of these are really small issues, and will require quite a bit of work to get right, and thus probably have to wait until AI war becomes the focus again.

EDIT: Oh yea, I would like to also voice my support to half the price of the trader toys. The existing caps on those should be enough to keep them from being abusable.
Also, mine unlock costs could also use a second look.

[keith.lamothe]

Woooo, congratulations!  The Dyson-Rebel-Vogon alliance crushes Earth once and for all. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=8373

Okay, that's annoying.  When I'm moving my Riots around, if they collide with the ship hacker, IT moves instead of the Riot moving off the collision.

Ah, yep, collision priority.  Will bump up both hackers on that stat.

But, *I* have rebels!  Who, amongst other things, ignore BHGs.

Stickin' it to the man! Disregarding the rules!

However, there's one thing I DO want to mention.  THAT WAS FUN!

What, K-Raiding was fun?  Gotta nerf it...

A little surprised you went for K-Raiding rather than ST-hacking, in general the latter is way more efficient.  But I suppose also potentially way more dangerous, and you have far less choice of battlefield, so to speak.

One in particular has a STarship dissassembler which means I need to Raid that to death for the Bomber SSs to come into play.

Y'know, swallowing a starship-sized enemy doesn't seem particularly safe.

"Sir! The enemy starship has been towed inside."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"There was a strange inscription on the port nacelle, you'd better take a look."

"What the... 'I prepared explosive runes this m-

(end recording)

*Beach-head hits* WHAT?! I didn't turn that on?!!!!! (J/K).

Yea, I bet a randomizing & hiding lobby script with that as a possibility could lead to some tension   We all know how kind the RNG is, after all.

So much for the Sentinel vs. Cockroach theory, I can't target the bloody thing.  It's not on its list of immunities unless it's under Artillery Ammo as a generic.

Sniper immunity includes immunity to anything with truly infinite range (Ions actually have a finite range, for this reason).

Also the blade spawners are still shooting at powered down units and not doing damage to them.

Oh right, and I've got that save you gave me right here, will take a look

I will admit:  No chokepoint, no win.  It's that simple.

Yea, the recent batch of crosshatches showed that 9/9 without a chokepoint is quite doable.  10/10 without a chokepoint is not.  And I think that's fine.  10/10 should kill you anyway

Let's head back to 7/7.  I believe at 240 or so it jumps to Tech II.  Instead of this being a hard jump on waves, make it a percentage of units.  At 240 say 10% goes to Tech II on an inbound wave.  Increment this by 10% for every 2-5% increase towards the next tech level, having them be 'hardened' into Tech II only about halfway through the increase to Tech III.

Apply this same structure to the 9.x with 0 being the 'crossover' point and pacing will make more sense, even pushing the 'start' point to negatives if you like as you go up the slope.  For 10, make the Tech II hardened right out of the gates.

That... that could work.  Thanks, I really hadn't thought of that option at all.  Code-wise it won't be simple (possibly fairly painful), but I think that's finally a solution to the fact that we want it to start at tech II on the really high difficulties but we don't want a "difficulty cliff" between any two adjacent difficulty settings.

This is working but the min-max time wave differentials are inane.

Yea, it does need tightening up.  I really like your idea of making the "range" dependent on the number of available entry points: if the AI detects a single chokepoint, it should realize that it needs to take time to build a bigger sledgehammer and get a nice running start; if it sees that you're wide open, then hitting you all over (with the occasional long-time sledgehammer) makes a lot more sense.

Now, the other side of wave pacing that seems a little weak is the wave volume in general.

Yea, all those nerfs a few months ago added up, so time to do some old-fashioned ratcheting-up to put some meat back on the bones.  Trying to make the main changes in response to this more clever than "throw moar ships!" but that has a place too.

AIP needs to have more affect on the multiplier than a simple multiplier.  It needs to get exponential.  There's no "race" feeling as you get further into the game.  A 2x multiplier on the waves as you go from AIP 20-40 is HUGE.  A miniscule multiplier of the same effect as you go from 200-220 is.. well... miniscule.

Hmm. the absolute increase is still similar, though, which seems fine.  But I think it's worth trying changing step 1 from "( AIProgress * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AIDifficulty )" to "( ((AIProgress*0.8 )^1.1) * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AIDifficulty )".  I'm not sure we even have a pow function on our FInt type but I think this calculation is done only on the host in an area where we already do some float math (because it can't cause desyncs: only one process computes it).

That naturally will result in an increase across the board from the current state (except for the very beginning of the game, but I think that can simply be a big part of the "moar" component of the balance adjustment.  Potentially it needs to be made difficulty-dependent (not hitting them with exponents below 8, then phasing it in).  Some test points:

AIP	Feels Like
10	9.85
30	32.98
50	57.85
70	83.75
90	110.42
100	123.99
200	265.79
220	295.16
300	415.18
400	569.72
500	728.23

Seems like it's wroth a shot, anyhow.  And it could make some of those ultra-high-AIP Fallen-Spire games a little spicier.

But does it really deal with your original concern?  Sure, capturing a planet at 200 AIP increases the wave size like a 30 AIP increase instead of a 20 AIP increase, but is that going to feel any less like a miniscule change?

Third, Limit the # of Raid Producing guardposts to 1 at 7+, 2 at 9+, 3 at 10.  If you like include the AI Eye in this list of 'unit producing posts' as part of the maximum.

Interesting, I'd already come to almost exactly that idea myself   A bit different, but yea: those three structures on an AI HW can't simply be left purely to the RNG, or the RNG will randomly do this.  So treating it as a different "set" of seeding and hopefully later adding some different options to that set to make it a bit more varied (without exponentially increasing the cruelty), I think will help a lot.

Reinforcements.

Will take that under advisement; bear in mind that most of the games in this series (iirc) came before the fairly-signficant rework of reinforcements that happened when I added the logging (and discovered a pile of ancient twisted skeletons in the closet).

Dyson WIN!

Haha.  Glad it was more reasonable this time.  Though I agree that the normal level of diffusion would reduce their effectiveness significantly.  Will think about that.  A command-flare approach would be doable, but it might swing it right on into overpowered (imagine being able to throw 200 gatlings at a HW at will).

And yes, combined with resistance fighters on the chokepoint planet... if you pick two "help me out here!" factions, don't counterbalance them with negative factions, and use them efficiently you've effectively lowered the difficulty a bit.  Which is great, and helps temper stuff like 10/10 to be a bit less "this universe hates me".

If the idea is that hack #1 should be survivable for an early fleet, well, it's not... not if you consider that said early fleet is needed for a lot of defensive actions.

Bear in mind that AI difficulty factors into the hack response, and impacts the level which the early fleet is needed for defense.  On Diff 10, early hack?  Nuh-uh.  Diff 7?  Probably not too hard.

Trader Toys

Not sure about lowering the cost on the ZPG; it's pretty much a game-changer particularly for low-planet-capture games.  Some of the other toys, perhaps.

On the AI buying AIP-increasing stuff from it... yea, not so great.  It just means I have to make new unit defs for the no-AIP versions.  Effort

The Craps Mine-path took me 30 minutes to place.

Now that's dedication.  Yea, I don't think I'll have time for it soon, but the underlying construction template code from the 3.x days is still there and even if fixing the old problems with that is out of scope for a while I can probably get it to let you build a fairly-tightly-packed line of mines.

Carriers DILUTE the enemy forces too much.

That's a really good point.  We can't just let the ships inside shoot out for a ton of reasons (the biggest one being that they _don't exist_, the carrier just has a list of types of contained ships; it's not like transports), but my current thought is to make the carrier's attack more substantial and to have it gain an extra shot-per-salvo per 16 (on high caps, 8 on normal, etc) contained ships.  And make it so it can still fly through forcefields but its shots don't ignore them (another new mechanic, but ah well).

That way they may not have the same firepower as the contained ships, but it'll be enough that it won't be astronomically less dangerous in carrier-form.

Satellite worlds

Hmm, not sure what to do there, other than maybe the new line of structures that "triple turret firepower, but stop working completely if more than 20 turrets-with-guns on the planet" (or something like that) which we discussed before.

Rebel Colonist Units... They walk up to 200 ships and ask them for a light while holding a gun to their head.

Stickin' it to the man.

My thought is to remove the re-cloak as you suggested, and halve their ship caps but make the ship cap scale with the Human Colony Rebellions faction intensity (4 = half what it is now, 8 = what it is now, or maybe non-linear instead).  That might be too severe, dunno.

Turret upgrade pricing in K

I dunno.  It could stand a little adjustment, but reducing it too much just makes impenetrable defense way easier to achieve.  Turrets generally are 3x as potent as equivalent fleet ships, and they don't even get smaller caps at higher marks.  Sure, the mkII flak is 2500 and the mkI HBC is 500.  The mkI flak is the more appropriate comparison point, and that's free

In general I think it's mainly a matter of you playing at a high enough difficulty that if a knowledge unlock doesn't give you more offensive power it's just not on the table (mostly).  I generally see folks at saner levels getting a fairly large amount of turret unlo...

I have an idea.  Dunno when I'l get to it, but I think it will help

EMP Mines

Yea, I've been expecting them to be found OP since the rebalance; as you say halving the effect and dropping the K cost is in order.

Random Wild-Mage crap on later Raids

Glad you like   As you say, more interesting (not so much more cruel) stuff would be great here.

Maws

Yea, scaling the vacuum rate by mark sounds like a great idea.  Possibly reducing capacity too, dunno.

Thank you, and thanks for listening.

My pleasure, and thank you very much as well, this feedback is very valuable.  I didn't agree with all of it, but didn't think any of it was obnoxious at all.  The game's already gotten substantially better in response to this series in terms of putting some bounds around k-raiding, st-hacking, the dyson, and who knows what else that I'm forgetting.  Without in-depth play experimentation and feedback, these kinds of improvements just aren't likely to happen.

Most of all, glad to hear you had fun

[TechSY730]

Trader Toys

Not sure about lowering the cost on the ZPG; it's pretty much a game-changer particularly for low-planet-capture games.  Some of the other toys, perhaps.

On the AI buying AIP-increasing stuff from it... yea, not so great.  It just means I have to make new unit defs for the no-AIP versions.  Effort

If you are going to make some no-AIP offshoots of some stuff, maybe you can add no AIP offshoots of command stations? That would allow for that recolonization hybrid plot you had mentioned toying around with when hybrids were reintroduced without the AIP problems.

Carriers DILUTE the enemy forces too much.

That's a really good point.  We can't just let the ships inside shoot out for a ton of reasons (the biggest one being that they _don't exist_, the carrier just has a list of types of contained ships; it's not like transports), but my current thought is to make the carrier's attack more substantial and to have it gain an extra shot-per-salvo per 16 (on high caps, 8 on normal, etc) contained ships.  And make it so it can still fly through forcefields but its shots don't ignore them (another new mechanic, but ah well).

That way they may not have the same firepower as the contained ships, but it'll be enough that it won't be astronomically less dangerous in carrier-form.

Actually, isn't the move through forcefields but not shoot through them an already existing attribute a ship can have? I'm pretty sure I remember some ships having them back in the 3.0 days, even if no ships currently use it.

And the dynamic scaling of firepower thing, hmm, that may not of worked so well for when you were trying to use H/Ks as threat consolidation, but that might work pretty well here, as the original ships (or rather, ship counts) are not lost forever.

The Craps Mine-path took me 30 minutes to place.

Now that's dedication.  Yea, I don't think I'll have time for it soon, but the underlying construction template code from the 3.x days is still there and even if fixing the old problems with that is out of scope for a while I can probably get it to let you build a fairly-tightly-packed line of mines.

Also, http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=7840 might be worth looking at about this

Dyson WIN!

Haha.  Glad it was more reasonable this time.  Though I agree that the normal level of diffusion would reduce their effectiveness significantly.  Will think about that.  A command-flare approach would be doable, but it might swing it right on into overpowered (imagine being able to throw 200 gatlings at a HW at will).

Couldn't that also be fixed by smarter planet choosing logic for wandering ships? Like be more likely to choose a planet to head to next that has more non-ally in-points, or something like that?

Reinforcements.

Will take that under advisement; bear in mind that most of the games in this series (iirc) came before the fairly-signficant rework of reinforcements that happened when I added the logging (and discovered a pile of ancient twisted skeletons in the closet).

(emphasis added)

Yea, I know that feeling. At my job, I was digging through some old code made by some of our offshore developers, and found some pretty ugly stuff.
Granted, you guys are very competent and I'm sure you didn't commit code atrocities regularly, but I know even when reviewing my own code I can discover the "WTH was I thinking?!" stuff.

[Wanderer]

Woooo, congratulations!  The Dyson-Rebel-Vogon alliance crushes Earth once and for all. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=8373

BWAHAHAHAHAHA.  How'd I know that was coming? 

[quoet]

But, *I* have rebels!  Who, amongst other things, ignore BHGs.

Stickin' it to the man! Disregarding the rules![/quote]
Go go mighty rebels!

A little surprised you went for K-Raiding rather than ST-hacking, in general the latter is way more efficient.  But I suppose also potentially way more dangerous, and you have far less choice of battlefield, so to speak.

ST in mathmatics is more efficient.  However, due to the ST position vs. my control of the battlefield, the K-Raid was actually much more efficient.  It wasn't as effective, but definately more efficient.  I just really needed a 'bump' for security, it was starting to get a little hairy on Macross.  If I was in fear for my life I'd probably have went after the ST and damned the torpedos.

So much for the Sentinel vs. Cockroach theory, I can't target the bloody thing.  It's not on its list of immunities unless it's under Artillery Ammo as a generic.

Sniper immunity includes immunity to anything with truly infinite range (Ions actually have a finite range, for this reason).

Ah!  It would be nice if that was more obvious.

Also the blade spawners are still shooting at powered down units and not doing damage to them.

Oh right, and I've got that save you gave me right here, will take a look

Gracias Senor.  At least when they're smoking their forcefield fetish they're doing damage and not spinning wheels.

Yea, the recent batch of crosshatches showed that 9/9 without a chokepoint is quite doable.  10/10 without a chokepoint is not.  And I think that's fine.  10/10 should kill you anyway

Agreed.  The reason that chokepoint saved me so much wasn't because of waves, though.  It was because I could assault and release threat (deepstrike, whatever) without fear of the repurcussions in a game-loss scenario.

Let's head back to 7/7.  I believe at 240 or so it jumps to Tech II.  Instead of this being a hard jump on waves, make it a percentage of units.  At 240 say 10% goes to Tech II on an inbound wave.  Increment this by 10% for every 2-5% increase towards the next tech level, having them be 'hardened' into Tech II only about halfway through the increase to Tech III.

Apply this same structure to the 9.x with 0 being the 'crossover' point and pacing will make more sense, even pushing the 'start' point to negatives if you like as you go up the slope.  For 10, make the Tech II hardened right out of the gates.

That... that could work.  Thanks, I really hadn't thought of that option at all.  Code-wise it won't be simple (possibly fairly painful), but I think that's finally a solution to the fact that we want it to start at tech II on the really high difficulties but we don't want a "difficulty cliff" between any two adjacent difficulty settings.

Sweet (loud woot on my side!).  One of the things it also does is soften the swap later.  The TII to TIII cliff is also pretty painful, making it instead of an increase in difficulty it's like swapping from Nightmare to Hell mode on the fly.  A tamer slope I believe will make that crossover point in all games more reasonable.  TI to II used to beat me to pieces in lower level games when I was still getting my bearings, and that's really a worse upgrade than II to III.

Yea, it does need tightening up.  I really like your idea of making the "range" dependent on the number of available entry points: if the AI detects a single chokepoint, it should realize that it needs to take time to build a bigger sledgehammer and get a nice running start; if it sees that you're wide open, then hitting you all over (with the occasional long-time sledgehammer) makes a lot more sense.

The really nice part about adjusting the wave timers only for that is that you're not really affecting the difficulty of the waves or anything like that, you're simply affecting the number of them vs. the volume included.  So, it's not a nerf or a hammer against either style of play, it just varies the approach depending on what it finds itself dealing with, which in my mind goes well with the emergent behavior of the game.

Hmm. the absolute increase is still similar, though, which seems fine.

One of the other threads around here shows that I have a difficult time keeping up with some of the finer points of higher math on the fly (particularly in my head, I can do most of it on paper eventually).  My personal imagining of the balance point would be around 160 - 200 AIP.  Earlier wave increases wouldn't be as painful and later ones would be worse.

But I think it's worth trying changing step 1 from "( AIProgress * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AIDifficulty )" to "( ((AIProgress*0.8 )^1.1) * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AIDifficulty )".  ...

That naturally will result in an increase across the board from the current state (except for the very beginning of the game, but I think that can simply be a big part of the "moar" component of the balance adjustment.  Potentially it needs to be made difficulty-dependent (not hitting them with exponents below 8, then phasing it in).  Some test points:

...

But does it really deal with your original concern?  Sure, capturing a planet at 200 AIP increases the wave size like a 30 AIP increase instead of a 20 AIP increase, but is that going to feel any less like a miniscule change?

Not directly.  If anything, I'd personally like to see the earlier waves lowered in impact a little more.  Something like AIP 30 being 20ish right now, 100 being 100, and 200 being 250ish.   I could see including the MOAR desire into this and that might balance off my feelings on it, but a slower approach to the incrementation would probably be wiser.   I'm not sure that too small an adjustment though would really be noticed, though.

Third, Limit the # of Raid Producing guardposts to 1 at 7+, 2 at 9+, 3 at 10.  If you like include the AI Eye in this list of 'unit producing posts' as part of the maximum.

Interesting, I'd already come to almost exactly that idea myself   A bit different, but yea: those three structures on an AI HW can't simply be left purely to the RNG, or the RNG will randomly do this.  So treating it as a different "set" of seeding and hopefully later adding some different options to that set to make it a bit more varied (without exponentially increasing the cruelty), I think will help a lot.

I should probably have mentioned those values, in my mind anyway, were for a total across both homeworlds, not just one, so the mid-game scouting doesn't end your game due to RNG.

Reinforcements.

Will take that under advisement; bear in mind that most of the games in this series (iirc) came before the fairly-signficant rework of reinforcements that happened when I added the logging (and discovered a pile of ancient twisted skeletons in the closet).

More than fair and I haven't played that heavily since the changes.  Was simply something I noticed through the series and from what I remember a few of the skeleton cleanups were removing some of the nastiness of heavy-hitters from overwhelming the reinforcements.

And lord do I know what those skeletons look like.  I'm currently weaving my code at work through the rib cages of a few of them because I can't fix a vendor's app.

Glad it was more reasonable this time.  Though I agree that the normal level of diffusion would reduce their effectiveness significantly.  Will think about that.  A command-flare approach would be doable, but it might swing it right on into overpowered (imagine being able to throw 200 gatlings at a HW at will).

Just make it player owned planets only.

Bear in mind that AI difficulty factors into the hack response, and impacts the level which the early fleet is needed for defense.  On Diff 10, early hack?  Nuh-uh.  Diff 7?  Probably not too hard.

Ah!  Good point.  I'd not realized the differential for the lower difficulties.  My bad. 

Not sure about lowering the cost on the ZPG; it's pretty much a game-changer particularly for low-planet-capture games.  Some of the other toys, perhaps.

On the AI buying AIP-increasing stuff from it... yea, not so great.  It just means I have to make new unit defs for the no-AIP versions.  Effort

Straight math time:
ZPG Price: 7.2mill in mats.  Produces: 400,000 Power for 20 mats.
Reactor levels 1/2/3: ~40,000 mats.  Produces: 125,000 Power for 114 mats.  80% of drain for each additional reactor.

Second rectors of this type only produce 100,000 power.  The third set produces 80,000 power.
Assuming 3 planets, you need a full build of secondary reactors and one set of third to approximate what you get off the single Z-Gennie.

This costs you an initial purchase price of 150,000 mats, and will cost you ~500 mats/second in upkeep.

This means the cost of the Z-Generator for simply building it will not be recovered for four hours.  It also has a 10 AIP price tag if it's lost, requiring resources to defend it, particularly if it's a captured building, which is why that component is in there.

The price tag, to me, is exorbinant, simply because the price of using tertiary reactors is more effective in the short term.  It's more a convenience than a game changer, but that my simply be my perspective.  This last run I did the math and I probably won't pick one up again until late game at its current pricing.

The Craps Mine-path took me 30 minutes to place.

Now that's dedication.  Yea, I don't think I'll have time for it soon, but the underlying construction template code from the 3.x days is still there and even if fixing the old problems with that is out of scope for a while I can probably get it to let you build a fairly-tightly-packed line of mines.

Woot!

Carriers DILUTE the enemy forces too much.

That's a really good point.  We can't just let the ships inside shoot out for a ton of reasons (the biggest one being that they _don't exist_, the carrier just has a list of types of contained ships;

Ah, that makes sense.

, but my current thought is to make the carrier's attack more substantial and to have it gain an extra shot-per-salvo per 16 (on high caps, 8 on normal, etc) contained ships.  And make it so it can still fly through forcefields but its shots don't ignore them (another new mechanic, but ah well).

Yeah, honestly, I just tossed the first idea that came to mind out into the wild, but they definately need to be reviewed.  You guys built this game and I'm sure you'll have some ideas.

That way they may not have the same firepower as the contained ships, but it'll be enough that it won't be astronomically less dangerous in carrier-form.

That sounds like a reasonable balance.

Rebel Colonist Units... They walk up to 200 ships and ask them for a light while holding a gun to their head.

Stickin' it to the man.

My thought is to remove the re-cloak as you suggested, and halve their ship caps but make the ship cap scale with the Human Colony Rebellions faction intensity (4 = half what it is now, 8 = what it is now, or maybe non-linear instead).  That might be too severe, dunno.

I'm not sure if half is too much or not, particularly with the increased risk of loss.  Maybe start at 2/3s so they're not quite as effective as a one-stop shop for a second fleet.

Turret upgrade pricing in K

I dunno.  It could stand a little adjustment, but reducing it too much just makes impenetrable defense way easier to achieve.  Turrets generally are 3x as potent as equivalent fleet ships, and they don't even get smaller caps at higher marks.  Sure, the mkII flak is 2500 and the mkI HBC is 500.  The mkI flak is the more appropriate comparison point, and that's free

Part of the issue I see with the K costs for turrets and the unbalance is the survivability vs. cost.  The reason I used Flaks in particular is because Flak Turrets (and any short range AoE turret) tend to get pounded into oblivion the more you need the AoE! XD  Long Range turrets have survivability due to range more than HP so things like LRMs and Spider turrets aren't really where I feel the pain point in K cost.  It's more on the shorter range side.  As an example, I consider Basic Turrets to be more effective and more powerful than Flak turrets, for a number of reasons (one of which is anti-artillery hull).  These are cheap to upgrade.  The Flak has a shorter range and is a priority target to everything.  Unless you're FF-Banking them they're just cannon fodder pretty quickly, and cost twice as much to upgrade.

[/quote]In general I think it's mainly a matter of you playing at a high enough difficulty that if a knowledge unlock doesn't give you more offensive power it's just not on the table (mostly).  I generally see folks at saner levels getting a fairly large amount of turret unlo...

I have an idea.  Dunno when I'l get to it, but I think it will help
[/quote]
Cool, I look forward to seeing that.

Maws

Yea, scaling the vacuum rate by mark sounds like a great idea.  Possibly reducing capacity too, dunno.

I don't think a capacity removal is in order, here's why:
At about 15 ships inhaled, the MK I Maw starts having to make a decision: Run or possibly loose all the eaten ships.  With adjustments to the vacuum rate allowing for hold space is more a survivability question to the player than it will be to the effect on the battle.  The only time I would 'fill' the Maws is during heavy fleet actions with repair crews nearby or during desperate maneuvers over a long standing fight (like that CPA of core ships in one of the games).  With the vacuum adjustment, I doubt I'd get near the caps even now without significantly pushing the maws to the edge of their survivability.

Larger holds means more decisions.  When your fleet's on the run and someone pops a hold of 60 ships one of the maws was eating, it starts a domino effect.  I like the choice, but the mechanic's a little too powerful at the moment.

On the flipside, the vacuum rate adjustment will also nerf the Maws in the AI's hands a bit, and Maws are a significant threat to the player in AI hands.

Thank you, and thanks for listening.

My pleasure, and thank you very much as well, this feedback is very valuable.  I didn't agree with all of it,[/quote]
Well, I'm pretty sure noone will agree with all of these, some of them are pretty polarizing and will make the game harder instead of easier, others are personal whines and frustrations.   All in all, you agreed with a LOT more than I'd expected!

The game's already gotten substantially better in response to this series in terms of putting some bounds around k-raiding, st-hacking, the dyson, and who knows what else that I'm forgetting.  Without in-depth play experimentation and feedback, these kinds of improvements just aren't likely to happen.

That's great to hear, thanks.

Most of all, glad to hear you had fun

Ayup!!!  Now, 10/10 Crosshatch?    Alright, that's a joke, but I'm sure I'll do another of these here in the near future.

Thanks again!

[keith.lamothe]

Now, 10/10 Crosshatch?    Alright, that's a joke, but I'm sure I'll do another of these here in the near future.

If anyone ever beats a fair game of 10/10 Crosshatch... I just don't see how, without a very odd definition of "fair"

[TechSY730]

Now, 10/10 Crosshatch?    Alright, that's a joke, but I'm sure I'll do another of these here in the near future.

If anyone ever beats a fair game of 10/10 Crosshatch... I just don't see how, without a very odd definition of "fair"

Well, someone managed to figure out a way to TAS PC games.
Might be interesting to see what an AI War player with "perfect reflexes" could do.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, someone managed to figure out a way to TAS PC games.
Might be interesting to see what an AI War player with "perfect reflexes" could do.

You've already got pause and savescumming

[Toranth]

Rebel Colonist Units... They walk up to 200 ships and ask them for a light while holding a gun to their head.

Stickin' it to the man.

My thought is to remove the re-cloak as you suggested, and halve their ship caps but make the ship cap scale with the Human Colony Rebellions faction intensity (4 = half what it is now, 8 = what it is now, or maybe non-linear instead).  That might be too severe, dunno.

One thing to keep in mind about the Rebel colonies - In very long games (120 planet, for example) you can have 2, 3, or even 4 Rebel Colonies appear.  However, each one past the first gives you no benefit, but still has the same extreme risks as the first.  I think something should be done about that.  If the benefits are going to be nerfed, I think something definitely needs to be done on the risks side.

[rabican]

Actually crosshatch 10/10 is suprisingly easy , i managed to first the first one of those where i survived first 2hours. You get relatively easy acess to every planet , can blow up all the DC's and lurk at low aip for long time. With jumpships you can clear the galaxy from DC's as soon as you get your second planet.  And once you lurk enough to get a colony rebellion you no longer need to use rest of your fleet offensively at all.  The op   Rebel units clear all the stuff up for you with ease. Also cherrypicking your planets in crosshatch is very easy. You'll gain plenty of golems /shields/ars easily . If there is ST or botnet you can probably even connect your planets without too much hassle.


Sure the border agression is pure murder and 90% of your fleet will be in defense for most of the game but crosshatch still isn't much more difficult for 10/10 than any other map

[keith.lamothe]

Actually crosshatch 10/10 is suprisingly easy , i managed to first the first one of those where i survived first 2hours. You get relatively easy acess to every planet , can blow up all the DC's and lurk at low aip for long time. With jumpships you can clear the galaxy from DC's as soon as you get your second planet.  And once you lurk enough to get a colony rebellion you no longer need to use rest of your fleet offensively at all.  The op   Rebel units clear all the stuff up for you with ease. Also cherrypicking your planets in crosshatch is very easy. You'll gain plenty of golems /shields/ars easily . If there is ST or botnet you can probably even connect your planets without too much hassle.


Sure the border agression is pure murder and 90% of your fleet will be in defense for most of the game but crosshatch still isn't much more difficult for 10/10 than any other map

Underlining a few things there:

If you're playing Golems Hard, you get exos, which can be very painful on 10/10.  If you're playing Golems Medium there's AIP costs (and lots of energy, typically requiring more territory).  If you're playing Golems Easy and not counterbalancing it with something else then it's not quite in the fair category  

Somewhat similar situation with Spirecraft.

The rebels, as you say, are OP.  This won't stand

My question is: how do you deal with a 4000 MkII ship double-max-time wave if you have such a large surface area to defend?  Martyr?  Botnet?