The AI 9 through 10 run

[TechSY730]

Honestly I would love to see one of the command station types get a built in force field.

We tried that once. This was the first idea for the logistics command station.

Turned out to make the command station less durable, as its forcefield prevented it from being protected by other forcefields, and when its forcefield took damage, the command station took damage.

For this to work like you would expect, the command station would need a separate forcefield module attachment.

[Volatar]

Hmmm, good point.

Maybe the best way then is to have command stations and force fields leave debris, like other turrets.

Then make remains rebuilders able to build outside of supply, but only if the thing they want to rebuild can also be built outside of supply (aka, command stations)

[zoutzakje]

I actually really like your idea Keith. Would be interesting to see at it's final, perfectly balanced stage. I figure it's something for an expansion though? since it sounds like quite a lot of work. On the other hand, it does concern base game objects, and I know you guys try to avoid updates for base game / existing expansion stuff to require another expansion.
and I'm defenitely up for the rebuilding command stations without the manual process. Having the command station spawn again once all enemy units have vanished from that particular planet for example.

[keith.lamothe]

I actually really like your idea Keith. Would be interesting to see at it's final, perfectly balanced stage. I figure it's something for an expansion though? since it sounds like quite a lot of work.

Implementation would probably only take about 2 hours, including testing.  Balancing would take several release iterations, I imagine.

[Volatar]

I actually really like your idea Keith. Would be interesting to see at it's final, perfectly balanced stage. I figure it's something for an expansion though? since it sounds like quite a lot of work.

Implementation would probably only take about 2 hours, including testing.  Balancing would take several release iterations, I imagine.

You are a god among programmers.

[keith.lamothe]

Not at all, it's just adding 2 typedata fields (control-produced, control-consumed) assigning values for one of those to maybe 80 unit types, and adding a few lines to the "is unit X in-supply?" logic (well, and a bit extra on the planet datatype for tracking control in a cpu-efficient way).  Add the ability-text for the tooltips, add a few lines to the alert logic so you can see how much you're using out of how much you have on that planet.  Then just fire up a gamestate and try to build any turret and see if it works, and see if the control values on the screen change, then try to build more turrets than control would allow and see if it lets me.  Then replace the command station with one that gives lower control and see if it puts the turrets out-of-supply.

Then there's stuff like letting the turrets be built out-of-supply via mobile builders that provide control, which would be a bit extra.  All told I would probably spend more than 2 hours with the refinements included

But this is nothing compared to some of the stuff I've seen other programmers do.

[orzelek]

And ultimately the single-defensive-path thing is fun as long as it doesn't encapsulate all challenges.  But I've been giving serious thought to an idea inspired by one of Hearteater's suggestions in the energy discussion.  Not actually involving energy at all, but:

1) Assign each command station type a "Provides Defense Control" value.
2) Assign each "defensive" unit (so all turrets, forcefields, fortresses, etc) a "Consumes Defense Control" value.
3) If the total defense control consumption on a planet exceeds the provided defense control on that planet, all units that consume defense control act as if out-of-supply.

And that's it for the basic idea; there's other things that would need addressing like:
- how to handle balance in multiplayer (probably a planet with X control can support X control worth of units per player, rather than X total, since the incoming attacks are generally scaled up to match the number of players)
- the interface has to show these values on tooltips and probably the totals on the planet in the alert window
- the construction interface needs to not let you place stuff that would go beyond local defense control
- this would put more pressure on to balance the turrets amongst themselves, relative to their control-cost, as otherwise the "less desirable" turrets quickly get a backseat rather than being obvious "sure, throw that one in too" (which has its own issues, but I think is better than totally ignoring a unit)
- need to give mobile builders and/or new variant(s) of mobile builder provides-defense-control values (but probably there would be no stacking, the planet just has the highest value provided)
-- and with this, we could actually remove the restriction on human turrets, fortresses, forcefields, etc that they can only be used while in supply; you wouldn't be able to drop a lot of them "in the field" as presumably a mobile builder doesn't have much control.

Also thinking:
- A human home command station would provide effectively infinite control, so that if you absolutely positively must have a single planet with all the firepower, you can.  It's just gotta be the one planet in the galaxy the AI wants to be on   Not that whipping-boy'ing the HW is non-viable (you've done it here to great effect), I just think it's probably a more interesting/tense situation than something safely separated.
- Logistics stations would have more control than Economic stations (econ stations may need a buff to energy production or something like that).
- Military stations would have more control than Logistics stations.
- With this, turrets could be buffed a bit (higher power, lower cost, etc).  The result likely being a total increase in how effective a human defense can be across multiple planets, but without being able to always stop nearly any AI attack in the same 25 square foot area
- As this would make planet-loss more common, it would be polite for me to provide some kind of ability to simply rebuild command stations without going through the manual process of building a colony ship, selecting the colony ship, ordering it to the target planet, waiting, selecting the colony ship, picking the station type, and placing the station.

Anyway, not dead-set on the idea, but it does seem like it would help keep things more dynamic and reduce complacency-in-defense (unless, of course, you have a Dyson Ball), as "complacent" is not typically a feeling associated by our players with "fun"

... er, sorry, derailed there   If folks want to talk about that at length probably a new thread is desirable, lest it compete with the tale of the 4th Vogon Conquest of Earth.

Ok.. where do I go to vote for this one?
(It's quite similar to idea behind my proposal that got many bad votes on mantis about local and global turret caps )

[keith.lamothe]

*wonders if they simply didn't believe that "If folks want to talk about that at length probably a new thread is desirable" wasn't sarcasm

[Wanderer]

And if you wanted to exploit things a bit more you could plant a fortress on one of the neutered backworld AI planets next to yours.

I've thought about that but first I'd have to open them up.  K's at a bit of premium at the moment.

Yea, basically I just want the total m+c gain of spending 9000 K on harvesters to equal the m+c gain of spending 9000 K on econ stations at the number of resource spots one normally has at 13 planets.  Then you know that if you want a really-early game boost harvesters are best because of the homeworld, and if you want an early-mid game boost econ stations are the better bet (but take up the station slot) and if you plan to have more than 13 planets (or cherry-pick for resource-spots) harvesters are the better mid-late game choice.  I think the current numbers reflect a math error on my part when I switched down to the lower K-costs, and/or an error in computing average resource spot density.

At a guess it's in computing average resource spot density.  However, I understand and that's being hammered to death in other threads, no reason to dilute the discussion here.

The AI loves that roulette wheel.  I could tighten up the time range a bit, but it seems this gives a bit more variety.  The lower end of the timescale seems a little pointless on standard waves, though; it would make sense with cross-planet-waves because they'd probably just join a threatball instead of attacking, but that's just a lobby option off in a corner.

I may start turning that on but not during this iteration.  It does change the mechanism pretty heavily however.  It also makes wave gates useless, afaik, so that's an AIP saver.

You wouldn't believe how much bribe that stupid frigate demanded before it agreed to do that...

Snort, laugh...   Niiiiice.

Frustratingly my nearly empty maws wouldn't EAT anything!

Odd, if you have a save where that's reproducible, I can take a look.

2) The Blade Spawners are happy go lucky on FFs again.
3) When they're NOT happy for FFs, they're targetting powered down units, so the blades don't actually HIT anything, they just sit there, idling and dying.

Ack.  Save?

But not sure, if I fix the maw bug and the blade spawner bugs, how will the AI stand a chance? [/quote]
Unfortunately, in both cases, I neglected to pause and save as I was too busy mentally with other things.

Well, could you move around them and/or pick them off from maximum range?

Sure, with a Raid Engine coming in 1 minute and me wasting time goofing around with 80 ships or so, that should go well.

  Anyway, yea, I don't mind coming up with some other utility option for the light hardpoints.  Possibly single-target paralyze (for fun may just use the zenith paralyzer graphic or part thereof: just nailing them to the hull!)

I want to just nail paralyzers to the hull now and watch them spin in the slots.  That would amuse my inner evil child.

[Wanderer]

*wonders if they simply didn't believe that "If folks want to talk about that at length probably a new thread is desirable" wasn't sarcasm

New topic here:
http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10143.0.html

This discussion will take *pages* of involvement, I fear.

[Wanderer]

I already have a save up for the Maws issues on the bug tracker here: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=6779

Ah, thanks Lost.  Makes my life easier that.

Also, on the Dyson, I have noticed that in my own 10/10 game, it can't clean up it own system after a full 20 hours of trying to do so. Granted it only 3 hops away from the AI homeworld I have not gone near yet and I am now on the last city shard so the Exo waves might have something to do with that, but I think if you go and cap the limit of how far the Dyson can go, you likely fix it issues the most.

Odd that it can't clean its own system, but you're also pushing AIP a lot higher than I am so those reinforcements are a lot heavier in volume.  How would a cap of Dyson units help fix its issues?  That just means there's less of them, not more.

Say, Limit neutral to only the home Dyson System and Player friendly can only travel to Human Player supplied planets and the Dyson System itself. Then if you want the Dyson to clear the galaxy for you, you need to take the Galaxy first.

Sorry, have to heavily disagree with this idea for two reasons.
1) You've removed the threat of the Dyson Gatlings not being friendly.  Sure, you've made an insurmountable fortress of the place, but that's no good either, particularly since I can control spawn rate/volume simply by blowing up my own scouts.
2) I LIKE the Neutral Dyson antagonizing the neighborhood.  It's like the neighborhood bully who picks on everyone until you give him your candy bar.

[keith.lamothe]

"I give him this candy bar, he gives me the galaxy.", thought the ambassador.

[Wanderer]

Ask and Receive.  I'm having Blade Spawner problems in Pai Gow.

There's a Spider Guardian under FF near the right hand Fortress in the system.  They're both next to a guard post.

If you watch, the blades go after the FF and the spider.  The spider takes no hits and the blades idle on top of it.  The post is being ignored for the FF.

[Wanderer]

Just to be annoying, immediately after the save they behaved themselves and popped the guard post.  Once the post was popped the guardian was detonated about a second later.

Something else I just noted.  Space plans vs. Lightning turrets = damned dampening fields.  No wonder this setup on Llama was having issues.  Moved the FF to barely cover the lightnings so the space planes that ride up on it will actually get fried by lightning.

[Wanderer]

So, two hours later and I'm doing the Riker Run.

It's hasn't been horrible but it's not pretty.

So, I take the fleet west and using primarily the Rebel Fleet as my vanguard, we knock down the warp gates surrounding Solar Moon and clear the Eyes off Solar Moon and Argyle.  Not a huge deal but took a pretty good bite out of my Rebels, so they went home while the main fleet moved in with a colony ship and research vessel onto Solar Moon and started building while the fleet went off and nerfed Green Lantern and Camel.  Options were Zenith Bombers, Autobombers, or Eyebots.  2/3 ain't bad and I roll the dice, get Zenith Bombers.

Well, I saw a raid warning pop up and having killed all the gates I didn't pay much attention to it.  Then I see 500 ships on Solar moon..  Wait, wut?  Dammit, Gate Guardian on Blackjack.

Fleet heads back, and we defend.  Take about half the wave out before the rest escapes to Blackjack.  That actually helped me some.  As soon as we finished with the half that stayed the fleet goes after the other half and mops up.  Continue local cleanup after popping said gate guardian.

There's a Warbird factory here that I pick up as well.  I steal some Engis from all over the place to help them build and drop warp gates for fabs and Fact IVs on Llama as my staging area.

We head west and I use the Rebel Fleet to completely clear Argyle and Pai Gow in preparation of arrival.  Once I get there and setup in Pai Gow, the spur system, I head to Argyle for my ARS and remember I'm a dunce.  I blew the cmd station.  Well, crap, this one was ick and I really didn't want these space planes.  Ah well.  Well, at least I've got a bit of hacking at 0 I could play with.  I haven't mapped the last system yet and haven't seen my SuperTerminal, so that could be very handy.

Well, after abusing Ceasar and it's Fact IV with the Rebels and the main fleet coming in, I steal a bunch of turrets off the Whipping Boy / Dyson Ball (Yes, it's now a Dyson Ball, call it what it is, there's no other name for 600+ dysons) and pound my way into the corner and... no SuperTerminal.  Rats.  K Raids?  eh, maybe.  I'm really spread out and don't want to deal with the offworld spawns right now.  Not for a few thousand K.

So I finally get all of that cleaned up and the resultant threat it ensues, along with two backtracks to clean up after I leave systems and mini-threatballs show up to harass my new colonies.

Map looks like this:


Waves are wildly disproportionate.  I'm very glad I'm Dyson supported right now:


I head for Llama and get the fleet fully built.  I step Blade Spawners and Maws up to MK III so I can build IVs as well.  Bomber IVs have been producing for a bit too.

My previously excess currency has been invested in a small Mercenary fleet on the homeworld.  I have a full cap of Merc Fighters and they're building out Beam Frigates and bombers depending on what I'm heavy of when one hits 1 mill in the bank. I haven't built any Econ IIs, instead choosing to protect the ZPG on Pai Gow (2 ZPGs, woot!) and the Fact IV with Mil I stations.  There's also a Fighter V and Translocator fab on Argyle behind Pai Gow, but I'm not really worried about either of those.

I head down the Riker arm and take down Krupp, the last CSG I need to pop.  AIP is now at 221 after all warp gate pops and the like are completed.  Krupp had an Armor Rotter V factory that I produced some out of before I lost it later.  I hammer my way into Three Kings with the Rebels on vanguard again and the fleet coming in behind after the orbital mass and 2x ions go down.  We clean that up but Krupp falls while we're in the final stages.  I've gotten eyes on Riker, though.



Nothing extravagant, shouldn't be too hard to take out on my next pass.  I forgot to get my K from Krupp though, so at 15:00 I'm on Llama and rebuilding, and I'll bring down some Science IIs and another colony ship so I can get my 3000 K, and then head in for Riker.  Intent is to blow up everything except the Command Station, leaving it for later, as I mentioned about ... 3 pages ago?