Exos have become insane

[Kahuna]

LOL the engineer and repair change broke the game >.< I'm running out of resources all the time with MarkIII Harvesters AND 2 MarkIII Economic Stations

[Kahuna]

I think the new exos are just about perfect. It is quite possible to survive them, even with 10/10 AIs, even with golems at 10 and spirecraft at 6. Now, doing it without warheads...

So what did you do? Use Lightning Warheads? Did you win the game? What were your settings?

[amethyst]

At 7/7 with Spirecraft (Hard), I must say I found the exos not overpowering at all... if anything, they felt a little weak. So at the default balance point, they're fine. As others have pointed out, 10/10 is supposed to be unfair, perhaps unwinnable.

[keith.lamothe]

As others have pointed out, 10/10 is supposed to be unfair, perhaps unwinnable.

Yea, the balance goal for 10/10 is to never be beaten in a remotely-fair-fight situation.  Still winnable by cheese-lobby-options (notably, by picking only AI types that don't send waves, or picking Golems - Easy or Spirecraft - Easy, etc), but not in a fair setup.

In general the non-superweapon game is already there.  Possibly even a little too tough (though I'm not too sad about that), because the nerf hammer got in a few late hits even after most of the ongoing playtesting feedback was from superweapon games. 

The superweapon side of 10/10 balance has been off in the sense that golems-hard, spirecraft-hard, and fallen-spire (all on 4 or higher, lower than that gets into cheese range depending on other factors) have given a much bigger advantage than has been offset by the exo responses.  We're getting closer on that, though

[Martyn van Buren]

Yeah I mean it does seem reasonabe that the AI's "hard" response to the Botnet should be to attack it with reclaimation-immune ships, right?

[keith.lamothe]

Yeah I mean it does seem reasonabe that the AI's "hard" response to the Botnet should be to attack it with reclaimation-immune ships, right?

That's not an intentional result, but yes, it does happen that way.  And it makes sense to an extent, though if your only superweapon was the botnet those exos would eventually get a bit unreasonable to handle with only normal stuff.  Or not, I dunno, in general people have been saying that the golems exos are very tame for a while.  The recent buff should keep them from being too underwhelming, but mostly the impact is on games where people are running ultra-low-AIP.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Something that strikes me as strange is that the description of these minor factions urge you to get the spirecraft/golems/Botnet to defend against the exos. If the botnet golem can't defend against the exos due to immunity to reclamation, then really all that ends up happening is you get a superweapon but defense becomes so much tougher because the botnet can't help with the exogalactic attacks.
Am I getting that about right? If so, I do agree with Cinth on letting the Botnet help with that. Are the exos not there to counterbalance your shiny new weapon? Should they be so good that they completely counter your shiny weapon?

[Martyn van Buren]

Perhaps the Botnet should be tweaked to be a bit more like FS?  As in, perhaps the main goal of its exos should be to destroy the Botnet itself.  So Botnet is there to cut through AI worlds like butter and the exos are there to stop it.

[Cinth]

At 7/7 with Spirecraft (Hard), I must say I found the exos not overpowering at all... if anything, they felt a little weak. So at the default balance point, they're fine. As others have pointed out, 10/10 is supposed to be unfair, perhaps unwinnable.

Just the one Exo wouldn't be much more than an annoyance. Try adding Broken Golems (Hard) just for the added ships. That probably won't be as trivial as you might think.

And I do think the double Exo (Spire and BG) is at a good place. You collect the Spirecraft and golems, and you have a much better chance at holding off incoming onslaught. They ADD to what you have and become valuable assets.

I really think ~10% fleet ships in the Botnet (Hard) Exo wouldn't be unreasonable. It adds enough ships that could be turned into zombies if you wanted to risk your Botnet.

I'm not super versed in the game at all so I'll just ask... How many controllable superweapons in the game can't contribute to defense when the time comes?

[Faulty Logic]

I think the new exos are just about perfect. It is quite possible to survive them, even with 10/10 AIs, even with golems at 10 and spirecraft at 6. Now, doing it without warheads...

So what did you do? Use Lightning Warheads? Did you win the game? What were your settings?

Oops, that was before 5.050. It was the The Core/Tech Raider game. Sorry.

However, I now have successfully played with golems and spirecraft hard at 4, and exos were quite handleable (no warheads even).

[Martyn van Buren]

Has anyone beat a triple-exos game yet?  I'm looking forward to an AAR.

[Cinth]

Has anyone beat a triple-exos game yet?  I'm looking forward to an AAR.

I've tried one. It wasn't pretty, that's for sure. I would try another but a few things, one is the value the botnet (and golems in general) brings to my games is minimal. Spirecraft are so much more valuable that I find those ships are realy the only ones I truly go for. Golems are really fragile and not worth 2 cents in my late game. My last game I lost an Arty and Black-widow and I can't tell you how. Single shot items really suck. I only play with golems (hard) on for the Exo... thats it... The AI can have all the golems it wants for Exos. I don't want 'em.

Second thing is more of a general one, but my last game ran 50+ hours and there wasn't much interest in my AAR for it.    Not going to put a lot of effort into something for nothing.

[_K_]

At 8/8 double exos are trotally manageable with no superweapons until i think 5th exo or so.

The direct damage golems like armor and BW are the hardest to fight, as they deal loads and loads of damage and even focus-firing them with your entire regular fleet takes quite a while.

Thats where SC or golems come in handy. You can either ram the exo golems, or snipe them with arty golem; both ways are super effective.
So in my opinion the current situation is fine. If you have only the botnet on, you shouldnt have too much trouble with exos.
If you are getting double or triple exos, it means you have access to anti-exo weaponry and should be fine.

I mean sure, on 10/10 the story is different, as with all those multipliers you probably wouldnt even survive the first few waves that come before you get that weaponry. Well, fine, i do agree the 10/10 games should have a slightly easier start.
After all, its more entertaining to see people get crushed later in the game than in first 30 minutes.

[TechSY730]

I mean sure, on 10/10 the story is different, as with all those multipliers you probably wouldnt even survive the first few waves that come before you get that weaponry. Well, fine, i do agree the 10/10 games should have a slightly easier start.
After all, its more entertaining to see people get crushed later in the game than in first 30 minutes.

Doesn't the 10/10 have like a 4x bonus to exo-wave sizes? Maybe this could be bumped down to 3.5x (or if it is currently 3x, make it 2.5x), and bump down 9 and 8 if needed (like if 9 is at 3.5x, bump it down to 3.25x, or something)

The doubling of the initial strength of the exos (also doubling time to the first exo) should keep the exos strong.

I'm also in favor of giving Botnet (hard) exos a much higher chance of spawning with a "botnet chase" goal, and thus you can reduce botnet (hard) exo's intensity without making the exo's much less threatening.

[Kahuna]

In this game everything was fine until the first Exo hit. Oh ma GAWD look at those ships. The (initially ~1600) MRLSs came with a wave that hit exactly at the same time with the Exos. Everything -MRLS = Exo ships. Vs that kind of and many ships even Golems are useless as they get insta gipped in about ~3 seconds unless they're under force fields. But then they don't do any damage. There used to be even more ships but I managed to destroy some of them. I even used all 8 MarkI and 6 MarkII Spirecraft Rams and there's STILL that many starships and other big guys left. My AIP was 132 (quite high) before the waves spawned.


The ONLY thing that could have saved me was a fully loaded Hive Golem. And the closest Hive Golem was quite far away.