Problems with AI Raid starships

[BobTheJanitor]

Not yet. I'll copy it over as soon as I get to a real computer and not just my phone.

Pshaw! Real men not only submit bug reports from their phones, they also write elegant code in assembly language from their phones. 

(I, on the other hand, can't even get angry birds working on my phone. Stupid android port!)

[TechSY730]

Hmm. How about giving a new "raider shot" to raid starships and raider guardians, and give an immunity to these shots to Home Command Stations, AI Home Command Stations, fabricators, Mk. IV factories, and MAYBE a few fallen spire irreplaceable buildings.

The devs will need to stand firm that once they have figured out a good SMALL list of things that can get this immunity, they should not be giving more things this immunity just because players find it tricky to defend and start wining about it.

Maybe this restrictiveness should go further and only give the immunity to Home Command Stations and AI Home Command Stations.

EDIT: Do you think that raider fleet ships should also get this new ammo type?

Is this in Mantis?

Not yet. I'll copy it over as soon as I get to a real computer and not just my phone.

EDIT: Now I have. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2679

Vote up if you like this idea.

[TechSY730]

Continued from http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2679#c9802

Yes. A lot of the issue is that many players need to get better at realizing when there is an enemy ship on a planet, looking what is attacking, and reacting appropriately to it. This is a rather painful skill to learn, but with some of the tools we are given (like per planet enemy ship warnings), this is a feasible skill to develop.

It would be nice for the control option enemy ship warnings to have a more distinct color. Pink is used by too many other less important informational messages, so it is hard to notice when it pops up. Maybe even pick whether the alert shows up as pink, or as bright red on a per planet basis. But this is less of an issue.

[Red Spot]

Perhaps an idea to put larger groups of raiders in special, 'partialy announced' waves.

A single, 2, maybe 3 raider starships is not something most people will find a pain, I guess, it more likelly is the larger groups of them.
If the game trows x number of raid starships at you it could perhaps 'call the wave' when they hit your space the first time (and only the first time), this does give you an extra warning, but wont stick in your face just incase you where not paying attention to what you're doing (go play chess for a relaxing game, this game makes you think/requires your presence, just face it

[TechSY730]

Perhaps an idea to put larger groups of raiders in special, 'partialy announced' waves.

A single, 2, maybe 3 raider starships is not something most people will find a pain, I guess, it more likelly is the larger groups of them.
If the game trows x number of raid starships at you it could perhaps 'call the wave' when they hit your space the first time (and only the first time), this does give you an extra warning, but wont stick in your face just incase you where not paying attention to what you're doing (go play chess for a relaxing game, this game makes you think/requires your presence, just face it

Great thinking, except for the chess being a relaxing game part. Or at least that is false for me.
 

EDIT: Why not do that sort of thing for any coming to attack starship in numbers greater than their ship cap? (Like if there are 7 zenith starships incoming, but the ship cap for them is a measly 2. Any starship in >>ship-cap numbers is cause for alarm)

[Red Spot]

Great thinking, except for the chess being a relaxing game part. Or at least that is false for me.

My first try of sarcasm 

[BobTheJanitor]

See, I don't mind raid starships coming in and killing everything if you're not prepared for them. My only complaint is that there's no really good way to prepare for them. Any fix that's going to defend against them without the player doing anything, like making certain structures immune to them, takes away strategic variety. And any fix that warns you ahead of time of their approach, like a wave warning, still leaves you micro-managing to deal with them and it doesn't really give them a chance to slip in and kill things when you're unprepared. You'd have plenty of time to move fleet ships in or build turrets.

That's why I'd still like to see some kind of defense that you can build ahead of time, giving you strategic pre-planning, but that doesn't completely deal with the problem without your intervention. Thus things like a distraction unit or a weaker shield that can't be pierced but which alerts other ships and players when it's attacked. These keep you from losing something instantly, but don't prevent you from losing it if you don't act further to protect it and weren't already ready to deal with threats on that planet.

[TechSY730]

See, I don't mind raid starships coming in and killing everything if you're not prepared for them. My only complaint is that there's no really good way to prepare for them. Any fix that's going to defend against them without the player doing anything, like making certain structures immune to them, takes away strategic variety. And any fix that warns you ahead of time of their approach, like a wave warning, still leaves you micro-managing to deal with them and it doesn't really give them a chance to slip in and kill things when you're unprepared. You'd have plenty of time to move fleet ships in or build turrets.

That's why I'd still like to see some kind of defense that you can build ahead of time, giving you strategic pre-planning, but that doesn't completely deal with the problem without your intervention. Thus things like a distraction unit or a weaker shield that can't be pierced but which alerts other ships and players when it's attacked. These keep you from losing something instantly, but don't prevent you from losing it if you don't act further to protect it and weren't already ready to deal with threats on that planet.

So you would favor something like a human buildable external invisibility device (with a steep cost and a low ship cap of course), or a human buildable exo-forcefield for command stations (also with a a steep cost and a low ship cap)? I believe both are on Mantis. I would recommend voting one or both of them up, if you haven't already.

Of course, these would need to give warnings when attacked like command stations do for them to be useful for this task.

(Keep in mind the new exo-forcefield mechanic, it is immune to ff immunity, aka. ff immune ships cannot shoot through it)

[Sunshine!]

I had 10 mk2 and mk3 raid starships come in as part of just one of the strike forces from an Exogalactic Strike Force (Golems - Hard).  I think total there were at least 14 that came in the entire strike force.  Needless to say, I lost that game because mk3 raid starships can kill a home command station in about 3 shots I think it was.

[hullu]

I had 10 mk2 and mk3 raid starships come in as part of just one of the strike forces from an Exogalactic Strike Force (Golems - Hard).  I think total there were at least 14 that came in the entire strike force.  Needless to say, I lost that game because mk3 raid starships can kill a home command station in about 3 shots I think it was.

I feel for you, I started this whole thread because of pretty similiar experiences with golems/spirecraft hard and lots campaign enabled, having to deal with continual barrages of craploads of attackers including these little buggers... And once you notice the problem with raid starships it's often too late.

[TechSY730]

I had 10 mk2 and mk3 raid starships come in as part of just one of the strike forces from an Exogalactic Strike Force (Golems - Hard).  I think total there were at least 14 that came in the entire strike force.  Needless to say, I lost that game because mk3 raid starships can kill a home command station in about 3 shots I think it was.

...
Maybe there should be a cap on the number of raid starships spawned per event attack. It doesn't really matter how well you prepare or how many raid starship counters you build, dealing with a >shipcap number of raid starships is near impossible when you have to deal with everything else an event attack throws at you.

EDIT: I finally came to realize something. Although there are counters for raid starships, sniper turrets and missile turrets, they are a little lackluster at their jobs due to the fact that raid starships are immune to most forms of stalling.

Although raid starships are NOT immune to gravity effects, that is clearly not enough. We need an additional way to stall that raid starships are not immune to. Hopefully that can stall long enough for the sniper turrets and missile turrets to do their job.

[TechSY730]

Alright, found both the human build-able external invincibility device and the command station exo-forcefield suggestions on mantis. Vote one (or both) up if you like them.

Human build-able external invincibility device: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2655
Command station exo-forcefield: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1185

EDIT: Duh, spelled it as invisibility, not invincibility. Fixed.