Notes from an 8-start-planet game (and a hodge podge of other bugs and things)

[darke]

Haven't actually played multiplayer, and there's no actual documentation as to how things differ from singleplayer to multiplayer so some of these thoughts are kinda at a guess.

Some of the items are also generic things I noticed too, rather then game specific.

Enemies moving as a group: probably want to break out the melee guys at least, otherwise in a mix with tanks and slow stuff they're target practice.

Parasites: TL difference between target and attacker should change chance of parasiting. Target is equal level, 100%. Target is one level higher 50%. Target is two levels higher 25%, three levels higher 12.5%, four levels 6.25%. This should fix the last of the "too powerful" issues, plus make it a little harder to get a force of ships higher then your current level.

Turrets parasited by an enemy whilst building immediately begin attacking, even if they only just started being built by the player (so of course could not attack yet).

There needs to have two different types of "lightning missiles". One type being the current one, fast and good against starships. Another type being somewhat slower, having larger radius, cost less +AI, and do less damage, basically to help taking out things underneath forcefields. In Fast & Dangerous mode at late game on IV/III planets, it's more they're more like playing Slow & Deadly mode (since you have to wait for more ships to be continually rebuilt since it's rare not to loose your entire bomber squadron just to take out a single forcefield), and also Repetitive & Boring since it happens so often, and they take so long.

Just some notes as to the difference between multi/singleplayer from how I would have assumed a few things would have worked:

You start start with base crystal/metal rather then 8x the start amount (start "total" for all players).

Ship caps seem to be normal rather then 8x. Could cause problems late in the game. Or for that matter even early in the game. I've got 8 external wormholes, and only 170 fighters/bombers/cruisers to split between them. (plus assorted random ships) Should only affect Probably Tech I fighters/bombers/cruisers really, and maybe Tech II/III, I don't know how knowledge harvesting is handled whether it's 2000 per player per planet or just 2000 per planet. Shouldn't multiply your special ships though.

Immediate access to eight times the amount of knowledge, at eight times the normal rate gain. Probably should only give the player one science lab and force them to either buy more themselves, or traipse it around the place.

16 advanced factories but only 12 data centers? Might be worth dropping the number of advanced factories down. Want to tell where the AI's HQ is? Follow the trail of every-planet-that-has-an-advanced-factory. Also it meant it was really easy for me to grab one as well, there was on in a system 2 hops away.

8 planets sucked dry, and I've got 1976 knowledge left over. It looks like that rounding bug is still there.

Some seeds on 80 planet simple for packs of planets with no more then 8 vulnerable wormholes:

208984376
820800782
6:   166992188
7:   75683594
   852539063
   1936035157
   1382324219
8:   1224609376
   339355469
   1994140626
   783203126
   834960938
   1395507813
   387695313
   38574219
   654296876
   

[x4000]

Haven't actually played multiplayer, and there's no actual documentation as to how things differ from singleplayer to multiplayer so some of these thoughts are kinda at a guess.

No worries.

Enemies moving as a group: probably want to break out the melee guys at least, otherwise in a mix with tanks and slow stuff they're target practice.

Good point.  Added to my short-term list.

Parasites: TL difference between target and attacker should change chance of parasiting. Target is equal level, 100%. Target is one level higher 50%. Target is two levels higher 25%, three levels higher 12.5%, four levels 6.25%. This should fix the last of the "too powerful" issues, plus make it a little harder to get a force of ships higher then your current level.

Maybe... I'm not too worried about this at this stage, but I've added it to the "maybe" list.  If there's further discussion, I'd appreciate if that would be put on the other topic so that it is all together for future reference.

Turrets parasited by an enemy whilst building immediately begin attacking, even if they only just started being built by the player (so of course could not attack yet).

Good point.  I'll make it so that anything that is in the process of being built can't be parasited.

There needs to have two different types of "lightning missiles". One type being the current one, fast and good against starships. Another type being somewhat slower, having larger radius, cost less +AI, and do less damage, basically to help taking out things underneath forcefields. In Fast & Dangerous mode at late game on IV/III planets, it's more they're more like playing Slow & Deadly mode (since you have to wait for more ships to be continually rebuilt since it's rare not to loose your entire bomber squadron just to take out a single forcefield), and also Repetitive & Boring since it happens so often, and they take so long.

I've also got it on the list to make starships better against force fields, or perhaps just immune to them -- I'll have to see which I do, but just making starships able to shoot at stuff under force fields might be good.  Maybe just a specific line of starships, specifically the Raid and Leech starships.  And then the other line of starships becomes good against actually destroying the force fields, giving yet more options.

Just some notes as to the difference between multi/singleplayer from how I would have assumed a few things would have worked:

Bear in mind that this is not exactly like playing multiplayer.  It's something of a hybrid.

You start start with base crystal/metal rather then 8x the start amount (start "total" for all players).

Yes, this is by design.  Your resource capacity is so much larger, though, that you can make this up quite easily.  In real multiplayer games, everyone starts with that amount.

Ship caps seem to be normal rather then 8x. Could cause problems late in the game. Or for that matter even early in the game. I've got 8 external wormholes, and only 170 fighters/bombers/cruisers to split between them. (plus assorted random ships) Should only affect Probably Tech I fighters/bombers/cruisers really, and maybe Tech II/III, I don't know how knowledge harvesting is handled whether it's 2000 per player per planet or just 2000 per planet. Shouldn't multiply your special ships though.

Yes, ship caps are normal.  Again, this isn't meant to really be duplicating multiplayer, but rather is just another kind of single-player mode.  In multiplayer, the per-player ship caps are actually a bit lower (but the ability to take knowledge is higher, with 2000 knowledge per planet per player, as you guessed).  Multiplayer is balanced against the single player modes, but this multi-planet start thing is intentionally not balanced against the other modes -- it's meant to be a different sort of beast all together, with different challenges, etc.

Immediate access to eight times the amount of knowledge, at eight times the normal rate gain. Probably should only give the player one science lab and force them to either buy more themselves, or traipse it around the place.

Well, this is definitely one advantage.  This is sort of your "fast start" mode, in that sense.  There are a lot of advantages to playing in this mode, coupled with a lot of disadvantages.

16 advanced factories but only 12 data centers? Might be worth dropping the number of advanced factories down. Want to tell where the AI's HQ is? Follow the trail of every-planet-that-has-an-advanced-factory. Also it meant it was really easy for me to grab one as well, there was on in a system 2 hops away.

Oh, good point.  Normally it should be a minimum of 2 advanced factories per player, but in this case it should be per real-player and not per-starting-position.

8 planets sucked dry, and I've got 1976 knowledge left over. It looks like that rounding bug is still there.

Lovely... that's so strange that no one else has seen it, too.

Some seeds on 80 planet simple for packs of planets with no more then 8 vulnerable wormholes:

Nice!  Thanks for posting them.

[Admiral]

Parasites: TL difference between target and attacker should change chance of parasiting. Target is equal level, 100%. Target is one level higher 50%. Target is two levels higher 25%, three levels higher 12.5%, four levels 6.25%. This should fix the last of the "too powerful" issues, plus make it a little harder to get a force of ships higher then your current level.

Interesting idea. That is mostly already taken into account, however, by the fact that Tech I parasites leave you with ships that are not very strong when you take them (unless you use only parasites) and often get blasted to smithereens immediately by the enemies. I, a fan of parasites (I use only parasite worlds for starting worlds now a days), would be saddened by this. *puts on nerf armor +3*

Cheers!

[Admiral]

PS: You should think about putting those seeds on the CustomerWiki...

[x4000]

Parasites: TL difference between target and attacker should change chance of parasiting. Target is equal level, 100%. Target is one level higher 50%. Target is two levels higher 25%, three levels higher 12.5%, four levels 6.25%. This should fix the last of the "too powerful" issues, plus make it a little harder to get a force of ships higher then your current level.

Interesting idea. That is mostly already taken into account, however, by the fact that Tech I parasites leave you with ships that are not very strong when you take them (unless you use only parasites) and often get blasted to smithereens immediately by the enemies. I, a fan of parasites (I use only parasite worlds for starting worlds now a days), would be saddened by this. *puts on nerf armor +3*

Cheers!

Yeah, I'm not feeling like I need to nerf parasites more at present.  They are a strong ship, but I'm not seeing them as overwhelmingly so.  If anything needs to happen nerf-wise with them, I'd see that as a more subtle change later on.  Slight tweaks to attack power or health or something.

[darke]

There needs to have two different types of "lightning missiles". One type being the current one, fast and good against starships. Another type being somewhat slower, having larger radius, cost less +AI, and do less damage, basically to help taking out things underneath forcefields. In Fast & Dangerous mode at late game on IV/III planets, it's more they're more like playing Slow & Deadly mode (since you have to wait for more ships to be continually rebuilt since it's rare not to loose your entire bomber squadron just to take out a single forcefield), and also Repetitive & Boring since it happens so often, and they take so long.

I've also got it on the list to make starships better against force fields, or perhaps just immune to them -- I'll have to see which I do, but just making starships able to shoot at stuff under force fields might be good.  Maybe just a specific line of starships, specifically the Raid and Leech starships.  And then the other line of starships becomes good against actually destroying the force fields, giving yet more options.

Cool. I'm just in the middle of a delicate balancing act on a pair of AI 10's otherwise I'd upgrade to that latest patch that has some of these changes.

Just some notes as to the difference between multi/singleplayer from how I would have assumed a few things would have worked:

Bear in mind that this is not exactly like playing multiplayer.  It's something of a hybrid.

Was expected. I was just being my usual paranoid self.

Ship caps seem to be normal rather then 8x. Could cause problems late in the game. Or for that matter even early in the game. I've got 8 external wormholes, and only 170 fighters/bombers/cruisers to split between them. (plus assorted random ships) Should only affect Probably Tech I fighters/bombers/cruisers really, and maybe Tech II/III, I don't know how knowledge harvesting is handled whether it's 2000 per player per planet or just 2000 per planet. Shouldn't multiply your special ships though.

Yes, ship caps are normal.  Again, this isn't meant to really be duplicating multiplayer, but rather is just another kind of single-player mode.  In multiplayer, the per-player ship caps are actually a bit lower (but the ability to take knowledge is higher, with 2000 knowledge per planet per player, as you guessed).  Multiplayer is balanced against the single player modes, but this multi-planet start thing is intentionally not balanced against the other modes -- it's meant to be a different sort of beast all together, with different challenges, etc.

Cool.

Immediate access to eight times the amount of knowledge, at eight times the normal rate gain. Probably should only give the player one science lab and force them to either buy more themselves, or traipse it around the place.

Well, this is definitely one advantage.  This is sort of your "fast start" mode, in that sense.  There are a lot of advantages to playing in this mode, coupled with a lot of disadvantages.

Yeah. I must admit I found playing in the mode a bit more on the boring side though. Then again I was going against two Special Forces Commanders, and any game with two of those feels more grindy then hard after you get about half way through.

8 planets sucked dry, and I've got 1976 knowledge left over. It looks like that rounding bug is still there.

Lovely... that's so strange that no one else has seen it, too.

I get the feeling that few people use the +bonus resources qualifies, and/or they use more regular numbers like +50% or +100% rather then the more granular +70% or whatever figures I tend to use.

[x4000]

All good, darke.  That makes sense about the Special Forces Captains with that sort of start -- boy, that would be grindy.  With the knowledge thing, I don't know why I never thought of the handicap as potentially holding the key to that issue.  Thanks!  I've added that to my list to check out, and I bet I'll find it that way.