Author Topic: 3.113 (Minor faction timing changes, arachnid rebalance, other rebalance)  (Read 7174 times)

Offline keith.lamothe

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-Increments to total AI Progress now show in a small alert box listing the time, amount, and cause of the 6 most recent increments.  This box doesn't show if there is nothing to display, and once it is showing you can minimize it by right-cliking the box title bar, or clear it (and thus hide it until the next increment) by ctrl+alt+right-clicking it.  Alternatively you can just right-click the box title bar and it will "minimize" down to that bar.  You can drag it around by left-click-and-drag on the box title bar.
It would be absolutely AWESOME if this also displayed reductions. It's an absolutely awesome function, but reductions would be even better.
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Offline Doddler

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One side effect of the EMP mines doing area-of-effect EMP is that ships caught in the minefield can be paralyzed for a long time...  it seems like ships get the 30 seconds (or whatever) of EMP * the number of mines that went off...  just flew a group of bombers into an EMP minefield and now they're all paralyzed for 10-20 *minutes*.  Is it the expected behavior?

This sounds pretty rough. I already have enough problems with EMP mines. :(

Offline orzelek

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The summing of time for paralysis is expected behavior. I guess that after recent buff with aoe paralysis this time needs to be toned down a bit...

Offline keith.lamothe

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Hmm, seems like there should be a cap on EMP time for most ships.  Either that, or it should just auto-scrap them when they hit 30 minutes or so for ordinary fleet ships.  I mean, at some point it's just more effective to rebuild them, right?  Really expensive ones might be different on that, though.
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Offline x4000

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Yes, this is the expected behavior, but I think in general we need to implement a paralysis cap of around 2 minutes.  When counting down paralysis, if it's above 3600 steps it would set itself to 3600, etc.
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Offline keith.lamothe

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-Increments to total AI Progress now show in a small alert box listing the time, amount, and cause of the 6 most recent increments.  This box doesn't show if there is nothing to display, and once it is showing you can minimize it by right-cliking the box title bar, or clear it (and thus hide it until the next increment) by ctrl+alt+right-clicking it.  Alternatively you can just right-click the box title bar and it will "minimize" down to that bar.  You can drag it around by left-click-and-drag on the box title bar.
It would be absolutely AWESOME if this also displayed reductions. It's an absolutely awesome function, but reductions would be even better.
Sure.  A bit busy right now, but can-do.
FYI, this is now in for the next release :)
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Offline FrostyThePyro

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Yes, this is the expected behavior, but I think in general we need to implement a paralysis cap of around 2 minutes.  When counting down paralysis, if it's above 3600 steps it would set itself to 3600, etc.

how much extra processing would it take for dimishing paralysis returns?  a simple example would be paralisis added =x*(m*x/(m*x+n*P)  were x is paralis time for the attack and P is how long the target is currently paralized for, and m and n are wieghting factors.   So if both m an n are 1 then geting hit by two 30 sec stuns would provide 45 seconds of stun.  or 15 simultanous emp mines would cause 2 minutes and 17 seconds of stun.  If you increase m then the returns will dimish slower, if you increase n they will dimish faster.  and for somethin which you would want unchanged from the current (for example emp missiles) then set n to zero

Offline x4000

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Yes, this is the expected behavior, but I think in general we need to implement a paralysis cap of around 2 minutes.  When counting down paralysis, if it's above 3600 steps it would set itself to 3600, etc.

how much extra processing would it take for dimishing paralysis returns?  a simple example would be paralisis added =x*(m*x/(m*x+n*P)  were x is paralis time for the attack and P is how long the target is currently paralized for, and m and n are wieghting factors.   So if both m an n are 1 then geting hit by two 30 sec stuns would provide 45 seconds of stun.  or 15 simultanous emp mines would cause 2 minutes and 17 seconds of stun.  If you increase m then the returns will dimish slower, if you increase n they will dimish faster.  and for somethin which you would want unchanged from the current (for example emp missiles) then set n to zero

Well, look at all those multiplications and divisions right there.  That's an answer for you right there, if there is a lot of paralysis going on its fairly notable.  Everything happens in aggregate in AI War, so it's not just that simple formula, but that 1000+ times per second (potentially) in big battles.  Even that's not going to be killer, but the main thing is that it doesn't add enough to the simulation to be worth the extra cost that it does bring.  There are hundreds of little calculations in the AI War simulation, from everything to protection area calculations, to collisions, to targeting, to movement, to all the other little randoms stuff that has to happen for all the specialized units (engineers, paralyzers, etc, etc).  The way that I keep the game running so smoothly overall (or running at all, in general) is by figuring out where to shave the corners off.  This is one of those classic cases where doing something simpler gives pretty much the same general effect unless players are really looking hard at it, and so to me it's an clear case for going the simpler route.
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Offline WinterBorn

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Yes, this is the expected behavior, but I think in general we need to implement a paralysis cap of around 2 minutes.  When counting down paralysis, if it's above 3600 steps it would set itself to 3600, etc.


I would like the cap be at least 5 min. -- the mines are expensive and 5 min would give humans time to react - It also means that scouting before entering an area is more important than ever.


Perhaps the MRS could "heal" EMP paralysis -- (shooting that idea from the hip) -- not sure what that would do to game balance though.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2010, 11:28:22 pm by waveman55 »

Offline Doddler

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You can disable a huge amount of ships with just a small group of mines now.  For such power, they probably shouldn't last THAT long.  Even 30 seconds of paralysis on a warp gate should be enough, like how mines were before they became AoE.

Offline eRe4s3r

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Mines disabling ships is imo too OP as well. Most importantly, it makes mines do the wrong kind of thing - Mines aren't ship disablers but passage blockades through attrition. ;D
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Offline Mánagarmr

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  • if (isInRange(target)) { kill(target); }
FYI, this is now in for the next release :)
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Offline KingIsaacLinksr

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FYI, this is now in for the next release :)
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Offline UberJumper

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Hi is this normal?



I cheated and just killed a single command center, and the AI responds with 5k units?

Offline keith.lamothe

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Yea, that doesn't look like the AI was very happy.

Assuming there weren't 5k units in the system you hit (unlikely given the in-game time), that would seem to be unintended behavior.
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