5.025 Looks Good!

[Wingflier]

Can't wait!

http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Current_Post-5.000_Beta#Prerelease_5.025

[keith.lamothe]

Glad you like it

Currently targetting monday to get that out.

[zoutzakje]

very nice, I love the ultra low caps. My laptop is crappy and occasionally has trouble even on low caps. The final battles on a 120 planet map can still be quite large. Ultra low caps will make everything run smooth and it's much less chaotic than normal or high caps can be.

[TechSY730]

Currently targetting monday to get that out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Azz-6oT08c


Sorry to do that to you, but I couldn't think of any better clip

EDIT: Clarification, now being right after the OMD change is committed to the actual "to-deploy" version.

[Wanderer]

On a side note:

MkI For reference, MkI unit cap is 12 for these, and each fires 3 beams every 7 seconds.
 Base Health from 250k => 850k. This brings cap-health a bit higher than missile turrets, which are the squishy end of turret types.
 Base Energy Use from 750 => 1650. This brings cap-energy to just slightly above MLRS and several other turret types.
 Base Metal/Crystal Cost from 8000/14000 => 6500/11000. This brings cap-mc to slightly below most turret types.
 Base Attack Power from 50000 => 140000. This brings cap-dps to be second highest turret non-bonus-dps (lightning being highest) but well below the any turret's bonus-dps.
 Knowledge cost from 2000 => 500. The other mkI turrets are free.

While I appreciate the boost, I would have expected something with a cap of 12 to be able to kill more then 2 MK I missile figates/7 seconds (artillery hulls are my particular annoyance for bonus types).  I may just be being greedy.  Flaks and Lightnings having protection look tasty, I can't wait for that.

[keith.lamothe]

While I appreciate the boost, I would have expected something with a cap of 12 to be able to kill more then 2 MK I missile figates/7 seconds

Well, how fast can a mkI cap of the other turret types kill them?

For HBC vs MFrigates, each HBC fires a 3-beam fan, so that's a total of 410k damage per HBC.  On high caps a MFrigate has 77k health, so the HBC is doing something like 5.5 MFrigate's worth of health per shot.  With a full cap of HBCs, that's 66 MFrigates, or about a third of a cap.  So a cap of HBCs could theoretically kill a cap of MFrigates in 21 seconds (as little as 14 depending on when the firing cycle starts).  More likely it would just have really pared them down.

[TechSY730]

From the very recently updates 5.025 notes

Tazer Module:
...
    Now has a planet-wide stagger time of 2 seconds, to prevent permanently stunlocking 4000+ ships in a multi-hw setting with 4 Riot IIs. They can still be used to effectively halve the attack power (due to prolonging reload time) of non-paralysis immune enemies. Also tends to interrupt them while they try to get away.
    Thanks to GUDare for being the one to confirm the long-held suspicion that these were horribly exploitable.

Does that mean that if a tazer fired within two seconds ago, another tazer cannot fire, even if it has no reload time left?
Is that how attack staggering in general works (replacing two seconds with that ship types stagger time, of course)?

[keith.lamothe]

Does that mean that if a tazer fired within two seconds ago, another tazer cannot fire, even if it has no reload time left?

If the other tazer is on the same planet as the one that the first tazer fired on, yes, that is correct.

Is that how attack staggering in general works (replacing two seconds with that ship types stagger time, of course)?

Yep   That's how electric shuttles and lightning turrets have worked for quite a while, actually (with separate stagger counters for each type and mark, so 7 total, plus an eighth now for the tazer).  But those were recently changed to have the minimum stagger time since their "alpha" dps has been mitigated in other ways (a cap on number of targets hit, namely).

[TechSY730]

Yep   That's how electric shuttles and lightning turrets have worked for quite a while, actually (with separate stagger counters for each type and mark, so 7 total, plus an eighth now for the tazer).  But those were recently changed to have the minimum stagger time since their "alpha" dps has been mitigated in other ways (a cap on number of targets hit, namely).

Minimum stagger time, what does that mean? A stagger value (that is much smaller than the normal stagger counters) that is used on a stagger timer shared among ALL staggered attacks? And if so, is it shared among all  staggered attacks from all ships, or all staggered attacks across all Mk.s of a unit type?

[Wanderer]

The stagger occurs for all ships of the same type and mark.  So, if you have 500 MK1s and 2 MK2s, the Mk2s will fire as fast as possible, your Mk 1s will stagger off each other.

Out of curiousity, why does tazer have this:
Multiplier vs Artillery from 3 => 4

Artillery Ships:
Bombard: Too far away.
Grenade launcher: Okay.
Guardians: Won't paralyze.
Missle Frig: Immune to AoE.
GuardPosts: Won't paralyze.
SC Implosion: Won't Paralyze.
Antimatter Starship: Won't Paralyze.

So, the only thing that boost is good for is against Grenade Launchers.  Seems silly.

[Wanderer]

While I appreciate the boost, I would have expected something with a cap of 12 to be able to kill more then 2 MK I missile figates/7 seconds

Well, how fast can a mkI cap of the other turret types kill them?

For HBC vs MFrigates, each HBC fires a 3-beam fan, so that's a total of 410k damage per HBC.  On high caps a MFrigate has 77k health, so the HBC is doing something like 5.5 MFrigate's worth of health per shot.  With a full cap of HBCs, that's 66 MFrigates, or about a third of a cap.  So a cap of HBCs could theoretically kill a cap of MFrigates in 21 seconds (as little as 14 depending on when the firing cycle starts).  More likely it would just have really pared them down.

Working off Normal values (which is where I took my sheet from) I'm assuming you'd get 6 cap of the HBCs.
EDIT: They don't scale.  D'oh.  Dumb Dare.

With Missile Frigates having 154k in HP, That's about 2.5 Frigs/7 seconds.  * 6 that's 15 frigs/second.  Cap is 98.  So, 49 seconds (taking into account reload time) or so to clear a minimum cap wave, which basically doesn't exist by the time you're usually investing in these, but that's besides the point.  The DPS is about 351k.

Compared to basic: 16k/shot, 3 shots, 98 cap, 10 second reload. 
Working from raw: That's 470k DPS, which is a hair over 3 frigates per second.  Before multipliers.

That's 40 seconds to clear 98 Frigates, before bonuses, no K charge.

Compared to MLRS: 98 Cap, 2800x12 shots, reload 8 seconds.
From raw: 411k DPS.  2.6 Frigates/second. 40

40 seconds again to clear 98 frigates, no K charge.

EDIT:
I forgot to double the firepower for Normal Caps, so they're pounding out 820k/7 seconds, not 410k.  That'll take them down to around 28 seconds to clear a cap.  Apologies, you're right.  Not that it matters, they don't scale... *facepalm*

Ima gonna go shaddup and sit in the corner on this one.

[_K_]

The multiplier changes are just a matter of standardisation, and i approve of these.

I love the starship boosts, though i'd rather see tasers just have a target limit like the lightning weapons do, planet-wide stagger just feels kinda... unnatural.
Personally, i can never get myself to spend 4k knowledge on upgrading direct combat starships (specifically the bomber, siege and leech, though with leech its more about E costs), so i wonder, are they really worth their knowledge costs?
It really feels to me that getting a full cap of fleet ships of the same role is always much cheaper both resource and knowledge-wise, than getting the starships.

[Wanderer]

The multiplier changes are just a matter of standardisation, and i approve of these.

Heh, my question was more why bother with a tazer bonus vs. Artillery at all.  I'm assuming that bonus is a time bonus not a damage bonus, but it's still a moot point.

Personally, i can never get myself to spend 4k knowledge on upgrading direct combat starships (specifically the bomber, siege and leech, though with leech its more about E costs), so i wonder, are they really worth their knowledge costs?

Bomber I can say for sure yes.  Leech is iffy, I don't play enough with reclaimers.  I know being attacked by Leech IIIs can get rediculous.  Siege I'm still playing with after the upgrades.  Riots on the other hand were definately worth taking to MK II for the 75% reduction in firepower.  Now, at 50%, I'm not sure that much K wouldn't be better spent elsewhere, such as anti-missile turrets.

It really feels to me that getting a full cap of fleet ships of the same role is always much cheaper both resource and knowledge-wise, than getting the starships.

Well, you can't get a full cap of paralytic equivalents for the leech, unless you start with that ship type.  There's really nothing that competes with Siege.  I find a stack of bomber starships to be very handy for 'quick-strikes' since regular bombers are relatively slow.  They're particularly handy for fort removal and certain guard post removals, and I also use them as extra artillery when doing a nerf of wormhole guardposts.

[chemical_art]

Tastes on starships vary wildly. I prefer fleet blobs whenever possible. With sieges I have the first consideration of unlocking starships because they follow a niche role (parasites do not scale well at all due to mk mechanics. They should be given an MK + 1 bonuses compared to the normal parasites.

[keith.lamothe]

The multiplier changes are just a matter of standardisation, and i approve of these.

Heh, my question was more why bother with a tazer bonus vs. Artillery at all.  I'm assuming that bonus is a time bonus not a damage bonus, but it's still a moot point.

No, all vs-hull-type bonuses, without exception, refer to actual damage, none of the secondary effects (except parasite, but that's not directly impacting the parasite ability, that's just because parasite is based off normal damage).