7/7 game with next to no knowledge used... won.

[TechSY730]

Oh yea, and I would be fine with the ARS gives some knowledge < Mk. II fleetship knowledge cost type nerf return for Mk. III fleet ship knowledge costs coming down a bit.
Faulty Logic's alternate idea of making ARS planets give less knowledge as the nerf would also work, though I would still prefer the first idea.


And I feel compelled to point out that the consensus on the poll about starships I made earlier seemed to give the impression that players feel that the starships were overbuffed, but not by much. (I can provide link if you want)

[Cinth]

Aren't ARS usually seeded with CSG nodes?  So you would want to nerf the K gains on planets you would have to take in the case of Faulty's suggestion?  I thought low AIP games held K at a premium.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I'm gonna go ahead and chime in and say I like ARSs where they are. If you finish a game of 7/7 without any sort of super weapons then it's a teensy bit more alarming. But really like, I'm pretty awful at strategy games and I want to be able to play against the AI at maximum intelligence. You can't do that on not-difficulty 7, and I actually struggle with difficulty 7 quite a bit as it is. Making ARSs weaker and all that for the sake of the most hardcore players might be a bit much.

[Radiant Phoenix]

PS. Thank you Free BBCode Table Generator Tool

Bah, just copy from spreadsheet and regex-replace

Code: [Select]

"^"=>"[tr][td]"
"$"=>"[/td][/tr]"
"\t"=>"[/td][td]"
then add the table tags to either side, done

I do it manually. With the keyboard.

[keith.lamothe]

But really like, I'm pretty awful at strategy games and I want to be able to play against the AI at maximum intelligence. You can't do that on not-difficulty 7, and I actually struggle with difficulty 7 quite a bit as it is. Making ARSs weaker and all that for the sake of the most hardcore players might be a bit much.

I'm not sure you understand.  He only spent 500 K the entire game.  He had over 40,000 K left at the end of the game.  Even if ARS got nothing in return you're out a maximum of 12,500 K to get the mkII unlocks yourself.

I mean, if this were Faulty, I'd chalk it up to "well, yea", but I don't think that's the level of play we're looking at here

That said, I'm not rushing to change this, either, but I do think it's one area where the game is nicer than it should be.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Usually I fall apart in the early game when I'm like not at all good at defending on multiple fronts. So, the extra free caps of the mark II ships would be more helpful to me. I mean, some time after this weekend I'll have time to give it a good bash and see how I feel in more detail. I'll just abuse full caps of all kinds of turrets and totally overcompensate on defense and that should help.
I mean, 40k knowledge is really excessive to have and just not spend to get any stronger. That's a good point there admittedly. And, yeah, I'm just under the impression that everybody else is significantly more experienced than I am as well so they have much easier times with gimmicky games.

[RCIX]

What if you got [ai mark level] ships from ARS?

[kasnavada]

Did you play with Lazy AI on or off?

Looking at the saves, he had lazy off AND CSGs on.  They're somewhat redundant (I'm happy to accept a non-Lazy game as valid for balance feedback even with CSGs off) but he definitely wasn't cutting corners there.

If off, how did you get past the (supposed to be) sizable strategic reserves?

Superweapons, I'm thinking.

I did most of First AI by :
- building a full cap of lvl 1 & 2 neinzul in a world 2 steps from the AI homeworld.
- send the full pack of 384 ships.
- Waiting for the defense to unspawn.
- Repeat.

I did the same to clean-up the lvl 4 world next to the homeworld just before attacking the homeworld. The entire remainder of the fleet was set to defense duty.

Basically the 4 caps do about 15M damage before getting annihilated (much more random than this, of course), which the AI will not repair fast enough. Since I attack often the defense on the homeworld gets converted to threat, and since I have next to no def then attack and get crushed. Either that or I use the scout network put in place to search and destroy.

When I was beating up the last core guard (the one with the shield 5 and the drones) on the First I, by taking chunks of 10-15% of the shield, I remembered the penetrator and things went kinda faster from there. I could have done the first AI without, I do not know for the second AI. I found out they bypass shields when rushing the last AI home station, otherwise I used them to kill the shield first and whatever was below them afterwards (yes, I know...).

The main danger from the AI homeworld was not the reserves but, the drones. They spawn rather slowly, not all of them move (FRD bug ?) and anyway, they cannot (and shouldn't IMO) kill a 384 fleet fast enough to prevent any damage being done. Else the game would be unwinnable.

The other main danger was the Exo-waves, I restarted once for the first since I did not think they would all spawn NEXT to my howeworld. I save scummed once for the first core guard too (spawned at the same place, ruined my home station). I save scummed 4 - 5 for the second Exo, because I wanted the golem to survive, even if I survived most of them.

[kasnavada]

I do not think the research stations are the balance problem for this.

I could have done this (more slowly for sure) with caps of level 1. I did not even use the hacker station to choose what ship to use.

IMO, the problem is that I'm completely unopposed until the AIP reaches 140 or so. Waves, reinforcements and default garrison is pathetic and weak until then.

[Zeyi]

Which neinzul ship were you using?

[TechSY730]

I do not think the research stations are the balance problem for this.

I could have done this (more slowly for sure) with caps of level 1. I did not even use the hacker station to choose what ship to use.

IMO, the problem is that I'm completely unopposed until the AIP reaches 140 or so. Waves, reinforcements and default garrison is pathetic and weak until then.

Which has sort of been touched on in other threads, and what the "lazy AI" off was supposed to help address if you can stay very low AIP to the late game, but then have a much harder "wall" if you do this as the AI won't skimp on HW defense even at low AIP with this option.

Considering that you were able to out produce the non-lazy strategic reserve with almost no knowledge and only Mk I and II fleetships and Mk. I starships, it may be that strategic reserves need a buff.

That said, I still do think that the AI's "base strength" could go up some in return for its growth over AIP going down a bit.

[Hearteater]

I've got to say, Lazy AI is confusing to me in terms of naming.  Having Lazy AI on makes the game easier.  Having CSGs off makes the game easier.  So On/Off is easiest, Off/On is hardest, while On/On and Off/Off are middle ground.  I think I'd rather if Lazy AI became Vigilant or something, and turning it on makes the game tougher.  So in both cases turning on the options makes the game harder.  It can default to the opposite of Lazy so the default state is the same.

[keith.lamothe]

I've got to say, Lazy AI is confusing to me in terms of naming.  Having Lazy AI on makes the game easier.  Having CSGs off makes the game easier.

They're in different categories in the lobby; in the AI Mods section of the lobby (where the Lazy toggle is) everything defaults to off.  Flipping the Lazy toggle to a Vigilant toggle there would be like flipping the "No Waves" toggle to a "Sends Waves" toggle

[TechSY730]

I've got to say, Lazy AI is confusing to me in terms of naming.  Having Lazy AI on makes the game easier.  Having CSGs off makes the game easier.

They're in different categories in the lobby; in the AI Mods section of the lobby (where the Lazy toggle is) everything defaults to off.  Flipping the Lazy toggle to a Vigilant toggle there would be like flipping the "No Waves" toggle to a "Sends Waves" toggle

I think the idea is that if it is currently checked, it will become unchecked, and visa-versa.

In other words, create a new option, remove the old option, and have the program populate the new option (both in the cached lobby settings, current games, etc) to be the inverse of the old option if it detects the old option. It would have to remove the old option from old save games and the lobby settings cache to ensure that data doesn't get overwritten everytime, which could lead to "forgetting" settings.


I guess it depends on whether you want the "laziness" to be on by default, or off by default.

If you want "lazy" to be on (aka, not vigilant) by default, then it should change to "Vigilent" or a similar inverse option, as it defaults to unchecked.
If you want "lazy" to be off (aka, vigilant) by default, then it should remain as, as it default to unchecked.

Still, I think a better name can be found if we don't "invert" it.

[keith.lamothe]

I think the idea is that if it is currently checked, it will become unchecked, and visa-versa.

I believe I understand that part.  What I'm saying is that every other item in that part of the lobby defaults to unchecked, so this one should too.  Since I want "non Lazy" to be the default, that means making "non Lazy" = unchecked, which means making checked = "Lazy".