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

[LordSloth]

Attempting to brainstorm something before thinking about it in great detail

How about: If special forces or reserves would defend a system, then freed units in that system are less likely to leave it, instead taking on a defensive role. Perhaps institute some bleedoff, particularly guardians, but fleetships in particularly would stay behind.

[Kahuna]

I keep gravitating to these values, for exactly the reasons you describe.

You just put it in a lot less words 

Oh cool. I actually posted that before reading your posts. "Great minds think alike."

[keith.lamothe]

While reducing the cost of mkIIs is one way to go in response to the ARS's no longer giving mkIIs, that not actually the way I want to do it because 2500 for a mkII actually seems like a fair deal in the general analysis.

Removing the "and you can get IVs with a certain capturable" part from the III cost is something I'm already planning to do, but it does go well with the ARS change, yes.

So what I'm currently planning to do is:
- Remove free-mkII-from-ARS
- Have capturing an ARS immediately give every human player 500 extra knowledge.  Also considering 1000 but that may be too generous.  Anyway, 500 would have the effect of reducing mkII costs for those (ARS) types to 2000 if that's where you wanted to spend it.  But you wouldn't have to.
- Reduce mkIII fleet ship tech costs from 6000 => 3750.  Or 4000 if people prefer the rounder number.  3750 is what a mkIII should cost if 2500 is fair for mkII and mkIII were literally only 1.5x as useful as a mkII.  In practice mkIII is slightly better than 1.5x a mkII, but I think moving back towards a slight encouragement of specialization isn't a bad thing.

[chemical_art]

While reducing the cost of mkIIs is one way to go in response to the ARS's no longer giving mkIIs, that not actually the way I want to do it because 2500 for a mkII actually seems like a fair deal in the general analysis.

Removing the "and you can get IVs with a certain capturable" part from the III cost is something I'm already planning to do, but it does go well with the ARS change, yes.

So what I'm currently planning to do is:
- Remove free-mkII-from-ARS
- Have capturing an ARS immediately give every human player 500 extra knowledge.  Also considering 1000 but that may be too generous.  Anyway, 500 would have the effect of reducing mkII costs for those (ARS) types to 2000 if that's where you wanted to spend it.  But you wouldn't have to.
- Reduce mkIII fleet ship tech costs from 6000 => 3750.  Or 4000 if people prefer the rounder number.  3750 is what a mkIII should cost if 2500 is fair for mkII and mkIII were literally only 1.5x as useful as a mkII.  In practice mkIII is slightly better than 1.5x a mkII, but I think moving back towards a slight encouragement of specialization isn't a bad thing.

If anything Keith, you are being generous toward both me and Kahuna (I only profess to speak for me though)

Making ARS give 500 K, but not modifying the K cost of II's is actually better then just making II's 2K (more flexibility in research choices). So I guess in that regard with the addition of III's being at least 4K or maybe being even cheaper at 3.75k, you address my needs well in this matter of fleetship K costs.


***Super big picture note: After all of these various K reductions for fleetships and turrets are done, combined with the 8+ reduction of exponential AIP to linear, I would be on board for in general addressing the question of making planets give less K in return for less effective AIP.  If I had one "big picture goal" it would be the extermination of the one planet victory while making AIP less then 300 remain unaffected.***

[Wingflier]

On review, none of the changes Keith has made in the last few patches would have negatively affected this "experiment".

I was specifically talking about the "AIP limit" mechanic, and the "Strategic Reserve Thresholds" he recently implemented, as well as a few nerfs to the AI in terms of the Nebula Battles and the Nemesis Attacks. 

I think more than anything that the overall "buffs" to the fleetships, starships, economy and such have been slowly affecting the game with power creep, while the AI has gotten very few buffs to compensate. As I've mentioned in many threads, giving the player to choose which fleetships he gets, while the AI gets them more or less randomly, can have a massive impact on game balance because of the current power disparity.

Like I said, that wouldn't really affect this instance though. 

[chemical_art]

I did a 7/7 game recently. I misunderstood the premise, but it was nice to have updated data points for an experienced player trying a standard game.

After starships get their balance pass I can address this more. (still standing by a slight decrease in dps, but they maintaining their relative effectiveness compared to fleetships by having both fleetships and starships decrease so superweapons maintain supremacy but starships still remain stronger as well)

...

But by riding the floor, hacking most ars, I was still able to win fine...those ars II's provide a lot of free power.

Even if you balance K costs for II's and III', removing ars II's would still help the overall strategic structure.

[kasnavada]

While reducing the cost of mkIIs is one way to go in response to the ARS's no longer giving mkIIs, that not actually the way I want to do it because 2500 for a mkII actually seems like a fair deal in the general analysis.

Removing the "and you can get IVs with a certain capturable" part from the III cost is something I'm already planning to do, but it does go well with the ARS change, yes.

So what I'm currently planning to do is:
- Remove free-mkII-from-ARS
- Have capturing an ARS immediately give every human player 500 extra knowledge.  Also considering 1000 but that may be too generous.  Anyway, 500 would have the effect of reducing mkII costs for those (ARS) types to 2000 if that's where you wanted to spend it.  But you wouldn't have to.
- Reduce mkIII fleet ship tech costs from 6000 => 3750.  Or 4000 if people prefer the rounder number.  3750 is what a mkIII should cost if 2500 is fair for mkII and mkIII were literally only 1.5x as useful as a mkII.  In practice mkIII is slightly better than 1.5x a mkII, but I think moving back towards a slight encouragement of specialization isn't a bad thing.

I would like to propose a change to the reinforcements mechanics on top of this.

Part of the reason this game was doable may have been the devourer cleaning things up... but maybe the whole reinforcements mechanic is weak. Basically playing low-AIP means having next to no defense on most worlds. How about leaving the alerted reinforcement as-is, but giving a reinforcement wave (capped at a firepower which would be a percentage of AIP depending on diff level) on every non-alerted world ? This would need to be multiplied for "turtle" AI types of course =).

It also would help with the reserve. The AI should notice it has no ships on the homeworld...

With a mechanic to prevent all reinforcements from AI world:
- a building could be built on a AI world (for K of course).
- a "linker" building, build 2 of them, then link them, and up to 1, 2, 3 worlds between them depending on the "linker" level (to be unlocked with K of course) which would, once again, prevent reinforcements.

[TechSY730]

While reducing the cost of mkIIs is one way to go in response to the ARS's no longer giving mkIIs, that not actually the way I want to do it because 2500 for a mkII actually seems like a fair deal in the general analysis.

Removing the "and you can get IVs with a certain capturable" part from the III cost is something I'm already planning to do, but it does go well with the ARS change, yes.

So what I'm currently planning to do is:
- Remove free-mkII-from-ARS
- Have capturing an ARS immediately give every human player 500 extra knowledge.  Also considering 1000 but that may be too generous.  Anyway, 500 would have the effect of reducing mkII costs for those (ARS) types to 2000 if that's where you wanted to spend it.  But you wouldn't have to.
- Reduce mkIII fleet ship tech costs from 6000 => 3750.  Or 4000 if people prefer the rounder number.  3750 is what a mkIII should cost if 2500 is fair for mkII and mkIII were literally only 1.5x as useful as a mkII.  In practice mkIII is slightly better than 1.5x a mkII, but I think moving back towards a slight encouragement of specialization isn't a bad thing.

I would like to propose a change to the reinforcements mechanics on top of this.

Part of the reason this game was doable may have been the devourer cleaning things up... but maybe the whole reinforcements mechanic is weak. Basically playing low-AIP means having next to no defense on most worlds. How about leaving the alerted reinforcement as-is, but giving a reinforcement wave (capped at a firepower which would be a percentage of AIP depending on diff level) on every non-alerted world ? This would need to be multiplied for "turtle" AI types of course =).

It also would help with the reserve. The AI should notice it has no ships on the homeworld...

Similar ideas:

9080: Give AI planets nearish to an alerted planet a slightly boosted chance of getting reinforcements
9079: Increase how much stuff the AI gets per planet, but make it harder to free AI defenders

[kasnavada]

Nice to know.

IMO the first one does not go far enough, and can be bypassed: the first one concerns only planets near alerted worlds.

The second one I like too, the initial garrison could be pushed higher than it is now.

Also, last time I went to see mantis there was over 3000 suggestions, soooo... sorry, I won't parse them to see if something similar exists - got a wive and kid, don't have the time.

[Faulty Logic]

- Remove free-mkII-from-ARS
- Have capturing an ARS immediately give every human player 500 extra knowledge.  Also considering 1000 but that may be too generous.  Anyway, 500 would have the effect of reducing mkII costs for those (ARS) types to 2000 if that's where you wanted to spend it.  But you wouldn't have to.
- Reduce mkIII fleet ship tech costs from 6000 => 3750.  Or 4000 if people prefer the rounder number.  3750 is what a mkIII should cost if 2500 is fair for mkII and mkIII were literally only 1.5x as useful as a mkII.  In practice mkIII is slightly better than 1.5x a mkII, but I think moving back towards a slight encouragement of specialization isn't a bad thing.

I think 4500 would be closer to right. People usually will have a FactIV, especially with CSGs/Lazy off.

Currently fleetships take 64,000 k to unlock everything.

Assuming I unlock every fleetship, with 2500/4000 costs, it takes 58500 k (-2500 for ARSs free-k thing, we get 56000).

It depends on what you want to do. The proposed change would be a buff to the player even with 4000 for mkIIIs. 4250 would be a slight buff. 4500 would be a tiny nerf.

But why are we doing this again?

[keith.lamothe]

I think 4500 would be closer to right. People usually will have a FactIV, especially with CSGs/Lazy off.

I'm fine with the AdvFact just being an awesome thing to have.  If it turns out to be too good I'd rather handle that with something directly related to the AdvFact rather than putting the burden on the mkIII tech costs.

But why are we doing this again?

Over the years there's been a lot of "power creep" specifically in the things the game gives you for free.  Most/all of the mkI starships and turrets used to require K to unlock, for example.  Stuff like transports also had to be unlocked.  But many players weren't getting any fun out of those units being in the game because they wouldn't try something new if it cost irreplaceable K (not particularly rational since you can just play throwaway games to learn stuff, but this is one area where rationality is beside the point).  And then we added the free IIs to the ARS's (back when CSGs were introduced, there was a lot of complaint that ARS's weren't worth taking; since then we've added hacking and drastically improved the balance of bonus ship types). 

Free stuff aside, the starting K amount is quite a bit higher than it used to be, and K costs are generally lower than they used to be.  And the amount of K per planet was increased from 2000 to 3000.

And that's just K-related buffs, not even getting into m+c and e (both of which were made easier by way of making the game more fun, so I think it's a net gain for the game).

It's not like those changes were made in a vacuum, so it's not like the AI hasn't gotten stuff too.  Compared to various points in the past, the AI is pretty vicious now   But it does seem that player buffs have outpaced AI buffs in the 7-through-7.6 range.  The ARS-giving-IIs thing is just the part that sticks out as most obvious to start correcting that.  And it may be sufficient, we'll see; I'm not on a nerfhammer campaign so much as not wanting to let things slide further towards a point where 7.6 is where something like 5 should be.

[Faulty Logic]

But this is a net buff to the player...

[keith.lamothe]

But this is a net buff to the player...

Only if you already unlock mkIII fleet ships, and only a big one if you already unlock several mkIII fleet ships.  Quite a bit of feedback I've heard lately is from people who do not do so because 6000 is too much for it and they don't count on getting AdvFact's.  If this makes AdvFact's too good, well, they'll get theirs.

[Faulty Logic]

Fair enough. This will be a buff to me, though  >D

[keith.lamothe]

If this makes AdvFact's too good, well, they'll get theirs.

Fair enough. This will be a buff to me, though  >D

And you'll get yours