Erm...right, is this supposed to happen (MEGAWAVE)

[Mánagarmr]

Roughly three minutes into the game, I get bumrushed by about 1500 Mk III and Mk IV Microfighters and other assorted ships. Is this supposed to happen on difficulty 7.3?


EDIT: Did some more testing and it appears the game starts with about 1600 or so threat, mostly high level ships. They instantly, as soon as the game starts, go for my homeworld. No matter how many times I restart the game, on this map I will start with 1629 threat right off the bat. Save attached, map seed is 1129394531.

I've tried genning a couple of more galaxies and it seems to be completely random. I always start with some threat (usually around 60-200) but every 3-4 games I will get a huge number, surpassing 1500 and then get squashed only minutes later.

I'm not reporting this on the tracker until I've managed to determine just what might be the cause so I can make an intelligent report.

[Mánagarmr]

Here's a new game with the same settings:

[Mánagarmr]

Okay, I have enough info now. Reported on tracker: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=475

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, we've been seeing this internally for a while, I was surprised to not to see more reports of it.  I'm guessing it's a low-ship-cap thing only though perhaps not.

I think the fix is to have it display the text:

"
After careful deliberation, the AI has decided to win this game.  Thank you, we look forward to your repeat business in future lives.
"

[Mánagarmr]

Yea, we've been seeing this internally for a while, I was surprised to not to see more reports of it.  I'm guessing it's a low-ship-cap thing only though perhaps not.

I think the fix is to have it display the text:

"
After careful deliberation, the AI has decided to win this game.  Thank you, we look forward to your repeat business in future lives.
"

Hahah! That would be so unfair

So, do you guys have any idea what's causing this? As for observations, it seems to be only Microfighters doing this O.o

[keith.lamothe]

My guess is that the border aggression thresholds are scaling in a different way than the "how many ai ships should I place here during mapgen" logic.

The fact that the tachyon microfighters seem to be the common offenders is odd.  Though perhaps it is just that they are the fastest of the released units.

But since they are a bonus ship type, they really should not be showing up in all games.

And then there's the randomness of whether it happens or not; that would seem to make the border-aggression theory less likely.

Unless it's that certain bonus ship types are being placed in much larger numbers due to relative scaling (one places more microfighters than sentinel frigates, for instance... well, at least nowadays, ahem).

[Mánagarmr]

That is what I was thinking too. It might only happen in games with microfighters (where the AI is granted microfighters) due to the ship cap of those being so large.

But nevertheless, you always get a starting threat. It's just HUGE when microfighters are involved.

[Gallant Dragon]

Same thing happened here.
A few minutes in, and the threat level jumps rapidly between 1597 and 1599, and then I'm swarmed by huge numbers of ships, not just microfighters, although they did make an appearance.
You can see the insane threat level in the corner.

[Buttons840]

Yea, we've been seeing this internally for a while, I was surprised to not to see more reports of it.  I'm guessing it's a low-ship-cap thing only though perhaps not.

I think the fix is to have it display the text:

"
After careful deliberation, the AI has decided to win this game.  Thank you, we look forward to your repeat business in future lives.
"

Hahah! That would be so unfair

So, do you guys have any idea what's causing this? As for observations, it seems to be only Microfighters doing this O.o

AI: "They're my ships, I'll use them when I want....  I think I'll use them now."

[Astilious]

I've had a similar problem. Haven't had anything as extreme as >1000 threat but the AI constantly has 10-50 ships (mostly mark III and IV) attacking my homeworld from the word go, along with 3-5 astro-trains. This keeps up and gradualy escalates to the point where I finally cant keep up and get destroyed. It seems as though the AI sends every ship it reinforces directly at my homeworld. Having more enthusiasm than skill I generally play on difficulty 6 and in the past have gotten an appropriate challange from that. Has the difficulty of the different AI simply increased or is this not supposed to happen?

EDIT: Just realised the attacks were probably just because I kept using X style maps with my homeworld near the middle. Sorry for being so dumb forget I said anything .

[Lancefighter]

What if.............



its the tachyons trying to chase scouts. And they get released from their posts.

[zebramatt]

EDIT: Just realised the attacks were probably just because I kept using X style maps with my homeworld near the middle. Sorry for being so dumb forget I said anything .

I just posted a Mantis entry for starting in the middle of concentric circle maps. I imagine it should be harder, sure, but starting whack bang next to one or several Mark IV planets just seems a little broken!