AI War Beta 3.719, "And There Was Much Rejoicing," Released!

[MysteryOne]

We had a nice game of multiplayer tonight in the QA lounge. It felt a little more laggy than usual, but it's hard to tell if the locations are the issue, as we are far apart.

Have you guys or girls tried changing Performance Profile(s) in lobby window?

[x4000]

If you try to play without starships now, though, you'll get eaten alive most likely.  It's a shift for me, too.  Of course, depending on your bonus ships that you unlock, you might have more or fewer starships actually needed in terms of counters for things like guardians, etc.

Conceptually that seems fine, it's just a point of education for the player, but economically speaking a Siege MkI is pretty expensive in crystal, particularly when combined with a few tractor turrets, etc.  The massive boost to home-command-station m+c production helps a lot, just wondering if mandating starships in their current form is a bit much on the early game economy   But the players would know better than I would, I don't actually get to play much nowadays.

There also are zero guardians on the planets adjacent to your home planet, so you have a fair bit of leeway with bolstering your economy even further before you even have to face your first guardian.

If this wasn't a scout, then this is exactly the intended behavior.  They are very, very hostile except to scouts.  Poking your head into an AI planet that is high level with anything but a scout is a very dangerous thing to do, like poking your head into any enemy encampment in real life.  Fear the AI.

I haven't thought about this with transports too much, though.  Any thoughts on how that is working for the moment, anyone?  Those might need to be given the same immunity from enraging the guards that scouts have.

My understanding from the code is that the guardians will not actually free themselves unless the offender actually fires upon them (or the guard post or some other guard of the guard post), so transports would be safe.  Has anyone seen differently in 3.719?

So conceptually if you ran in a fleet under a cloaker or low power they'd not free themselves?

Yes, that should work -- though, under the cloaker your ships would still fire and trigger the guardians unless they were also low-power.  In low-power mode your ships will take a ton of damage from the AI ships, but the AI ships won't give chase.

[keith.lamothe]

So conceptually if you ran in a fleet under a cloaker or low power they'd not free themselves?

In low power, yes.  They would still fire on you and might theoretically free themselves if they chased you beyond their leash distance (I forget exactly how that works, it's changed a number of times), but you could get away without them deciding it was time to go after you.

[x4000]

So conceptually if you ran in a fleet under a cloaker or low power they'd not free themselves?

In low power, yes.  They would still fire on you and might theoretically free themselves if they chased you beyond their leash distance (I forget exactly how that works, it's changed a number of times), but you could get away without them deciding it was time to go after you.

The leash distance thing is hopefully not happening, that would cause some issues.

[x4000]

So conceptually if you ran in a fleet under a cloaker or low power they'd not free themselves?

In low power, yes.  They would still fire on you and might theoretically free themselves if they chased you beyond their leash distance (I forget exactly how that works, it's changed a number of times), but you could get away without them deciding it was time to go after you.

The leash distance thing is hopefully not happening, that would cause some issues.

It was indeed there still.  I've now removed it, which should solve a few more cases of guards ships being more aggressive than we expect.

[superking]

flak gaurdians are still massive OP... 200+ MK II fighters & MK II space-tanks insta died vs a single MK I flak

on the new control node menu, if you set some options on the galaxy wide page then go to the specific planet page and save, it forgets the settings on the galaxy page

the trader sprite has a single white pixel floating out of place

the 'everything in spot' base is terribad, so hard to figure out what is what (took me ages to find the star-ship constructor) and makes the early game at least 9000 times less interesting (also, bring back blades killing them, that was FUN  ) revert, revert!

the new zoom feels MUCH better, awesome job I'm starting to warm up to it again

I dont really like/see the point of wormhole gaurdposts- they seem like a needless addition and overcomplicated- why do they need a 10 damage pew pew weapon and 400,000,000 health, why have them when we have normal gaurd posts?

why was shields renamed to armour   this still gives me massive nerdrage

the AI frequently attacks me with low-powered ships on their planets which thus dont fire weapons and sort of fail

love the new wave notifications & starships in waves... might be cool to have a flashing WARNING! somewhere up there too

the starfields are better now that the smallest stars move the slowest (it looked wrong with the fast moving small stars and slow large stars) but imo it still WAY too dense, both because it dosnt look as nice as it could (basically makes space look grey instead of dark) and because it confuses my eyes and makes discerning stuff more difficult

having attack/armour boost lines drawn from munitions boosters/starships be team coloured, thick and pulsating is WAY too distracting and occlusive
(see diagram 1a)

1a


imo revert to superthin pale non-pulsating lines of old, maybe coloured seperately for munitions & armour boost

it never struck me before, but in unity everything is so SMOOTH! awesome.

[keith.lamothe]

flak gaurdians are still massive OP... 200+ MK II fighters & MK II space-tanks insta died vs a single MK I flak

In one shot?

the 'everything in spot' base

I don't understand, what do you mean?

I dont really like/see the point of wormhole gaurdposts- they seem like a needless addition and overcomplicated- why do they need a 10 damage pew pew weapon and 400,000,000 health, why have them when we have normal gaurd posts?

Those wormhole guardposts have been there since a long, looooooong time ago, they've just been perma-cloaked in previous versions.

why was shields renamed to armour   this still gives me massive nerdrage

We didn't think you were getting enough nerdrage.

the AI frequently attacks me with low-powered ships on their planets which thus dont fire weapons and sort of fail

Hrm, I thought I fixed that.

[zebramatt]

Superking, some of that feedback is definitely worthy of being posted in Mantis!

[Winter Born]

the starfields are better now that the smallest stars move the slowest (it looked wrong with the fast moving small stars and slow large stars) but imo it still WAY too dense, both because it dosnt look as nice as it could (basically makes space look grey instead of dark) and because it confuses my eyes and makes discerning stuff more difficult

The starfields were too muddy for me as well many times.
I went into aiwar\runtimedata\images\starfield
backed up all the .png files to a safe place sorted by size and got rid of all starfield images  bigger than 48k leaving 8 images
I then copy/ paste/ renamed/ the surviving 8 until I had 30 png files (0-29) again. So now I have 3-6 repeats of each image but I have "sparce" starfields again. It was a quick slash and burn solution that works for me.  Someday I hope there will be various "sets" available that can be chosen from the game lobby.

[aen_darasi]

So, yesterday I started out a simple game (complex ships, 2 x 7 / Easier AIs). I scout my immediate area, see a juicy 4 metal / 4 crystal level 1 planet 2 hops away from home.. with an AI Eye. I decide, hey, let's knock the eye out before taking the planet, make things simpler.

Attack! I make a transport, load it up with Raid I, Siege I and Bomber starships, as well as ~100 fleet ships. I run the transport in, unload next to the eye, and start wailing on it. Most of the planet AI defenses go after the combat troops but a significant number try to go after the transport.. which kites them to the edge of the system. All right, I think, maybe going after an unloaded transport is not that smart of he AI, but I can rationalize it - he's trying to cut off my retreat. After knocking the eye out I pick up the surviving forces (most of the starships; no fleet ships survived the guardians) and head home to rebuild.

I hadn't realized it at the moment, but, of course, my small attack was enough to trigger the guardians in that system to go on the offensive. I still only have my home system and am lazily rebuilding my fleet, when a dozen guardians and a smattering of fleet ships drop in. Oops. They blow through my light defenses, take out pretty much all my fleet, I brace for the finishing blow when.. most of the attacking guardians try to go after that (now empty) transport again. That's quite a bit convenient for me - that transport is now at home, regenerating rather quickly and easily tanking AND kiting six guardians or so. It ends up dividing their forces buying me enough time to build back up and knock them out.

Now I'm not exactly complaining that I survived, but maybe transport targeting priority should be lower, possibly depending on how full they are (empty transport: lowest). And the AI should definitely know better than to go after transports when they're at home and regenerating.

Another thing I noticed was that two lightning guardians were ineffectually trying to attack one of my crystal collectors as it was being self-constructed.. the collector was easily tanking their damage while the lightning guardians were ignoring the swarm of frigates pummeling them with missiles from just outside their range. Not the best use for an AoE attack.

Congratulations though - the game is very playable now and quite a bit more enjoyable than before. Every planet seems to be a nail-biting affair. You should totally do a re-launch; this is a different, better game.

[Lancefighter]

We had a nice game of multiplayer tonight in the QA lounge. It felt a little more laggy than usual, but it's hard to tell if the locations are the issue, as we are far apart.

Have you guys or girls tried changing Performance Profile(s) in lobby window?

Problem being, yes I can change my performance profile while in a multiplayer game.. I'm fairly sure I'm not supposed to be able to do that.....

[keith.lamothe]

We had a nice game of multiplayer tonight in the QA lounge. It felt a little more laggy than usual, but it's hard to tell if the locations are the issue, as we are far apart.

Have you guys or girls tried changing Performance Profile(s) in lobby window?

Problem being, yes I can change my performance profile while in a multiplayer game.. I'm fairly sure I'm not supposed to be able to do that.....

Anyone can change it, and it changes it for everyone.

[superking]

flak gaurdians are still massive OP... 200+ MK II fighters & MK II space-tanks insta died vs a single MK I flak

I think 2-3, but at the speed of combat and considering i had cleaned most the planet without more than a few dozen losses it was like winning winning winning OMG FLAK, OMG MY WHOLE FLEET, lost

the 'everything in spot' base

I don't understand, what do you mean?

I meant the three groups of structures on home-world being grouped into one messy group that contains all factories, m & c converters and human colonies for massive asthetic damage.

I dont really like/see the point of wormhole gaurdposts- they seem like a needless addition and overcomplicated- why do they need a 10 damage pew pew weapon and 400,000,000 health, why have them when we have normal gaurd posts?

Those wormhole guardposts have been there since a long, looooooong time ago, they've just been perma-cloaked in previous versions.

Yeah, I'm sort of questioning why they exist at all (tachyon could surely be done via drones/turrets). it always annoyed me that ships were spawning from places when the gaurdposts were destroyed.

why was shields renamed to armour   this still gives me massive nerdrage

We didn't think you were getting enough nerdrage.

dont worry, I'm getting LOADS- how exactly do you boost Armour from a distance? throw a constant stream of armor plates to allied units? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

the AI frequently attacks me with low-powered ships on their planets which thus dont fire weapons and sort of fail

Hrm, I thought I fixed that.

nope, newest version, I had 200+ ships on a world and low powered units were present and failing

[keith.lamothe]

If you could post a save where I can replicate the low-power things "attacking" you, that would be great.  Preferably in mantis.

[Sizzle]

Yeah, I'm sort of questioning why they exist at all (tachyon could surely be done via drones/turrets). it always annoyed me that ships were spawning from places when the gaurdposts were destroyed.

That's the purpose of their existence.  They served in the past the role of "reinforcements spawn here".  Defensive AI's got more of them (wormhole guardposts) which is why they got more of the "reinforcements spawn here" love action.

Now they serve to indicate why defensive AI's get more of the "we need guardians" love action.  More wormhole guardposts i== more guardians.  Chris posted the rules somewhere back, but that's the upshot. 

And NOW if you don't want reinforcements and can stand chewing through 400M health, you can *really* neuter a planet.