AI War Beta 3.907 Released!

[keith.lamothe]

One of the tweaks was a filter for:

Hostile Ships (anywhere you have scout intel)

How feasible would it be to maintain a list of "Hostile ships you have seen this game"?  That means that one of the AI's has that unlocked and can use it, regardless of if they're present at a planet you have intel on or not.

I *still* can't test so this is more of a theoretical question.  Stuff that would impact how much this is needed would include:

- can waves/CPA's/eye spawns/insert mechanic here be of a shiptype that hasn't been unlocked yet?
- how likely are you to have planet(s) that have no ships of a type the AI has unlocked?  If you have 10 scouts out there on 10 worlds, what are the chances that none of them will have something the AI has previously unlocked?

Do we want to force a new round of scouting (assuming a lot of your scouts are dead) just to try to find out what you need to build to take on something that just kicked your butt?

If you want the stats on the other ships, you can just turn that filter off entirely; I'm not going to add tracking of the entire concept of "which ship types have the humans actually seen the AI use" just to make the Reference tab somewhat more usable

In general, there is a lot of benefit to placing "permanent" scouts on AI worlds, by letting them hide out on the edge.  Makes it much easier to see stuff coming.  Also reduces the size of the scout swarms you can send out, but that's a good tradeoff.

[TheMachineIsSentient]

just a quick note, mantis needs a 3.907 field.

[x4000]

just a quick note, mantis needs a 3.907 field.

Oops, fixed -- thanks!

[Sizzle]

If you want the stats on the other ships, you can just turn that filter off entirely; I'm not going to add tracking of the entire concept of "which ship types have the humans actually seen the AI use" just to make the Reference tab somewhat more usable

In general, there is a lot of benefit to placing "permanent" scouts on AI worlds, by letting them hide out on the edge.  Makes it much easier to see stuff coming.  Also reduces the size of the scout swarms you can send out, but that's a good tradeoff.

Fair enough.  I did ask how feasible .   

[Diazo]

With the wave modifiers getting tweaked again, here's a log of the waves I saw in my game tonight.

Version 3.907, new game, Diff 8 Support Corps, Diff 8 Cluster Bomber (Chosen randomly.)

AIP 32, 00:24:08, 88 Frigates Mk I, 2 Starships and 68 Teleport Battle Stations Mk I, 2 Starships from the Cluster Bomber.

AIP 54, 00:57:46, 162 Bombers Mk I, 2 Starships and 137 Fighters Mk I, 3 Starships from the Cluster Bomber.

(more to come.)

[Lancefighter]

version 3.907whatever

moments after i take a planet with a mk4 ion, mk5 ion, and mk4 fact


untold numbers of ships appear. Unfortunately, wave warnings is off, so I've no clue how screwed i am  

edit
aww, only looks like a few hundred. Guess that wasnt the target after all (cross planet waves are fun)

[zebramatt]

Playing two 7.6 AIs on normal ship cap at around 350 AIP the waves I saw were generally all pretty meaty affairs - 600 to 1000 ships, with one or two starships thrown in for good measure.

When I first upgraded from .906 to .907 my very first wave was only 64 ships plus three starships, mind you!

[x4000]

Sounds about right all around so far!

[Mánagarmr]

Yeah, it's starting to show that the AI means business now. My first thought (playing on diff 8) was that when the first wave came (some 280 bombers) I genuinely felt that "Oh crap, better watch that AIP". This is a VERY good thing, because before, AIP has felt a bit meh. Now you are actually worried of getting it too high.

Very nice work, Chris! Thanks!

[x4000]

Thanks!  Glad that's the case again.  In the distant past, that's definitely how it was, but then it had been gradually migrating away from that as the game evolved.  I know what you mean about the AIP being "meh" lately.  In the past, bumping it up even by one planet's worth was a scary thing, and I'm glad to see it getting back to those roots again.  I suspect it hasn't been that way since before 2.0, honestly.

[Zeba]

Yeah, it's starting to show that the AI means business now. My first thought (playing on diff was that when the first wave came (some 280 bombers) I genuinely felt that "Oh crap, better watch that AIP". This is a VERY good thing, because before, AIP has felt a bit meh. Now you are actually worried of getting it too high.

Very nice work, Chris! Thanks!

Mirroring this sentiment.

I held off playing the unity port until the 3.905 release and after around 5 hours of play off the recent patch on the uber cool X style map I will say this is definitely shaping up to be the best version yet.

Mark IV Merc Parasites FTW!

Best change evah!

Even if they no longer have an infinite ship cap.  

[x4000]

That's what we like to hear. 

[Lancefighter]

but.. *quivers* why would you ever waste all that material on a mercenary ship, when you get 'free' (k-wise) leech starships?

[Mánagarmr]

I only spend resources on mercenary ships when I'm capped out on everything else. They're a good resource drain and make for good fleet fillers. But if you have other ships (or starships) to build, I build those.

Leeches are awesome, btw.

[Mánagarmr]

Also Chris on the note of AIP, in previous versions of the 3.xxx series, you'd rarely feel any difference at all due to AIP. In spite of waves being increased now, I don't think it would be a bad idea to ensure that the AIP increase is scaling in balance with the game. In our last game, even AIP of 360 didn't make any kind of difference over 10. This could, however, be because of the meh waves previously.

Also, final question: If I update the game and load an old savegame, will the new wave mechanics migrate so that we will be getting larger waves in our current game?