AI War Beta 3.907 Released!

[Zeba]

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

Because material is infinite? Why would I not use the infinite supply of materials to make a massive parasite fleet to leech off the ai's unique ships to build a home defence fleet when I have already finished making my offensive fleet blob plus whatever other stuff I unlocked? As you can only store 999,999 materials it seems a waste to ermm.. waste them by not using them before it hits the max..

Think in terms of supcom:fa's economy for my reasoning I suppose. Materials not being used are a crime against anal retentive gameplay.. ;p

P.S. I always put up every single thing the zenith trader offers too when he drops by the home system. And ohhh god how I love the mark v ion at the choke and the new 400k zenith power gen. So with all this newfound power I can spam tractors, spiders and merc parasites and in return you get an infinite defence force courtesy of the ai..

[x4000]

It was because of the meh waves, although you'd have seen the increase in tech levels of course when it went high enough.  That said, the new multipliers are multiplicative after the AIP modifiers, so these new changes amplify the smaller changes from the AIP, if that makes sense. 

And, yes, you'll get larger waves in older games.  Although, any existing waves that were already incoming (alerted in your alerts box or wave counter) won't be getting the increase.  But the next set after that will.

[Mánagarmr]

It was because of the meh waves, although you'd have seen the increase in tech levels of course when it went high enough.  That said, the new multipliers are multiplicative after the AIP modifiers, so these new changes amplify the smaller changes from the AIP, if that makes sense. 

And, yes, you'll get larger waves in older games.  Although, any existing waves that were already incoming (alerted in your alerts box or wave counter) won't be getting the increase.  But the next set after that will.

Excellent! Gives us an opportunity to directly compare how the old vs new feels. Thanks!

[Mánagarmr]

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

Because material is infinite? Why would I not use the infinite supply of materials to make a massive parasite fleet to leech off the ai's unique ships to build a home defence fleet when I have already finished making my offensive fleet blob plus whatever other stuff I unlocked? As you can only store 999,999 materials it seems a waste to ermm.. waste them by not using them before it hits the max..

Think in terms of supcom:fa's economy for my reasoning I suppose. Materials not being used are a crime against anal retentive gameplay.. ;p

P.S. I always put up every single thing the zenith trader offers too when he drops by the home system. And ohhh god how I love the mark v ion at the choke and the new 400k zenith power gen. So with all this newfound power I can spam tractors, spiders and merc parasites and in return you get an infinite defence force courtesy of the ai..

I'd love to see how you'd survive your first waves on diff 8 and up with all those multipliers 

[x4000]

Easy: don't have waves against that planet.  And, hey, they cap out at around 2000, anyway.  But... yeah, that would be tough.  Man, especially if a counterattack guard post hits at just the wrong time!

Anyway, new version: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7401.0.html

[Zeba]

Easy: don't have waves against that planet.  And, hey, they cap out at around 2000, anyway.  But... yeah, that would be tough.  Man, especially if a counterattack guard post hits at just the wrong time!

Anyway, new version: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7401.0.html

Don't forget the Mk IV Merc Parasites if you have waves enabled. Moar waves = Moar home defence fleet.  Hell, even if you happen to have both ai set to non wave sending ai subtypes you can still make a massive home fleet by popping the command station with a suicide bomber force and camping the wormhole to catch all the ai ships that are now freed up to pillage your systems in retaliation.

And a counterattack post wave should never hit at the wrong time as its up to the player to 'aggravate' it to send the annoying unpredictably appearing wave. So when killing a counterattack post is inevitable its a good thing I have a massive home defence fleet courtesy of my paras and zenith power gen so even if they bash a system or two they will hit my brick wall well before they get to my massively zenith buffed home system. Seriously, the zenith remnant is worth it just for the trader. 

[Mánagarmr]

It's so damn amusing to read how vastly different people play from eachother. <3 AIWAR!

[Lancefighter]

while I never played supcom competitively, spring rts is the same thing - and that I did play competatively for a bit.

If there was ever a moment during the course of the game you were not using as much flow as you had, you were either losing, or playing against an incompetent opponent.

The same holds true here, to an extent - non-infinite ship caps means using 100% of your resources 100% of the time isnt always possible, but you generally can make up for it by getting stuff killed more often.

Currently on a diff 8 game, I simply dont have the resources to throw around on merc ships 'just because'. Sure, if I sit around, tab out and forum more, my resources would stack up, but I dont play games to watch stockpiles accumulate. AI war is a game about blowing stuff up, and I intend on doing that as often as possible. 60 planet map has gone on for 7 hours now, and I'm fairly confident I can finish it within the next 3..

I realize being aggressive isnt really the norm (in most multiplayer games I've played, I tend to be the first to advance and take a system) it certainly gets stuff done. With hybrids and other fun stuff reinforcing on the other side of that gate, I dont have time to sit around and build parasites to collect random ships.