AI War Beta 4.029 Released!

[keith.lamothe]

By the way, Lance, when you mentioned the (secret stuff redacted) only took 30 minutes, I didn't realize that I had set the times of the two stages involved to be 45 minutes and 15 minutes, respectively... except for the testing flag that uses seconds instead of minutes.  You know, the testing flag I forgot to turn off   That will be fixed for next release...

[Lancefighter]

rofl

no wonder it was so quick then!

[unclean]

Survey ships aren't in yet, right?

[Lancefighter]

build tab, under econ

[Zeba]

Thanks!  And I definitely will keep it coming, I agree on the balance thing.  What sucks is when people find a "killer combo" that beats everything else, and I think that's led to the recent balance obsession, but we're able to combat that without limiting functionality.  It helps that this is not a PVP game, of course, but even so I think we could manage that in a PVP context if we had to.

*taken from the 4.028 thread as its still relevant and I'm short on time*

The "killer combo" of fighter/bomber/shield bearer/mrs is still in full effect. Just for the lulz I decided to try to do the same stuff I did with the 'old' merc reinforced blob with just the normal mk I~IV ships and its just as viable. Shield bearers need some sort of penalty or I might just be able to take both AI homeworlds with just a 900ish ship force. 

Maybe give ships under the shield bearer a small penalty to attack like normal forcefields but only around 25% or so. Seriously, even with the changes to the high mark and merc material needs I'm still able to easily build up and maintain a max cap force to wtfpwn any ai world I choose. 

That map I was talking about totally taking over? I'm about 3/5ths there with only around a 480 ai progress that currently has me at mk II waves. Though the first thing I did was kill the system on the other side of my choke point so no waves.

Really looking forward to those hunter killer ships you are talking about to bust up the massive choke to my core worlds. =)

[HitmanN]

My personal opinions, for what they're worth.

The new FF healths haven't affected my blobbing on average. It just makes me blob longer, but in optimal situations I hardly lose anything but time due to them, with the drawback of just making attacks somewhat more frustrating.

On the other hand, when they manage to make a difference, it's rather harsh. There was this one planet in early game, when I played last night, which had all these under a mk2 FF:
* mkIV Factory
* Ion Cannon (mk 2)
* Ion Cannon (mk 3)
* Orbital Mass Driver
* Black Hole Machine
* AI Eye

And the whole place had many guardians and few hundred ships. The pile of stuff was pretty much as far from the only entrance worm hole as they possibly could be. I did eventually manage to capture that place by pouring in enough ships in small dozes at a time (needed the mkIV factory), enough to mostly not stir the Eye's attention, but it took a small forever even so. If you look at the starting situation, it's pretty cruel. If I go after the FF, the other ships and ion cannons slaughter any ships I have. If I go after the ships and guardians, the ion cannons slaughter me, and at worst the Eye summons more ships. If I bring in a lot of ships to hammer the FF, the Eye summons more ships for defense as well. If any of my plans fail, I can't save the ships by retreating because of the black hole machine. And because it's the first mkIV factory I've found so far, I don't have any normal fleet ships yet that would survive the ion cannons.

Maybe I could've been able to use Raid Starships, didn't try those. It was the first Orbital Mass Driver for me, and that thing looked nasty. Figured it'd probably just chew 'em to bits before they could do any real damage.

All in all, IMO, the high mark FF's should be tough, but the lower mark FF's should be slightly weaker than the current in relation. Also, how about allowing to build a tough FF from the Zenith Traders to balance things?

The FF Bearers are also unbelievably tough. I've only played a little of 4.0 yet, but so far it's a ship I'd put on my must-have-if-at-all-possible list.

Then the MRS. A blob without MRS takes constant damage, while with MRS it can keep going pretty much indefinitely, especially with those FF Bearers. Now, looking at the price of the MRS, it doesn't quite feel like the price that saves you a few hundred ships at best. Any other thing that results in saving the life of that many ships will cost you tens of times more. So... I dunno. Anyone else feel its price isn't quite reflecting how awesome it actually is?

Still, having fun with 4.0+ a whole lot.

[Malibu Stacey]

Thanks!  And I definitely will keep it coming, I agree on the balance thing.  What sucks is when people find a "killer combo" that beats everything else, and I think that's led to the recent balance obsession, but we're able to combat that without limiting functionality.  It helps that this is not a PVP game, of course, but even so I think we could manage that in a PVP context if we had to.

*taken from the 4.028 thread as its still relevant and I'm short on time*

The "killer combo" of fighter/bomber/shield bearer/mrs is still in full effect.

I (ab)used that combo in v3 a lot & am using it in my current v4 game. Didn't know it's considered a "killer combo" but I guess its effectiveness at doing damage while taking very few losses should make it obvious. Problem is that no matter how you balance things every time a "killer combo" is found, a new one will always be found. It's the nature of humans to find the best way to achieve a goal. The next "killer combo" might not be as good as the last one but it will simply be the optimal way to use the tools available. If they keep being "balanced" out of existence we're swiftly going to end up with a very bland choice of strategies.

On the bomber starship changes:

Bomber starship rebalance:
Attack power 1/3x what it was.
Reload time 1/9x what it was.
Attack range from 5000 => 2500.
Health to 2x what it was.

The reload time change is a bit unclear to me. Does that mean it's reload is 1/9th of what it used to be or is increased by a factor of 9? If it's 1/9th of previous it looks like a 300% DPS increase while lowering it's alpha strike by 1/3rd (which seems good all round to me).

[keith.lamothe]

It's reload time is 1/9x what it was.  Meaning "new reload time" = ( 1/9 * "old reload time").

So yea, 3x on-paper dps.  Haven't heard any complaints about it not being useful anymore

[Malibu Stacey]

One of the problems with it before was it often sat around doing nothing as it's alpha strike was so high it didn't bother shooting at stuff it would one-hit-kill when the non-sniper focus fire option was disabled. This seems to address that issue somewhat as well as making it more deadly against heavy/hard targets so it's all good.

[HitmanN]

Problem is that no matter how you balance things every time a "killer combo" is found, a new one will always be found. It's the nature of humans to find the best way to achieve a goal. The next "killer combo" might not be as good as the last one but it will simply be the optimal way to use the tools available. If they keep being "balanced" out of existence we're swiftly going to end up with a very bland choice of strategies.

This is true, but what if there were an equal amount of "killer counters".

For instance, instead of there being ion cannons that insta-kill ships based on their mark, there would cannons that insta-kills ships based on their hull type! There could be a counter turret for each major hull type, and the turret types would vary a bit on each planet. This way you couldn't always just march in with your "killer combo", because likely there would be a turret that drops one or two elements of your combo out very quickly.

As a matter of fact, I'm a bit surprised that, with all the new hull types, there aren't insta-kill weapons against specific hull types. It'd make wholly sense that certain ammo types were designed to lethally penetrate and damage a very specific type of hull or equipment, while others would barely be vulnerable to them at all.

Although... it is pretty fearsome to think of a planet with an anti-polycrystal and anti-heavy cannon on them, both under FF's. *shudder*

Overall, I do think we need more solutions that don't make "killer combos" more balanced, but occasionally prevent using them at all, and forcing to choose other combos too.

[superking]

I started a new game on 4.028, pre-light of the spire. I updated to 4.029, unchecked the LoTS expansion (which I have not yet purchased), and loaded my pre- LoTS game. the trial timer came up anyway, and at the end of the trial I can no longer play my game even though I have no LoTS content enabled and the expansion turned off.

is there any way I can resume my game?

[Ozymandiaz]

Regarding the FF beares, I am not so sure they are really that uber.

I got a game with them now so I am gonna test it a bit (tho I am away fom home so might take a while).

Generally I used to like them in pre Unity at least.

[Malibu Stacey]

I started a new game on 4.028, pre-light of the spire. I updated to 4.029, unchecked the LoTS expansion (which I have not yet purchased), and loaded my pre- LoTS game. the trial timer came up anyway, and at the end of the trial I can no longer play my game even though I have no LoTS content enabled and the expansion turned off.

is there any way I can resume my game?

I had the same thing happen earlier. Restart the game & it will allow you to play again & shouldn't happen in future. That's a known issue (see -> http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=489). It happens with new installs of the released expansions with 4.021 too. Just make sure the expansion you don't have a license for is disabled before you exit the game.

Overall, I do think we need more solutions that don't make "killer combos" more balanced, but occasionally prevent using them at all, and forcing to choose other combos too.

I agree with this sentiment but how much do "killer combos" need balanced. The one being referenced requires 4k Knowledge to unlock the Mobile Repair Station & some luck to get FF bearers either at map generation or from an Advanced Research Station capture. Sure you can keep regenerating maps until you get FF bearers in a location that suits you but you may as well just use cheats if that's how you're going to go about it.

Personally I don't see a problem with most "killer combos". It's intelligently using the resources available to you which is the whole premise of this game!

[zebramatt]

The problem with them is simple: if one particular strategy is so effective in all situations that you need never use anything else... Then why ever use anything else?

[superking]

FF gens are only OP atm because 6000 armour