AI War Beta 4.029 Released!

[Zeba]

eazy win is no fun ofc. what speed and cap and no of planets did you use? so i can do some testing as well later

Epic speed, Normal unit caps and 120 planets on an X type map. Currently weathering 2500~3000+ cpa attacks and gaining ships at every instance. And yes I know difficulty 7 isn't the hardest one to beat but its the one that overall balance is based on due to not all players being uber hardcore difficulty 9 players. ;p

edit; map seed is 670410156

[Winter Born]

if you patch to the current on let us know if the Ai keeps building complex ships or gets stuck with just the basic triangle.

ty

[Zeba]

if you patch to the current on let us know if the Ai keeps building complex ships or gets stuck with just the basic triangle.

ty

I think that bug only applies to new games. My current one I started right after the 4.0 release still seems to build all the ships they normally would after loading it up in the current beta build.

[zebramatt]

if you patch to the current on let us know if the Ai keeps building complex ships or gets stuck with just the basic triangle.

ty

I think that bug only applies to new games. My current one I started right after the 4.0 release still seems to build all the ships they normally would after loading it up in the current beta build.

This.

[keith.lamothe]

So that's an admission of more plot content in 4.030 then

It's already in the release notes   I've also got more done in my working copy, but it's not ready to be sent up yet.

Do the quests ever 'restart'?

The jury's still out on that one.  On most of the stages it simply wouldn't make sense, but on some of these early ones it wouldn't be any thematic violation.  The other trouble is implementation time and somewhat the complexity.  It has to realize that you've already done it to give you an appropriate "oh, looks like we can go try to do xyz again... don't mess up this time" journal entry, etc.  My feeling is that generally the approach should be as it is in roughly every story-based game I've played: if you fail, you reload a savegame   Or, in this case, you could choose to just proceed on with the consequence of the failure, but if you're trying to follow the story that doesn't work so well.  Though later on there may be some branches where you can choose to do something or not do it, and failing to do it will be much like not doing it (though more painful).

Also, are the models for hybrid facilities and the above object I spoke above above to be replaced in the future?  Them all using the generic node model is rather... unappealing, and doesn't fit very well thematically.

All the graphics for fallen-spire stuff is placeholder right now, Chris is handling the graphics for those.  For the hybrid facilities we don't have any plans to replace them, but if Chris ever feels like cranking out another hybrid-esque graphic I would appreciate it

[Malibu Stacey]

if you patch to the current on let us know if the Ai keeps building complex ships or gets stuck with just the basic triangle.

ty

I think that bug only applies to new games. My current one I started right after the 4.0 release still seems to build all the ships they normally would after loading it up in the current beta build.

Same experience here. I have a 4.021 generated game & a 4.029 one. The 4.021 game has non-triangle AI ships being spawned with reinforcement waves. The 4.029 one does not.

Also my 4.029 game has a Mark I Science Ship in an AI system (not an Advanced Research Ship, just a basic Science Ship like the one you get spawned at your homeworld or can build at your command stations). I haven't tried capturing that system so I don't know if it behaves like a regular Science Ship or an ARS but I'll give it a go later.

I'm also seeing Spire Shield Posts on AI planets (can't remember the exact name, at work right now & my games are at home) when I don't even have a license key for Light of the Spire for it to be unlocked. That doesn't sound like it should be happening to me (ZR & CoN content for humans or AI's isn't unlocked when they're unselected).

[x4000]

Regarding the Mobile Repair Station and the balance issues it causes... I'm lately starting to think that should be an immobile structure that can simply be built outside of supply.  Then just changing it's name to Repair Station or similar.  Having a super-repairer facility that comes along with a giant blob is not ever likely to be that balanced.

Unless I did something like increasing the can't-be-repaired-after-being-shot time from 3 seconds to something more like 10, but that seems unduly harsh.

Looks great. To be clear, unlike the CoN core guard posts, these new LotS core guard posts will only appear in games started with LotS active?

Yep, you are quite right.



And regarding the thing with only the fleet ships spawning, I'm not sure what that is.  Keith, do you have a sec to look at that?  I don't think any of my changes would have caused that, though it could be something in Defender mode's startup that I messed up.

[keith.lamothe]

Chris, I can take a look, but it will probably have to be after noon.  And I really don't know what would cause it, I haven't been in that neighborhood of the code for a while

[Malibu Stacey]

Regarding the Mobile Repair Station and the balance issues it causes... I'm lately starting to think that should be an immobile structure that can simply be built outside of supply.  Then just changing it's name to Repair Station or similar.  Having a super-repairer facility that comes along with a giant blob is not ever likely to be that balanced.

Unless I did something like increasing the can't-be-repaired-after-being-shot time from 3 seconds to something more like 10, but that seems unduly harsh.

That would be overly harsh if it affected engineers too. Before I unlock the MRS I tend to drag a few engineers around with my raid fleets to be miniature MRS. Considering how quick Engineers are at repairing stuff now compared to v3 I think removing the M from MRS sounds like a good compromise. If you want that capability in a mobile fleet, you have to use some of your engineer cap which are more vulnerable than the MRS & also mean you can't have them floating around your planets on FRD.

[@B0FH]

Also my 4.029 game has a Mark I Science Ship in an AI system (not an Advanced Research Ship, just a basic Science Ship like the one you get spawned at your homeworld or can build at your command stations). I haven't tried capturing that system so I don't know if it behaves like a regular Science Ship or an ARS but I'll give it a go later.

Fairly sure their just intended to be bog-standard (no tech unlocked) science ships, at least that's what the Mk1 implies. Plus that's how they have been behaving in all my games thus far.

[zebramatt]

Regarding the Mobile Repair Station and the balance issues it causes... I'm lately starting to think that should be an immobile structure that can simply be built outside of supply.  Then just changing it's name to Repair Station or similar.  Having a super-repairer facility that comes along with a giant blob is not ever likely to be that balanced.

Unless I did something like increasing the can't-be-repaired-after-being-shot time from 3 seconds to something more like 10, but that seems unduly harsh.

You could, for now, just make MRSs really, really slow...

[Ozymandiaz]

Regarding the Mobile Repair Station and the balance issues it causes... I'm lately starting to think that should be an immobile structure that can simply be built outside of supply.  Then just changing it's name to Repair Station or similar.  Having a super-repairer facility that comes along with a giant blob is not ever likely to be that balanced.

Unless I did something like increasing the can't-be-repaired-after-being-shot time from 3 seconds to something more like 10, but that seems unduly harsh.

You could, for now, just make MRSs really, really slow...

How about just making the unit cap lower (and a bit lower tech cost, or more tech cost)?

Making them immoblie will make them mostly redundant imo, I'd then rather bring the eningeers along .


I think tweaking the unit themself might be an idea however. A unit cap of 5, and some reduced repping power would be good?

[superking]

how about making the mobile repair unable to move through wormholes, like the fortress

[Ozymandiaz]

how about making the mobile repair unable to move through wormholes, like the fortress

I think thats ot much different then making them immobile.

The point of the MRS is to bring them with you on long excursions into AI territory. Having to blow the up and rebuild them here and there defeat their prpose if you can just bring in lots of engineers fr lower tech cost

By all means, having a more powerful stationary repair station might be an idea, but the real point of the MRS is the mobile part of it

They ar also very important when using capture units offencively.


Recently I have seen the AI target more of my MRS then they used to, so I think a lower cap might be an idea on them.

I am not defending them 100% as is tho, since they are very good indeed. But 4k knowledge is not free, and you do have to protect them.

Lowering their effecivness so that they repair fairly slow, or repaier faster until the units go up to say 33% or some such (maybe only use them as emergency repir up to a set % with severl MK levels of the MRS?).

But all in all I think if you remove the mobile part of them they become mostly redundant and a waste of my knowledge I rather spend on more fleet or star ships:)

[snrub_guy]

First time I'm chiming in on the 4.0 onwards stuff, and it is fantastic. I was skeptical when I grabbed an early release of the unity version, but the finished product is amazing. 4.x feels like a new game, and this looks like it's continuing in LotS, which I bought as soon as I saw it. Waiting until there is a little more of the story stuff in and somewhat balanced before doing any campaigns with LotS, as I want my first discovery of the new features to be as full and enjoyable as possible. Looks outstanding though.

One little frustration I have had with my most recent failed campaign, is forcefields occasionally selecting with military ships when a box is dragged round them. I realise this may be a feature not a bug, so that things like MRS etc can be grouped with the fleet more easily, but for forcefields it seems more dangerous than useful. In a frantic (and ultimately doomed) attempt to deal with a CPA, I dragged a box round all my military ships on a planet and told them to move somewhere. Unfortunately this also moved my FF that was over my CS and two power gens. The AI hit them before I could correct for this, killing the planet, and through the sudden loss of 120,000 energy production, defences on my other worlds. Things did not progress well from there.

Just a little niggle though, the rest is just dandy. Keep up the good work!