AI War Beta 4.033 Released!

[Ozymandiaz]

Well in 4.033 the golem fleets should be taking 3x longer to show up and give you 3x as much time in between

But yea, I guess I should have made it more clear in the Fallen-Spire minor faction description, but playing on diff 8 is kind of asking for it

It should be winnable, if you're good and don't make any really big mistakes, but you're in for at least a moderately-epic challenge.

That said, if you're currently testing it at diff 8, please continue to do so, it should work fine if you're willing to deal with the increasingly-intense fight-for-your-life

Oh yeah, its fun alright, but hard to do anything other then defense right now (still in that whole situation before it was reduced in intensity, and having the dual waves coming at you ), and the next spire mission is counting down low already and is several hostile jumps off with all AI eye planets in between... so its on ice until next update

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, 2 diff 7s and no normal waves does lend credence to a difficulty complaint   I'm assuming you're on 4.033, which is 3x easier than 4.032 for this stuff.  I'm also assuming you only have one human homeworld; more than one jacks stuff up too.

And the second city won't actually double the size of the attacks, it just roughly doubles the rate at which the special attack "counter" counts up, so roughly reducing the time between the attacks to 1/2 what it is now.  Also bear in mind that the interval between attacks increases by roughly 25% each time (as does the budget for the attack).

Another thing to bear in mind is that the Spire really aren't trying to avoid antagonizing the AI; if you use your special Spire ships offensively expect the AI to notice in the form of accelerating the special attacks somewhat.  I'm considering removing or at least greatly decreasing the difference between defensive and offensive use, since I don't want to penalize the actual use of the things, but I want to firmly establish the concept that the AI takes the concept of a full-blown Human-Spire Alliance very seriously.

I think I'll knock down the special attack buildup rate a bit more, and just remove the offensive-use multiplier for now.  This may make it too easy for the first city, but that's ok by me considering that it's basically where the game tells you "you might want to stop here".  Adding more cities will make things more interesting

[orzelek]

Hmmm the offensive use timer would explain few things.. I kind of glassed 5 planets with spire fleet on my way to first AI HW and was hoping to poke planet next to it but got murdered there and needed to retreat with severe frigate loses. Also lost 2 planets to retaliatory attack of core V bombers (these things are literally uber - attacked by 3 larger spire ships plus few frigs managed to destroy two worlds - I have things like Mk III lasers and Mk II beams on spire ships)

Good to know that there is an offensive modifier now. Even if you only leave defensive one - both of these should be mentioned probably and they have effect of really canceling out toys you are given. Depending on what counts as defensive use even defending from one wave may quickened next wave.... so you're better off without spire at all again.

[keith.lamothe]

I've been keeping quiet about the actual numbers and what causes what because I don't want the players to not use stuff because it will get them attacked.  If you want to play the avoid-angering-the-AI game then yea, don't save the Spire guys, just look out for yourself   But I think it'd be better to remove the if-using-offensively modifier since the idea is that the player should have free reign to use their new toys, they're already paying for them

As far as being better-off-without-the-spire... well, one of the themes that the journal entries are trying to get across is that this may not be the best idea.  Might be ridiculously dangerous.  Audacious, even

But sometimes to win a war, a desperate war, you must have audacity.

I'd suggest reserving "are they worth it, in the end" judgment until you actually see the end

[orzelek]

I'm patiently waiting for that end.. not dropping them yet. I will actually build the second city and check how often attacks will come - just had next one with a bit more than 500 ships but most of them high mark plus armored golems this time. Using spire ships actually made defense a bit easier - they can melt things nicely - fleet had some leftovers to mop up and the core starships ofc - these things can survive flying through a system being shot by full caps of ships + fortress. Currently at least 1-2 arrive at my HW regardless of defenses (when 3 arrived it was a streeech).

But if next scan will send me another 5-6 jumps into AI territory I may simply give up - to far it's not fun usually. Lack of timer may allow you to glass planets on the way and not pay AIP for them but it's not a fun game play - at least for me - especially if you need to repeat this every scan result.

[Ozymandiaz]

I've been keeping quiet about the actual numbers and what causes what because I don't want the players to not use stuff because it will get them attacked.  If you want to play the avoid-angering-the-AI game then yea, don't save the Spire guys, just look out for yourself   But I think it'd be better to remove the if-using-offensively modifier since the idea is that the player should have free reign to use their new toys, they're already paying for them

As far as being better-off-without-the-spire... well, one of the themes that the journal entries are trying to get across is that this may not be the best idea.  Might be ridiculously dangerous.  Audacious, even

But sometimes to win a war, a desperate war, you must have audacity.

I'd suggest reserving "are they worth it, in the end" judgment until you actually see the end

Ah, that explains so much, I have consistently used the spire ships offensively

Removing that offensive counter would be good I think, after all as you said gotta use our toys


I am still looking forward to the conclusion of the spire arc, and I hope you add more like this later on as well, adds more flavor and different options for game play!

[keith.lamothe]

But if next scan will send me another 5-6 jumps into AI territory I may simply give up - to far it's not fun usually.

Well, it's only supposed to go 4 hops out for these scans; you shouldn't have to glass everything on the way.  I'm just now putting in a change to make the survey ships fit in transports.  Not the shards, mind you, but this should require less nannying of the survey ship.  And once the scan is done, that getting blown up isn't a big deal, though hopefully you wouldn't just leave that poor survey team to perish horribly, would you

Anyway, if it's still too much we can do things like shorten it to 3 hops, speed up the shard slightly (not too much), etc.  But I definitely need y'all's feedback to know if changes are needed, in which direction, how much, etc.  So I really appreciate y'all sticking with it even when sometimes you get hit with multiple golem-waves in a row

[orzelek]

After next wave of attackers my feedback will be short - if this escalates infinitely then it's a guaranteed loss - especially when I'm waiting only. Didn't even start next city since I got CPA - and next wave come soon after it containing 7+ armored golems plus assorted extras. I'll stop playing until there are more episodes around since this is getting out of hand.

Also I noticed that Mk II ai planet was reinforcing with few Mk V units - is that effect of spire ships or some added bonus?

[Lancefighter]

wait, what?

you give us giant golem-ish spirecraft, with awe inspiring giant laser and beam cannons, and you want us to use them DEFENSIVELY?!

What kind of sillyness is this?

[orzelek]

Lance you need to use them defensively.. or you'll get stomped

I'm really hoping that Spire guys are able to learn to alleviate AI's anger or have something very uber in stock for all that hassle

[keith.lamothe]

I didn't say I wanted you to use them defensively, I said I wanted the AI to notice that you were using them offensively  When something trundles into your territory with a fleet of golem-level capital ships and escorts doing several million points of heavy-beam damage per second, with the only indication that this is going to get worse when more cities are built, wouldn't you react?  With, say, your own fleet of golem-level capital ships and escorts doing several... (cut for length)

But I have removed the offensive "penalty" in my working copy, nonetheless.

orzelek, sorry to hear it's escalated out of hand for you.  If you could post the save you want to use to test the next section, I may be able to take a look and see if it's going above and beyond the call of duty, so to speak, and adjust it back down to a testable state.

[orzelek]

I'm stopping so that it doesn't escalate.... to not waste time that ticks waves on mundane things like building mass driver and knowledge raiding one planet.

It's manageable for now - logistics stations are quite useful on slowing the advance down and that fleet of golems needed to cross my longest system....

Actually golems are less dangerous than core starships - these simply can't be stopped and will usually make it to target - either city or your home.
From fleet ships - Mk V bombers are the pain - they can murder spire frigs and they have almost half their hp (1.8m) with 22k armor. Basically only spire ships, higher tier fleet starships and high mark ships have any chance of doing some significant damage to them. Thats why I'm trying to get more knowledge by raiding (not risking more AIP) - to get Mk III/IV fighters and maybe beam cannons Mk III as these will be useful on spire ships (I hope).

[keith.lamothe]

For the Core starship I'm removing their missile immunity, it's a bit much considering the neutron hull, as someone pointed out elsewhere.

I can consider further adjustments to those but I feel like they're pretty close to what they're supposed to be (agents of great terror), and I'm making some adjustments to make the main guns on the Spire capital ships both generally cooler and much more effective against enemy big stuff, so I want to see how that goes first.

[x4000]

Can you also remove that from raid starships while you're at it?  I think that's a bit much there, given missile turrets and anti-armors, too.

[keith.lamothe]

Sure.  For reference, things that still have immune-to-missiles:

EyeBot
SuperFortress
AcidSprayer
VampireClaw
AIHomeCommandStation
AIGuardianSelfDestruction
LeechStarship
LightningMissile
ArmoredMissile

And higher mark versions, naturally.