AI War Beta 4.049, "Firepower," Released!

[wyvern83]

My understanding is that Chris intended the spirecraft to be more powerful than starships and less powerful than golems (maybe the most powerful spirecraft being on par with the less powerful golems).  It sounds like they aren't _too_ far off of that intention.  Though we certainly aren't done balancing stuff

They are pretty close if that's what he had in mind. I like overwhelming firepower but I understand that limitations can be good for the game.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing the SC siege towers shot more often than 10 seconds. Something like every 5-6 seconds would be great but even every 7 seconds would be nice if I could suggest it. I'd like a slightly faster rate of fire for one but I'm essentially looking for a dps buff that hopefully isn't too much.

I do want to clarify that the Spire Capital Ships in the FS campaign are not spirecraft, and are in no way impacted by this spirecraft-ship-cap change  

No problem, I wasn't counting those.

[MaxAstro]

My only issue with the Spirecraft ship caps is the huge divergence in rarity between asteroid types.  It's not uncommon to see a planet with seven of the most common asteroid; when that asteroid can only be used to build four spirecraft, what are you supposed to do with them when you get two or three of those planets?  Meanwhile, you are going to be a long ways into the game before you see anything better than Xampite if my experience is any indicator, which means the new caps are very limiting early game.

Also: The anti-bottleneck thing... I will need to see this in play, but I'm a little iffy on it depending on how hard 10k firepower is to get.  If its just something that's going to come up if someone caps out their turrets on a single planet that's okay, but if it means I'm going to be "punished" for having my fleet sitting on my homeworld in between missions - especially when my homeworld is two hops from AI territory and I'm just leaving my fleet there until I decide what to do with it - that seems a bit harsh.

[keith.lamothe]

My only issue with the Spirecraft ship caps is the huge divergence in rarity between asteroid types.  It's not uncommon to see a planet with seven of the most common asteroid; when that asteroid can only be used to build four spirecraft, what are you supposed to do with them when you get two or three of those planets?  Meanwhile, you are going to be a long ways into the game before you see anything better than Xampite if my experience is any indicator, which means the new caps are very limiting early game.

The other side is that there's now less of a driving need to never-ever-ever-lose one of those lower-asteroid spirecraft, because you have the resources to replace them (though not infinitely) and don't really have another use for them.

Also: The anti-bottleneck thing... I will need to see this in play, but I'm a little iffy on it depending on how hard 10k firepower is to get.  If its just something that's going to come up if someone caps out their turrets on a single planet that's okay, but if it means I'm going to be "punished" for having my fleet sitting on my homeworld in between missions - especially when my homeworld is two hops from AI territory and I'm just leaving my fleet there until I decide what to do with it - that seems a bit harsh.

Right, I'm sure that 10,000 number and/or the calculation for determining the firepower of a ship are still very much open to amendment   Determining what changes if any need to be made obviously relies on real in-game experience (which could be, ah, painful, I admit), but I'm sure y'all will be happy to inform us if the numbers are off

[wyvern83]

The other side is that there's now less of a driving need to never-ever-ever-lose one of those lower-asteroid spirecraft, because you have the resources to replace them (though not infinitely) and don't really have another use for them.

Agreed, that was one of the things that crossed my mind that I really liked when I read about the change.

[Invelios]

Right, I'm sure that 10,000 number and/or the calculation for determining the firepower of a ship are still very much open to amendment Smiley  Determining what changes if any need to be made obviously relies on real in-game experience (which could be, ah, painful, I admit), but I'm sure y'all will be happy to inform us if the numbers are off Grin

I think it needs to be a bit higher. I just have a cursed Golem, and about 15 fleet ships sitting on one of my planets, and a couple of turrets, and I'm at about 19K, almost doubling the requirement. Most of the FP is from the Golem. This almost makes me want to stop taking Golems, if just one can cause the AI to mass ships. I think it should be increased some more, so one Golem by itself won't reach the number, but possibly having 2 might. This would encourage players to spread out their super weapons some (Which I mostly already do, usually taking 1 Golem with me on Raids and leaving the rest for defense on my boarder planets.)

[Spikey00]

>The AI now has an anti-extreme-blobbing/bottlenecking mechanic built in very similar to the one for anti-deepstriking. For every 10,000 firepower or more on a planet, the AI home planets will spew out ships equivalent to that which is spewed out with the deep striking. If a player thus has 310,000 firepower on a single planet, that's as bad as doing 62 deepstrikes at once, for instance.

>Spirecraft are now limited to a ship cap of two per type of spirecraft. Given that there are 50 different types of spirecraft, this is not a huge restriction (that's 100 different ships right there), but it does prevent some of the worst excesses of the spirecraft lifestyle, so to speak.

>Spirecraft Rams, Shield Bearers, Jumpships, and Martyrs are now never repairable. These were all made to be single-use, and are simply massively unbalanced without it.

You're killing me, Chris! 

[keith.lamothe]

You're killing me, Chris! 

Is the threat in your save at least doing something now, though?

[Spikey00]

130 000 x 5?  Bwahahaha~!
35/7 threat?  Bwahahaha~!

Don't be silly!

[keith.lamothe]

Hahaha   The Mk V H/K swaggers in thinking it's so great with 800,000 DPS, and runs into a whole fleet of Spire Capital Ships where several of them have at least that on their main gun (assuming you have some BB's in there somewhere)

[Spikey00]

Oh yes, I'm afraid so.  Beyond that, however, is that I believe I will have to cleanse this planet of heathens due to recent developments of a certain grievous nature.

[keith.lamothe]

Wow.  Them there's fighting words!

[Elukka]

So if you have a huge fleet somewhere, the AI will free some of its ships on their homeworld and send them after you? Just clarifying, since I feel I'm not sure I understand the mechanic.

[keith.lamothe]

It's actually spawning those ships out of thin air.  I don't think they necessarily come from the AI homeworlds; in the case of Spikey's screenshot he actually has a planet right next to an AI homeworld.

[Vinraith]

It's actually spawning those ships out of thin air.  I don't think they necessarily come from the AI homeworlds; in the case of Spikey's screenshot he actually has a planet right next to an AI homeworld.

The patch notes said they spawned preferentially at the AI Homeworlds, assuming there were still AI Homeworlds to spawn at.

[superking]

that looks ridiculous