AI War Beta 5.015, "Martyred Forcefields," Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2011/08/ai-war-beta-5015-martyred-forcefields.html

This one has a number of balanced tweaks that are notable, as well as one performance tweak that may or may not actually do anything.  We'll be curious to hear more feedback on the performance thing a wider variety of scenarios and machine setups.

In terms of the balance changes:
1. The Spirecraft Martyrs have been hit with the nerf bat really hard, thanks to player urging.
2. The Zenith Virtal Shredders have as well, but in general their swarm mechanics have also been simplified.
3. And lastly, super-stacked forcefields have also been heavily nerfed.  Stacking forcefields is still a smart thing to do, but you can no longer set up a chain of them where one is being repaired under the next in an endless rotation.

There was also a bugfix to the recently-added ActivateHighestEfficiencyLowPowerEnergyReactor and PutLowestEfficiencyActiveEnergyReactorIntoLowPower keybinds.

Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.  If you don't have 4.000 or later, you can download that here.

[TechSY730]

Wow, nerfs everywhere!

Well, as much as it may hurt, this is for the best for the game.

Does this FF "shared damage" type thing also affect forcefield bearers (the mobile ships)? Or only the forcefield structures?

[x4000]

I would hope that this wouldn't particularly "hurt" per se -- all of these were actually player requests, not just some random nerfs that we unilaterally decided were needed.  And in the case of all three of them, they mostly represent edge case exploits that the majority of players probably wouldn't ever run into.

In terms of the force fields thing, that does indeed also effect force field bearers as well as the full ones.  FF bearers have been really OP for a while thanks to their ability to be mass-repaired in the field by engineers that are invincible in the mass of them.  This makes them still really useful, but takes out that edge case (where engineers are really supposed to die if brought to the battlefield, anyhow).

[keith.lamothe]

Wow, nerfs everywhere!

Well, as much as it may hurt, this is for the best for the game.

Yea, that's my read on it too.  Only did these things because people kept bringing them up   Well, the ff abuse concern was probably primarily from my own experience of how much _I_ abused ff+engie piles.  Not sure how I'm going to win now

Does this FF "shared damage" type thing also affect forcefield bearers? Or only the forcefield structures?

"This also applies to all the "shield bearer" and module type shields."   And it doesn't really share the damage (though I thought of trying that, but in the end it actually looks better this way), it just applies 1 hp damage to nearby fields (this doesn't reduce the damage done to the first field).

[TechSY730]

I knew the nerfs were player requested. In fact, I monitored some of the conversations that led up to it. That doesn't make some of the shifts any less painful.

The change notes also note that not only FFs that are intersecting get the 1HP damage thing, but also FFs that are merely close. How close is close?

[keith.lamothe]

That doesn't make some of the shifts any less painful.

No, no it doesn't.  Bwahahaha

The change notes also note that not only FFs that are intersecting get the 1HP damage thing, but also FFs that are merely close. How close is close?

Pretty close.  Ever seen a swarm of AI ships "spread" over the surface of your ff's?  Notice how it's not a smooth circle but rather a series of shallow-angle lines?  That's because those range checks are being done via a fast-approximation method rather than sqrt.  The range checks done when doing the chain-damage use the same method, so it's possible to have two ffs that don't really look like they're quite touching but will "conduct" for this purpose.

[Kronic]

Curses, no Martyr cheese for me no more. ;_;

Despite how much that'll hurt my play, I get the feeling I'll enjoy things more as I can't go "Oh, 10000 ships from this hole? Martyr. Dealt with." :3

[keith.lamothe]

Curses, no Martyr cheese for me no more. ;_;

Despite how much that'll hurt my play, I get the feeling I'll enjoy things more as I can't go "Oh, 10000 ships from this hole? Martyr. Dealt with." :3

Oh, you should still be able to do that, you just won't be able to do it every time you feel like it

[Kronic]

But they let me be so lazy while laughing at my struggling friends! D:

Still, I feel the change was kind of needed.

[TechSY730]

One more question. Is the current unavailability of Mk. I martyrs intentional?

[keith.lamothe]

One more question. Is the current unavailability of Mk. I martyrs intentional?

Yes.  If this winds up being the way it is and other major changes aren't needed we'll probably slide it so that I-IV are available instead of II-V.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Dang, you nerfed my Overpowered usage of Viral Shredders.  I've actually been meaning to voice my concerns, but clearly the community has stepped to the plate.  They were exceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedingly overpowered in their previous state.  I would have two giant swarms of viral shredders in some of my games and basically, any AI fleet sent at them was dust later on...except for those that were immune. 

Not so sure I like the forcefield nerf....its saved my butt so many times.  (But maybe that's the problem....)

King

[keith.lamothe]

Not so sure I like the forcefield nerf....its saved my butt so many times.  (But maybe that's the problem....)

Yea, that one hurt to implement   We could look at increasing human ff generator hp to compensate for those last-stand defense situations.  I just want their durability to be finite and not dependent on engie micro and downright-dirty-tricks (like scrapping the generator and immediately re-placing it and speed building it while another takes the fire).

I'm not sure, but I think there may be some tactics that could be used to "lift the siege" via pushing tractors, paralysis, lightning warheads, cannon fodder to draw fire, and so on to break the wave of fire for at least 6 seconds and thus letting your engies kick in.  There's also things like literally moving a generator out of the battle and repairing it and moving it back.  I'm sure folks will figure stuff out.

[Coppermantis]

Oh noez, I was using shredders almost exclusively to defend my fronts, all other ships were going on attack. Now I'll have to alter my strategy a lot, since all 3 of my fronts are shredder-defended.

Also, what exactly is the forcefield stack nerf? I don't exactly understand the wording in the OP.

[Commiesalami]

Oh noez, I was using shredders almost exclusively to defend my fronts, all other ships were going on attack. Now I'll have to alter my strategy a lot, since all 3 of my fronts are shredder-defended.

Also, what exactly is the forcefield stack nerf? I don't exactly understand the wording in the OP.

When you have 2 or more forcefields stacked on top of each other, in some cases one will take damage while the engineers can repair the other.  This ended up with a situation where the more forcefields you had stacked (and a few engineers sitting around) the time you could 'hold out' went up exponentially if micro-ed right