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

[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.

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

Oh, I see...That's another defensive strategy i've been relying on. Darn. I'm really scared to launch the game today, I expect to be creamed.

[x4000]

Does the ff nerf bat also affect the unrepairable Spirecraft Shield Bearer?

You bet.  Though in reality it doesn't really have any effect there.  1 extra damage when those are stacked doesn't really do anything, since those already can't be repaired as you say.

[Zeba]

Noes my viral shredder backbone! 

j/k

I was abusing all of the mechanics that got nerfed especially the shredders.

1500 mkIII on a single wormhole meant nothing gets through and the little that is immune would get ate up by the turrets.

[Ozymandiaz]

Noes my viral shredder backbone! 

j/k

I was abusing all of the mechanics that got nerfed especially the shredders.

1500 mkIII on a single wormhole meant nothing gets through and the little that is immune would get ate up by the turrets.

Indeed. I had huge shredder hoards as reserves on my planets, on low energy mode since 4500 of then sucked up a lot of energy

But this is awesome: "Replication-created shredders now copy the FRD, Attack Move, and any unit commands (movement waypoints and whatnot) of their "parent". Note that they already copy the control groups and "am I currently selected" status of their parent. "

I like the forcefield change as well. I don't always use that trick, but when I do it has saved me from huge numbers that should have killed me

[realcoolguy]

Damn developers taking the side of the AI 

I guess the spirecraft are slowly coming in line in terms of value with each other.  Martyrs were beyond OP. 

Still I think you should do something more interesting with the shields [buff not nerf].  Either give them teleport, or change the mechanic entirely such as you switch 'on' the shield and it just turns red for x number of seconds (size and time depend on mark lvl) and then they're done and gone (or whatever color invulnerability is].  [number of seconds as opposed to HP, which fits the martyr setup assuming the update is nerfing the number available and they still hit everyone, just like attritioners].  To me this makes sense especially in the spire campaigns where the # of ships makes my CPU cry.  I like that the asteroid ships are primarily designed for dealing with 'large' numbers of ships, or difficult situations.  I think the martyr nerf was long overdue, but boy would I like to see something a little useful come out of the shield/attrition lines.  In big important battles that huge HP # on the shields just doesn't hold up for the # of seconds I want, and really that's all I would want, seconds as opposed to HP.  Plus if my suggestion is adopted you could park the attrition under the shield and the problem of the battles being over too soon are solved.  Two birds one short-term-inulvernable-stone?

OH!  in light of the brilliant fix on the new 'anti-matter' ship, I would like to propose renaming the ion cannons to something more apt - "Decorative Cannon" - 'long thought to be merely decoration, these cannons do fire on rare occasions.'  Zenith Trader: 'They're collectors items! Why else would I charge so much?'

[TechSY730]

My take on the Spirecraft shield bearers is that if their HP were boosted such that they would be useful on the offense, thanks to the crazy firepower of the AI, the HP would be so high that the shield bearers would be completely overpowered on the defense. Similarly, if they are good but balanced on the defense (like they are now), they are underpowered on the offense (again, like they are now). TBH, I don't see a way around that, other than a rethinking of the job or mechanics of the Spirecraft shield bearers.

[x4000]

Keith actually has plans to imminently redesign the ion cannons quite a bit.  However, in light of all the nerfs to player stuff in this build, he said he didn't want to majorly buff an AI weapon at the same build.

So expect that in the next version.  I love the decorative cannon notes though, that's hugely funny.

Note that the antimatter starships were a rare case of the ship actually performing more or less like we wanted, but players having really off expectations because of its name.  Hence the rename rather than a more proper "fix," because to fix them in the way players would be expecting from the name siege starship would be to break other parts of their balance that we didn't want to.  Aka, I don't want a ship that can cream forcefields and other structures from the other side of a planet.  There is nothing that enhances about gameplay.

On the other hand, ion cannons are one of those things that have just slid into disuse and disrepair while other aspects of the game grew up around the one-feared masters of the AI planets. So it's time for a rejigger of them, and I thought Keith's plans were pretty cool for that.

[Echo35]

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

How many other games do you know of where the community complains BECAUSE IT'S TOO EASY?!

[x4000]

Hahaha, definitely not many! 

[Coppermantis]

How many other games do you know of where the community complains BECAUSE IT'S TOO EASY?!

Well, Spore's community is half that way, but AI War is much, much harder than that. Also, I'm getting decimated now that Shredders are nerfed. Oh, and I'm playing on Difficulty 5/7 from a really old game, so it really shouldn't be that bad. I'm considering sending EMPs to AI Planets and then moving in my Shredders so they can nom without being attacked for a while.

[Philo]

Tbh, I thought forcefields were already a bit underpowered. Now it's like damn. Even 3 mark III forcefields won't hold out at all against say 50-100 bombers or even a couple of AI Stealth Battleships.

That's from experience than from calculating the math though.

How are we supposed to keep Mark IV factories etc. safe now? Stack 12 shields on it and let the rest of the galaxy go with none? The fact you have so few shields available anyway has to come with forcefields being very good and durable.

[Zhaine]

Heh, very good changes in my opinion, although I'm still happy that I built my martyr hordes in my current game before this came out.

Out of interest what will happen to current Martyr asteroid mine thingies when we patch? Eg if I'm building martyrs on Reptite right now on my save, what will I find when i patch and load up?

[TechSY730]

Tbh, I thought forcefields were already a bit underpowered. Now it's like damn. Even 3 mark III forcefields won't hold out at all against say 50-100 bombers or even a couple of AI Stealth Battleships.

That's from experience than from calculating the math though.

How are we supposed to keep Mark IV factories etc. safe now? Stack 12 shields on it and let the rest of the galaxy go with none? The fact you have so few shields available anyway has to come with forcefields being very good and durable.

The key is to destroy a large portion of the attack force before they even get to your force field. Yes, against large attack forces some will slip through, but if you have your defenses placed right, and knowing when you need to retreat your attack force to help defend, your force fields should hold up against those that do make it. Incidentally, holding remote planets, like those the Mk. IV factories tend to be on, is supposed to be tough.

Also, from my experience, human Mk. III force fields are actually pretty tough. Even 100 Mk. III bombers will take some take to chew through them (assuming normal ship caps)

I will admit though, with the removal of the cap to the size of AI waves, attack forces do sometimes seem to get really tough, occasionally tough enough to make the defensive buffs given over the last dozen versions or so irrelevant.

[keith.lamothe]

Tbh, I thought forcefields were already a bit underpowered. Now it's like damn. Even 3 mark III forcefields won't hold out at all against say 50-100 bombers or even a couple of AI Stealth Battleships.

That's from experience than from calculating the math though.

How are we supposed to keep Mark IV factories etc. safe now? Stack 12 shields on it and let the rest of the galaxy go with none? The fact you have so few shields available anyway has to come with forcefields being very good and durable.

As the release notes say:

If this leaves some situations unreasonably hard other changes can be made to compensate, we just wanted to close this "micro to dodge anything" loophole.

The stats of forcefields themselves haven't changed at all, this is just to prevent mid-battle repair unless you can actually "break the siege" for 6 full seconds.  Perhaps you will find that possible, perhaps not.  Anyway, if folks find it's too hard we can certainly buff human ff's and/or allow you to build more of them.  I love ffs, they're wonderful, but there were some dirty rotten tricks that I and some other players were pulling with them that should never have been possible to begin with

Out of interest what will happen to current Martyr asteroid mine thingies when we patch? Eg if I'm building martyrs on Reptite right now on my save, what will I find when i patch and load up?

I... have no idea   Should probably just keep building whatever it's building.

[Hearteater]

50 or possibly even 100 bombers can be held back by a single Mark I Force Field, a Mark I Military CS, and 5 Spider Turrets.