AI War Beta 5.023, "Plasma Siege Starships," Released!

[keith.lamothe]

Keith, as much as I've been banging on this drum, it's only fair I say we may have went too far...      However, not having an enforced 15 minute build is nice.

To wit, first wave:

Heh, you have a point   Maybe I need to bring that minimum-of-34 rule back closer to 100 for diff 10, though I kinda don't like it "clamping" the first x AIP's worth of waves to that minimum.

19k range,

Um.  Oops.  I guess I'm on a roll with missing things during testing lately.  Haha, that's supposed to be 7k now   The whole reason for the antimatter stuff before was that 19k range was unbalancedly-long for being able to effectively shell fixed defenses.  Fixed for 5.024... 

[Wingflier]

That's a lot better than being concerned about going completely out of business!

If Arcen went out of business I would be devastated.

I could use some clarification on what we are supposed to be doing with this. 200 ships at 1% damage but only behind a force field? 

200 ships is the max it can hit, but not necessarily the "efficient" amount.  Very rarely (from my experience playing primarily vanilla and TZR with basic settings) will you have 200 ships sitting under a forcefield, but I run into situations all the time where there are 30 or more.  I don't know if 1% of the damage (at 1/3rd of the damage of a Bomber Starship) would really make that big of an impact, but it's worth a shot.

I look at it this way:  Would the Siege Starship ever be worth spending knowledge to upgrade?  If yes, then it's balanced.  If no, then it probably needs to be tweaked until it does.  Ultimately I think it's a great idea, even if it needs a little fine-tuning.

All in all it's been an awesome patch!

[chemical_art]

Personally, to compensate for how rare it is to have 200 units under a FF, I'd propose they do 1.5% damage. Right now (if I remember correctly) they are half the speed and frailer then bomber ships. The increase in range compared to it is pretty no consequential.

Right now they have full damage if they take of the very, very niche idea of 200 of them being under a FF. Understand what I am saying?

They are still super super niche.

[Wanderer]

Keith, as much as I've been banging on this drum, it's only fair I say we may have went too far...      However, not having an enforced 15 minute build is nice.

To wit, first wave:

Heh, you have a point   Maybe I need to bring that minimum-of-34 rule back closer to 100 for diff 10, though I kinda don't like it "clamping" the first x AIP's worth of waves to that minimum.

Take *1* system and you're back at 100.  That value's only a factor in a purely defensive mode.

[keith.lamothe]

Personally, to compensate for how rare it is to have 200 units under a FF, I'd propose they do 1.5% damage.

Sure, we can up the multiplier.  I wasn't aware 200 was that rare, actually.  I tend to see either early-game smatterings or late-game enormous blobs.  Let me know how they feel in action.

[Wanderer]

Personally, to compensate for how rare it is to have 200 units under a FF, I'd propose they do 1.5% damage.

Sure, we can up the multiplier.  I wasn't aware 200 was that rare, actually.  I tend to see either early-game smatterings or late-game enormous blobs.  Let me know how they feel in action.

You'll usually have ~60-90 under a FF in mid-late game, with a guardian or two.  For a quick calculation, let's use bomber IIIs.  EDIT: Unless you've made a few errors in alerts and built up a system you need to take/nerf.  Then the unholy mob under the FF becomes a problem.

At ~450k hp, it'll take 115 shots or so of Siege to kill one.  That's 45 million points of damage to the FF, while it's taking full, un-weakened firepower (if the range gets re-shortened) from everything under the shield.  WITH the range I see these having value.  At 7k... errr... hrm...  Bombers and Fighters can't reach them, but they're not exactly armored golems, either.

I can see value in this ship.  I just don't think it's that powerful.  I intend to actually find out before I recommend significant mods though.  What I'd really prefer to see is the knowledge spent improve more than just the damage, but the percentage.  A 1/2/3% of effect through FFs wouldn't be unreasonable, I don't think.  Level 3 Sieges (being a niche) should be worth the knowledge.

[TechSY730]

And about the frail thing. Plasma Siege Starships STILL have more HP than Bomber Starships, though bomber starships do have superior armour.

This might be something to look into.

[keith.lamothe]

And about the frail thing. Plasma Siege Starships STILL have more HP than Bomber Starships, though bomber starships do have superior armour.

This might be something to look into.

Yes, I was aware of the hp disparity while making the changes, but didn't want to nerf that aspect until we had some feedback for the new design.


Anyway, on the splash damage thing, I'm thinking that making it hit 50 for 4% each instead of 200 for 1% each would be a step in the right direction.

[chemical_art]

4% for 50 seems much better. It isn't perfect for low caps, but I'll take it.

My problem still remains that a ship that has a niche purpose does the same dps as a ship for general purpose. Yes, it's a cool feature. But still, a very limited one. It would still seem (emphasis on seem) that by the time the % shots matter on the craft below it the shield will be down regardless, since either the siege craft will be torn to pieces if alone or the bombers in the blob it follows will knock out the shields. I re emphasis the key on seem here.

[Wanderer]

Anyway, on the splash damage thing, I'm thinking that making it hit 50 for 4% each instead of 200 for 1% each would be a step in the right direction.

That could be significantly more useful.  It'd also allow towards more specialized raiding with smaller groups instead of igniting the entire planet at once.

[keith.lamothe]

I could make it do 8% to 25 on low caps, 4% to 50 on normal caps, and 2% to 100 on high caps.  I believe that would be the closest thing to consistency.

My problem still remains that a ship that has a niche purpose does the same dps as a ship for general purpose. Yes, it's a cool feature. But still, a very limited one.

We can increase the overall dps of the siege, too, if it makes sense.  I'm trying to avoid creating the "I-Win-Button Starship" because the last time I did that it quietly disappeared one night

And if ff-sieging is simply too niche, I could just make it always hit up to 50 (or whatever) nearby enemy units for 4%, so you wouldn't need an ff involved.  Of course, then it's more like a "Flak Starship"   And I think if I change that thing's name again it's going to find me and kill me.  And now it can actually hit something.

Anyway, give it a whirl, tell me how it does.  There's already a few changes in the pipeline.

[chemical_art]

A flak starship gets me very, very excited. I was thinking the other day just how limited aoe is. Autobombs, flak turrets, and grenaders are what come to mind (and the beam line attacks).

A flak ship...I'd pay research for that if at max efficency it had 25% more damage then comparable starships.

[Cyborg]

I hate to say it, but a flak starship does actually sound better than Forcefield-killer thing. Overall, this sounds like a nerf to the player, who is generally better using forcefield tactics than the AI. The potential for the AI to hurt us is a lot more than for us to hurt it. I certainly don't want to spend over 10,000 knowledge to take out a force field when I could just use bombers. There is that, plus the graphics for it, I'm worried it will be like the attritioner where you can't really tell if it's doing anything sometimes.

But, let's play with it and see what happens for a little while.

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, yea, perhaps a flak-like aoe (still using the % damage thing; otherwise it wouldn't do any damage to stuff it couldn't hit) would be fine for it, depending on how folks like it in usage now.  And less AI-favoring.  I had figured that giving the AI another tool against ff's wasn't a bad thing, it would just give you a stronger reason to kill their sieges first (not the easiest thing with all that hp, but massive fire would do the trick).

Anyway, I'd really like to keep the "Plasma" theme, just because I want an energy-ish weapon instead of a shell/flak one.  I could make it do a lightning burst when it hits, to show the aoe.  I'd prefer something like a (much) larger-scale version of the little green glow that happens when something hits a forcefield nowadays, but lightning will probably do the trick so it's not just an invisible aoe.

[Wanderer]

I could make it do 8% to 25 on low caps, 4% to 50 on normal caps, and 2% to 100 on high caps.  I believe that would be the closest thing to consistency.

My problem still remains that a ship that has a niche purpose does the same dps as a ship for general purpose. Yes, it's a cool feature. But still, a very limited one.

We can increase the overall dps of the siege, too, if it makes sense.  I'm trying to avoid creating the "I-Win-Button Starship" because the last time I did that it quietly disappeared one night

And if ff-sieging is simply too niche, I could just make it always hit up to 50 (or whatever) nearby enemy units for 4%, so you wouldn't need an ff involved.  Of course, then it's more like a "Flak Starship"   And I think if I change that thing's name again it's going to find me and kill me.  And now it can actually hit something.

Anyway, give it a whirl, tell me how it does.  There's already a few changes in the pipeline.

Okay, goofing off with small strike team raiding with the siege.  Using a few light starships to cover it so it doesn't end up getting beaten to death by fighters, otherwise testing out its personal mechanics.

I'm currently besieging (heh, woot) a TIII ARS world with a lot of guard posts on it.  The mechanics, as they were described, work as advertised.  But a few things.

1) Most forcefields will fall before a concerted attack long before the 1% is actually effective.  With siege only you have to be very careful about the 'wake up the planet' rules (2x firepower?).  Guardians will still live through a siege, but that's not really a problem, they can actually shoot those.

2) It needs range,but it's over-ranged at the moment at 19k.  Anti-starship guardpost is 17k.  Make it 12k.  Or 8k with a 10k dampening field.  Long enough to 'besiege' normal things but not anything built for range.

3) I'm having a real hard time building anything up over 100 ships under a FF.  Oh, I can annoy large outpost areas, but they spread out.  However, if the Siege starship can't target small ships, and larger ships are going to get their worlds rocked pretty quick against a small armada of these things, flak with non FF isn't going to do much.  I definately believe it needs to do more to less, and start with the weakest ships.  On standard, 4% to 50 seems reasonable.

4) I'm having a hard time validating doing a tech tree increase for the siege starship, for a couple of reasons.
4a) More ships without a benefit is just firepower over time.  Considering you don't want to wake the planet, you're going minimal firepower.  If there was a reasonable way to judge these things other than an artform of 'touch and feel', it'd make more sense.  My test had been 120 Siegecraft in a 8*HW... um, apparently that's not normal.   I really need to figure out the rules for when the AI will wake up the cold-storage units locally, other than shooting at something they're defending or in their flock.
4b) There's no reason to waste science when my little sieges can do the exact same thing eventually, particularly in quiet systems.
4c) They don't add enough firepower to 'fleet balls' for their niche.  They're raiders as built at the moment.  I'm not against this, but there's no reason to improve them.

5) They are absolutely lovely against hybrids (particularly with their long range), if anyone else is deciding to try to play with the new hybrid enemies.

...

I've mentioned range 3 to 4 times now.  I'm afraid of a very short range for this unit.  I could have bomber stars for something that's going to get too close, and those are anti-fortress/speed raider worthy.  It's artillery and bombers fleet ships will chew it up.  It shouldn't sniper, but it can't outrun *jackall* either.

I'm still toying around with it, but my immediate observations of messing around with them in an old 7/7 game, a 9/9 advanced-hybrid (which I'm going to lose, so it's basically a testbed for wild ideas), and a 8*Homeworld game where I have around 40 of the things.

They are particularly NASTY against exos, btw.  Look at all those siege spirecra.... errr, look at all those siege spirecraft PARTS... wow.