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

[BobTheJanitor]

I have entered some new expansion ideas that will not only increase the excitement level but also raise the skill ceiling on this game. Go to mantis and check them out/show your support!

That won't help, you've got to link your pet ideas so people will vote them up. (See what I did there?)

[Wingflier]

Hey I voted for it, I think your idea is great.

[Diazo]

We're very much open to more feedback on this; basically diffs 9.3 through 10 aren't really where we expect people to play (indeed, we may need to make them harder if someone actually beats 10 in a fair fight again), but we want it to be fun for those who do.

I'll take this challenge. 

Early on I can actually survive, this isn't too bad.

Then that wave arrives. 1500 Neinzul Vultures. Ouch. Only at AIP 46 and 70 minutes in, it is on diff 10 though.

Think I could have actually handled it (would have wiped out my fleet) if there had not been a carrier with them. It got a couple hundred ships past my force field barrier. 

Going to save scum and try this again, let's see what happens.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

I'll take this challenge. 

Welcome back   At least, I don't recall seeing you around for a while.

We'll keep fiddling with the insane diffs as long as y'all are interested and think it benefits from the tweaking.

[Diazo]

Ya, real life's been busy lately, got married and moving into a new apartment and all that.

Then I got to watch the apartment building across the parking lot burn down. (My apartment did not get touched thankfully.)

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things, we'll see how it goes.

As for the reloaded game, I have not died (again) yet for what that's worth.

D.

edit: Never mind, I can survive the massive wave of younglings but I take too much damage to recover. Can't survive beyond the 1:45 mark. Tried Lighting Missile spam but that pushes the AIP too high and balloons the next wave.

[BobTheJanitor]

Hey, since we finally got zombies no longer being lumped in with your real ships in the galaxy count, what are the odds that this old issue could be addressed? I'm feeling the pain of this right now, hearing the constant BANG BANG BANG of zombie ships wandering to AI worlds and blowing up. I can't do anything about it. I can't control the suicidal little things. But they just keep dying and dying and dying. BANG! ... BANG! BANG! ... BANG! ... BANG! B-B-B-BANG! BANG! BANG! (I'm considering just deleting the sound file, if I can find it.)

Also it's causing 'your ships are being insta-killed by ion cannons' warnings. But they're not my ships! The warning is harmless, if misleading. But the noise. Oh, God, the noise. Make it stop!

[Wanderer]

Also it's causing 'your ships are being insta-killed by ion cannons' warnings. But they're not my ships! The warning is harmless, if misleading. But the noise. Oh, God, the noise. Make it stop!

ROFL.  Been defending from 800 ship waves with a botnet as well, 'eh?

I think I have ~5000 roaming defenders in the home systems at this point.  I believe the hybrids are scared.

On that note, I think I might have a way to balance the BotNet a little, without removing it's Joy! factor.

[Mánagarmr]

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.

That was the single most funny thing I've read all day, and I have 1200 people on Google Plus spamming stuff.

Though the idea of a flak starship honestly makes me happy in my pants. I'd gladly sacrifice the old bombardment starship in favor of one of those. (The Bomber starships has more or less replaced the old Dreadnaught anyway)

[keith.lamothe]

Ya, real life's been busy lately, got married and moving into a new apartment and all that.

Then I got to watch the apartment building across the parking lot burn down. (My apartment did not get touched thankfully.)

Congratulations on getting married and not having your apartment burned down

edit: Never mind, I can survive the massive wave of younglings but I take too much damage to recover. Can't survive beyond the 1:45 mark. Tried Lighting Missile spam but that pushes the AIP too high and balloons the next wave.

Hmm, martyrs?  I'm guessing the usual grav turrets + logistics station + engine damage + paralysis damage tricks to just "outlast" the younglings didn't work so great.

[Diazo]

Well, at the point the wave hits I'm still building up my second system so this is arriving in my home system.

Haven't tried that setup yet, been walling them off with a force field circle around the warp point, may switch to grav turrets.

The other problem is that I don't have a good save, I need one from about 10-15 minutes earlier then the one I have.

Also started a thread in AAR for my attempts at this as I do intend to keep trying over the next few weeks.

D.

[dotjd]

re: the artillery golem changes

All I'm going to say is that I once had two old artillery golems, by themselves, destroy an avenger that jumped in at max range.  Had this massive wall of full caps of multiple turret types set up, but the avenger didn't even reach it.  These new golems fire faster than two of the old ones, and the old ones were already pretty good.

[TechSY730]

Does the addition of traditional AOE effects to the Plasma Seiges mean they are no longer able to hit all AOE immune stuff, like missile frigates, transports, and some of the nastier starships?

In fact, this seems to an issue with any impact + AOE shot type, like grenades. Logically, they should be hit if they are targeted directly, but immune to the splash damage. (aka, grenades should be able to hit missile frigates, but only if they are targeted directly, and only the one that is targetted directly, as the grenade actually impacts the ship, not the AOE splash it is immune to)
Total "untargetabilty" makes sense for "pure" AOE shot types, like major lightning.

[Hearteater]

Does the addition of traditional AOE effects to the Plasma Seiges mean they are no longer able to hit all AOE immune stuff, like missile frigates, transports, and some of the nastier starships?

In fact, this seems to an issue with any impact + AOE shot type, like grenades. Logically, they should be hit if they are targeted directly, but immune to the splash damage. (aka, grenades should be able to hit missile frigates, but only if they are targeted directly, and only the one that is targetted directly, as the grenade actually impacts the ship, not the AOE splash it is immune to)
Total "untargetabilty" makes sense for "pure" AOE shot types, like major lightning.

I just want to subtly suggest this again.  It makes sense to break AOE attacks up some, so something like this would be possible.

With a few different types of AOE showing up, it may be a good idea to name the AOE types so Missile Frigates can list the type of AOE they are immune to.  Regular circular AOE might be Splash, Beam Frigates might be Linear.  Some AOE things might be Multishot or Scattershot.  Just food for thought.

[keith.lamothe]

Does the addition of traditional AOE effects to the Plasma Seiges mean they are no longer able to hit all AOE immune stuff, like missile frigates, transports, and some of the nastier starships?

The traditional aoe part cannot hit aoe-immune stuff. The "siege" effect when it hits a forcefield hits anything under the forcefield (other than stuff that is not supposed to be damage, i.e. ARS's, and stuff normally omitted from aoe out of courtesy to the player; i.e. enemy command stations, etc.).

Basically the siege-forcefield effect is just a little bonus and the unit is supposed to be plenty good even if you never use that particular niche, I just kept it because I thought it's cool, it's the "siege" part of the title, and it's already there
On the grenades and immunity-to-aoe, thing... code-wise it would take some doing to have something be immune to the aoe but not immune to the original shot.  Not too hard, but I've got bigger fish to fry.

[TechSY730]

Does the addition of traditional AOE effects to the Plasma Seiges mean they are no longer able to hit all AOE immune stuff, like missile frigates, transports, and some of the nastier starships?

The traditional aoe part cannot hit aoe-immune stuff. The "siege" effect when it hits a forcefield hits anything under the forcefield (other than stuff that is not supposed to be damage, i.e. ARS's, and stuff normally omitted from aoe out of courtesy to the player; i.e. enemy command stations, etc.).

Basically the siege-forcefield effect is just a little bonus and the unit is supposed to be plenty good even if you never use that particular niche, I just kept it because I thought it's cool, it's the "siege" part of the title, and it's already there
On the grenades and immunity-to-aoe, thing... code-wise it would take some doing to have something be immune to the aoe but not immune to the original shot.  Not too hard, but I've got bigger fish to fry.

So Seige starships will now be unable to directly target anything that is AOE immune? Aren't there a few nasty starships with AOE immunity?