AI War Beta 5.070-5.071 "The Once And Fortress King" Released!

[keith.lamothe]

Then there'll be the Technologist version of it, I assume?

Why... would you do such a thing?

[Faulty Logic]

To preempt the even more evil plan of making a plot, so that every AI can get in on the pain.

This is also why the Fortress king is its own type.

I am glad you're making AIs without any pretense of them not being evil. I have a few suggestions on Mantis.

[Toranth]

Found a little "Do-not-like" that appeared in one of the last few builds.  When you made it that you can no longer scrap MiniBomber drones, you basically forced any deepstrike with your Champion to be a full +20 seconds longer.  You also made it a little hard to deal use MiniBomber drones on AI Eye worlds, since it's much harder to manage the number created.  I assume the reason was to prevent gaining resources from scrapping the drones (I seem to remember a discussion about that).  Is there any reason the cost and/or refund rate couldn't have been adjusted to something terrible instead?  I mean, if the rate is poor enough that someone is getting 1 resource per scrapped MiniBomber, that works out to 1 resource per 3 seconds per spawner?  Not exactly going to make it rich doing that...


Re:  Zenith Siege Engine - I suspect this will be my new fortress killer.  Even under FFs, this thing shreads.  Brutal machine, if a little hard to use on general offense.  I fear for my underwear the first time the AI sends a wave of them at me, though.

[keith.lamothe]

I fear for my underwear the first time the AI sends a wave of them at me, though.

Lucky for you, the Zenith Trader now sells spare underwear!

And actually the siege engine is not eligible to be sent as a homogenous wave, I figured most respectable defensive setups would kill them all in the 15-second arming time

Schizo waves and exos are another matter...

[LaughingThesaurus]

Ooh... I should start brainstorming more evil AIs and start mantising all of them.

[pheonix89]

Incidentally, Spire Mod Fortresses and high-mark HBCs will also eat Siege Engines alive. Between the setup-time and need to close in, the photon lance is guaranteed to be able to wipe out a cap of mark 1 or 2s. And the speed difference is small enough that you can use the setup time to kite the things. Gotta love the photon lance hitting polycrystal for full. And HBCs III and IV are, well HBCs. Only real weakness is the tiny cap, after all. HBC IVs are honestly probably the best defense in the game IF you can be sure the AI will attack where you put it.

[keith.lamothe]

HBC IVs are honestly probably the best defense in the game IF you can be sure the AI will attack where you put it.

Yea, the sheer total dps output leaves burn marks on the Arithmetic Logic Unit.

[TechSY730]

Hmm, I would stick that long range specialist AI on mantis, if Keith didn't notice it right away here.

Anyways, what would it be called? I can't decide between Siege Master (name provided by LaughingThesaurus), or Artillerist.

Also, should infinite range, "sniperish" fleet ships also be pre-unlocked? Should they have a preference for the long ranged guardian types?

[keith.lamothe]

Since "I Am Become Death, Destroyer Of Forcefields" is too long, "Siege Master".

Sniper stuff could be included, but I think it would dilute it

[Aklyon]

IABDDoF.
That could work too.

[Draco18s]

Ooh... I should start brainstorming more evil AIs and start mantising all of them.

Did you see mine?
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9301

Probably would never work, with the way the galaxy seeds right now, but I'm sure Keith could think of something...

[LaughingThesaurus]

Your idea is completely crazy Draco, and I love ideas crazy.
Unfortunately... I'm not sure. Maybe to be so modular and flexible, the AI would actually need a particular kind of modular guard post and its own whole set of units and buildings exclusive to it. If I understand the game right, the whole map is created all at once, meaning the buildings can't just transform or 'appear'. There might be some perma-cloaked ship that acts as a placeholder, and is destroyed on capture or something. Otherwise, when the phase progresses, it converts into what is supposed to 'spawn in'...
It's like, one of those ideas that might be cool to play against, but seems like it'd be crazy to implement for that 'maybe' result. Although...

Kite Flyer: This AI flies around and has the auto-kite behavior enabled for many of its ships. In addition, it will prefer to attack with longer range ships, such as snipers and ships well above 10,000 range.

[chemical_art]

Good call on the heavy beam cannons, they do threaten the sieges well.

It's still super dicey though. One mk I siege will pop a mk I beam cannon in one shot. A mk II siege needs two shots.  The two will slaughter each other depending on who fires first. If the sieges outnumber the beam cannons 3 : 1 then the beams might hold due to their better rate of fire, but anything above 5 : 1 and I don't see how turrets in generally could hope to stop it aside from your very correct view of the IV beam cannon killing everything.

[pheonix89]

Good call on the heavy beam cannons, they do threaten the sieges well.

It's still super dicey though. One mk I siege will pop a mk I beam cannon in one shot. A mk II siege needs two shots.  The two will slaughter each other depending on who fires first. If the sieges outnumber the beam cannons 3 : 1 then the beams might hold due to their better rate of fire, but anything above 5 : 1 and I don't see how turrets in generally could hope to stop it aside from your very correct view of the IV beam cannon killing everything.

Higher mark beam cannons have dampening. Also, they outrange the siege engines, so while the engines are charging that first shot after moving into range, the cannons tear them to bits. Remember, these things have no alpha strike, they have to wait 15 seconds after entering range to fire. That gives the HBCs time to rip them to shreds.

[chemical_art]

Good call on the heavy beam cannons, they do threaten the sieges well.

It's still super dicey though. One mk I siege will pop a mk I beam cannon in one shot. A mk II siege needs two shots.  The two will slaughter each other depending on who fires first. If the sieges outnumber the beam cannons 3 : 1 then the beams might hold due to their better rate of fire, but anything above 5 : 1 and I don't see how turrets in generally could hope to stop it aside from your very correct view of the IV beam cannon killing everything.

Higher mark beam cannons have dampening. Also, they outrange the siege engines, so while the engines are charging that first shot after moving into range, the cannons tear them to bits. Remember, these things have no alpha strike, they have to wait 15 seconds after entering range to fire. That gives the HBCs time to rip them to shreds.

*sigh* which is why I said the hbcs cannons be outnumbered 3 : 1 and still hold...surely, when you know...

wait? I thought the policy was the sieges can move and immediately fire, but then have to reload and be still then. So the sieges do have a powerful alpha, but a very vulunerable reload...but I haven't used them yet...so I'm not sure...