AI War Beta 5.076 "Clusters Of Pain" Released!

[Toranth]

However, I still think there's a problem in there:  It looks to me like when any single planet reaches the spawn threshold, any planet that has ever contributed to the spawn pool gets that entire spawn's worth of points applied to it.

Yes, that's exactly what it does

It's not so bad when the base spawn amount and spawn-growth-rate are low enough, but the general idea is that once a spawner is "activated" it's a permanent liability to whoever holds the system (or is nearby).  By the same token, activating a bunch of them doesn't dilute the spawns (which would make them far more manageable, can't have that!).  The result for cascade-hilarity is quite intentional, though I think I may need to ratchet back on the number of spawners so you're not tripping over them quite so often.

Hmm.  It basically guarantees that it's not worth ever trying to hold a Fac IV or Fab in a system that has a DS in it.  Because the Vengence shoots plasma shots, not even forcefields will protect your stuff.  That certainly changes how the game would be played.  Any chance of getting an indicator of some sort when a node is active?  maybe have the first kill in a system change it from "Dormant Generator" to "Active Generator".

I can see this becoming a potential strategy - Find a DS system near you, then one deep in AI territory.  Activate both, then deliberately kill lots of stuff on your controlled end, and hope that the other end can weaken the AI a lot without going out of control.  Hmm.  Seems like a desperation strategy, actually.  Can we say 10/10 cheese?  Yes, we can!
I can also see such a system becoming a Champion Experience Farm.

I'm not sure that there's anything you can do to truly balance an infinitely expanding enemy, but the failing can sure be entertaining.  (Why is there no "Shot in the head" smiley?)

No matter what, I suggest making it so that Scouts, drones (Neinzul and tackle), blades, missiles, and disposable stuff like that doesn't cause an increase.
I would also suggest making the DS a seperate not-allied-to-anything factions, so that the Devourer, hostile Gatlings, etc, will fight with them.

Sounds like you didn't create a minor faction, you created a freaking zombie apocalypse.

Actually, that sounds like it might be fun.  New AI Type - Zombie Master.  Doesn't launch waves, instead it continuously streams zombie ships from the AI homeworld straight to the human homeworld.  The never stop, never hesitate, just keep coming... AIP would determine spawn Mk and rate/clump size.  For added fun, make all ships spawned this way also become zombie reclaimers

[Mánagarmr]

Sounds like you didn't create a minor faction, you created a freaking zombie apocalypse.

Actually, that sounds like it might be fun.  New AI Type - Zombie Master.  Doesn't launch waves, instead it continuously streams zombie ships from the AI homeworld straight to the human homeworld.  The never stop, never hesitate, just keep coming... AIP would determine spawn Mk and rate/clump size.  For added fun, make all ships spawned this way also become zombie reclaimers

Defender mode?

[LaughingThesaurus]

...I still think that if they're truly zombie apocalypse ships, they should reclaim-into-zombies any ship that they kill. so...

Zombie Master - Added border aggression. Only attacks with a special variety of non-reclaimable ships, that can reclaim your ships and convert them into zombie ships. Waves are extremely frequent, but the Zombie Master does not get reinforcements. (how often do you see zombies milling around and actively defending places?)

[TechSY730]

Speaking of things getting out of hand, are Hybrids paying the proper cost for low ship cap ship escorts?
Because I am regularly getting like 40 Spire rail clusters in a hybrid attack...
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9452

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm.  It basically guarantees that it's not worth ever trying to hold a Fac IV or Fab in a system that has a DS in it.

Yea, I may change it to never put them and Adv Facts on the same planet; fabs would just be out of luck. 

I can also see such a system becoming a Champion Experience Farm.

Oh yea, I knew there was a reason I shouldn't have used exactly the same object types for the dark spire ships from the nebulae   They shouldn't be giving XP in this context.

I'm not sure that there's anything you can do to truly balance an infinitely expanding enemy, but the failing can sure be entertaining.

Once the numbers are a bit more sane it won't be so much of a spiral of doom as long as you kill the spawns fast enough.  Their own deaths don't count towards the spawns, and it doesn't spawn as much strength as died (on a single planet).  The idea is to make these such that you're afraid of them, they can destabilize a game if they get out of control, but you can contain them if you're smart about it.  But definitely one of those "I could add this, but it would be hair-raisingly dangerous" lobby options

No matter what, I suggest making it so that Scouts, drones (Neinzul and tackle), blades, missiles, and disposable stuff like that doesn't cause an increase.

The release you have has the drones and blades at a really small strength value so they basically don't contribute except minorly in big numbers.  If you're concerned that a given ship is contributing too much (or too little), check the log for the strength value it used for them.  I can adjust those easily.

I would also suggest making the DS a seperate not-allied-to-anything factions, so that the Devourer, hostile Gatlings, etc, will fight with them.

That would require adding a new MinorFactionStance enum value, which would take an enormous amount of time to properly support.  We've been working with the existing set since a bit before TZR

[keith.lamothe]

Speaking of things getting out of hand, are Hybrids paying the proper cost for low ship cap ship escorts?
Because I am regularly getting like 40 Spire rail clusters in a hybrid attack...
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9452

They can't and don't actually pay strength costs since the population cap is based on count, since it can only maintain a count without substantial additional cpu cost.  In return it generally has a much higher chance of picking the more-sane-cap ships, though iirc the super hybrids and some high-maturity attacker classes have higher chances.

And in general, hybrids can stand to be randomly absurdly dangerous

[TechSY730]

Speaking of things getting out of hand, are Hybrids paying the proper cost for low ship cap ship escorts?
Because I am regularly getting like 40 Spire rail clusters in a hybrid attack...
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9452

They can't and don't actually pay strength costs since the population cap is based on count, since it can only maintain a count without substantial additional cpu cost.  In return it generally has a much higher chance of picking the more-sane-cap ships, though iirc the super hybrids and some high-maturity attacker classes have higher chances.

And in general, hybrids can stand to be randomly absurdly dangerous

So, basically, it is sort of one of those the RNG can screw you over type of things. If the AI gets lots of low ship cap ships for their unlocks (like mine did), and for whatever reason picks those low ship cap ships for escorts a lot (like mine did, darn you statistical clustering), then you could be in for a much, MUCH tougher fight. It would be nice to suggest that a single hybrid cannot get more of a ship if they have >50% of a cap of a ship escorting it (so no more than 3 railclusters / hybrid in this case, thanks to the ship cap of 5 for the rail clusters), to prevent these effects from getting out of control. But that may be a bit too CPU intense, IDK. And if I read your post right, they have a higher chance of picking a ship type to escort it the closer that ship type's cap is to normal cap.

I guess this is balanced out by the possibility of high cap ships. If you replace the worst case scenario's description with high ship cap ships, then your hybrid fights will be much easier. So I guess that sort of evens things out.

[Toranth]

Hmm.  It basically guarantees that it's not worth ever trying to hold a Fac IV or Fab in a system that has a DS in it.

Yea, I may change it to never put them and Adv Facts on the same planet; fabs would just be out of luck.

SuperTerminal as well - It'd make it unusable.  It'd be nice if the ARSs were safe, too, for hacking, but hardly required.

I can also see such a system becoming a Champion Experience Farm.

Oh yea, I knew there was a reason I shouldn't have used exactly the same object types for the dark spire ships from the nebulae   They shouldn't be giving XP in this context.

 

No matter what, I suggest making it so that Scouts, drones (Neinzul and tackle), blades, missiles, and disposable stuff like that doesn't cause an increase.

The release you have has the drones and blades at a really small strength value so they basically don't contribute except minorly in big numbers.  If you're concerned that a given ship is contributing too much (or too little), check the log for the strength value it used for them.  I can adjust those easily.

Most things that are disposable, like Spire Blades, Autobombs, tackle drones (not launchers), nanoswarms - these are 2 pts per mark.  That's the same as fighters/bombers/frigates.  The Neinzul drones from the Enclave Starship are 20 points per mark - 3 Mk IV are enough to trigger a spawn.  Lightning warheads are 12-ish/mk, armored 24/mk, but nukes, EMP, and Tachyon are all 35/mark.  Scout Mk IIs (Armored scout?) are 7 points!
Didn't have a chance to check the Champion drone bays, but I suspect they're a little on the high side as well.

Basically, an AI planet with 10 Mk IV Tackle Drone Launchers will trigger a spawn about every 20 seconds.  10 Blade Spawner Mk IVs every 8 seconds when in combat, 50-ish seconds when not.  A Mk IV Neinzul Enclave producing Mk IV drones?  3 seconds!  2 spawns per 5 seconds!

Whee!

[keith.lamothe]

That's... odd.  I set it to value most of those much lower, must be some bug in how I did that.

[chemical_art]

On the lobby the cluster maps are still more like a cluster fudge.

[LordSloth]

Cluster map is cruel - 2 Raid Engines with gravity drills? Okay, thanks.

Anyways, trying out the Special Forces Commander, I'm noting I can stop about 1500 patrolling ships in their tracks simply by having 10 Spire Stealth Battleships in system, even cloaked and in low power. Is this intentional?

[LaughingThesaurus]

So is the difference between clusters and microcosm clusters the stuff on the planets? I'm seeing identical maps in the lobby both ways.

[Lancefighter]

At the moment, nothing. Sometime tuesday I expect a patch though/

[LaughingThesaurus]

Oh okay, I thought I was a bit crazy for a bit there. There were people like "Microcosm does this and that" and I was like, wait... that isn't... I must be missing something.
Turns out the game is missing something. Beta is beta.

[Lancefighter]

Being the QA team for a small company is great, isnt it :p