AI War Beta 5.091-5.092 "Apply MkII Sanding Machine" Released!

[Faulty Logic]

Yeah, that was a hard one. That nebula forces you to attack, allied support or no. Defence is futile against those colony ships.

This procedure allowed me to win:
Switch to a spire destroyer with 4 plasma siege cannons III and one shield (lights don't matter).
Bring it in, and attack the nearest starbase, protecting yourself with shadow shields.
Then kill the nearest starbase from your current position with the same procedure. By now your sheild will be down and you will have taken heavy damage. Retreat out of the nebula for a quick repair.
Reenter, then kill the last two bases.

About the military cap, I hope this was an intentional feature, and if not I would like it to become one.

[chemical_art]

Has anyone done the colony ship nebula without almost from the start going "oh crud, I'll just pop the stations and be done with it" ?

[rabican]

Yeah, that was a hard one. That nebula forces you to attack, allied support or no. Defence is futile against those colony ships.

This procedure allowed me to win:
Switch to a spire destroyer with 4 plasma siege cannons III and one shield (lights don't matter).
Bring it in, and attack the nearest starbase, protecting yourself with shadow shields.
Then kill the nearest starbase from your current position with the same procedure. By now your sheild will be down and you will have taken heavy damage. Retreat out of the nebula for a quick repair.
Reenter, then kill the last two bases.

About the military cap, I hope this was an intentional feature, and if not I would like it to become one.

I'm guessing you got this nebulae relative early?  If you get it late , you will not have time for retreat.

Last time i got this mission it was pretty much impossible, 80+ colony ships all the time, i had time for one lap around the map +5 seconds before allied starbases were down. I would've needed to oneshot those bases to be able to finish it.

[Histidine]

IMO there are two ways the Shattered Pillar scenario could be changed:

If the player is meant to intercept the colony ships before they hit, they should spawn further out, move slower and have less HP so they can actually be killed before they reach their targets.

Alternatively, if the colony ships are there for the "panic"/chaotic/time limit effect (and they are pretty good at that), they just need to be fewer in number and do less damage (especially to starbases). I'd prefer this option for variety (it's nice to have more offense-oriented nebula missions).

[keith.lamothe]

I'm guessing you got this nebulae relative early?  If you get it late , you will not have time for retreat.

A fair point in the current version, but as of the next version you'll be able to replace modules by being close enough to the allied large starbase.

For the colony ships I'll tone down the scaling on their spawn amounts and probably nerf speed/hp/damage a bit.  It's kind of tricky with a mechanic like that to find a middle-ground between "Argh!" and "trivially easy".  But to some extent as long as it makes the player need an extra pair of underwear the first time it will have accomplished much of its purpose.

[keith.lamothe]

"Feature":
Military II and III are showing infinite caps.  It really hasn't affected my current game much, as I've only colonized 3 other planets at this point...minimalist + champion FTW. 

Hmm, yea, I think I'm with Faulty on that one.  Wasn't intentional, but I don't think it's a bad thing.  In general you don't want to be in a position where you need more than 6 mkIII mil stations, so if you are then the game can afford to be a little generous.

In the Shattered Pillar scenario, the Colony Ships were damaging ships through my Projected Shadow Shields (although they wouldn't damage the Champion through shield modules).  This made the scenario nearly impossible, as I couldn't keep my allies or myself alive, much less mount a reasonable attack.  I probably tried this scenario 10-15 different times with different champion/module setups over the course of an hour, just trying not to lose  .  I understand that this is one of the more difficult scenarios; the reason I think it's a bug is because the Colony Ships do not show an immunity to forcefields, and the Champions shield modules worked normally. 

AoE explosions are a little different about forcefields, in that I think zenith autobombs can do something similar, but in this case it's probably just the bug where the ships you're trying to protect are not updating their "protected by" field quickly enough.  I thought I'd dealt with that but apparently not.

When attacking Homeworlds and Superterminal worlds, it does show that the AI is committing part of its reserves to defend the planet.  However, I haven't very many ships spawn.  In fact, the only time I even see the reserve decrease below 100% is during/after a CPA.  Is that intended, or do I happen to be below the curve on difficulty/AIP?  I figured that it would be a stronger response that we could whittle down, but I can't even get a strong enough response to do any real damage to the reserves... 

The superterminal world won't get much of the reserve, but the homeworld will get all of it if necessary.  Do you have a save during a homeworld assault where it's not spawning much from the reserve?  Or does going after a homeworld in the save you attached demonstrate this?

[Coppermantis]

Has anyone done the colony ship nebula without almost from the start going "oh crud, I'll just pop the stations and be done with it" ?

I did. My allies did almost all the work in taking out the starbases. I just helped with shield support and tanking the colony ships. (This may or may not have actually been what was happening. It looked like it, but it could have been coincidence. Not sure if colony ship logic will acquire the champion as a target.)

[TechSY730]

"Feature":
Military II and III are showing infinite caps.  It really hasn't affected my current game much, as I've only colonized 3 other planets at this point...minimalist + champion FTW. 

Hmm, yea, I think I'm with Faulty on that one.  Wasn't intentional, but I don't think it's a bad thing.  In general you don't want to be in a position where you need more than 6 mkIII mil stations, so if you are then the game can afford to be a little generous.

Well, if we do go with this, IMO, the Logisitcs Mk. II and III should also get infinite caps, for consistency.

Econ Mk. II and III is a trickier story. Right now, they are balanced with their limited caps in mind (a Mk. II econ station, on average, gives more per planet than the Mk. II harvesters, but you don't get as many planets with them. Similar for the Mk. III). If the Econ Mk. II and III were to get infinite caps, then this may need to be reviewed. Though as mentioned, generally, if you have enough planets to fill your Mk. III caps (and maybe Mk. II caps as well), you are usually in a place such that you should be hesitant about taking more planets anyways.


EDIT: Actually, if all of the Mk. II and IIIs get infinite caps, aside from a few freaky/strange situations/tactics, there would be no reason to keep the lower marks around, and they should be auto-upgraded like harvesters are.

[Mánagarmr]

Well, if we do go with this, IMO, the Logisitcs Mk. II and III should also get infinite caps, for consistency.

Econ Mk. II and III is a trickier story. Right now, they are balanced with their limited caps in mind (a Mk. II econ station, on average, gives more per planet than the Mk. II harvesters, but you don't get as many planets with them. Similar for the Mk. III). If the Econ Mk. II and III were to get infinite caps, then this may need to be reviewed. Though as mentioned, generally, if you have enough planets to fill your Mk. III caps (and maybe Mk. II caps as well), you are usually in a place such that you should be hesitant about taking more planets anyways.


EDIT: Actually, if all of the Mk. II and IIIs get infinite caps, aside from a few freaky/strange situations/tactics, there would be no reason to keep the lower marks around, and they should be auto-upgraded like harvesters are.

You're scary mate. That's the same thing that went through my head when I read that.

[TechSY730]

Just FYI, I oppose infinite caps for the MK. II and MK. III stations; its part of the decision you need to make (though the rewards and costs should keep this in mind, which currently it doesn't feel like they do consistently)

[chemical_art]

I, too, oppose them, simply because there would be no reason not to upgrade them.

[orzelek]

In the Shattered Pillar scenario, the Colony Ships were damaging ships through my Projected Shadow Shields (although they wouldn't damage the Champion through shield modules).  This made the scenario nearly impossible, as I couldn't keep my allies or myself alive, much less mount a reasonable attack.  I probably tried this scenario 10-15 different times with different champion/module setups over the course of an hour, just trying not to lose  .  I understand that this is one of the more difficult scenarios; the reason I think it's a bug is because the Colony Ships do not show an immunity to forcefields, and the Champions shield modules worked normally. 

AoE explosions are a little different about forcefields, in that I think zenith autobombs can do something similar, but in this case it's probably just the bug where the ships you're trying to protect are not updating their "protected by" field quickly enough.  I thought I'd dealt with that but apparently not.

I did that mission maybe 3-4 times total. And I never seen my shield do anything to protect either allies or star base from colony ships. I think I wrote that somewhere in feedback.. or maybe I only meant to. But this is basically one mission where your main ability is marginally useful.

[Winge]

Yeah, that was a hard one. That nebula forces you to attack, allied support or no. Defence is futile against those colony ships.

This procedure allowed me to win:
Switch to a spire destroyer with 4 plasma siege cannons III and one shield (lights don't matter).
Bring it in, and attack the nearest starbase, protecting yourself with shadow shields.
Then kill the nearest starbase from your current position with the same procedure. By now your sheild will be down and you will have taken heavy damage. Retreat out of the nebula for a quick repair.
Reenter, then kill the last two bases.

About the military cap, I hope this was an intentional feature, and if not I would like it to become one.

I actually managed to win with a way different proceedure:
Human Shadow Destroyer, 3x Mark III Bomber Bays, 3x Laser IIIs and 3x Doom Accelerators IIIs
I got right next to each enemy Starbase, so that every module and my main guns were within range, dropped shadow shields, and moved around under the shadow shield to spread around drones.  Regular shields were beyond useless for me this mission; I could never get time for them to recharge.  Ultimately, I think I had to get lucky with colony ships choosing the drones rather than my champion or allied ships.  My point is that the shield not working made this scenario overly difficult, almost to the point of RNG luck dependent.  Oddly enough, the first time I beat the Citadel Ascendant (in trial version, a while back) was by using a Neinzul Champion defensively and repairing starbases.  Looking back, I have no idea how I succeeded that time...

On the stations, I could see the caps being infinite--I just figured that it should be reported in case the feature was unintended.  At 9,000 total knowledge, I don't think anyone is going to shed any tears about having a few more Military/Logistic IIIs than expected (might be unbalanced for high AIP or FS games, though...).  My question would be, "is Planetary Tachyon Coverage or Teleportation disabling on every planet except home overpowered?"

I do agree with TechSY730 and Moonshine Fox that if we do get inifinite caps, auto-upgrade should be included.  Would save some rather irritating micro (I don't like how you have to wait 1 or 4 minutes when switching station types as is...but I do understand the potential for exploitation).

[Eternaly_Lost]

My view on the infinite caps on the MK3 Command centers, is that if you need more then 6 of each mk 3, you likely have a lot of worlds, meaning you likely have a high AIP meaning you are paying for each world that you are sticking a MK3 command station on.

To answer the question is Planetary Tachyon Coverage or Teleportation disabling on every planet except home overpowered?

In my mind, no. Because you are getting more AI ships coming in with each world you take and your spending the Research on command stations and not on ships that will help you advance forward.

[Toranth]

Yeah, that was a hard one. That nebula forces you to attack, allied support or no. Defence is futile against those colony ships.

This procedure allowed me to win:
Switch to a spire destroyer with 4 plasma siege cannons III and one shield (lights don't matter).
Bring it in, and attack the nearest starbase, protecting yourself with shadow shields.
Then kill the nearest starbase from your current position with the same procedure. By now your sheild will be down and you will have taken heavy damage. Retreat out of the nebula for a quick repair.
Reenter, then kill the last two bases.

I actually managed to win with a way different proceedure:
Human Shadow Destroyer, 3x Mark III Bomber Bays, 3x Laser IIIs and 3x Doom Accelerators IIIs
I got right next to each enemy Starbase, so that every module and my main guns were within range, dropped shadow shields, and moved around under the shadow shield to spread around drones.  Regular shields were beyond useless for me this mission; I could never get time for them to recharge.  Ultimately, I think I had to get lucky with colony ships choosing the drones rather than my champion or allied ships.  My point is that the shield not working made this scenario overly difficult, almost to the point of RNG luck dependent.  Oddly enough, the first time I beat the Citadel Ascendant (in trial version, a while back) was by using a Neinzul Champion defensively and repairing starbases.  Looking back, I have no idea how I succeeded that time...

Interceptor Drone modules are a good choice, both because of the good damage they deal to the colony ships, but also because of the distraction bonus.
As an alternative, try Armor Polarizers and either Missiles or Rail Clusters.
The Colony Ships have a Light hull-type, so Rail Clusters get their multiplier there, and have excellent multi-target capability.
Missiles, on the other hand, are good at killing the Starbases.  You can take your pick of the heavy modules based on your offense/defense preferences.

For small modules, Polarizers are surprisingly good in Nebulas.  Mk I Polarizers do about 20,000 DPS to starbases - the best of any Small module - and are equally good against most nebula ships.  The colony ships, however, have 0 armor, so Polarizers are not useful against them.  So, as an alternative, (I hate to say it) I've found Flak modules work OK (The Colony ships tend to cluster in my experience).  Flaks get the multiplier, and get multi-hit.

I prefer either Zenith Cruisers with Missiles and Polarizers (and a shield), or Human Cruisers with HBCs and Lasers or Doom Accelerators, for many of the mid-later Nebula.