AI War Beta 6.002 "Better Than A Stick In The Eye" Released!

[keith.lamothe]

(Crossposted from this blog post)

This one finally gets around to adding some more AI Eye variants to round finish response to the Eye winning a community poll back before the beta of Ancient Shadows.  There are several new devious toys in there, providing varying degrees of "I do not want to make this angry, ever".  Also, the AI homeworlds now get versions of eyes with a few important special characteristics (though their main functions are no more powerful than normal eyes).

The Deepstrike-response mechanic has also been overhauled, and should now be harder to just brush off for a few cases where it wasn't particularly threatening.

Rounding out the release are a few bugfixes and balance changes, and a couple new surprises for avid knowledge-raiders.

Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the  in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.  If you don't have 4.000 or later, you can download that here.

[TechSY730]

I pray that the nuclear eye has a decent amount of time to react between time of trigger and time of detonation, so you can react in time. (And the raid eye to a lesser extent). Also, I pray that the nuclear eye has a low spawn rate, even by AI eye standards, due to how freaking severe the consequences of tripping it are.

Other than that though, this looks cool.

In particular, thanks for the Tackle Drone launcher nerf, and the deep strike responce revamp.

[keith.lamothe]

The nuclear eye gives you 30 seconds before provoking an international incident.  Once the trigger condition is gone (for a second or so, anyhow) the countdown resets

[TechSY730]

The nuclear eye gives you 30 seconds before provoking an international incident.  Once the trigger condition is gone (for a second or so, anyhow) the countdown resets

Whew, that seems reasonable. This, combined with the warning in the top left, means that you would only really worry about the detonation if you aren't paying attention. However, that is a severe enough response that I wouldn't want to chance it, which I guess is sort of the goal of some of these type.

BTW, do the different types have the same spawn chance relative to one another, or are the "harsher" ones rarer?

[chemical_art]

The champion blade spawners are slower then the units in nebulas...and much much slower then their counterparts (non spawned blades)

They are not very useful

[keith.lamothe]

The champion blade spawners are slower then the units in nebulas...and much much slower then their counterparts (non spawned blades)

They are not very useful

Do you mean the slicer drone bay modules, and the slicer drones they produce?  Those are not actually analogues to spire blade spawners, they're analogues to zenith viral shredders (and replicate upon attacking).  They are slow, yes, but some of the beta feedback I got for them was that they were the most effective drone type and a favorite heavy mount module.

All that to say, they may have more use than at first appears

[chemical_art]

So...they have the durability of vampires, without the cloaking, vampirism nor bonuses?

I'm just saying watching nebula encounters where their prey outruns them is mildly annoying, since they cannot tank like their counterparts nor is their dps something to joy about. Even if they can replicate, the fact they die from anything due to their pitiful health means such an ability is useless.

They just don't perform in nebulas as anything but one shot meat shields.

[Cinth]

I like the slicers. They remind me more of the Vorticular Cutlass than the Viral Shredder though.

They are faster than the other drones. deal more damage per attack than their bonus ship counterpart (and other drones), have the best range out of any module you can mount, and usually don't have many issues finding targets to mutilate.

That being said, the targeting can be improved for sure. Some FCFS (first come, first severed) would be nice  .
Their speed is the same as the Human variant of shadow ships (150) and could be bumped to 185 (Astrids are this fast) so they could close a little better on most faction ships.

[Lancefighter]

So a few people and I have been doing silly things in nebulas with plasma equipped spire champions. They get absolutely silly..

With the unfortunate sideeffect that they have basically no firepower against not-heavy things. Its still nice being able to take down a base in two volleys.
Even the neinzul one (the cloaked one with vampirism?) does silly amounts of damage in nebulas. This is getting exceedingly silly as these champions get larger.

[Kahuna]

You forgot to add the LAZY EYE!

[Ricca]

Uh, technically, if the Nuclear Eye goes off, wouldn't it be an intergalactic incident now, instead of international?

Yes, of all the things I'm nitpicking about, I chose that.

[Toranth]

You forgot to add the LAZY EYE!

Would that be a system-wide Gravity effect on human ships only if they outnumber the AI?

[Cinth]

Uh, technically, if the Nuclear Eye goes off, wouldn't it be an intergalactic incident now, instead of international?

Yes, of all the things I'm nitpicking about, I chose that.

Or how about intragalactic?

[Faulty Logic]

Fixed a really longstanding bug where human rebel colony rebellions couldn't happen if the player had not conquered any mkII AI planets.

Yay.

The AI now has some more tricks to use when responding to knowledge hacking, only used fairly rarely except when dealing with certain recently exploited player cheeses.

This seems ominous. I hope you haven't defined any mecha_waiter objects.

They are immune to nukes and a few other things normal eyes aren't.
They emit planet-wide tachyon coverage (even when powered down, for those types that can power down).

You can stop buffing now. YOU CAN STOP BUFFING NOW!
Not really.

[Volatar]

You forgot to add the LAZY EYE!

Would that be a system-wide Gravity effect on human ships only if they outnumber the AI?

That doesn't sound too bad on it's own, but combine that with other things like, an Attritioner or Ion Cannons...