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

[keith.lamothe]

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

The french waiter was shelved at the last moment when an investigation showed a proper cow-launching mechanic to be unimplementable.

No new units for that part, actually, just using some of the ones that were already in the game that weren't being used by the hacking logic previously.

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

  I think the AI homeworlds are in a decent place now, between the various buffs they've gotten recently.  I'm confident you'll prove me wrong, however.

[madcow]

I didn't expect my nuclear eyes to make it in. Sweet! Also scary 
Might be a good time to finally give AS a run, if only AI War wasn't patched with new toys faster than I can play it.

[KDR_11k]

Wasn't the problem with Eyes that avoiding the trigger condition makes each planet with one of them play the same? They're always nasty enough that you want to avoid the trigger.

[TechSY730]

Wasn't the problem with Eyes that avoiding the trigger condition makes each planet with one of them play the same? They're always nasty enough that you want to avoid the trigger.

In some cases, you might deem it OK to trigger it temporarily. Like for example, if you are against an ion eye, but have mostly insta-kill immune ships, then maybe you wounld't worry so much about not triggering it, and won't do a "partial retreat" as the number of AI ships goes down (due to you killing them) so you can keep your DPS up.

With different types of eyes, it introduces more cases where you might be willing to "stomach" it.

(Not all though, like the raid eye and the nuke eye, which are so nasty there pretty much is no reason to ever be willing to "stomach" it, which is why I was sort of hoping they are rarer than the other types.)

[keith.lamothe]

Partly it's variety for variety's sake, partly it's variety in ways to "counter" the eye.

Sure, you can counter them all by staying under the threshold.

But you can also counter the parasite and ion eyes by bringing in stuff that's immune to their particular weapon types.

And you can counter the nuke eye by not staying above the trigger for more than 29 seconds at a single stretch.

And you can counter the threatening eye by having a strong enough defense that you don't care about the generated threat (it doesn't get dropped in your face)

And you can counter the sentry eye by not going so far over the threshold that the additional ships are a problem.


But yea, the core mechanic of "you really don't want to trigger these if you can help it" is constant.  That's the main purpose of the original unit.

[@B0FH]

The new eyes coupled with the improvements in 6.0 to the threat definitely make the game more interesting!  At 9/9 + I'd also once again say challenging too

[keith.lamothe]

The new eyes coupled with the improvements in 6.0 to the threat definitely make the game more interesting!  At 9/9 + I'd also once again say challenging too

Glad you're liking it

Seems like a symmetrical relationship in there somewhere:

Player <= lik => Game

when

Game <= kil => Player

[KDR_11k]

The eyes pretty much force you to use a starship or superweapon fleet since even if you measure how many fleetships you can dispatch you'll soon kill enough AI forces to trigger the eye unless your force is so small that the com station defenders are enough to keep you below the threshold.

This also seems like another disadvantage for swarmer ships. I don't recall anyone complaining that las gatlings or autocannons are OP?

[madcow]

I've never tested and am curious, obviously it's a last ditch thing, will an EMP disable eyes?

[@B0FH]

No it doesn't, however EMPing a planet then skirting the guard posts with raid starships works brilliantly in around 80% of cases*, as the EMP gives them a higher time to live rather than being swarmed by fleetships.

*Tactic does fail often when facing a few nastier AI types (Heroic for starters!) or Core worlds

[Wanderer]

This also seems like another disadvantage for swarmer ships. I don't recall anyone complaining that las gatlings or autocannons are OP?

Hang on, this horse ain't dead yet...  Yet another reason high-cap ships are weaker in comparison to low-cap.

[Kahuna]

  I think the AI homeworlds are in a decent place now, between the various buffs they've gotten recently.  I'm confident you'll prove me wrong, however.

1 Hive and 2 Black Widow Golems, fleet ships, starships + MarkII Bomber and Plasmasiege Starships ---> Boom! You win!
Without super weapons probably half impossible. Unless you do something silly like find a map where you can have 1 choke point, AF behind it and 3 hops between the choke point and AI HWs *facepalm*
ps. good thing it's not possible to "Warhead" the Core Guardposts anymore. That was overpowered.
pss. I think Special Forces and Core Reservers should respawn much slower. I'd not mind increasing their max cap to compensate though. That intergalactic sentry eye is a bit silly.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Lazy Eye: When triggered, it orders all ships on the planet and on adjacent planets to attack, and reclines with a newspaper and impenetrable force field over itself, all command posts, and the command station. When un-triggered, all adjacent planets and the planet that it is on get a massive reinforcement burst.

[KDR_11k]

Lazy Eye: It just doesn't care that you triggered it.

[keith.lamothe]

Procrastination Eye: "Eh, I'll just buff the next CPA".