AI War Beta 6.005 "Burning The Candle At Both Ends" Released!

[Lancefighter]

Quick question about new trains - are they all designed to be blown up? I feel like the idea of dealing with trains reactively (ie, I go out and find the explodey train before it explodes all over me). I just dont think I like the idea of something I absolutely CANT react to, that insists on flying through my space and continually be annoying.. yet there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. (pretty please dont say 'blow up stations', I'm pretty sure thats not the actual answer)

[Cinth]

Those nuclear trains in particular would completely screw up a well planned defense if you dont take care of them.

Nuke trains only show up on the really high plot intensities, and pretty rarely then.

But yea, messing up otherwise-impenetrable defenses is the basic theme behind most of the new trains.

Glad this nuke is able to be turned off... the rest of the trains seem cool though. To bad the nuke train will keep me from ever seeing them though.

[KDR_11k]

The nuke train doesn't nuke if shot down, right?

Is the cargo train interceptable?

My issue with the train stations is that unless your planets are in a corner of the galaxy you will never be able to re-route the trains enough to keep them from pathing through your planets, sometimes two stations on opposite ends of the galaxy can still send them to you. The effect is too difficult to predict to make shooting the stations worth it.

[keith.lamothe]

The nuke, EMP, shield, and cargo trains are intended to be killable with concentrated effort.  Any of the others will be killable with seriously concentrated effort but we're basically talking the moving equivalent of killing a wormhole guard post   And if the train population drops below the cap it'll eventually spawn more.

The idea isn't really for the player to be able to stop trains overall, otherwise it's just X more things to kill every Y minutes and we've got plenty of ways you can get that already.

The idea is for the player to be able to bend-but-not-break when the wandering-debuffs (i.e. trains) are in the wrong place at the wrong time (from your perspective).  The trains themselves won't kill a thing, other than the nuke train (which seriously is only on the highest intensities, and you might see one or two per game if testing is any indication, and yes shooting it down prevents the nuke).  It's all in the emergent interactions with other threats, which I think is one of the stronger points of the game.

Bear in mind that these are generally dangerous if they're on a planet you're attacking, not just on planets you're defending.

Will astro trains be the most popular option now?  Rather not, I expect, but they'll be interesting (the current ones are really not), and in a way that nothing else currently is

[LaughingThesaurus]

hmm
Keith, would it be possible, though, to get the trains up to the cap while them all not being particularly threatening trains? Snipe off all the nuke and EMP trains, and you should be able to live a happy, moderately annoying life for the rest of the game as basically a free ride or something. Unless there were a mechanic to allow the AI to scrap-and-replace trains, you could get yourself a completely reasonable set of trains by killing enough off that you wouldn't have to worry about killing them anymore (because all the spawned ones are relatively nonthreatening)

[keith.lamothe]

Keith, would it be possible, though, to get the trains up to the cap while them all not being particularly threatening trains?

On intensity 1-3, sure.  On 4, probably.  Higher than that and it's an awful lot of trains to kill, and a lot of chances that they'll "reroll" in a way you don't really like.

Snipe off all the nuke and EMP trains, and you should be able to live a happy, moderately annoying life for the rest of the game as basically a free ride or something.

It's a lot more than the nuke/emp trains; reflect for a moment on what some of those jammer trains would do to you if one or more of them was on your main defensive planet(s) while an enemy attack was hitting it

[chemical_art]

When using the tachyon burst ability in my champion, special forces at the very least partially recloak at erractic intervals, but it occurs as shortly as 5 seconds after the burst. There were a thousand cloaked ships that were revealed, for reference

[contingencyplan]

As another "hey waitasecond," are the Raid Eyes supposed to react if the number of ships on an *adjacent* planet are too high? I though Eyes were strictly concerned with the enemies on their own planet?

[Kahuna]

As another "hey waitasecond," are the Raid Eyes supposed to react if the number of ships on an *adjacent* planet are too high? I though Eyes were strictly concerned with the enemies on their own planet?

I've seen this mentioned few times and it's certainly a bug.

[zoutzakje]

Raid Eyes that work the same as Raid Engines (except for the 2 to 1 rule)... that's going to be a problem lol. Thanks for telling me about this though, I'll be sure to be careful with those Raid Eyes now.

[TechSY730]

The new forcefield jammer, EMP, and nuke trains sound broken as crud, even with a low HP.  I hope they have a lower spawn rate compared to the others.


Also, I hope the raid eye gets fixed soon...
Thankfully, I don't have any in my current game.

[TechSY730]

Question.

Is there a reason why the warp jammer command station has a measly 99,999 HP?

[zoutzakje]

I got several Raid Eyes in my game, all at places I want :/ And I think the warp jammer command's hp is that low because you're as good as safe on a planet that has one. Forcefield around it and not much can happen to it. No alert, no waves. Sure there could still be some threat, but that's what fleets are for.

[Hearteater]

Yeah, but 100k is really low.  It probably should come up some.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Yeah, but 100k is really low.  It probably should come up some.

It makes the planet that it's on immune to waves and prevents reinforcements, two major mechanics that the AI makes use of throughout the game. I think the ability to die really really fast to raid starship threat is perfectly fine for something that's that good.