AI War Beta 6.007-6.009 "Burying The Hatchet" Released!

[TechSY730]

So quickly summing up my thoughts over the last few weeks, in rough order of importance:

-Special forces are hitting an oversight like the previous reinforcement one where they get "debt forgiveness" too much, letting them get too many low cap ships. And this time, we have the logs to prove it. (Like if they decide they want ships X, Y, and Z, they will get at least 1 of each of those, even if they can't afford it using the "points" from that SF spawn cycle) There should be a thread with the logs showing this somewhere...
-Cargo, EMP, Tractor, and Nuke trains need to be auto-targeted
-Strategic reserves need a recharge nerf
-Cargo trains (and maybe tractor trains) could use an HP nerf (not to the level of EMP and nuke trains though, somewhere between "classic" train HP and nuke train HP)
-New brutal pick balance review (not sure if they need nerfs or not, though I feel that the Core Eye should be nerfed to a large but not infinite tachyon range)
-As special forces guard posts go down, cap and recharge rate need to go down, to give a reason to kill them even when not on a non AI planet (boost initial caps and/or rates at no SF posts killed if needed. Also, 0 SF posts should NOT mean no special forces) This seems fair, as they do have an AIP cost to them.
-Continue champion/scenario/rewards balance work
-Trains could use a bit of an HP nerf overall; now that they are actually noticable, that balance doesn't seem to fit anymore
-Special forces should split up some when not defending a "vital" planet from an attack (this helps prevent the worst cases where they all ball up on the same planet)
-Some, BUT NOT ALL, of the "groups" in the threat fleet and special forces should group move. The NOT ALL portion will keep a slow unlock from completely bogging down AI responsiveness. (or possible, each "group" or "sub-group" will fall into one of three categories when the AI gives orders to TF or SF groups, ships that will group move together regardless of min-speed, ships of >=N speed that will group move together, and ships that won't group move at all. This suggestion is probably more trouble to code than it is worth though)

Just my $.02 (ok, with that much text, more like $1, but whatever)

[Faulty Logic]

Would a "possible brutal pick" list satisfy all parties?

I don't really like that option.  Why not a "possible Guardian pick" list?  Then a "possible bonus ship pick list"?

Slippery slope fallacy. Though I don't see why those lists would be bad either. Those who don't like them simply wouldn't use them. Also, the list would not replace rebalancing, just act as a band-aid.

Another issue: carrier nuclear immunity.

Edit: additional other issue: trains build superforts on the AI homeworlds.

[chemical_art]

Sorry about my mobile phone. It doesn't like arcen much for posting, so I have to result to using voice - to - chat, which has its own set of problems.

To summarize, the problem with the new core posts is that they require a very, very set of tactics to deal with them. They are unique in several ways:
1) Their effects are global.
2) They lock down most tactics
3) You can just avoid the planet they are on
4) There is more then one of them.
5) They come with an unmovable force to prevent non blobs (strategic reserves)


I'll give one example:

Long range lance post. How to counter it:

-Use fast ships with radar dampening
-Cloaking ships

However, two very, very common AI HW traits counter these tactics
-Strategic reserves wreck the fast ships before they can deal enough damage
-Cloaking is wrecked by eyes, before they are wrecked by strategic reserves
-Attemps to attack the strategic reserves or AI eye directly are wrecked by the long range lance post.

What you get are global defenses that cover each other's weakness. On paper it may sound cool, but in practice it is not.

[LordSloth]

So, I've been nearing completion of a singleplayer game, X-style map, Dark Spire, Easy Golems, Easy Spirecraft, Fortress Baron & Starfleet Commander 7/7, Dyson Sphere, Zenith Trader, Fallen Spire, Human Colony Rebellions.

It's been fairly nasty due to the X-galaxy, in mostly a good way

• I encountered a few superfortresses early on, blocking me of from much of the galaxy. Problem easily solved with Spirecraft Rams and a Cloaker Starship. Note for 7/7 players: do not combine Fortress Baron with X-map or Snake map unless you've got some form of countermeasure. Or at least reserve enough Knowledge for more bombers.
• Human Colony Rebellion happened next to an AI Core World. While the Warp Jammer Command prevented that system from putting the core world on alert, a major patrol bottleneck occurred, making the system a bit of a hazard. On the plus side, got an Archive while I was at it. Ultimately, I had to pop the Interplanetary Munitions Booster here as well.
• One of the AI Co-Processors spawned on the AI Homeworld. Is this supposed to be able to happen? With brutal picks and strategic reserves this seems unintentionally challenging.
• That cloaked human colony? It doesn't stay cloaked once an EMP guardian hits the system. It went down FAST. Thanks to the adjacent core world, I didn't have much of an opportunity to get a warning. I'm debating whether to mantis a request for it spawn further from core worlds, request it gets EMP immunity, or leave it be.

Now I'm at a delicious 522 AIP,  21000 K in the bank, one spire city hub up, some delicious modular fortresses up along with some armor inhibitor/boosters, and doing well with my Cursed, Botnet, Artillery, and Spider golem.

Thoughts:

• Logistics speed boost is much appreciated.
• Strategic reserves seem like they would reasonable and challenging on 7/7 without superweapons. Patrol blockage on X is unfortunate, but susceptible to lightning warheads or Martyrs if you can micro or clear the Tachyon Guardians/Warhead Interceptors.
• Weaken patrols somewhat, either by adjusting the purchasing as mentioned, or by lowering the likelyhood of choosing a low cap ship.
• Idea: If a patrol cannot leave its location or reach its destination, and it doesn't have anything it really wants to protect, then the AI may choose to reabsorb a portion of said patrol into the nearest special forces post to buy back elsewhere.
• I wonder how much of my patrol problem was also caused by allied gatlings and zombies constantly disturbing their worlds... I need to try X without any uncontrolled spawn and see how the patrol behaves then.
• My choice of map style, a defensive AI, and unusually high AIP have all contributed to making the patrol a less interesting gameplay mechanic than it should be. The ability to pick a different target is a huge factor in decreasing tedium. I kind of want to see a game setup option for patrol intensity in order to make certain map styles less tedious, but I'm uncomfortable about making a core difficulty balancer optional even if the AI just ends up instead spending those ships on regular defenses.
• I've seen a LOT of carriers stuffed full of 200 MKV threat ships over the past hour (at 15:30 now). I'm wondering if these were overflow from the other set of core worlds or upgrading of type. How do the combining mechanics work again? Would this show up in advanced logging? Thanks.

I also have a nice 5-player co-op game going on, and although we have been facing a large patrol there as well, we were on a simple map type and almost always able to go elsewhere... so we never felt bogged down dealing with the patrol, but then we also had that force multiplier from having so many players effectively granting the human side the ability to micro and multi task on a much improved scale.. My main concern is that debt forgiveness overbuy, and after that's changed I think that it is important I play out a new game on both simple and X type maps without minor faction complication before I weigh in again.

[contingencyplan]

I'd think, given the extremely high AIP penalty on death, that making the human colonies EMP-immune would be reasonable. Unless I'm mistaken, the idea is to create a strategic choice between having to take the planet and hold it --- possibly with further penalties like having a fragile chokepoint or putting a core world on alert --- and letting it die and having the AIP take a leap (possibly off a bridge with you along for the ride). Without EMP immunity (especially if it comes up on a planet that can't be sandbagged), that shifts things more to a "random chance of having the AIP take a leap + 20" option. Good if you want that kind of spice in your life, but less strategic.

While in thinking mode, one thing worth noting is that losing the planet resets the timer on the colony --- you have 2 hours to reclaim the planet. Granted, I haven't played on the higher difficulties, but if I've already taken the planet, a 2 hour timer isn't really cause for concern --- presumably I've cleared things out enough to get back over to it without trouble, so it's not going to be a hard struggle to get some ships back over there to plop down another CS. And I don't even have to worry about holding it --- as long as I can hold off any enemies while building the CS, I'm fine, even if I lose it 5 seconds later.

Given that an EMP without proper defense should be enough for the AI to cleanse the planet of meatbag scum, to semi-counter the EMP immunity buff, you could make the counter have to climb back up to the 2 hour mark, perhaps at a slowed rate (e.g., holding it for 2 - 4 seconds puts 1 second back on the clock, possibly based on faction intensity). This both restores the sense of urgency for retaking the planet, increases the effort needed to hold the planet (adding to the strategic considerations when taking it in the first place --- you'd have to make sure you can defend the planet middle-term at times, lest you take a 120-AIP hit), and gives the AI a bit more of a siege option (they can repeatedly wear down the timer to get their AIP fix).

Another idea is that some of the threat / special forces could camp the planet to make retaking it more difficult. I don't know how difficult it would be to implement --- from my understanding, threat and special forces stay on AI-owned planets and don't consider neutral planets as staging grounds. I think it would be strategically reasonable for them to consider neutral planets as well, at least in certain circumstances. Or you could have the special forces come to get the player when a significant Player presence is on the planet while it's neutral. If you really wanted to go nuts, you could just have them spawn a dedicated strike force for the purpose as well, creating a penalty for losing the colony (the AI just got some more ships).

Lore:

• The cloaking for the human colonies has to recharge over time. (You could add something like saying they decided to risk the AI's wrath in order to contact you, if you really want to make the Player feel like a jerk for letting them die. )
• You could say that the AI is detecting power fluctuations / usage in the system, and has deployed a strike force to investigate.

As a side note, is there any update on getting AIW (or indeed Valley 2) working under Linux? Or does the same bug as before still afflict Unity? (Just installed the Steam Linux beta, so the more games I can run without Wine, the happier I will be. )

[zoutzakje]

I have to say, I love the Special Forces. They finally deserve the name "special", at least more than they used to. Playing a 9/9 100 planet game against Mad Bomber and Raid Engine. 7 hours in and surprisingly the SF have proved to be the most annoying mechanic so far. They show up at nearly every planet I want to take or neuter, bringing in hundreds of tractor platforms and zombards, among others. Luckily I just reached the botnet so we'll see where this goes.

I don't think the SF need much of a change. Yeah sure they're tough, but they will never attack any human or neutral planet.
I'm curious to see if the SF could split up it's force. Let's say you attack 2 or more different non-adjacent planets at the same time. Could the SF decide to attack you on all fronts? Or will it pick one planet and just smash you there with all it's force?

[TechSY730]

I have to say, I love the Special Forces. They finally deserve the name "special", at least more than they used to. Playing a 9/9 100 planet game against Mad Bomber and Raid Engine. 7 hours in and surprisingly the SF have proved to be the most annoying mechanic so far. They show up at nearly every planet I want to take or neuter, bringing in hundreds of tractor platforms and zombards, among others. Luckily I just reached the botnet so we'll see where this goes.

I don't think the SF need much of a change. Yeah sure they're tough, but they will never attack any human or neutral planet.
I'm curious to see if the SF could split up it's force. Let's say you attack 2 or more different non-adjacent planets at the same time. Could the SF decide to attack you on all fronts? Or will it pick one planet and just smash you there with all it's force?

They don't currently split up, either for defending or "idle gathering". Making them do so was one of the proposals to help reduce the chance of the worst case "grindy" situation where a near unstoppable number of them ball up on one place for a huge amount of time.

Plus, it would increase average case responsiveness, which is a plus.

[Ragnarok]

Hum. I dont mean to sound rude, but i think a small balancing patch is kinda overdue. I know its all about AVWW 2 now, but a quick fix of the most obvious inbalances of AS shouldnt really take that long ?
please ? I would like to start a new game, been holding back on that since early january.

[keith.lamothe]

Hum. I dont mean to sound rude, but i think a small balancing patch is kinda overdue. I know its all about AVWW 2 now, but a quick fix of the most obvious inbalances of AS shouldnt really take that long ?
please ? I would like to start a new game, been holding back on that since early january.

I'm sorry, but my personal life is very busy right now (work hours have been about 1/3rd of usual over the past month, I'd guess) and Valley2's planned release is in the next 2 weeks.  Not enough of me to go around to make AIW work happen.  And Chris is even busier.

As for "most obvious imbalances" the main thing right now would be the roaming enclaves which aren't Ancient-Shadows.  There's also a general consensus that the strategic reserves (a base-game mechanic, not AS) need some kind of nerf.  And I'd agree that the new AS core guard posts need to be moderated somewhat.  I'm not seeing a consensus on the other imbalances people have brought up; doesn't mean they don't need something done (some additional counterbalance for champions, notably) but at least that means they're not "obvious".


Anyway, we'll get back to this in time, this just isn't a good time

[chemical_art]

Hum. I dont mean to sound rude, but i think a small balancing patch is kinda overdue. I know its all about AVWW 2 now, but a quick fix of the most obvious inbalances of AS shouldnt really take that long ?
please ? I would like to start a new game, been holding back on that since early january.

I appreciate the frustration, and do feel your pain.

The pain from astro-trains, enclaves, special forces (especially when they blob) and core guard guard posts are niche situations that make a BIG impact.

However, since this is Superbowl Sunday in the states, I would say it is the 2 minute drill for arcen: They have to give full focus now.

I would imagine within a month AI War will start to get some love, and in 3 months get some regular love again.

I will say, it is striking just how fast discussion falls off without regular updates. Including me, I haven't played in at least 3 weeks now, simply because I know the game development itself is in a holding pattern, and my 2 games have issues that need resolved if I hope to finish them.

[TechSY730]

Aside from friendly enclaves when they decide to turtle up too much and lag the game to high heaven, I don't really think there are really any big game breaking imbalances. The game is still perfectly playable and winnable.

Granted, this release is not as "polished" as I would hope for in a "hiatus holdover" release, but it isn't bad. I have still played quite a bit of AI war over the past weeks, even finally winning a game (with astro trains and friendly enclaves going in their "bleeding edge" state I might add).

So yea, I feel the pain of these balance "pain points" as well, but they aren't enough to stop me from enjoying the game as it is now.

[Diazo]

Ugh.

Teuthida.

Just ugh.

Is it intended that the Drones keep spawning when only non-military ships (scouts) are present?

Timing by the in-game clock (so more of an estimate), it looks like one drone a second spawns. With a 4 minute attrition, that is in theory 240 drones to meet my incoming fleet. At 10 ships zombied per drone, that's up to 2400 ships zombie as soon as my fleet warps in.

My 600 teleport raiders don't stand a chance and get zombied as soon as they warp in.

I've been playing around and if I can survive that initial hit from the drones (hello cheats), the Teuthida is actually not that unreasonable as a 'brutal pick' post.

It does need some tweaking downwards but I don't think it not totally out of line.

Just changing the post so it did not spawn drones when no military ships were present would bring this back into what I would find acceptable.

I'd argue that the drone life span should be dropped to 60 seconds and maybe tweaked so that there are fewer drones, but more zombies per drone, to keep that initial wham the drones can give you when you first warp into the AI system, but that's getting into minor tweaking territory.

D.

edit: Ya, I scrap my scouts and wait 4 minutes for the drones to self-attrition and it's much easier. Not easy, it is a homeworld, but more in line with what I expect.

edit the 2nd: Now that I've actually kill the Teuthida, I'd also suggest dropping their health to 80 million or so. Once I got a clear area that I could get the starships into that could ignore the drones, I was just sitting their pounding on the Teuthida with impunity.

[TechSY730]

"Auto spawners" have been spawning when there is any sort of enemy presence, military or not, ever since they first appeared in the game (the blade spawner IIRC). I think there is an old mantis issue about it.

And yea, I agree that the "auto spawning" posts should be rather fragile by core guard post standards. Their difficulty is that they can indirectly hit you pretty much across the map to potentially many different targets at once. Once you do manage to get to them though, they should be somewhat easier to take down than the more "traditional" posts to balance out the difficulty of getting to them.

[Diazo]

Ugh.

From comments on the forum, I thought the Teuthida would be bad.

The Wrath Lance is 100 times worse.

I've gone back to testing stuff with cheats, spawn the spirecraft to use the shieldbearer as a meat shield.

The spirecraft cheat spawns 10 shieldbearers with 240 million HP. A single pass by one of the four lances killed all the shieldbearers and most of the other spirecraft that spawned also. The few that survived did because they were on the edge that the lance hit first and so the lance had passed them by the time the shieldbearers died.

Help? Keep in mind I play base game, so no super-weapons are available to me.

The wrath lance is back from the warp point, any ships will take at least one, probably two, lance passes before they get in range.

D.

edit: How the hell are you supposed to deal with this thing? Spawn 10 cursed golems with cheats, attack wrath lance. Golems dead, Lance post at 60% HP.

Unlike the Teuthida which you can exploit immunities, there is nothing at all I can find immune to the Wrath Lance, even in combination.

[Faulty Logic]

If the planet doesn't have an eye, you can use cloakers (possibly w/transports) to get your fleet in close. If you have spire minirams, a full cap of them I-IV can take it out. If you have a miniram V fab, you can make a couple runs with those.

There is also the wave after wave (continued a long time) of teleporting ships.

Moving around the beams can work for fast ships near the lance. Moving through the beams helps minimize damage.

The beams only hit the first thing, so a cap of transports can absorb a lot of the pain.

If you post a save, I can give more specific advice.