AI War Beta 6.024-6.025 "The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Buff (or Nerf)" Released!

[chemical_art]

[note: still absorbing your post keith, but one idea just popped in my mind]

As you said keith, when you have ships in the thousands, the drone count is not really noticable. Even on ultra-low cap games I have the ai worlds in the hundreds by the time end game rolls around. 100 drones really isn't going to make that much an impact.

Of course I DO have an idea...make the number of enclaves scale with caps. 4 on high and 1 on ultra low. Drones themselves would then also scale in stats, so in effect effective drone strength is the same, drones themselves scale as fleet ships do, yet you don't have to do reproducing timers trickery into the code.

How does that sound?

[Once again, this is just a very small subset]

[chemical_art]

Digging into the stats a bit, the enclaves right now suffer an idenity problem.

I understand the love of using drones as meatshields. They are my favorite unit in that regard, however, the enclaves need to make drones in much larger "waves" to be of any use.

Comparisons to other triangle ships need to be taken with a lot of salt. MK III's may be able to pump out all lot of dps equal to mk I's fleetships...but they never will, because they die after an average of one volley...also, to unlock enclave III's fully, you could have unlocked III's of two triangle ships and used the remaining K to unlock II turrets for the drones. ...that is a magnitude of difference. In essence, for losing III turrets, you could unlock two triangle ships at III.

[chemical_art]

Another thing, with their current speed and attrition, enclaves only go to about ~~~30k range in their life time over 10 seconds. That seems really, really slow given their role. Even if their lifetime was reduced so they could go faster, that would help them give a single volley before they die.


Final thought for this round of thought:

For 16k, you need game changing strategies, it needs a big impact.. Currently, enclaves do not accomplish this at all. They felt like maybe MK II blade spawners...

[Cinth]

Ok, I'm going to run a test case with my current game on the enclaves (performance impact of a ton of enclaves).  I'm on my laptop so there is a good chance that it might just revolt.

[orzelek]

I did not test on current patch yet - but for me worst part was that drones are slow. They need to get to the target or force you to keep enclave in fleet blob. Next one on list is their hp - in practical combat conditions you can count that they will fire 1-2 times and die. Add to that that targeting is not instant and they might live a bit more but they will start shooting later also.
I think that main fact they seem UP is that you are investing significant knowledge to get them. And you need to invest a lot into turrets to make that enclave cost worthwhile.

[Cinth]

Skittles!

[keith.lamothe]

I'd rather see something like drones having roughly 50% individual health of a triangle ship for roughly 50% dps of a triangle ship. Of course, exact percentages may vary due to other factors like move speed, range, bonuses, etc, but that seems a reasonable goal.

Or if that would be too weak, how about 50% health, but 75% dps?

How is that not a nerf to them, though?  Or do you think that them lasting longer will be enough of a buff that they'll actually get to use their firepower?

Of course I DO have an idea...make the number of enclaves scale with caps. 4 on high and 1 on ultra low.

It would have to be 8 on high to give 1 on ultra-low.

For 16k

If you're going to count the full cost of the turrets against them, they'll never perform up to desires unless I made them superweapons.  Which may be a good indication to just drop the turret-research prereq from the drones altogether.  I kinda like these as "if you get lots of turrets your enclaves will also be strong" but I can see that's not likely to get past player perceptions.

Skittles!

I knew we could count on you.

Out of curiosity, what sort of op force does the AI need to win against that?

[TechSY730]

I'd rather see something like drones having roughly 50% individual health of a triangle ship for roughly 50% dps of a triangle ship. Of course, exact percentages may vary due to other factors like move speed, range, bonuses, etc, but that seems a reasonable goal.

Or if that would be too weak, how about 50% health, but 75% dps?

How is that not a nerf to them, though?  Or do you think that them lasting longer will be enough of a buff that they'll actually get to use their firepower?

Yes, from what I have seen, being able to last longer will make up for a small-ish decrease in base dps. (I'm leaning more towards the 75% dps now that I have given this more thought)
However, for this to truly be a net buff, speeds of the drones would need to come up some. Not a huge amount or anything (they are already faster than the triangle ships), but fast enough for them to use that increased HP to get more shots off.

[Cinth]

If you're going to count the full cost of the turrets against them, they'll never perform up to desires unless I made them superweapons.  Which may be a good indication to just drop the turret-research prereq from the drones altogether.  I kinda like these as "if you get lots of turrets your enclaves will also be strong" but I can see that's not likely to get past player perceptions.

The way it is now actually fits in very well with my play.  It gives decent offensive power to augment my fully defensive unlocks.  It fits like FS ships do (for me anyway).

Skittles!

I knew we could count on you.

Out of curiosity, what sort of op force does the AI need to win against that?

I'm still floating them to an AI planet that I haven't hit yet. It's 4 hops from the next untouched planet, 3 MK IIIs and a core world that will hurt a lot (Ion Eye).  The game is chugging along at a noticeable 3-4 fps.

[chemical_art]

For 16k

If you're going to count the full cost of the turrets against them, they'll never perform up to desires unless I made them superweapons.  Which may be a good indication to just drop the turret-research prereq from the drones altogether.  I kinda like these as "if you get lots of turrets your enclaves will also be strong" but I can see that's not likely to get past player perceptions.

It's why I said "Instead you could get two III fleetships, and II's for every turret, and still have K to spare"

In essence, meshing K upgrades between offense and defense will inheriently cause problems in most cases. FS is the only exception I can think of, because their offense bonus is so massive your WHOLE strategy can revolve around them and you can win.

I understand enclaves can't have whole strategies revolve around them...which means, as you suggested, the turrets need to be removed altogether.

[Cinth]

Skittles!

I knew we could count on you.
Out of curiosity, what sort of op force does the AI need to win against that?

Test complete, well sort of.

I lost pretty much all keyboard control of the game while I was on the core world.  Guessing the CRE on the HW going off plus all the drone spawns was a bit much.  I managed to kite around the core world and hold me own though.  I managed to ctrl click send the enclaves through to the HW where they were destroyed.  I had a lot of issues keeping the screen centered here that made even trying to kite impossible.  I think the strategic reserve spawns were enough to squelch the drone spawns so they couldn't reach full strength numbers.  At that point the AI was able to beat down the enclaves.  The key for the AI was keeping the number of drones I could spawn low.  Also MLRS GPs will absolutely demolish drones at 150 kills per salvo so in the normal case, Enclaves will have a check (MK I MLRS 2 shot MK I drones, MK II MLRS one shot MK II drones).

[keith.lamothe]

Also MLRS GPs will absolutely demolish drones at 150 kills per salvo

As one Core Guard Post said to the other: "This is what we call a target-rich environment".

[Cinth]

Also MLRS GPs will absolutely demolish drones at 150 kills per salvo

As one Core Guard Post said to the other: "This is what we call a target-rich environment".

The other HW has a Wrath Lance... I wonder how well that would go over

[keith.lamothe]

The other HW has a Wrath Lance... I wonder how well that would go over

It could quite literally Burninate All The Neinzuls.

[Cinth]

The other HW has a Wrath Lance... I wonder how well that would go over

I could quite literally Burninate All The Neinzuls.

Sounds like science needs to happen here

Think I'll clear a path first with a full contingent of Spire Corvettes

Science shows that the reserves effectively shut down the drones.  The lance is a bit lol in this situation.  The effectiveness of the lance depends on the way the drones are trailing off.