AI War Beta 6.040 "The Kinder, Gentler Sort Of Core Guard Post" Released!

[LaughingThesaurus]

I probably wouldn't enjoy TDLs in special forces. Thankfully I seem to luck out and special forces just gets stuff like legions of parasites and teleporting ships and stuff.

[TechSY730]

I probably wouldn't enjoy TDLs in special forces. Thankfully I seem to luck out and special forces just gets stuff like legions of parasites and teleporting ships and stuff.

TDLs are very expensive for the AI. If they decide to put one in special forces, they probably won't get much of, if anything else that cycle, and in fact, will probably be in "debt" the next cycle and get nothing if it does this before mid-game.

Similar story for any ultra-low cap ship.


But yes, spawner style ships are an odd "boat" balance wise.

[Faulty Logic]

Alpha feedback from various sub-doom games:

Awesome stuff:

Dire Guardians
Hunter
Dual types
Subcommanders (most of them)
Core Turret Controllers
(Base Game) Threat improvements

Less than awesome:

Shark: it seems like this should be two plots, one that causes aip upon cmd death, and one that causes additional AI attacks for the same (the latter would keep the shark name, the former could be Escalation or similar).

Exotic AI: instant death on 10. It does not seem to use the right calculation for strength; its attacks are far stronger than even mad bomber waves.

The Warp Jammer subcommander : 13 counter posts is acceptable iff I've enabled the Retaliatory parent AI.

Combat carrier : doesn't seem to have a role. Fleet support is far better achieved with MSDs, while drone production belongs to the Enclave starships. I would scrap it and add the Shrikes as their own youngling ship.

Special forces alarm posts : These can produce unwinnable situations, especially in conjunction with Hunter. I would increase their AIP on death to 10, and make destroying the post never trigger the SF alarm.


And the big one: the Showdown.


As it stands, it's not ever worth it. You need an FS-grade chokepoint to win, and it attacks harder than the FS finale. There are a few other issues, too.

If it's included in the expansion then a bunch of things should happen:

Make it worth it: basically, this can be another, looser FS campaign, but it doesn't make sense as the current, completely boolean Showdown. I don't think it can work that way.

Rename them to AI Warp Controllers (keep the SD moniker in the entries, if you want), and introduce a secondary hacking mechanic (AI Warp Requisition Antagonism, which also adds to a "defense fund").

You can warp in ships and structures you can't normally access from these devices, if you can stand the response. Bigger stuff requires you to "hack" multiple AIWCs simultaneously.

Examples:
Fully build Z trader stuff.
Mk IV turret tech.
Core Starships (the unit so named, not starshipsV).
Guardians.
Hunter/Killers (mkI only).
AI Forcefields (the kind that don't reduce your firepower).
Fabricators (randomly generated).
A fleetship unlock (ala ARS, but with your choice of any).

The antagonism would scale with some >1 exponent, so you would have to choose wisely. But you could get enough stuff to make the showdown doable. The finale would require all four (and scale with whatever superweapons you have enabled, as well).

Clearer journal entries would be good, too.

And finally, the AI GCSs should use the same graphic as the AI home stations.

[Aklyon]

The GSCs really could do with looking like the AI Home Commands. Those look threatening as it is.

[keith.lamothe]

Shark: it seems like this should be two plots, one that causes aip upon cmd death, and one that causes additional AI attacks for the same (the latter would keep the shark name, the former could be Escalation or similar).

Hmm, might go with Shark-A and Shark-B or something like that.  But yea, splitting them wouldn't be too difficult and would be nice for players who want one and not the other.

Exotic AI: instant death on 10. It does not seem to use the right calculation for strength; its attacks are far stronger than even mad bomber waves.

Probably just a numeric balance problem, it should be potentially harder than MB but not infinitely so.  How much stronger was it than Mad Bomber, roughly speaking?  And are you talking about Exotic, V-Exotic, or both?  V-Exotic being insta-death on 10 isn't actually far off.

The Warp Jammer subcommander : 13 counter posts is acceptable iff I've enabled the Retaliatory parent AI.

It's already setup to let me restrict subcommader types by AI Type so that's easy, but I'm kind of surprised that this particular one gets so much dislike.  To clarify: it's plopping the command station way out near the grav ring, and plopping all its (non-wormhole) guard posts down right next to the station, and making all of them Counter posts.  Are you seeing something different?  If you don't need to take the planet, doesn't this mean that the AI mostly stays out of your way as you go through?  And if you need to take the planet, can you not just pop one of the counter posts every X minutes, X being the length of time you expect to need between waves to reposition and repair?

Would it be acceptable if it only placed a max of Y guard posts on these planets and used something else for the rest of them?  What would that Y be?

Combat carrier : doesn't seem to have a role. Fleet support is far better achieved with MSDs, while drone production belongs to the Enclave starships. I would scrap it and add the Shrikes as their own youngling ship.

... That's a really good idea.  Thanks

And the big one: the Showdown.

Going to be toning it down in various ways today based on various feedback.  The idea about warping other units is interesting but I think it can work with something less drastic.  Though it's not going to really be winnable on 10, as that would be a bug.

And finally, the AI GCSs should use the same graphic as the AI home stations.

That would be good, yea   Not sure if it will look right at all, but one way to find out.

[Tridus]

It's already setup to let me restrict subcommader types by AI Type so that's easy, but I'm kind of surprised that this particular one gets so much dislike.  To clarify: it's plopping the command station way out near the grav ring, and plopping all its (non-wormhole) guard posts down right next to the station, and making all of them Counter posts.  Are you seeing something different?  If you don't need to take the planet, doesn't this mean that the AI mostly stays out of your way as you go through?  And if you need to take the planet, can you not just pop one of the counter posts every X minutes, X being the length of time you expect to need between waves to reposition and repair?

Would it be acceptable if it only placed a max of Y guard posts on these planets and used something else for the rest of them?  What would that Y be?

Well, I had one of these that had four counterattack posts in a game I'm playing and that wasn't so bad. But 13? That's crazy. The thing is that lets say you pop one every four minutes, so you can move around and deal with the counterattacks in a reasonably efficient manner.

With 13 of them, taking that one system will take over *50* minutes. Even if the game is nice enough to stack the counterattack waves on one planet so you can take more waves simultaneously, that many counterattack posts just becomes an annoying slog.

[Faulty Logic]

How much stronger was it than Mad Bomber, roughly speaking?  And are you talking about Exotic, V-Exotic, or both?  V-Exotic being insta-death on 10 isn't actually far off.

About 5x as strong? I got a regen golem in the eighth minute (supported by a couple core plasma sieges), and that killed me. This was non-vicious.

o clarify: it's plopping the command station way out near the grav ring, and plopping all its (non-wormhole) guard posts down right next to the station, and making all of them Counter posts.  Are you seeing something different?  If you don't need to take the planet, doesn't this mean that the AI mostly stays out of your way as you go through?  And if you need to take the planet, can you not just pop one of the counter posts every X minutes, X being the length of time you expect to need between waves to reposition and repair?

That's what I'm seeing. Yes, if I don't need to take it, this is what I want to see. Yes, I can take the planet. However, I have to devote about a full hour to take it. And honestly, during that hour of wave every X minutes, I'm not having fun.

Would it be acceptable if it only placed a max of Y guard posts on these planets and used something else for the rest of them?  What would that Y be?

It's not guard posts in general, just warp counters.

Going to be toning it down in various ways today based on various feedback.  The idea about warping other units is interesting but I think it can work with something less drastic.

Hmm, I don't think it can work that way, but we'll see.

[keith.lamothe]

Would it be acceptable if it only placed a max of Y guard posts on these planets and used something else for the rest of them?  What would that Y be?

It's not guard posts in general, just warp counters.

Oops, I meant to say "Y counter guard posts", with the rest being something else.

[Faulty Logic]

3 or 4 max would be good (unless the AI is Retaliatory), with the rest being spire shield posts, to maintain some of the difficulty of taking the planet.

[chemical_art]

Yeah, 3 or 4 counter attacks is enough.

[chemical_art]

Not sure if wad, but the AI's exo wave was mostly...flagships.

[Aklyon]

The AI is really fond of flagships recently.

[keith.lamothe]

Maybe it really likes flags?

My guess is that with the adjustments over the past few months to starships and guardians, the mkI flagship is now the only (or one of very few) ships in its "size class" exo-budget-cost-wise.

[TechSY730]

Speaking of flagships, do the mark Is still get grouped under a different icon in the side bar?

For the counter-attack sub commander, 3-6 seems appropriate unless the AI type is retaliatory.
As others have suggested, filling in the rest with command shield guard posts if the AI type is bat retailitory seems like a good idea.

Not sure what other sub commander types there are, but others should avoid such crippling over-specialization too (whether it is crippling in terms of effectiveness and/or crippling in terms of fun) unless the AI type makes them prone to the over-specialization in question anyways. (Retailitory and counter posts, fortress baron and fortresses, etc)

[Faulty Logic]

filling in the rest with command shield guard posts if the AI type is bat retailitory seems like a good idea.

I said spire shield posts. Command shield would be too gentle.