AI War Beta 6.041 "Brutalizing Expansion Features" Released!

[keith.lamothe]

(Crossposted from this blog post)

This one contains the last new content for the expansion (the two new "Brutal-pick" Core Guard Posts) and starts the polish-phase for the expansion and 7.0 in earnest.

The two new Brutal Core Guard posts are the Shredder and the Hunter-Killer Factory.  C'mon, H/K, say hi to the audience.

... guess not.  Anyway.

The main points from the polish are:

- The Neinzul Combat Carrier is basically gone (except from saves that already had them), with the "Youngling Shrike" type that had been buildable by the NCC becoming the new bonus ship type to fill its place.  We've heard some ideas that may work to bring the NCC back later, but there's not time in the expansion's development schedule and honestly the shrike is pretty cool anyway.

- The Lightning Torpedo Frigate is now player-only, so the AI won't be able to pile up 300 of them in its Special Forces and wipe out an essentially infinite number of player ships from the universe (each torpedo only hits 200 targets max... but that's enough, it seems).

- The Protector Starship's counter-modules have been reined in from essentially infinite capability to shut down the most dangerous enemy units in the game.  Their newly-finite power is still pretty impressive, though.

- The Showdown Devices minor faction has been majorly rebalanced to not be so punishingly difficult.  It may be a little too easy now, but if so we can easy do some judicious ratcheting-it-back-up.

- The Shark Plot has been split into Shark-A and Shark-B because some players really wanted the "non-permanent" part (Shark-B, with the mini-exos and next-CPA buffs) of the AI bonuses without the permanent +AIP component (now in Shark-A).

Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the  in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.  If you don't have 4.000 or later, you can download that here.

[chemical_art]

Shame about the Ltf, but I think it was inevitable.

The AI gets very few true AOE units, and they are either weak (grenadiers [not what they really are called I know]) or they are short lived (fireflys)

Having an AOE unit strong and have the potential to be long lived? A no go really for the AI.

[Qatu]

 I finally got the insanity inducers in a game and they are pretty fun, but they should shoot 1million damage bullets instead of 20million dmage bullets. The reason is it messes up the strength calculation, so a high level shadow ship with them (or a fortress with them) can convince a very large AI fleet not to pass that wormhole. At 1million damage a bullet it would still be strong enough to 1 shot almost every ship it can shoot and wouln't mess up the strength calculations to a point where a shadow ship can stop a fleet that could 1 shot 10 shadow ships from invading.

[keith.lamothe]

I finally got the insanity inducers in a game and they are pretty fun, but they should shoot 1million damage bullets instead of 20million dmage bullets. The reason is it messes up the strength calculation, so a high level shadow ship with them (or a fortress with them) can convince a very large AI fleet not to pass that wormhole. At 1million damage a bullet it would still be strong enough to 1 shot almost every ship it can shoot and wouln't mess up the strength calculations to a point where a shadow ship can stop a fleet that could 1 shot 10 shadow ships from invading.

In 6.028 I removed the "Firepower" metric that directly valued DPS like that.  The current "Strength" metric should be valuing InIn modules the same as any other light module of that mark

[Qatu]

 8 mk3 insanity inducers on a fortress are worth around 2000 strength, more than any mk1 turret cap (worth 3-4 caps if i remember right), and are certainly not anywhere near as good. But they were useful for getting destroyed and rebuilt to coax AI fleets to come get vaporized at the time of my choosing.

[keith.lamothe]

8 mk3 insanity inducers on a fortress are worth around 2000 strength, more than any mk1 turret cap (worth 3-4 caps if i remember right), and are certainly not anywhere near as good. But they were useful for getting destroyed and rebuilt to coax AI fleets to come get vaporized at the time of my choosing.

My point is that 8 mk3 modules of any sort (for that slot type) on that fort would have the same effect, so changing the damage on the InIn modules wouldn't affect this

[Qatu]

 Oh alright. Suggestion then, reduce the strength of modules by a factor of 5-10 because 8 mk3 modules are not as strong or useful as a cap of mk1 missile turrets + a cap of mk1 basic turrets + a cap of laser turrets, and at their price point they allow gaming the strength mechanic something fierce.

[Toranth]

- The Neinzul Combat Carrier is basically gone (except from saves that already had them), with the \"Youngling Shrike\" type that had been buildable by the NCC becoming the new bonus ship type to fill its place.  We've heard some ideas that may work to bring the NCC back later, but there's not time in the expansion's development schedule and honestly the shrike is pretty cool anyway.

Actually, when I opened my game with the NCC unlocked, the game wouldn't let me build any more of them.  When the Starchip Constructor finished putting all the resources in to the ship, it just sat there.  No new unit appeared, the 'Available to build' count didn't go down.  Engineers were still attempting to assist, but no resources were being consumed.

Not a serious problem since the NCC is going away before public release, but still.  I guess the game is telling me it's time to start a new game with the new Brutal Posts available.

[TechSY730]

If the obvious step of clearing that entry in the build queue doesn't fix it, can't you just scrap the starship constructor and build a new one?

[keith.lamothe]

- The Neinzul Combat Carrier is basically gone (except from saves that already had them), with the \"Youngling Shrike\" type that had been buildable by the NCC becoming the new bonus ship type to fill its place.  We've heard some ideas that may work to bring the NCC back later, but there's not time in the expansion's development schedule and honestly the shrike is pretty cool anyway.

Actually, when I opened my game with the NCC unlocked, the game wouldn't let me build any more of them.  When the Starchip Constructor finished putting all the resources in to the ship, it just sat there.  No new unit appeared, the 'Available to build' count didn't go down.  Engineers were still attempting to assist, but no resources were being consumed.

Not a serious problem since the NCC is going away before public release, but still.  I guess the game is telling me it's time to start a new game with the new Brutal Posts available.

Odd, in my testing it would build more if I scrapped some (to bring it back under cap) but I guess it got more persnickety since I did that

[Faulty Logic]

By popular demand, "The Core" AI type now no longer has penalties to wave size or reinforcement size, since the AI already always gets a 0.5 multiplier when getting mkV ships in those contexts to begin with.

This sounds fun.

Core Hunter/Killer Factory Guard Post

I note with some concern you did not specify the mark of the H/K.

Core Shredder Drone Guard Post

Hmm... interesting.

he Youngling Shrike has been promoted from "the unique unit built by the Neinzul Combat Carrier" to the replacement for the Neinzul Combat Carrier in the expansion's roster of new bonus types.

Excellent.

The Lightning Torpedo Frigate is now player-only (the AI can't get it anymore) and has had its stats reverted back to what they were before 6.040 (except for the change that lets the torpedoes live a lot longer and thus have a longer effective range).

Will want to play with these...

Protector Starship counter-modules rule change:

...and these.

The Shark plot has been split into Shark-A (only increases AIP on command station death) and Shark-B (only does the non-permanent AI bonuses: the immediate mini-exos and the later buff-to-CPA).

The strength of "waves" sent by Exotic and Vicious Exotic AIs has been reduced to about 1/5th of what it was, as Exotic was waaaaay stronger than even the Mad Bomber type.

The counter-post-heavy AI Subcommander type now seeds its first four posts as counter-posts, instead of all of them. The rest are picked from a very small set of types that, while annoying, do not involve a counter-wave.

And there was much rejoicing.

Showdown Refinements

Cool, except

The "FINAL" CPA really does launch everything now.

If this means what I think it means, I oppose this. It makes it optimal to spend tedious hours killing ships everywhere, and makes the hunter plot quite ridiculous.

I had suggested it for FS, because the final exos there were a bit lacking IMO, and because the extra ships wouldn't have that big an impact (with a couple exceptions : nemeses, and special forces) and would add to the flavor. But here, especially if you intend to have this be possible without superweapons, I don't think it was a good idea.

[TechSY730]

The "FINAL" CPA really does launch everything now.

If this means what I think it means, I oppose this. It makes it optimal to spend tedious hours killing ships everywhere, and makes the hunter plot quite ridiculous.

I had suggested it for FS, because the final exos there were a bit lacking IMO, and because the extra ships wouldn't have that big an impact (with a couple exceptions : nemeses, and special forces) and would add to the flavor. But here, especially if you intend to have this be possible without superweapons, I don't think it was a good idea.

If this is supposed to be the "human needs to die NOW!" response, then TBH, this sort of "all-in" makes sense and is smart, even if the counter is tedious. You basically asked for this.

In my mind, if you delibrately do something you know will make the AI push its "panic" button, then you should be prepared for an "all-in", fun or fairness be damned.

The AI getting as many "standing" ships on average whether you have superweapons or not is really a separate issue, that is unfortunately having a negative impact in this case.

[TechSY730]

While people are soliciting annoying bugs to be fixed, here is some:

10998: Remains Rebuilders won't always rebuild energy collectors (or matter converters) when there isn't enough power

An almost identical issue to this can happen with command stations as well.

[Faulty Logic]

You basically asked for this. 

Not at all.
I had said the showdown response was too strong, in fact.

[Toranth]

You basically asked for this. 

Not at all.
I had said the showdown response was too strong, in fact.

Re: the Final CPA, that was me asking for it 



Has anyone else been seeing random Achievement related messages appearing in the message log when loading a game?
Something like this: