AI War Beta 6.044-60.45 "So That's What A Vines Map Looks Like" Released!

[keith.lamothe]

Can the Sledgehammer's new "double wave size but half wave frequency" be a dominant trait?  I'd like the reduced micro of fewer waves, but just halving the number using the lobby option without giving the AI some compensatory benefit feels... cheap.

There's actually two parts to the trait: WaveSizeMultiplier and WaveIntervalMultiplier. 

The first is used on a lot of different AI types and combining two types simply gives you the higher of the two values.  Both Sledgehammers get a 2.0 for it.

The second is actually a generalization of the NeinzulYoungster's "waves twice as frequent" trait. That AI type gets a 0.5 multiplier for that field, where both Sledgehammers get a 2.5.  And actually now that I look at it I see a problem: it's also preferring the higher of the two values in a dual-type, which is making the negative trait dominant.  I'm inclined to fix that   Which would make Sledgehammer+Vanilla get 2.0x wave size and normal wave intervals.

But maybe the desire is that this not be fixed

[keith.lamothe]

Are the showdown devices supposed to remove all ai guard posts and free all units .. on a failed showdown attempt?

Um, no, if by that you mean losing control of the a device before the 30 minute timer runs out.  Can you provide a save from just before the guard posts go on permanent vacation?

[Qatu]

 Since warp counterattack guard posts are still in the game and not removable and very important, would it be possible to have a broad search on map screen for them? For now the closest term is guard post, so i end up having to mouse over every planet when looking for them.

edit: i saw that dire lairs wouldnt spawn closer than 4 hops from homeworlds, would it be possible to do the same with nuclear eyes? It sucked starting between 2 mk4 worlds 2 hops away that had nuclear eyes.

edit2: golem exo wave synchronizing from 71% to a cpa seems a little mean no? from 95% or even 90% that'd be fine but that moved the exo wave almost hour earlier.

[TechSY730]

Agreed with the nuclear eyes. They are severe enough to really deserve the same level of "treatment" as dire fortresses.

Come to think of it, superfortresses should also not spawn closer than 4 hops. One could argue Mk. III forts as well, but I think no closer than N hops for a Mk. N fortress would do fine.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Are there supposed to be two identical planets in the galaxy, by the way?
I actually spotted that in a recent update. I don't remember that happening before.

[keith.lamothe]

Are there supposed to be two identical planets in the galaxy, by the way?
I actually spotted that in a recent update. I don't remember that happening before.

What do you mean by identical?

In any event, probably what you saw was an improbable, but possible result of the RNG.  The code neither encourages nor discourages it.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Oh, I mean like the physical appearance of the planet. Not the stuff around it. There were two planets on a save I don't think I kept that were like 4 hops away that used the same image.

[keith.lamothe]

New one

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, I mean like the physical appearance of the planet. Not the stuff around it. There were two planets on a save I don't think I kept that were like 4 hops away that used the same image.

Yea, that can happen, and is somewhat more likely now.  Previously there were like 54 distinct images used for normal (non-destroyed, non-cloaked) planets.  In 6.045 I cut it down to about 37 (iirc) by removing the ones Kahuna described as a rotting cow or something similar.  I also replaced some of the kept ones with higher-res versions.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Oh okay.
I actually didn't check exactly how many images there were. I just assumed you guys had infinite money and got 120 planet images or something. I just appreciate the planets a lot more now because of the fact that they now seem to actually vary a lot more in size. So now, I go to a planet and it's like 'whoa, look how big it is!' Makes me pay more attention to the visuals. Guess I didn't notice it before.

[Tridus]

Agreed with the nuclear eyes. They are severe enough to really deserve the same level of "treatment" as dire fortresses.

Come to think of it, superfortresses should also not spawn closer than 4 hops. One could argue Mk. III forts as well, but I think no closer than N hops for a Mk. N fortress would do fine.

Nuclear eyes don't bother me as much as some of the other eyes. The countdown on them is so much longer that you have time to get stuff off the planet most of the time if it starts. Yes they're really nasty if they go off, but they don't worry me a ton.

[Lancefighter]

Are the showdown devices supposed to remove all ai guard posts and free all units .. on a failed showdown attempt?

Um, no, if by that you mean losing control of the a device before the 30 minute timer runs out.  Can you provide a save from just before the guard posts go on permanent vacation?

dont have rolling autosaves set up properly on new machine

will ask if anyone in our group has a save then though, otherwise will recreate on sandbox later tonight

[doctorfrog]

Noticed something: quickly double-clicking "untangle" for a "concentric" map, causes it to pop out to better fit a widescreen monitor. Nice little side effect.

[keith.lamothe]

Noticed something: quickly double-clicking "untangle" for a "concentric" map, causes it to pop out to better fit a widescreen monitor. Nice little side effect.

Yea, one of the adaptations I made to the force-directed approach was to scale the "total bounding rectangle" of the resulting graph down to the actual "official galaxy coordinates" rectangle that the game uses.  So the algorithm's model is unaffected, but when its coordinates are applied to the actual planet objects it does that scaling, and it does that at every step of the process, including the first.

So you can actually use it really quickly as a "expand map to fill coordinate area" thing.

[Bognor]

Can the Sledgehammer's new "double wave size but half wave frequency" be a dominant trait?  I'd like the reduced micro of fewer waves, but just halving the number using the lobby option without giving the AI some compensatory benefit feels... cheap.

There's actually two parts to the trait: WaveSizeMultiplier and WaveIntervalMultiplier. 

The first is used on a lot of different AI types and combining two types simply gives you the higher of the two values.  Both Sledgehammers get a 2.0 for it.

The second is actually a generalization of the NeinzulYoungster's "waves twice as frequent" trait. That AI type gets a 0.5 multiplier for that field, where both Sledgehammers get a 2.5.  And actually now that I look at it I see a problem: it's also preferring the higher of the two values in a dual-type, which is making the negative trait dominant.  I'm inclined to fix that   Which would make Sledgehammer+Vanilla get 2.0x wave size and normal wave intervals.

But maybe the desire is that this not be fixed

Ah, ok.  Well by my count there are 56 AI types (excluding beta), of which 31 currently have both wave and reinforce multipliers of 1.00.  If I understand correctly, setting Sledgehammer as the second AI type with any of those 31 would double the wave strength and reduce the wave frequency, without affecting anything else, essentially applying the Sledgehammer trait.  So without any changes or fixes, I've already got plenty of scope to use the Sledge the way I want