AI War Beta 7.002-7.005 "Hacked To Pieces" Released!

[Toranth]

Another problem:  Somewhere in the Hacking code there's another infinite/near infinite loop or hang.

I was cheating to see how bad the AI reactions to hacking could get, and it started hanging or crashing around HP -15,000 to -20,000.  So I loaded up a game imported from 7.001 when I'd done a 250 AIP SuperTerminal run, leaving the HP at -85,000.  At that HP, any further hacking attempts, even a single K-raider taking 1 tick of knowledge, caused the game to lock up using 100% processor.  I let it run for an hour, and it never fixed itself.  It never even got to the point where it wrote out a CounterHacking log file.

[Aklyon]

Update: 7.004 hotfix is out to put in some protections against arithmetic overflow in the hacking-response calculations if you really run up the Hacking Progress costs.

Ok, tried this out and AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

Player destruction successfully expedited.  That's NASTY.  Under -9000!, indeed.

Under -9000! sounds like an achivement name, but by the sound of the rest of things not one you'd actually be able to get to

[Draco18s]

AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

The sound of customer satisfaction here at Arcen Games.

I think that (kind of comment) come up a few times.

[Aklyon]

AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

The sound of customer satisfaction here at Arcen Games.

Player destruction successfully expedited.

That too.

You know, that reminds me of a certain other company that tends to gather these kinds of sounds. But in rpg/jrpg form instead of multi-hybrid RTS.

[Kronic]

Arcen Games: Frustrating deathtraps done right!

[madcow]

And the if I should update question was nicely solved by dying.

Apparently popping a Mk 4 barracks was a bad idea, not helped by the announced wave right after I killed it.

[GP_Trixie]

I started a new game to try the new hacking system and it's pretty fun so far. But I successfully hacked a core protector starship fabricator, and I can't seem to find how to build them now. They are supposed to be on their separated tab on the starship constructor right ? There is no new tab in the starship constructor, neither in any other building. So either this is a bug or I'm missing obvious.

PS: This is my first post, and this game is awesome.

[keith.lamothe]

I started a new game to try the new hacking system and it's pretty fun so far. But I successfully hacked a core protector starship fabricator, and I can't seem to find how to build them now. They are supposed to be on their separated tab on the starship constructor right ? There is no new tab in the starship constructor, neither in any other building. So either this is a bug or I'm missing obvious.

PS: This is my first post, and this game is awesome.

Welcome to the game and to the forums

Can you post a save (either in this thread or in mantis, see my sig about the latter) where you've hacked the fab but can't build the ship?  Thanks

[Eternaly_Lost]

I started a new game to try the new hacking system and it's pretty fun so far. But I successfully hacked a core protector starship fabricator, and I can't seem to find how to build them now. They are supposed to be on their separated tab on the starship constructor right ? There is no new tab in the starship constructor, neither in any other building. So either this is a bug or I'm missing obvious.

PS: This is my first post, and this game is awesome.

Welcome to the game and to the forums

Can you post a save (either in this thread or in mantis, see my sig about the latter) where you've hacked the fab but can't build the ship?  Thanks

I am wondering, If I hack an Experimental Engineer Fab (Or any of the Experimentals like speed boosts) Where would I build them? Space Dock? Not buildable if you hack them?

EDIT: Also, is there any chance of MK4 Riot Starships and MK4 Cloakers?

[Toranth]

I am wondering, If I hack an Experimental Engineer Fab (Or any of the Experimentals like speed boosts) Where would I build them? Space Dock? Not buildable if you hack them?

Mk V starships should be available at the normal Starship Constructor.  All the various fleetships (only had Decoys) should be at the Space Dock. 
The Experimental Engineers are also built from the Space Dock.  It's a little odd having them there, but at least it's easy to just shove a dock to the side dedicated to building those.  They become buildable from the docks as soon as you hack OR capture the Fab.  You just lose access if you loes the Fab if you haven't hacked.

[GP_Trixie]

Can you post a save (either in this thread or in mantis, see my sig about the latter) where you've hacked the fab but can't build the ship?  Thanks

Sure here is the save.

[madcow]

So having played a little, I find the behavior of hacking superterminals kind of... weird. I was hacking away lowering my AIP, when what felt like suddenly I had 5k enemy ships popped out attacking, and my hacking progress had jumped hugely negative. It just felt like a very odd disconnect to go from normal to all of a sudden massive ship attack. It was like oh things are going okay - this hacking isn't that tough at all then OMG GAME OVER in a heart beat.

At the least, a warning popping up to say you're about to go into negative hacking would be nice.

[Eternaly_Lost]

Personally, I am not sure if AI response to future hacking is displaying correctly. I take more planets = more AIP, from what I understand should lower it. But it raises it.

I hack and it show raise it and it does, so that is fine. But even doubling my unused Hacking Resource claims that the AI will respond more to it. Rather then less as I understand it should be working.

[keith.lamothe]

Personally, I am not sure if AI response to future hacking is displaying correctly. I take more planets = more AIP, from what I understand should lower it. But it raises it.

I hack and it show raise it and it does, so that is fine. But even doubling my unused Hacking Resource claims that the AI will respond more to it. Rather then less as I understand it should be working.

Excess positive HaP does not decrease the response.  But Negative HaP increases it.  AIP is used as the base of the hacking response so that it isn't trivial later on, but the idea is that as long as your HaP is positive (and thus you're only dealing with that base hacking response) it should be doable unless AIP is really high (and even then it should be doable if you're playing High-AIP FS).

So having played a little, I find the behavior of hacking superterminals kind of... weird. I was hacking away lowering my AIP, when what felt like suddenly I had 5k enemy ships popped out attacking, and my hacking progress had jumped hugely negative. It just felt like a very odd disconnect to go from normal to all of a sudden massive ship attack. It was like oh things are going okay - this hacking isn't that tough at all then OMG GAME OVER in a heart beat.

At the least, a warning popping up to say you're about to go into negative hacking would be nice.

Do you see the indicator of your Hacking Progress Balance under the main resource bar?  That should go down each "tick" of the superterminal.  Depending on how long you've been going a single tick might be several points at once, but it should be something like going from positive 10 to negative 6, not from positive 50 to negative 200 or whatever.  What are you actually observing there?

[GP_Trixie]

The AI response is equal to AIP if your Hacking Progress is positive, it doesn't matter how positive it is. Then it's the max( AIP, - Hacking progress) * ( 1 + ( Hacking/ progress / -10 )) when it's negative.