AI War Beta 7.006-7.007 "Design Meddling" Released!

[The Hunter]

Arachnids are a bit on the OP side, but they don't have across-the-planet range like OMDs do, and they don't go right through forcefields.

Closer to underpowered than you think, limited range, can't do much vs fleet and some starships/champs can just tank them with forcefields. They do alot of damage, yes, but it's not an effective attack overall.

[onyhow]

Ooh, OMD buff!

Also a question: Does Downloading Design equivalent to getting new ship design from ARS?

[The Hunter]

Now that i think about it, what about giving arachnid post a buff vs forcefields, maybe even forcefield immunity, but limiting them to subcommanders. Because really, their specificness fits more subcommander stuff and subcommander post placement might make them actually less pointlessly placed. While on non-subcommander planets it will be replaced with something less powerful, but with ability to attack normal targets as well, maybe something with AoE.

[Martyn van Buren]

"Bugs Bunny" hack. The AI took shoulda taken a  left turn at Albuquerque. Either triples or adds a flat amount of time to the timer of a single cross-planet attack.

How about a superterminal-like running hack that prevents the CPA timer from counting down for as long as its going? Presumably you would want to use that only in some very extreme situations, but it could be very helpful in some, right?

[madcow]

Very cool!

Quick question, does corrupting a design affect the cost of say downloading a design, or are the cost increasers for them tracked separately?

Also does the tooltip about what ship is hackable let you see the actual properties of the ship itself? Or do you have to find an example of the ship/remember what its good for?

[Bognor]

Quick question, does corrupting a design affect the cost of say downloading a design, or are the cost increasers for them tracked separately?

Based on the full patch notes, using either the Design Downloader or the Design Corrupter causes the targetted Design Backup Server to go into "lockdown mode", meaning it's impossible to use both.

[madcow]

I didn't mean on the same one. I was more curious if the hacking progress cost was linked or separate. So if you found two of them, is it "cheaper" to corrupt one and download the other, versus downloading both.

[Bognor]

Oh, sorry, well in-game it looks like they're tracked separately, but I haven't tried to confirm.

The tooltip doesn't shop the full ship details, though that would be a handy feature (and on Fabricators, too). 

It's not mentioned in the patch notes, but Keith put in a galaxy map filter for Design Backup Servers!  Sweet!

Keith: The durations of the different hacks should probably be noted somewhere, perhaps in the descriptions of the ships deployed by the hacker.

[keith.lamothe]

Quick question, does corrupting a design affect the cost of say downloading a design, or are the cost increasers for them tracked separately?

Tracked separately.  So you can do one of each for fairly cheap.

Also does the tooltip about what ship is hackable let you see the actual properties of the ship itself? Or do you have to find an example of the ship/remember what its good for?

It just lists the name, and you'd have to find an example (or look it up in the reference tab of the stats screen, or in the F1 mode of the sidebar).

[ZaneWolfe]

Quick question. I haven't gotten to test this yet so I figured I would ask so I can see if I need to restart (AGAIN! Do you enjoy not allowing me to finish my games? I think you do.) or not. I have about 600 or so total AIP with 20 worlds under my control and 10 more that I when out and killed off. (Because I like Spire Civilian Leaders when they work for me) Now you have said the new Design Backups are able to integrate into existing games and we will get ones only for ships the AI has unlocked. How does that work with an existing game and how does that work with a new game? Does it seed them as the game goes on and make new ones as the AI unlocks more and more ships? Or does it just seed a LOT of them that only come online as the AI unlocks more units?

Also, I know this only affects bonus units, and not something crazy like preventing the AI from building base units that it and you always get, (Because making the AI give up all its Bombers and Raid Starhips, while entertaining as the idea may be, is completely broken) but does it only include fleetships? Could you save get a Design Backup for Spire Corvettes or, even crazier, Warbird Starships? Assuming the AI unlocked them naturally. If so... I am playing against an experimentalist AI next. SO MANY FUN TOYS!!!! (And if its fleetships only then I am going to be sad.)

Finally, while the new hacking response of Effective AIP - HaP seems like a good fix, it "might" (keep in mind I have not tested this myself yet and am only going on numbers) be a bit too low. I am going to assume that the minimum response is the AIP Floor of course (otherwise in my game I can hack for free for some time) but it still seems a bit weak just going on the numbers. Assuming I turn out to be correct, perhaps the next step would be to make it TOTAL AIP - HaP.  This would make the response equal to the AIP Floor until you start hacking, but it would grow fairly quickly once you did start hacking things.

[LordSloth]

When do we get to hack the AI to build nothing but Spire Stealth Battleships, Tackle Drone Launchers, Spire Blade Spawners, and Spire Maws?

[Draco18s]

Oh god, can't wait for counter-hacking from the AI.
(That is to say, the changes are moving in that direction, not that it's actually a plan)

[kmunoz]

I love all this stuff! I never really understood the point of hacking until these recent updates that made it much, much more interesting. I'm still a *terrible* player (I can't win on 6/6, and in my current game, I'm 10 hours in and have only explored 1/4 of the 80 planet map), but everything is a lot more fun now that I can run around looking for things to break (into). It's also forcing me to learn how to jump over planets and ignore ones that aren't worth anything, just so I can get to the juicy hacking center.

[madcow]

It just lists the name, and you'd have to find an example (or look it up in the reference tab of the stats screen, or in the F1 mode of the sidebar).

The F1 mode of the sidebar...

Wait what? Have I been missing something super incredibly useful here?

[Tridus]

Oh god, can't wait for counter-hacking from the AI.
(That is to say, the changes are moving in that direction, not that it's actually a plan)

That virus the AI planted in your space dock that causes every ship you build to come out as a mk I Fighter? That wasn't really a virus, that was the Arcen Games Customer Satisfaction Upgrade!