AI War Beta 7.008-7.009 "More Dirty Tricks" Released!

[keith.lamothe]

(Crossposted from this blog post)

This one is another step forward for the winner of the "Big Items For 8.0" poll.  Specifically, the addition of two new forms of nasty trick to play on the AI by exploiting its poor, defenseless networks:

1) Sabotage - blow up forts, forcefields, black hole machines, etc.  All with no AIP-on-death or other negative death consequences (at least, that's the idea).  It even starts off pretty cheap at 2 Hacking-Progress cost for the first unit.  But with the usual 1.5x for each subsequent one you only get so many of these before the opportunity cost is pretty high.  And pushing it too far means that the forgone opportunity is probably "breathing".  But this should really help cut some of those Gordian knots with forts under ffs protected by all kinds of other stuff, etc.  If you don't spend all your HaP elsewhere, of course.

2) Sensor Hacking - the effect is fairly temporary (35 seconds), and the cost starts off middling-high at 10 for the first application, but it gives all your units on that planet cloaking and immunity to tachyon (decloaking-from-firing rules are unaffected).  It also decloaks all AI units on the planet (even camouflaged ones) for the duration.  Normally you won't need this, but I suspect it can be useful while assaulting the AI HWs.  Possibly Limburger-useful, but given the extremely finite amount of time you'll be able to apply this effect during the entire game it's probably a legitimate exchange rate.

We also fixed a bug where hacking tended to produce 30-second-warning counterwaves to anywhere (instead of the intended four-minute-warning ones with 3-hops depth).  And another older one with Spirecraft Scouts causing alert like they were a major weapon.

Update: 7.009 released to fix a bug with the last version not properly reading some recent saves.

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.

[Draco18s]

I notice that the list does not include:

CSG, Superforts, (core) guard posts, or barracks.

CSG I could probably understand, superforts are a thorn in my side currently (I have one that if it just Didn't Exist I could probably win the game).  Guard Posts would likely be of limited benefit, and would certainly play havoc with the "closest eligible" logic without dumping the hacker right on top of it.

[keith.lamothe]

It does include all forts, including the superforts.

The CSGs I held off on for now since that would pretty dramatically alter the meaning of that feature (possibly for the better, but left it alone for now).

The Core Guard Posts I held off on because I didn't want to deal with the conditional logic of them being invincible, etc.

[chemical_art]

I was excited at the thought of brutal posts being weak to something for once, but I guess that will have to what.

Id kill to remove a brutal post even for 20 points

[keith.lamothe]

I was excited at the thought of brutal posts being weak to something for once, but I guess that will have to what.

Id kill to remove a brutal post even for 20 points

It can be done, but I think the ability to remove superforts and ffs (even core ffs) on the HW can really simplify some of the harder brutal post situations.

[Histidine]

Paying 10 HaP (a non-renewable resource!) for a 35 second cloak... I dunno, do you foresee a situation where this would be useful?

[TechSY730]

Paying 10 HaP (a non-renewable resource!) for a 35 second cloak... I dunno, do you foresee a situation where this would be useful?

AI Homeworlds.

[chemical_art]

Paying 10 HaP (a non-renewable resource!) for a 35 second cloak... I dunno, do you foresee a situation where this would be useful?

AI Homeworlds.

Transfering one non-renewable resource for another is a solid trade. (Hacking progress for dead AI HW)

[Fluffiest]

It's not that I don't think it'll be useless - rather, I think it will only ever be used on the homeworlds. There simply is nothing else out there even half as threatening.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, though.

[Zeyi]

It's not that I don't think it'll be useless - rather, I think it will only ever be used on the homeworlds. There simply is nothing else out there even half as threatening.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, though.

I forget if cloaked ships affect AI eyes, because this could be useful there- if you used it to quickly take down guardposts on say a planet with a Nuclear eye before it detects you. Of course you'd need quick ships or speed boosters a long but there are reasons you may use this. Even if to get safely in range of something particularly nasty like a dire guardian lair.

[The Hunter]

Though i haven't tested it yet, i feel like sabotage cost is a bit on too low side(Ability to get rid of superfort for 2 hacking progress? Maybe cost scaling depending on target would be a good idea... Though then again, haven't tested how balanced it is in full game yet), other than that, well done, nice to see that some variant of suggestion from my post got through(Unless it was suggested before, correct me if i am wrong).

[Draco18s]

Though i haven't tested it yet, i feel like sabotage cost is a bit on too low side(Ability to get rid of superfort for 2 hacking progress? Maybe cost scaling depending on target would be a good idea... Though then again, haven't tested how balanced it is in full game yet), other than that, well done, nice to see that some variant of suggestion from my post got through(Unless it was suggested before, correct me if i am wrong).

Keep in mind that the cost is exponential.  2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 14, 21, 32, 48....

[keith.lamothe]

2 may be too low, I dunno.  But when I did the math, that plus the 1.5x-each-time rule means that sabotaging a total of 8 units costs about 100 HaP.  9 brings the total up to 150, 10 brings the total up to over 220, and it just gets more absurd from there.

So the idea was to basically give the player up to 8 (maybe 9) "get out of jail free" cards for dealing with particularly nasty RNG jerk-moves.  Of course, even playing just those 8 has a substantial opportunity cost, so if you can limit yourself to, say, 5 (with a total cost of about 27) you have a lot more available for other things.

So now when you're facing a really brutal AI HW you may be able to do one or more of the below.
- If the ARS non-default types include one that can help you break the knot, hack for that.
- If the AI has a ship type that would help you break the knot, you can copy that.
- If there's a fab out there with a type that would help you break the knot, but you really don't fancy your chances of take-and-hold for it (or just don't want to spend the AIP), you can hack it.
- If the AI has a ship type that's really really messing up your chances, you can disable that (though this is best done before its got a ton of them on the homeworld and/or in the SF, naturally).
- If there's just some really annoying superfort/core-ff/etc combo, you can push the "make it die" button for those.
- If you really need to get in a solid cloaked strike on a target to have any chance of taking it down, you can sensor hack.

Chances are the really nasty situations will preclude some/most of those, but I think the situations where NONE of them work are getting more and more rare as we expand the toolbox.

[Vacuity]

Curses... If only this had been released ten days ago before that core raid engine had flattened me while I was trying to reach three CSG As on the far side of a core planet...  It would have turned the apparently impossible into merely very challenging (for my meager skills).

[The Hunter]

Yeah, i know about cost increase, still feels a bit ridiculous if one does saves it up though.