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

[LordSloth]

A series that might be too gentle after the eighth hack:
5 * 1.25^(#hacks -1)

5   6   8   10   12   15   19   24. That also comes up to around 100 total, however..

 9   10    11    12
51   77   115   173 old
30   37    47    58 my example

Things don't get quite prohibitive enough.

If you want to mess around with the equations yourself, here's an easy little Open Office Spreadsheet. It is a close enough approximation, just change the base and power in the third row. It was hastily put together, but it should let you experiment with exponential growth quite quickly.

If you want to have a higher base cost - and things get prohibitive after the eighth hack, you're going to have to complicate the equation a bit further.

You could keep the cost relatively low but multiply it by the mark of the planet in question..

Anyways, I have no opinion other than if you want a good curve you might have to have two sets of equations, F(x) when x<=8, and F(x) when x>8.
or something like that.

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, I'm perfectly ok with costs getting insane by the time you've done 8 of the same thing

[Bognor]

...
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 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). ...

Hold on... Aren't most of the bonus ships on homeworlds and core worlds mark Vs that are unlocked separately to the AIs' main unlocks, and independent to the design backup servers?

[keith.lamothe]

...
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 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). ...

Hold on... Aren't most of the bonus ships on homeworlds and core worlds mark Vs that are unlocked separately to the AIs' main unlocks, and independent to the design backup servers?

Ah, yes, it is tricksy in that way

[LordSloth]

Out of curiosity, how much pain and suffering does exponential growth save you as a programmer?

Possible set of growth rates:
First Four: 5 HP
Fifth: 10
Sixth: 15
Seventh: 20
Eight: 35
Nine+ then go exponential?... or maybe even hack9=hack 8+7, hack 10 = hack 9+8

I say this only because I really should update my version by now, perhaps despite my ongoing sp and co-op game. In other reason, no reason at all to suggest it other than it popped in my head. Plus, the numbers are nice and tidy and round and neat and pretty.

[Tridus]

Any formula (exponential or not) where you can get the cost of any hack by just using a single formula and X (the count of hacks done) is simpler than one where you have steps like that. I mean those steps aren't going to be painful either since a function can just encapsulate what it's doing and it's not overly complicated... but I kind of like the exponentials in the sense that each hack gets more expensive than the last rather than "four hacks are the same, then it jumps up". One of them is harder to understand for the player than the other.

Though I guess if we want it to be easy to understand for the player it should be linear rather than exponential. (Course that's going to translate to a LOT more hacking at higher AIP and will probably be overpowered.)

[TIE Viper]

I saw that distribution nodes were on the sabotage list.  For me it then begged the question why?  Aren't they pretty innocuous?  This seems quite silly since, for the life of me, I can't think of a reason to spend valuable HaP on sabotaging one of those. 

[keith.lamothe]

I saw that distribution nodes were on the sabotage list.  For me it then begged the question why?  Aren't they pretty innocuous?  This seems quite silly since, for the life of me, I can't think of a reason to spend valuable HaP on sabotaging one of those. 

It doesn't cost AIP to destroy them that way.

Yea, not particularly important, I just wanted to have a non-AIP way of opening them

[TIE Viper]

Well, I suppose if you have done all hacking you plan on in a particular game that would be a AIP free way for some resources if you needed it.

[RockyBst]

Something I've just noticed, Neinzul nests aren't valid targets for sabotage hackers. Despite being +10 AIP. Was this intentional, or an oversight?

[keith.lamothe]

Something I've just noticed, Neinzul nests aren't valid targets for sabotage hackers. Despite being +10 AIP. Was this intentional, or an oversight?

I just hadn't gotten around to adding some of the more edge-case structures to that list of targets

[Qatu]

 I just fabricator hacked experimental engineers fabricator and starship beamer fabricator and got nothing for it (and no hacking progress increase either). Wasn't I supposed to get cool stuff for it? Attached is a save just after the hacks completed for the 2 fabricators, it's on a planet in the top left of the galaxy map.

 Also, if there are 2 fabricators I want on same world and I put down 2 hackers, do i need to put them on either side so one is closest to each or just put both down anywhere and it will figure things out on it's own?

[Toranth]

I just fabricator hacked experimental engineers fabricator and starship beamer fabricator and got nothing for it (and no hacking progress increase either). Wasn't I supposed to get cool stuff for it? Attached is a save just after the hacks completed for the 2 fabricators, it's on a planet in the top left of the galaxy map.

 Also, if there are 2 fabricators I want on same world and I put down 2 hackers, do i need to put them on either side so one is closest to each or just put both down anywhere and it will figure things out on it's own?

I took a look at your game, and everything appears fine to me.  Previously, you'd hacked 2 fabs (Laser V turrets, Flak V turrets), and had 22 seconds left on your hacking of the Exp Engineer and Beam Starship fabs.  That hack completed, and the Engineers became available from the Space Docks, while the Beam Starships were available from the Starship Constructor.  Your hacking progress went down by the cost of 2 Fab hacks, exactly as it should have.

By the way, you only need one Fab Hacker to hack all fabricators in a system - by having two, you had redundancy but the AI also had increased response.  As far as I know, only the Sabotage hacker cares about placement.  All the other hackers operate on all potential targets simultaneously and without regard to range.

[Qatu]

 I'll try again when i have some playtime, but I did wait a couple minutes after the hack was supposed to have completed, and then reloaded twice with another save 2-3 seconds before it was supposed to complete, and it didn't work on either of those 3 tries, the timer just disappeared and nothing would happen.

 Weird! Also thanks for checking and the info about not needing multiple hackers for a system with multiple fabricators!

[Qatu]

 Exo waves still get disassembler guardians with swallowers disabled.

 Jerks