AI War Beta 7.018 "Troubleshooters" Released!

[Chthon]

Threat, so offensive that used to be defensive.

Bear in mind that waves that are sent straight to AI planets turn up as threat.  But I'm guessing you weren't in a ? ? ? wave situation.

No, we were pretty successfully managing waves, no waves arrived.

Had you run into these starships while they weren't threat yet?  Or was the first you'd met them when they popped through the wormhole to your planets for tea?

Yes, they were defending planets initially. One of the AI's was a turtle type, do they just get much nastier reinforcements these days?

Some AIs do not get waves, instead they have more reinforcements.  Turtles get more reinforcements.  Not sure how it works, but I'm guessing reinforcements happen more often.

[keith.lamothe]

Do I need to put on advanced logging, or just the save file should be fine?

Just the save is fine; I don't think the counter-wave target seeking is particularly logged.

Yes, they were defending planets initially. One of the AI's was a turtle type, do they just get much nastier reinforcements these days?

Their reinforcement multiplier is historically much higher, yes.  But that doesn't increase their max starships (on a given planet) cap.  Just increases the rate at which they reach it.

Anyway, as I'm sure you're aware attacking a planet tends to release some or all of its guards as threat.  When you say "flood" of starships, how many are we talking? 10? 100?  How many planets had you attacked since the last time threat was cleared out?

[Chthon]

Yes, they were defending planets initially. One of the AI's was a turtle type, do they just get much nastier reinforcements these days?

Their reinforcement multiplier is historically much higher, yes.  But that doesn't increase their max starships (on a given planet) cap.  Just increases the rate at which they reach it.

Anyway, as I'm sure you're aware attacking a planet tends to release some or all of its guards as threat.  When you say "flood" of starships, how many are we talking? 10? 100?  How many planets had you attacked since the last time threat was cleared out?

Wait, the reinforcement multiplier is higher?  How much higher?  Wiki says it's 1.00.  Damn you Wiki, you've lied to me for the last time!

Edit:  Wiki was written by the AI wasn't it.  Crafty crafty AI...

[ZaneWolfe]

This is really quite a game, in that the game you're playing is so completely disconnected from the game I'm playing as to be nearly unrecognizable. I play no superweapons, no FS, completely hidden map, and as far as I'm concerned the bulk of the fun in the game comes from scouting/map discovery and very carefully deciding what small handful of worlds I capture, two things that don't exist in the game you're playing at all. Wild.

I used to play exactly like that when I first started. But then I figured out how to play with the FS, through dying horribly several times due to either an exo or the chase waves. After getting several more things down, I finally got to the point I could build Spire Cruisers. Suddenly I wasn't as outgunned anymore. I had a weapon that the AI didn't just respect, it down right feared. Naturally I did what any villain would do and went mad with power, crushing everything I could and slaughtering AI worlds as fast as possible, determined to claim the entire galaxy as my own kingdom. As expected, I died horribly as the AI response quickly chewed up my relatively tiny FS fleet and then reminded me that I was not Emperor of the Galaxy. I was the bug the AI had almost exterminated once already and allowed to live because it had better things to do with its time. I've never really gotten over that though. So I learned to blend the idea of the base game, quietly building power just enough not to be noticed until you're ready to strike, with the theme of the Fallen Spire, trying to build enough power to fight the AI straight up. I use the Spire Civilians to keep the AI relatively docile until I can get the capitol ships built, and then burn a path of vengeance through AI space while keeping AI fairly tame by leaving its precious command stations intact. Next thing it knows, I've got 8+ Cities up, and can walk the final shard back to my HW because the fleet escorting it will vaporize anything that even twitches inside its firing range. Sure I may have 200+ AIP, but it's still on the AIP floor. All I had to do was take my time, carefully building my forces, and when the time was right swing the biggest hammer the galaxy has ever seen right into the AI's face. It may take forever at times to finish a game, but the grand finale makes it all worth while. And patience and planing are what separate a Xanatos or a Lehnsherr from simple Dent or a Gargamel.

[keith.lamothe]

Wait, the reinforcement multiplier is higher?  How much higher?  Wiki says it's 1.00.  Damn you Wiki, you've lied to me for the last time!

Edit:  Wiki was written by the AI wasn't it.  Crafty crafty AI...

Oh, wait, it may not be the multiplier after all.  Though I would think it would be > 1 for that one if for any of them.

But every time a turtle would announce a wave, it instead gets an extra round of reinforcements.  But it does the normal reinforcement logic for those, rather than just launching a wave to its own planet on guard duty (if it were that, that would explain a ton of starships nowadays, but thankfully it's not doing that).

[Kahuna]

So, one of these days, the SF will include Spire Fleet Ships, or the AI will start repairing Golems?

FTFY

That could be part of the Advanced Hybrid plot.

[Vinraith]

Do I need to put on advanced logging, or just the save file should be fine?

Just the save is fine; I don't think the counter-wave target seeking is particularly logged.

Yes, they were defending planets initially. One of the AI's was a turtle type, do they just get much nastier reinforcements these days?

Their reinforcement multiplier is historically much higher, yes.  But that doesn't increase their max starships (on a given planet) cap.  Just increases the rate at which they reach it.

Anyway, as I'm sure you're aware attacking a planet tends to release some or all of its guards as threat.  When you say "flood" of starships, how many are we talking? 10? 100?  How many planets had you attacked since the last time threat was cleared out?

It was pretty early so "flood" is a relative term, I'd need to go back and check to get a real number. What's the max starship per planet cap?

[keith.lamothe]

It was pretty early so "flood" is a relative term, I'd need to go back and check to get a real number. What's the max starship per planet cap?

3*planet_tech_level.  Core and AI HW planets always count as 4 for that.  So a MkIV planet can add starships if it's currently got less than 12.  If that particular reinforcement buys more than one, it will go over the cap, and that planet is alerted and under major attack and relatively few other AI planets are alerted, this can lead to that one planet getting multiple reinforcements during that cycle.  Since the units don't actually spawn until after the cycle is done (for MP sync reasons) that means that particular planet might reinforce from 11 up to, say, 20 in one go.  That would require a very favorable set of circumstances, though (mainly the being-alerted-and-under-attack while few-AI-planets-alerted thing).

[Vinraith]

It was pretty early so "flood" is a relative term, I'd need to go back and check to get a real number. What's the max starship per planet cap?

3*planet_tech_level.  Core and AI HW planets always count as 4 for that.  So a MkIV planet can add starships if it's currently got less than 12.  If that particular reinforcement buys more than one, it will go over the cap, and that planet is alerted and under major attack and relatively few other AI planets are alerted, this can lead to that one planet getting multiple reinforcements during that cycle.  Since the units don't actually spawn until after the cycle is done (for MP sync reasons) that means that particular planet might reinforce from 11 up to, say, 20 in one go.  That would require a very favorable set of circumstances, though (mainly the being-alerted-and-under-attack while few-AI-planets-alerted thing).

OK, I'm starting to think this was just sloppy threat management by a co-op partner who will go unnamed (in fairness, there were some mitigating circumstances). I'd have said there were perhaps 2 dozen ships in that threatball, but if he knocked over three worlds in quick succession that doesn't sound like it would be completely outlandish. Thanks for the details.

[keith.lamothe]

OK, I'm starting to think this was just sloppy threat management by a co-op partner who will go unnamed (in fairness, there were some mitigating circumstances). I'd have said there were perhaps 2 dozen ships in that threatball, but if he knocked over three worlds in quick succession that doesn't sound like it would be completely outlandish. Thanks for the details.

Glad I could help   Yea, mugging 3 planets without thorough cleanup could easily account for 24 adventurous AI starships.

[RockyBst]

Before pausing that 9/9 heroic game I cleaned up four planets in my backfield, to limit where exos were coming from and to give myself room to dump a 4th spire city eventually. So I'm now on 534 effective AIP.

Before the update:

Starting CreateWaveToPlanet at Game Time: 24:24:48 ; Player.AIType: Heroic ; Player.AIDifficulty: 9 ; EffectiveAIP: 534 ; AITechLevel: 2 ; IsSchizo: False

= For a final FleetShipBudget for this wave's fleet ships of 7568.04

player.AITypeData has GetsChampionsInWaves flag, so:
= SpecialBudget = originalFleetShipBudget * 1.0 = 7568.04
** Picked 9 AIHeroHumanBattleship @ 768 each = 6912
skippingAIHeroHumanBattleship because its strength cost (768) is more than our total remaining SpecialBudget (656.04)

** Picked 1 AIHeroHumanCruiser @ 576 each = 576
skippingAIHeroHumanDestroyer because its strength cost (384) is more than our total remaining SpecialBudget (80.04)

** Picked 1 AIFreeAgentBasicCommandShip @ 192 each = 192
= After picking AI-type-specific ships, SpecialBudget is now -111.96

== For a grand-total Strength value of 15918.39

So, considering I have two home commands I was getting 18 battleships of goodness every wave. Now:

Starting CreateWaveToPlanet at Game Time: 24:24:48 ; Player.AIType: Heroic ; Player.AIDifficulty: 9 ; EffectiveAIP: 534 ; AITechLevel: 2 ; IsSchizo: False
MultiplierFromWaveInterval = 1.5
MultiplierFromHumanHomePlanetCount = 1

FleetShipBudget = (base value, equivalent to a single mkI fighter on high caps) = 1
FleetShipBudget *= AITechLevel = 2
FleetShipBudget *= MultiplierFromWaveInterval = 3
FleetShipBudget *= MultiplierFromHumanHomePlanetCount = 3
FleetShipBudget *= EffectiveAIP = 1602
FleetShipBudget *= player.GetHandicapMultiplier() = 1602
preMinStep_DifficultyMultiplier = player.AIDifficulty / ( 13 - player.AIDifficulty ) = 2.25
FleetShipBudget *= preMinStep_DifficultyMultiplier = 3604.5
FleetShipBudget *= rand( 0.8 , 1.1 ) = 3711.86
FleetShipBudget *= player.AITypeData.WaveSizeMultiplier = 3711.86
postMinStep_DifficultyMultiplier = (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.9, <= 9.6 : 3.3, <= 9.8 : 4, 10 : 5) : 2.5
FleetShipBudget *= postMinStep_DifficultyMultiplier = 9279.65
= For a final FleetShipBudget for this wave's fleet ships of 9279.65

player.AITypeData has GetsChampionsInWaves flag, so:
= SpecialBudget = originalFleetShipBudget * 1.0 = 9279.65
** Picked 1 AIHeroNeinzulBattleship @ 7000 each = 7000
skippingAIHeroNeinzulBattleship because its strength cost (7000) is more than our total remaining SpecialBudget (2279.65)

skippingAIHeroNeinzulCruiser because its strength cost (3500) is more than our total remaining SpecialBudget (2279.65)

** Picked 2 AIHeroNeinzulDestroyer @ 1000 each = 2000
** Picked 1 AIHeroNeinzulFrigate @ 300 each = 300
= After picking AI-type-specific ships, SpecialBudget is now -20.35

== For a grand-total Strength value of 13701.69

1 battleship, 2 destroyers and 1 frigate. As compared to previously, where a wave 424 effective AIP gave me@

* since AIType has GetsChampionsInWaves flag, and rolled 3 on a d4, picked 6 AIHeroNeinzulDestroyer

Sounds about appropriate comparatively to what it used to be, but I'm not sure if the overall strength doesn't need tweaking a touch upwards seeing as this is supposed to be an 'uber-hard' AI type. Also, it would be nice if there was some randomness to the waves. So rather than descending through the list, some times it decides to send 30 frigates instead or something.

[keith.lamothe]

Sounds about appropriate comparatively to what it used to be, but I'm not sure if the overall strength doesn't need tweaking a touch upwards seeing as this is supposed to be an 'uber-hard' AI type.

Interesting, thanks for the comparison.  Good to know the numbers are at least in the ballpark now.  Rather than the "exterminate! exterminate! exterminate!" category, as before

Anyway, I can certainly tweak Heroic up some.  Do you mean overall wave sizes or just how much champion it gets to buy for each wave?  The latter is easily tweaked (that's the line that says "= SpecialBudget = originalFleetShipBudget * 1.0 = 9279.65"; I can change that 1.0 to whatever).  Are you thinking something like 20%?  Or like 50%?

Also, it would be nice if there was some randomness to the waves. So rather than descending through the list, some times it decides to send 30 frigates instead or something.

That's certainly a possibility, sure.  I could just have it, for each non-frigate tier, have a random chance of skipping to the next one.

[RockyBst]

Oh, definitely boost the heroic portion itself. Between shields covering fleet ships and a large amount of drone spam from modules, there's already enough stuff flying around on-planet. The chance to skip would be good too, at 25% you'd have 1.5% chance of getting an all-frigate wave

I'd say 50% minimum, and I might even stretch to double. If we regard one battleship as 1/3rd of a Mk. 5 H/K, then we've gone from 3 H/Ks per wave to about 0.5. I'm fairly certain that, say, a technologist raider would give me considerably more grief than 1/2 a Mk 5 H/K every 20 minutes or so. Again, I'm current sitting at 530 AIP on diff 9. I'd expect a bit of a harsh response, just maybe not in a 'every single wave can wipe a full 2 spire city fleet' kinda way.

Huge grain of salt here though, I haven't played without superweapons of some sort since ... 3.xx days?

Apropos of nothing, just had a wonderful benny hill moment. 10k CPA, of which 7k hits one of my lesser defended chokepoints (I really need to clean up my entry paths). Spire fleet warps in 30 seconds later, and they run to the next planet. And the next one. And the next one. In the end I think I chased them across 6 of my practically undefended backwood planets before finally killing the last one. Always nice to have a little light relief after a grindy week.

[keith.lamothe]

Apropos of nothing, just had a wonderful benny hill moment.

Hahaha, yea, the AI is capable of some virtuoso "advance in retrograde" performances.

[RockyBst]

I've been wondering why my 9/9 game kept lagging for a few seconds once every couple of minutes, I think I might have worked it out. I've pretty much not seen the special forces since hour 5 when they had 12,000 or so ships, so running into them a moment ago was a shock.

They have 55 carriers. That I saw, some more may not have made in on-planet yet. I'm estimating roughly 35,000 ships. And yes, the hunter plot is on.

Doing Special Forces Spawn; Game Time: 25:49:48
baseSizeFactor = 30
specialDifficultyFactor = Game.Instance.Options.TotalSpecialDifficultyModifier (based on difficulty, homeworld count, handicap) = 6
effectiveAIP = 540
aiTypeMultiplier = (1 + 2 per Special Forces Captain AI) = 1
nonAIPlanetCountMultiplier = Mat.One + ( FInt.FromParts( 0, 020 ) * numberOfSpecialForcesPostsInNonAITerritory ) = 1.45
specialForcesStrengthCap = baseSizeFactor * difficultyFactor * effectiveAIP * aiTypeMultiplier * nonAIPlanetCountMultiplier = 141409.86

p.s, that 141,409 strength? That's roughly 70,000 Mk. 2 bombers and change.

Sounds to me I just found the cause of my stutter / possibly those out of memory exceptions I occasionally had while a CPA was going at the same time.