AI War Beta 7.019-7.020 "Oops MkII" Released!

[TechSY730]

I'm not a dev, so I don't know for sure.

But it seems that the AI can now get at least one starship or guardian no matter how "negative" their reinforcement budget (even starship/guardian reserved portion of it) per each planet considered. This is similar to the old guardian rule, but the problem is that starships are (intentionally) tougher than guardians. Also, since the logic allows the AI to buy any starship as long as that part of the budget is positive, that means it can still buy a, say, zenith starship when doesn't even have enough positive cost to buy a fleet starship.

This used to be a big issue with things like fleet ships (especially the low cap ones), until "debt" (and surplus) was tracked cumulatively across planets per reinforcement cycle. However, this doesn't seem to be happening for the starship/guardian part of the budget, letting them get tons of "free" starships, and having the debt for them erased at the end of each planet, instead of at the end of the reinforcement cycle. This was exactly the issue that used to let the AI get way too many low cap fleet ships earlier on, and now it seems to be happening for starships/guardians.


For example, even if the AI can't even afford a Fleet starship with its starship budget, it can still buy a zenith starship as the budget is positive, which is fine. The AI is allowed to "borrow" from reinforcement budget it will get later on in the reinforcement cycle; it just can't buy things while there is a net debt (aka, the current balance < 0) The problem is that by the time the next planet rolls around, the starship/guardian "debt" is erased by the time the next planet is considered, aka, the AI doesn't really have to borrow anything at all from the future parts of the reinforcement cycle for starships, unlike how it is for fleet ships. So, on the next planet, the AI could just buy another zenith starship, as the negative budget goes away by the time it is finished with a planet.



Ow...


This logic wasn't so bad when it was just guardians, but starships are one tier up.


Also, I lol'ed when I saw this.
"this planet is adjacent to a human homeworld, so can't pick guardians". With this new logic, it only seems reasonable that both guardians AND starship be disallowed from planets adjacent to human homeworlds.

[ZaneWolfe]

Here you go Keith. This save is about the Warp Counter Attack bug I mentioned before. Squad 2, the massive FS Fleet, is deep in AI space, and moving into range on a Warp Counter Attack Guardpost. When I kill this post it almost always picks a planet well in my backyard, and WAY out of range for any counter attack wave to reach. There is another Warp Counter Attack Guardpost on the planet, and in the few cases where killing the first didn't trigger into my backyard, killing that one did.

[TechSY730]

I'm going to mantis the bug I posted  earlier in this thread.

[Faulty Logic]

Golem Rebalance (mainly buffs)

Those sound awesome. Thanks!

Except:

The Hive Golem and Botnet Golems were also left alone (aside from the self-attrition change) as they each seem appropriately powerful in their roles.

The Botnet is made of tissue, and requires getting close to the enemy.

And the poor hive golem:

In addition to being made of wet tissue (48 million melts with the kind of target priority it has), the full swarm of 500 is unimpressive. It will sometimes manage to take out a mkII system. Against a fairly standard mkIII: no noticeable impact. And that's without gravity or fortresses. Against exos or even decent sized waves, the swarm simply evaporates, doing negligible damage.

I propose:

Botnet golem health => 250 million
Hive golem health => 150 million
Wasp health => 2 million
Wasp attack => 500k

[TechSY730]

I'm going to mantis the bug I posted  earlier in this thread.

Done:

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14662 (14662: Remains rebuilders still sometimes get "stuck" on lower priority things)

[Aklyon]

I'd second Faulty. Botnet may be the master of mass reclaimation, but its not exactly durable after a point if you want to do so.

[TechSY730]

Removing the self attrition? IDK. That was a "twist" I liked with Golems.

If it really is that controversial, maybe replace one of the medium golem's "costs" (high energy OR +AIP on activation) with self-attrition?


Finally, I agree on keeping new "baselines" for golem balance consistent across golems, which would imply making sure even things like the hive golem and the botnet "psuedo-golem" are buffed in similar ways to the other.

[amethyst]

Do Ion Cannons not leave any scrap from ships they destroy? As far as I can tell, I get little to no orbiting scrap on a planet that has a MkIV Ion. Is this intentional?

[keith.lamothe]

Do Ion Cannons not leave any scrap from ships they destroy? As far as I can tell, I get little to no orbiting scrap on a planet that has a MkIV Ion. Is this intentional?

No, insta kills should leave salvage.  Can you confirm that it's not?  You could monitor the amount of orbiting scrap on the metal tooltip while the ion's shooting lots of fleet ships.  Of course you may need to move/stand-down lots of stuff to have it just be the ion.

[keith.lamothe]

Botnet golem health => 250 million
Hive golem health => 150 million
Wasp health => 2 million

All fine with me, putting them in now.

Wasp attack => 500k

This I'm not so sure about.  500k is more than 3x their current value, and a full swarm currently has a DPS of 140 million (over 10 times even the Arty golem).  For this reason I suspect simply making the swarm more durable (2 million being over 13x their current 250k) will put it in an much better position.  I mean, goodness, properly timed the thing could currently kill almost an entire Spire DN per second, though perhaps armor and such would impede that.

[Toranth]

My memory may be faulty, but I just encountered something odd.
I equipped a Champion with all Nanosubverters (Mk V, of course) in order to reclaim a bunch of Mk IV ships from the last CPA, but I didn't manage to get even a single one.  In fact, even when I removed all other weapons in the entire system (except the Champion's main gun), every single Mk IV ship died instead of being reclaimed.  Fighters, bombers, frigates, microfighters, polarizers, gatlings, shieldbearers... all of them died.  Insanity Inducers worked fine to zombify those units.
Eventually a reinforcement pulse arrived, and a bunch of Mk II fleetships spawned - and I reclaimed all of them.

After a bit more experimentation, I discovered that I could only reclaim Mk IV units if I currently controlled an Advanced Factory. 
Now, I know about the inability to reclaim units if you are already at the cap, or if you have not enough energy, but I do not remember a restriction on reclaiming Mk IVs being linked to the Fac IV.  I checked the Wiki, and I checked the patch notes, and don't see anything.
Is this new?  Or have I just forgotten?

[Aklyon]

it sounds unusual to me, but I couldn't say if its new.

[Faulty Logic]

500k is more than 3x their current value

Their current attack is 280,000. Also, they will never actually get their full dps.
But I'd be fine with seeing how the more durable swarm does.

[Arc-3N-4B]

So, has anyone noticed that the Imperial Spire ships (ie. spire frigate/destroyer/cruiser/battleship/dreadnaught) are decidedly not transport-immune?

One transport can hold an entire Spire Fleet.

Three Mk5 Jumpships can do the same, and can do it much better (if you have titanite).

Teleporting a DD, two BBs, 5 CAs, 10 DDs, and 32 FFs, using two Mk5 Jumpships, to literally any point on the map, regardless of tachyon, forever (assuming not AI HW, or splash damage killing them or counterspy or what have you)?

...yeah.

On a side note, we have hybrids on, I think 2/10 with advanced hybrid 2/10, and the super hybrid spawned and...didn't move. At all. Until we attacked it, of course.

Furthermore, the Trader appeared to blink out of existence for a few minutes, only to reappear somewhere else.

Furthermore, my partner The Hunter reportedly spotted a wormhole guardpost teleport from one side of a wormhole to the other side of the same wormhole (er, that is to say, on the same planet - it was allegedly to the right of the wormhole, and is now to the left of the same wormhole).

Furthermore, we've encountered a few desyncs. Can't remember what we were doing when they happened. Attaching them now.

On a side note, The Hunter is killing tens of thousands of AI units with precisely nine units: Mobile Space Docks, which are building nothing but younglings. Two hundred thousand or so, to date.

(Note - we are doing 7/7 Spire Hammer/[Random: Turtle] Neinzul Youngster (Is this the name?)/[Random: Vanilla])

Also attached, for anyone wanting to take a look: Our latest save. Note: All hybrids dead, as well as their spawners. Mk5 Jumpship + Spirefleet = Unhappy AI. Notable: The Hunter built, uh, every single ion cannon successfully. Including the Mk5. It's all finished.

We really should have cranked up the intensity of the hybrids.

[TechSY730]

We got a desync too:
http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,15445