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

[Draco18s]

That said, those are one-shot enough that this is probably ok.  It's something of a defensive-martyr, although ironically the martyr is generally more useful on defense, and the shieldbearer more useful on offense (though perhaps that's just my perception).

Its because on the defense you're often having to deal with things you can deal with normally through attrition (by might lose some turrets/etc), so something that's unrepairable is NOT viable in this situation.  On offense, they keep your fleet alive long enough to move into position to hit whatever-it-is that-needs-to-die, and you generally don't need them that often to do so.

OTOH, a Martyr can single-handedly take out an cross-planet attack (you don't throw them at standard waves) which don't happen very often and are generally so large as to utterly crush you otherwise.  On offense, there's not usually enough chaff in a system to warrant throwing a martyr at it, and without the protection of something like a force field, it would never get into range of the whatever-it-is that-needs-to-die.

So there you go.

[Faulty Logic]

Implosion may simply be OP.

I don't think spirecraft implosion artillery is OP (made of tissue, finitely replaceable), but implosion (and dire implosion) guardians are.

A mkI implosion guardian has the same implosion rate as a mkIII spirecraft. MkII matches mkIV, mkIV matches mkV, and mkV and Dire are superior to even the adamantite implosion artillery.

Standard guardians should be significantly less powerful than their superweapon counterparts. The dire should almost match a mkIV spirecraft.

[Toranth]

Implosion may simply be OP.

I don't think spirecraft implosion artillery is OP (made of tissue, finitely replaceable), but implosion (and dire implosion) guardians are.

A mkI implosion guardian has the same implosion rate as a mkIII spirecraft. MkII matches mkIV, mkIV matches mkV, and mkV and Dire are superior to even the adamantite implosion artillery.

Standard guardians should be significantly less powerful than their superweapon counterparts. The dire should almost match a mkIV spirecraft.

Implosion weapons

	Spirecraft	Guardian	Guardpost
Mark
I	0.25% DPS	1% DPS	2.67% DPS
II	0.5% DPS	2% DPS	5.33% DPS
III	1% DPS	3% DPS	8% DPS
IV	2% DPS	4% DPS	10.67% DPS
V	4% DPS	5% DPS	13.33% DPS
Dire		50% DPS

Core Implosion Guardpost does 8 shots of 5% per 3 seconds PLUS spawns Implosion Drones that move and do a single volley of 6 shots of 1% damage, putting it at somewhere around 20% DPS, I think.  How many drones does this post spawn at what rate?
Also, the AI versions have more health (at least twice as much per Mark) and better range as well (up to almost 50% better at Mk I).
For those of you to whom these numbers don't quite seem real, look at it this way:  An Armored Golem approaching a Mk V Implosion Guardpost will be at roughly 30% HP before it enters range to attack the Guardpost.  And it will take another 10-15% damage while it kills the Guardpost.


So, yes, Implosion for the human players is underpowered, or Implosion for the AI is seriously overpowered (or both).  Ever run into a Lobber that has 8 Mk IV Implosions GPs plus a few Mk IV Implosion guardians?  Or a Coreworld with 6 Mk V GPs?  All full cap of all possible human starships of all marks I-V can be reduced to 50% or less HP in about 45 seconds.

[Faulty Logic]

So, yes, Implosion for the human players is underpowered, or Implosion for the AI is seriously overpowered (or both).

I definitely don't think human implosion is underpowered. It may even be a bit OP, though it's close to right.

Which means that the AI's is way out of whack.

[Arc-3N-4B]

It is worth considering the fact that implosion guardians shoot 4 times, as well.

EDIT: Unless their damage was updated since whenever the hell the wiki page was updated (wiki page says 1% per mark, 4 shots), in which case ignore this post.

[TechSY730]

Release notes still has wrong values for the OMD

[TechSY730]

Also, I agree that the AIs implosion stuff being generally OP

[keith.lamothe]

Release notes still has wrong values for the OMD

I actually fixed it shortly after Bognor posted about it

Used to have it units of base shot power, now has it in units of DPS.

[Faulty Logic]

It is worth considering the fact that implosion guardians shoot 4 times, as well.

But their reload is 4x longer. This translates to a very slight advantage.

[ZaneWolfe]

And yes, I'm already building dark matter / counter sniper turrets everywhere to prevent multiple copies of a spurned Lyudmila descending on my worlds.

Incoming Patch to Your Game in 23:08:14.

Not the thing one's defenses usually need to adapt to in an RTS.

Is that 23 minutes, or tomorrow?

Tomorrow

Were you able to find the source of the counter attack bug with that save I gave you?

[keith.lamothe]

Were you able to find the source of the counter attack bug with that save I gave you?

I haven't had time to look at it, sorry.  Spent several hours today hunting desyncs (the last of which I think I just nailed, but each testing cycle takes about 10 minutes, etc).  Will make sure the counter-attack-post thing is on my bug list.

[keith.lamothe]

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.

Ok, here's what's going on:

1) Counterattack posts only "scan" from planets where the AI has a unit with "warp-gate-wave" or "warp-gate-full".  Generally this just means either Warp Gates or Warp Gate Guardians.  Though I think AI Eyes also count, they did at one point at least (iirc).

2) If a counterattack post literally cannot find ANY target within range of all planets it can "scan" from, it just picks a random planet out of the total set.

3) In the save you posted there, an awful lot of warp gates have apparently had very unfortunate accidents.  Thus, there's just nowhere for the counterattack post to reach, so it goes random.

If I colonize the neutral "FA Veramente Schifo" planet in the bottom-left quadrant, and then pop one of those counter attack posts, the counter wave goes there.

In other words it's working as designed, you've just left it no valid targets so it's picking invalid ones

[TechSY730]

Quick last minute change request.

Can the resistance base thing (that produces resistance fighters) be "hooked up" to manufactory intra-galactic warp gates, and spire capital ship producers "hooked up" to the starship ones?
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9217



Also, this one is a little more substantial, so it may have to wait for 7.022, but I have found that Spire Archives sometimes do not give their full knowledge to allies.

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14717

[Arc-3N-4B]

For that matter, K-hacking in multiplayer has to be done for each player - costing hacking progress each time. Perhaps make it shared for allies, too?

Also, bringing up the SPIRE CAPITAL SHIPS CAN BE TRANSPORTED thing again. Spire Fleet + Jumpships =

[Kahuna]

Implosion guard posts should be nerfed or removed from the game. Also if I remember correctly all of the new sub commander guard posts have many times more health than normal guard posts. They need to be nerfed so they're at the same level with the old guard posts. Imo the point of the sub commanders is to give the ai more TOOLS not just power. If it was all about ""fun!"" sub commander planets could as well be core planets and have reserves protecting them.