AI War Beta 7.023-4 "So A Carrier And A MkIII Lightning Warhead Walk Into A Bar

[keith.lamothe]

And that's probably the biggest problem - Nemesis Threatfleet are immensely powerful.  Without caps, it can quickly rise to the point where no non-HW/non-Chokepoint can possibly survive, and at that point it's also almost impossible to destroy the Threatfleet.  They're like Hybrids, but more powerful and without any facilities to destroy to weaken them.

I agree that that particular mechanic is problematic.  I don't like capping things like that, either.  In the sense of "it grows to X, and then all the extra stuff that would go there just vanishes".  Perhaps if they had a relatively low cap, but once they hit the cap that extra strength went towards charging the next exo.

That might be an improvement, but I'm not sure it would be a step in the right direction.

The "Wait until 200 Shadow Power to respawn" helped prevent the HW-defense spamming of Champions that was silly-powerful, but it isn't enough to actual cost the player anything...
Maybe switch from 'respawn' to replacing a dead Champion with a "Broken Champion" unit - Permacloaked and indestructable, blind, and without weapons, with half normal speed.  You'd need to bring it back to Human territory to be repaired and restored to the normal unit again.  Self-regen on friendly systems, or repair at cost for faster recovery?  I dunno.

It could drop the broken artifact, and you have to bring that back home.  But is that fun?

It could just take a full shadow capacitor charge to respawn.  Or possibly 5x or 10x or 50x the time that would be.  But is that fun?

The more I think about it, the more it seems this is the most important point - How do you counter something that is disposable?

If a warrior comes at you with a sword, you might try to disarm him.  But if you cannot separate the sword from the man, then you have to break the hand that wields it.

That's why the response goes after the player, not the champion.

[Winge]

And that's probably the biggest problem - Nemesis Threatfleet are immensely powerful.  Without caps, it can quickly rise to the point where no non-HW/non-Chokepoint can possibly survive, and at that point it's also almost impossible to destroy the Threatfleet.  They're like Hybrids, but more powerful and without any facilities to destroy to weaken them.

If a warrior comes at you with a sword, you might try to disarm him.  But if you cannot separate the sword from the man, then you have to break the hand that wields it.

That's why the response goes after the player, not the champion.

Point taken.  Although there is a big difference between using a sword and nuking him from orbit.  It sounds like the AI is a bit overzealous, and leans towards the latter...

That brings up one possibility--what about the Nemesis response being a bit more like Hybrids?  Have the Nemesis 'build' structures that are a threat to the player, but that can be countered by destroying them.  This shouldn't happen too often (otherwise, it just becomes a game of clearing out threat, which is already very frequent), but it should be dangerous if the AI can complete construction.

[Toranth]

On a different front, it's been a long time since I played with Hybrids - but have they always been able to get Starships as drones?



Yes, that Zeva is following around the Hybrid, moving at speed 105, etc.  Its behavior says 'Planetary Roamer', though.

[keith.lamothe]

On a different front, it's been a long time since I played with Hybrids - but have they always been able to get Starships as drones?

Yes, that Zeva is following around the Hybrid, moving at speed 105, etc.  Its behavior says 'Planetary Roamer', though.

Interesting.  Yea, there's nothing in the hybrid rules that prevents it from picking a bonus starship.  It won't pick non-bonus starships, though, and there are certain bonus types it's forbidden to pick (notably, Spire Blade Spawners).  Is it spamming zevestators in this way?

[Toranth]

On a different front, it's been a long time since I played with Hybrids - but have they always been able to get Starships as drones?

Yes, that Zeva is following around the Hybrid, moving at speed 105, etc.  Its behavior says 'Planetary Roamer', though.

Interesting.  Yea, there's nothing in the hybrid rules that prevents it from picking a bonus starship.  It won't pick non-bonus starships, though, and there are certain bonus types it's forbidden to pick (notably, Spire Blade Spawners).  Is it spamming zevestators in this way?

I'd say somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the Hybrids are picking a Zeva.  Oddly, there is only 1 Hybrid Spawner in the entire galaxy, though, so I haven't seen that many Hybrids.  My kill count says... 12 Hybrids killed, 5 Zevas killed.
It's not a big problem (so far), it's just amusing that the Hybrid is commanding a unit that has 8 times the HP and 20 times the firepower

So a Hybrid could theoretically get Spire Corvettes?  What about Protector Starships?

[keith.lamothe]

It's not a big problem (so far), it's just amusing that the Hybrid is commanding a unit that has 8 times the HP and 20 times the firepower

Pinky and the Brain, perhaps.

So a Hybrid could theoretically get Spire Corvettes?

Yup.  Actually the super hybrids specifically prioritize those.

What about Protector Starships?

Haha, that could be GG in a hurry.

No, I think the AI can't get Prot-stars at all.  Wouldn't be terrible if they only had the shield modules, but with the counter-shots, and given the usual numeric ratio between human and AI...

[tadrinth]

Hrm, given that the AI can now get Riot Starships that have a fixed module loadout, it seems like the AI could be given Protector Starships that run only forcefields.  Though that might only work if they're an SF bonus like the Riots, and I wouldn't expect protectors to be as !!fun!! for the SF as the riots.  It would be pretty funny if the SF got protector starships to go with it's Riots, especially if their version of the protector's speed was reduced to match the Riot Control ships so they stick together. 

[Toranth]

Since we're talking about minor bugs (in a different thread):

Bouncer AI Guardposts on Homeworld are only Mk IV
Grey Spire, Neinzul Mourner, and Shattered Pillar Zenith foldout from Alt-Progress cannot be powered off
Warheads cannot directly attack
Champion-produced Drones cannot be scrapped

[Qatu]

 In my current game (8.6everything/special forces captain x 2) the AI definitely has used protector starships, and they had non forcefield modules. Loading up the save I can't find any right now but when I'll continue the game, if/when I see them again I'll post picture+save.

[ZaneWolfe]

I know this thread is moving fairly fast, but can I get an answer to my previously posted questions?

[TechSY730]

Quick note in the release notes.

The AI salvage buff entry still mentions a sub-linear relationship, which isn't slated as a salvage nerf anymore.

[Zeyi]

One thing I've wondered about the champion response is whether or not the AI should be using shadow frigates in the first place.. I thought the one the humans had was a unique discovery - I always considered it odd that the AI has 100s, and not only that but they haven't worked out there's can follow you into the nebula wormholes. What if to tone down alt-response you just made it a normal exo and instead of nemesis threat fleet allow for the seeding of something else as the nemesis.

One other thing I was thinking about, but this is just spit-balling ideas was whether or not to have a "Shadow Controller" on the homeworld for the alt-response, make it essentially invincible but give it some kind of HP like attribute that grows as your champion does (eg, 1 knowledge = 1 point here) and the AI response can target this instead. If they reduce the points to zero there could be a number of consequences: your champion is disabled for x minutes or the champion loses a random upgrade as a couple of suggestions.


One thing on hacking, since the AI is after-all an all powerful computer network, would it not be appropriate for it to have some kind of response in kind to hacking? Now whether this would be on by default, an AI type, a counter hacker plot in the lobby I'm not sure, it would be up to the community to balance but I do think its a mechanic which would add some interesting results:

A Percentage chance to disable turrets, specific ships, shields, etc on waves. Temporarily disabling facilities, disrupting supply on planets. (Obviously the potential is as extensive as the options available to human hacking)

[Draco18s]

One thing on hacking, since the AI is after-all an all powerful computer network, would it not be appropriate for it to have some kind of response in kind to hacking? Now whether this would be on by default, an AI type, a counter hacker plot in the lobby I'm not sure, it would be up to the community to balance but I do think its a mechanic which would add some interesting results:

A Percentage chance to disable turrets, specific ships, shields, etc on waves. Temporarily disabling facilities, disrupting supply on planets. (Obviously the potential is as extensive as the options available to human hacking)

Basically, turn on Beachheads.

[Fleet Unity]

Just was reading patch notes for the “Normal champion nemesis logic now includes the champ exos implemented for alt-nemesis.” Lets say if you have four or so champions in play are they going to be sending over 40 or more nemesis’s champions at your ever so many minutes and if you do not like this change is there anyway to turn it off so its not on in every game with the nebula missions? It would be nice if there was an option to turn it off if you did not want it in every game you play.

[keith.lamothe]

Just was reading patch notes for the “Normal champion nemesis logic now includes the champ exos implemented for alt-nemesis.” Lets say if you have four or so champions in play are they going to be sending over 40 or more nemesis’s champions at your ever so many minutes and if you do not like this change is there anyway to turn it off so its not on in every game with the nebula missions? It would be nice if there was an option to turn it off if you did not want it in every game you play.

Extra champs only give +33% each, rather than the old +100%, so it may not be as bad as you're thinking.

But in general the AI's response to normal champions is way too weak to even begin to offset the power it gives you, that's why the exos were added into it.  If this turns out to be too brutal it will of course be adjusted