AI War Beta 7.029-7.031 "Extermination Protocol MkII" Released!

[Faulty Logic]

Apparently I'm in the minority here, but I like the sound of it and think we should give it an actual game or two. They prevent any chokepoint from letting you completely ignore AI offensive efforts, while still letting chokes provide a massive advantage. Chokes would still defend against CPAs and exos just fine.

before whipping out the "rule breaksing cheese" that is outside the llayers' control.

It isn't outside player control. You can just kill the threat building it, and the problem is solved. Or kill the structure once constructed.

[ZaneWolfe]

I've not got a chance to test this, but if the warp is only 1+tech level, what happens if there is no world behind your choke for them to jump to, IE there is 7 or more neutral worlds between your choke and the rest of your territory?

[Draco18s]

I've not got a chance to test this, but if the warp is only 1+tech level, what happens if there is no world behind your choke for them to jump to, IE there is 7 or more neutral worlds between your choke and the rest of your territory?

I imagine they warp into the neutral planet and continue being free threat.  Only now they're behind your front lines.

[NickAragua]

I was actually fine with the old school counterattack posts. I'm also fine with the new mechanic, although it's a little annoying to have to periodically go in and clear warp relays. On the other hand, it's usually a great excuse to take my fleet ball and zap a bunch of free-floating AI guys - which I don't do often enough, so they often pile up and take out my un/poorly defended outlying worlds. The part where stuff can warp in wherever it pleases is ok - I play on 'realistic' maps, so carving out a chunk of the map where I have real "outer" and "inner" worlds usually costs more AI progress than it's worth.  My territory usually looks like a convoluted snake with "dots" here and there.

I do like Toranth's and winge's idea 1b, sending actual *threat* on waves. Load up the warp relay like a transport or a carrier, then, a couple of minutes to "spool up the drives". Meanwhile, the player gets an alert and has the two minutes or whatever to "do unto others before they do unto you". If you ignore it,  BAM, right in the rear echelon.

[relmz32]

I really did not like the old Counterattack post thing, and I actually like the warp relay as a tool for the AI's threat as a way of bypassing choke points.

If we want to go a route where the AI gets to use something along the lines of a batch of assault transports (High Hp, radar dampening, carrier-style weapon systems, potentially cloaking) that attritions to death after a jump or two outside of supply, I think that could work too.

Oh, or a batch of decoys, followed by the cloaked Assault Transports! Yay!

[Kahuna]

Apparently I'm in the minority here, but I like the sound of it

Well that makes two of us. Though I think it would be good if the construction could be stopped and higher difficulties it could construct much faster.

[Faulty Logic]

According to the patch notes, you should be able to stop it:

If there is no longer any waiting threat strength on a planet, its accumulation will quickly diminish towards zero (at -1000 per second, to be exact).

[Kahuna]

Ah so you have to kill the threat to stop the construction. Right.

[Fleet Unity]

The Warp Relays seem to be balanced as you can stop its construction if you destroy the threat or most of it on the planet its being built on or just destroy it once it spawns. Now that I got used to it I think it is fine it adds an extra challenge sure but it can be countered just the same. Now that I think about it just making it spawn more threat may make it much harder than it is now to kill all of that extra threat off. For its warping ability I know it can skip over planets I think, not sure when I got the warning I tried to destroy the threat before it was built but as it does not cost AIP to kill its seems balanced anyway (also I was only playing on difficulty 7 not sure how it works on 8+) if its changed to just spawn more threat that seems that its going to be harder to counter I am not sure what would be worse having it warp the threat to some of your planets or just spawning more threat that you have to destroy before they attack your planet. Its too new as of now to be really sure it will take awhile to test it out. I guess all I am saying is as of now it feels pretty balanced and if its changed it will either make it harder or easier or somewhat in the middle. Like I said I have never let it get built yet but I only got the warning a few times next time I will let it finish and see what it can really do.

[DrFranknfurter]

I'd like the warp relay, in whatever form to first spawn a half-built version so you actually have something to shoot at. Not sure about the proposed changes without some hands-on testing.

Just playing a diff 8 game, 4 HW, at 90 AIP. I had a warp relay build next to my bottleneck, tried to clear out the threat or kill the relay when it spawned and managed to cause a reprisal level 4 farcasted/projected/deep striking 3k cloaked ships into my safe territory just as the relay died... had my first successful use of a mk3 lightning warhead to help with that (etherjets thankfully not spire stealth battleships). The normal waves seem a little nastier too, having 4x 800+ ships per wave, split into two groups 30s apart. Odd thing is the cross planet attack released a mere 600 ships *edit* 428 ships, less than 1/4 of a normal wave... had two lost games before I managed to survive a little longer using warheads. The fallen spire exo's aren't too bad compared to these standard waves.

Just wondering if it was a combination of a few updates all adding to difficulty... not complaining about it, had quite a lot of fun dying but I'm sure it wasn't so harsh just a month ago. How has everyone else been fairing? (P.S. up to 143 AIP due to civilian leaders + warheads + trying to take ground for spire cities... I wonder how long I'll live)

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, thanks for the feedback.

So some people like the idea, and some people really don't.  I suspect practice would be less onerous than theory but I think what I'll do here is move the relays (as-is, without the spawning-more-threat thing) over to an AI Plot too.

Sure, if someone leaves both counter posts and warp relays off, they're getting an easier defensive situation than I'm targeting balance-wise.  But if they're skilled enough at the game for that to matter they've probably also figured out how to turn nobs and tweak sliders in the lobby to give them the challenge they want.

And perhaps we can later expand the warp relays plot with higher intensity settings that add effects like "spawns more threat to join that threatball".

Thoughts?

[Lord Of Nothing]

I would definitely approve of that- I personally quite like both, but both mechanics are rather rule-bendy, and each one has a type of game it really penalises- besides: Choice rules. Leave the plot on by default, though- having neither on should be a conscious choice, IMHO, as it does seem likely to lead to bad habits.

[keith.lamothe]

Leave the plot on by default, though- having neither on should be a conscious choice, IMHO, as it does seem likely to lead to bad habits.

Plots need to be off by default, I'm afraid.  It could technically default to on but then it would be the only plot to do so, and usually such deviations attract endless requests for consistency (not unreasonably)

Alternatively I could put it in the same zone as the Dire Guardian Lairs (with the various optional ship types) but that doesn't support variable intensity (not that I'd be using it for now, but...).  Actually I'm inclined to move the DGL's over to a plot at some point too, with an intensity slider so that people could get them as scary as they're made out to be (they're actually really tame right now), but it wouldn't be like that by default.

[chemical_art]

Unfortunately I don't have practical experience regarding these warp relays, so I have to default to my usual stances.

Adding in additional threat with the ai paying anything. bad.

the ai using existing threat more efficiently? good

[relmz32]

So some people like the idea, and some people really don't.  I suspect practice would be less onerous than theory but I think what I'll do here is move the relays (as-is, without the spawning-more-threat thing) over to an AI Plot too.

...

And perhaps we can later expand the warp relays plot with higher intensity settings that add effects like "spawns more threat to join that threatball".

Thoughts?

I love having more AI Plot options, I like the warp relays, and I like not having to have counterattack GPs.
win-win-win