Reprisal waves are too big compared to normal waves

[vigilo confido]

I have a save with an insane level 1 reprisal wave. I was only trying to use grav drains to protect golems from blades.

[keith.lamothe]

I have a save with an insane level 1 reprisal wave. I was only trying to use grav drains to protect golems from blades.

Ok, thanks

I ran it and the reprisal was a grand total of 17,790 strength.

The next normal wave set announced was 2 waves from the same player (if there are multiple human HWs/players it sends two waves totalling the strength of the wave it was going to send) totalling 6,795 strength.

Reprisal alert level 1 is displayed when the reprisal wave's strength would be 2x a normal wave's (13,590 in this case), and Reprisal alert level 2 is announced when the reprisal wave's strength would be 4x a normal wave's (27,180 in this case), so the observed overall strength is within expected bounds.

Potentially I could have reprisal level 1 start at 1x normal wave strength, but that doesn't seem wise as it pretty much guarantees that it would not be a significant defensive event for the player: if you can't handle the normal wave sizes you're probably already losing, and if you can the reprisal isn't going to be much of a problem unless its timing is coincidentally unpleasant.

Possibly something like 1.5x normal wave strength would help, dunno.

And possibly it needs to stop splitting its waves in the multi-HW case, as that probably makes them feel pretty weak, relative to other stuff.

[Lord Of Nothing]

The ingame tooltip is a little outdated in that case- it states that reprisal 1 is equivalent to a normal set of waves, and doubling from there, not 2x a normal set.

[orzelek]

Actual log generated by game is correct although it doesn't mention directly the reprisal values.

[TechSY730]

1.5x min for reprisal level one does seem a bit more reasonable, maybe have the check occur less often in return or something (to give more time for back to back deaths to build up)

However, 4000 is quite a bit bigger than 2*800, or even 2*2*800.

Didn't someone say that multi HW and normal waves are a bit weird (smaller than intended) right now or something?

[keith.lamothe]

However, 4000 is quite a bit bigger than 2*800, or even 2*2*800.

2*2*800 = 3200, which is in the same ballpark as 4000.  It depends on the units being used, though.  If you're going by ship count there's going to be a lot more variation than if you're going by strength.

Didn't someone say that multi HW and normal waves are a bit weird (smaller than intended) right now or something?

There were suspicions of said but in investigating the case I found it was multiplying by the number of HWs properly.

[TechSY730]

Hmm, maybe its because reprisal waves don't get split into N waves, but normal waves do? (Where N=number of homeworlds) That certainly makes the jump "feel" much bigger than it really is.

Maybe make reprisal waves follow the same split logic normal waves do in multi HW cases? (Which may very well be the same world both times sometimes)

Though from what others are saying, it seems that maybe 2x may be a bit too jarring even in single player. Maybe 1.75x with the split wave change suggested above?

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, maybe its because reprisal waves don't get split into N waves, but normal waves do?

N=2 in 7.044, since a while ago.

But in the next version it will not split the waves half the time.

[TechSY730]

Ah that will help. The issue was the apparant discrepancy. An increase of percieved size of normal waves in multi HW will help out.

Also, was only the warning threshold, or the actual wave threshold reduced to 1.5x for reprisal waves? Even if it is only the warning level, I would be happy with that. Previously, we got almost no warning before the wave hit.

[keith.lamothe]

Also, was only the warning threshold, or the actual wave threshold reduced to 1.5x for reprisal waves? Even if it is only the warning level, I would be happy with that. Previously, we got almost no warning before the wave hit.

The warning threshold for level 1 uses the same logic as the actual threshold at which one may be launched, so both

It checks every 3 minutes after that AI's salvage becomes > 0, so the warning time you have from the alert to the announcement varies from effectively zero seconds to 180 seconds.  But after that you still have the time of the wave announcement before the actual spawn.