AI War Beta 7.047 "Beltsander of Worlds MkIV" Released!

[Aklyon]

Nooo Heavy Beam Cannons have per planet cap

Huh?

[keith.lamothe]

Nooo Heavy Beam Cannons have per planet cap

What?  I don't recall changing them in that way.

Or are you saying that you wish that they were per-planet-cap?

Aaaannd new information about the line placing bug. Apparently it's ALSO as you said Keith.. in some angles at least. When placing 3 lines.. the outer lines collide with the one in the center.

Goodness Line-Place must hate me.  I may have to resort to putting threats of physical violence in the code, to persuade it to be more accommodating.

[ZaneWolfe]

Nooo Heavy Beam Cannons have per planet cap

What?  I don't recall changing them in that way.

Or are you saying that you wish that they were per-planet-cap?

While I would LOVE to see them be per planet, I can't see that being balanced in any way at all. The only way to make it balanced would be to hit them with some serious nerfs, because they are pretty on the line as far as OP goes. However they are too much fun to nerf. So, I'm going to say, please do NOT make these per planet, because it would either make them WAY TOO OVERPOWERED, or you would nerf them too much. And if you nerf my HBCs I will find you, and it will be messy.

Also,

Speaking of Flak turrets - The old Mk I-III progress had 5, 6, and 7 hits per shot.  Do Mk IV and Mk V hit 8 and 9 respectively, or still 7?
Would it be possible to fit that number somewhere into the stats or description of the turret?

This is a very good question.

[Kahuna]

Nooo Heavy Beam Cannons have per planet cap

Huh?

Ops I forgot the "don't".
So no they do not have per planet cap. It would have been fun to have a Mark IV HBC on every planet but that could be way too imbalanced.

[Qatu]

Hello, just checking:

Now when determining whether a spire city has its neighbors cleared of warp-gate stuff (and thus eligible to grow to stage 2) :
-    Nomad neighbors are ignored.
-    A city on a nomad is always considered to have sufficiently cleared the warp-gate stuff away.
-    Thanks to vinco and Qatu for inspiring this change.

 This mean if i put spire city on nomad i can grow it right away and get the signal for next shard without capturing further planets? If so I think I want to try to put spire on nomad again, should be very fun suddenly and not as silly.

[keith.lamothe]

Hello, just checking:

Now when determining whether a spire city has its neighbors cleared of warp-gate stuff (and thus eligible to grow to stage 2) :
-    Nomad neighbors are ignored.
-    A city on a nomad is always considered to have sufficiently cleared the warp-gate stuff away.
-    Thanks to vinco and Qatu for inspiring this change.

 This mean if i put spire city on nomad i can grow it right away and get the signal for next shard without capturing further planets? If so I think I want to try to put spire on nomad again, should be very fun suddenly and not as silly.

Yes, that's the intent

The tradeoff is that the nomad city probably can't play a regular role in your defenses, and its own defense will be more complex.

[Qatu]

Ok thanks for change this looks much more fun, when i start new game later this week ill try this out and report.

[Vyndicu]

I just had a strange thought. Most of weapon we have available usually comes in several flavors like neinzul railpod, fallen spire rail modules, etc... You get the idea.

Except for just one weapon (actually AI has other but player doesn't) botnet golem. No I don't meant the instant-turned-to-zombie thingy. Just generating more zombies that service as cannon fooder on purpose.

I found that usually zombies are useless in of themselves even if you used an "insert OP ship" against the AI. They don't do anything in particular well except being immune to further reclaim/zombies. Usually they can be great early game if RNG is nice to you and give you a botnet golem next door.

But by homeworld assault phase they are just at most suicide (like how dyson sphere pop one by one at wormhole exit to engage AI ships do now).

Is there ANY performance/programming reason to restrict generating of zombies ship to a rare that may not exist on map gen? If you are worried about performance reason you can give those zombies a "self-decay" over time like neinzul has while keeping botnet's zombies as they are now to differential them.

[Aklyon]

Technically you can use the insanity inducers on a neinzul champ to make all the zombies you want, but Its not exactly durable-ish like the golem.

[Vyndicu]

Technically you can use the insanity inducers on a neinzul champ to make all the zombies you want, but Its not exactly durable-ish like the golem.

Oh right I almost all but forgotten about that module. It only service to further prove my point about sources of zombies being very limited and not effective. Because you either have to get a good RNG mapgen if you don't have champion or keep champion forever in neinzul with all insanity inducers modules. Both method have questionable success rate (champion module unlock is not reliable plus mapgen for botnet).

[Kahuna]

Actually Zombies are never useless. You can control their movement with redirect rally posts, gather thousands of them and launch your own CPAs or use them to stop/tank AI attacks.

[Vyndicu]

Actually Zombies are never useless. You can control their movement with redirect rally posts, gather thousands of them and launch your own CPAs or use them to stop/tank AI attacks.

I thought the intent behind how they work is that player has no control whatsoever? Let alone using redirect rally points...

[TechSY730]

Actually Zombies are never useless. You can control their movement with redirect rally posts, gather thousands of them and launch your own CPAs or use them to stop/tank AI attacks.

I thought the intent behind how they work is that player has no control whatsoever? Let alone using redirect rally points...

The rally points have a big neon sign with an arrow on it pointing in the direction of their order with the words "Brains this way" under it.

[wyvern83]

I never would have thought of doing that. I'll have to try it sometime.

[Bognor]

I thought it was a bug that Dyson Gatlings sometimes obeyed redirect posts.  Wouldn't the same be true for zombies?  Do they actually obey them consistently and reliably?