AI War state of the game

[Pluto]

All there needs to be is an option to drop a few Hunter Killer's in each system.  When activated, they move through systems.

Bam and done.  Now you're scared to engage a single system.

Seriously, who invented those vile monstrosities?  Just ran into one today..

[chemical_art]

All there needs to be is an option to drop a few Hunter Killer's in each system.  When activated, they move through systems.

Bam and done.  Now you're scared to engage a single system.

Seriously, who invented those vile monstrosities?

[LaughingThesaurus]

All there needs to be is an option to drop a few Hunter Killer's in each system.  When activated, they move through systems.

Bam and done.  Now you're scared to engage a single system.

Seriously, who invented those vile monstrosities?  Just ran into one today..

All you need to do is murder everybody who wants to play your game.

[Faulty Logic]

I would genuinely support letting each AI have a patrolling HK, which would come whenever an AI planet felt overwhelmed (when it releases all its guard ships).

[Wanderer]

I would genuinely support letting each AI have a patrolling HK, which would come whenever an AI planet felt overwhelmed (when it releases all its guard ships).

Now, THAT'S an Eye I could get behind!

[zoutzakje]

that reminds me that we still do need a H/K AI type...

[Pluto]

Now, THAT'S an Eye I could get behind!

Gotta be honest, that's TMI, man.  We all enjoy the game, but no more details needed, please.

...  More seriously, if there were one on a patrol duty, it'd be interesting if there were one that traveled to systems under attack.  Various levels of difficulty would involve it stopping after the station's destroyed (pressure to kill it quick or get out), or to travel to nearby systems if the station is destroyed (from easy -> hard).

[chemical_art]

H/K's aren't as threatening on defense then on offense. This is partly because turrets get .1 modifiers against them, while your own mobile fleet mostly gets at least 1. Doubly so if you fight them with not much meaningful other threat as well (again, when they are on offense they have a huge support fleet, on defense they have a much smaller escort fleet)

[keith.lamothe]

H/K's aren't as threatening on defense then on offense. This is partly because turrets get .1 modifiers against them, while your own mobile fleet mostly gets at least 1. Doubly so if you fight them with not much meaningful other threat as well (again, when they are on offense they have a huge support fleet, on defense they have a much smaller escort fleet)

Damage modifiers would be more favorable, yes, but I suspect that nearly any player fleet actually caught even mildly-unawares by an H/K will be mostly dead before much of it can get in range.

[Pluto]

Doesn't have to be H/K's, though, either.  Anything that can threaten a fleet would work for that situation.  Put a bit of a time crunch on the player, make the player have to consider how to approach and take the planet.  More simply, a more permanent threat that responds to incursions in varied ways.

However, the fact that damage modifiers work in favor of the fleet means it could actually be an option, and not just 'oh look dead player'.  Wouldn't be the easy difficulty option already, either.

[keith.lamothe]

Anything that can threaten a fleet would work for that situation.  Put a bit of a time crunch on the player, make the player have to consider how to approach and take the planet.  More simply, a more permanent threat that responds to incursions in varied ways.

In what way does the existing special forces not meet this description?  Not protecting all planets?

[Pluto]

In what way does the existing special forces not meet this description?  Not protecting all planets?

In retrospect, it does meet that description fairly well.   The idea behind it can be difficult to see; as the player doesn't always actively see movements of the special forces fleets.

I could say, from my perspective, that they could be more responsive to incursions, but I honestly haven't played anything resembling a genuinely challenging game (from the game's perspective - from mine, easy 7's are still a bit awful), so I don't think my opinion is quite valid.

The idea of a H/K AI is a tad entertaining, though.

[TechSY730]

In what way does the existing special forces not meet this description?  Not protecting all planets?

In retrospect, it does meet that description fairly well.   The idea behind it can be difficult to see; as the player doesn't always actively see movements of the special forces fleets.

I could say, from my perspective, that they could be more responsive to incursions, but I honestly haven't played anything resembling a genuinely challenging game (from the game's perspective - from mine, easy 7's are still a bit awful), so I don't think my opinion is quite valid.

The idea of a H/K AI is a tad entertaining, though.

Increasing their responsiveness might be nice.

One way this could be done is to let the special forces be split into N different groups, each group could choose their own special forces guard post to gather at, usually across different planets. This will, on average, increase responsiveness, even though each "wave" of them may be weaker (which is a good reason not to set N too high).


H/K on dynamic defense is also intriuging. Maybe allow the AI to spend a large number of their "points" in their strategic reserve to make a (or serveral, if it has enough) H/Ks.
On higher difficulties, allowing them to "spend" a bunch to put a few in special forces may be cool too, though there would need to be a galactic cap for number of H/Ks in special forces.
Heck, why not find some sort of trigger that will prompt AIs to stuff one to a few H/Ks in threat fleet, if the player starts to really annoy the AI (and the difficulty is high enough)?

[chemical_art]

In what way does the existing special forces not meet this description?  Not protecting all planets?

I could say, from my perspective, that they could be more responsive to incursions, but I honestly haven't played anything resembling a genuinely challenging game (from the game's perspective - from mine, easy 7's are still a bit awful), so I don't think my opinion is quite valid.

You can increase the responsiveness somewhat, but unless you go out of your way in neutering special forces they eventually build up to mortally wound, if not outright destroy, the player fleet if the player hangs around a defended special forces world for too long. Increasing the responsiveness too much leads to 10K mk II units camping worlds (to use a recent example). I don't think that is desirable either.

What I am somewhat sensing is a desired for a varied special forces response. That in addition to piecemail fleet defenses, there could be larger craft from starships all the way up to H/K's.

[TechSY730]

In what way does the existing special forces not meet this description?  Not protecting all planets?

I could say, from my perspective, that they could be more responsive to incursions, but I honestly haven't played anything resembling a genuinely challenging game (from the game's perspective - from mine, easy 7's are still a bit awful), so I don't think my opinion is quite valid.

You can increase the responsiveness somewhat, but unless you go out of your way in neutering special forces they eventually build up to mortally wound, if not outright destroy, the player fleet if the player hangs around a defended special forces world for too long. Increasing the responsiveness too much leads to 10K mk II units camping worlds (to use a recent example). I don't think that is desirable either.

What I am somewhat sensing is a desired for a varied special forces response. That in addition to piecemail fleet defenses, there could be larger craft from starships all the way up to H/K's.

There's an idea. For the special forces spawn "pulses" it could use an exo-like logic for choosing which ships to spawn. Of course, they would get much, much less points to work with given the same AIP levels and game time, but it would still be some variety. This would also allow for hunter killers in it, if the AI is getting really big "pulses" (from high AIP or something) and if the AI decides to spend almost all to all of their "pulse" into one ship.

The special forces they get by reinforcement pulses to special forces guard posts would keep the same behavior though, thus making fleet ships still the most represented ship class in the special forces, which is fine.

(My earlier suggestion of allowing special forces to split up into multiple groups still stands, though)

[shameless_plug]Actually, this seems really similar to my other idea of a modifier to have the AI use an exo-wave like composition logic for waves. [/shameless_plug]