AI War state of the game

[Lancefighter]

I believe dist nodes are 20%? not sure offhand.
theyre also 200k of each to 300k of each, and 1/2 that on a loss (potential 300k gain, worst case 150k loss).

Honestly, 150k isnt *that* bad to lose..

[zoutzakje]

just wait till your resources are completely drained before you open a dist node. Yeah sometimes you get a resource penalty from those, but that's just the risk of opening one.

[KDR_11k]

BTW, how much impact do dist nodes make? They cost AIP after all but has there been a cost inflation along with all the other inflations the game has suffered or do they still hold up?

[Wingflier]

BTW, how much impact do dist nodes make? They cost AIP after all but has there been a cost inflation along with all the other inflations the game has suffered or do they still hold up?

Personally I think we need to get rid of the 20% chance of them to fail.  The +1 AIP Cost is price enough without making it luck-based, and would solve some early-game economy problems.

[TechSY730]

BTW, how much impact do dist nodes make? They cost AIP after all but has there been a cost inflation along with all the other inflations the game has suffered or do they still hold up?

IMO, when they do give instead of take away, they still hold up on average.
Sure, there is a chance you won't get all that much, but it is decently small, and even in the worst but still positive case, it is enough to help out.

[Aeson]

BTW, how much impact do dist nodes make? They cost AIP after all but has there been a cost inflation along with all the other inflations the game has suffered or do they still hold up?

I think that distribution nodes are alright as is. If I run my economy into the ground, they offer me a decent chance of getting enough resources to finish (or at least further) whatever project I'm working on that ran my economy into the ground, and paying +1 AIP for that isn't terrible. Distribution centers are also very helpful for finishing up an expensive project more quickly (Zenith Trader structures, or Spire City Hubs, or full rebuilds of your fleet), as a distribution center provides enough resources for perhaps 10% completion on several of the Zenith Trader's toys and a similar amount on a Spire City hub, and might pay for a fairly substantial number of fleet ships.

Personally I think we need to get rid of the 20% chance of them to fail.  The +1 AIP Cost is price enough without making it luck-based, and would solve some early-game economy problems.

I'd rather keep both the chance to fail and the +1 AIP cost. Why?
  1. AIP cost - I'd rather not have the chance at gaining resources with no trade off other than a chance at losing some of my resources, since if the AIP cost disappeared these would essentially become targets to destroy whenever you found them and your economy could use a few extra resources.
  2. Chance of taking resources instead of giving resources - when I want to destroy a distribution center, my economy is usually wrecked to the point that losing resources to a Trojan distribution node doesn't actually hurt me. If I gained resources, it would have helped me, but since my economy is already on the floor I don't have resources to lose. Thus, I'm attacking the AI and running the risk of angering it for a chance of helping my economy, and if there is no chance that the distribution node will not help me, well, an extra 1 AIP is usually fairly negligible anyways.

[Hearteater]

I'd prefer Distribution Nodes not cost AIP but spawn a batch of response ships.  So I'm getting resources with the hope that it will cost me less resources to defend against the spawned units.

[Martyn van Buren]

I like them the way they are, really --- but I wouldn't object to removing trojan nodes and just having them be empty.  It is pretty easy to neutralize the risk they create just by popping nodes only when you're near zero.

[KDR_11k]

I find it odd that people don't want ANY randomness to stuff like projectiles but when it comes to major events like using a dist node or destroying an alarm post that can be random.

[TechSY730]

I find it odd that people don't want ANY randomness to stuff like projectiles but when it comes to major events like using a dist node or destroying an alarm post that can be random.

I think it isn't a question of "majorness" but frequency. The stuff that happens all the freaking time and is a core part of the game I think people want consistent. Stuff, while may be major in terms of repercussions, are infrequent, I think we can tolerate some randomness, as each event is more noticeable and thus we will want more variety and unpredictability.

[Draco18s]

I think it isn't a question of "majorness" but frequency. The stuff that happens all the freaking time and is a core part of the game I think people want consistent. Stuff, while may be major in terms of repercussions, are infrequent, I think we can tolerate some randomness, as each event is more noticeable and thus we will want more variety and unpredictability.

This.  Because it's up front and noticeable and low frequency, we can tolerate it.

[Cyborg]

I like them the way they are, really --- but I wouldn't object to removing trojan nodes and just having them be empty.  It is pretty easy to neutralize the risk they create just by popping nodes only when you're near zero.

Really only useful in some kind of ironman mode. Otherwise the Trojan nodes are just annoying.

[Martyn van Buren]

Huh?  I'm not sure I follow.

[KDR_11k]

He means you can savescum otherwise.