Announcing AI War: Destroyer of Worlds

[keith.lamothe]

That could really mess some people up.  Especially those like me, who keep space docks on auto-repeat.

If a ship gets swallowed and my dock starts building a new one and has it complete before I can rescue the original (still at 80% health) I'm going to be a little annoyed.

I'm not sure how to handle it, then.  I suppose I could have a control toggle for "don't build ships you wouldn't have the cap for if the maws were popped", but then I'd need to do a very different implementation of how I just changed it, which would probably take an extra 120k of memory or so.

[Draco18s]

There is always that problem, yeah.

Could you do a "doesn't count unless health is below Y%"?

Y could be a hard-coded value like 20%

Or "doesn't count unless swallowed by a maw on a planet with few/no friendlies"?

[keith.lamothe]

There is always that problem, yeah.

Could you do a "doesn't count unless health is below Y%"?

Y could be a hard-coded value like 20%

Or "doesn't count unless swallowed by a maw on a planet with few/no friendlies"?

Worse and worse

[Aklyon]

Maybe hold the dock from spitting it out until the maw is out of combat? (or dead).

[keith.lamothe]

Maybe hold the dock from spitting it out until the maw is out of combat? (or dead).

Making it conditional on the state of the maw or the ship, particularly in a way that can vary from second to second, is really not feasible I'm afraid.

Ship caps are based on remembered totals, not actively scanning the entire galaxy to find out how many ships of a particular kind you have out, etc

[PokerChen]

Maybe hold the dock from spitting it out until the maw is out of combat? (or dead).

Making it conditional on the state of the maw or the ship, particularly in a way that can vary from second to second, is really not feasible I'm afraid.

Ship caps are based on remembered totals, not actively scanning the entire galaxy to find out how many ships of a particular kind you have out, etc

If not everyone wants to exempt ships inside swallowers, can we just make an if statement and put the toggle in the controls menu beside the other 999?

[keith.lamothe]

Voilà!

Ok, the problem was that you didn't have enough energy to actually complete the blade's metamorphosis to a non-broken unit.  The blade's tooltip does tell you that you need 500k extra energy for this, but I've put a note in the previous journal to tell you that too.

I'm guessing your situation with the Nomad Beacon is similar, it also needs 500k energy to run.

If not everyone wants to exempt ships inside swallowers, can we just make an if statement and put the toggle in the controls menu beside the other 999?

Yes, but I'll have to reimplement the "maw'd units don't count" logic since in its current form it would not properly handle the case where you lost units to a maw, then changed the toggle.  The new implementation will increase the memory footprint to a large degree, due to how such things would need to be tracked (one int per ForegroundObjectType per Player).

[keith.lamothe]

@pumpkin: yep, it was the same thing with the Nomad Beacon.  I've put a note in that journal too, about needing energy to activate it.  Thanks!

[Tridus]

Yes, but I'll have to reimplement the "maw'd units don't count" logic since in its current form it would not properly handle the case where you lost units to a maw, then changed the toggle.  The new implementation will increase the memory footprint to a large degree, due to how such things would need to be tracked (one int per ForegroundObjectType per Player).

Boy, there's really no good way to do this, is there?

[keith.lamothe]

Boy, there's really no good way to do this, is there?

That's the main reason the maws-eating-your-caps thing hasn't been addressed in the past.  It was kind of the least of the available evils.  But with the powerslaver not attritioning the contents (which I might change later, but it wouldn't be a fast attrition either way), it's more of an issue.

[Mad Rubicant]

Fun interaction with nomads and altplanetnames.txt: I have no idea which of my 5 nomads is Nomad 1, since their names got changed. So they either need to keep their Nomad X names, or the journal entry should change with the planet.

[ZaneWolfe]

Apparently I lost my internet connection shortly after I sent that PM, so I've only just gotten started testing things. Quick question though.

[SPOILERS]

For Nomads, what exactly are you supposed to use to hack/what are you supposed to hack? It tells me to find 'Nomad 1', (I have 5 Nomads, all with actual names, so no way to tell what is 'Nomad 1') and then use the hacker to hack the AI Command station. Well the only thing in Hacker options related to Nomads is the Nomad Beacon Hacker. So I figure, ok, go look at the Nomads and find which one has the beacon on it. Easy. Well I got scouts on all 5 Nomads and NONE of them have a beacon, nor anything that would indicate that they are this mysterious 'Nomad 1'[/SPOILERS]

Haven't gotten around to checking the Exile stuff yet, but I have been playing with NCCs. And when I combine them with Enclaves and SBSs, so much hilarity ensues. So far the only thing to be a worthwhile threat to my MKI-MKIII fleet of them has been a Plasma Eye. Its possible a Sentry Eye would also be a deterent to such a force, and naturally a Nuclear Eye would just be a full 'No Fly Zone' for them.

[topper]

Boy, there's really no good way to do this, is there?

That's the main reason the maws-eating-your-caps thing hasn't been addressed in the past.  It was kind of the least of the available evils.  But with the powerslaver not attritioning the contents (which I might change later, but it wouldn't be a fast attrition either way), it's more of an issue.

How about if swallowed ships that are rescued come out as friendly zombie ships?

edit: only the ones who do not fit in the ship cap

[ElOhTeeBee]

Mantis'd a few minor cleanup issues.

Beyond that, all I really have to offer at the moment is that I'm really digging the new map type. Seems to work exceptionally well with nomads.

[orzelek]

For nomads it could be good if game could randomize on which nomad toys are. And then put the proper name into journal - currently you can plan on galaxy gen where you need to go