Bomber Blitz!

[BobTheJanitor]

Well, we only have limited resources, what can I say.  Eventually we will get around to it, but largely we're relying on player volunteers who update a lot of that at the moment.  Anyone interested in having an account on the official wiki can always PM me, and I'm happy to grant access (we keep it closed because of spambots and other vandalism).

I'm trying! If I could just get some answers to my wiki questions thread ( http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,8049.0.html ) I would be happy to update it. I'm about ready to give up on getting answers and just start making assumptions and updating things based on that. I figure my best educated guess is better than information that is from version 3.x.

[x4000]

Whoa, I never saw that thread.  Stupid forums sometimes randomly don't email us about new topics.  Grr.  Will look at those right now.

[Tridus]

I was thrown off by the translocation attack as well when I first saw it. It's interesting, although it almost seems like something that would fit better on the logistical command station. I'd expect the military command station to just blow things up. Of course that would mean giving the log comm station an attack, but you could drop the damage to minimal to make it not a real attack. Anyway, it's obviously not the time for new feature requests, but I might toss it up on mantis later if I remember.

The logistical command station is already REALLY good with its slowing ability. The translocation ability helps give the millitary one something to make it better, because it wasn't all that great before.

[Shrugging Khan]

Since this topic has already moved on to probability and human pattern recognition, I just want to say that I find the redirector rally posts to be utterly fukken swish. If I now get the hang of garrisons, I'll probably just leave the game on autopilot and lie down to fall asleep to the sound of AI ships being swept all over the place by my new patrols.

Edit: Pirates! Ehm. I prefer the Military command station because of the Tachyons. I absolutely hate it when the enemy can keep secrets from me...especially in my systems!

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, the mark III military command station was largely invented for those folks who absolutely, positively want to defeat cloaking

And the translocation ability was added as a semi-random stab at the problem that many folks considered military command stations to be simply inferior to logistical ones.  That's been something that confuses me in general, I guess my estimation of the important of munitions boost (I mean c'mon, we're talking about _doubling_ or more the dps of almost all your ships on the planet) differs widely from that of most people.

Of course, I remember when it used to be highly possible to get a 400% munitions boost on a significant chunk of fleet at all times.  The nerf for that caused wailing and gnashing of teeth

[Shrugging Khan]

Heh, I really feel for you. All the balancing for a game this complex must be worth wagonloads of aspirin 

While I'm noobing around: Has anything been done to the mines? I tend to set up rings of 6 minefields around every  wormhole, and I reinforce the more dangerous ones with further rings and layers of more and more mines - it looks so pretty! But whenever a wave comes in, only the innermost ring of mines blows up, and all surviving enemy ships appear to be teleported to outside the minefields 

Vat is zis?

[TechSY730]

Heh, I really feel for you. All the balancing for a game this complex must be worth wagonloads of aspirin  

While I'm noobing around: Has anything been done to the mines? I tend to set up rings of 6 minefields around every  wormhole, and I reinforce the more dangerous ones with further rings and layers of more and more mines - it looks so pretty! But whenever a wave comes in, only the innermost ring of mines blows up, and all surviving enemy ships appear to be teleported to outside the minefields  

Vat is zis?

It's an oddity of the current collision avoidance system (especially when tractor beams enter into the question)

Trying to fix it now would have too great a chance to break collision ejection, so from my understanding, that will probably be after 5.0 is out.

[Sunshine!]

I'm adding this to the bugtracker, but I repeatedly get my counterattack waves on the latest patches as being 90% bombers (on schizophrenic).  I haven't had any kind of devtracking settings on, however, so I don't know if there's any way to tell if that's a statistical fluke of being a couple bomber waves in a row, or an actual bug.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, we'd need the advanced logging logs for those waves to be able to do much about them.

[Shrugging Khan]

minefields

It's an oddity of the current collision avoidance system (especially when tractor beams enter into the question)

Trying to fix it now would have too great a chance to break collision ejection, so from my understanding, that will probably be after 5.0 is out.

So, what's the workaround? Leaving more space in between the minefields? Not using tractors? 

[x4000]

minefields

It's an oddity of the current collision avoidance system (especially when tractor beams enter into the question)

Trying to fix it now would have too great a chance to break collision ejection, so from my understanding, that will probably be after 5.0 is out.

So, what's the workaround? Leaving more space in between the minefields? Not using tractors? 

Don't put tractor beams right next to the minefields.  This isn't actually something we even consider a bug, per se, and I'm not sure it will ever be "fixed."  When you have tractors right next to a minefield that's around a wormhole, the tractors will pull ships out of the wormhole and they wind up being too far away from the minefield.  If you want the enemy ships to fly through your minefield, don't combine that minefield with tractors.  Or have the minefields more spread out, but then it's just pot luck.

[keith.lamothe]

This is causing somewhat alarming mental images of large banks of tractor beams grabbing a huge incoming fleet and forcibly dragging through a minefield over and over again   Probably a sign beginning "Trespassers Will..." stuck in an asteroid nearby, too.

[zebramatt]

Have you ever considered translocation always occurring a random distance along a straight line on the far side of the target from the weapon?

You know, so you have a better idea of where the defenses you are setting up are actually going to scatter things.

Perhaps an idea for a different manner of weapon entirely, even?

[x4000]

Knockback weapons. Could be interesting!

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, very much like an ff in some senses.

Another variant could be by constructing a sort of alter-ego rally post, and the shots knock targets towards that