Core Shield Generators- time sink

[Suzera]

Part of it was FFBs that game, but it was certainly possible to win quickly without them as I was running 999,999 in resources at some points for quite a while.

My usual default ship fleet contains:

All mk 2 and 3 cruisers
All mk 2 and 3 bombers
All mk 2 and 3 fighters
All flagships
All light starships
All mk 1 bomber starships and if necessary, mk 1 raid starships (to blow up AI Eyes, they are held back safely specifically for this if I don't have FFBs)
All MRS

Back before .044, you could pick off one post at a time and everything would die off in less than a second barring a force field. With a force field of less than mk 3, it would all be dead within a second or two. With a mk 3 force field, you run up some fighters to the force field to anger things, then pull them away to "fish" all the units out of the field for exploding then march in with the army to blow up the now mostly undefended force field.

If you want to get really complicated, this is the ideal triangles conflict that gives you minimal losses, far far less than taking the low effort blob way:

1) Lead with frigates
2) When in engagement range, start pulling back to screen out all fighters in the enemy group
3) Go in with bombers after fighters are dead to blow up all the frigates while continuing to pull your own frigates back
4) Mop up bombers with fighters who have until now held back

Take strong core offensively useful units as your special ship:
Replace frigates with MRLSs (less wasted damage against their bonus target types as well as more raw damage except against middling armor targets like mk 2 bombers)
Replace fighters with Tanks (can blow up bombers too as well as more dps than bombers!)
FFB (obvious)
Paralyzers (chain disable 98 things on a planet with just mk 1 for no knowledge cost? More than around almost any guard post? CHEAPER THAN A FIGHTER? thanks!)

If you do 4 HW and take all of those, it's insane.

Unless the AI got autobombs, bombardment ships, sentinel frigates, snipers or FFBs there wasn't a huge difficulty jump in attrition for the AI defensively. With recent change to the entire planet ganging up if you severely overpower them it is harder to strike so deeply without losses now though since you can't lean on superior firepower advantage as much to keep your K:D so extreme and keep a high speed, and getting a resupply can be tricky when you're 12 planets deep.

I'm really less concerned with how fast/slow it is and more concerned with the fact that one fairly mindless strategy is so superior after you find it. I personally would like to see games end one way or another around the 4-5 hour mark at most for a long game. That's why things like blitz speed, multi-hw starts and total planet count are in though.

[Vinraith]

If you do 4 HW and take all of those, it's insane.

AH, there it is. I'd been trying to figure out why nothing you'd been saying made any sense. Multi-homeworld starts are utterly, completely broken from a balance standpoint. They have been for some time, no wonder you're steam-rolling everything.

The solution here is a rather severe mutli-HW start rebalance (or the removal of the feature, but I know some people really wouldn't like that). Rebalancing and severely altering the rest of the game to account for people using what is (at present) virtually an exploit doesn't make any sense at all. If you can win the way you've been winning with ONE homeworld, then we can talk larger game balance.

[TheMachineIsSentient]

Ok, I'm going to be incommunicado for a while, so wanted to kind of lay the cards on the table for a moment:

1) If the core shield network mechanic didn't change significantly at some point, it would probably be the only feature in the history of AI War to not do so
2) But we can't "negotiate with terrorists", so to speak: basically if someone says "I'm not updating until that's taken out", it actually creates a significant reason why we cannot take it out in the short term.  We really appreciate player feedback and make heavy use of it, but we don't do "demands".  It wouldn't be good for the game.
3) Seriously, while theorizing and whatnot does have some value, we need play-based feedback.
4) I apologize for getting a bit overly, ah, "enthusiastic" in some of my responses   I'm not normally a "call it as I see it" sort of person, but when dealing with folks who are (I'm looking at you, machine), I tend to return the favor.

The rampant name-calling by both you and Chris is patently unacceptable and unprofessional. Your reply, which goes against your own profanity rules, and referring to myself and perhaps hitman as "terrorists," is also wholly unacceptable. I don't feel bad for you. If you want to play the victim, carry on, but it looks to me like there is some consensus that this idea stinks. As much as you want to claim that every decision was perfect at the time you made it, maybe a little humility would be good for both of you. But I know that's impossible, given both of your personalities.

[Suzera]

If you do 4 HW and take all of those, it's insane.

AH, there it is. I'd been trying to figure out why nothing you'd been saying made any sense. Multi-homeworld starts are utterly, completely broken from a balance standpoint. They have been for some time, no wonder you're steam-rolling everything.

The solution here is a rather severe mutli-HW start rebalance (or the removal of the feature, but I know some people really wouldn't like that). Rebalancing and severely altering the rest of the game to account for people using what is (at present) virtually an exploit doesn't make any sense at all. If you can win the way you've been winning with ONE homeworld, then we can talk larger game balance.

Even with single HW, I did the same thing. It just started slower since I actually had to go and capture a few planets to get knowledge and the economy chugging so it took an extra hour or maybe two. It was actually far far easier though because the waves are comparatively far weaker. You don't get 4x ship cap to deal with 4x waves with 4 homeworlds. You get 2.5x ship cap to deal with 4x waves. If your defense breaks, you're pretty much utterly screwed and are going to lose. It's not like the 2x wave modifier either, you actually have only twice as many ships at once to deal with four times as many coming at you at once. The AI just has the same problem so it's just a quicker game either way for win or for lose. Same strategy though. 6-8 planets and deepstrike.

If you're not striking very deep and playing low to floor AIP, the things I have been proposing should have a much smaller to no effect, particularly if you play high AIP. Keep in mind I did not propose the core shields change. It personally isn't a big deal for me either way since it is only a minor modification to the strategy, but I can see why people don't like it.

[Lancefighter]

Welcome to the bitter vet club! Lemme print you out a card right quick..

Lets see, got one for Machine,

one for Hitman..

[Vinraith]

If you do 4 HW and take all of those, it's insane.

AH, there it is. I'd been trying to figure out why nothing you'd been saying made any sense. Multi-homeworld starts are utterly, completely broken from a balance standpoint. They have been for some time, no wonder you're steam-rolling everything.

The solution here is a rather severe mutli-HW start rebalance (or the removal of the feature, but I know some people really wouldn't like that). Rebalancing and severely altering the rest of the game to account for people using what is (at present) virtually an exploit doesn't make any sense at all. If you can win the way you've been winning with ONE homeworld, then we can talk larger game balance.

Even with single HW, I did the same thing. It just started slower since I actually had to go and capture a few planets to get knowledge and the economy chugging so it took an extra hour or maybe two. It was actually far far easier though because the waves are comparatively far weaker. You don't get 4x ship cap to deal with 4x waves with 4 homeworlds. You get 2.5x ship cap to deal with 4x waves. If your defense breaks, you're pretty much utterly screwed and are going to lose. It's not like the 2x wave modifier either, you actually have only twice as many ships at once to deal with four times as many coming at you at once. The AI just has the same problem so it's just a quicker game either way for win or for lose. Same strategy though. 6-8 planets and deepstrike.

In that case I'm still unclear on how you're getting across so many worlds with a single set of ship caps.

Edit: Oh, wait, is it the MRS's? Because those were getting fixed to "move or heal" here shortly, I believe. Sounds like it needs to be sooner rather than later.

[Winter Born]

If you do 4 HW and take all of those, it's insane.

AH, there it is. I'd been trying to figure out why nothing you'd been saying made any sense. Multi-homeworld starts are utterly, completely broken from a balance standpoint. They have been for some time, no wonder you're steam-rolling everything.

The solution here is a rather severe mutli-HW start rebalance (or the removal of the feature, but I know some people really wouldn't like that). Rebalancing and severely altering the rest of the game to account for people using what is (at present) virtually an exploit doesn't make any sense at all. If you can win the way you've been winning with ONE homeworld, then we can talk larger game balance.

I think multi hw starts should be cheat enabled so that you know it is a non-standard play style.

[Suzera]

In that case I'm still unclear on how you're getting across so many worlds with a single set of ship caps.

Very carefully I guess. It takes a while to get the fleet ball rolling with a single-HW start due to having to take 4-5 nearby planets for economy and knowledge which you would get mostly off the bat with a 4-5 HW start, but after you get together the 180 of each of the mk 2 and 3 triangles, flagships (or poor-man it with light starships if no planets are good for knowledge nearby), bomber/raid mk 1 starships, and make whatever changes because of your special ship choice, it was still generally pretty overwhelming to the AI on difficulty 8 before the change to make them gang up and guard post ships were still vaporized in a second or two unless they have specific things that I mentioned before (add lightning shuttles to that list too). With difficulty in the 7s, it was a total cakewalk. With the new gang-up when outgunned effect it's a lot harder to go quite so deep with minimal losses.

If you do 4 HW and take all of those, it's insane.

AH, there it is. I'd been trying to figure out why nothing you'd been saying made any sense. Multi-homeworld starts are utterly, completely broken from a balance standpoint. They have been for some time, no wonder you're steam-rolling everything.

The solution here is a rather severe mutli-HW start rebalance (or the removal of the feature, but I know some people really wouldn't like that). Rebalancing and severely altering the rest of the game to account for people using what is (at present) virtually an exploit doesn't make any sense at all. If you can win the way you've been winning with ONE homeworld, then we can talk larger game balance.

I think multi hw starts should be cheat enabled so that you know it is a non-standard play style.

I think starts with anything but 80 planets, normal speed, no minor factions and 1 AIP per 30 minutes should be cheat enabled so that you know it's a non-standard play style. You can get a really quick game with 10 planets too, should that be cheat enabled? Defense is far more dangerous with a multi-hw start to balance out the better offensive capability and quicker start. If your defense planet against the wave of 4000 mk 2 bombers and 3 raid starships at 240 AIP fails, you may as well quit and start a new game. Miscalculations have a huge penalty on multi-hw games.

It's not like it really matters anyway, because score and time spent is kind of a pointless indicator of things with the amount of situations you can set in this game being so varied. What really matters here is that one easy strategy has/had shortcut the game.

[Lancefighter]

i think declaring absurd things as cheat enabled should be cheat enabled so you know its silly.

[Winter Born]

  Ok peace...

-------------------------------------------------
The original post had to do with the new imposed capture of certain planets.


and here is a quote from mantis 1706



For most players, the changes in 4.043 should have almost no effect on their playing habits, I'd expect. The natural thing is to go after the goodies and see what you can accomplish -- and the AI Progress progression is designed around players actually trying to take some territory. That's the more fun way to play, usually (you get to actually do stuff and make decisions -- things happen), and it's easier to balance.

The trick comes in when players want to just have a few planets and then deep-strike like crazy. That's all well and good, but the endgame shouldn't be reachable by such a strategy alone. It's kind of the warp pipe problem in mario bros. 1: I could play levels 1-1, 1-2, 4-1, and then world 8 repeatedly by just using the warp zones, and so there was little incentive to do the rest. Mario 2 and 3 had similar ways to jump straight to the end of the game. As much as I love those games, I think that was a flawed design (largely brought on by the lack of a battery in those games).

Zelda 1, by contrast, had a big open world and you could do a lot of the dungeons out of order. You could even do part of the dungeons at a time, switching between them. Though there were a few that you had to do in sequence, at least getting the item from one before going to certain others.

But the bottom line was that there was no way to just walk into death mountain and win after the first dungeon if you happened to be really good at dodging. The later mario games (even super mario world, but especially the later 3D marios) also embraced this sort of strategy where players didn't have to play the entire game, and certainly not in sequence, but they had to play a lot of it to get to the end. I'm attempting to move AI War in that direction.

[Suzera]

i think declaring absurd things as cheat enabled should be cheat enabled so you know its silly.

Much like your posting is cheat enabled!

[Suzera]

The trick comes in when players want to just have a few planets and then deep-strike like crazy. That's all well and good, but the endgame shouldn't be reachable by such a strategy alone. It's kind of the warp pipe problem in mario bros. 1: I could play levels 1-1, 1-2, 4-1, and then world 8 repeatedly by just using the warp zones, and so there was little incentive to do the rest. Mario 2 and 3 had similar ways to jump straight to the end of the game. As much as I love those games, I think that was a flawed design (largely brought on by the lack of a battery in those games).

The problem with that analogy is that Mario is designed to be a static game that doesn't ever change where you have to start over and go through the same motions every time if you lose. It would be like playing only one map seed with one set of setting of AI War only, and nothing else. Eventually you'll get tired of doing the same stuff at the start every time with the same situations every time you fail to the point where it's all just mindless repetitive busywork. The original reason for the warp zones was so when you had to turn the system off (since you didn't have saves) you could get back to wherever you were without having to spend an hour or two or more of going through stuff you've already been though over and over again, and maybe never actually finishing the game because you never sit down for hours to play through every single level to the end of the game. It was actually a great design idea to make up for being saveless.

[wyvern83]

The rampant name-calling by both you and Chris is patently unacceptable and unprofessional. Your reply, which goes against your own profanity rules, and referring to myself and perhaps hitman as "terrorists," is also wholly unacceptable. I don't feel bad for you. If you want to play the victim, carry on, but it looks to me like there is some consensus that this idea stinks. As much as you want to claim that every decision was perfect at the time you made it, maybe a little humility would be good for both of you. But I know that's impossible, given both of your personalities.

The analogue may be a bit unfortunate, but you seem to be the most polarized person posting in this thread. x4000 never said he wasn't willing to talk about the new idea but making ultimatums is hardly the healthy customer service relationship x4000 and keith are looking for or deserve for that matter.

It's a beta for a reason. As you pointed out a lot of us agree that this idea could possibly use some reworking, myself included. Be part of the tester feedback cycle; I know you want your feedback to matter, your words will mean more backed by actual game-play experience with the new Core Shields than without it.

[Suzera]

Edit: Oh, wait, is it the MRS's? Because those were getting fixed to "move or heal" here shortly, I believe. Sounds like it needs to be sooner rather than later.

A little bit. Even just changing that would have only done a little bit to change things. I've actually been doing 1hw more since the recent changes. I'm not sure I'm up to the challenge of a high AIP multi-hw game right now, so I've dialed it back. With the now significant lack of datacenters and mk wave changes it's significantly more challenging to go floor AIP rather than trivial.

[TheMachineIsSentient]

The rampant name-calling by both you and Chris is patently unacceptable and unprofessional. Your reply, which goes against your own profanity rules, and referring to myself and perhaps hitman as "terrorists," is also wholly unacceptable. I don't feel bad for you. If you want to play the victim, carry on, but it looks to me like there is some consensus that this idea stinks. As much as you want to claim that every decision was perfect at the time you made it, maybe a little humility would be good for both of you. But I know that's impossible, given both of your personalities.

The analogue may be a bit unfortunate, but you seem to be the most polarized person posting in this thread. x4000 never said he wasn't willing to talk about the new idea but making ultimatums is hardly the healthy customer service relationship x4000 and keith are looking for or deserve for that matter.

It's a beta for a reason. As you pointed out a lot of us agree that this idea could possibly use some reworking, myself included. Be part of the tester feedback cycle; I know you want your feedback to matter, your words will mean more backed by actual game-play experience with the new Core Shields than without it.

Yeah, it's very unfortunate. We are in a consumer situation. If someone does not want to participate or further a product, that's well within the realm of market realities. And the consumer is well within their rights to say, if the product is broken, they will not purchase/participate/assist/whatever it. That's not terrorism. I was actually planning to leave it at my first post without any additional comments, until the name-calling started. The lack of respect concerns me, and so I returned my censure.