Does AI strength to AIP need adjustment? (aka, is AIP too restrictive?)

[TechSY730]

Energy may need a bit of a nerf, yes, though there's still the matter of making it so that the player actually needs more ships than their energy/knowledge lets them have.

Just a random idea, not gonna rush off and implement it or whatever, but I wonder about something like:
- Make the AI Home Command Stations not increase AIP itself by 100 (like they currently do), but instead increase the AIP _floor_ by that much.
- Have the death of one AI Home Command Station provide full invincibility for the other one for an hour, and immediately trigger a CPA or something like that.

Kind of severe, though; if I had to guess I'd say this would basically immediately bump everyone down a difficulty-level (or more), which doesn't tend to lead to a Very Happy Forum

The first thing seems intriguing. Maybe both? For example, killing the AI Home Command Station buffs AIP by, say, 20 (more than the standard station, but not hugely so), and increase the AIP floor by 80. The immediate CPA trigger would still happen. (though doesn't that immediate CPA response overlap some with the core CPA raid post or whatever it is called?)

The second, I'm not really sure I like an arbitrary time limit to "make you wait" with invincibility. It feels cheap and tacked on. However, any other increase in response, even temporary, just seems to make the idea of a "double kill" more appealing.
What effect on the game was your second idea trying to address?

[keith.lamothe]

They would need to go together to accomplish the goal: the first item would make it so that you'd want to be roughly 100 AIP above the floor before taking the first HW, or eles the HW's floor increase would take the effective up without you getting anything in return.  The second item would prevent said HW-taking consequences from being irrelevant.

[Hearteater]

For overall AIP, maybe taking each ARS should give +5 AIP floor (for example).  That's 20 more AIP in low AIP games, but really nothing for anyone taking even a few extra systems.  I was going to say +5 AIP per CSG network destroyed, but that just gives people more reason to turn them off.  Maybe they should be required at 9/9 or something.

I was also pondering have the each AI Command Station start adding AIP/time (based on difficulty probably) once a Core Guard Post in their system dies.  This encourages you to destroy the AI Command Station quickly, instead of doing a double kill.  It also ramps up the pressure at the climactic moment of the game.

As for "invulnerability", maybe the entry Warp Points into the other AI homeworld should spawn triple Core Force Fields to slow you down.  I'd also be ok with killing a AI Command Station triggering a CPA (with the normal x minute count down).  I think something I can work with (like spawning Core Force Fields) is better than arbitrary immunity.  And them not being in the AI home system means they aren't nearly as tough to remove.  More a road block you need to face while sitting on +100 AIP.

[keith.lamothe]

I was going to say +5 AIP per CSG network destroyed, but that just gives people more reason to turn them off.  Maybe they should be required at 9/9 or something.

If a solution ends in "maybe we should require..." it's probably not a good way to go.  If the game were in pre-1.0 beta we could get away with some of that, but ultimately reducing choice isn't going to help us at this stage.  And mostly for good reason.

I think something I can work with (like spawning Core Force Fields) is better than arbitrary immunity.

I agree, and I think that something like the Mothership would potentially work well: basically killing the HCS spawns a unit that counts as a CSG (the mothership does) that will kill you in a certain period of time if you don't kill it, but you have to kill it before you can kill the other AI HCS and win.

The main problem with that is that we already have the Avenger plot.  I could give the Avenger a CSG effect, and we could call that the optional trial of this idea.  But making it part of every game would basically mean removing the Avenger plot... or I guess the Avenger plot could just become an intensification of this.


I would also like to make killing a core-guard-post provoke more of a response, but one thing at a time.

[Diazo]

Or remove the AIP increase from the home command and give it to the core posts instead, call it 10AIP for destroying a core guard post?

I've kind of now lost what we are talking about at this point in the thread.

I suppose my last comment for now is going to be that as long as the AIP scale on high difficulties is as steep as it is, low-aip is always going to win when you get up there, their simply is no other choice when capturing a single planet increase wave size by 100 ships (or more).

D.

[TechSY730]

Some form of "make the other command station harder to kill" mechanic would be good, whether temporary or permant, but please not an arbitrary invincibility.

I'm having a hard time thinking of such a mechanic that wouldn't either encourage double kills more or be able to be "cheesed around" (like more forcefields (penetrators, cloaked raid starships, etc))
Though that "AIP/time for each core guard post lost" is a pretty nifty idea, though it may need some refining to keep the game from spiraling out of control in the AI's favor if you aren't a fast player. Maybe adding some "AIP/some other trigger" for each core guard post lost?

EDIT: I would like to keep the AIP on AI home command station death, but reducing it some to only slightly above a normal command station and shifting the other "increases" elsewhere (either other units or other mechanics, or both), if for no other reason than the fact the the AI home command station is still a command station, and the AI should have some immediate, direct increase to their "dangerousness of the human scale" to their home being lost. (boosting both AIP and AIP floor would ensure that this would always happen, and splitting it between the two (not nessecarily evenly) would ensure that neither high or low AIP styles get off easy or are unfairly punished relatively)
And spawning a tough ship with a CSG effect on the other homeworld would be an great substitute for arbitrary invincibility.

[_K_]

- Have the death of one AI Home Command Station provide full invincibility for the other one for an hour, and immediately trigger a CPA or something like that.

Why not make the AI immuine to those cheap tricks that let you easily pop an AI home station any time after its neutered?

For example a long-range tachyon field around the AI home station. That would probably counter the whole "neuter the AIHW, put a bunch of cloaked whatevers to finish it off, proceed to the next AIHW".
Then you could probably kill it either with enough rams hidden outside the tachyon area, or a hidden artillery golem...dunno how to counter the golem, aside from giving it a command-grade 0.001 multiplier. But then it would be not very strong against H/K's...
or maybe give the artillery golem some rare attack type and make AI home immune to it.

Or remove the AIP increase from the home command and give it to the core posts instead, call it 10AIP for destroying a core guard post?

I dont think removing all of the AIP from the home station would be good, but shifting some, like half AIP from the home station to the guard posts does sound cool.

[keith.lamothe]

I've kind of now lost what we are talking about at this point in the thread.

What I'm going for most recently is increasing how much total strength the player needs to win the final battle, and to make it more of a final battle rather than sneaking around neutering all the core posts and then knifing the AI in its sleep.  Though I suppose the latter is more in keeping with the guerrilla war idea   That said, I think there's merit to the idea that it's guerilla war up until you actually attack the homeworlds and then it's "kill it with fire!" (in both directions).

Edit: to clarify, how this ties back to the original topic is that if you need more strength to win, then you have to get more K (and to some extent, energy), and thus you need to take more AIP.  The game wouldn't be telling you which planets to take, or which ships to spend the K on, or whatever, but it would be "raising the bar" so you'd have to do more of something.

[keith.lamothe]

I suppose my last comment for now is going to be that as long as the AIP scale on high difficulties is as steep as it is, low-aip is always going to win when you get up there, their simply is no other choice when capturing a single planet increase wave size by 100 ships (or more).

Well, right, the current steepness wouldn't let you win on diff 9.8 if you needed (wild guess) 50,000 knowledge worth of ships to take down the HWs without dying.  In that case you'd just play lower than 9.8 unless you were some kind of machine that could actually beat it (I have my suspicions about some of you) or didn't mind it being a "see how far I can get before losing" game.

[TechSY730]

I suppose my last comment for now is going to be that as long as the AIP scale on high difficulties is as steep as it is, low-aip is always going to win when you get up there, their simply is no other choice when capturing a single planet increase wave size by 100 ships (or more).

D.

One of the reasons why I suggested to go from exponential to polynomial scaling for the high difficulties (yes, I will continue harping on this )

[keith.lamothe]

One of the reasons why I suggested to go from exponential to polynomial scaling for the high difficulties (yes, I will continue harping on this )

And I will very probably continue ignoring it

[Diazo]

That said, I think there's merit to the idea that it's guerilla war up until you actually attack the homeworlds and then it's "kill it with fire!" (in both directions).

Is this an actual thing or are you talking about a direction you'd be okay with the game heading it? That would significantly affect my suggestions on how to handle AIP.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

That said, I think there's merit to the idea that it's guerilla war up until you actually attack the homeworlds and then it's "kill it with fire!" (in both directions).

Is this an actual thing or are you talking about a direction you'd be okay with the game heading it? That would significantly affect my suggestions on how to handle AIP.

D.

I think it's a legitimate direction to go, yes, though I'm not going to go charging off unless it looks like it makes sense to more than just me

Mainly, I see in the silliness of "the AI basically doesn't care that I'm shooting up its core guard posts and parking heavy artillery next to its home stations" an opportunity to do something more interesting.  The "lore problem" of it just sitting there and taking that without a dramatic response is not going to motivate me to overhaul anything, but if a solution to that can be combined with something that solves "players really don't need much firepower to win, and therefore don't need much K or energy to win" at the same time, that seems worth thinking about.

[TechSY730]

What about the new AI home planet mechanics designed to deal with this sort of "don't need much to win if you keep AIP very low" thing? Like the strategic reserves and the special forces that come in to help to defend an AI world under attack?

[keith.lamothe]

What about the new AI home planet mechanics designed to deal with this sort of "don't need much to win if you keep AIP very low" thing? Like the strategic reserves and the special forces that come in to help to defend an AI world under attack?

Those help some, yes.