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

[keith.lamothe]

Wingflier: I would argue that the NSCA and NSBB are absolutely beastly against the AI.  Cloaking, Vampirism, and the healing ability makes those ships last a really long time.  Throw missiles or bombers on it and kite like a champ until everything is dead, then refill your HP on those conveniently placed wormhole gp.

I can see the AI getting very annoyed at its wormhole guard posts being used as Champion gas stations.

ROFL    The AI can go pound sand if it don't like it

Remember what we just did to the other normal guard posts?

Yea.

[Cinth]

Wingflier: I would argue that the NSCA and NSBB are absolutely beastly against the AI.  Cloaking, Vampirism, and the healing ability makes those ships last a really long time.  Throw missiles or bombers on it and kite like a champ until everything is dead, then refill your HP on those conveniently placed wormhole gp.

I can see the AI getting very annoyed at its wormhole guard posts being used as Champion gas stations.

ROFL    The AI can go pound sand if it don't like it

Remember what we just did to the other normal guard posts?

Yea.

Go for it   Not like I leave any guard posts on planets I've cleaned off.  And it wouldn't change how good all the Neinzul hulls are at playing the ninja in the AI's backyard.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Wingflier: I would argue that the NSCA and NSBB are absolutely beastly against the AI.  Cloaking, Vampirism, and the healing ability makes those ships last a really long time.  Throw missiles or bombers on it and kite like a champ until everything is dead, then refill your HP on those conveniently placed wormhole gp.

I can see the AI getting very annoyed at its wormhole guard posts being used as Champion gas stations.

If the AI's so mad at the player shooting the weak guard post and getting loads of health, it should just scrap the post. That'd what I'd do.

[Cyborg]

We are breaking the economy for an expansion that has never been balanced? Fix champions before you start making resource gathering a time sink again. And don't ask me how, I don't play with them, but if that's what people are doing with their time and accumulating resources… maybe the plan to make downtime more interesting worked really well!

[keith.lamothe]

We are breaking the economy for an expansion that has never been balanced? Fix champions before you start making resource gathering a time sink again.

I was under the impression that the people reporting excessively easy econ were coming from a variety of game types, not just champion games. 

Nor was I trying to nerf econ overall.  FWIW, I was trying to make harvester upgrades less of an "you have to unlock these every game" situation.  I'm personally fine with the overall resource income remaining basically the same.

[Kjara]

My arguement for the economy was more that it shouldn't be so front loaded on the homeworld, that it should be spread out more among the planets you take.  My thought was to decrease the player's economy for the first 3-5 planets, have it be about equal(assuming you take good, 5.5ish+ average planets), for the next 5 or so planets, then be higher past that point.

Note that doubling the number of points in a sense moves the base mark to 40, the mark II to 46, and the mark III to 58, so a straight increase over the current ones on every planet except the homeworld, which means that you would be acomplishing what I intended in a sense.

[keith.lamothe]

And don't ask me how, I don't play with them, but if that's what people are doing with their time and accumulating resources… maybe the plan to make downtime more interesting worked really well!

I suppose "interesting" might describe getting explosive colony ships to the face over and over or helplessly watching as a mini-cookie-monster eats all the friendly enclaves (until his most recent nerf, anyway).  From what I can tell it's not all fun and games in there.  Though some people really like them.

[Faulty Logic]

Ok, what did data centers ever do to you?

First you reduce their number, then their AIP reduction, and now they try to kill you? That seems excessive.

That's the one change I don't like.

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, what did data centers ever do to you?

They let you win games.

First you reduce their number, then their AIP reduction, and now they try to kill you? That seems excessive.

That's the one change I don't like.

Basically it's a player strength check; if you're going to pop DCs while only holding 1-2 planets it should at least make you work for it

In return we could remove the scaling back on their AIP reduction, or at least scale back the scaling back, if that makes any sense.

[RCIX]

Keith, all those changes look good to me.

I don't think the Economy is super imbalanced at this point, I just think it offers too much for the Knowledge cost. Looks like your changes address that. The "Lazy-AI" idea looks incredible. Seems to satisfy people on both sides of the fence.

Thanks for reading all our feedback and making a solution that works for everyone.

My problem with nerfing it is that the gain from harvester upgrades is they don't look like that much. Sure, once you look at the numbers of mark 3 harvesters giving you 275% of your base harvester income for 4.5k knowledge/harvester it looks good but the mark two upgrades "only" look like 50% more income and I'd hate for the upgrades to be nerfed to where they look bad for any player not in the know.

This is just spitballing numbers here, but what if the following was done:
 * Base harvester income reduced by 5, and starting resources raised to compensate (trickiest part)
 * Tier 2 harvesters remain the same, gain an increase to 3k knowledge cost
 * Tier 3 harvesters lose 10 income and increase to 3k knowledge cost

You're still getting what is effectively tripled resources from your knowledge investments, but it costs a bit more and the ceiling and base is a bit lower for it. Alternate is to make them 20/4/60 production and then just absurdly K expensive (like 4 or 5k per upgrade).

The alternate route is to implement some form of deployable flat resource generator that outshines harvester upgrades in low planet games, and retune harvester upgrades specifically to be less good for a player unless you're going for a medium or high planet game. Then you get to do stuff like fragile exploding magic resource makers

The other possible route is to display on the higher mark harvester tooltips how much production you'd jump up to along with how much you're at now, so you can empirically evaluate the effect of the upgrade without save scumming.

[keith.lamothe]

* Base harvester income reduced by 5, and starting resources raised to compensate (trickiest part)

Lost me with that one   That'd just make the harvester upgrades even more important to a healthy econ.  I don't want folks to feel like they have to take these every game, and if that makes them less obviously good to newer players, well, it's probably good that they not take harvester upgrades in their earlier games either.  They should be an effective choice, but not an obvious one.

The alternate route is to implement some form of deployable flat resource generator that outshines harvester upgrades in low planet games, and retune harvester upgrades specifically to be less good for a player unless you're going for a medium or high planet game.

I think Econ Station IIIs would, roughly speaking, fill this role.  I think.

[RCIX]

The alternate route is to implement some form of deployable flat resource generator that outshines harvester upgrades in low planet games, and retune harvester upgrades specifically to be less good for a player unless you're going for a medium or high planet game.

I think Econ Station IIIs would, roughly speaking, fill this role.  I think.

In before someone spams econ 3's and uses them to produce mass quantities of whatever can serve as a capless defense fleet

[Drjones013]

Wasn't there some discussion of changing the way that crystal works? If that happens then a lot of this conversation about changing the economy appears a bit moot.

[RCIX]

It sounds like keith is waiting for... something before going ahead with major economy or combat changes. Not sure what though.

[keith.lamothe]

Wasn't there some discussion of changing the way that crystal works? If that happens then a lot of this conversation about changing the economy appears a bit moot.

No big changes to how crystal works are planned currently, because none of the proposals could pass vetting.  For good reason, I think.