Feedback on Astro Trains - Design and Points

[Mal]

I personally love Astro Trains and the idea behind them - Couriers of interesting debuffs and that mess with your fleet , on and off your turf. They keep offenses honest ( EMP/Tractor/Widow Trains) and defenses unstable ( supply-interdiction, Force-field jammers, munitions boosting), which makes the game much more interesting.

But!

I truly wish there was more ways to interact with them in the game other than trying to hunt down their elusive pathing ( which I wish I could see so I could make strategic goals of "derailing" the train).

I know with Stars Beyond Reach that Keith and Chris are busy...and I have read some other http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php?topic=16264.0 threads where they explain that this is a carryover concept, but I believe the trains could potentially be a lot of fun with some of these ideas:

• Hackable - Being able to disable the trains temporarily by paying a hacking cost would be really nice, especially if you notice that a supply-interdiction or nuke train is about to enter a heavily defended chokepoint that you need to hold onto for a little bit longer

• Player Trains - Man oh man would I love to be able to capture a train for myself, with all the consequences that could entail. Most trains would just die after running their circuit for a bit, especially on the special forces watch. But, being able to set loose a widow train to scoop up an incoming fleet at the right moment or even go on a nuke run of multiple worlds ( +50 AIP each!) would be hilariously great.

• Helping Minor Factions build stuff - Again, using hacking or even building a train of your own, you could influence minor factions to build more stuff. This could lead to cross-galactic adventures as your train needs to head deep into AI territory for a cargo run. Then you could be rewarded by helpful human resistance or Spire/Neinzul structures. Lot of work in this one, but totally fun and helps push the player into risky positions to obtain rewards, much in the game's spirit.

• Player Train Stations - As an alternative economy, they could help deliver supply, metal, or energy to the players front-lines, more when near alerted AI worlds, much less when surrounded by friendly worlds ( they gather deep space salvage not recoverable by command stations). As long as the trains are up and the train stations intact, the player could help grow their strategic capital.

[Pumpkin]

Your ideas sounds great. Unfortunately, as you stated, Stars Beyond Reach is keeping our beloved game devs' busy for now.
I never though about players' trains. It sounds like a big feature, maybe hard to balance.

My personal opinion about train is that I hate them. I'm really sad about this, because on the paper I love the idea of routing/hijacking couriers, but in the facts, tractors and widows trains stealing my whole fleet on my home world is just pain and no fun.

I, too, had some ideas. Like making trains a tiny bit less absurdly undestructible and giving them a metal cost, making destroying them rewarding by scrap recovering. Moreover, as you said, their pathing is quite unclear. What about each station listing the name of the other stations they can send trains to, and displaying the full routes when hacked?

I know I'm dreaming. But while I hunger for Star Beyond Reach, I'm also looking forward to the next AI War extension.
TL;DR: I'm sharing your feeling about Astro Trains (at least on the main points  )

[Mal]

Yeah pumpkin you bring up some good points. The trains make it really hard to focus on the game...add in the fact that you feel almost powerless to control them in most situations ( due to no clue on routing) and they are a real pain in the ass hahahah: stealing fleets, engis and the like.

The trains being destroyable would truly be ideal I feel, even if it takes the turrets a while to chew on them ( salvage would be a nice bonus). Maybe this will happen

EDIT - It almost would be nice to show a train wave timer...that would actually be really cool. Especially for the crazy trains like nukes, supply interdictors, forcefield jammers, that way you know their routing and can at least plan for it. They are just too surprising sometimes.

[Pumpkin]

I forgot to mention tachyon trains in the "[tr/p]ain in the *ss" list. They entirely deny static scout : you can't put scouts on nearby AI planets (usually MkI when they're useless for deep scouting) to see reinforcements and threat fleet. This is not fun. A stealth attack with, I don't know, any stealth fleetship being denied by an unforeseen tachyon Astro Train is "fun" (in some ways). Being permanently blind is not.

If we get a poll for the next extension (like for Ancient Shadows ; shame I missed it!), I'm sure I'll vote for a big deep train rework.

[Mal]

Awesome! Me too, I did not know they did that with Ancient Shadows, I will keep an eye out.

[Pumpkin]

Hey, pal, look at what i found on mantis!

[Mal]

Oh shit! Good find pumpkin. I will definitely be registering to support this, thank you

[Bognor]

I forgot to mention tachyon trains in the "[tr/p]ain in the *ss" list. They entirely deny static scout : you can't put scouts on nearby AI planets (usually MkI when they're useless for deep scouting) to see reinforcements and threat fleet. This is not fun. A stealth attack with, I don't know, any stealth fleetship being denied by an unforeseen tachyon Astro Train is "fun" (in some ways). Being permanently blind is not.

Agreed; I've said the same thing myself.  I think all this would take to fix is for the Tachyon Trains' range to be finite, rather than affecting the entire planet.