Forts in times of distributed defenses

[keith.lamothe]

AI Forts are actually separate unit types, so buffing the human side doesn't necessarily buff the AI side.  Though I prefer to not make them more different than necessary.

[Kahuna]

AI Forts are actually separate unit types, so buffing the human side doesn't necessarily buff the AI side.  Though I prefer to not make them more different than necessary.

Energy cost change wouldn't do that since AI doesn't use Energy.
Anyway what's your opinion on Fortresses vs Turrets?

[Peter Ebbesen]

The base energy cost of forcefields would need to go up as well, for them to work as per-planet.  They're insanely useful

We know. That's why we are currently rebuilding them on whatever planet is being attacked in as large numbers as we need up to the galactic cap, because they are both insanely useful and insanely cheap. 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Imo Fortresses could use a buff though. Including Mini Fortresses.. which are pretty much useless. Mark II Sniper Turrets cost 1250 Knowledge and Mini Forts cost 1000... Missile Turrets cost 750. Mini Fortresses are pretty much worthless imo. Anyway back to the normal Fortresses: their damage could be buffed.. though I'm afraid that would also buff AI Fortresses. So maybe their Energy cost could be loweted by let's say 10, 20 or 30%? That would make them more attractive.

Seconded, both on the regular and mini fortresses.

I don't really see the mini fortresses as having any role now except as a repair platform, and mobile space docks - or just teleporting a bunch of mark 3 engineers - do a better job of that.

If the idea with them were that they were supposed to see off tiny incursions on their own wherever one wouldn't/couldn't afford to deploy full defences while also having some sort of value in larger battles, something that could be interesting would be turning mini fortresses into Torpedo Defence Platforms, stripping them of their current scaled down fortress armaments and equipping them with a bevy of lightning torpedo launchers instead, like the frigate.

Say 3 per planet, firing n torpedoes with a reload of 4 seconds, for some value of n high enough to make it look good while providing an adequate amount of dps.


(Yes, I know that came from out of the left field, but it is just that it strikes me as really weird to have a space game in which fightercraft and missile weapons are in use by fleets, but not used by fixed defences (except for modforts). The humans of the future sure are dumb, if they haven't figured out how launching shoals of short range fightercraft or missiles that can be stockpiled in arbitrary quantities when they aren't confined to the logistical capabilities of a fleet, would greatly enhance their defences. )

[WingedKagouti]

Imo Fortresses could use a buff though. Including Mini Fortresses.. which are pretty much useless. Mark II Sniper Turrets cost 1250 Knowledge and Mini Forts cost 1000... Missile Turrets cost 750. Mini Fortresses are pretty much worthless imo.

I kinda like the Mini Fortress as an additional (and sturdier) repair unit with a planetary instead of galaxy cap. But I don't think I've ever noticed one being useful in a more proactive way.

[Chthon]

What if there were a new trader toy, one that has a planetary cap of 1, but can only be placed if the trader is on the planet you want it at.  This toy will allow any fortress/shield item to be placed with a planetary cap of 1 at this planet only once built.  That's 9 total if you've unlocked all fortresses and shields/hardened shields.

Destruction of the trader item prevents rebuilding of the cap items if it's over the galaxy cap.  No extra energy is offered to power them, and balance can be made by altering how the trader picks systems to trade with and price of the new item.  Call it a Zenith Control Hub or something.

Edit:  Just another thought, though this may give Keith an aneurism.  What if this item also only restocked every 30 mins to an hour?  Even if the Zenith Traders visited you travelling down a long line of systems you own to your home world, you wouldn't be able to drop one in each system and build them sequentially.  You'd have to wait for each one, potentially bumping the AIP up more.

[Fleet Unity]

Imo Fortresses could use a buff though. Including Mini Fortresses.. which are pretty much useless. Mark II Sniper Turrets cost 1250 Knowledge and Mini Forts cost 1000... Missile Turrets cost 750. Mini Fortresses are pretty much worthless imo.

I kinda like the Mini Fortress as an additional (and sturdier) repair unit with a planetary instead of galaxy cap. But I don't think I've ever noticed one being useful in a more proactive way.

I like the Mini Fortress as well I always unlock them, as they can help repair your other turrets, ships ect and have a long range. They could perhaps be a little more powerful  but I have always liked them even with the turret change and will always use and unlock them.

[Nodor]

For the record, I hate the new per planet turrets.  The results are terrible.

Playing the 7/7 ignore AIP test game, I find myself setting up chains of planets for reprisal waves/CPAs to plow through.  My defenses are designed to attrition the "nasty teeth" and do so effectively.  I plan to lose about 6-8 planets during each CPA and it takes 45 minutes or so to rebuild them.. but aside from grinding forward, I'm not feeling like the waves pose any threat.. even if they take out a planet or 2,  and this is possible with level 1 turrets and just mini-forts at AIP in excess of 500.

Multi-player - with appropriate planning in a 3 player game, normal caps, you can drop over 1100 sniper/spider turrets on every planet.   The Mad Bomber becomes a joke.  Hack the design backups of sniper immune ships to remove them, and add military or logistics stations to taste.   

Basically, the AI increased threat is now countered by additional rebuild time for defense in depth strategies.  Given that the reclamation mechanic was put into place because rebuild time is boring, defense in depth leads to a lot of grinding rebuild time.  I do NOT want this to get worse.

[keith.lamothe]

That has been one of my concerns about going heavy on the per-planet-defenses stuff (as we have) : it can create a situation where smart play makes actual game-loss unlikely (due to sheer defensive depth, even with the AI being more intelligent about multi-stage attacks than before), but extends the time you spend recovering from an attack, potentially leading to a stalemate or at least a game that is significantly longer (until actual game-win) than it really needed to be.

Whether that would actually happen, or is actually happening in remotely "normal" scenarios (bearing in mind that playing ignore-AIP is a valuable benchmark but does skew some aspects of the experience), is still an open question to me.

[Hearteater]

I have to concur with per-planet caps EDIT for clarity: being bad. My current 9/9 warm-up game is turning out to be much easier than expected. I'm probably playing much too conservatively at the moment. With per-planet caps I'm finding the value of taking more planets is greater than the downside of +AIP even at 9/9. For reference I am playing with Shark A and B and have Exos from Spire-Hard 4/10 (among other options).

[Chthon]

That has been one of my concerns about going heavy on the per-planet-defenses stuff (as we have) : it can create a situation where smart play makes actual game-loss unlikely (due to sheer defensive depth, even with the AI being more intelligent about multi-stage attacks than before), but extends the time you spend recovering from an attack, potentially leading to a stalemate or at least a game that is significantly longer (until actual game-win) than it really needed to be.

Whether that would actually happen, or is actually happening in remotely "normal" scenarios (bearing in mind that playing ignore-AIP is a valuable benchmark but does skew some aspects of the experience), is still an open question to me.

That is why I suggested something that would be semi-irreplaceable, in that you the player could not dictate the time it would become replaceable.  This would make actually losing a planet a serious injury, and not just "oh, just got to rebuild it as fast as I can."  Now you can't rebuild it, until a player uncontrollable unit comes knocking offering you that chance.

This also goes with my feeling that the Zenith trader loses relevance later on in the game, once you've built everything he has to offer where you want it.  The fact that you can just buy 15 things from him in a sitting, and are rewarded for doing so early on, since AI captured assets will push you over the cap, makes the Zenith Trader almost obsolete by mid game.  I'd prefer instead if he kept a stock of only certain items at every moment that changed over the course of the game, and there were no caps to what you could build in theory across the universe, only per planet would the caps come into play.

[Hearteater]

I don't think I want building/rebuilding to be dependent on the trader, or a trader-like random factor. That really takes away from the strategy of the game.

[Chthon]

I don't think I want building/rebuilding to be dependent on the trader, or a trader-like random factor. That really takes away from the strategy of the game.

You do know that on most map setups, the trader visits specific systems more often than others.  You could say it would add more to the strategy of the game by making those systems worth more to the player than others.  It changes the topology of the game.

Of course my suggestion wouldn't work if traders were turned off.  I have more ideas on how to make the traders more interesting, but I'll create a separate thread on that after I get done with stuff today.

[keith.lamothe]

In the overall situation there's another important factor to consider: the AI's attacks can be made more suited to defeating distributed-defense.  For instance, having the core of a CPA (perhaps randomly determining what %) that comes from the strategic reserve be launched as a carrier-ball on a beeline for a human home command station; basically stopping at nothing but without the exo speed-boost stuff, they'd just individually be "galaxy-wide-chasing" the station and any ships they deployed could either inherit that individual flag or just behave normally.  Such an arrangement would be far more resistant to attrition.

But the player can then just warhead the carrier-ball and call it a day.  Granted, that's more AIP, but (Deep Thought voice) "who will that inconvenience?"

So currently I see three main things, any one of which wouldn't necessarily be a huge problem, conspiring to make the game too easy for players who really know what they're doing:
1) The expanded selection of per-planet defenses are too good for their costs (i.e. OP).
2) Warheads are overwhelmingly powerful, able to annihilate out-of-hand all but the most "sky-darkening" of AI attack fleets.
3) AIP could stand to hurt more.

[Draco18s]

I'm torn. :\

I like the per-planet stuff because it means that I don't need a Perfect Wall on my front lines and can actually defend some other systems if things slip through.

But I dislike the long-slog of rebuilding (a major complaint of mine for quite a while now: I have not "finished" a game since before the transports got wormhole attrition) so I don't engage in massive distributed defense layers.  Which of course means that I'm constantly losing against both the single-chokepoint counters and the defense-in-depth counters resulting in abysmally suboptimal play.

I absolutely despise using my fleet on defense for the same reason: if my fleet is defensive, then I'm not on the offense with it and the rebuild times push my fleet into only defensive capabilities: by the time I've rebuilt, the AI's rebuilt, and we clash in M.A.(fleet)D.  Rinse and repeat ad nausium.