Forts in times of distributed defenses

[Hearteater]

Well said motai.

I've been finding Sniper+Spider defense-in-depth to be extremely strong against the AI for two reasons:
1) They are both overpowered turrets
2) Defense-in-depth with just those turrets baits threat fleets into a chain of systems that will shred them

I've been using Forts to block off directions were I can't set up defense-in-depth which causes the threat fleet to funnel down my "choke-lanes". It is really the same as the choke-point play-style, but more resilient. The disparity between the strength values of my border systems actually makes it easier to block off undesirable lanes because now my choke-point isn't so strong the AI won't attack it. The likelyhood that threat will get so great so fast that it will decide to attack an undesirable system before it decides to suicide on my sniper-lane is basically non-existent.

[Peter Ebbesen]

A thread dedicated to discussing the balancing of turret energy costs might be a good idea. I expect many or most of us find the energy costs of at the very least the Spider turrets to be too low at this point in time.

[Hearteater]

Energy Costs aren't that important because we have Matter Converters. So really all increased energy costs do is slow the game down by slowing down your economy. If we got rid of Matter Converters that would be different. Then you would have a fixed energy budget to work with, and balancing energy costs would be meaningful. Of course an additional problem is the ZPG which is present in some games, but not others.

How about remove Matter Converters and add the Power Tap. This Reactor is built on AI Controlled worlds and only works while they are under AI Control. It gives you energy and the AI doesn't attack it. However it requires hacking and keeping it alive until the hacking installation is complete. So you are using up some hacking resource in exchange for more energy. It might be interesting to make its power output based on either: 1) number of guard posts in the system, 2) number of adjacent AI controlled systems. Both of those trade easy of placement for actually energy output.

[Peter Ebbesen]

I beg to differ on the matter of energy costs not being that important due to matter converters.

The choice of how many matter converters to build and how much to slow down the game by increasing energy production at the cost of slower building and rebuilding assets is a meaningful strategic choice of resource expenditure vs. time. Time does have a value greater than zero, due to things such as exos and CPAs (and in some cases, regular waves), and for those that desire time to have a high value to make it a tougher choice, the game provides the option of automatically increasing AIP with time.

If you unlock all four marks of one of the turrets, are you going to build all those four marks on all planets you own, or more generally, are you going to do that with all the turrets you unlock? Of course not, no matter whether you are playing a small, medium, or large space empire. If you are playing a large scale conquest game, are you going to unlock economic stations for their bonus energy and metal storage? Most likely yes. Because the energy budget is just that important.

Matter Converters or no, energy costs are very important. Without Matter Converters it would be easier to balance energy costs, but their existence certainly doesn't render energy costs to be of only little importance.

[Kahuna]

One huge thing throwing a monkey wrench into this new symmetry though is the fact the AI does not rebuild any of their defensive structures or command stations. If they lose one of those, it is a permanent loss for them (barring Zenith trader shenanigans). Humans can. This means that the AI is taking a real risk with its strategy. Yes, they are not putting all of their defensive might into one planet and risking it all on that one planet holding (AI core worlds and homeworlds excluded), but in return, it is easier to take out any one planet, which is a permanent loss to them. Similar thing for humans, but without the permanent loss. Thus, the human has effectively no tradeoff for this new system; a single fully "defensed" planet now being a bit more vulnerable to being attacked is of no permanent consequence, thus not really a tradeoff except for time.

1 word: Shark AI plot.

[Hearteater]

1 word: Shark AI plot.

I fully support Shark-B being just part of the game and not an option.

[Kahuna]

There's no way to "fix" the "Netflix time" "problem" (and there does't need to be) beside the player enabling Auto AIP and increasing the difficulty level.

Boom! Problem solved!

[Kahuna]

I've been sittlng here for 30 minutes trying to write something but I'm speechless. I can't handle this ignorance.
Edit: Actually make that an hour.

[keith.lamothe]

I've been sittlng here for 30 minutes trying to write something but I'm speechless. I can't handle this ignorance.

SuperCat has met his kryptonite!

[Kahuna]

I've been sittlng here for 30 minutes trying to write something but I'm speechless. I can't handle this ignorance.

SuperCat has met his kryptonite!

Nice comic relief. Good one.

[Peter Ebbesen]

There's no way to "fix" the "Netflix time" "problem" (and there does't need to be) beside the player enabling Auto AIP and increasing the difficulty level.

Boom! Problem solved!

Couldn't have said it better myself.*

*Throws the Super Cat a living mouse; If you aren't speaking, eat*


_{* even if my own occasional ignorance helps render you speechless.}

[keith.lamothe]

The extremely widespread practice of Auto-AIP=0 does indicate a need, though.  Either for some way of making it less of a "run away screaming" lobby option (and thus something that people use), or else changing its recommendation to zero and putting something else (preferably non-optional) into the core game which achieves the same purpose.  It's difficult to balance a game where time is supposed to be costly when most players don't play it that way

Granted, CPA size goes up over time even if AIP is very low, so it's not entirely without cost.

[Hearteater]

Shark-B is a good place to go for non-optional. AIP over time (which I like incidentally...except for no 20 minute option ) forces you to keep moving and takes control away from the player. Shark-B however gives the AI the extra punch when your defenses fail. This keeps control with the player, but gives the AI teeth for when you bite off more than you can chew. Actually, Shark-B and Retaliation Waves are very similar to the Super Waves mantis suggestion .

[keith.lamothe]

Another idea that comes to mind is to make AIP-over-time into AIP-Floor-over-time, so it doesn't hurt as long as you keep up the pace.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Given that there are so many players who seem to be happy to play with time having only a small cost and running things mostly at their own tempo (despite whatever the original design intentions were for the price of time), even if they occasionally complain that they feel they are forced into netflix mode, and given that there are already many options that can be enabled to make time costlier (auto-AIP and mining Golem being the biggest), I'm not so sure that the game needs to be changed such that time is costly as default, so much as it needs to be made more in-your face in-game at all times that time does have a cost, whether it be great or small, something that is not viscerally felt with the CPAs that come so far apart.


As one possible outrageous suggestion for how to accomplish the latter, and I say this solely because I am evil and deliberately not thinking about the implications for the poor CPU, have a DefenceFactor present at all times in the top bar of the main display (e.g. DF 1.23). This factor is then used as a multiplier on the maximum number of ships that will be used to guard any planet after all other considerations have been made, the maximum size of the special forces (poor CPU, this might be a killer), and the maximum size of reserves the AI will accumulate. Have it start at 1 with lobby options governing its growth, say 5%/hour as the minimum setting, with some higher value recommended, and update the displayed variable as the DF is increased, either two or three digit precision so the player will be reminded all the time that the DF is counting up.

Since the DF is only used for defensive purposes, the AIP remains the dominant factor where threat to the player is concerned, allowing the player to remain in control of the tempo where his survival is concerned, if that's how he likes to play. What it does introduce, or at least what I would hope it would introduce, is a feeling in the player than whenever he takes his time forting up and preparing, so too does the AI.

Downside? It would make 200h games as that mentioned earlier in the thread rather difficult to win.


EDIT: You know what? Upon further consideration, I hate this idea. Introducing another variable to keep track of, and one that is fairly boring as it is outside player control and slaved to the clock at that, would probably end up more annoying than helpful. Oh, well, that's the danger of rapid development ideas unconstrained by mental review - at least nine out of ten of them are crap.