I know I'm probably going to regret this...

[Chthon]

Random missions would be nice.  It does get boring doing the same missions every time.  Perhaps though we could brainstorm some new mission ideas here, as well as how already existing missions could be switched up upon without throwing all balance to the wind

Some ideas might be new factions, both friendly and enemy, so you don't always encounter the same 5 friends and 4 enemies.
We already have defend from a superweapon and destroy it, what about protect a vulnerable superweapon while it moves into position.
How about different nebula effects like:
Shield suppression (shields negated or reduced)
Attrition (acidic compounds in the nebula eats away at unshielded ships but not stations)
Universal Radar dampening (random amount from 5000, to half)
Semi-stable Wormhole (Periodically wormhole entrance becomes stable enough for the AI to traverse, allowing it to send Exo waves through.  AI is enemy to all or enemy to you.)
Asteroid Cloud (Nebula is really a cloud of micro meteorites.  Movement through the nebula results in damage based on speed of travel.

[Aquohn]

Just realised what made anti-snowballing seem pretty out-of-place: AI War and Valley 2 are both VERY snowball-y. One small screw-up in the beginning could make your 10+ hours of game-time go to waste. Not moving this or that survivor, particularly on higher strategic difficulties, can mess up the whole game. But this thing doesn't apply so much to the AI. When it's winning, it's very difficult to turn the tide.

[keith.lamothe]

One small screw-up in the beginning could make your 10+ hours of game-time go to waste.

Valley2, sure, but AIW?  Examples?  I mean, I can think of situations but they're either not small mistakes or they're in very hard scenarios (where your main mistakes were in the lobby ) or they kill you way before 10 hours.

And the whole structure of AIP and such is to prevent you from having a snowball-in-your-favor in the game as a whole.  It's pretty common in RTS vs-the-AI to reach a point where you know the game is won because you just have more than they do and there's nothing they can do to make up the difference.  In AIW it's possible to know you've won on the less intense scenarios but it's generally never without some potential of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

[ZaneWolfe]

I haven't messed with the champion at all yet, but it seems like a better solution would be a series of objectives.  You kill the first whatever so snowballing would happen, and you get objective 2: "Thanks, I think we've got it from here, but looks like they've got a super ship coming, can you stop it?"  Then when you kill that ship, you get objective three, "Great work!  But they've got some cloaked ships attacking us from behind, we need you to deal with them!"  Maybe there are five objectives each nebula, and rewards are based on how many you complete.  But the nebula ends when the initial win condition (aka, the snowball fight) decides it.  So you could speed things up by helping at the cost of time to do other objectives.  You could even lose the nebula if you say lure some big bad boss over and he glasses something important.  I realize it isn't a quick fix, but it seems like that would solve at least the snowball problem.

This ^. Solves the issue with anti-snowballing entirely by making them non-issue. Granted its not even close to a quick fix. But for those types of nebula that is exactly the perfect thing to do. As was said before the notes you are given in-game seem to indicate that your very presence will cause things to snowball in your allies favor, so this gives us something to do to kick start the snowball and then we go deal with the things that were unforeseen. (The side missions) Make the reward from the nebula based on the side missions rather than the snowball war.

I would also like to ask that the rewards get a look at as well. In theory, by the time you get Shadow BS, you should have earned every one of the mods, assuming you were doing well. In practice? Not so much. This is most noticeable with the Spire and the Nienzul mods. They have the least amount of time to get them. Each only has one solo (where they are your only allies) scenario, while Human and Zenith both have 2 solo scenarios. This means you "miss out" on a chance to get a bonus mod because you get a mod fort in that scenario. If you also would go up a hull size as well, this also "costs" a chance to earn a bonus module. These stack, meaning that most likely in either the dyson nebula or the warden nebula you will only get 1 mod if you go up a hull size as well, no matter how well you do.

For the Spire hull this can REALLY hurt. Sure if you get Photon Lances or Plasma Siege Cannons on that one nebula then its ok. The spire hull can be used to full effect. Otherwise it lacks any usable heavy slot save shields. Sure that means you could make a Shadow Destroyer or a Shadow Cruiser into a mobile forcefield platform, but the total area covered is rather small for that. (Btw, any reason it is the only hull that cant mount Missiles and Drones?)

Last bit- While there is fairly no real option in the main game for the PLAYER to snowball, (not counting FS) it can be fairly easy for the AI to snowball, but those require serious mistakes and/or the AI kills you shortly after. Typically I find that the only way to end up in a "Well I probably already lost but the AI isn't going to kill me for a while" game is to push the AIP too high too fast. However that was mostly due to reinforcements becoming so strong that by the time I took out the threat and tore through the guard I had to retreat, and re-fleet. But by the time I did that reinforcements had gotten strong enough that I started the whole thing over again. I got locked into a stalemate that I knew was going to kill me. With the new reinforcement logic, I am not sure its possible to do that now. As long as you can handle the waves, you can push on through and get the AI HW.

[Cinth]

 It was brought up in AS beta when the scenario count was stopped at 9, that you couldn't get all the modules.  This has the added bonus of making each play through different and increasing player complaints   It's ok to not be able to get everything and fits in with the rest of the game (you can't research everything or max everything).

 The mod fort reward is separate form the other rewards but the hull size increases are not.  The fort is a player reward not a champ reward so to speak (champs are supposed to be semi-autonomous).

 The Spire hulls use traditional Spire weapons for the most part and thus keeps it's flavor as a Spire ship.  A Spire hull with railclusters and lasers can clear a ton of fleet ships pretty fast.  The BB loaded out like a FS command ship (looks boss leading an armada of FS ships btw) can hold its own in a siege.

[Chthon]

I would also think it's cool that over time as the player ships gain xp or AIP goes up, the nebulas that you have participated in call back for help.

Perhaps little objectives you can perform for lesser rewards, but over time you get more and more of them and the rewards build up in your favor.

[Aquohn]

One small screw-up in the beginning could make your 10+ hours of game-time go to waste.

Valley2, sure, but AIW?  Examples?  I mean, I can think of situations but they're either not small mistakes or they're in very hard scenarios (where your main mistakes were in the lobby ) or they kill you way before 10 hours.

And the whole structure of AIP and such is to prevent you from having a snowball-in-your-favor in the game as a whole.  It's pretty common in RTS vs-the-AI to reach a point where you know the game is won because you just have more than they do and there's nothing they can do to make up the difference.  In AIW it's possible to know you've won on the less intense scenarios but it's generally never without some potential of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Hmm...too many warheads?

[ZaneWolfe]

@Cinth
Wait it can use railclusters? I will have to check my game later. (Cant right now) Either I didn't get railclusters or it bugged out and wouldn't let me put them on. I understand that I can't get every mod and its probably only my completionist nature that makes that annoying. Still one thing that is off about that is that one of the traditional spire weapons is the Heavy Beam Cannon. And the Spire Hull cant use that either. Then there is the fact that missiles out dps both photon lances (probably shouldn't given the weakpoints of lances) AND plasma siege cannons (what is this, i dont even) against even large targets like the nebula bases. (aren't siege cannons supposed to be better at nuking the big things than everything else?) Now factor in that the siege cannons cant hit smaller targets (or did that get changed and I missed it?) and things seem rather unfair for the Spire hull.

Right now the best ship to clear out nebula bases with is the Zenith, (going off the numbers and personal usage) and that doesn't seem to fit right to me. The human gets the most light slots, and seems to be best at dealing with the largest variety of smaller things. The Spire has the most large slots, but the two (possibly 3, but railclusters are more a small target thing) mods it can use don't have the best DPS against such targets. One would expect that the Zenith hull would be in-between those two. (Nienzul doesn't really rate in this, but it does other things that none of the others can, so its ok)

Problem goes back to the issue of weaponry. Since missile mods have the best dps, and Zenith can mount the most of them, it naturally does better than the Spire, despite the fact that the Spire hull gets more heavy slots. I feel the ratio is right for light:heavy (4:1 or 3:1 if I recall) so that doesn't seem to be an issue imo. Nor do I feel that the dps of the missile mod itself is the issue. More that the lances and siege cannons aren't doing enough. Possible suggestion; Bring the base dps of the siege cannons up by a large chunk. (Not sure on numbers right now) and drop the bonus multipliers slightly. For the lances just up the dps. I don't see any reason that missile mods should out dps either lances or siege cannons. (I'm alright on missiles out ranging them)

PS: It has now dawned on me out completely and totally off-topic this post is.

[Cinth]

@Cinth
Wait it can use railclusters? I will have to check my game later. (Cant right now) Either I didn't get railclusters or it bugged out and wouldn't let me put them on. I understand that I can't get every mod and its probably only my completionist nature that makes that annoying. Still one thing that is off about that is that one of the traditional spire weapons is the Heavy Beam Cannon. And the Spire Hull cant use that either. Then there is the fact that missiles out dps both photon lances (probably shouldn't given the weakpoints of lances) AND plasma siege cannons (what is this, i dont even) against even large targets like the nebula bases. (aren't siege cannons supposed to be better at nuking the big things than everything else?) Now factor in that the siege cannons cant hit smaller targets (or did that get changed and I missed it?) and things seem rather unfair for the Spire hull.

Yep, railclusters are a large mod split between Spire and Zenith hulls.  The module is a little stronger than the fleetship with the same bonuses.  HBC are a FS weapon but the FS don't have lances they can equip.  Plasma Siege mods have the same bonus damage as the equivalent MK Plasma Siege SS.  Plasma mods should be able to hit the ships in scenarios (so bonus damage against the heavy hulls) since they aren't fleet ships (I'll have to play test this one to be sure).  Lances could probably stand to get the reduced cycle time like the main guns do (for the same reason). 

Right now the best ship to clear out nebula bases with is the Zenith, (going off the numbers and personal usage) and that doesn't seem to fit right to me. The human gets the most light slots, and seems to be best at dealing with the largest variety of smaller things. The Spire has the most large slots, but the two (possibly 3, but railclusters are more a small target thing) mods it can use don't have the best DPS against such targets. One would expect that the Zenith hull would be in-between those two. (Nienzul doesn't really rate in this, but it does other things that none of the others can, so its ok)

Problem goes back to the issue of weaponry. Since missile mods have the best dps, and Zenith can mount the most of them, it naturally does better than the Spire, despite the fact that the Spire hull gets more heavy slots. I feel the ratio is right for light:heavy (4:1 or 3:1 if I recall) so that doesn't seem to be an issue imo. Nor do I feel that the dps of the missile mod itself is the issue. More that the lances and siege cannons aren't doing enough. Possible suggestion; Bring the base dps of the siege cannons up by a large chunk. (Not sure on numbers right now) and drop the bonus multipliers slightly. For the lances just up the dps. I don't see any reason that missile mods should out dps either lances or siege cannons. (I'm alright on missiles out ranging them)

It seems the biggest complaint is the inequity in damage dealing between heavy modules, namely missiles vs lances and PS.
So lets take a look at the bonus damage and see where it is.  I'm going to use MK V modules (using my current game and I have MK V mods).

Missile Module MK V : 625,000 DPS     ((500,000*5)/4)
Plasma Siege MK V:    500,000 DPS     ((400,000*10)/8)
Photon Lance MK V:    377,143 DPS     (2,640,000/7)  *2 second duration, 5 second reload so damage is over 7 seconds total*

So the missile mod clearly outclasses its peers.  Giving the Photon Lance the reduced reload will help it out a lot and make it rather competitive.  The only way to make the direct damage between missiles and plasma is to make the base damage the same across all marks.  This would either be a buff to plasma or a nerf to missiles.  In this case, I think it would be reasonable to just buff the plasma since it gets the x10 bonus instead of a flat out high base damage (would limit how OP the plasma could be outside).  The MK I change in base damage isn't that great either (MK I plasma would go up by 20,000 damage for base damage).  That would put the bonus damage equal to that of missiles.

[Radiant Phoenix]

The Plasma module has additional flexibility from being able to hit heavy targets, but less flexibility because you can only put it on the Spire champion.

If it could be used on other hulls, I would say it was fine, but it can't.

[Aquohn]

PS: It has now dawned on me out completely and totally off-topic this post is.

Probably because the whole Champions thing suffers from serious balance/gameplay issues, not to mention stuff like: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10886