Prerelease 3.172 (Bugfixes)

[Ozymandiaz]

Kamikaze marauders killed a gravity well, causing 5 aip, now I am 100% sure (I saw it happen). Is this wad, or should I report it as a bug? It is not a big deal, but I wanted to take the well for myself. I know I can turn off the marauders, but I think they are good fun.

Thanks keith for balancing the heavy turrets. They are still a formidable weapon in my hands, but no longer nearly impossible to kill when in the hands of the enemy.

Sounds like a bug to me, I thought npc factions should not cause AIP?

[superking]

Am I right thinking no triangle unit is effective against zenith polarisers? I had full shipcaps of mki fighter, bomber and frigate, and it took me about 10 minutes to destroy a wave of 160 mk I zenith polarisers because nothing was doing any real damage to them. Perhaps a slight tweak, so a core unit, prefferably frigates, is a little more effective against them?

[Goekhan]

Thanks -- that wouldn't have been valid a year ago, but given how the game has evolved in that time it was definitely time.  Back in beta at one point it was actually 3000 (and at another point it was 2500, and at another point 1000). 2000 was definitely the right number for a long time, but more recently the game has really grown beyond what that could support alone.  All those performance improvements, etc, lead to larger battles and a need for more stuff to be unlocked, and all those added starships and such created a wider tree that players were hungry to be able to explore more of at once.  Plus it took the sting out of the nerfing of knowledge raiding.

I think Mark of a planet should define these. A Mark IV planet would offer more RP (research points) than a Mark I planet, so that those Mark IV's would be hard targets, but more beneficial.

[x4000]

Thanks -- that wouldn't have been valid a year ago, but given how the game has evolved in that time it was definitely time.  Back in beta at one point it was actually 3000 (and at another point it was 2500, and at another point 1000). 2000 was definitely the right number for a long time, but more recently the game has really grown beyond what that could support alone.  All those performance improvements, etc, lead to larger battles and a need for more stuff to be unlocked, and all those added starships and such created a wider tree that players were hungry to be able to explore more of at once.  Plus it took the sting out of the nerfing of knowledge raiding.

I think Mark of a planet should define these. A Mark IV planet would offer more RP (research points) than a Mark I planet, so that those Mark IV's would be hard targets, but more beneficial.

That's something that then just makes the mark of the planets way too critical, and the lower-mark planets way to unuseful.  It's far too predictable for my taste, hence why I'm quite set on having them all be the same value.  The one alternative would be having just randomly variant knowledge the same way that metal and crystal are, but I think that would get too difficult to keep track of.

[superking]

was just thinking, it would be really handy to get messages when the AI unlocks new ship types the same way we do with AIP increases. Realising that 'AI 1 Unlocks Vampire' five minutes before half a thousand vampires chew through half your command stations would make a world of difference 

[x4000]

That seems a little bit omniscient, though, no?

[superking]

well, in honesty the main reason I suggest it is so that the mechanic so clearer. invisible mechanics without alerts are hard to figure out, and I rarely notice the exact period that the AI starts using new unit types (except the example above, in which I raged massive)

[x4000]

Well, I understand where you're coming from, and certainly that was a frustrating specific case, but I think most of the time it makes good sense that the AI is growing and doing stuff that you can't directly see, necessarily.

[superking]

ok 

Am I right thinking fighters/bombers/frigates have no damage bonus against zenith polarisers? they take forever to kill

[x4000]

I'm not sure on that second one, you'd have to check the stats to see for sure.  I may have to look at the balance for them versus the core triangle and see where there's a hole.

[superking]

tractor beam turrets are paralysable but continue to function while paralysed

[x4000]

Can you log that sort of thing as bug reports?  Otherwise it just gets lost in all these huge conversations.  Thanks!

[x4000]

After our longest gap between AI War releases ever, BY FAR, a new version: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6572.0.html

And it's a good one.

[3dfx]

Yay,thank you !