Attention, this post has no angry feeling against the staff and designers of ai war and is a friendly post to get more people to agree what i'm angry about.
Control nodes, put them in options, end of story
The reason: They look bad
also, i don't want to waste my 10 metal and 10 crystal ( as i sad in my other post) and they waste a little time. the idea of control nodes is wierd.
Auto energy management
I already saw Chris Park's article in the wiki
http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Micromanagement and this is what i think of it
first, i wanna praise you since i never thought of auto scouting myself
but from what i understand "However, in extreme circumstances where a campaign would otherwise be a loss, players can either opt to A) concede defeat, since they have lost; B) get really tricky and do all sorts of micro-intensive activities to claw their way back in. " you're trying to say that we should leave an ace in the hole just in case we get owned bad?
The game is built around expecting players to build enough reactors to maintain all of their ships.
this is ok with us, just turn them on when we need them, we don't have that time to turn energy reactors on
2. Some players like to micromanage the reactors to gain an added advantage. This is fine, but I'm not going to go out of my way to make that easier; they are deriving an advantage out of this that is not really intended.
change that to they are trying to solve a bug that is not really intended
4. Therefore, I don't see a need for a reactor automation node at all. The only thing that it would do is help all players derive an advantage from auto-microing their reactors, in which case I would then have to rebalance the game around that, in which case you're back to square one of it not mattering at all.
i dunno about you but saving time will make me happier but not more powerful in the game
Things like this are always an arms race. When you give the AI a new ability, the game gets harder. When you give the player one, the game gets easier. Etc. And in the middle are various micro-intensive activities that players can optionally do in order to gain some sort of specific advantage if they are so inclined. Keyword there is optional. These are not really intended strategies that the game expects players to use in order to win, but rather are sideways solutions that players work out in order to maximize their effectiveness given the game rules (at a cost of their time and attention to the micro).
to answe r this is tricky, as i said the game does not get easier to play to attack but easier to play to control, there is a reason why there are more than one person giving orders, it's to do everything they can(aka micromanaging) to reach their full potential. anyway, as i would say, it's just as the crystal managing, I'M NOT trying to get you to make everything easy for us but for something that really just isn't an advantage but a "bug" we should change it
"By contrast, reason I previously automated the building of metal and crystal harvesters is because there is no strategy to them at all, it is simply a "click to replace" type of activity that is short and pointless"
uhh, clicking off the energy reactor is also a click to replace type of activity, We're not asking you to do what i dreamed of(turning all unneeded ships to low power or auto scouting) but a simply turn off things when we obviously do not need them.
1. Micromanaging scouts to get really far with low-level scouts.
2. Micromanaging unit tactics and positioning in battle.
3. Micromanaging reactors.
4. Micromanaging low-power/full-power ships to minimize energy footprint.
5. Micromanaging engineer positioning and usage so as to reduce the number of engineers needed in the galaxy.
6. Micromanaging the positions of shield and munitions boosters to provide maximum coverage.
2and 6 is a great idea i actually wanted in the game, CAUSE, the point of the game is to control your fleet as a few seperal diversions, not micromanaging. but not needed for now
And the last good reason and i'm not criticizing anything. YOU HAVE OPTIONS IN THIS GAME, we have cheats(thx anyway) cool options such as handicaps and difficulty, we have control nodes but can't we at least get an option for auto energy reactor managing? there are so many friendly mods and skins for all kinds of games and i am sure that a lot of people can design that node, ( still no criticizing) you yourself said this game is not competitive so why not have more options, turning it on or off should be our choice,
main reason i really want this is cause remember i don't really like time limits? i even asked you what would happen if i went afk for a week( which reminds me, we should have a contest for people to desgin a defense and see how long the game should last
) i in no means is rude or ignorant so thanks for reading.
