Ideas for the next expansion?

[DrFranknfurter]

I noticed the pre 8.0 poll list, I don't have much to add except I'd like tiny/swarmer ships to get a buff. Anyway, since there is an expansion planned I thought I'd throw some ideas out there and ask what sort of AI-types and ships people would like to see.

AI-type: Developing
A medium AI that begins as a random easy,
upgrades to a random medium, after 2h -(AIP - 100) min
upgrades to a random hard. after 4h -(AIP - 200) min
(by switching main/adding a secondary AI type or simply unlocking a set of bonuses that mirror some of the AI types - change wave behaviour, fleetship unlocks etc.)

I quite like dynamic difficulty, ways to encourage playing with every tool in the game and pain in moderation. Talked before about probing attacks and an AI that reacts slightly differently to you. With this idea you'd have to do the learning. AIP increases would be filled with fear as hitting a threshold would permanently upgrade the AI and you wouldn't always know instantly what changed, they'd keep those captive settlements, unlocked ships and guardians but gain something new. Rather than unlocking one ship at a time it could unlock all the raiding ships in one swoop or *cringe* plant an exogalactic wormhole over your homeworld.
The new AI-type could be chosen based on time of upgrade. With upgrade Time itself modified by AI-difficulty and hastened by a raised AIP (so you could go back half an hour and change the results by taking a world, or not taking a world).
I call it a medium because you would have quite a long period of grace before feeling the pain of a harder AI type and presenting it this way makes you more likely to actually play against a scorched earth for example (it makes more sense too that the AI would use the scary hard responses only after you've taken some territory).
I admit it sounds like an AI type that could be painful to play against and kill you horribly if you wasted your time (but it does so in a more finite way than simply raising the AIP every 5 mins). Thoughts? is it possible? could it proactively seed whatever buildings the harder AI type would normally start with? (cluster bombers, BHM, Mass drivers etc.)

New AI-type: Really Schizophrenic
AI that switches type every 2h, sometimes a bully, sometimes a turtle, sometimes camouflaged. What's not to like?

New AI-type: Ethereal
Units evade mines/forcefields/attacks/are cloaked when in range of a new beach-head structure. Not as harsh as a standard beach head but certainly dangerous. Adds "Ethereal generator/shield/cloaker" to normal waves. (or simply provides a major speed and armour boost to nearby ships)

New ship types:
(I like the mantis'd Necromancer suggestion)

Energy Drain - provides considerable energy when in enemy territory, for AI it may just give you a blackout.
Teleporting Shield - has no weapons but 1m health and teleports
Dark ship - projects a dark aura that protects against light (photon lances)
Shield Stealer - had a small shield module that doesn't auto-build or repair, vampiric, damage multiplier against shields (structural?)
Swarm leader - has an attack boost from every nearby swarmer-hull type and boosts their armour
Energy collector - absorbs energy attacks, lasers, photon lance, 20s reload time, damage increased from attacks up to 20x for next shot (a starship)
Hopper - has a short-range teleport but very low base speed, stronger weapons than normal teleporting units, hops about killing things
Projector - uses translocating rail-cannons on friendly targets to send nearby ships across a gravity well

[Gudamor]

AI Types:
Archivist - "Easier" AI type that seeds Spire Archives similar to how the Entrenched Homeworlder seeds Captive Human Settlements. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12084

Studious - "Hard" AI type that will one at a time start to convert ARS to AI Backup Servers, gaining that bonus unit in the process. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12061

Ship types:

Magnet Drone - Slow, melee-ranged, high cap gravity drones. The Tachyon Microfighter of gravity effects. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=11924

Jellyship - This low cap ship is a melee-ranged drone spawner. Its Stinging Tentacle drones are immobile, self-attritioning, and function like EMP mines. This would give the visual effect of a jellyfish with deadly paralyzing tentacles trailing behind it. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=11946

Doc Franks: Your AI type suggestions are interesting, but how will they handle switching to an AI type that is supposed to seed special things? For example, would they get Captive Human Settlements if they switched to Entrenched Homeworlder?

I also like your Shield Stealer idea a lot!

[Alphanos]

Ship Type:
Warp Diverter - Low-cap ship.  When an enemy ship enters the system via a wormhole, it will immediately force-teleport to the location of a random Warp Diverter if one or more are present.

[DrFranknfurter]

I wasn't sure about the seeding for the idea... the biggest feature of many AI types is seeded buildings so it would make sense to seed something. (but it would need completely different logic to normal seeding due to planets having changed hands so perhaps something simple or more limited like only adding 5 buildings randomly, or 1 per planet if the AI has less than 5 planets).

I like the Jellyship, makes a mine-layer much more interesting. (self attritioning mines should make it a little less annoying in AI hands).

What is the AIP-on death of an archive? I have a feeling that keeping them all alive would be be tricky for an easy AI (since those seeded worlds would be tempting to try to take if they weren't all near AI-homeworlds) but certainly fun.

[Gudamor]

One idea for the seeding is that the ai could start with placeholders seeded on their worlds. If it then switched to a type with special structures, some fraction of the placeholders become that structure.

Regarding Spire Archives, I just double checked and they give a gigantic +80 aip if destroyed. Compare that to the captive human settlement which is only +15 (didn't these used to be +100?) In that case maybe it should be considered a harder ai type.

[DrFranknfurter]

The archive is still a very nice big bonus, much bigger than a captive settlement... and harmless while in AI hands (unlike gravity drains). I think it could still be easy AI type, maybe medium. (Although if the two AI types Archive+Studious were merged it would make an interesting harder AI type - maybe replacing the ARSs with an archive + design backup)

[Shoat]

The "Developing" and "Really Schizophrenic" AI types sound really fun and the amounts of mechanical changes they'd require (seeding new special things during the game, maybe done through things that're initially placeholders) make them fitting to be implemented as an expansion feature.

As you mentioned Teleporting Shield and Dark Ship: A new expansion could maybe add a new AI for support ships with limited range (shields, counter-fire against certain ammunition, munitions/armor boost etc.) that causes them to attempt to stay near friendly ships as much as they can when in FRD (currently protector starships are only useful when you put your entire fleet into a single ball or micromanage them manually to follow other groups of ships, which sucks).

Shield Stealer sounds fun. I don't think it needs to be modular, though (making the ship's weapon heal it's shield module would be really difficult and weird mechanically). It could just be a shield bearer that starts with only a low % of it's health when built and has vampirism (small % vampirism against most targets and huge % vampirism against other shields?).

New ship types:
(I like the mantis'd Necromancer suggestion)

I am flattered beyond belief.
I assumed it would just go unnoticed forever or be downvoted into oblivion immediately.



Archivist/Studious sound neat aswell. I think Archivist still fits as "easy" because all you need to do is hold a world with an archive until it's completed (half an hour) and then you're safe from it's +80 AIP AND everyone on the team gets 9000 knowledge.

Jellyfish would probably be fun, but I don't think that leaving emp mines BEHIND it would be very useful for a melee ship (they'd only ever hit things if the enemy fleet is balled up and the jellyfish is flying around in the fleetball), that'd be more fitting (mechanically, not thematically) for a ranged ship with retreat range that'll kite enemies around. Then again, it'd be okay if the trailing emp mines are just a gimmick and it's main DPS/paralyzing come from it's own melee attacks.





Edit
Just found this in the 10/10 scorched earth scorched earth (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,15237.45.html) thread
and thought it'd be pretty cool (sort of like fallen spire, except not quite as powerful):

Make it [creation of new dyson spheres mid-game] a plot, along the lines of the Advanced Hybrids.

Iff both the Zenith Miners and Dyson Sphere are enabled, every time a miner destroys a planet there's a 1/50 chance that it has accumulated enough scrap to create a new Dyson sphere. A 20 minute countdown begins, with the AI sending waves to take out the ongoing construction every five minutes or so. Of course this is counterbalanced by player allied Zenith ships spawning from the partially completed Dyson sphere. Successfully beat off the AI assault, you get a permanently player allied Zenith sphere and maybe a bunch of Zenith ships (equivalent to a Mk. 3 or something node) for your troubles. Albeit on a planet that doesn't have supply.

It would be nice to have a few more of these lower-likelihood mini-scenarios in-game, along with maybe a journal entry or two to fill out the backstory, although I imagine it isn't really worth the dev time. Still, a man can dream.

[Histidine]

AI type: Envious
Launches small exos at players when they gather enough knowledge, capture/hack an ARS, advanced constructor or fabricator, open a Distribution Node or Zenith Reserve Cache, etc. Basically an inverse Vengeful AI.

Unit: Anti-Starship Turret
Basically an anti-big-thing solution for those who don't have an OMD handy. Medium range, low to moderate rate of fire, high damage.
Could be replaced with an Impulse Reaction Turret instead.

Unit: Modular Mini-Fortress
Like the minifort, but bigger and modular. Can have four small and one large module.

[keith.lamothe]

FYI Expansion #6 is already spec'd out (and I've been working on it a few hours a week); in order to be able to get it done in a reasonable timeframe I won't really be able to add stuff to to the spec.  But having stuff like this in mantis is good for future expansions, as I often draw from there (and in general from forum discussions I remember)

[DrFranknfurter]

Nice to know work is progressing well, and hints as to future features? or the title even, the TLF post is intriguingly minimalist. Any three word description for this expansion? (just you wait, not saying anything, pink painted plasmasiege, consectetur plasma obsidionem)

Just curious, how many ship ideas did you have to sort through in brainstorming before deciding on things for the expansion? I can imagine it'd be hard to decide on the role, size, race and gimmick when there are almost unlimited combinations as well as all the complex interactions and cheese to worry about... at least some better ideas can be kicked into the long grass for some future expansion.

also, the anti-starship turret I like (I'd want anti-artillery modifiers on it and for it to be unable to target small ships)
and you can never add too many zombies (an insanity inducer turret? Perhaps a turret controller but no standard turret... turret controllers built with asteroid fields?)

[Gudamor]

Even if they don't make it into the next expansion, it is still fun to think up things.

Neinzul Youngling Webworm - Spawns immobile forcefields much like the Zenith Hydra spawns heads. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15313

Katamari Stickyship - Currently all mobile tractor beam equipped ships are balanced around the possibility of "grabbing your stuff and taking it to bad places." Instead, this ship's speed is reduced, eventually to zero, for each additional ship it has tractored. This makes its function more like a mobile Tractor Turret and allows it to be balanced around larger health. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12035

[Gudamor]

Jellyfish would probably be fun, but I don't think that leaving emp mines BEHIND it would be very useful for a melee ship (they'd only ever hit things if the enemy fleet is balled up and the jellyfish is flying around in the fleetball), that'd be more fitting (mechanically, not thematically) for a ranged ship with retreat range that'll kite enemies around. Then again, it'd be okay if the trailing emp mines are just a gimmick and it's main DPS/paralyzing come from it's own melee attacks.

It would definitely need to be a balancing act between fun-micro "I can tell the Jellyship to attack this target instead of the one it auto-targeted and then it will hit 5 targets instead of 2!" and tedious-micro "I am always having to babysit these ships because their targeting is so dumb."

Ideally the explosion range and spawn time of the mines is such that the ship's melee target will also be paralyzed. Then you could just give the Jellyship the same targeting logic as Zenith Paralyzers: switch to a non-paralyzed target if your current target becomes paralyzed.

[keith.lamothe]

Katamari Stickyship - Currently all mobile tractor beam equipped ships are balanced around the possibility of "grabbing your stuff and taking it to bad places." Instead, this ship's speed is reduced, eventually to zero, for each additional ship it has tractored. This makes its function more like a mobile Tractor Turret and allows it to be balanced around larger health. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12035

Haha, I've been playing a fair bit of Katamari recently and thought of a Devourer-variant that instead of guns had a bunch of tractors.  No speed reduction, though, so it would just wander the galaxy carrying its own constellation of ships (some AI, some human, generally shooting at each other).

[Aklyon]

A Katamari ship would be pretty funny to see show up.

[Draco18s]

Katamari Stickyship - Currently all mobile tractor beam equipped ships are balanced around the possibility of "grabbing your stuff and taking it to bad places." Instead, this ship's speed is reduced, eventually to zero, for each additional ship it has tractored. This makes its function more like a mobile Tractor Turret and allows it to be balanced around larger health. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12035

Haha, I've been playing a fair bit of Katamari recently and thought of a Devourer-variant that instead of guns had a bunch of tractors.  No speed reduction, though, so it would just wander the galaxy carrying its own constellation of ships (some AI, some human, generally shooting at each other).

Nah.  Make it mind-control them so they shoot anything the golem would shoot at.  Anything that gets within tractor range is caught, mind-controlled, and dragged along.  The only way to save ships would be to get a forcefield in the way.