If You Could Overhaul One Minor Faction or Plot...

[Red.Queen]

This certainly kept going since last night.  <steeples fingers>  Eeeexcellent.  Moar data!

Edit: This post is getting too long, breaking this in two...

<Enclave Stuff>

Poked around, found the stuff controlling the spawns.  It's... complicated, at least the determination of the actual Enclave caps is.  Too complicated to jam into a post here, you have to trace it across about half a dozen classes, including a couple custom math classes Arcen wrote for themselves I assume back in the pre-Unity days (because otherwise surely the sane thing would have been to use Unity's built-in stuff, rather than doing loads of extra work  ).  In a nutshell, the total number of Enclaves that can be on the board seems to be determined by a series of formulas that take into account faction intensity, number of planets held by humans vs. AI, along with some other stuff that can be forced to skew the population towards friendlies.

The #1 thing intensity affects is how *often* it rolls to see if it should spawn a new Enclave, if there's room.  Ranges anywhere from every 300 sec at intensity 1, to every 21 sec at intensity 10.  So intensity has a significant effect on how fast the pop caps will be reached, and how fast they are replaced if they start dying.  Low intensity means you can actually do some population control, high intensity means you are just going to have to live with Enclaves everywhere all the time.

On the lore topic, I still don't know how to make NPWardens more "wardens"... But it would touch the AI behind it, and it sounds out of modding-land (really, no reversed psychology there )

I have upgraded AI before (technically built a simple one from scratch before, only realized it in hindsight while reading a textbook I picked up recently). >D

But more specifically with regards to the NPWs, yeah, it really seems like their main distinction is just a few behavioral elements.  They spawn a fair bit back in AI space every so often, then look for a human world they can reach, and then prefer to target Harvesters.  Except normal hostiles like to blow up Harvesters too, and they tend to be the first targets within reach... so in a live game, there is virtually no actual difference between the two Enclaves except stats.

Dunno what to do with them either.  <shrug>

<Resistance and Marauder stuff>

These guys are much simpler in how they spawn than the Neinzul.

Very roughly:  if a fight breaks out on a non-homeworld, non-core world between the player and the AI, and the number of hostile units isn't more than a certain amount, they come swooping in (if there aren't already too many flying around elsewhere).  Resistance fighters seem to take AI Tech Level into account for how often they can show up, interestingly enough.

Rough caps for Marauders are 40 or 80, depending on whether diff is under 9 or not.  Resistance fighters have some randomness, ranging from 10-40 under diff 8, to 20-80 at 8+.  I'm not entirely sure if that's for the whole spawn event, or per ship-type -- I *think* it's the latter, as I am certain I've seen Resistance spawns of 120 ships before.

Intensity seems to have no effect at all on quantities spawned, only frequency.  Kind of surprising.

Main Resistance spawning logic if you still want to see it, not gonna bother posting the Marauders as it's mostly like that, but without the fancier stuff determining quantities.  I don't really want to end up posting craptons of code all over this thread -- especially not when the game's so easy to chuck in a (free) decompiler and look for yourself.

Spoiler for Hiden:

    private void CheckForResistanceSpawn()
    {
        bool forceResistanceSpawnOnNextCheck = this.ForceResistanceSpawnOnNextCheck;
        this.ForceResistanceSpawnOnNextCheck = false;
        if ((Game.Instance.Options.AIMinorFactions[1] >= 1 ? true : forceResistanceSpawnOnNextCheck))
        {
            int num = 80;
            switch (Game.Instance.Options.AIMinorFactions[1])
            {
                case 1:
                {
                    num = 320;
                    break;
                }
                case 2:
                {
                    num = 240;
                    break;
                }
                case 3:
                {
                    num = 160;
                    break;
                }
                case 4:
                {
                    num = 80;
                    break;
                }
                case 5:
                {
                    num = 70;
                    break;
                }
                case 6:
                {
                    num = 60;
                    break;
                }
                case 7:
                {
                    num = 50;
                    break;
                }
                case 8:
                {
                    num = 40;
                    break;
                }
                case 9:
                {
                    num = 30;
                    break;
                }
                case 10:
                {
                    num = 20;
                    break;
                }
            }
            if ((Game.Instance.GameSecond % num == 0 ? true : forceResistanceSpawnOnNextCheck))
            {
                int aITechLevel = 1;
                aITechLevel = aITechLevel + (this.AITechLevel - 1);
                if (aITechLevel > 3)
                {
                    aITechLevel = 3;
                }
                Player resistanceFighterCounter = this;
                resistanceFighterCounter.ResistanceFighterCounter = resistanceFighterCounter.ResistanceFighterCounter + aITechLevel;
                int num1 = (this.AIDifficulty < 8 ? 10 : 20);
                int num2 = (this.AIDifficulty < 8 ? 40 : 80);
                int num3 = num2 << 1;
                if (this.ResistanceFighterCounter > num3)
                {
                    this.ResistanceFighterCounter = num3;
                }
                if (forceResistanceSpawnOnNextCheck)
                {
                    Player player = this;
                    player.ResistanceFighterCounter = player.ResistanceFighterCounter + 400;
                }
                if ((this.ResistanceFighterCounter >= Game.Instance.GameRandomSim.Next(num1, num2) ? true : forceResistanceSpawnOnNextCheck))
                {
                    Planet planet = null;
                    int num4 = 0;
                    Buy aIBuyCategoriesBase = this.AIBuyCategoriesBase[57];
                    if (aIBuyCategoriesBase.SubTypes.Count == 0)
                    {
                        return;
                    }
                    int num5 = 300;
                    int num6 = 400;
                    int resistanceFighterCounter1 = this.ResistanceFighterCounter;
                    int resistanceFighterCounter2 = this.ResistanceFighterCounter << 3;
                    switch (Game.Instance.Options.UnitCapScale.Type)
                    {
                        case UnitCapScaleType.Low:
                        {
                            num5 = num5 >> 2;
                            num6 = num6 >> 2;
                            resistanceFighterCounter2 = resistanceFighterCounter2 >> 2;
                            goto case UnitCapScaleType.High;
                        }
                        case UnitCapScaleType.Normal:
                        {
                            num5 = num5 >> 1;
                            num6 = num6 >> 1;
                            resistanceFighterCounter2 = resistanceFighterCounter2 >> 1;
                            goto case UnitCapScaleType.High;
                        }
                        case UnitCapScaleType.High:
                        {
                            int num7 = 0;
                            PlanetUnitRollup teamUnits = null;
                            Planet item = null;
                            for (int i = 0; i < Game.Instance.planets.Count; i++)
                            {
                                item = Game.Instance.planets;
                                if ((item.IsObstacle ? false : !item.IsOffroad))
                                {
                                    if ((item.WasOriginallyHomePlanet ? false : !item.IsCoreAIPlanet))
                                    {
                                        teamUnits = item.TeamUnits[1];
                                        int count = teamUnits.AlliedMilitary.Count;
                                        int count1 = teamUnits.EnemyMilitary.Count;
                                        if (count1 >= num6)
                                        {
                                            if (count >= num5)
                                            {
                                                if (count > count1)
                                                {
                                                    int num8 = count - count1;
                                                    if (num8 <= resistanceFighterCounter1 + resistanceFighterCounter2)
                                                    {
                                                        num7 = 0;
                                                        foreach (ForegroundObjectType subType in aIBuyCategoriesBase.SubTypes)
                                                        {
                                                            int effectiveAIPerPlanetShipCap = this.UnitTypes[(int)subType].Immutable.GetEffectiveAIPerPlanetShipCap(5);
                                                            effectiveAIPerPlanetShipCap = effectiveAIPerPlanetShipCap - teamUnits.GetNumberOfAlliedShipsOfType(subType);
                                                            if (effectiveAIPerPlanetShipCap > 0)
                                                            {
                                                                num7 = num7 + effectiveAIPerPlanetShipCap;
                                                            }
                                                        }
                                                        if (num7 > 0)
                                                        {
                                                            if (num8 > num7)
                                                            {
                                                                num8 = num7;
                                                            }
                                                            if ((planet == null ? true : num8 > num4))
                                                            {
                                                                planet = item;
                                                                num4 = num8;
                                                            }
                                                        }
                                                    }
                                                }
                                            }
                                        }
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                            if (planet != null)
                            {
                                this.SpawnResistanceFighters(planet, ref this.ResistanceFighterCounter, num4, 160000);
                            }
                            break;
                        }
                        case UnitCapScaleType.UltraLow:
                        {
                            num5 = num5 >> 3;
                            num6 = num6 >> 3;
                            resistanceFighterCounter2 = resistanceFighterCounter2 >> 3;
                            goto case UnitCapScaleType.High;
                        }
                        default:
                        {
                            goto case UnitCapScaleType.High;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

I saw some core MkV veterans posting wave composition reports. If someone can teach me this master-trick, it would be nice. I hope MF stuff is covered by this debugging output.

Enable Advanced Logging.  Neinzul stuff is logged, Resistance/Marauders not so much.  Varies by MF/Plot as to what gets logged.

<NRC stuff>

Ok, I can follow the logic.

If I could change something, I would not change the minor factions. I'd change the flow of the game.
<snip>

A bit beyond the scope of this thread in general, but thanks for taking the time to chime in and share.

Could you break out the stuff about AI Progress and reducers into a new thread?  I think there's some good discussion to be had on that subject, it just would be more manageable to split it off on its own so it doesn't get buried in here.  I remember seeing some discussions about AIP and pacing before, including the "sit on the floor" approach, but I think it's been a long time.  Couldn't hurt to review it.

...if I could "store" patterns for defenses, like a group of turrets to block a wormhole, a beachhead... and so on.

Check out the Modding subforum, while I am apparently the first to start messing with the main game logic and get into reflection/reverse engineering (or at least the first to open up about what I'm doing to the AI War community, there are a lot more modders out there overall, most just don't talk, that included me up until last year), I am not technically the first here to patch the .dll.  Adam Milazzo dug up a bunch of lost UI features from the pre-Unity version of AI War and ported them back in, along with additional tweaks.  I believe some of the stuff he added would help speed up laying out defenses.

[Red.Queen]

Right then, broke off the first couple of replies and... I've hardly dented this.  I think I've made a monster. Sweet.

Do human rebel colonies still increase AIP by 100? If yes, it's an "insta lose button" and should be nerfed.

Yup, they most certainly do.  Easy to change, though I disagree on +100 being instant death, at least below Diff 9 -- it's still harsh as hell though, regardless.  Maybe the hit should be split between current AIP and floor, so it's more of a long-term crippling of AIP management rather than potentially immediate face-melting.  The immediate rebellion was squashed and thus not a current threat, but the AI will be especially resistant to calming down under any circumstances afterwards as clearly this galaxy is not as pacified as it thought.

Or it could maybe just spawn a smallish Exo on death.  Maybe a Hunter/Killer, that would be thematically appropriate.  "Restless humans here?  Search and destroy."

Also marauders and beachheads are overpowered. If I remember correctly marauders are sniper immune, have very long range and move quite fast. In addition to that they come from the edge of the gravity well. Making them about as annoying as Astro Trains. They're like AI 3 that's always a Warp Jumper.

Excellent, patterns are forming in what people are suggesting.  This is good.  Correct on the Marauder stats and behavior.

Dyson Gatlings don't seem to do anything anymore. Even a single laser or needler guard post will pretty much shutdown the Dyson Sphere.

Do you think it's purely a power creep problem that's making the Dyson irrelevant now?

^^imo the neinzul MFs are balanced and "do their job" as intended.

Vote against messing with the Neinzul noted.

Thanks for posting, Kahuna.

<Nebula/Champion snip>
That's basically asking for a redo of Ancient Shadows though, if that's a bit much then I'll cheerily ask for changes to roaming enclaves. The allied ones shouldn't all camp out on your homeworld.

<lol>  Just a tad, this thread's titled Overhauling Minor Factions and Plots, not Expansions (Hmmm start new thread for that? Nah even I'm not that crazy (yet)).   I'm noticing a recurring theme though with people bringing up the Nebulae/Champions.

Another vote for messing with Enclaves, though.  Am curious -- what would you prefer their behavior be?  Distribute their camping across more of your worlds?  Default to some of the more aggressive behavior?  They've actually got the ability to take orders of a sort via chat commands, they just default to "sit on the homeworld and snuggle against the command station".

BTW, I understand now what Keith meant when I saw him reference the Enclave logic as being fancy -- they have an entire class of their own dedicated to controlling it.  It's pretty cool, they even evaluate threats and intelligently choose targets if you let them off the leash and tell them they can go annoy the AI on their own.  It's like Hybrids but for the player.

I would make Alt Champ Progress the default (intensity controlled by handicap), and make Nebulas a minor faction accessible to HCS players.

Filing this under another vote for "redo Ancient Shadows".   Seems like the nebulae are not overly-popular.  I haven't tried them myself yet, but it does seem like they'd take you out of the main game a bit much (one of the reason I *haven't* tried them yet).

Thanks Radiant Phoenix!

It wasn't a challenge, really!  It's a scale-of-work thing, as you said.  Last time those topics came up, people generated enough ideas that there could have easily been an entire full-sized expansion centered around just one of those ideas.  Heaven knows I've got all sorts of ideas for them, too

Hehehe don't worry, I believe you, I'm just poking fun, mostly at myself for that habit.    And seeing the reaction this one thread is getting, I suspect you are politely understating the avalanche that came out of the last similar discussion!  I clearly underestimated how effective this bait would be to lure people back out of hiding -- not a bad thing though, lots of interesting stuff to read/possibly try to do.

Glad this sounds like fun to people. 
I think Radar Jammer II should be a higher mark ability, but yeah, that sounds fun.  Grav effects, tachyon range, Attritioner abilities, or let them spawn the Hacking special effects, too.  Maybe give the Mk V version cloaking, for extra special fun.

Cloaked Beachhead... that would be sadistic if they spawned somewhere randomly on the planet, away from the turrets.

Yeah, some of the hacking effects like the Tachyon and EMP pulses crossed my mind, possibly on a timer like the Raid Engine.  Lots of possibilities to consider, the trick will be picking out the ones that make people go "Oh Sh#%" but without going back to refusing to use the MF again.  I wonder how much of a pain it would be to convert Beachheads into having a selectable intensity so the really bad stuff could be gated like the Astro Train types, some of the logic is already in there, just not really relevant since it's either 0 or 1 for intensity, effectively.  Something to look at.

Plus, there's the luck factor - Since it removes supply, the Beachheads also turn off forcefields.  That means that the Advanced Factory or Fabricator you were protecting is suddenly unshielded AND located at the same system-edge that the Beachhead waves arrive from.  A little bad luck, and *poof*!  That's just not fun to me.  When I lose, I want it to be because I screwed up, not just because RNG decided to laugh at me for a few seconds.

Yep, if you're not already there when it spawns, you've already lost the planet, because your fleet will never make it there in time for a rescue.  The ultimate reason supply cutting is no bueno.  But defense *crippling* or MOAR ships spawning over time?  That creates dramatic "hold the line until the cavalry arrives!" moments, which are awesome.

One minor faction or plot? Astro--right, other than those.

 

I'm tempted to say "beachheads" but really the only tweak those need is to be announced. I don't mind having to use my fleet for defense, but going "oh a wave of fighters,  i can take that" and going out on an attack only to find out that it was "fighters and a beachhead" and not HAVING a fleet to defend with is a problem.

I could look at the logic that builds the announcement for waves, it already has some awareness of what's in there with how it tallies up fleetships and starships, and there's the announcement for "Massive AI Ships" too.  Seems quite reasonable that a unit this unusual and dangerous should get its own warning.

Which brings me to what kills me:
Exowaves.
<snip>

Overhauling the whole Exo mechanic is a bit broad, but would it be fair to say that a good alternative would be making the Medium settings for the MFs that add exos on Hard more appealing?  That way there would be something that gives a penalty, unlike Easy, but avoids the unwanted mechanic?

I already notice it seems like no one uses most of the Medium settings so they may be good candidates -- kind of amazed I haven't seen them come up yet, probably because they are so unpopular everyone forgot about them.

TBH I know I took a look at Botnet Medium, saw the 800K power requirement, said "lol wat(t)?" and ruled it out forever.

Alternative ideas to some of the penalties on the non-exo-causing Mediums?

Thanks for contributing Draco.

****

<looks around>  I *think* that was about everything for the moment... sorry if I missed anyone.

[Draco18s]

Don't wait for them. No, seriously, don't wait for them until they're 95% ready to trigger. Unless you like to crank the minor faction triggering them up to 7+, the timer is usually fairly manageable. They also tend to prefer taking whatever path minimizes the number of your planets they have to fly through from the AI homeworld. Knowing this, you can usually arrange for an anvil to get in the way, especially if you play with zenith traders and invest in the armor booster.

No, that's what I mean.  I get a fleet ready, but by the time I can actually DO something with it, the timer's at 95%
60%, sure I'll go wreck house.
But it just feels that every time I get up to having everything ready for a huge major offensive, I've got an exo only minutes away.  So I haven't played with any faction/plot that does exos (except the Shard recovery, because that gives you the tools necessary to handle them).

[Radiant Phoenix]

<Nebula/Champion snip>
That's basically asking for a redo of Ancient Shadows though, if that's a bit much then I'll cheerily ask for changes to roaming enclaves. The allied ones shouldn't all camp out on your homeworld.

<lol>  Just a tad, this thread's titled Overhauling Minor Factions and Plots, not Expansions (Hmmm start new thread for that? Nah even I'm not that crazy (yet)).   I'm noticing a recurring theme though with people bringing up the Nebulae/Champions.

I would make Alt Champ Progress the default (intensity controlled by handicap), and make Nebulas a minor faction accessible to HCS players.

Filing this under another vote for "redo Ancient Shadows".   Seems like the nebulae are not overly-popular.  I haven't tried them myself yet, but it does seem like they'd take you out of the main game a bit much (one of the reason I *haven't* tried them yet).

Thanks Radiant Phoenix!

I'm going to talk more about this:

• Nebulas would be really cool... if they were something you randomly stumbled across during normal gameplay, rather than designated "champion goeth here" zones that feel like you can barely interact with them.
• I would prefer to have more control over my Champion's advancement, like this was an actual MOBA.
• Alt Champion Progress feels like a much more "basic" Champion mechanic than Nebulas.
• EDIT: Weak wormholes could be a separate (or semi-separate) mechanic from Nebulas -- sort of a Nomads Lite without the Beacon.

[Aklyon]

The medium settings for golems and such as far as I can tell, are casualties of the easy & hard settings covering all the bases you'd want to already: MF with no strings attached so you can find out how it works, and MF with the AI actually acknologing its exisitance in more than whether or not Threat/Threatfleet is scared the butts out of assaulting yonder planet.

On easy, you simply can use them at a normal power cost with no strings attached. Yes, your score technically is halved, but AI War's score mechanics are mysterious and confusing, and irrelevant to winning the game. Hard on the other hand has the AI responding to you gaining 'superweapons' by giving more attention to you in return, but otherwise is just Easy with an actual gameplay effect. Medium golems and its energy costs in excess of the Nomad Beacon's requirements per golem is just a pointless handicap in relation.

[TheVampire100]

Filing this under another vote for "redo Ancient Shadows".   Seems like the nebulae are not overly-popular.  I haven't tried them myself yet, but it does seem like they'd take you out of the main game a bit much (one of the reason I *haven't* tried them yet).

Thanks Radiant Phoenix!

The problem is, Nebulars are very distracting once you decide to do them. As you saw on my game, I got tottlly caught up with them and ruined a big part of the game for me until I got help.
There are msisions that need your fully attention because you cannot go back for 5 minutes and do something else. And the AI won't suddenly stop because you are doing a side quest, it's just not this sort of nice guy. It could entirely crush you while you look away.
There is this painful Subspace Prison mission wehre you have to babysit Neinzul Mourners. Multiple strong ships come fromt he edge of the system and try to attack the single Neinzul base that is also very squishy. The Neinzul battle ships are also weak compared to other nebular ships. You cannot stop the enemies int heir track, they will ignore you and aim directly for the base. even if you push ab a shield in the way they will most likely move around it. I managed it after 3 tries and several saves but it was paonful. There are about 30 waves to defend but they are slowy to beat and one mistake can break your neck. If the base of the Neinzul is destroyed, ALL 30 waves are unleashed at once and you won't get the reward.
I think stuff like this is designed around multiplayer, having one player as single champion ship and another as normal player. If you are only playing as Champion you don't have to pay attention what the planets of your empire are currently up to, the other player has to do this.
But if you have to manage both it get's painful.

[WingedKagouti]

I would make Alt Champ Progress the default (intensity controlled by handicap), and make Nebulas a minor faction accessible to HCS players.

Filing this under another vote for "redo Ancient Shadows".   Seems like the nebulae are not overly-popular.  I haven't tried them myself yet, but it does seem like they'd take you out of the main game a bit much (one of the reason I *haven't* tried them yet).

Thanks Radiant Phoenix!

Nebulas are only really for a Champion only player, you simply can not afford divide your attention between managing your fleet + defenses and the nebula scenarios if the other settings for the game are even moderately challenging for you. They're a neat idea, but you really need a multiplayer game for them to be viable.

[kasnavada]

I generally use pause & low AIP to play scenarios in nebulas. I can generally have 15-30 minutes respite easily. The attack / threat / waves indicator are basically all I need.

Then again, I tend to never pause when in a regular game anyway. In Ai war my defenses must hold without me pausing every 3 seconds, otherwise I consider I'm doing something wrong.

[Pumpkin]

Enable Advanced Logging.

Thanks! I never dug the UI that deep.

I disagree on +100 being instant death

Remember not everyone plays at RQ-level auto-AIP.
However, I support the floor raising idea.

BTW, I understand now what Keith meant when I saw him reference the Enclave logic as being fancy -- they have an entire class of their own dedicated to controlling it.  It's pretty cool, they even evaluate threats and intelligently choose targets if you let them off the leash and tell them they can go annoy the AI on their own.  It's like Hybrids but for the player.

I experimented it in Nefarious Pumpkin AAR. On intensity 10 they are like if a clever player you can't talk to controlling a superweapon-grade armada.

Beachheads

Plus, there's the luck factor - Since it removes supply, the Beachheads also turn off forcefields.  That means that the Advanced Factory or Fabricator you were protecting is suddenly unshielded AND located at the same system-edge that the Beachhead waves arrive from.  A little bad luck, and *poof*!  That's just not fun to me.  When I lose, I want it to be because I screwed up, not just because RNG decided to laugh at me for a few seconds.

Totally understood. I share your frustration when loosing come without player screwing something. See my Core Dive AAR and search for keyword "eyebot"
So maybe some chivalric behavior would be required to avoid the unfair beachhead on ASC/AdvFacto world... However, knowing beachheads are roaming out there, gateraiding around irreplaceable building would be a priority.

I still think beachheads are a difficulty that is frustrating to endure when we are not familiar with, but that we can work around. Enabling such extra-pain is a challenge to oneself. I remember my first encounter with the hunter plot... I used to rely a lot on starfleets... Now I know how to play with them and they are part of the game. Same thing for the recent stealth-master rage-inducing FField immune nastinesses: I learned that while tachyon turrets is enough for dealing with cloaked ships, an economic OCStation is harmless against even-decloaked FField immune vampires/eyebots. The answer was military OCStations: now if vampires assassinate my ECollector, it's because the AI was overwhelming (I screw up) and not because one loose vampire wasn't first-targeted by my turrets. I learned how to deal with them, but since I didn't it was frustrating and unfun. I'm sure we all have lessons to learn behind each frustration. "Damn! The mighty Kahuna who taught me to place my turrets... fears the little beachheads I eat for breakfast? Unbelievable!" This is why I love pushing myself out of my tracks (and why I love this game that has so many "tracks" to be pushed from and to). I know how tempting to say it's the fault of the game if it's frustrating. I do it often. But when it's someone else, I can tell "the game is fine; you need to learn it".

Beachheads wreak your irreplaceable factories? Maybe you have to gateraid.
I hope I didn't sound too much like Mr. know-it-all. I have so many things to learn and so many things that still frustrate me.
(However, announcing beachheads like "massive ships" sounds fair enough.)

So my vote for beachheads: don't touch them. (Remember this is just my opinion.)

But astro-trains are broken and unfun!

Exogalactic Attack

would it be fair to say that a good alternative would be making the Medium settings for the MFs that add exos on Hard more appealing?
(...)
I already notice it seems like no one uses most of the Medium settings so they may be good candidates -- kind of amazed I haven't seen them come up yet, probably because they are so unpopular everyone forgot about them.

Totally agree!!!
Vote for Medium overhaul!
Or remove Medium, as Aklyon seems to think. However, while they are here, removing them is pointless.
Well, maybe change Medium only if someone come with a good replacement idea. Else, let it be.

Nebulae / Champions

My opinion is a bit out of the general discussion. Maybe a bit blunt... (Brace yourself )

I love nebulae scenarii and all the lore they brings to the game. However, on a pure gameplay analysis... I think Champions shouldn't exist in AI War.
A friend of mine is a MOBA player and dislike RTS. I don't blame him; I can't stand League of Legends or any other MOBA. It's a question of taste. With AI War, I could play my favorite RTS while he's playing a MOBA. Nice. Peoples find that nebulae were too disconnected from the main game (of course they are: they aren't the same game!), and Arcen, in its bottomless generosity, made an alternate progress to let MOBA and RTS players play different games in the same game. However, while AI War is an escellent RTS, it's a really poor MOBA. Many complaints have been made and many suggestions about more different active powers etc. But the fact is: AI War isn't a MOBA. And it shouldn't try to be. Champions shouldn't exist. And I'm so sorry to have to say that.

I'll tamper my statement, somewhat. And this is not a real suggestion.
I love the lore of the nebulae. My wish would be to have this lore in AI War (not MOBAI War). The raw suggestion would be to forget about champions and make nebulae accessible by normal ships, both AI and humans. Yeah, I know, this is really raw. Don't take it as a serious suggestion (or at least not as a finished suggestion). But on the core idea, why not? What stop players from using the Exodian Blade in completing the Fallen Spire campaign? (or the other way around) What if marauders and neinzul roaming enclaves join a shard recovery mission? AI War is a game designed to be emergent (and I would be able to die peacefully if I would make a game half as good in my life) so why bothering with MOBA style of fight and RPG style of progression? Screw champions! Give us, RTS players, all the good lore and fun! Don't try to be what you're not intended to be. Arcen guys are too kind. Really: too much.
So a raw raw raw suggestion would be scavenge nebulae; forget champions
A more detailed suggestion would be:
- make the nebulae accessible by anyone;
- maybe seed them in normal planets (maybe still with no knowledge and no AI OCStation, WGate, guard posts, ...)
- forget champions, powers and XP.
I don't even agree with this myself. There is so much to think about if the green suggestion would be agreed by Arcen and AI War community...
Just don't take it too seriously.

[Radiant Phoenix]

While I agree with separating Nebulas from Champions, I disagree with removing Champions from the game.

• Champions are a great gateway drug mode for getting new players into the game. Something like, "I don't really want to manage an RTS, but I'm down with just flying one big huge honking ship around smashing stuff!" To this end, I think it would be useful for a Commander player to be able to lend control of part of their forces to a Champion, so the new player can be eased into the full game. (This is different from "allow ally control of units" in that only some units are lent, and from "donate" in that the unit is still counted as the Commander's unit. This would also be useful with Helpers or in other Multiplayer games, so each player could focus on a different "front" or other responsibility)
  
• Champions are nice for exploring new aspects of the game because of their combination of disposability, mobility, and being able to actually shoot stuff.
• Champions are great fun during the slow parts of the game because they don't depend on your metal, power, or knowledge, and can thus go around poking things while you're assembling your defenses, preparing to turbo-build a superweapon with Engineers, or what-have-you.

[Pumpkin]

Radiant Phoenix: In the end, I agree. Removing what is done is pointless. Same for medium difficulty. I just don't like MOBA and I tend to disregard the effort put into tweaking and improving champions. To put it more politely, let say "I'm not interested in overhauling them" (while thinking "because I don't like them", but this is the rude part).

Yeah, you're right. They're fun, sometimes...

[Draco18s]

The medium settings for golems and such as far as I can tell, are casualties of the easy & hard settings covering all the bases you'd want to already: MF with no strings attached so you can find out how it works, and MF with the AI actually acknologing its exisitance in more than whether or not Threat/Threatfleet is scared the butts out of assaulting yonder planet.

On easy, you simply can use them at a normal power cost with no strings attached. Yes, your score technically is halved, but AI War's score mechanics are mysterious and confusing, and irrelevant to winning the game. Hard on the other hand has the AI responding to you gaining 'superweapons' by giving more attention to you in return, but otherwise is just Easy with an actual gameplay effect. Medium golems and its energy costs in excess of the Nomad Beacon's requirements per golem is just a pointless handicap in relation.

OK, yes, there are the three settings that cover the various bases, my point is: I want something harder than "easy" that isn't the other two. I'd take the exos if exos worked a little better than just a giant attack that builds up no matter what your doing and that slows the game progress to a crawl. Remember: having exo golems enabled and not owning a golem will still send exo waves at you. The AIP increase option? Lose the golem and the AI is still pissed at you. Maybe if each exo somehow built up as you utilized whatever superweapon(s) they were enabled for: the more you used it, the more the AI built up a fleet to take it out. For the AIP option, maybe the glens grey an "on death,  -X AIP" where X is some amount of the AIP gained on activation  (e.g. +100, -75) reflecting the fact than on having killed the superweapon,  the AI is not as concerned anymore. Still alert, but having dealt with the major threat its moved into a more standby position.

[Aklyon]

@champs discussion:
Champions are the better part of AS anyway, to be blunt it would be dumb to remove them if the nebulas stayed. You can use them as a scout ship, a raid ship, a hacker-shielding ship, plenty of useful ways, and without having to distract yourself with the nebulas. You can even just leave it as just a really big, unique modular starship that powers itself on shadow energy and K and mix it in with the rest of the starships if you want.

[kasnavada]

I agree with radiant phoenix here.

Actually, when you look at it, a lot of things don't work together in AI war if you just pile stuff up. Some people try playing games with all options on for example often see few options really working. And the rest is kind of forgotten.

I also totally disagree with the champion mechanics being called MOBA. MOBA is quite a specific subgenre of what people call games where you control a team of avater against another team of avatars. Here you're playing scenarios which, frankly, often don't even need the commitment stated in this thread.

3rd point, kind of the trademark of Arcen's is blending mechanics which are not supposed to be working together. It's also why some of their game failed (tidalis... ultra hard and complex preparation to get just a single move going in real time and need to create combos, falling to more combos and so on... for a game genre that is marketed to casual gamers). Even if a game like TLF worked (due in part of the launching schedule, being the "TOP" one on the list of games on steam for the whole easter 3 day week-end helped) but it's a mess of mechanics. Grand scale "equilibrium" management 4X with turn-based SCHMUP combat, in which you can do only one action at a time but help manage up to 8 empires ? What is the part here that's supposed to be working together in the first place ?

I do agree that champions are not their greatest work here. But I'll disagree on stating it does not work. AI war, if anything is a great sandbox. Even if these forum have strong advocates for it being a competitive "let's beat the game at highest diff and let's set us more challenge". And I'll therefore disagree they "need" to be removed, or to never have been there. Their implementation works, as far as I'm concerned, and provide fun even whether nebulas are enabled or disabled for me.

[Radiant Phoenix]

The first time I started thinking of AI War's Champions as being like a MOBA was when I was in the 3-way-war Shattered Pillar scenario with the spire thingy and the Neinzul as opponents, while my college roommate was playing LoL. It just felt like an endless stream of ships pushing against each other, back and forth, while you tried to knock down towers starbases to push the tide down onto the enemy base to win.

Now, it wasn't a great MOBA, and I didn't have four other friends playing with me, but the feeling was definitely there.