Incentivizing Guerrilla Raids

[Sunshine!]

Right now, there's one giant anti-blobbing method being used through the AI Eye, but that's pretty much it for trying to get players to de-blob their forces.  Barring an AI Eye, there's nothing encouraging players to act in a more guerrilla warfare style or not use a giant fleet blob.

There are two thoughts I have, small incentives and big incentives.

Small incentives would be something along the lines of destroying counterattack posts when the planet isn't on alert (as in, does not border your planet, has less than 50 of your fleet ships on it or less than 2 of your starships, Devourer Golem is not near) will simply not launch the counterattack.  Think of it as the AI not having "primed" their response.  Similar for alarm posts, they will have no chance of raising the alarm if their planet is not alerted.  It would definitely need a couple other minor benefits to really ingrain this behavior in player's playstyles though.

Big incentives would be the above, combined with an AIP reduction to any damage caused while a planet is not on alert, maybe by 5 AIP or so, not to be less than 1.  So destroying a Warp Gate (or alarm post) on an unalerted planet would result in 1 AIP increase (and no chance of alarm), destroying the command center afterwards would be 10 AIP increase instead of 15.  Think of it this way: a player loses a command station, they notice because they're given a message saying "blah blah happened!"  If they lose a factory, they don't notice unless they're actively building stuff and waiting for things to happen.  Same with the AI, possibly - it's "actively" using the command station and warp gates on an on-alert planet (to launch waves and the like), but on an unalerted planet, it may take less notice of what's been lost.

[x4000]

I think that something along these lines could definitely work well -- would be a good mantis suggestion, I think.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

 A good idea.  Unless X believes that the AI is omnipotent .

King

[BobTheJanitor]

I didn't know there was a hard number of ships that triggered alert status. Is that varied by high/med/low caps? I like the basic idea here for encouraging less blob, but I don't know if I like using alert for it. Then you end up in a logistical dance of trying to hop over worlds in order to not trigger these things, and then if you need something on that previous world you'll just have to turn around and take it anyway. Anti-blob measures should focus specifically on what's in my fleet on THIS world, not the world next door.

[Shrugging Khan]

I like it. ALL OF OP.

[Orelius]

I love the idea, especially since I love neutering all planets within a 4-planet radius =\.

Perhaps it could result not with more AIP, but with some brutal attack waves, to make sure that it doesn't get too out of hand?

[c4sc4]

I like this idea, it seems like it would cause some changes in my play style.

[Vinraith]

Similar for alarm posts, they will have no chance of raising the alarm if their planet is not alerted.

I like most of your idea, but that line doesn't make any sense. If a planet is alerted, then the alarm post has already sounded. The 50% chance IS incentive to hit them before they're on alert.

[TechSY730]

Similar for alarm posts, they will have no chance of raising the alarm if their planet is not alerted.

I like most of your idea, but that line doesn't make any sense. If a planet is alerted, then the alarm post has already sounded. The 50% chance IS incentive to hit them before they're on alert.

There are two different meaning of "alert" going on here. One is if the planet is on alert, the other is the AI being alerted by triggering an alarm post. He suggesting that if a planet is not on alert, the chance of a alarm post triggering is 0% if you kill it.

[Vinraith]

Similar for alarm posts, they will have no chance of raising the alarm if their planet is not alerted.

I like most of your idea, but that line doesn't make any sense. If a planet is alerted, then the alarm post has already sounded. The 50% chance IS incentive to hit them before they're on alert.

There are two different meaning of "alert" going on here. One is if the planet is on alert, the other is the AI being alerted by triggering an alarm post. He suggesting that if a planet is not on alert, the chance of a alarm post triggering is 0% if you kill it.

Again, alarm posts get set off when the command post on their world or an adjacent world is destroyed, so generally speaking you would never kill an alarm post when its planet was on alert, as you'd already have set it off.

[Sunshine!]

Bob:  I don't believe it's adjusted for cap (it should be), since cap adjustments were added long after the actual mechanic for alert.

Vinraith: The point is twofold, since it encourages small fleet actions AND deep striking. 

Say there are three planets, A-B-C
"A" is your planet, "B" is a planet you want (that is on alert because it's adjacent), and "C" is a planet that has an alarm post on it but is NOT on alert.  You deep strike through B with a small force to safely eliminate the Alarm Post on C (because C isn't on alert because of your small attack force, the Alarm Post has no chance to raise the alarm), and once you've eliminated the Alarm Post on C you can take planet B, which will then put planet C on alert, disallowing any further guerrilla actions (if planet C has a counterattack post, for example).

An alarm post does not trigger just because its planet has been alerted (which can be from numerous reasons - hostile ship count, Devourer Golem, adjacent planet is not AI controlled).  It will ONLY trigger if it is destroyed (50%), or if its command station or an adjacent command station is destroyed (100%).  This is important because if you attack the post with less than 50 ships (a difficult prospect), then there is 0% chance of setting the post off.  The easier, but more risky, route would be to attack it with your entire fleet blob with a 50% chance of setting it off.

I'll add this to the bugtracker.

[TechSY730]

Can we make it such that alarm posts still trigger when you kill the command station of the planet it is on, regardless of if the planet was on alert or not? It only seems reasonable, as when you take out the command station, the planet goes nuetral, thus, if there is any AI stuff left on it (which there is, since you took out the command station before the alarm post), that remaining stuff is now acts as if the planet was on alert. Thus the alarm post wakes up, and then sees that a triggering condition was met, and goes off. This should help to keep the dynamic of taking out the alarm post first, only now, taking it out before the AI gets "scared" and goes on alert would be much safer.

[Sunshine!]

Oh, yes, all other triggering conditions would apply as normal.  As a real world example, it would be like sneaking into a factory, blowing it up, and expecting the guards to not alert anyone - of COURSE they're going to alert someone -  unless you take them out first!

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=3226 is the bugtracker report.

I added in this little paragraph to assist in tallying who's in support of which option, let me know if it makes things a problem:

As a method of determining where support lays, would it work to have supporters of the Strong change (which includes the AIP reduction) vote for Strong Support, and supporters of just the Weak change (which simply allows for eliminating counterattack posts, alarm posts, and other problematic AI structures like Raid Engines without retaliation) as the "inclined in favor" option? Can we see if that works, to give Chris and Keith some idea of where player opinion lies in an easily summarized format? Or (a question for Keith and Chris) would that make it problematic for some reason to compare to other suggestions for prioritizing in free DLC?

[Fleet]

An incentive for the desired style of play, instead of a punishment for the unwanted? Now we're talking!

[Vinraith]

Bob:  I don't believe it's adjusted for cap (it should be), since cap adjustments were added long after the actual mechanic for alert.

Vinraith: The point is twofold, since it encourages small fleet actions AND deep striking.  

Say there are three planets, A-B-C
"A" is your planet, "B" is a planet you want (that is on alert because it's adjacent), and "C" is a planet that has an alarm post on it but is NOT on alert.  You deep strike through B with a small force to safely eliminate the Alarm Post on C (because C isn't on alert because of your small attack force, the Alarm Post has no chance to raise the alarm), and once you've eliminated the Alarm Post on C you can take planet B, which will then put planet C on alert, disallowing any further guerrilla actions (if planet C has a counterattack post, for example).

An alarm post does not trigger just because its planet has been alerted (which can be from numerous reasons - hostile ship count, Devourer Golem, adjacent planet is not AI controlled).  It will ONLY trigger if it is destroyed (50%), or if its command station or an adjacent command station is destroyed (100%).  This is important because if you attack the post with less than 50 ships (a difficult prospect), then there is 0% chance of setting the post off.  The easier, but more risky, route would be to attack it with your entire fleet blob with a 50% chance of setting it off.

I'll add this to the bugtracker.

I feel like we're talking past each other here. What I'm saying is that alarm posts are already deep strike targets, if you take the world adjacent to them you set them off. Consequently, unlike with the other things you mention, there's no need to further incentivize raiding to take them out, the reduced chance of alarm being sounded already does that. Eliminating any chance of the alarm being sounded when taking them out just makes them less interesting and less dangerous.