Is SuperTerminal hacking still worth it?

[Bognor]

As far as I can tell, no-one's discussed this since core guard posts were changed to increase the AIP floor upon destruction, so I thought it would be worth starting a thread before 7.000.

The deal is, SuperTerminal hacking works by increasing the Total AIP by one and providing AIP Reduction of two for every "tick".  So to reduce the Effective AIP by 100, you actually increase the Total AIP by 100 and get 200 AIP Reduction.  The extra 100 Total AIP raises the AIP Floor by 20 / 25 / 33 on Diff <8 / 8+ / 9+.  Since version 6.017, core guard posts have increased the AIP Floor by 10 for every one that is destroyed.  The intent of that change was to encourage players to attack the homeworlds with a higher Effective AIP (eg 200), since the AIP Floor is going to go up to somewhere near that, anyway.  I think this change reduced the value of SuperTerminal hacking by increasing the importance of the AIP Floor and decreasing the importance of Effective AIP.

So my question is, does SuperTerminal hacking need to be buffed in light of the 6.017 changes?  Maybe it should stop increasing AIP Floor, or perhaps even reduce the Floor?  It's been months since I assaulted a homeworld, so I have no position on this question myself.

[Bognor]

Random relevant factoids:

* Effective AIP either equals Total AIP - AIP Reduction, or it equals AIP Floor, whichever is higher.

* AIP Floor is Total AIP /5 or /4 or /3 for Difficulty <8 / 8+ / 9+, but is always at least 10.

* Destroying the first three coprocessors always increases Total AIP by 60, then destroying the fourth one provides AIP Reduction of 120 / 105 / 90 on Diff <8 / 8+ / 9+.  The increases to total AIP increase the AIP Floor by 12 / 15 / 20.  The coprocessors are arguably a penalty structure on high difficulty.

* Data Centers provide AIP Reduction of 20 / 15 / 10 on Diff <8 / 8+ / 9+, with no change to Total AIP or floor.  The number that spawn is independent of galaxy size or difficulty.  A few AI types that seed structures that increase AIP on destruction also seed additional Data Centers to compensate.  As far as I know, the number of extra Data Centers is not adjusted for difficulty.

* An alternative to SuperTerminal hacking is just to take fewer planets and to knowledge-hack.  In general, SuperTerminal hacking ought to be superior to knowledge hacking, or else the SuperTerminal serves no purpose.

* SuperTerminals spawn only in galaxies with at least 40 planets, and have a slightly less than 50% chance of spawning.

[TechSY730]

IMO, it certainly is still worth it, but it isn't the obvious "all ways use it" thing it was before, which I think is a good thing.

I will admit there is a balance tension/role overlap between it and knowledge hacking, which unfortunately I don't have any good ideas about how to address this.

[LordSloth]

So side question:

How does bonus ship types and bonus guardians factor into the decision to hack the super terminal, if at all?

At 6.026 they started getting bonus ship types every 100 AIP instead of 200, and guardians every 100 starting at fifty.

It's not like that extra ship variety increases the actual budget the AI gets... is it at all significant in a plain or superheavy weapon run?

I suspect it isn't significant or may actually be a net benefit to fun as it is right now, but I don't have a big data set to draw upon.

[Kahuna]

destroying the fourth one provides AIP Reduction of 120 / 105 / 90 on Diff <8 / 8+ / 9+.

If that's true this (screenshot) needs to be fixed.

EDIT: I just realized how awesome the planet and the background look in that screenshot.

[keith.lamothe]

EDIT: I just realized how awesome the planet and the background look in that screenshot.

I dunno, looks a tad rotting.

[Qatu]

 I find that now, superterminal hacking is worth it if i destroy 10+ AI command stations, if less data centers are sufficient. In other words, if i'm playing a challenging game i'll never use since it's optimal to take as few planets as possible on hard games, but half the time i'm playing games just for fun trying out stuff on average difficulty, and then i break stuff all over, so it's worth it then to increase the time I can toy with the AI safely.

[Kahuna]

EDIT: I just realized how awesome the planet and the background look in that screenshot.

I dunno, looks a tad rotting.

At least it doesn't look like a cow.