Is the Zevastator incorrectly balanced?

[TechSY730]

Oh yea, I forgot about the AI command station gets planetary tachyon beams thing.

While I don't think it is unfair anymore given that we can now get such a thing for our homeworld (the Mk. III military foldout), I think something important was forgotten. The effect of planetary tachyon beams is as severe as a brutal pick. (remember, planetary tachyon coverage used to be on the core AI eyes) As such, when this change went in, effectively all difficulties got a "free" "brutal pick". So this means that instead of 1 to 2 brutal picks for difficulty 7, this bumped it up to an effective 2 to 3, which is indeed too rough for difficulty 7.

I'd vote for keeping the planetary tachyon beams on AI homeworlds, but in return, have an across the board reduction of (true) brutal picks by one, for all difficulties (thus, difficulty 7 would only get 0 or 1). This would bring the intended difficulty level of AI homeworlds back to their intended levels. And yes, that means that up to difficulty 7, sometimes (always for the very low difficulty levels) the AI will get no true brutal picks, which is fine. The Mk. V units and core guard posts should be enough of a challenge for those who don't want "meant for ultra-hyper, serious, mega skilled players" levels of crazy stuff flying around (or "not flying around" if there is a gravity based brutal pick ). The brutal picks would still show up sometimes, giving a nice bit of variety every now and then, but not stack to crazy levels.

Starting at difficulty 8, the AI would start being assured to always get at least one, even with this nerf, which at that point is fine. At that point, the user has explicitly gone above the "normal difficulty" point and is asking for an above-average challenge.

[chemical_art]

1 shot per 10 seconds is not THAT much, by that point player would have a good enough starship fleet and fleet of other non-reclaimable stuff to survive long enough to destroy the problem.

The point is that individually, each thing has a weakness, but once you get more then about 2 global effects that lock down so broadly, the result is strangling strategies that doesn't rely on one's own RNG.

For example the core wraith can be countered by cloaking...but wait, you can't cloak! The teuthisda can be countered by non reclaimables...but wait, the OMD and Core wraith shut down large or slow fleets! The OMD can be countered by fleetships, but wait, there are no base fleetships that can't be reclaimed!

The result is it is almost impossible to balance these interlocking defenses. Very, very rarely this occurs outside AI core space, and when it did there was always the fallback (skip the planet).
In the case of AI HW, it is much, much more common to have more brutal versions of these defensive quaqmires, and you can't avoid it.


As the champions have shown, the lack of player feed back doesn't guarantee that something is negative. Given just_how_rare AI HW are encountered, this potential is magnified.  Which is why I think there isn't more discussion about these things.

[LaughingThesaurus]

No superweapons. I generally keep my games fairly vanilla, barring expansions. That means that, for instance, I can't just snipe OMDs with any kind of fancy superweapons, or stealth in a champion to cap entire systems, or anything like that.

Ah, then few raids of some of ye olde raid starships plus transport of bombers under decloakers might work.

Yeah I'm learning some crazy stuff in my game with Lordsloth. He uses Military Transports like all the time in awesome ways. I've been restricted to fleet ships (well, not really, but I've been pouring my knowledge there) and so I picked up raid starships. I had the spare knowledge. Once raid starships get cloaking, they're absurd. I remember like, he'd say "You need help" and I'm like... sniping every guard post like "Nah, I've got this". It's silly. Mark Is seem completely ineffectual though. It's a strange leap in power.

[The Hunter]

Yeah I'm learning some crazy stuff in my game with Lordsloth. He uses Military Transports like all the time in awesome ways. I've been restricted to fleet ships (well, not really, but I've been pouring my knowledge there) and so I picked up raid starships. I had the spare knowledge. Once raid starships get cloaking, they're absurd. I remember like, he'd say "You need help" and I'm like... sniping every guard post like "Nah, I've got this". It's silly. Mark Is seem completely ineffectual though. It's a strange leap in power.

Haha, yup they are awesome, even mk1 ones though. Also by decloakers i obviously meant cloaker starships, silly me. XD

The point is that individually, each thing has a weakness, but once you get more then about 2 global effects that lock down so broadly, the result is strangling strategies that doesn't rely on one's own RNG.

For example the core wraith can be countered by cloaking...but wait, you can't cloak! The teuthisda can be countered by non reclaimables...but wait, the OMD and Core wraith shut down large or slow fleets! The OMD can be countered by fleetships, but wait, there are no base fleetships that can't be reclaimed!

I think you are exaggerating too much, single endgame fleet even under fire from all of those should be enough to take one or more of them down, raid starships for one are quick enough to reach mass driver before it does too much.

[chemical_art]

I think you are exaggerating too much, single endgame fleet even under fire from all of those should be enough to take one or more of them down, raid starships for one are quick enough to reach mass driver before it does too much.

One hit from either an OMD or a Wraith Guard post will wipe ripe starships of any level...? 

Neither the teuthisda nor the wraith nor the planatary decloaking care about fleet size. If they are vulunerable to these defenses, they are nullified. Full stop.

[The Hunter]

One hit from either an OMD or a Wraith Guard post will wipe ripe starships of any level...? 

Neither the teuthisda nor the wraith nor the planatary decloaking care about fleet size. If they are vulunerable to these defenses, they are nullified. Full stop.

If you leave them on Ctrl+V, maybe, but with proper control the numbers will prevail, isn't like any of those has 999999999999x99999999 instakill attack or something.

[chemical_art]

One hit from either an OMD or a Wraith Guard post will wipe ripe starships of any level...? 

Neither the teuthisda nor the wraith nor the planatary decloaking care about fleet size. If they are vulunerable to these defenses, they are nullified. Full stop.

If you leave them on Ctrl+V, maybe, but with proper control the numbers will prevail, isn't like any of those has 999999999999x99999999 instakill attack or something.

Ah...huh.

Right.

I don't even feel like I can communicate with you anymore. Our realities don't overlap enough to communicate on this issue. Even if you get lucky and manage to have your raiders avoid at least two sweeps of the wraith post, you kill the OMD. Whooo!

Those raiders won't do shittike mushrooms against brutal posts.

If you really think with a large enough force you can brute force either a core wraith or the teuthida, I invite a save where it works.

[hatless]

I brute-force brutal posts all the time. There's no secret sauce to it-- just select everything with a bonus against that hulltype --> send though wormhole --> right-click --> baddie explodes --> send back through wormhole.

If the post is far from the wormhole, you put them in transports and treat it as a suicide mission.

(Which is a fundamental problem with AI War, yes. No matter how many hard counters are added, you beat all of them with the same skill-free cliches.)

[Bognor]

I brute-force brutal posts all the time. There's no secret sauce to it-- just select everything with a bonus against that hulltype --> send though wormhole --> right-click --> baddie explodes --> send back through wormhole.

If the post is far from the wormhole, you put them in transports and treat it as a suicide mission.

(Which is a fundamental problem with AI War, yes. No matter how many hard counters are added, you beat all of them with the same skill-free cliches.)

You might be misunderstanding, hatless.  By "brutal" post we mean certain posts that are only found on AI homeworlds and that are much stronger than the other homeworld-only guard posts.  Things like the Teuthida, Grav Reactor, or Wrath Lance, which have 60 million hit points each.

[hatless]

Correct. Those are the posts I mean by 'brutal posts'.

(How many of you are familiar with a roguelike called ADOM? Way back when it was in active development, it got stuck in a loop of players saying 'the endgame monsters are too easy!', and the developer doubling the hp and damage of the endgame monsters, and the players saying 'they're still too easy!'

Eventually it came out that everybody was killing the monsters by kiting them around and shooting them with ranged attacks, and that the monster's attack power never mattered because they never got to attack, and increasing their hp only made the kiting phase longer and duller.

AI War development feels a lot like that right now.)

[Tridus]

Homeworld is supposed to be the most !!Fun!! part of the game, it's like endgame boss. 

Again, that lies in the assumption !!Fun!! = fun, which I am convinced as of yet is not true on its own.

For me, the endgame boss is fun, while that optional boss post story is meant to be !!Fun!!

You've been going around in circles for a while without getting to the core point, I think.

So just put it plainly out there - how much damage should the OMD be doing, assuming no superweapons?

(With superweapons is kind of another thing, and I think the AI does a poor job of defending against those right now. I mean before the OMD buff, what defenses did the AI have that was really any kind of threat to a Spire fleet? Not a whole lot, and when the FS exos aren't around you can attack with near total impunity provided you didn't drive AIP up to crazy levels.)

[Bognor]

Correct. Those are the posts I mean by 'brutal posts'. ...

Oh ok.  Sorry if I sounded patronising, then.

It looks like no-one's welcomed you yet, so... Welcome!

[hatless]

Thanks!

It's good to be here.

[chemical_art]

Homeworld is supposed to be the most !!Fun!! part of the game, it's like endgame boss. 

Again, that lies in the assumption !!Fun!! = fun, which I am convinced as of yet is not true on its own.

For me, the endgame boss is fun, while that optional boss post story is meant to be !!Fun!!

You've been going around in circles for a while without getting to the core point, I think.

I've been driving actually to try to get clarity. Having the OMD murder starships because it is !fun! for me is not a reason at all. So I'm driving to actually hear the other reasons why the OMD should as a global defense cost the player's economy a couple hours of economy if it stumbles upon it, and how it will make homeworld attacks all the harder adds to the fun and not just !fun! factor.

So just put it plainly out there - how much damage should the OMD be doing, assuming no superweapons?

I'm still going for 10 million per salvo. That is enough to one shot a plasma siege.

(With superweapons is kind of another thing, and I think the AI does a poor job of defending against those right now. I mean before the OMD buff, what defenses did the AI have that was really any kind of threat to a Spire fleet? Not a whole lot, and when the FS exos aren't around you can attack with near total impunity provided you didn't drive AIP up to crazy levels.)

The AI lacking defenses to counter superweapons was intentional. It was to prevent a "treadmill effect", that you get stronger tools but since the AI gets both stronger tools on offense and defense, the effective power is like a treadmill in that things are getting bigger but things really aren't going anywhere in the relative power struggle. So instead for both golems and FS the tools are that the AI hits really hard (so you need the superweapons) but then the player can counter attack. The result is a more dynamic back and forth which is for more exponentially more entertaining for me.
There was a time golems had the AI directly increase in strength across the board. They weren't used very often. Because why would you? You can lose golems, but the AI never loses its increased strength.

[chemical_art]

I brute-force brutal posts all the time. There's no secret sauce to it-- just select everything with a bonus against that hulltype --> send though wormhole --> right-click --> baddie explodes --> send back through wormhole.

If the post is far from the wormhole, you put them in transports and treat it as a suicide mission.

(Which is a fundamental problem with AI War, yes. No matter how many hard counters are added, you beat all of them with the same skill-free cliches.)

I'd love to see a save where you can brute force two brutal posts.