Knowledge raiding has become tedious and trivial. Change it.

[keith.lamothe]

It brings to mind some Scottish engineer clanging away in the shop rambling on about "Take away cloaking? I'll show them cloaking!".

[Sizzle]

If they do get perma-cloak + blind, would the auto knowledge gathering logic send them to allied planets as well?  Personally, I think that alone will take a lot of the micro out of early knowledge gathering and make it more of a tactical decision.  Go with Mk 1 science for cheap "only my territory" gathering, or Mk II for an efficient way to "automate" the team knowledge gathering.

[keith.lamothe]

Auto-gather goes to any friendly planet that doesn't involve crossing a non-friendly planet.  So allied territory is covered by that.  I'm not going to do the perma-cloak unless Chris says it's ok (that's a pretty significant ability); if it was added then it could remove the restriction on crossing non-friendly planets for the IIs.  It would be safe from counter-spies due to being immune to insta-kill; though there still is the trouble of black hole machines.

Nothing's ever really "safe", you see

[x4000]

Perhaps giving Mk II labs a substantial speed boost so that they can run around gathering science faster , along with a powerful (read can't be tachyon'd) cloaking device so that they can a) make trips that include enemy territory, and b) make the trip to allied territory if you're separated. Make them blind at the same time so they can't be used to scout.

Yea, I was planning on a speed boost.  Perma-Cloak+Blind sounds like an interesting possibility too

Definitely no cloaking or perma-cloaking, but a small speed boost could be acceptable -- but even that, I really don't feel is needed.  Aside from the small tweak to mark IIs that we discussed (3/s knowledge on those, rather than 2/s), I really don't think any further buffs are needed to these labs.  And definitely no lump-summing of knowledge received, or command stations gathering knowledge.  The only folks that would think that Mark I/II science labs are now devalued is those that used them heavily for knowledge raiding in the past.

As someone who almost never knowledge raided to begin with, I can tell you that science labs are still quite useful, but not in the bulk that you might have been building them in.  There is a risk/reward aspect with how many you build versus where you position them, etc.  And you actually have to hold the planets that you capture for some length of time, and get the science labs in place and in a location where they will survive long enough, etc.  On distant planets that you capture in enemy territory, that can be easier said than done.

Here again, the role of science labs is different than what perhaps many of your were experiencing, but it's what I've been having all along (and what most novice players probably have, since they don't know about knowledge raiding necessarily), and it's more toward the original intent.

[x4000]

Despite my approval I must point out that less knowledge means fewer toys, and fewer toys is less fun.

Bear in mind, this isn't some mysterious new change to the game.  Only the advanced players who frequent the forums (and perhaps only a subset of them, honestly) ever have been doing knowledge raiding at all.  So they've had a skewed view of things if they've been over-raiding, perhaps, but it just brings that aspect of the game more into line with its original intent and with what the rest of the silent majority of the playerbase (who might not even know of these forums) is likely experiencing...

[x4000]

Here's the new version with the above-discussed changes: http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,5585.msg40304.html#msg40304

[Buttons840]

There is a risk/reward aspect with how many you build versus where you position them, etc.

In order to gather knowledge, you must have a command station.  In order to have a command station you must have the planet under control.  So just position your research station next to your command station under the shield and behind the turrets.  Doesn't seem particularly risky, and you still get the full rewards.  It's not as though putting my station in a risky position will give me any extra benefits, especially now that knowledge raiding is gone.  If, heaven forbid, my research station dies, I'll just rebuild it; they're cheap.

And you actually have to hold the planets that you capture for some length of time, and get the science labs in place and in a location where they will survive long enough, etc.  On distant planets that you capture in enemy territory, that can be easier said than done.

Holding planets can indeed be difficult, but by the time knowledge gathering is even and option I've already spend 2 or more minutes building a command station, so holding it for a few more minutes probably wont be much of a concern, especially now that I can build freely on the planet.  It could be difficult to move research stations to a remote planet, unless you have transports.  If I don't have transports, or can't use transports, I'll just build a new set of research stations at the remote location (after all, I already have a command station there) because research stations are quite cheap.

Also, I don't see any reason to build more than one mark 1 research station.  I suppose if your capturing a new planet every 15 minutes you'd have to build a second to keep up, but if your managing to capture planets this fast how difficult is building one additional research station?

This is why having the command stations themselves gather knowledge was suggested, because any time you have a command station it's either never under attack or well defended, and in such situations gathering knowledge is completely trivial.

[x4000]

There is a risk/reward aspect with how many you build versus where you position them, etc.

In order to gather knowledge, you must have a command station.  In order to have a command station you must have the planet under control.  So just position your research station next to your command station under the shield and behind the turrets.  Doesn't seem particularly risky, and you still get the full rewards.  It's not as though putting my station in a risky position will give me any extra benefits, especially now that knowledge raiding is gone.

All I can tell you is that I've been playing this way for a looong time, and it's a continuous challenge on a few planets.  For most it's no big thing, but on some my command station is constantly dying, etc.  And on some I don't have a spare force field.  And a lot of the time I'm wanting to bring labs from another planet to that planet, so I have to time that so that they don't get killed by the AI as they are passing through, etc.  I don't do knowledge raiding, and I lose a dozen or so science labs per game just on my and allied planets.

Also, I don't see any reason to build more than one mark 1 research station.  I suppose if your capturing a new planet every 15 minutes you'd have to build a second to keep up, but if your managing to capture planets this fast how difficult is building one additional research station?

Generally I have between 2-6 of them, depending on how much they are getting killed and how many planets I need to send them to all at once.  Granted that is in multiplayer, where I need to send them around to allied planets.  Solo I tend to have probably 3-4 at most.

This is why having the command stations themselves gather knowledge was suggest, because any time you have a command station it's either never under attack or well defended, and in such situations gathering knowledge is completely trivial.

This is missing the point -- there is still a challenge there, believe me I play that way, it's just less frequent of a challenge and not something that is quite so hard as the knowledge raiding ever was.  You wanted to not have to micro this, right?  Well, largely you don't have to, and a single lab or two can handle it just fine.  Keith even has added in the thing on the context menu that makes it even more automated.  But in each game you might find a planet or two upon which you do get some interesting conflict there, and hence why this isn't just something relegated to command stations in an overly-automated fashion.

It's like saying why not just take out harvesters and make the command station do all the gathering for them?  Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but it's in that direction.

[Buttons840]

Fair enough.  If it's trivial as I say then it's nothing to worry about, and if it is a challenge then bring it on. 

[x4000]

Awesome.

[Winter Born]

X4000 TY for letting us know the underlying intent.

I sense a new poll:
Did you abuse knowledge raiding?
A little
Some
A lot!!
I can't win without it!!!
What is knowledge raiding?

LOL 

[x4000]

You bet.  And, that's a funny poll.

[keith.lamothe]

You forgot the option "(can't answer poll, unconscious from withdrawal symptoms)"

[Sizzle]

Add:
My tush is already sore enough from trying to k-raid...


My currently most progressed game was 8+ hours to own 5-6 planets.   Guess I am just too turtle-ish, but from reading on the wiki, that's just glacially slow o.O   I think I need to get some sort of multiplayer thing going so I can figure out what-the-Sam-Hill-I'm-doing.


(Most of this has to do with lack of time to actually play the game as well).

[RCIX]

I better finish my game before updating