Knowledge raiding has become tedious and trivial. Change it.

[Nemo]

Ya, I'd rather not see features removed to make the game harder because people are complaining about it.

Loading up a ton of science labs does seem a bit thematically imcompatible though - what if they have a group penalty over a certain number? This is an already existing mechanic and could be explained as being the point where numbers don't increase the benefits at the same rate in a "too many bakers ruin the cake" sort of way. No matter how many people work on something there comes a point where there can't be further time reductions because of the required time for observation and the completion of an experiment can't be reduced any further, etc.

[keith.lamothe]

Ya, I'd rather not see features removed to make the game harder because people are complaining about it.

Well, we do that all the time when something is overpowered or exploitative.  But not driven by complaints, per se.

And the existing cluster penalty mechanic is for damage calculations, and the work to apply it to knowledge is a new mechanic entirely.

If (if) we were to do something like that I think it would make more sense to cap the amount of knowledge you can get per second from an individual planet; that would be much simpler implementation wise and more to the point.

What do others think of that?

[wyvern83]

Capping the gather rate would be the simplest. It produces an effect that 'simulates' the limits of duplicate observers which sounds thematically appropriate if one is looking to maintain some realism. However one would still be able to use an effective ideal number of science vessels to get some benefit from using more than one. It would just be a matter of deciding what that ideal number should be.

What if knowledge was gathered on a curve instead? The gather rate would be slow at first and would then increase the longer the science vessel stood still. If you can mess with the limits for gathering rates might not this be an alternative? Would probably need a max cap on the rate anyway though.

[NickAragua]

I don't 'knowledge raid' very often, but when I do, I send a pretty substantial force. Ever since I built a large number of raid starships, I also tend to (while I'm there) sweep the system clean of guard posts.

So, I don't think the mechanic is either too hard or too easy, but it does tend to get tedious when you're closer to the end and just want to blow up that last AI homeworld already but really need just a few hundred extra ships. If anything, I'd be in favor of some sort of high cost "remote knowledge gathering" mechanic, but I don't particularly see how it would make any sense from a thematic standpoint (poke a stick through the wormhole?)

[Buttons840]

Putting a cap on the knowledge gathering rate would solve what problem?  Is gathering knowledge too quickly considered a problem by some?

[Winter Born]

This ties in with what feels like an exploit to me with transports in general. If I have 20 mk2 labs that is 100k energy unless I have them stored in a transport. I can fly them and drop them and they come out of the transport powered up even if they drive my energy -100k. There is no downside if my planets are not under attack. If a check was made on energy available before a ship unloaded from a transport was allowed to be powered up then my tactic would not work early game when power is at a premium. I think that ships in transport should not cost power but an energy check when unloaded is reasonable.

If labs had 2x the energy cost this would also inhibit dropping 10 or more at a time.


+1 for the AIP on death penalty
+1 for not getting the knowledge until the lab or labs return to friendly space (raiding and getting the goods home safely)
+1 for knowledge network late game with possible requirement that scout Lv4 or new Lvl2 Scout starship is actualy required to visit the targeted in supply systems after the "Knowledge network" is complete (dual requirement makes it hard to exploit early game but should be easy to get a lvl4 scout into and out of a system fairly easily - in supply system requirement eliminates infinite system knowledge grab)


Possible severe penalty for raid failure -- x% of knowledge gathered by failed raid (sci labs destroyed before getting to safe space) lost forever. "x" scaled by AIP but never more than 50% for any planet regardless of # of failed raids. Possible saving grace -- all 2k uncollected knowledge available if system capped.

[keith.lamothe]

Putting a cap on the knowledge gathering rate would solve what problem?  Is gathering knowledge too quickly considered a problem by some?

I don't think it's necessary, but Nemo suggested a similar mechanic so I pointed out an equivalent that would actually be easy to implement, if folks wanted it.

[Nemo]

And the existing cluster penalty mechanic is for damage calculations, and the work to apply it to knowledge is a new mechanic entirely.

If (if) we were to do something like that I think it would make more sense to cap the amount of knowledge you can get per second from an individual planet; that would be much simpler implementation wise and more to the point.

What do others think of that?

I suppose you could call it a new mechanic but since its already in the game I would have said it was an adaptation. Regardless, your version does sound better.

Putting a cap on the knowledge gathering rate would solve what problem?  Is gathering knowledge too quickly considered a problem by some?

I don't think it's necessary, but Nemo suggested a similar mechanic so I pointed out an equivalent that would actually be easy to implement, if folks wanted it.

I don't see gathering knowledge too quickly as a problem but I guess my post seems a bit out of context since I didn't quote Keith and my post started a new page.

On the transports, again, I'm reacting to players saying they think it's an exploit (though on thinking about it I find it something of one too).  So that's my question to y'all: is it legit to put some science ships into a transport, rush through the wormhole to the outer range of normal-speed space, dump the science ships, wait until either you have the K or the enemy shots are finally catching up and load it back up and get out of dodge?

Personally I think it's a bit much; outrunning/kiting stuff is fine for fast moving units in combat, but "doing intensive surveys and research" and "kiting" seem thematically incompatible to me

Capping the knowledge gathering rate, like Keith's improvement on my original suggestion, would be one way to deal with this thematically and was the reason I made my original suggestion. We already have the speed reduction the farther out you go and that was in my opinion an indirect nerf towards this kind of behavior already. In that light, I wouldn't see a cap on the knowledge gathering rate as that out of place, though it is  more realistic than the speed reduction (unless we're explaining that as a part of wormhole physics in a localized space/time manipulation sense).

[Buttons840]

So here is my fears/comments regarding this:

1) Give science ships 1-AIP-on-death, so that sending 40 into an enemy system is not a no-brainer.
Will definately give a chilling effect so that you want to protect your science vessels.

2) Make science ships non-cloakable; for fun I might let ARS's still be cloakable since you have such a finite number of those.
So cloaking is out....

3) Make it so that science ships cannot enter a transport if there is a hostile command station present.  That way you could still get them out of the way using the transport (which I think has a valid place in k-raiding, so long as it doesn't trivialize it), but you couldn't use the same approach to get them back out (and they would no longer be as expendable due to item 1).  And "normal" use of transports to shuttle science ships around would be unaffected.
Transports are out except to get them past mines.

So the only viable strategy if you want your science ships safe that remains is:

1) massive fleet / turret ball to protect the science vessels including anti sniper turrets / scouts.
2) neuter / glass the system, then bring in your science ships.

IMO this is even MORE of a pain and turns knowledge raiding into a slog where you have to haul your fleet around to get knowledge even late game.

Someone please let me know that I'm missing something.....

Didn't you just defeat yourself?  I must agree that such changes will lead to increased micro needed rather than less.  I don't presume to dictate what can be suggested, but I originally was hoping to reduce the amount of attention and micro needed in the lat game for knowledge raiding, but many suggestion seem focused around increasing the micro required.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, some players are complaining that it's too much micro, some players are complaining that it's too easily exploited (risk-less, cloaking, transports, etc).  Some players are complaining in response to proposed implementations of suggestions from other players.

In general, the level of complaining is driving Developer-Progress up and we're considering launching a wave

[wyvern83]

As long as it's not a CPA I think we'll live...

I figured if the ship was going to sail I might as well play a part in choosing the destination, even though I seem to have been more in the minority than I would have wished for parts of it.

[rubikscube]

nice collection of fixes, keith, nice

[WinterBorn]

Well, some players are complaining that it's too much micro, some players are complaining that it's too easily exploited (risk-less, cloaking, transports, etc).  Some players are complaining in response to proposed implementations of suggestions from other players.

In general, the level of complaining is driving Developer-Progress up and we're considering launching a wave

ROFL

[rubikscube]

i wish it was a cpa or else i would have to rage more and destroy your co processor

[rubikscube]

in 3 days this is the hottest topic ever in ai war history