Liking the new plasma starship

[TechSY730]

Keith, while that is true for many of the newer bonus ships, I feel that this isn't so with the default bonus ship-types. There is one aspect in particular that stands out: in no original fleet ship-type do we find the ability to simply *prevent* a portion of the enemy from contributing at all to the battle. The mechanics revolved around what was immune to what, so e.g. bulletproofs are generally useful, but enemies with bullets can still shoot at something else.

Then with each expansion we introduced new mechanics.
 It wasn't noticeable until now that their targeting has been improved - Paralyzers can now shut down entire defense forces around a guard post, one after another, and drastically reduce attrition rates for everyone else.
 Bombards conducted matter-antimatter annihilation at extreme range, something that wasn't even possible with full caps of snipers.
Autobombs fulfill an innate desire for push a red button that says 'Launch ALL Missiles' (something not seen since the UCS recruitment ad in the Moon Project ). Is that just me?
 Quad-cap Nanoswarms can shut down entire *planets* (That Neinzul fleet game changed my perception about the expansion. Conquest was a tsunami engulfing a screen of flashing disabled ships, stopped only by AI fortresses. I'm starting to think we should make Missile Frigates immune to them but not paralyzers).
 Spire Maws, Spire Grav Drainers, Blade Spawners... each cool thing that we do add is good, but at the same time they begin to take away from the Starships which saw little change.
[...]

I don't know exactly how to fix the expansion effect - or if it can be fixed, but I'm just trying to tell you the symptoms.

While I applaud the devs for going "expansion only, no new product sequel" way of expanding the game, this is one (rather good) argument against this policy.

With a new product/sequel, you can repurpose, reimagine, and remove things with far less hassle and potential for balance disruption.
Want to re-imagine how star-ship types are handled? Go nuts, its a new game.
Need to make changes that will give massive flexibility but unavoidably break the save format? Go ahead, no one expects saves from a different product to work.
Finding some ships are made completely obsolete by newer additions? You can now strip them out, or merge them with the new stuff. Players will accept some stuff to be missing in the sequels (as long as their are suitable replacements)
Finding that through all the expansions the number of things you now gotta balance and maintain has become unreasonably large and now almost unmaintainable? Go ahead and merge some ships together, and remove some others.
Want to completely re-imagine or even remove a core mechanic that will have massive balance repercussions throughout the game? Go ahead, you're going to have to touch everything anyways, and people expect some "relearning" of the game.
Don't like the current engine your game is running on? Go ahead and switch, you going to touch or even rebuild large chunks of the low level code anyways.


I'm not advocating the "expansion only" way of keeping the game be abandoned, but merely that a new product/sequal can allow for very real, very large benefits to the game and meta-game.
There are good reasons to "start anew" beyond just trying to get more hype or more money. (Though many companies sadly forget this)

[Nodor]

I am expecting to enjoy expansions 6 & 7.

I also expect that computing power and hopefully Arcen's revenue will reach the point where it's possible to have Eve online quality graphics for spaceships, with individualized weaponry and animations in fully 3-D planet views/combat spaces.   

AI War 2 could just be a massive graphics update - when computing power makes that possible.   Having my fairly high end machine chugging while running fights with 3-4K ships means that the kind of graphic update I dream about is beyond current technology levels (without doing excessive damage to the fantastic complexity in the current game). 

[Cyborg]

I am expecting to enjoy expansions 6 & 7.

I also expect that computing power and hopefully Arcen's revenue will reach the point where it's possible to have Eve online quality graphics for spaceships, with individualized weaponry and animations in fully 3-D planet views/combat spaces.   

AI War 2 could just be a massive graphics update - when computing power makes that possible.   Having my fairly high end machine chugging while running fights with 3-4K ships means that the kind of graphic update I dream about is beyond current technology levels (without doing excessive damage to the fantastic complexity in the current game).

It's called sins of a solar Empire. Unfortunately, they don't keep that game up to date properly. It's one of my most regretted purchases so far.

[rchaneberg]

 I love the emergent situations that arise as you turn more and more options on and as long as the universe feels like a busier and busier place with every expansion I don't think I'm going to be able to stop buying expansions for AI War until they stop making them.

You guys have also really ruined my expectations from software developers, no one is close to as responsive to their fanbase or as timely in their updates, while you're in 'crunch time' with AVWW even.  Thank you

On topic now, I love using the plasma sieges in my chokepoint worlds, stalling out as many ships as possible gives a lot more time to respond to excessive threats. They really seem to put a dent in those nasty Hunter-Killers when they eventually decide to rear their ugly head,

[Volatar]

I love the emergent situations that arise as you turn more and more options on and as long as the universe feels like a busier and busier place with every expansion I don't think I'm going to be able to stop buying expansions for AI War until they stop making them.

You guys have also really ruined my expectations from software developers, no one is close to as responsive to their fanbase or as timely in their updates, while you're in 'crunch time' with AVWW even.  Thank you

While I get most happy when Arcen makes AI War content, their approach to game development has created a loyal customer in me to the end. I bought Tidalis even though I have barely played it, I own all the pieces of AI War even though I don't have time for them, and just today I bought AVWW even though I have not played it at all. I just like these guys that much. 

[PokerChen]

I think the current starship system works fine. Just the knowledge costs need some adjusting and a few starships could still use a little more love.
And I don't know about you, but I still love the base bonus ship types. One of my favorite picks is laser gattlings. Just about as basic as you can get, but still effective at its role given its cost and cap.

Agreed - I'd say there is internal balance within the current starship system - but it was balanced against the base-game fleet ship system. What I do think is that the expansions are fleshing out and developing the latter while leaving the former in its old state.  I would normally use the old Dreadnaughts, Bomber Starships and Flagships lines to add more oomph against some enemy X, however I'm constantly distracted by things that can drastically change the local balance of power.  This something is usually found through the ARS in the form of expansion fleet ships, and hence I suggest that the ARS might receive something that will encourage me to unlock starships instead.

Otherwise, I find that I can always delay those starships until I needed more oomph (as always, a decision that is scaled per knowledge) - and this usually happens to be past the end of the game. If we brought the K-cost down, then perhaps I'd swap a mark III+IV damage soaker with a mark II+III of a starship.

It's called sins of a solar Empire. Unfortunately, they don't keep that game up to date properly. It's one of my most regretted purchases so far.

Also unfortunate was its memory limit - and that someone tried & failed to mod Legend of Galactic Heroes (a combat system requiring position and flanking since most ships have tough frontal armour).

Bonus fleet ship types can be more valuable than starships because you don't have them (necessarily) every game.  If the starships were too competitive with bonus types then why upgrade the bonus types?

That said, they typically fill different roles than the fleet ships and fit different playstyles.  And some folks just really like starships.

Actually, there's something else I didn't mention that I wouldn't mind having a different opinion on: fractions of total knowledge spent on starships. Who is playing with a large contingent of mark-II/III starships at the moment? Do you make a conscience decision to pick a starship over something else?

[chemical_art]

As others have said, starships are using base game mechanics and they have not kept up with expansions.

Especially with fallen spire now they are obsolete. If you ever play a fallen spire game then you always go for those big ships first, they are magnitudes more efficient then starships. Even the smallest of the spire ship is around as tough, much longer ranged, and much more destructive for less then the cost of most starships. So you still need hundreds of fleetships to act as damage soakers and to cover them from other threats, but with the spire ships you simply have no need for anything other then maybe siege ships (because at least they still hidden in the fleetball, and you need them to improve anti capital ship ability of the spire).

Now I'm not saying that is bad. It needs to be that way to be worthwhile.. What I am trying to convey is that the starships have started to fall behind.

So here is an idea:
There are now two kinds of ARS:
5 of them are of the fleetship variety. No change.
1 or 2 are of a new kind: Starship variety. Picking them up unlocks the MK I version of new starships. They can be MK I's of previously only V ships, like warbirds, beam craft, etc. You could even keep the same sprite and just scale down the stats to keep them accurate.

This would be a feature for the expansion, so you could in addition to the few previously MK V only starships make a few new ones. Since these are of an new expansion, you can scale all the ars only starships up to compete with the spire ship inflation that has occurred. They still won't be better the spire ships, but since you only get one ARS (and thus only one line) you can make them a bit more awesome than the standard starships without breaking the base game.

If having 6 ARS's sound like a problem, what you can do is have 4 of them by the current fleetship ARS, and have 1 be of the starship variety. In that case, the starship ars would give both MK I and II. Having a few awesome I's and II's starships that are tempting the player to be built will encourage more starships, as well as maybe new strategies (raiding for example with raid starships and warbirds)

[keith.lamothe]

Lots of stuff becomes obsolete or marginalized in an FS game   When I played it I don't think I unlocked a single mkII/mkIII type of a fleet ship or starship.  Which is one reason I wouldn't always play with FS on (or at least not get to the city-phase every time).

Starships are very likely to see more changes, but they're not really supposed to be even mini-superweapons, nor really counterparts of fleet ship types.  Ideally you'll need both a lot of fleet ships and a fair amount of starships to do well; in the past there have been situations where just-fleet-ships was 100% viable, and situations where just-starships was.  On a low enough difficulty that's still true, but we want to avoid it being true in really serious games.  Making starships too buff tends to mess with that, though I do see the point about knowledge costs.

[chemical_art]

Gotcha. But even without the FS, the point still stands that fleetships have gotten oodles and oodles of expansion while we still have the same starships.

If we got a purely defensive starship, one with shields and higher targeting priority and a flat armor "aura", then I could suddenly justify raiding. Or a sniping starship...

I still think it would be cool to have an ARS for starships, so as to encourage their use, even if they have baseline stats but can still perform roles that the current batch of starships cannot.

Will be interested to what you do with them...

[Ranakastrasz]

A while back, When I read the Something Awful forums Lets play, I had thought about how they explained a number of things.

Specifically, The AI had produced Parasites, and then later came out with Parasite starships. The comments on it were as follows

"It looks like an attempt at a larger version of the parasites already encountered. That tiny thing is useless without a fleet to back it up."

This made me think of having a silly number of starships, one line for every single line of fleet ship XD
In addition, all starships (with the exception of the nezuil starships, and fleet starships) would require their corresponding fleet tech to exist first.
So, no parasite starships for you unless you have parasite tech. (I guess you will have to hire mercenaries, eh?)

Then, Seeing as I have an obsession with making *everything* modular, i would have to have an extra line of modular starships (or possibly, with the *super modular* mode, starships in addition to command stations all become modular) Which can, in addition to the obvious shields, would also be able to equip turrets relating to what tech you have unlocked.

[keith.lamothe]

Gotcha. But even without the FS, the point still stands that fleetships have gotten oodles and oodles of expansion while we still have the same starships.

I'm not sure we're thinking about the same things:

- I don't know if any were added after 1.0, but before TZR there were 29 fleet ship types (incuding scout/fighter/bomber/missile-frigate)
- TZR added 14 fleet ship types
- CoN added 5 fleet ship types
- LotS added 9 fleet ship types
- So from 29 to 57, just shy of a 100% increase.

- Before TZR there were 4 starship lines that are still with us (fleet, raid, leech, scout; leaving out the dreadnought since it's long-gone in terms of mechanics)
- The Cloaker Starship was added in TZR (not counting the warbird or beam since they're fabricator based)
- The Riot Control Starship was added after TZR (to base game)
- The Neinzul Enclave Starship was added in CoN
- The Bomber Starship was made available at the Starship Constructor after CoN
- The Plasma Siege Starship is very much a new unit in terms of its attack mechanic
- So from 4 to 9 (or 5 to 9 if you don't count the dread->plasma thing), a similar percentage increase.

Of course, there are lies and there are statistics But in general I don't think the starships have lagged behind all that much.  Some stat adjustment is still in order (I've focused mainly on bonus fleet types since you only have limited control over what an ARS grants you), and the enclave starship is in fairly desparate need of an overhaul, but I'm not seeing a need for radical changes/additions to how you get starships, etc.

[Cyborg]

I remember the days when fleet ships were just stupid compared to starships. You never needed them, and in fact, all you had to do was run around with your starship ball and win all day long. It wasn't fun because they aren't all that awe-inspiring compared to having a giant fleet. And it wasn't fun because half of the original game was obsolete.

Some of the starships need to be reworked, and I think all of them deserve a graphical overhaul in the next expansion to differentiate them from fleet ships a little better, but be careful what you ask for, gentlepeople.

[keith.lamothe]

I remember the days when fleet ships were just stupid compared to starships. You never needed them, and in fact, all you had to do was run around with your starship ball and win all day long. It wasn't fun because they aren't all that awe-inspiring compared to having a giant fleet. And it wasn't fun because half of the original game was obsolete.

Yes, and I remember you pointing it out at the time; that time in the game's history is precisely why I don't want to make starships significantly more... well, significant   Some need changes to make sure they're interesting choices instead of just "meh", but not much more than that.

If someone wants massive overpowering starships (and an appropriate challenge to use them against), I can quite sympathize, and that's what the FS stuff is there for

[Hearteater]

All I think they need is a touch more toughness (balance around Plasma for toughness) and slightly lower K cost so someone might actually unlock Mark II or III.  I'd especially like to see the Bomber Starship renamed Heavy Bomber and made tougher, possibly at some slight damage or speed reduction.  Also, for cosmetic reasons, I might want to see their range bumped up a tiny bit because at present when they are in range, it is very common to not see them shooting because their projectile travels the short distance extremely fast.  Threw me off a lot when I first started playing.

[chemical_art]

Gotcha. But even without the FS, the point still stands that fleetships have gotten oodles and oodles of expansion while we still have the same starships.

I'm not sure we're thinking about the same things:

- I don't know if any were added after 1.0, but before TZR there were 29 fleet ship types (incuding scout/fighter/bomber/missile-frigate)
- TZR added 14 fleet ship types
- CoN added 5 fleet ship types
- LotS added 9 fleet ship types
- So from 29 to 57, just shy of a 100% increase.

- Before TZR there were 4 starship lines that are still with us (fleet, raid, leech, scout; leaving out the dreadnought since it's long-gone in terms of mechanics)
- The Cloaker Starship was added in TZR (not counting the warbird or beam since they're fabricator based)
- The Riot Control Starship was added after TZR (to base game)
- The Neinzul Enclave Starship was added in CoN
- The Bomber Starship was made available at the Starship Constructor after CoN
- The Plasma Siege Starship is very much a new unit in terms of its attack mechanic
- So from 4 to 9 (or 5 to 9 if you don't count the dread->plasma thing), a similar percentage increase.

Of course, there are lies and there are statistics But in general I don't think the starships have lagged behind all that much.  Some stat adjustment is still in order (I've focused mainly on bonus fleet types since you only have limited control over what an ARS grants you), and the enclave starship is in fairly desparate need of an overhaul, but I'm not seeing a need for radical changes/additions to how you get starships, etc.

Well then, I stand corrected!

*hides*