Mark IV Ships within the first 20 minutes?

[Captain Cake]

I started up a game with my friend tonight, we were in an awkward starting position but everything was going pretty good. Then at about the 24 minute mark a handful of Mark IV ships flew into my system, and it freaked the hell outta me but I calmed down and tried my best to deal with the situation at hand. Eventually our fleet manages to get stable, unfortunately a bigger handful of Mark IV ships showed up to rain even harder on my day. Alright, well its time to fall back and consolidate our defense on my friends home system for a last stand. Before we even manage to make it to the wormhole to his system even more of the Mark IV bastards show up, so we decide to call is game and blame it on the AI cuz we can't figure out what else would cause it to happen.

We liked the map so we started it up again to give it another shot, hopefully getting a better AI though we've got it now so it shows what AI's we're against. Okay so this time we've learned from our mistakes and get off to a little quicker of a start and everything is going wonderfully. That is until the 18 minute mark. A small handful of Mark IV ships show up in my system again, from a different gate than last time. I'm a little better off so I have them under control this time, so I think to myself "No problem! I gots them now!". Feeling all happy with my impending victory over the unexplained Mark IV ships I send out all of my Mark I and II vampire claws (damn I love these things) to neuter a nearby system. Two guard posts down and the warp gate is sweating watching the vampire claws zip towards it, then my heart sinks.... A few Mark IV ships pop into the system, they don't go immediatly to my home system (I'm going to assume they were trying to defend, although they got nowhere near my vampire claws) but I know thats the plan, so I go back to my home system to ramp up production for the incoming ships. I manage to pump out enough ships to survive at least while my vampires are distracting them, but to no avail. 20 - 30 more Mark IV ships jump in through another wormhole.

So we quit that game as well, but it leaves me wondering, why is the AI throwing mark IV ships at my home system within 20 minutes? Am I doing something wrong by neutering 2 - 3 planets within the first 10-20 minutes?

I just don't understand, I've played a few games before and this never happened. The nearest Mark IV planet is 6 jumps away, so I can't have pissed one off at the start accidentally. It seems like the AI is throwing his Mark IV ships at me right at the start and it takes em about 20 minutes to arrive. I doubt it but could it somehow be linked to the map seed? I played a game for 2 hours earlier on a different map with two friends and we never ran into this problem at all, just the odd mark III ships, though I'm going to place the blame on the Mark IV system we started beside.

I'm also going to attach a save of the first game about 2 minutes before we quit, take note of the bunch of Mark IV ship in the system to the far left.

Any input is greatly appreciated. 

[Kjara]

I'm pretty sure its devourer golem related, as I've had similar(and worse) experiences--370 core parasites at the 9=10 minute mark .

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, we're going to try making all guard posts immune to the devourer so it shouldn't be able to free stuff.  I suppose we'll have to do the same for resistance fighters, and the marauders, and the dyson gatlings...

[Captain Cake]

So this is caused by a devourer golem? If so why haven't I had this problems in other games with devourers?

[Buttons840]

I had 300 core raiders show up in the 10th minute one game.

I have a post in the bug section titled "Impossible starts?" which contains a save from one of my games.  The mark III's start pouring in after about 90 seconds, seriously.  Although this is survivable if you plan for it.  Kind of a fun campaign actually.  My only suggestion is to watch the treat number carefully as that will give you warning of the incoming ships.  If that number suddenly spikes for no reason start preparing; it's hard to know if it's Mrk I or Core ships coming at you though.

I kind of hate to see this behaviour go away completely because the surprise is kind of fun.

* I think the core ships showing up was an older version of the game, although it was greater than 3.020.  Core ships may have been fixed because I haven't seen them show up anymore.

[HellishFiend]

I had 300 core raiders show up in the 10th minute one game.

I seriously laugh every time you mention that!   

Asymmetrical gameplay FTW!

you: *sends out a scout*
AI: *sends in 300 core raiders*

[Goekhan]

Yea, we're going to try making all guard posts immune to the devourer so it shouldn't be able to free stuff.  I suppose we'll have to do the same for resistance fighters, and the marauders, and the dyson gatlings...

Resistance fighters are kinda obsessed with guard posts, when they finish up they tend to move as far as I can tell, I'm not sure however.

Dyson gatlings seem to ignore guard posts.

[keith.lamothe]

I seriously laugh every time you mention that!  Cheesy

Asymmetrical gameplay FTW!

you: *sends out a scout*
AI: *sends in 300 core raiders*

I seriously want to add some logic like
if(Player.JustWonAGame) FreeAllAIShipsToAttack();

[HellishFiend]

I seriously laugh every time you mention that!  Cheesy

Asymmetrical gameplay FTW!

you: *sends out a scout*
AI: *sends in 300 core raiders*

I seriously want to add some logic like
if(Player.JustWonAGame) FreeAllAIShipsToAttack();

That's actually kinda cool. What if, upon winning a game, a just-for-fun dialog box comes up that provides that option, along with some other similar options?

[keith.lamothe]

Just have an innocent looking "Symmetric Gameplay" checkbox on the game options

"You want symmetry? I'll give you symmetry!"

Of course, the player could object that such an option should include symmetric starting positions, but the player would be too dead to press the argument.

[Captain Cake]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone.

Looks like we're going to have to start up on another map since my and my friend aren't very good at the game yet and are still learning. Although I think I'm going to write down the seed and come back to it, it is definitely an interesting scenario.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, in theory you could use cheats to get a few hundred mk IV fighters and bombers to counter the unintended attack of AI mk IV ships, then scrap the ships you got through the cheats when the bug-freed ships are dealt with.  True, it would show the cheat flag on your savegame, so up to you.

[Captain Cake]

Well, in theory you could use cheats to get a few hundred mk IV fighters and bombers to counter the unintended attack of AI mk IV ships, then scrap the ships you got through the cheats when the bug-freed ships are dealt with.  True, it would show the cheat flag on your savegame, so up to you.

Not a chance! It's like a nice little challenging scenario, but we've yet to take a mkIV planet or even a mkIII on that I can recall(in any of our games thus far), so I think it can wait a bit ^^.

[Mylon]

If you still have that game/map available, I would check to see if there's a raid engine nearby.  If there's a level IV system with a raid engine in it nearby, it's going to spell major pain.