Martyr Balance Feedback

[Cyborg]

Using the expense lever on a generally expendable unit isn't a very good combination. What needs to happen is the same thing that the player does; we notice a cloaked unit is on a planet, and we have the option of looking for it. The AI thread needs to do the same thing. I italicize that as it should be variable with difficulty and perhaps the Mark level of the planet.

[keith.lamothe]

Using the expense lever on a generally expendable unit isn't a very good combination.

Yea, the costs on scouts are mostly to discourage extreme-expendability tactics with scouts: you can still do it but it cuts into your economy.

What needs to happen is the same thing that the player does; we notice a cloaked unit is on a planet, and we have the option of looking for it. The AI thread needs to do the same thing. I italicize that as it should be variable with difficulty and perhaps the Mark level of the planet.

Do you mean that it would hunt your cloaked scouts while they moved through to reach unscouted worlds, or hunt your "stationed" scouts that give you up-to-date intel on what's actually there?

If the former, that makes sense, but there's a pretty short window.  Basically we could let it rebuild its tachyon guardians or something if you killed them and then left them alone.  Or it could have wandering decloakers that would patrol and perhaps on higher difficulties increasingly home in on scout "signals".  That would then make auto-scout even more sub-optimal and people would complain about needing to micro the scouts, but I could live with that if it actually made the game more fun in general.

If the latter, wouldn't that be a royal pain in the rear end?  I mean, basically you'd have to keep sending out new picketing scouts, right?  Or am I missing something?

[Cyborg]

Using the expense lever on a generally expendable unit isn't a very good combination.

Yea, the costs on scouts are mostly to discourage extreme-expendability tactics with scouts: you can still do it but it cuts into your economy.

What needs to happen is the same thing that the player does; we notice a cloaked unit is on a planet, and we have the option of looking for it. The AI thread needs to do the same thing. I italicize that as it should be variable with difficulty and perhaps the Mark level of the planet.

Do you mean that it would hunt your cloaked scouts while they moved through to reach unscouted worlds, or hunt your "stationed" scouts that give you up-to-date intel on what's actually there?

If the former, that makes sense, but there's a pretty short window.  Basically we could let it rebuild its tachyon guardians or something if you killed them and then left them alone.  Or it could have wandering decloakers that would patrol and perhaps on higher difficulties increasingly home in on scout "signals".  That would then make auto-scout even more sub-optimal and people would complain about needing to micro the scouts, but I could live with that if it actually made the game more fun in general.

If the latter, wouldn't that be a royal pain in the rear end?  I mean, basically you'd have to keep sending out new picketing scouts, right?  Or am I missing something?

It depends. My personal opinion is that higher difficulties would not tolerate having scout units indefinitely on the planet. They would spawn some de-cloaking device/ship after some period of time. Iit would have to wait until the next reinforcement, maybe even spending some reinforcement points on that in particular, creating a new strategy that encourages scouting for other reasons(influencing reinforcements), which would be fun.

If it is intended that higher-level scouts avoid fog of war for the player, which I'm fine with as well at a certain mark level. This is from your post: ""I can't get more than 2-3 hops out even with mkIIIs" and "I can scout the entire map with mkIIIs"." If this is the complaint, you can get around that by doing something like this post. You could still scout the map, but it's not indefinite, and smart players will be able to manipulate the side effect of reinforcements.

[keith.lamothe]

If it is intended that higher-level scouts avoid fog of war for the player, which I'm fine with as well at a certain mark level. This is from your post: ""I can't get more than 2-3 hops out even with mkIIIs" and "I can scout the entire map with mkIIIs"." If this is the complaint, you can get around that by doing something like this post. You could still scout the map, but it's not indefinite, and smart players will be able to manipulate the side effect of reinforcements.

Sorry, I wasn't clear on that: those comments are entirely about the "initial" scouting that tells you the permanent things about a planet.  Notably, where are the ARS's, the Advanced Factories, and the AI homeworlds (and various other stuff like fabricators, golems, asteroids, and so on).

Making the "scout picketing" game more challenging might help indirectly, and perhaps a "Vigilance" AI Plot would be worthwhile for players who like an AI that tries to put out their eyes

[wyvern83]

perhaps a "Vigilance" AI Plot would be worthwhile for players who like an AI that tries to put out their eyes

It totally sounds like something there should be a plot for. It'd also be a big change to standard play if it was done more directly. I know I'd want the option to leave it off though I'd be willing to try it.

[Hearteater]

I'd say only alerted planets should bother removing scouts, whether it is a plot, AI type, or difficulty triggered.

[TechSY730]

If it is intended that higher-level scouts avoid fog of war for the player, which I'm fine with as well at a certain mark level. This is from your post: ""I can't get more than 2-3 hops out even with mkIIIs" and "I can scout the entire map with mkIIIs"." If this is the complaint, you can get around that by doing something like this post. You could still scout the map, but it's not indefinite, and smart players will be able to manipulate the side effect of reinforcements.

Sorry, I wasn't clear on that: those comments are entirely about the "initial" scouting that tells you the permanent things about a planet.  Notably, where are the ARS's, the Advanced Factories, and the AI homeworlds (and various other stuff like fabricators, golems, asteroids, and so on).

Making the "scout picketing" game more challenging might help indirectly, and perhaps a "Vigilance" AI Plot would be worthwhile for players who like an AI that tries to put out their eyes

IMO, it should be either difficulty triggered or preferably an AI plot, because such big tactics don't really seem like they should be limited to one AI type.
Would they also hunt for military cloaked units just hanging around? If so, could there be two plots, one where they will hunt down cloaked military but not cloaked non-military (like scouts), and one where they would hunt down anything cloaked?
Though, now that I think about it, not many people that I know of try to abuse the cloaking of ships on the offense, so the only hunt cloaked military version may not make that big of an impact. But it would be nice to have the option to have the AI try to shut down cloaked based guerrilla tactics without having scouting hit hard.

[Coppermantis]

Having the AI Hunt Cloaked Military would completely destroy my strategy for getting around AI Eyes. I think it should be an AI Plot if anything.

[Cyborg]

Having the AI Hunt Cloaked Military would completely destroy my strategy for getting around AI Eyes. I think it should be an AI Plot if anything.

What would that be?

[Coppermantis]

You mean my strategy? I take out the tachyon guardian on the wormhole with a small strike force, then send in two cloaker starships, followed by a cap of Mk. I Antimatter, Raid, Light and Bomber starships, occasionally accompanied by Flagships or higher. Then I systematically move the whole cloaked group around to guard posts. As soon as I reach one, I take the military ships out of low-power and blow up the post, then put them back in low-power, then send the whole group to flee while the cloak regenerates. Then repeat until all guard posts are down and the AI Eye self-destructs. Recently, Hybrid Hives (I just got CoN)) Have been making this a little harder, but otherwise this strategy has been very successful. So you can see why this would totally screw up my plans.

[TechSY730]

I think it should be an AI Plot if anything.

YES! It's such a balance changer to cloaked units that it should be optional, but a significant enough stratagy that it a mere one AI type doing it seems silly. AI plot seems to be the way to go. But we are getting WAY off topic on this. Should we move the discussion to a mantis post?

[Cyborg]

I'm losing steam on this particular "plot," which is what this discussion seems to have morphed into. Unless it's going to affect some part of the meta-game, there's really no point in making it a plot. All of the plots currently have that property. If it's not going to do that, then it's really just a personal choice of whether or not you want scouts to be revealing the map for you. If it makes it too easy, just don't do it. That kind of choice I can support, and it doesn't need to be a plot to do that.

[mindloss]

Attritioners are on my list of things I want to make more useful (preferably in a more interesting way than only buffing the damage though that could happen too).

Problem seems to be that attritioners won't be able to dish out significant damage to be worthwhile in most cases. I realize this would probably be extra work to code and might even involve impractical runtime overhead, but just to throw it out there: have attritioner's damage rate increase over time against any given ship while it remains in system. Hanging around for more than a couple of minutes in an attritioned system would start to get really painful.

[Philo]

Why would anyone want the AI to hunt your stationary scouts? Seems insane. The system right now is fine.

[Cyborg]

Why would anyone want the AI to hunt your stationary scouts? Seems insane. The system right now is fine.

Are you familiar with strategies that involve intentionally alerting planets? Are you familiar with reinforcement points? There are reasons to do it, but like I said, without affecting the meta-game, it just becomes personal preference and no point.