Multi-planet starts: a poll

[x4000]

It is rather exploity, and winds up with players running into out-of-memory exceptions faster, etc, too.  The general design would be:

1. Still you get the extra bonus ship types.
2. Still you get the extra weaknesss of the various home planet command stations all being tied together.
3. Still you get the huge benefit of all those extra resources.
4. Still the AI gets the benefit of the same extra waves, etc, as now.
5. But you no longer get the doubled ship caps per ship type.  The ship caps would be the same as in playing solo with one planet (or with however many players you have, each with one planet, anyway -- multi-planet starts also work in multiplayer).

Thoughts?  I think it would be a good move.

[Winter Born]

Would there also be some adjustment to the AI wave frequency?

[Vinraith]

It does seem to be the single biggest balance problem with multi-HW starts. The problem is, I think it's probably an over correction to remove it without doing something else to balance playerpower vs. AI threat, though. Either an adjustment to wave frequency, or perhaps something like one extra wave per 2 extra homeworlds rounded up, would be a good angle.

[x4000]

Would there also be some adjustment to the AI wave frequency?

No, that's not affected by anything except AI Difficulty at the moment -- even in multiplayer, it's just the number of waves, not the frequency.  My feeling was that having more-frequent waves would prevent players from having time to do anything other than just defend!

It does seem to be the single biggest balance problem with multi-HW starts. The problem is, I think it's probably an over correction to remove it without doing something else to balance playerpower vs. AI threat, though. Either an adjustment to wave frequency, or perhaps something like one extra wave per 2 extra homeworlds rounded up, would be a good angle.

Well, bear in mind the resource benefit is immense.  I mean, especially recently it's something like 600/s extra metal and crystal per planet.  Start with four planets, and you're pretty much always at resource cap no matter what you do, from what I've seen.  That's part of what makes also having the extra ship caps so damaging to balance.

But I can't take away the extra resources, because it's a valid thing to want to start with 3 players playing, for instance, and one of them has two planets on the understanding that a fourth player will join and take over one of those planets later.  Then again, that fourth player does get a home core... maybe not such an issue after all.  Hmm....

[Vinraith]

Right, because they're all home stations they all have the resource bonus, I wasn't even thinking in those terms. Still, even with topped-out resources a single set of ship caps is going to be hard pressed to handle 16 waves or the like.

I definitely think you're on the right track here, though, as the ship cap thing is what really makes the multi-HW approach so very, very broken and exploitastic.

[x4000]

Well, to some extent I'd also like this to be broken -- well, super difficult -- past a couple of homeworlds.  It's sort of like an uber-difficult setting, then.  You can always turn on handicaps to 300% if you want to give it a go... but to your point, I just think it's not very straightforward to balance it for 8 starting home planets.  One way or another it's going to be fundamentally a different game from the base game or even multiplayer, and right now it's way easier, but I think it should be the opposite given the nature of the game (and given the exploity way to get achievements).

One thing that could be done, though, would be to make it so that all the home command stations don't explode at once if you lose one of them.  That could at least bring it in the direction of what you're thinking, maybe.

[keith.lamothe]

Whenever I get to thinking that multi-hw starts are simply unbalanceable (which is fairly often), I'm stopped by the realization that doesn't the same fundamental situation apply to multiplayer? I mean, if anyone actually got an 8-way mp game going much past early game, wouldn't they hit the out of memory situation just as easily?

Or is it just that having one player holding all the reins is just that much more powerful because they can direct the full mega-caps of whatever as they choose without having to coordinate it?

[x4000]

Or is it just that having one player holding all the reins is just that much more powerful because they can direct the full mega-caps of whatever as they choose without having to coordinate it?

That seems to be my experience with it, yes.  I play four-player extremely regularly, and five-player on occasion.  Never played with more than that, so I can't actually comment.  But with four and five players, if anything it's been somewhat harder than in solo, with the current setup as-is.  I tend to have an easier go when I play on my own, anyway.  There was some discussion about this recently in mantis, but the others who pay multiplayer regularly changed their mind about there being a difficulty issue there, because there was just a temporary burp with the AI not getting bonus ships that was causing it, etc.

[keith.lamothe]

That seems kinda amusing, then, that even though mp actually has more numeric advantages than multi-hw (at least in terms of energy, though arguably the knowledge breakout also allows more total versatility), humans nerf themselves by lack of coordination

[x4000]

Well, I think if you designated one person as "supreme commander" and everyone was constantly really on the ball and doing what that person said, then you could do really well.  But there tends to be a lot of "just a bit, I'm securing this border of mine," or whatever before going after bigger targets.  Yes, humans do nerf themselves a bit with that.

[Vinraith]

Well, to some extent I'd also like this to be broken -- well, super difficult -- past a couple of homeworlds.  It's sort of like an uber-difficult setting, then.  You can always turn on handicaps to 300% if you want to give it a go... but to your point, I just think it's not very straightforward to balance it for 8 starting home planets.  One way or another it's going to be fundamentally a different game from the base game or even multiplayer, and right now it's way easier, but I think it should be the opposite given the nature of the game (and given the exploity way to get achievements).

That's very reasonable. It certainly seems that balancing towards it being harder than the default should be the goal.

One thing that could be done, though, would be to make it so that all the home command stations don't explode at once if you lose one of them.  That could at least bring it in the direction of what you're thinking, maybe.

Worth considering, especially as a small counterbalance to dropping the cap multiplier.

[x4000]

I think it would be a more appealing mode without that "house of cards" feel it certainly has, heh.

[Winter Born]

Well, I think if you designated one person as "supreme commander" and everyone was constantly really on the ball and doing what that person said, then you could do really well.  But there tends to be a lot of "just a bit, I'm securing this border of mine," or whatever before going after bigger targets.  Yes, humans do nerf themselves a bit with that.

"Battle School" anyone

[Wingflier]

Well, I think if you designated one person as "supreme commander" and everyone was constantly really on the ball and doing what that person said, then you could do really well.  But there tends to be a lot of "just a bit, I'm securing this border of mine," or whatever before going after bigger targets.  Yes, humans do nerf themselves a bit with that.

"Battle School" anyone

Oh god if you want some practice multitasking go play some Starcraft.  Then again that kind of crazy/frantic gameplay is what AI War attempts to stray away from, ironically

[Sunshine!]

Part of the issue is that with a multi-hw start, you're getting that doubled ship cap for each ship you choose.  In a multiplayer game, in reality you're getting (1/(n+1))*(doubled ship cap) or something for each of the bonus ships because each player has access to different ship types.  You only see as many ships as if you had double cap for 4 ship types instead of however many homeworlds you picked, unless you play with a multi-HW multiplayer start.

Basic fighters mk1 have a 154 ship cap for 8 planet start with low ship cap, 280 for normal instead of 49 and 99.  It's not even a x2 scaling, it's almost a x3 scaling for normal.

Part of a problem with multi-planet starts is that your team loses 10,000 knowledge per additional planet you choose, giving you less access to advanced ship types or diversity.  If the ship caps were reduced to single player norms, and the initial knowledge bonus were changed to match planet starts, multiplanet starts could remain as hard as they are and still be balanced without the player winding up with ridiculous piles of ships.