Nominations for big items for 8.0

[LaughingThesaurus]

I think in terms of a really long distance goal, it might be fun to have a zenith and neinzul focused campaign, to fit with the spire one. Like you actually said, the Neinzul could 'overrun an entire galaxy'. Why not overrun the AI invested territory and take it all down with a massive Neinzul Rush before the AI can react? I have no idea what the Zenith would do. Maybe they have a really big Nuclear EMP or something that'll kill only the AI.

But yeah I mean that's after everything on this list is done, and only if it's a really viable sort of idea.

[Eternaly_Lost]

I think in terms of a really long distance goal, it might be fun to have a zenith and neinzul focused campaign, to fit with the spire one. Like you actually said, the Neinzul could 'overrun an entire galaxy'. Why not overrun the AI invested territory and take it all down with a massive Neinzul Rush before the AI can react? I have no idea what the Zenith would do. Maybe they have a really big Nuclear EMP or something that'll kill only the AI.

But yeah I mean that's after everything on this list is done, and only if it's a really viable sort of idea.

Zenith end game. Cookie Monster is hacked to only eat AI ships and has the MKV and hull immunities removed. Then it proceeds to head right to each AI homeworld in turn cleaning it up.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Oh dude, that could actually be a thing. Hacking/Zenith endgame, requires devourer golem. If you're feeling bold, you can hack the Devourer (with the assistance of other Zenith tools maybe) and then the Devourer Golem becomes yours. I'd love to control an unstoppable anti-AI golem. Maybe your own efficiency with the golem has a bit to do with whether you survive a massive AI response.

[tmm]

Supporting the distributed defense point, something I was thinking the other day that human command stations and shields could use some work as well.  Funny looks and harsh language, and the dying to thereof don't even begin to describe how fragile human command stations are at the moment, and I generally have to put down at least a mark I shield or two on every command station for it to survive long enough to help to arrive if it's not in an absolutely secure system.  And losing the command station means losing the energy collector, which leads to bad things.

Perhaps they could be reworked in the same way as turrets?  For instance, a built-in command station shield based on mark (this would probably work by turning the command station itself into a shield) or per planet shield cap, with additional shields available for high importance systems.

[doctorfrog]

Oh dude, that could actually be a thing. Hacking/Zenith endgame, requires devourer golem. If you're feeling bold, you can hack the Devourer (with the assistance of other Zenith tools maybe) and then the Devourer Golem becomes yours. I'd love to control an unstoppable anti-AI golem. Maybe your own efficiency with the golem has a bit to do with whether you survive a massive AI response.

Controlling even a hacked Devourer should be something like riding a wild horse that has been surviving on a diet of coffee beans and coca berries. I'd take a novel/brutal mechanic over the standard "AI gets mad and throws silverware and plates at you." For example, maybe it's a project to first disable or trap the DG, then you have to hack it, then you have to park it and aim it in just the right direction, essentially programming its path of destruction through the wormholes, then, finally, fire it off like a cannonball with a deranged brain. It careens from planet to planet at an extremely high speed and devouring capacity, finally erupting in a flurry of unpredictable activity: perhaps exploding with the strength of a nuke, maybe picking the nearest friendly world, eviscerating it and then hibernating like a bear, maybe simply shutting off and drifting slowly off the playfield, in the meanwhile an incredibly rich source of planetary resources.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Well, what I was thinking is you'd have to hack it obviously. But, the first thing is it's not going to just sit still. You need some kind of tool that can trap anything, even things that aren't trapped by Black Hole Machines. Something immune to the Devourer. So, there's some kind of project to acquire or build that, maybe in cooperation with the Zenith Trader. Then, you need to reinforce some kind of hacking computer station against the Devourer OR just create a computer powerful enough to hack the Devourer, while you distract the Devourer with tasty treats in the form of swarms of ships. Effectively, it's actually a big test of your economic/micro sort of prowess maybe. As you hack it the Devourer needs more feeding to remain distracted. Once it's done hacking, the Devourer has been given such great munitions that it shuts down...
...and well... then you can repair it, maybe. But, only a fool would repair a demented angry Devourer Golem on their own planets! You probably need to, say, drag it closer to AI territory so that when you do repair it, it will head deeper into AI territory. Tractor Beam ships could probably do this. Otherwise, you can give the shut down Devourer some movement speed and player control and call it a 'rocket attached to the Devourer Golem'. When the Devourer is dragged to where it needs to be, you can begin repairing it. This is only done through the explicit order to repair it. Once the repairs start, the AI suddenly realizes what you've done and will prepare big waves to hit the devourer and destroy it while its shields are down! Oh no! But, it's okay. The Devourer itself has plenty of health, for sure. Once the Devourer is finished being repaired, it will move towards any large clumps of ships. If it can't find any, it will move towards the nearest homeworld (human OR AI), instantly killing anything in its firing range in its path. The placement of the golem is absolutely key here. Although, it helps that the AI is actually attacking so it will be drawn away from you. You can expect your AI Progress to skyrocket, but the Devourer won't take long to take down a home command station. Not by any stretch.
There's probably some way to knock it off course, in case it does start heading towards you. It probably needs to be really powerful, or something that requires a lot of tactical prowess to pull off. Also, if the Devourer were to die in this state, it would emit a galaxy-wide nuclear explosion on death. Maybe even if it died in the broken state. Who knows?

[Cyborg]

A planetcracker.

That's nuke for ya

No, it's not.

Miner Golem then.

Nope. That's no moon.

[Bognor]

19) could be to tweak a whole bunch of ships that don't scale properly with caps or combat mode.  For example, a Black Widow Golem has 200 tractor beams on ultra-low caps and the same number on high caps, even though it has 8x as many targets in the latter case.  Similar issues apply to Spirecraft Attritioners, Spire Maws (pretty sure swallow rate doesn't change from epic to blitz, or with caps), Lightning Warheads (I don't think they do less damage on high caps even though they can hit more targets), Riot Control Starships (same issue as Black Widows), and probably a bunch of other ships.

[Shrugging Khan]

Combat styles in general ought to be overhauled. Either with a big disclaimer pointing out that using them will mess up unit balance, by removing them altogether, or by actually solving the problem somehow...though I doubt it's at all possible.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Removing the cap scale things entirely is a really terrible idea, because then it basically makes the 16 homeworld game idea impossible by virtue of the engine itself... unless you legitimately meant combat style, which I don't really know how it breaks the game because I haven't played with it.

[Bognor]

I wouldn't go so far as to say cap scales or combat styles "mess up" unit balance; I'm not aware of any unit that's absurdly over- or under-powered on any particular setting.  I doubt the issues are noticed by more than a minority of players.  I don't think this should be as high a priority as the hacking enhancements or other features that would add more fun, but I thought it was at least worth nominating and seeing how other players feel.

[Shrugging Khan]

I meant combat style; as far as unit caps are concerned I'd say exactly the same things - except that they should, of course, not be removed. In fact, I'd rather love to play with ultra-low caps if that didn't screw up unit balance...

[LaughingThesaurus]

I wouldn't go so far as to say cap scales or combat styles "mess up" unit balance; I'm not aware of any unit that's absurdly over- or under-powered on any particular setting.  I doubt the issues are noticed by more than a minority of players.  I don't think this should be as high a priority as the hacking enhancements or other features that would add more fun, but I thought it was at least worth nominating and seeing how other players feel.

Well I can see how ultralow caps would be problematic. For instance, it makes tractor beams four times as... well, grabby, I guess. I don't want to say powerful, because they'll probably die a lot faster.

[chemical_art]

Well I can see how ultralow caps would be problematic. For instance, it makes tractor beams four times as... well, grabby, I guess. I don't want to say powerful, because they'll probably die a lot faster.

That can be modified by altering the units though. Some passively do, for example tractor turrets and fleetships passively scale already. All that is necessary is for units that don't scale with cap to have tractor beams scale. Not hard, but time consuming. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and removing whole cap scales. Better then the alternative of not having the option for sure

[keith.lamothe]

Added the proposed #19

On the planetcracker thing, I'd like that too but it's expansion stuff, not core-game stuff.  But the plan for the next expansion includes something I think is pretty planetcrackery.

Poll is up