Per-planet Turrets vs Guard Posts

[Pumpkin]

2, to be like Mini-Fortresses, would probably be "close enough"

That said... if I have to split my firepower on my bottleneck, I'm going to seriously consider a different bottleneck. Especially given that Spire Cities can't be split in the first place.

Please consider that
1) everybody doesn't play with a bottleneck;
2) everybody doesn't play with Fallen Spire.
Having the firepower of a full cap of turret shared in two GPost-like turrets is fine for me.

As said, modular is not a "normal" thing in the game but an option. If the spirit is to simplify the very slight burden of piling little turrets, having one big modular turret in place would kill the intended simplification and increase the complexity instead of lowering it.

In your interesting calculus, Radiant Phoenix, I think you forget to mention that fortresses have more health than the corresponding turret quantity, and as it take damage its firepower isn't lowered. It's a sort of starship/fleetship relation between fortress/turrets.

The interesting idea would be to flesh out the "starship" turrets.

While I think about it, the Heavy Beam Cannon would sit side to side with the Fortress in the "star-turret" team (high end and galaxy cap). They make me think of the Zenith and Spire starships: one tanky with multishots (effective against swarm) and one less tanky and with anti-tank beam weapon.

So if the chosen path is the one of fleshing out the low-cap/galaxy-cap team, I can bring some ideas, like a human adaptation of the IA enclave GPost or a static Neinzul Enclave, or a retrofitting of a ion cannon buildable by humans making a long-long-range or heavy-sniper turret. Other idea: a flag-turret; the area powerboosting ability of the flagship in a static turret.

Anyway, they are just ideas. The question is: does some new high-end/low-cap turrets like these would fit your needs?

[CaptainTaz]

The question is: does some new high-end/low-cap turrets like these would fit your needs?

If it's an additional unit I can use the smack the AI down as they come for my bottleneck, yes.

In all seriousness, I am a believer in the impenetrable wall of death and destruction that is the bottleneck. Which means I invest a LOT into turrets and defensive structures.

Having a starship class-ish turret with special effect (Reclamation, paralysis, etc.) would definitely make me think more before I dump all my K into plain ol' turrets.

[Radiant Phoenix]

A fortress Mk1 is better than a cap of one type of Mk1 turret. It also costs 3000 K vs 0 K, and so much more metal and power you're not even playing the same game.

Let's do a comparison of stats: a cap of all the types of Mk2 turret vs a cap of Fortress Mk1

	Needler	Laser	MLRS	Missile	Total	Fortress x 5
DPS	9984	10800	13132.8	10224	44140.8	40000
HP	384000	360000	393600	288000	1425600	1000000
Giga-HP-DPS					63	40
Metal	96000	105600	105600	105600	412800	4500000
Power	19200	19200	19200	19200	76800	450000

I'm not multiplying the Fortress Giga-HP-DPS by 2 because there are five of them, not jut one. With five, the increase in strength for not losing DPS with health is only 20%, so the adjusted value would be 48. Still doesn't match the turrets, which cost 250 less K (and an order of magnitude less metal, and 1/6 the power)

What fortresses have is extra range and some immunities, and a bit of convenience with repairs.

[CaptainTaz]

A fortress Mk1 is better than a cap of one type of Mk1 turret. It also costs 3000 K vs 0 K, and so much more metal and power you're not even playing the same game.

Let's do a comparison of stats: a cap of all the types of Mk2 turret vs a cap of Fortress Mk1

	Needler	Laser	MLRS	Missile	Total	Fortress x 5
DPS	9984	10800	13132.8	10224	44140.8	40000
HP	384000	360000	393600	288000	1425600	1000000
Giga-HP-DPS					63	40
Metal	96000	105600	105600	105600	412800	4500000
Power	19200	19200	19200	19200	76800	450000

I'm not multiplying the Fortress Giga-HP-DPS by 2 because there are five of them, not jut one. With five, the increase in strength for not losing DPS with health is only 20%, so the adjusted value would be 48. Still doesn't match the turrets, which cost 250 less K (and an order of magnitude less metal, and 1/6 the power)

What fortresses have is extra range and some immunities, and a bit of convenience with repairs.

That repair though is pretty useful, because then I can divert more engineers to reinforcing my spire fleet after I establish cities.

Plus, that extra range is perfect for bottlenecks with grav drillers. I mean, seriously, they kick ass while the ships desperately try to get in range xD

[Radiant Phoenix]

Having done this math, I think I'd only go for fortresses if one of four things happen:

• I plan to have exactly one choke.
• I am completely and utterly flooded with K, and have bought all the turrets.
  
• I want to beachhead a planet with an Ion Cannon without destroying the Ion Cannon.
• A signficant number of my planned border planets will have grav drills.

I think that the only really likely one of those is #1, but that one is actually pretty likely.

(Also, something I realized: giving fortresses immunity to nuclear explosions would appear to be completely useless -- they still need supply, and nuclear explosions remove that)

[Draco18s]

(Also, something I realized: giving fortresses immunity to nuclear explosions would appear to be completely useless -- they still need supply, and nuclear explosions remove that)

Yup. And the result is hilarious.

[Radiant Phoenix]

By the way, in case anyone's confused by some of my math, this might help: these graphs depict expected total damage dealt in the face of constant incoming DPS. The first for a homogeneous fleet, and the second for a more diverse fleet.

As you can see, as the size of a homogeneous fleet becomes large, the expected total damage dealt is:

damage = k(n) * n^2 * HP * DPS

Where:

k(n) = 1/2 + 1 / (2 * n) = (n + 1) / (2 * n)

Which approaches 1 as n approaches 1, and 1/2 as n approaches infinity.

With a diverse fleet, the hypotenuse of the right triangle becomes concave, as the enemy is able to focus fire on the ships with a higher DPS-to-HP ratio to make your DPS decay more rapidly at the beginning.

[kasnavada]

About Fortresses VS turrets, main issue might rather be than the fortresses were not boosted accordingly when turrets received their "per planet cap" boost.

About, this thread, the idea sounds like a logical upgrade on an issue which currently causes unnecessary micro-management. But, to "solve" the same issue (too many turrets to place is not fun) what I'd rather do is scale down the game and remove some turrets.

Something like putting per galaxy & per planet cap, like 500 (depending on map size) / 50. Or increase energy costs of turrets depending on the total number they have. Or both. Or something worse =).

Otherwise, another idea I'm in favor of would be "blueprints", basically the possibility to "store" a layout of buildings and copy paste it from one game to another. Which incidently would also solve the issue at hand here.

PS : yes, this will require more "balancing" on the game but anyway, in AI war updates, what doesn't ? For example turret changes broke the fortresses usefulness.

[Radiant Phoenix]

Putting the per-galaxy cap back on turrets? Please no, we just got away from that. Have turrets become mini-forts instead.

Actually, I think Fort2 might not have the same problem, because it's about 2x the stats of Fort1, where Turret3 is only 1.5x that of Turret2.

The other problem with Fortresses, of course, is that they don't benefit from CS-Mil, and thus have noticeably less "real" DPS.

[kasnavada]

After playing it, I see the galaxy cap on turrets as a bad thing... Now, it's too easy to defend planets because it's just a matter of putting as much turrets as energy allows. It's a major source of micro-management to place turrets everywhere. I still fail to see how that improves the game. That change required a rework of most of the defences which has not happened, hence the problem with forts in this very thread. Not to mention it makes beach-heading AI territories way too easy, reducing (if not outright eliminating, at lower diff level), the very point of special forces and threat.

My "overall" opinion is that basically I don't understand anymore why the humans actually lost the war. There is so much that they can build and do with only the "default" options... I'd wish for a game where you start small and where what you take from the AI matters way much more than now. Basically there was too much power-creep in the "default" build options for my taste in the latest years of AI war.


I prefered when I counted on my turrets to defend 5-6 worlds, but to hold my opponent instead of stopping it.

[CaptainTaz]

I'd wish for a game where you start small and where what you take from the AI matters way much more than now. Basically there was too much power-creep in the "default" build options for my taste in the latest years of AI war.

I'd totally support this as a new gamemode type. Go suggest it!

[Toranth]

After playing it, I see the galaxy cap on turrets as a bad thing... Now, it's too easy to defend planets because it's just a matter of putting as much turrets as energy allows. It's a major source of micro-management to place turrets everywhere. I still fail to see how that improves the game. That change required a rework of most of the defences which has not happened, hence the problem with forts in this very thread. Not to mention it makes beach-heading AI territories way too easy, reducing (if not outright eliminating, at lower diff level), the very point of special forces and threat.

My "overall" opinion is that basically I don't understand anymore why the humans actually lost the war. There is so much that they can build and do with only the "default" options... I'd wish for a game where you start small and where what you take from the AI matters way much more than now. Basically there was too much power-creep in the "default" build options for my taste in the latest years of AI war.

I prefered when I counted on my turrets to defend 5-6 worlds, but to hold my opponent instead of stopping it.

The big reason for going to per-planet turrets was to eliminate the one big chokepoint.  With per-galaxy caps on turrets, the chokepoint will ALWAYS be the best strategy.  So to keep the game from being too easy, the AI had to be strong enough to break, or at least challenge, those one-planet-with-everything chokepoints.  Which set of another balancing problem. 
Because if the AI is strong enough to make you fight for a big chokepoint, it is more than strong enough to crush any number of smaller, lesser, systems.

I play a lot of Honeycomb, Realistic, or Lattice map games than I used to.  When they're practical to win, they're far more interesting than Snake or X maps.

Energy also matters a lot more, now, because I'm using more.  I build turrets in more systems and I unlock more turrets.  More turrets in my systems, and more turrets for beachheading systems (without costing me vital defensive strength), which means more energy consumed.

And while human defenses have gotten stronger, the AI has also gotten stronger.  I find it much harder to beat higher difficulty than it used to be.  Around 6.000 or so, I could win more than half of those games.  These days 25% is doing good.

So, yes, it is easier for the human to defend.  But at the same time, I think this is generally a good thing - I find the game allows more variety, and more fun, than it used to.

[kasnavada]

The big reason for going to per-planet turrets was to eliminate the one big chokepoint.

And guess what... that failed. It's still the best defense strategy. The AI still has to be strong enough to beat that strong point... and will always be until all defenses "ressources" are limited by planets and not per galaxy. "Thankfully" some of the per-galaxy capped defenses are grossly overpowered - enabling multiple worlds to be protected. But, let's face it... there is absolutely no way that a chokepoint will ever become the worst strategy, ever. That's kind of the definition of a chokepoint.

If you had said that the chokepoint's power is comparatively "lower" compared to "regular planet" defenses before that change, I'd agree... yet the problem would also have been solved by reducing the quantity & power of per-galaxy defenses, or having the AI spread it's attacks more often. Or having the AI multiply its attacks when fighting a single choke point (that has been done if I remember well). So basically it never was "the solution" to accomplish that goal in the first place... just "one" amongst many possibilities.

However, I try to find what was lost / gained, I find the following:
- simplified beachhead made SF and threat mostly irrelevant.
- higher defence on all planets made it so threat delays more their attacks compared to before
- higher defense on chokepoint means the AI has to be made EVEN larger than before.
- higher micro-management.

None of that is particularly fun to me past seeing hybrids suiciding on beachheads during one hour or two. Then again, matter of taste ? And the AI is now getting ludicrous amount of ships at higher level which matter little because the efficiency of defending is so high. Which again, forced the game design to put "low" amount of scrap for the recycling and created a bunch of other issues (lag, carriers quantity, high number of starship, problem with caps of "parasited" units...). Would the other solutions have those effects ? Probably would have had other side effects, yeah. Still I think that a better solution than this was just waiting to be found.

About the rest of your post...  I'm sorry, but there is no link in that change and the consequences you are speaking of.
- Energy management could have been tweaked to matter in other ways.
- Game difficulty is a direct consequence of giving more spawns / mechanics to the AI. The amount of defense that the player's got is irrelevant - if you give the AI 5 times what the player can handle, he'll lose, whether the player has 10 or 100 turrets.
- as said above, relative difficulty of defending "standard" worlds compared to "chokepoint" worlds could have been solved in different ways.

Last, matter of taste. I find that having the same copy pasted defenses all over different worlds & beachheads does not really offer variety. Since it's mostly copy / pasted. Also, I hate micro-management. Before that change, I could not put the same defenses on all worlds - and had to handpick a few hundreds turrets to chosen chokepoints. Guess which feels like it has more variety & fun to me .


So... I do understand why it was chosen - and why it pleases some, but I'd have liked a solution based on "'let's rebalance stuff" instead of "MOAR STUFF".

[Traveller]

Per-planet turrets seems like a lot less micro to me.  There's a significant one-time cost when you capture a new planet or unlock a new turret, but you don't have to scrap and rebuild stuff on the fly in response to shifting AI fleets and incoming waves.  (Though having to scrap defenses on side planets to defend against an incoming wave did make life easier for the threatfleet.)

I would at least welcome a consolidation of the existing guard posts; lower the cap and multiply their shots.  I always ctrl- or alt-place them, so why not make each turret cost 5x as much, have 5x as many shots, and maybe increase the hit points by a bit less than 5x to compensate?  I don't like putting ALL the turrets in one building, but reducing them at least a little would be nice.

Seems like it would lower lag.  And really, does anyone evenly space out their sniper turrets?  I wind up putting gobs of snipers at the cardinal points and widows at the diagonals.  All in all it barely matters.  I certainly wouldn't notice a balance change if this happened to almost every turret (obviously not anti-sniper or gravity).  Even on beachheads I build in multiples of 5, because seriously, when is a single turret EVER going to help?

[Radiant Phoenix]

- higher defense on chokepoint means the AI has to be made EVEN larger than before.

Turret caps used to be twice as high. I don't remember if that was more DPS, or just more granular, but either way, if the current turret stats increase the defense on the choke, it's either because they were separately buffed, or because you were spreading your defenses before.