Permanant Mines

[darke]

I have on the order of sixteen-thousand (ok... it's only 352) permanent mines sitting in a map around one of the wormhole exits. Any idea how to eliminate them, like, permanently? Apparently there's an EMP missile that can take them out, but the reading of it seems to imply that the blast only lasts 30 seconds, and I don't have the spare cash to acquire it yet.

[x4000]

I have on the order of sixteen-thousand (ok... it's only 352) permanent mines sitting in a map around one of the wormhole exits. Any idea how to eliminate them, like, permanently? Apparently there's an EMP missile that can take them out, but the reading of it seems to imply that the blast only lasts 30 seconds, and I don't have the spare cash to acquire it yet.

They are, as the name implies, permanent. That means that wormhole is basically blocked.  You can use transports to ferry guys over them, or any other ships with mine avoidance can cross (send a mobile builder and engineers across, build docks on the other side, etc).  The EMP blast does only last for 30 seconds and will let you cross during that time, but after that the mines will be effective again.  Even nuking the planet won't kill them.

The purpose of permamines is basically to cause interesting decisions like the above by "closing" a wormhole to most of the ships of the human players.  You can always go around through other planets, if that's possible, or else you'll just need to start ferrying stuff across with a transport or building on the other side with fresh space docks.  I really need to add this one to the wiki!

[darke]

If the planet on the other side wasn't a Tech IV with an Ion cannon with a pretty serious wormhole fortification, there are many alternatives I would have tried already. I think this is a "take the long way around" one.

Good grief this map's been painful so far. Permanent mines backed up with an Ion Cannon/IV; all worlds adjacent to start world being forcefield+special forces; an insane love of the Munitions craft; it's all getting rather silly!

[x4000]

Whoo!  That's definitely one of the harder ones, it sounds like!

[darke]

Also I've got absolutely nothing useful in terms of tech. The teleport battle stations (I picked at the start of the game) are a nice idea; but you can't transfer them from world to world easily so it means if you want to keep a standing force you have to build a space dock on essentially every planet you would park them on anyway (due to replacing losses). I've built half a dozen on two worlds, which seem to get hit more often, but as far as unit caps go I haven't even bothered hitting the 42 on the Tech I version, let alone bothered to research the higher techs.

The Spider Bot's I picked up when I grabbed the only advanced research station I found seem to be pretty useless as well. They're really good for the AIs, especially from the annoyance aspect, but not so great for the player.

On the plus side I've managed to work out the quickest way to clear out an entire planet; take out the control center. Does require a little finesse, a tachyon beam emitter, and a few engineers (or that repair station research item), all on the world adjacent to it (and of course, a ton of your own ships, with at least one non-bomber group of a level equal to the world), but it works surprisingly well. (But it tends to fail surprisingly painfully; though not end-of-game painfully like doing it accidentally will do to you.)

One thing though is that you may wish to look into increasing the radius of the Tachyon Drone, or giving it some other ability to make it a little stronger. It's too small to cover a wormhole unless it's over the top of it, which means it tends to get taken out easily. That and it's radius is sufficiently small I can't even be bothered using it to clear a minefield. I inevitably end up missing quite a few of them since it's (obviously enough) hard to tell where they are anyway, so it's easier just running a pack of Tech I fighters through them. If you're wanting to keep the Beam Emitter to be a bigger+stationary version, maybe bump the little mobile one up to 500 and the turret version up to 750?

And in in unrelated note, whatever you did with the fighters in one of the previous patches seems to have made them much more killy (or less continually-dead, or something; though they still have an insane attrition rate for me...), since I'm actually finding them useful now. I even upgraded to Tech II fighters before I got Tech III bombers! (shock!)

Oh, and the cost adjustment for the Science Lab II worked well too, I made a few along with a few of the faster/weaker ones earlier in the game and I'm down to nothing but the II versions, after the smaller ones eventually got taken out by attrition. They could possibly stand to be a touch more expensive now since the entire game is a quite a bit harder doing the "guerrilla research" tactic, so they are more valuable. Maybe 16000/1600 metal/energy, or even 20000/2000?

Then you need to have a "Research Starship", which of course will have stealth and immunity to Ion cannons; just for the particularly stubborn planets you want to get some research from.

[x4000]

Also I've got absolutely nothing useful in terms of tech. The teleport battle stations (I picked at the start of the game) are a nice idea; but you can't transfer them from world to world easily so it means if you want to keep a standing force you have to build a space dock on essentially every planet you would park them on anyway (due to replacing losses). I've built half a dozen on two worlds, which seem to get hit more often, but as far as unit caps go I haven't even bothered hitting the 42 on the Tech I version, let alone bothered to research the higher techs.

Yeah, pairing the tele stations with transports will work wonders.  On the plus side, on a contended planet those things are fricking amazing for defense.  Having a free-roaming-defender group of those are really great for defending a planet.

The Spider Bot's I picked up when I grabbed the only advanced research station I found seem to be pretty useless as well. They're really good for the AIs, especially from the annoyance aspect, but not so great for the player.

They are comparably weak, but used in combination can be quite helpful:  http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Spiders_And_Weak_Ships

On the plus side I've managed to work out the quickest way to clear out an entire planet; take out the control center. Does require a little finesse, a tachyon beam emitter, and a few engineers (or that repair station research item), all on the world adjacent to it (and of course, a ton of your own ships, with at least one non-bomber group of a level equal to the world), but it works surprisingly well. (But it tends to fail surprisingly painfully; though not end-of-game painfully like doing it accidentally will do to you.)

Cool idea!  That's definitely a risky strategy, and half the time the AI won't come after you anyway, but I imagine that could work quite well.  Although, you've now inspired me to teach the AI a strategy that should make them more fearsome with this. Basically, I'll have them group at the far side of the wormhole, then come through all in one big wave.  Ouch. 

One thing though is that you may wish to look into increasing the radius of the Tachyon Drone, or giving it some other ability to make it a little stronger. It's too small to cover a wormhole unless it's over the top of it, which means it tends to get taken out easily. That and it's radius is sufficiently small I can't even be bothered using it to clear a minefield. I inevitably end up missing quite a few of them since it's (obviously enough) hard to tell where they are anyway, so it's easier just running a pack of Tech I fighters through them. If you're wanting to keep the Beam Emitter to be a bigger+stationary version, maybe bump the little mobile one up to 500 and the turret version up to 750?

Yeah, I've been wondering if I should do that (the radius), just for minefields.  I think I will.  These are too weak to use very effectively at a wormhole, though.  I like your suggested range increases, though.  Added to my list.

And in in unrelated note, whatever you did with the fighters in one of the previous patches seems to have made them much more killy (or less continually-dead, or something; though they still have an insane attrition rate for me...), since I'm actually finding them useful now. I even upgraded to Tech II fighters before I got Tech III bombers! (shock!)

Great!  Haha.

Oh, and the cost adjustment for the Science Lab II worked well too, I made a few along with a few of the faster/weaker ones earlier in the game and I'm down to nothing but the II versions, after the smaller ones eventually got taken out by attrition. They could possibly stand to be a touch more expensive now since the entire game is a quite a bit harder doing the "guerrilla research" tactic, so they are more valuable. Maybe 16000/1600 metal/energy, or even 20000/2000?

Here again, I was thinking something similar.  I think I'll go with 20000/2000.  Good idea!

Then you need to have a "Research Starship", which of course will have stealth and immunity to Ion cannons; just for the particularly stubborn planets you want to get some research from.

The Science Lab IIs are actually immune to ion cannons.  I think I might reduce their other armor some, though.  Their main function is to be immune to ion cannons.

[darke]

On the plus side I've managed to work out the quickest way to clear out an entire planet; take out the control center. Does require a little finesse, a tachyon beam emitter, and a few engineers (or that repair station research item), all on the world adjacent to it (and of course, a ton of your own ships, with at least one non-bomber group of a level equal to the world), but it works surprisingly well. (But it tends to fail surprisingly painfully; though not end-of-game painfully like doing it accidentally will do to you.)

Cool idea!  That's definitely a risky strategy, and half the time the AI won't come after you anyway, but I imagine that could work quite well.  Although, you've now inspired me to teach the AI a strategy that should make them more fearsome with this. Basically, I'll have them group at the far side of the wormhole, then come through all in one big wave.  Ouch. 

Interestingly, I've done this about 4 times (and accidentally done it twice on top of that, with spectacular failure results) in this particular map and they've always sent something; usually at least half their force, sometimes close to 100% of it. But most of the time I guess these planets have had mixed forces from both the AIs on it, so I guess that would explain things.

That would be a good idea actually, having them stream through essentially "one at a time" does feel a bit cheap. If they bunched themselves into more tactical groupings, something like a series of mixed waves, it would be a more interesting defense. Them all dumping through at the same time would make them a little too vulnerable to the lighting attacks though. Plus it would leave them vulnerable to being, well, picked off one by one in the planet they're attacking. So instead of defending the "near" wormhole, you just defend the one going to your next planet across. The AI's tend to spread themselves out taking down your harvesters, or if you've got two of three clumps of ships they'll head for those as well.

Now that I think of it, that's potentially a good optimisation of the trick. Harvesters are relatively cheap in comparison to a lot of the higher tech level ships, so are randomly scattered turrets. If I defend the "far" wormhole rather then near, I can spread their ships out in arrival time and in sorted speed order. *ponder* Something for tomorrow after I get some sleep.

The main issue, and the reason I do it, is it leaves the planet essentially undefended. You don't have to worry about respawns at the wormholes, nor to you have to worry about any forces hanging around the data cubes, or ion cannons and the like (or at least not as much); just mostly random turrets scattered around the place.

Rather then "killing" the wormhole spawns immediately, it might be worth keeping the ones alive that are still attached to an AI held planet on the other side of the wormhole, and just spawning "waves" of ships, rather then mixed turrets and the like, and sending it towards the player held wormholes until the player command center is built. It would probably better simulate the AI trying to "defend" the remains of the resources on the planet that way.

One thing though is that you may wish to look into increasing the radius of the Tachyon Drone, or giving it some other ability to make it a little stronger. It's too small to cover a wormhole unless it's over the top of it, which means it tends to get taken out easily. That and it's radius is sufficiently small I can't even be bothered using it to clear a minefield. I inevitably end up missing quite a few of them since it's (obviously enough) hard to tell where they are anyway, so it's easier just running a pack of Tech I fighters through them. If you're wanting to keep the Beam Emitter to be a bigger+stationary version, maybe bump the little mobile one up to 500 and the turret version up to 750?

Yeah, I've been wondering if I should do that (the radius), just for minefields.  I think I will.  These are too weak to use very effectively at a wormhole, though.  I like your suggested range increases, though.  Added to my list.

The other alternative is to increase their cap as well as increasing their detection radius a bit. If they move at a reasonable clip (I can't remember their speed), and you have half a dozen of them as a group, it's not so much of a problem if one or two get taken down. It would make them more viable as start-game wormhole defense too; so you don't have to go for the tachyon turret almost immediately with higher AIs, like you currently have to.

Oh, and the cost adjustment for the Science Lab II worked well too, I made a few along with a few of the faster/weaker ones earlier in the game and I'm down to nothing but the II versions, after the smaller ones eventually got taken out by attrition. They could possibly stand to be a touch more expensive now since the entire game is a quite a bit harder doing the "guerrilla research" tactic, so they are more valuable. Maybe 16000/1600 metal/energy, or even 20000/2000?

Here again, I was thinking something similar.  I think I'll go with 20000/2000.  Good idea!

I really should stop making suggestions that make the game harder for me. It's counter productive.

Then you need to have a "Research Starship", which of course will have stealth and immunity to Ion cannons; just for the particularly stubborn planets you want to get some research from.

The Science Lab IIs are actually immune to ion cannons.  I think I might reduce their other armor some, though.  Their main function is to be immune to ion cannons.

I'm not sure about the Lab II's armour. They go down really fast to the fire of even a small number of ships. I lost four in the space of, probably close to 30 seconds (half my collection at the time) because I wasn't paying attention one time (small bunch of Cruiser II's wandered up when I had all of my Cruisers off taking down a special forces base, and all of my bombers/fighters were just out of range).

[x4000]

Interestingly, I've done this about 4 times (and accidentally done it twice on top of that, with spectacular failure results) in this particular map and they've always sent something; usually at least half their force, sometimes close to 100% of it. But most of the time I guess these planets have had mixed forces from both the AIs on it, so I guess that would explain things.

Yep, that would explain it!

That would be a good idea actually, having them stream through essentially "one at a time" does feel a bit cheap. If they bunched themselves into more tactical groupings, something like a series of mixed waves, it would be a more interesting defense. Them all dumping through at the same time would make them a little too vulnerable to the lighting attacks though. Plus it would leave them vulnerable to being, well, picked off one by one in the planet they're attacking. So instead of defending the "near" wormhole, you just defend the one going to your next planet across. The AI's tend to spread themselves out taking down your harvesters, or if you've got two of three clumps of ships they'll head for those as well.

Well, I intend to make them go through all wormholes more strategically, which will make even the special forces stragglers more of a threat.  When they go through in big groups, a few of the fastest/closest ships will go first anyway, so those get hit by the lightning and then the rest pour through in an ideal fashion.  That's typically how it is with the human ships going into enemy territory, too.

Now that I think of it, that's potentially a good optimisation of the trick. Harvesters are relatively cheap in comparison to a lot of the higher tech level ships, so are randomly scattered turrets. If I defend the "far" wormhole rather then near, I can spread their ships out in arrival time and in sorted speed order. *ponder* Something for tomorrow after I get some sleep.

Yeah, that would probably work.  I'm also planning a "regrouping" behavior for the AI, though, so hopefully that will also make them less vulnerable to that.  The most effective way for you to divide and conquer should be to either wait at specific harvesters yourself (which may still not work), or go after their individual guard posts on their planets.  We'll see how it goes!

The main issue, and the reason I do it, is it leaves the planet essentially undefended. You don't have to worry about respawns at the wormholes, nor to you have to worry about any forces hanging around the data cubes, or ion cannons and the like (or at least not as much); just mostly random turrets scattered around the place.

Rather then "killing" the wormhole spawns immediately, it might be worth keeping the ones alive that are still attached to an AI held planet on the other side of the wormhole, and just spawning "waves" of ships, rather then mixed turrets and the like, and sending it towards the player held wormholes until the player command center is built. It would probably better simulate the AI trying to "defend" the remains of the resources on the planet that way.

Could be -- I'll have to look at that once some of the other changes are in there.  The other changes might negate this strategy to the point where it's not much of an issue.  We'll just have to see, I'm not ready to decide on this just yet.

The other alternative is to increase their cap as well as increasing their detection radius a bit. If they move at a reasonable clip (I can't remember their speed), and you have half a dozen of them as a group, it's not so much of a problem if one or two get taken down. It would make them more viable as start-game wormhole defense too; so you don't have to go for the tachyon turret almost immediately with higher AIs, like you currently have to.

I'm going to start with the radius, and we'll go from there.   But good ideas!

I really should stop making suggestions that make the game harder for me. It's counter productive.

Harder is more interesting if done well, though, no?

I'm not sure about the Lab II's armour. They go down really fast to the fire of even a small number of ships. I lost four in the space of, probably close to 30 seconds (half my collection at the time) because I wasn't paying attention one time (small bunch of Cruiser II's wandered up when I had all of my Cruisers off taking down a special forces base, and all of my bombers/fighters were just out of range).

Ok -- I'll leave them as-is for now, then, and see how they do with more playtesting.  I haven't used them overmuch yet, so I don't have a very good feeling for how they work.

[darke]

The other alternative is to increase their cap as well as increasing their detection radius a bit. If they move at a reasonable clip (I can't remember their speed), and you have half a dozen of them as a group, it's not so much of a problem if one or two get taken down. It would make them more viable as start-game wormhole defense too; so you don't have to go for the tachyon turret almost immediately with higher AIs, like you currently have to.

I'm going to start with the radius, and we'll go from there.   But good ideas!

The radius increase actually works well. I've started using them on foward-assault wormholes; ones that I don't intend to have a permanent defense around because I'm about to attack their planet at some point in the near future. Works well to filter out space planes and the like.

In other news, I finally gave up on this horror of a map. Would probably have won it, but I expect I would have gotten to the same point as the other player who had insane levels of defenses at the final worlds. It just got way too slow a slog to take over the worlds leading up to the 2nd research station I found, I hadn't had a chance to finish exploring the last quarter of the galaxy (behind a tech IV/Ion Cannon world), where I'm guessing would have been the V planets. FYI, I was up to having taken over 12 planets, one advanced factory, one advanced research, and the AI had 255 points.

Random notes:

Repair station is pretty useless. I'm guessing it didn't get any upgrades when the engineers did. It doesn't seem to have the "wander around and repair" defense ability; I wouldn't want it to wander the entire map, but at least be able to repair my fleet would be good. It also has the issue that it's a "ship", so every time I direct it into the center of a pack of ships to repair them, it moves to the point, then tries to a free spot again, which is inevitably either the center of the wormhole, or more likely the edge of the ship pack. And with it's rather small range it doesn't really repair much that way.

They probably need a bigger range, but even then I'm still not sure if they're cost competitive with a handful of engineers. They're not all that useful for world defense, since a pair of teleporting engineers is cheaper and does about as good a job. They're not much useful on the offense since they don't "group" with offensive ships when you box-select them (so you have to be picky and pay attention), plus they move slower then even the cruisers do. Speaking of which I tend to find my scout starships die way too often *because* they group like that.

Lighting missiles are rather average. Granted they decimate pretty much everything in their 1000 range, problem is I sent one to clear out the entrance of a tech II world. It nicely detonated instantly when it entered (they really can't have much health... then again this is a munitions booster filled world), but only cleared out a circle in the middle. It looks like the AI had built enough defenses to flow out to about 2000 to 2500 units around the wormhole. So the range of this missile probably need to be rethought in light of the new AI's defensive techniques. Dropping the damage as a consequence to increase the radius might work, but it's really somewhat useless at the moment.

Tech II missile turret depends on the rocket-turret, which I've never really used. Seems a little odd since they don't really serve the same purposes. Maybe have the tech II sniper turret depend on the rocket turret instead or something? They would seem to have better "synergy" (*shudder* I've obviously spent way too much time around managers at work...) that way.

I did notice a couple of things on this long game though; there's not enough "candy" research, and there's not enough big-ticket items to spend large chunks of cash on (other then basically missiles), unless you do the expensive starship research.

The "candy" research has the same effect that having a row of sweets next to the checkout at a supermarket has; abusing the human mental weaknesses with short-term/long-term cost/benefits analysis. Essentially, due to the cost of the various "necessary" upgrades, you'll usually have have 500 or 1000 knowledge left over. So if there's more research in the 200/250/500/750 range, and you're not about to hit another planet just yet, you'll have a tendency of wanting to acquire another "shiny thing" now, rather then later, even though the long-term benefit might be better not too.

It doesn't have to be a new ship or anything, it can just be something to customise your particular civilisation to suit your needs.

Like for example on my start position every world next to me had a forcefield and a special forces base. Now if I had the option of, say, paying 200 knowledge to get a -10% cost on my Tech I bombers (and *only* the Tech I bombers) produced, I might go for it because I really need the bombers at the start. In the long run I've penalised myself since I'll probably have to take two planets to get my Tech II bombers rather then just one, and really once you get to about Tech III, the Tech I bombers are both cheap, and mostly used as chaff anyway to protect your more expensive ones so you're not longer getting the value of the research. But they helped you when you needed it, short term.

Just things like maybe:

* -10% off the cost of a class+tech level of a ship.
* +NUMBER of a class+tech level of a ship (bonuses to the number of a special ship of course would be even more expensive...).
* "Ai soothing tech", spend a chunk of knowledge to reduce the AI level by a point. Might make an interesting decision actually; do I spend the 2000 research I just got from camping a world and destroying it's gate on eliminating the +10 AI progress it, or do I invest it in some new tech. Might be an interesting passive/aggressive gameplay type.

This is probably more for an expansion or something though, since it's a relatively big change to the way the game works.

[x4000]

The radius increase actually works well. I've started using them on foward-assault wormholes; ones that I don't intend to have a permanent defense around because I'm about to attack their planet at some point in the near future. Works well to filter out space planes and the like.

Good to know!

In other news, I finally gave up on this horror of a map. Would probably have won it, but I expect I would have gotten to the same point as the other player who had insane levels of defenses at the final worlds. It just got way too slow a slog to take over the worlds leading up to the 2nd research station I found, I hadn't had a chance to finish exploring the last quarter of the galaxy (behind a tech IV/Ion Cannon world), where I'm guessing would have been the V planets. FYI, I was up to having taken over 12 planets, one advanced factory, one advanced research, and the AI had 255 points.

Yes, I think that "stalemate" is more likely to happen in this game than in most other RTS games, just due to its nature.  The new AI Alert level / Reinforcements Likely Indicator should be a big help on that front, though; that way people won't accidentally tip off the AI homeworlds too soon.

Repair station is pretty useless. I'm guessing it didn't get any upgrades when the engineers did. It doesn't seem to have the "wander around and repair" defense ability; I wouldn't want it to wander the entire map, but at least be able to repair my fleet would be good. It also has the issue that it's a "ship", so every time I direct it into the center of a pack of ships to repair them, it moves to the point, then tries to a free spot again, which is inevitably either the center of the wormhole, or more likely the edge of the ship pack. And with it's rather small range it doesn't really repair much that way.

It's much less useful because it is incomplete.  It is intended to have some "space tugs" along with it that you can build and that will go out into the planet and bring back damaged ships to it, then letting the damaged ships go and return to their intended location.  It will be really cool when that is there, but so far it's just an expensive engineer that can do a lot of simultaneous repairs.  However, I've just decided to also increase its range by 10x to match that of the Mark II engineer.  And, in doing that I noticed that when I upgraded the Mark II engineer in a past prerelease, I evidently completely broke the mobile repair station to the point it was useless.  That's fixed now, so thanks for getting me to look at that again.

Speaking of which I tend to find my scout starships die way too often *because* they group like that.

Great point -- I've changed it so that scout starships now group like the other scouts.

Lighting missiles are rather average. Granted they decimate pretty much everything in their 1000 range, problem is I sent one to clear out the entrance of a tech II world. It nicely detonated instantly when it entered (they really can't have much health... then again this is a munitions booster filled world), but only cleared out a circle in the middle. It looks like the AI had built enough defenses to flow out to about 2000 to 2500 units around the wormhole. So the range of this missile probably need to be rethought in light of the new AI's defensive techniques. Dropping the damage as a consequence to increase the radius might work, but it's really somewhat useless at the moment.

The health of lightning missiles has been doubled, and they are now immune to missiles, blades, and can pass under force fields.  Armored missiles did not get a health bonus, but got all the other improvements.  I'm not sure I want to increase their radius as that might make them too powerful, whereas reducing their attack power would make them a lot less powerful against starships, which is one of their prime functions.

Tech II missile turret depends on the rocket-turret, which I've never really used. Seems a little odd since they don't really serve the same purposes. Maybe have the tech II sniper turret depend on the rocket turret instead or something? They would seem to have better "synergy" (*shudder* I've obviously spent way too much time around managers at work...) that way.

Good point, that was an outdated decision.  I just removed the prerequisite completely from MLRS Turret II.  It's a whole new paradigm.

I did notice a couple of things on this long game though; there's not enough "candy" research, and there's not enough big-ticket items to spend large chunks of cash on (other then basically missiles), unless you do the expensive starship research.

The "candy" research has the same effect that having a row of sweets next to the checkout at a supermarket has; abusing the human mental weaknesses with short-term/long-term cost/benefits analysis. Essentially, due to the cost of the various "necessary" upgrades, you'll usually have have 500 or 1000 knowledge left over. So if there's more research in the 200/250/500/750 range, and you're not about to hit another planet just yet, you'll have a tendency of wanting to acquire another "shiny thing" now, rather then later, even though the long-term benefit might be better not too.

It doesn't have to be a new ship or anything, it can just be something to customise your particular civilisation to suit your needs.

These are good points, I really like the idea of low-value "candy" research.  I'll have to put some more thought into this, but I think this will add a very interesting dimension.  When it comes to the high-metal/crystal expenses, there is basically missiles, force fields, fortressses, and starships.  I know that that aspect is not as rounded out as some of the other parts of the game, but I had to stop somewhere with the base game.  Adding to this list of "big ticket items" is going to be a major focus of the expansions, along with adding the new ship classes, etc.  But the "candy" aspect is something that I think I'm going to look into much sooner than that.

Like for example on my start position every world next to me had a forcefield and a special forces base. Now if I had the option of, say, paying 200 knowledge to get a -10% cost on my Tech I bombers (and *only* the Tech I bombers) produced, I might go for it because I really need the bombers at the start. In the long run I've penalised myself since I'll probably have to take two planets to get my Tech II bombers rather then just one, and really once you get to about Tech III, the Tech I bombers are both cheap, and mostly used as chaff anyway to protect your more expensive ones so you're not longer getting the value of the research. But they helped you when you needed it, short term.

*Lots of me nodding.*

Just things like maybe:

* -10% off the cost of a class+tech level of a ship.
* +NUMBER of a class+tech level of a ship (bonuses to the number of a special ship of course would be even more expensive...).
* "Ai soothing tech", spend a chunk of knowledge to reduce the AI level by a point. Might make an interesting decision actually; do I spend the 2000 research I just got from camping a world and destroying it's gate on eliminating the +10 AI progress it, or do I invest it in some new tech. Might be an interesting passive/aggressive gameplay type. /quote]

Yeah, I agree with all of those.  On my list I have as potentials:

-options to reduce costs of some ships for a bit of knowledge.
-or increase their build speed.
-or increase their ship cap.
-spend 200 knowledge to reduce the AI Progress by a point.
-spend 200 knowledge to increase metal/crystal caps by 10k each.
-spend 400 knowledge to remove 1 point each of metal and crystal inefficiency.

I really like all of these suggestions, because none of them affect how the ships actually function, just how they are built or the economy, etc.  I'm really against doing bonuses to ship armor/shields/attack/range/etc, just because then "Mark I Fighter" doesn't always mean the same thing.  When players look at the board, they then don't know exactly how any given unit will perform, since they don't know how they have been upgraded.  That's really bugged me about other RTS games, since it's such an opaque game mechanic, especially in pvp.  If your musketeers beat the heck out of my cavalry, but normally can't what caused that?  Elevation?  Obstructions in the way of the cavalry?  Upgrades to the musketeers, or lack thereof on the cavalry?  Who knows, it's impossible tell!

So, anyway, these sort of upgrades as described are great because they affect how the upgraded player builds ships or gathers resources, without affecting the results of combat any moreso than any other method for building lots of ships would do.  I think this will add some strategic depth/finesse, as well as yet another level of great customization, plus that great (potentially deadly) candy temptation like you mentioned.

This is probably more for an expansion or something though, since it's a relatively big change to the way the game works.

Yeah, I think you're right -- this is a pretty huge thing, and it could be really unbalancing (and it will take a while to program).  I had wanted to attack this sooner than later, but perhaps I'll just add a few other smaller "candy" style ships to provide some temptation in the meantime.  Then later this "Upgrade Station" can be added as a new ship type in probably the first expansion.  It will be a pretty significant feature, I think -- great idea!

[darke]

The radius increase actually works well. I've started using them on foward-assault wormholes; ones that I don't intend to have a permanent defense around because I'm about to attack their planet at some point in the near future. Works well to filter out space planes and the like.

Good to know!

They're also far more robust then I expected since the AI doesn't seem to target them at all. Or at the very least, only when there's nothing else there anyway. I'd imagine they'd go down quick to AoE stuff like lightning ships and so on.

In other news, I finally gave up on this horror of a map. Would probably have won it, but I expect I would have gotten to the same point as the other player who had insane levels of defenses at the final worlds. It just got way too slow a slog to take over the worlds leading up to the 2nd research station I found, I hadn't had a chance to finish exploring the last quarter of the galaxy (behind a tech IV/Ion Cannon world), where I'm guessing would have been the V planets. FYI, I was up to having taken over 12 planets, one advanced factory, one advanced research, and the AI had 255 points.

Yes, I think that "stalemate" is more likely to happen in this game than in most other RTS games, just due to its nature.  The new AI Alert level / Reinforcements Likely Indicator should be a big help on that front, though; that way people won't accidentally tip off the AI homeworlds too soon.

Yeah. Though it's been helpful enough during the campaign as well; it's been good to remind me of resource levels at planets and the like to make sure I keep going froward at a good clip, rather then reinforcing too much.

Repair station is pretty useless. ...

It's much less useful because it is incomplete.  It is intended to have some "space tugs" along with it that you can build and that will go out into the planet and bring back damaged ships to it, then letting the damaged ships go and return to their intended location.  It will be really cool when that is there, but so far it's just an expensive engineer that can do a lot of simultaneous repairs.  However, I've just decided to also increase its range by 10x to match that of the Mark II engineer.  And, in doing that I noticed that when I upgraded the Mark II engineer in a past prerelease, I evidently completely broke the mobile repair station to the point it was useless.  That's fixed now, so thanks for getting me to look at that again.

Yay!

Speaking of which I tend to find my scout starships die way too often *because* they group like that.

Great point -- I've changed it so that scout starships now group like the other scouts.

More Yay!

Lighting missiles are rather average. Granted they decimate pretty much everything in their 1000 range, problem is I sent one to clear out the entrance of a tech II world. It nicely detonated instantly when it entered (they really can't have much health... then again this is a munitions booster filled world), but only cleared out a circle in the middle. It looks like the AI had built enough defenses to flow out to about 2000 to 2500 units around the wormhole. So the range of this missile probably need to be rethought in light of the new AI's defensive techniques. Dropping the damage as a consequence to increase the radius might work, but it's really somewhat useless at the moment.

The health of lightning missiles has been doubled, and they are now immune to missiles, blades, and can pass under force fields.  Armored missiles did not get a health bonus, but got all the other improvements.  I'm not sure I want to increase their radius as that might make them too powerful, whereas reducing their attack power would make them a lot less powerful against starships, which is one of their prime functions.

Cool; makes sense.

Tech II missile turret depends on the rocket-turret, which I've never really used. Seems a little odd since they don't really serve the same purposes. Maybe have the tech II sniper turret depend on the rocket turret instead or something? They would seem to have better "synergy" (*shudder* I've obviously spent way too much time around managers at work...) that way.

Good point, that was an outdated decision.  I just removed the prerequisite completely from MLRS Turret II.  It's a whole new paradigm.

Ug! Begone foul marketing speak demon!

... "candy" research ... abusing human's mental flaws ...

These are good points, I really like the idea of low-value "candy" research.  I'll have to put some more thought into this, but I think this will add a very interesting dimension.  When it comes to the high-metal/crystal expenses, there is basically missiles, force fields, fortressses, and starships.  I know that that aspect is not as rounded out as some of the other parts of the game, but I had to stop somewhere with the base game.  Adding to this list of "big ticket items" is going to be a major focus of the expansions, along with adding the new ship classes, etc.  But the "candy" aspect is something that I think I'm going to look into much sooner than that.

Cool.

Yeah, I agree with all of those.  On my list I have as potentials:

-options to reduce costs of some ships for a bit of knowledge.
-or increase their build speed.
-or increase their ship cap.
-spend 200 knowledge to reduce the AI Progress by a point.
-spend 200 knowledge to increase metal/crystal caps by 10k each.
-spend 400 knowledge to remove 1 point each of metal and crystal inefficiency.

Or spend 250 to remove point of either metal OR crystal inefficiency; just for that extra bit of "what do I do!?" angst. One of the benefits of the game being much more slow and drawn out then the usual RTS is that making things less "streamlined" and forcing more critical thinking doesn't interrupt the flow of the game, because it is the flow of the game.

I really like all of these suggestions, because none of them affect how the ships actually function, just how they are built or the economy, etc.  I'm really against doing bonuses to ship armor/shields/attack/range/etc, just because then "Mark I Fighter" doesn't always mean the same thing.  When players look at the board, they then don't know exactly how any given unit will perform, since they don't know how they have been upgraded.  That's really bugged me about other RTS games, since it's such an opaque game mechanic, especially in pvp.  If your musketeers beat the heck out of my cavalry, but normally can't what caused that?  Elevation?  Obstructions in the way of the cavalry?  Upgrades to the musketeers, or lack thereof on the cavalry?  Who knows, it's impossible tell!

Yup, though I imagine most of that logic comes from the fact that in a traditional RTS, doubling the number of little men running around has a significant impact on the frame rate/pathfinding/etc so it's "cheaper" to make the enemies better that way. Of course you have the benefit of being able to toss an extra 10% or 20% ships around the place without so much of an issue because the system already supports so many. And a lot of the game is attrition based as well, so that always helps.

So, anyway, these sort of upgrades as described are great because they affect how the upgraded player builds ships or gathers resources, without affecting the results of combat any moreso than any other method for building lots of ships would do.  I think this will add some strategic depth/finesse, as well as yet another level of great customization, plus that great (potentially deadly) candy temptation like you mentioned.

This is probably more for an expansion or something though, since it's a relatively big change to the way the game works.

Yeah, I think you're right -- this is a pretty huge thing, and it could be really unbalancing (and it will take a while to program).  I had wanted to attack this sooner than later, but perhaps I'll just add a few other smaller "candy" style ships to provide some temptation in the meantime.  Then later this "Upgrade Station" can be added as a new ship type in probably the first expansion.  It will be a pretty significant feature, I think -- great idea!

Yeah, I figure "upgrading" the special ships will probably be the most finicky thing to balance, especially the low-population ones. Two dozen extra parasites for, say, 200 research would sound like a good deal, but an extra 2 munitions boosters for 200 knowledge doesn't sound like much, so is less likely to be purchased, but bumping it up to 4 of them would make it too unbalancing.

Another "research" item I just thought of would be literally "knowledge". Spending, say, 500 knowledge to get a one off scout on a random unexplored planet. Wouldn't be so useful early in the game, but late in the game if there's only a dozen planets remaining, and they're all quite difficult to explore with scouts/etc due to defenses/ion cannons in painful places. It could be quite a useful thing to burn knowledge off on if you're trying to hunt for the last advanced lab or two, when you should be saving up for zenith starships and the like.

[x4000]

They're also far more robust then I expected since the AI doesn't seem to target them at all. Or at the very least, only when there's nothing else there anyway. I'd imagine they'd go down quick to AoE stuff like lightning ships and so on.

Yeah, that makes sense -- why waste shots on the little stuff like that when there is bigger stuff shooting at you right now.

Ug! Begone foul marketing speak demon!

Well, we'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

Or spend 250 to remove point of either metal OR crystal inefficiency; just for that extra bit of "what do I do!?" angst. One of the benefits of the game being much more slow and drawn out then the usual RTS is that making things less "streamlined" and forcing more critical thinking doesn't interrupt the flow of the game, because it is the flow of the game.

Yeah, that's a good point.  I'm changing my list.  Out of curiosity, do you play with Fast & Dangerous mode?  I'd say that the combat is actually faster than most other RTS games I've played (as is the initial buildup phase).  It's just a matter of there is so much to do, etc -- I agree that the game is very drawn out, but I'm curious about the pacing thing (aside when Fast & Dangerous is not on).

Yup, though I imagine most of that logic comes from the fact that in a traditional RTS, doubling the number of little men running around has a significant impact on the frame rate/pathfinding/etc so it's "cheaper" to make the enemies better that way. Of course you have the benefit of being able to toss an extra 10% or 20% ships around the place without so much of an issue because the system already supports so many. And a lot of the game is attrition based as well, so that always helps.

Yeah, that's a great point -- that never even occurred to me, having no such hard limits myself.  In your average single-player game of AI War, the game can support 100%-400% more units than tend to be in the game.  A giant 8-player game hits those sorts of numbers.  So yeah, 10% or 20% extra human player ships is just a drop in the bucket, it doesn't make a difference one way or another.  The ship caps are what they are because that's what has made for the most interesting gameplay decisions, not because of system limitations (well, except probably in big 8 player games).

Yeah, I figure "upgrading" the special ships will probably be the most finicky thing to balance, especially the low-population ones. Two dozen extra parasites for, say, 200 research would sound like a good deal, but an extra 2 munitions boosters for 200 knowledge doesn't sound like much, so is less likely to be purchased, but bumping it up to 4 of them would make it too unbalancing.

Precisely...

Another "research" item I just thought of would be literally "knowledge". Spending, say, 500 knowledge to get a one off scout on a random unexplored planet. Wouldn't be so useful early in the game, but late in the game if there's only a dozen planets remaining, and they're all quite difficult to explore with scouts/etc due to defenses/ion cannons in painful places. It could be quite a useful thing to burn knowledge off on if you're trying to hunt for the last advanced lab or two, when you should be saving up for zenith starships and the like.

Hmm, that one would be really hard to design an interface for -- plus, you can always get to the far planets if you have a Mark IV scout, since those are perma-cloaked (though very slow).  So the incentive to burn off knowledge with that sort of thing is to upgrade to the Mark III scout so that Mark IV is unlocked, I think.

[darke]

Ug! Begone foul marketing speak demon!

Well, we'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

I think I shall ignore that out of concerns for my sanity.

Or spend 250 to remove point of either metal OR crystal inefficiency; just for that extra bit of "what do I do!?" angst. One of the benefits of the game being much more slow and drawn out then the usual RTS is that making things less "streamlined" and forcing more critical thinking doesn't interrupt the flow of the game, because it is the flow of the game.

Yeah, that's a good point.  I'm changing my list.  Out of curiosity, do you play with Fast & Dangerous mode?  I'd say that the combat is actually faster than most other RTS games I've played (as is the initial buildup phase).  It's just a matter of there is so much to do, etc -- I agree that the game is very drawn out, but I'm curious about the pacing thing (aside when Fast & Dangerous is not on).

Yep, I use fast and dangerous. The "slowness" is more that you spend most of the time in traditional RTS's thinking tactically and micromanaging everything, where this plays a lot more thoughtful and you control a lot more of the pace of the game, at least until when combat starts and you have to frantically shuffle ships around.

Yup, though I imagine most of that logic comes from the fact that in a traditional RTS, doubling the number of little men running around has a significant impact on the frame rate/pathfinding/etc so it's "cheaper" to make the enemies better that way. Of course you have the benefit of being able to toss an extra 10% or 20% ships around the place without so much of an issue because the system already supports so many. And a lot of the game is attrition based as well, so that always helps.

Yeah, that's a great point -- that never even occurred to me, having no such hard limits myself.  In your average single-player game of AI War, the game can support 100%-400% more units than tend to be in the game.  A giant 8-player game hits those sorts of numbers.  So yeah, 10% or 20% extra human player ships is just a drop in the bucket, it doesn't make a difference one way or another.  The ship caps are what they are because that's what has made for the most interesting gameplay decisions, not because of system limitations (well, except probably in big 8 player games).

Yup. Granted, I do tend to have mine slow down to the point where I can't even do a speed+1 on it, but that's more because I have a huge resolution and are usually zoomed all the way out (plus the game doesn't seem to support crossfire properly (standard ATI problem; from memory they have to manually setup a profile for every game they handle, and of course indie games are a little low on their list) so only one of the GPU's on my card is being used too ).

Another "research" item I just thought of would be literally "knowledge". Spending, say, 500 knowledge to get a one off scout on a random unexplored planet. Wouldn't be so useful early in the game, but late in the game if there's only a dozen planets remaining, and they're all quite difficult to explore with scouts/etc due to defenses/ion cannons in painful places. It could be quite a useful thing to burn knowledge off on if you're trying to hunt for the last advanced lab or two, when you should be saving up for zenith starships and the like.

Hmm, that one would be really hard to design an interface for -- plus, you can always get to the far planets if you have a Mark IV scout, since those are perma-cloaked (though very slow).  So the incentive to burn off knowledge with that sort of thing is to upgrade to the Mark III scout so that Mark IV is unlocked, I think.

Cool. Haven't had a chance to use those yet, haven't even got my full compliment of Tech III Fighters/Bombers/Cruisers in this game yet. The interface for just a random thing would be like any other "research" button, except if you clicked to research it, it'd give you a message up the top saying "You Learn About Planet XYZ" where the pause/etc messages are and if you flicked to the galaxy map it would be as if you scouted it just a few moments ago (though of course with no scout on it, you can't actually click on the world and see in detail). Of course implementation is always more complex then the description.

[x4000]

Well, we'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

I think I shall ignore that out of concerns for my sanity.

I know a guy who says that a lot (I am hoping in jest, but I've been afraid to ask), and I've always thought it was hilarious.

Yep, I use fast and dangerous. The "slowness" is more that you spend most of the time in traditional RTS's thinking tactically and micromanaging everything, where this plays a lot more thoughtful and you control a lot more of the pace of the game, at least until when combat starts and you have to frantically shuffle ships around.

Gotcha.  I tend to be a boomer/turtle in other RTS games, and I don't play much if any pvp, so the difference there is negligible to me.  But if you play rush or a lot of pvp in other RTS (or anything faster than booming), the pace here would definitely be slower, I could see that.

Yup. Granted, I do tend to have mine slow down to the point where I can't even do a speed+1 on it, but that's more because I have a huge resolution and are usually zoomed all the way out (plus the game doesn't seem to support crossfire properly (standard ATI problem; from memory they have to manually setup a profile for every game they handle, and of course indie games are a little low on their list) so only one of the GPU's on my card is being used too ).

Well, the game is really not intended to run the most hardcore parts of the simulation at any increase in speed stepping at all -- that's just a bonus. The fact that you can run it at double-speed with 80k ships beats the pants off most other games, though.

As for the crossfire, I don't know anything about that -- I just use standard DirectX calls, so I'm surprised they wouldn't implement some sort of solution down at the DirectX level instead of on a per-game basis.  Ah well, I'm sure they have their reasons, I just don't know enough about their setup with that.

Cool. Haven't had a chance to use those yet, haven't even got my full compliment of Tech III Fighters/Bombers/Cruisers in this game yet. The interface for just a random thing would be like any other "research" button, except if you clicked to research it, it'd give you a message up the top saying "You Learn About Planet XYZ" where the pause/etc messages are and if you flicked to the galaxy map it would be as if you scouted it just a few moments ago (though of course with no scout on it, you can't actually click on the world and see in detail). Of course implementation is always more complex then the description.

If it was random, yeah.  I was figuring they would get to click the planet in question.  That might actually work pretty well, though, I don't know -- added to my maybe list.