Poll: "Brutal" Core Guard Post ideas for the Vengeance expansion

[keith.lamothe]

Nominations from here.

To clarify, the AI gets a very limited number of "Brutal" Core Guard Posts per AI HW.  On Diff 7 this is generally 1, on Diff 10 it's generally 3, and varying degrees between the two.  These are meant to significantly shape the endgame homeworld assaults.

So let us know which of the above community-submitted ideas you like best   We have some ideas of our own that may make it in to the expansion too, we'll see.

3 picks per voter, I'll probably go with the top 2 or 3, depending on feasibility.

Thanks for your feedback

[ZaneWolfe]

I voted for the Tesseract, the Hunter/Seekers, and the AI Missile Silos. Bonus points if it can fire more than just Nukes. Though I do feel that if shot down, the Nukes (and ONLY Nukes) should simply fizzle out. Either the AI detonates them by hitting a target, or the bomb doesn't go off.

Obviously all AI warheads would have no AIP on death, as the AI doesnt need to worry about it's own weapons going off.

[Hearteater]

On the Flux/Microcosm Post, since this is a Brutal Pick, I'd say this one should allow shooting out of, but not in to, the shield.  So if it was covering say a Missile Guard Post, that Guard Post would be free to rain missiles on the player until they can get under the shield.  Mimics Radar Dampening to a degree.

[Kahuna]

I do feel that if shot down, the Nukes (and ONLY Nukes) should simply fizzle out. Either the AI detonates them by hitting a target, or the bomb doesn't go off.

Obviously all AI warheads would have no AIP on death, as the AI doesnt need to worry about it's own weapons going off.

Yes that's what I had in mind. No brainer imo

The silo could also send Mark III.. or even Mark IV and V Lightning Warheads.

[ZaneWolfe]

The silo could also send Mark III.. or even Mark IV and V Lightning Warheads.

I think if it did that Faulty would murder keith out of jealousy for not getting MKIV+ warheads as well....

[Faulty Logic]

The silo could also send Mark III.. or even Mark IV and V Lightning Warheads.

I think if it did that Faulty would murder keith out of jealousy for not getting MKIV+ warheads as well....

It's a distinct possibility.

[ZaneWolfe]

The silo could also send Mark III.. or even Mark IV and V Lightning Warheads.

I think if it did that Faulty would murder keith out of jealousy for not getting MKIV+ warheads as well....

It's a distinct possibility.

Keep in mind that Keith does have that Neinzul Kitten to defend himself with. And as a MKV it does not self-attrition.

[MaxAstro]

My picks:

-Interplanetary Black Hole Generator; if we are talking about guard posts we are supposed to hate, there is nothing I hate more than black hole machines. 

-Flux Projector; Did I suggest this to be a brutal pick?  I guess I did.  Anyway, my rule is "If you don't like your own idea enough to vote for it, it was a terrible idea", so here we go.  Also, @Hearteater.  Balanced properly, this would almost be MORE brutal without ships inside being able to shoot out, for two reasons: One, give the post TRULY nasty short range guns, since you know any ship getting shot at by it has volunteered to do so.  Two, as soon as something breaches the barrier... everything inside is going to be fully reloaded. 

EDIT: Another twist to make it "brutal" without sacrificing the theme of it being "it's own little world": Limit what kinds of ships can cross the barrier.  For a nasty reversal, make it so that only ships that are NOT immune to instakill can enter, so you have to use fleet ships (and high-cap ones at that) to take it down.  Bonus points if it has an ion weapon.

-Displacement Field Generator; This is a terrible, terrible, wonderful idea.  If you combine this with the projection ship from the bonus ship suggestions, you could almost make this whole "mirror decoy" thing a core technology for the new expansion. 

[TIE Viper]

I definitely like the flux projector.  It adds a bit of a different approach flavor when taking down this post on a HW assault.

Also I like the tessaract idea.  I'm not sure exactly what's meant when solving it incorrectly that the forcefield doesn't drop because I'm not sure as to what FF is being referred.  However I like that it makes the HW attack harder if you don't solve it correctly. 
EDIT: ok, upon going over the mantis link, I have a suggestion related to this which I originally misunderstood would happen.  Instead of not dropping the invulnerable FF if the order is not done correctly, why not trigger an exo type spawn (starships and/or golems and such) for each tessaract destroyed out of order?  That way if you get it wrong, it's just a bit harder to win and not impossible.

The displacement generator I think is good too because all of the brutal picks we already have now IIRC don't require you to use your strateegery to potentially have to go to more than one location to take it out.

[Radiant Phoenix]

No love for the mini-fortress builder... 

[Hearteater]

-Flux Projector; Did I suggest this to be a brutal pick?  I guess I did.  Anyway, my rule is "If you don't like your own idea enough to vote for it, it was a terrible idea", so here we go.  Also, @Hearteater.  Balanced properly, this would almost be MORE brutal without ships inside being able to shoot out, for two reasons: One, give the post TRULY nasty short range guns, since you know any ship getting shot at by it has volunteered to do so.  Two, as soon as something breaches the barrier... everything inside is going to be fully reloaded. 

There are quite a few Core Guard Posts with a very long range.  And let's not forget Fortresses.  Now imagine one of those right on the edge of the Flux Field.  They lose all their range, and the player is free to walk their Bombers up to within spitting distance before engaging.  Only if the Flux Field was small enough to never cover another Guard Post might preventing fire out of it be a bonus for the AI.  But the easiest way to prevent from becoming an issue is just to let the AI fire outside of the shield.  That's appropriately brutal .

[TIE Viper]

No love for the mini-fortress builder... 

It's not that there is no love. It's just that we're only allowed to spread the love to only 3 things. 

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, it's run over 4 days so here's the top 3 (with a tie for third) :

The Nanoswarm Fortress - 24
Flux Projector - 16
Hunter/Seeker Factory - 15
Displacement Field Generator - 15

I'll break the tie by picking the H/S F because it will be way less implementation pain

Though it will need its own adjustments because stuff that isn't caused by a faction/plot/etc isn't allowed to unilaterally hunt the player from minute 1... but we'll figure something out.  My guess is that the drones will go into the SF until a certain point in the game (either clock or AIP or whatever) and then they'll come out as normal threat.  By then the player will have had time to get their footing and probably read the description on one of the drones and realize what they're dealing with.

Thanks for the feedback

[keith.lamothe]

I wound up doing:

Core Shredder Drone Guard Post (from the Nanoswarm Fortress idea, with a few simplifications)

and the

Core Hunter/Killer Factory Guard Post (from the Hunter/Seeker Factory idea, but without breaking the rule about letting the player control the pace outside special faction/plot stuff)


I'd had some ideas to make the Flux Projector work, but in the end it wasn't as easy as I thought and would have been really nasty in terms of complexity and hit on the CPU (even when one wasn't in play, due to so many new special cases in commonly run code, etc).  And the next runner-up (the Displacement thing) may well have been worse in that regard   If I do this sort of poll again I will try to examine nominations a bit more closely from the feasibility perspective before putting them in a poll -- I'd figured "if they actually want something enough for it to win this, I'll find some way to make it work", well, that's apparently not always true  

But as I said, I'd go with the top 2 or 3, and this is pretty close to that.  I suspect these two will still bring their own special kinds of pain to the table.