Poll follow-up: the future of manufactories. And M+C.

[TechSY730]

If there is a "significant" change, does Chris still just "come by", glance at it, and (possibly privately) and give the thumbs up or thumbs down.

Now when I say significant, I mean really significant. Like merging M and C is a large but not monumental change. I mean things like removing ship caps, removing AIP, make the AI have metal and crystal costs, removing metal and crystal, and making the AI more like a player rather than like the "environment". (not that I am suggesting these, but give the sort of idea what I mean by "significant")

Yea, I understand that most of his time is spent on the newer projects, and it is completely reasonable that he is. I just want to make sure he hasn't "forgotten" about us and his "firstborn" game.

(And I know he hasn't completely, as I still see him respond to technical support requests, and even a mantis suggestion every now and then)

[keith.lamothe]

I think for the most part he sees the blog posts   If I think he'd object to something I ask him first.  If he's already objected to it I just don't do it (modules on the existing command station types, etc), though if it got to be a big thing I'd ask him about it.

[Cyborg]

The csg change was probably the only shit storm on this forum. Ever. I often forget this "feature" even exists, and I wonder if folks know that they can turn it off.

The reasons that it came about no longer exist, anyways, that I know of. The fallen spire campaign can't be rushed even if you tried. In the normal campaign, you probably could at lower levels and with a lot of the plots/features/factions turned off, but this seems all right to me. If you intentionally take out the fun parts, of course it's going to be easier, and you will have a shorter game.

Water under the bridge, though.

[Coppermantis]

The csg change was probably the only shit storm on this forum. Ever. I often forget this "feature" even exists, and I wonder if folks know that they can turn it off.

The reasons that it came about no longer exist, anyways, that I know of. The fallen spire campaign can't be rushed even if you tried. In the normal campaign, you probably could at lower levels and with a lot of the plots/features/factions turned off, but this seems all right to me. If you intentionally take out the fun parts, of course it's going to be easier, and you will have a shorter game.

Water under the bridge, though.

What exactly happened that made people angry? I don't think I was here for that, or if I was I don't remember.

[keith.lamothe]

What exactly happened that made people angry? I don't think I was here for that, or if I was I don't remember.

CSGs felt like "AI War on rails" to some people, and others had heard before of what I'd planned to do and didn't know why CSGs were done instead, which got concerns up and some tempers flared.  Then I said some things I meant as good-natured jokes but didn't come across that way, and then both Chris and I made some further mistakes trying to clear up the miscommunication.

Not our best moment, but in a way if that was this forum's worst moment we're doing pretty well as a community

[chemical_art]

CSGs felt like "AI War on rails" to some people, and others had heard before of what I'd planned to do and didn't know why CSGs were done instead, which got concerns up and some tempers flared.  Then I said some things I meant as good-natured jokes but didn't come across that way, and then both Chris and I made some further mistakes trying to clear up the miscommunication.

Not our best moment, but in a way if that was this forum's worst moment we're doing pretty well as a community

Sort of related to my thread, but I think if you modified it so that planets with a fab on them get doubled the benefits they get now (so for example a CSG that needs a fabricator on it, with CSG on, gets twice as many fabricators as a carrot) you would get more support. It would feel less "AI Wars on Rails" and more "AI Wars with a different flavor"

[Cyborg]

What exactly happened that made people angry? I don't think I was here for that, or if I was I don't remember.

If I remember right, there was going to be forced planets (you have to take certain planets) because certain folks were beating the game in under 10 hours on 60 planets, which is apparently sacrilege or something. This is called "deep striking." The developers felt this was cheapening the game for everyone else and basically an exploit.

The response from the community was, go ahead and fix deep strike if you have to, but why make the decisions on which planets to take for us? Isn't part of the fun choosing how you deconstruct the puzzle? This fundamental "on rails" experience freaked out a lot of the players, I want to say half? The conversation degenerated quickly due to poor communication. And there was some other group that felt the solutions presented for the deep strike problem were completely tossed out the window. Nobody wanted to be forced into a certain way of playing, and what we have left is the CSG toggle, so if you want to play that way, great, if you don't, who cares it doesn't hurt anybody.

What I think improved from that particular forum storm, is that all major changes were vetted by the AI War fans, communication improved, and serious changes to the game were not presented the same way. Chris moved on to developing other games, and we have Keith taking over this game (and he's doing a fine job of it, I might add).

AI War has a very passionate fan base, maybe more so than Arcen realized. If anything, the silver lining to that thread is a lot of people are quite fond of and very attached to that title, and wish to see it well taken care of into the future.

[chemical_art]

If I remember right, there was going to be forced planets (you have to take certain planets) because certain folks were beating the game in under 10 hours on 60 planets, which is apparently sacrilege or something. This is called "deep striking." The developers felt this was cheapening the game for everyone else and basically an exploit.

The response from the community was, go ahead and fix deep strike if you have to, but why make the decisions on which planets to take for us? Isn't part of the fun choosing how you deconstruct the puzzle? This fundamental "on rails" experience freaked out a lot of the players, I want to say half? The conversation degenerated quickly due to poor communication. And there was some other group that felt the solutions presented for the deep strike problem were completely tossed out the window. Nobody wanted to be forced into a certain way of playing, and what we have left is the CSG toggle, so if you want to play that way, great, if you don't, who cares it doesn't hurt anybody.

What I think improved from that particular forum storm, is that all major changes were vetted by the AI War fans, communication improved, and serious changes to the game were not presented the same way. Chris moved on to developing other games, and we have Keith taking over this game (and he's doing a fine job of it, I might add).

AI War has a very passionate fan base, maybe more so than Arcen realized. If anything, the silver lining to that thread is a lot of people are quite fond of and very attached to that title, and wish to see it well taken care of into the future.

My memory of this is hazy, with many more "feeling" memories rather then factual ones, but this seems pretty close. The thought of narrowing the strategies of the many, to throw out the exploits of the few, simply didn't sit well. It is great that anything that causes this now must be vetted, which I think is a saving grace. For a game that makes no attempt for PvP, the focus should be on the player experience, not absolute balance at the cost of the player experience, so allowing things that allow outlier extremes is OK in my book for the general base to enjoy, for better or worst.

[Diazo]

What exactly happened that made people angry? I don't think I was here for that, or if I was I don't remember.

If I remember right, there was going to be forced planets (you have to take certain planets) because certain folks were beating the game in under 10 hours on 60 planets, which is apparently sacrilege or something. This is called "deep striking." The developers felt this was cheapening the game for everyone else and basically an exploit.

The response from the community was, go ahead and fix deep strike if you have to, but why make the decisions on which planets to take for us? Isn't part of the fun choosing how you deconstruct the puzzle? This fundamental "on rails" experience freaked out a lot of the players, I want to say half? The conversation degenerated quickly due to poor communication. And there was some other group that felt the solutions presented for the deep strike problem were completely tossed out the window. Nobody wanted to be forced into a certain way of playing, and what we have left is the CSG toggle, so if you want to play that way, great, if you don't, who cares it doesn't hurt anybody.

What I think improved from that particular forum storm, is that all major changes were vetted by the AI War fans, communication improved, and serious changes to the game were not presented the same way. Chris moved on to developing other games, and we have Keith taking over this game (and he's doing a fine job of it, I might add).

AI War has a very passionate fan base, maybe more so than Arcen realized. If anything, the silver lining to that thread is a lot of people are quite fond of and very attached to that title, and wish to see it well taken care of into the future.

I think the original reason for the CSGs was that people were actually winning the game without ever capturing a system, just using the resources their homeoworlds gave them to essentially raid the AI homeworlds, which at AIP 10 was possible at the time.

We've since had things like the Special Forces change and Strategic Reserve added that prevent this from happening so it's not an issue any more.

Having said that, I like and usually enable CSGs. I play low-AIP and the CSGs prevent me from cheesing out the AI homeworlds after only capturing a few worlds, even with the strategic reserve present. I also play lattice though, so 90% of the time taking out the CSG networks is done by taking planets I would want to take anyway so they are a lot less of a pain for me then they would be on a map with fewer warp point connections.

D.

[Hearteater]

We've since had things like the Special Forces change and Strategic Reserve added that prevent this from happening so it's not an issue any more.

It still is.  The game is extremely cheesable without CSGs on.  Not to mention it actually sets up less experienced players to have the right tools to actually take out home worlds with the newer threats like the Strategic Reserve.

[Wingflier]

The csg change was probably the only shit storm on this forum. Ever. I often forget this "feature" even exists, and I wonder if folks know that they can turn it off.

The reasons that it came about no longer exist, anyways, that I know of. The fallen spire campaign can't be rushed even if you tried. In the normal campaign, you probably could at lower levels and with a lot of the plots/features/factions turned off, but this seems all right to me. If you intentionally take out the fun parts, of course it's going to be easier, and you will have a shorter game.

Water under the bridge, though.

What exactly happened that made people angry? I don't think I was here for that, or if I was I don't remember.

A few people were deepstriking, which was basically cheesing the game to a massive degree but never taking any planets.  Chris decided that CSGs were a good solution, as it fit his original intentions for the game, which is that you take a certain number of planets before victory can become an option.  Some people started freaking out because they felt it took away their choices as a player and forced them to take planets they shouldn't have to.

Enter huge forum shitstorm with people flinging poo at each other over something silly.  A few members actually left.  "Good riddance", I said.  Keith got pretty mad at me for that.

And then Chris made the CSGs optional like a patch after they were added, so all that funny raging and leaving for nothing.

[_K_]

Man, I'm late for yet another discussion.

Anyway, here are my thoughts:
Of course resources feel the same. They are easily interchangeable!.  1.5 : 1 transfer ratio is NOTHING.

Lets do some math:

If you make 100m and 100c per minute, but your fleet costs 1000m and 2000c (thats 2:1 ratio, quite horrible) , it will take you 16 minutes to build it.

If you make 100m and 100c per minute, but your fleet costs 1500m and 1500c (The perfect 1:1 ratio), it will take you 15 minutes.

The difference is 1 minute. In relative values, that's under 7% longer compared to perfect ratio.Thats NOTHING.

If conversion was disabled, it'd take 20 minutes to build the first fleet. That's 33% longer. Now that does look quite significant.

And the 2:1 ratio is actually an extremely terrible value. It never goes anywhere close to that. Except maybe when you do nothing but waste your MK I-IV cap of raid starships. When it comes to building any large group of different units, it is gonna be not too far from 1:1.

Complete disable of M/C conversion does feel wrong though. It is sad to see one resource pile up massively while the other is in deficit, so its great to be able to flush it. Except right now you dont flush it. You just ignore the whole thing and let the game convert stuff back and forth with minimal waste.

My suggestion: nerf the ratio TO HELL. Make it 3:1, 5:1, maybe even 8:1. See if people keep disregarding M:C balance then.
Oh but i know what's gonna happen: "Waaa, having to worry about resource aspect is limiting my choices!". Well yeah it does, it limits you from "Whatever the F*** you want", to "Some fleet compositions are not very viable from resource standpoint". Go play AI difficulty 1/1 if you want to do whatever you want, you pansy. Want to stand up against real challenge? Then start thinking and make decent fleet composition. We do want people to think and make strategic decisions, right?

M and C are different resources for a reason. Right now, this reason is not very noticeable. Well let us make everyone notice... or go with those other suggestions and get rid of the whole mechanic altogether.

Speaking of which... do we actually want people to worry much about optimising their fleet composition based on resource costs? (though imo of course we should, it adds an additional layer to the general problem of picking your fleet composition. There can never be enough layers.)

M and C are generally not the most important resource in the game. There is no pushing need to maximise your income and distribute it optimally. This kind of thing happens in highly dynamic games, where armies grow, collide and suffer losses at all times, so the need to build more of everything is there constantly.
In AI War, however, resources are only needed during those periods when your fleet or defences are damaged and need to be rebuilt. Higher income just means shorter downtimes. And those times are usually short enough and not matter much.
So even if we do add some complexity, it will only affect a relatively small part of gameplay. I think it still is good, as the times when your fleet is down are usually when you are most vulnerable, so being able recover fast is an important part of strategy.

The main problem with increasing downtime lies, as usual, with chokepointing. In a game where you rely on your chokepoint fortress system to defend against AI waves on its own, the only thing longer downtime does is make you wait longer for the fleet to rebuild. I blame it on the chokepointing though. On its own, managing your defences during fleet downtime is an important, fun and challenging aspect of the game.

[TechSY730]

Man, I'm late for yet another discussion.

Anyway, here are my thoughts:
Of course resources feel the same. They are easily interchangeable!.  1.5 : 1 transfer ratio is NOTHING.

Lets do some math:

If you make 100m and 100c per minute, but your fleet costs 1000m and 2000c (thats 2:1 ratio, quite horrible) , it will take you 16 minutes to build it.

If you make 100m and 100c per minute, but your fleet costs 1500m and 1500c (The perfect 1:1 ratio), it will take you 15 minutes.

The difference is 1 minute. In relative values, that's under 7% longer compared to perfect ratio.Thats NOTHING.

If conversion was disabled, it'd take 20 minutes to build the first fleet. That's 33% longer. Now that does look quite significant.

And the 2:1 ratio is actually an extremely terrible value. It never goes anywhere close to that. Except maybe when you do nothing but waste your MK I-IV cap of raid starships. When it comes to building any large group of different units, it is gonna be not too far from 1:1.

Complete disable of M/C conversion does feel wrong though. It is sad to see one resource pile up massively while the other is in deficit, so its great to be able to flush it. Except right now you dont flush it. You just ignore the whole thing and let the game convert stuff back and forth with minimal waste.

My suggestion: nerf the ratio TO HELL. Make it 3:1, 5:1, maybe even 8:1. See if people keep disregarding M:C balance then.

Not really sure where you were going with the rest of your post TBH (may just be me still waking up), but this math seems to show pretty well why the current ratio is really hurting the distinction between the two.
I would be fine with nerfing the ratio to something like 3:1 or 4:1. (I would be opposed to anything beyond 4:1, as when past that point, you would very rarely want the mechanistic to ever trigger, thus sort of making automatic conversion pointless)

[_K_]

Not really sure where you were going with the rest of your post TBH (may just be me still waking up), but this math seems to show pretty well why the current ratio is really hurting the distinction between the two.

Neither do I, actually.
I guess i've been wondering if the E/C is worth trying to salvage, given that right now their role in the game is secondary at most. Oh, and raging at the people who whine at nerfs to humans. I tend to do that.

I would be fine with nerfing the ratio to something like 3:1 or 4:1. (I would be opposed to anything beyond 4:1, as when past that point, you would very rarely want the mechanistic to ever trigger, thus sort of making automatic conversion pointless)

Actually, for any ratio, you should turn conversion off if you start stalling both resources. Otherwise it will be converting M when you build a Metal-heavy ship, then convert M back to C a minute later for Crystal-heavy ship. This is noticeable when you are building starships.
Its a guaranteed loss of resources, but if the ratio is not too bad, losses are not very high.

Before this manufactory patch, this was mitigated by inertia, as manufactories were being turned on/off one by one every tick. Now its probably gonna be harsher.

For the "harsh" conversion ratios, you'd want to turn conversion on only when you want to get rid of a large surplus of one of the resources. Which is kinda the point.

Proper resource management and fleet composition would be needed to improve fleet recovery time.

[TechSY730]

I would be fine with nerfing the ratio to something like 3:1 or 4:1. (I would be opposed to anything beyond 4:1, as when past that point, you would very rarely want the mechanistic to ever trigger, thus sort of making automatic conversion pointless)

Actually, for any ratio, you should turn conversion off if you start stalling both resources. Otherwise it will be converting M when you build a Metal-heavy ship, then convert M back to C a minute later for Crystal-heavy ship. This is noticeable when you are building starships.
Its a guaranteed loss of resources, but if the ratio is not too bad, losses are not very high.

Before this manufactory patch, this was mitigated by inertia, as manufactories were being turned on/off one by one every tick. Now its probably gonna be harsher.

For the "harsh" conversion ratios, you'd want to turn conversion on only when you want to get rid of a large surplus of one of the resources. Which is kinda the point.

Proper resource management and fleet composition would be needed to improve fleet recovery time.

Two things:

1. If the ratio does become harsh enough to start "hurting", then the default max conversion rate in the control settings should go from unlimited to something less likely to kill economies, like 1000/s or something.
2. Although I could derive the math myself, to save time, do you have the formulas you used to compute your example? It would be nice to see how time changes over ratio in other common scenarios (low on both resources; low on only one; a little low on one but quite low on the other; etc, especially when comparing which resource the unit being built will demand more of)



And as a more general thing to this change (aka, not related to _K_'s post), it would be nice to have some sort of UI indication in the status bar of when the conversion is happening, or even better, by how much as well.