Prerelease 1.009E (Cheat Codes and AI Updates).

[x4000]

The F9, F10 keys are "hold" toggles so they should probably be F9(hold) and F10(hold) for consistency with the rest of the document.

Thanks!  Fixed for the next version.

[darke]

Vampire Claw doesn't seem to set of the "command station is under attack" alarm. Possibly because it's a "melee" attack, or possibly because it sucks health?

Also the AI-Turtle claims it will do not attacks on the players (as a consequence of having heavily defended systems, I assume it will still send warps), however I started with two AI-Turtles and within 2 minutes I had a large (30+) attack force in by base including at least one Tech IV (!?) bomber, and a few other Tech IV ships, though mostly Tech I's and II's.

I repeated it a couple more times and continued to get assorted Tech I and II ships in within the first couple of minutes, so I figure the last few changes to the way the AI stocks and attacks the players haven't taken into account that some of the AI's aren't supposed to.

Also enemy parasites seem to be able to parasite metal/crystal harvesters, which seems a little odd.

[x4000]

Vampire Claw doesn't seem to set of the "command station is under attack" alarm. Possibly because it's a "melee" attack, or possibly because it sucks health?

Oh, great catch -- this is because it is a melee attack.  The logic for that warning is in the code for when a shot hits a target ship, and in this case there are no targets.

Also the AI-Turtle claims it will do not attacks on the players (as a consequence of having heavily defended systems, I assume it will still send warps), however I started with two AI-Turtles and within 2 minutes I had a large (30+) attack force in by base including at least one Tech IV (!?) bomber, and a few other Tech IV ships, though mostly Tech I's and II's.

I repeated it a couple more times and continued to get assorted Tech I and II ships in within the first couple of minutes, so I figure the last few changes to the way the AI stocks and attacks the players haven't taken into account that some of the AI's aren't supposed to.

Those are the "special forces" ships -- what the turtles won't do is send waves against you, but they still use special forces.  Instead of waves, they reinforce their own planets.

Also enemy parasites seem to be able to parasite metal/crystal harvesters, which seems a little odd.

Yeah, you know, I've seen this a jillion times, but never thought to change it.  It really should be changed, it's annoying as all get out to have to go and destroy those before the next harvesters can be rebuilt.  Thanks!

[darke]

Vampire Claw doesn't seem to set of the "command station is under attack" alarm. Possibly because it's a "melee" attack, or possibly because it sucks health?

Oh, great catch -- this is because it is a melee attack.  The logic for that warning is in the code for when a shot hits a target ship, and in this case there are no targets.

You can thank one of those non-turtling turtle AI's for that. It sent it really early on, and I was quite confused as to where the "tinking" was coming from, after giving up searching around the wormholes eventually I ended up looking at my command station and there it was doing damage, but I wasn't getting any fog horns.

Also the AI-Turtle claims it will do not attacks on the players (as a consequence of having heavily defended systems, I assume it will still send warps), however I started with two AI-Turtles and within 2 minutes I had a large (30+) attack force in by base including at least one Tech IV (!?) bomber, and a few other Tech IV ships, though mostly Tech I's and II's.

I repeated it a couple more times and continued to get assorted Tech I and II ships in within the first couple of minutes, so I figure the last few changes to the way the AI stocks and attacks the players haven't taken into account that some of the AI's aren't supposed to.

Those are the "special forces" ships -- what the turtles won't do is send waves against you, but they still use special forces.  Instead of waves, they reinforce their own planets.

Ah. Makes sense. I guess I must have had a Tech IV planet spawn right next to me and I got really unlucky...

Also enemy parasites seem to be able to parasite metal/crystal harvesters, which seems a little odd.

Yeah, you know, I've seen this a jillion times, but never thought to change it.  It really should be changed, it's annoying as all get out to have to go and destroy those before the next harvesters can be rebuilt.  Thanks!

Yeah. I managed to roll a random parasite AI (never had them before), when I had parasites also. Quite confused me for a bit.

Onto an odd question this time. How does the +XX% affect the AI's?

I know with the player it adds extra crystal/metal/knowledge collection speed, though it doesn't increase the knowledge on a planet, nor increase the population limit of your ships (so it's actually a little "worse" then a literal +X%, but I digress), but the AI's doesn't seem to be so linear game-play wise.

For example I was expecting a +50% (me)/+30% (each AI) bonus to be about equal game-play wise, figuring they'd get more ships in spawns and get more ships in bases which would about double the "effective" value for each of them so I'd be playing against about a +60% boosted AI, compared to a +50% boosted myself. For most of the time it's felt a little more difficult (not by an entire AI level, but maybe about half an AI level?), but in the latest few patches (probably about since 008?), I've found it really quite difficult to finish a game on planets 80.

So earlier today I dropped down to play a game a +0% all and found it about half the difficulty level of the +50/+30 game (but a heck of a lot slower at the beginning, I started using speed+1/2/3/4 again ), whereas I was expecting about an overall similar difficulty level, just more stuff faster. Maybe I just got lucky with the couple of +0/+0 games I started, but it feels like that I'd need somewhere in the range of +120% resources for myself just to go up against a pair of +30% AIs having it the same difficulty. Not to mention I don't think I'd even have a high enough population cap to go up against a +100% AI after I'd taken more then a couple of planets, let alone a +300% one!

It just feels like there's geometric or N^2 growth kicking in somewhere, for example if the AI is not only getting +30% ships in a wave, but the waves are happening +30% more often, so that ends up being a +90% increase in ships overall. The player's version seems to avoid this since it doesn't seem to affect ship production speed, but I guess I noticed this since about the time the wormhole reinforcing started, which seems to bump up the ships a lot.

Also random quirk I noticed in your timers/percent gauges; you're not adding +0.5 before flooring the value. Things like the "time remaining to build" never start on the max time, but one second before, and they sit on 00:00 for a second before they are "finished". Also a minor scratch on the paint turns a 100% MegaBattleShipOfDoom into a 99% MegaBattleShipOfDoom, and it sits there at 0% health for a long time before being finished off as well. Total nit pick, but I found it amusing.

[x4000]

You can thank one of those non-turtling turtle AI's for that. It sent it really early on, and I was quite confused as to where the "tinking" was coming from, after giving up searching around the wormholes eventually I ended up looking at my command station and there it was doing damage, but I wasn't getting any fog horns.

Fog horns.  I like that.

Ah. Makes sense. I guess I must have had a Tech IV planet spawn right next to me and I got really unlucky...

The tech level of the special forces ships should never be greater than the AI Progress tech level -- the level of the planet is irrelevant for that... oh, wait.  Except for with turtles!  That's a bug, I'll fix that.  Some other people talked about occasionally having high-level special forces ships at their planets almost immediately, and I couldn't figure it out until now.  It's the turtles that are doing that.

Onto an odd question this time. How does the +XX% affect the AI's?

At the moment, it looks like that is just affecting the frequency of reinforcements for the AIs.  It isn't affecting the frequency of waves it makes against you, or the number of ships in each reinforcement/wave.

For example I was expecting a +50% (me)/+30% (each AI) bonus to be about equal game-play wise, figuring they'd get more ships in spawns and get more ships in bases which would about double the "effective" value for each of them so I'd be playing against about a +60% boosted AI, compared to a +50% boosted myself. For most of the time it's felt a little more difficult (not by an entire AI level, but maybe about half an AI level?), but in the latest few patches (probably about since 008?), I've found it really quite difficult to finish a game on planets 80.

This is mainly because I had unbalanced how many of the Wormhole Command Posts the AI was getting.  That was making it harder for everyone, but having a bonus handicap to the AI would exacerbate that even moreso.  In the recent few 1.009 releases, since I rebalanced that, it should be back more like what you were seeing before (thereabouts).

So earlier today I dropped down to play a game a +0% all and found it about half the difficulty level of the +50/+30 game (but a heck of a lot slower at the beginning, I started using speed+1/2/3/4 again ), whereas I was expecting about an overall similar difficulty level, just more stuff faster. Maybe I just got lucky with the couple of +0/+0 games I started, but it feels like that I'd need somewhere in the range of +120% resources for myself just to go up against a pair of +30% AIs having it the same difficulty.

I think the reverse is true -- you got unlucky with your last few +30% AI games.

Not to mention I don't think I'd even have a high enough population cap to go up against a +100% AI after I'd taken more then a couple of planets, let alone a +300% one!

Quite so!  A +300% AI would be the end of all things, I think.  That's Chluthlu's army, right there.

It just feels like there's geometric or N^2 growth kicking in somewhere, for example if the AI is not only getting +30% ships in a wave, but the waves are happening +30% more often, so that ends up being a +90% increase in ships overall. The player's version seems to avoid this since it doesn't seem to affect ship production speed, but I guess I noticed this since about the time the wormhole reinforcing started, which seems to bump up the ships a lot.

Yes, that was sort of what was happening, though not with the waves.  The AI had too many Wormhole Command Posts, and was reinforcing them more frequently, and that was way harder.  Then when you dropped it back to 0/0, the number of the wormhole command posts had also been reduced since your last games were started (I presume?), so that would cause a geometric difference.  Let me know if that's not right, and you've started a 30/30 game since the wormhole command posts were nerfed.

Also random quirk I noticed in your timers/percent gauges; you're not adding +0.5 before flooring the value. Things like the "time remaining to build" never start on the max time, but one second before, and they sit on 00:00 for a second before they are "finished". Also a minor scratch on the paint turns a 100% MegaBattleShipOfDoom into a 99% MegaBattleShipOfDoom, and it sits there at 0% health for a long time before being finished off as well. Total nit pick, but I found it amusing.

With the time remaining to build, the reason it hangs at 0 is actually that it takes it a cycle to pop the ship out at the end (more if you are low on resources).  For the other things, such as the health percentages, that's something that's just minorly more efficient to calculate this way, and in aggregate that can make a difference to performance.  The difference between 1% health either way is fairly trivial in most gameplay senses, anyway, I'd say.

[x4000]

New version:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,184.msg1352.html

[darke]

You can thank one of those non-turtling turtle AI's for that. It sent it really early on, and I was quite confused as to where the "tinking" was coming from, after giving up searching around the wormholes eventually I ended up looking at my command station and there it was doing damage, but I wasn't getting any fog horns.

Fog horns.  I like that.

It doesn't quite have the "air raid siren" sound, much closer to the fog-horn warning.

Ah. Makes sense. I guess I must have had a Tech IV planet spawn right next to me and I got really unlucky...

The tech level of the special forces ships should never be greater than the AI Progress tech level -- the level of the planet is irrelevant for that... oh, wait.  Except for with turtles!  That's a bug, I'll fix that.  Some other people talked about occasionally having high-level special forces ships at their planets almost immediately, and I couldn't figure it out until now.  It's the turtles that are doing that.

I that's been the cause of a few other OMGWTFBBQ reactions when I got swarmed with a pile of ships soon after I started the game then.

Onto an odd question this time. How does the +XX% affect the AI's?

At the moment, it looks like that is just affecting the frequency of reinforcements for the AIs.  It isn't affecting the frequency of waves it makes against you, or the number of ships in each reinforcement/wave.

Cool. That makes sense. So on the player's side it's affecting the frequency of it's resources, so in theory it should cancel each other out (assuming the resource amounts are relatively equal of course).

For example I was expecting a +50% (me)/+30% (each AI) bonus to be about equal game-play wise, figuring they'd get more ships in spawns and get more ships in bases which would about double the "effective" value for each of them so I'd be playing against about a +60% boosted AI, compared to a +50% boosted myself. For most of the time it's felt a little more difficult (not by an entire AI level, but maybe about half an AI level?), but in the latest few patches (probably about since 008?), I've found it really quite difficult to finish a game on planets 80.

This is mainly because I had unbalanced how many of the Wormhole Command Posts the AI was getting.  That was making it harder for everyone, but having a bonus handicap to the AI would exacerbate that even moreso.  In the recent few 1.009 releases, since I rebalanced that, it should be back more like what you were seeing before (thereabouts).

Strange. How does it affect the reinforcing of the Special Fortress bases in the case of the Special Fortress AI? I recall that particular AI coming up a couple of times and it really stood out as being much more hurty. Again, before the recent patches it was hard, but it just seems much harder now.

Not to mention I don't think I'd even have a high enough population cap to go up against a +100% AI after I'd taken more then a couple of planets, let alone a +300% one!

Quite so!  A +300% AI would be the end of all things, I think.  That's Chluthlu's army, right there.

Only if his final command center looks like a giant squid-thing, and his data centers look like Ancient Tomes Of Forbidden Knowledge That Drive Men Mad. (An Easter Egg if you happen to be playing on anniversary of Lovecraft's death. )

It just feels like there's geometric or N^2 growth kicking in somewhere, for example if the AI is not only getting +30% ships in a wave, but the waves are happening +30% more often, so that ends up being a +90% increase in ships overall. The player's version seems to avoid this since it doesn't seem to affect ship production speed, but I guess I noticed this since about the time the wormhole reinforcing started, which seems to bump up the ships a lot.

Yes, that was sort of what was happening, though not with the waves.  The AI had too many Wormhole Command Posts, and was reinforcing them more frequently, and that was way harder.  Then when you dropped it back to 0/0, the number of the wormhole command posts had also been reduced since your last games were started (I presume?), so that would cause a geometric difference.  Let me know if that's not right, and you've started a 30/30 game since the wormhole command posts were nerfed.

My 50/30 games were started after the wormhole command posts were reduced, along with the 0/0 ones (before then I hadn't played a 0/0 since, umm, probably close to just after I started posting on the board? ). I'm starting to wonder if I just got really unlucky/lucky at the wrong times.

Also random quirk I noticed in your timers/percent gauges; you're not adding +0.5 before flooring the value. Things like the "time remaining to build" never start on the max time, but one second before, and they sit on 00:00 for a second before they are "finished". Also a minor scratch on the paint turns a 100% MegaBattleShipOfDoom into a 99% MegaBattleShipOfDoom, and it sits there at 0% health for a long time before being finished off as well. Total nit pick, but I found it amusing.

With the time remaining to build, the reason it hangs at 0 is actually that it takes it a cycle to pop the ship out at the end (more if you are low on resources).  For the other things, such as the health percentages, that's something that's just minorly more efficient to calculate this way, and in aggregate that can make a difference to performance.  The difference between 1% health either way is fairly trivial in most gameplay senses, anyway, I'd say.

I only really notice it when I'm sitting there staring at a 0% forcefield waiting for it to slooooowly drop the last few points of health because I've only got a couple of my bombers left.

That or I'm attacking one of those fortresses, with only a dozen carriers and a handful of defensive ships. Nothing dies since everything's out of range, but boy does it take a while!

[x4000]

I that's been the cause of a few other OMGWTFBBQ reactions when I got swarmed with a pile of ships soon after I started the game then.

That would cause you to get swarmed by ships that were higher-level than they should have been, but it wouldn't affect how many you were being swarmed with.

Cool. That makes sense. So on the player's side it's affecting the frequency of it's resources, so in theory it should cancel each other out (assuming the resource amounts are relatively equal of course).

Yeah, it should balance out in general, or be relatively close to doing so.

Strange. How does it affect the reinforcing of the Special Fortress bases in the case of the Special Fortress AI? I recall that particular AI coming up a couple of times and it really stood out as being much more hurty. Again, before the recent patches it was hard, but it just seems much harder now.

The Special Forces Command Posts are reinforced every time the planet itself is reinforced (the AI does whole-planet reinforcements, not partial-planet ones).  So, with the Special Forces Captain, that just means there are way more guys wandering around the map than in other cases.  There's not a balance issue there, per se, but the handicap increases will affect that AI type more than, say, a raider AI type.

Only if his final command center looks like a giant squid-thing, and his data centers look like Ancient Tomes Of Forbidden Knowledge That Drive Men Mad. (An Easter Egg if you happen to be playing on anniversary of Lovecraft's death. )

My 50/30 games were started after the wormhole command posts were reduced, along with the 0/0 ones (before then I hadn't played a 0/0 since, umm, probably close to just after I started posting on the board? ). I'm starting to wonder if I just got really unlucky/lucky at the wrong times.

Hmm, that is interesting.  I guess just keep me posted on how it seems to be going -- the AI improvements do tend to make it harder, in general.  A lot of your prior tactics for letting the AI stream into your planets are probably invalidated, for instance, so that might also be affecting the overall difficulty.  Those don't have anything to do with ship balance, but rather just with the AI itself getting more intelligent (and thus difficult) in general.  I wonder if that has anything to do with it...

I only really notice it when I'm sitting there staring at a 0% forcefield waiting for it to slooooowly drop the last few points of health because I've only got a couple of my bombers left.

That or I'm attacking one of those fortresses, with only a dozen carriers and a handful of defensive ships. Nothing dies since everything's out of range, but boy does it take a while!

Ah, gotcha.

[x4000]

Another new version:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,187.new.html

[darke]

Strange. How does it affect the reinforcing of the Special Fortress bases in the case of the Special Fortress AI? I recall that particular AI coming up a couple of times and it really stood out as being much more hurty. Again, before the recent patches it was hard, but it just seems much harder now.

The Special Forces Command Posts are reinforced every time the planet itself is reinforced (the AI does whole-planet reinforcements, not partial-planet ones).  So, with the Special Forces Captain, that just means there are way more guys wandering around the map than in other cases.  There's not a balance issue there, per se, but the handicap increases will affect that AI type more than, say, a raider AI type.

Hrm... yeah, that does explain things. So the Special Forces would technically more affected then a Turtle type, which is more affected then a raider type? I did notice Special Forces AIs were an absolute pain to get started against, since the reinforcements just keep coming and coming and coming when you're trying to take over a planet.

My 50/30 games were started after the wormhole command posts were reduced, along with the 0/0 ones (before then I hadn't played a 0/0 since, umm, probably close to just after I started posting on the board? ). I'm starting to wonder if I just got really unlucky/lucky at the wrong times.

Hmm, that is interesting.  I guess just keep me posted on how it seems to be going -- the AI improvements do tend to make it harder, in general.  A lot of your prior tactics for letting the AI stream into your planets are probably invalidated, for instance, so that might also be affecting the overall difficulty.  Those don't have anything to do with ship balance, but rather just with the AI itself getting more intelligent (and thus difficult) in general.  I wonder if that has anything to do with it...

Will do. Interestingly enough, I found the destroy-command-center-defend-against-flood tactics seem to work better, simply because the AI seems to be not quite as daft and sending as many units for some reason. Maybe because it just has less again now.

I tend to have enough ships that the difference between one or two warping in at a time, and a dozen warping in at a time isn't that much, and the pauses between them give my engineers more time to repair my nearby guys who got damaged. Plus the more guys coming through at once, means they spread out a bit more which means they target units more "away" from the hole, which means the damage spreads out more (and their targets are less likely to be an already damaged ship, so I'm less likely to loose one). The main thing that changes the difficulty seems to be the Tech Level I'm going up against (and of course how well I'm prepared).

I'm wondering if the AI should "learn" if the first group of, say, 10 got immediately wiped out, then send 20 next time, then 40, then... would only really work for this situation since in the general case it would be too overpowered, but something is needed to make this tactic a little less viable again. Then again, it's only particularly viable on Tech I & II planets.

[x4000]

Hrm... yeah, that does explain things. So the Special Forces would technically more affected then a Turtle type, which is more affected then a raider type? I did notice Special Forces AIs were an absolute pain to get started against, since the reinforcements just keep coming and coming and coming when you're trying to take over a planet.

On paper, I would say that turtles would be the most affected, because they get 2x the reinforcements and 0x the offensive waves.  Special Forces Captains are still getting 1x reinforcements and 1x raids, it's just that almost all of their reinforcements go to special forces.  So in practice, how it feels might be very much like what you said.

Interestingly enough, I found the destroy-command-center-defend-against-flood tactics seem to work better, simply because the AI seems to be not quite as daft and sending as many units for some reason. Maybe because it just has less again now.

That is interesting -- it might be the rebalancing at work, I'm not sure.

I tend to have enough ships that the difference between one or two warping in at a time, and a dozen warping in at a time isn't that much, and the pauses between them give my engineers more time to repair my nearby guys who got damaged. Plus the more guys coming through at once, means they spread out a bit more which means they target units more "away" from the hole, which means the damage spreads out more (and their targets are less likely to be an already damaged ship, so I'm less likely to loose one). The main thing that changes the difficulty seems to be the Tech Level I'm going up against (and of course how well I'm prepared).

I'm wondering if the AI should "learn" if the first group of, say, 10 got immediately wiped out, then send 20 next time, then 40, then... would only really work for this situation since in the general case it would be too overpowered, but something is needed to make this tactic a little less viable again. Then again, it's only particularly viable on Tech I & II planets.

Hmm, the AI is supposed to not send their ships through if there are more ships coming toward the wormhole than are waiting near it, which is supposed to specifically handle this sort of case.  I'll check over that logic and make sure it is actually working.

In unrelated news, I couldn't find any bugs with the turtles as far as the tech level went.  I don't know why higher-tech special forces ships are sometimes showing up in your systems.  I'm almost wondering if they aren't special forces, but rather were regular guards stirred up by your scouts or something.

[darke]

Hrm... yeah, that does explain things. So the Special Forces would technically more affected then a Turtle type, which is more affected then a raider type? I did notice Special Forces AIs were an absolute pain to get started against, since the reinforcements just keep coming and coming and coming when you're trying to take over a planet.

On paper, I would say that turtles would be the most affected, because they get 2x the reinforcements and 0x the offensive waves.  Special Forces Captains are still getting 1x reinforcements and 1x raids, it's just that almost all of their reinforcements go to special forces.  So in practice, how it feels might be very much like what you said.

That makes sense. I'm guessing the turtles would probably get a lot more emplacements/turrets and the like, whereas the Special Forces would just get mostly more ships. Generally turrets and so feel considerably less dangerous since you can take them out relatively safely from a distance; plus they don't gang up on you.

I tend to have enough ships that the difference between one or two warping in at a time, and a dozen warping in at a time isn't that much, and the pauses between them give my engineers more time to repair my nearby guys who got damaged. Plus the more guys coming through at once, means they spread out a bit more which means they target units more "away" from the hole, which means the damage spreads out more (and their targets are less likely to be an already damaged ship, so I'm less likely to loose one). The main thing that changes the difficulty seems to be the Tech Level I'm going up against (and of course how well I'm prepared).

I'm wondering if the AI should "learn" if the first group of, say, 10 got immediately wiped out, then send 20 next time, then 40, then... would only really work for this situation since in the general case it would be too overpowered, but something is needed to make this tactic a little less viable again. Then again, it's only particularly viable on Tech I & II planets.

Hmm, the AI is supposed to not send their ships through if there are more ships coming toward the wormhole than are waiting near it, which is supposed to specifically handle this sort of case.  I'll check over that logic and make sure it is actually working.

I've been cheating around a bit to test this, and it seems to have odd effects at times. (Cheating == +100% resources is sillygood, rather then using cheat codes. I'm inclined that if I had to teach someone how to play, I'd just run them at AI7 but with a large chunk of bonus resources; start of the game they'd have no issues with resources even if they (naturally) sucked at playing, and by half way through the game they'd know enough to defend against the AI waves enough the extra resouces will only have a little benefit. )

For example I've taken out a command center, watched the ships stream off to me; I park myself against the other side of the wormhole and wait for them to come through. The first bunch comes through, I take them out, but the second bunch groups up -- but never pops through. I zoom out a bit and see there's a cruiser taking it's sweet time to arrive, but when it eventually arrives -- still no killy.

It doesn't make much sense they'd be "wormhole defense", since I was watching them the whole time and they were definately the ships that came running for me when I took out the CC, but they never decided to attack. It's possible they were confused by a nearby AI control point's ships that didn't fly off to attack, and they were "waiting" for that?

In unrelated news, I couldn't find any bugs with the turtles as far as the tech level went.  I don't know why higher-tech special forces ships are sometimes showing up in your systems.  I'm almost wondering if they aren't special forces, but rather were regular guards stirred up by your scouts or something.

2 minutes into the game? I don't think my turrents were finished building by that time, I may have had a scout built, but definately hadn't sent him anywhere. It looked just like the normal early game attacks, where they toss a few ships through a wormhole to harass, except these were significantly high level.

[x4000]

That makes sense. I'm guessing the turtles would probably get a lot more emplacements/turrets and the like, whereas the Special Forces would just get mostly more ships. Generally turrets and so feel considerably less dangerous since you can take them out relatively safely from a distance; plus they don't gang up on you.

Actually, the number of ships received by each should be about equal, more or less.  Turtles do have more turrets, but the number of ships they get overall isn't much less.  They simply are mostly on guard duty, rather than roaming around -- so, as you say, they can gang up on you less.

I've been cheating around a bit to test this, and it seems to have odd effects at times. (Cheating == +100% resources is sillygood, rather then using cheat codes. I'm inclined that if I had to teach someone how to play, I'd just run them at AI7 but with a large chunk of bonus resources; start of the game they'd have no issues with resources even if they (naturally) sucked at playing, and by half way through the game they'd know enough to defend against the AI waves enough the extra resouces will only have a little benefit. )

That's a cool approach -- reminds me of how you might teach someone golf if all you have is a challenging course.

For example I've taken out a command center, watched the ships stream off to me; I park myself against the other side of the wormhole and wait for them to come through. The first bunch comes through, I take them out, but the second bunch groups up -- but never pops through. I zoom out a bit and see there's a cruiser taking it's sweet time to arrive, but when it eventually arrives -- still no killy.

Is this on the most recent version?  I had not observed this.  Also, do you know if there were a large number of ships waiting under force fields on the other side?  If you have a savegame of this, I'd love to see it.  The ships are only supposed to wait until there are about 1/3 as many ships on the way to the wormhole as there are actually at the wormhole, and that's been working for me.

It doesn't make much sense they'd be "wormhole defense", since I was watching them the whole time and they were definately the ships that came running for me when I took out the CC, but they never decided to attack. It's possible they were confused by a nearby AI control point's ships that didn't fly off to attack, and they were "waiting" for that?

That could be, I suppose -- I haven't observed this yet, though.  If those guys at the wormhole command post don't have active orders to go through a wormhole, they shouldn't be factored in at all.

In unrelated news, I couldn't find any bugs with the turtles as far as the tech level went.  I don't know why higher-tech special forces ships are sometimes showing up in your systems.  I'm almost wondering if they aren't special forces, but rather were regular guards stirred up by your scouts or something.

2 minutes into the game? I don't think my turrents were finished building by that time, I may have had a scout built, but definately hadn't sent him anywhere. It looked just like the normal early game attacks, where they toss a few ships through a wormhole to harass, except these were significantly high level.

Hummm.  If you can catch a savegame of that, it would be much appreciated.

[darke]

That makes sense. I'm guessing the turtles would probably get a lot more emplacements/turrets and the like, whereas the Special Forces would just get mostly more ships. Generally turrets and so feel considerably less dangerous since you can take them out relatively safely from a distance; plus they don't gang up on you.

Actually, the number of ships received by each should be about equal, more or less.  Turtles do have more turrets, but the number of ships they get overall isn't much less.  They simply are mostly on guard duty, rather than roaming around -- so, as you say, they can gang up on you less.

And I have no complaints about that at all!

I've been cheating around a bit to test this, and it seems to have odd effects at times. (Cheating == +100% resources is sillygood, rather then using cheat codes. I'm inclined that if I had to teach someone how to play, I'd just run them at AI7 but with a large chunk of bonus resources; start of the game they'd have no issues with resources even if they (naturally) sucked at playing, and by half way through the game they'd know enough to defend against the AI waves enough the extra resouces will only have a little benefit. )

That's a cool approach -- reminds me of how you might teach someone golf if all you have is a challenging course.

It's also how I've been trying to play through to get a good start on any particularly challenging pair of AIs (Special Forces and Teleport Turtle for example), then gradually wean myself down to something more reasonable as I work out a decent strategy. Some of the AI combinations seem they would be much less annoying if you were playing multiplayer, just because you could get a tactical edge when you need it with an extra amount of ships from a friend, whereas it's hard to even get a critical mass of them when playing single player since you just can't quite outproduce what they're throwing at you.

For example I've taken out a command center, watched the ships stream off to me; I park myself against the other side of the wormhole and wait for them to come through. The first bunch comes through, I take them out, but the second bunch groups up -- but never pops through. I zoom out a bit and see there's a cruiser taking it's sweet time to arrive, but when it eventually arrives -- still no killy.

Is this on the most recent version?  I had not observed this.  Also, do you know if there were a large number of ships waiting under force fields on the other side?  If you have a savegame of this, I'd love to see it.  The ships are only supposed to wait until there are about 1/3 as many ships on the way to the wormhole as there are actually at the wormhole, and that's been working for me.

Would have been 009E or later, and I do believe there would have been at least one force field on the planet, can't recall it's forces though. I haven't noticed it often, if I manage to reproduce it I'll try and get a useful save.

In unrelated news, I couldn't find any bugs with the turtles as far as the tech level went.  I don't know why higher-tech special forces ships are sometimes showing up in your systems.  I'm almost wondering if they aren't special forces, but rather were regular guards stirred up by your scouts or something.

2 minutes into the game? I don't think my turrents were finished building by that time, I may have had a scout built, but definately hadn't sent him anywhere. It looked just like the normal early game attacks, where they toss a few ships through a wormhole to harass, except these were significantly high level.

Hummm.  If you can catch a savegame of that, it would be much appreciated.

Will do. At the moment though I've been mostly finding the usual "150 ships in your home world in under 2 minutes" kind of maps. Been tempted to upload some of the saves for the easily reproducible ones up here as maps for people who want a challenge.

[x4000]

It's also how I've been trying to play through to get a good start on any particularly challenging pair of AIs (Special Forces and Teleport Turtle for example), then gradually wean myself down to something more reasonable as I work out a decent strategy.

Also sounds like quite a smart way to do it.

Some of the AI combinations seem they would be much less annoying if you were playing multiplayer, just because you could get a tactical edge when you need it with an extra amount of ships from a friend, whereas it's hard to even get a critical mass of them when playing single player since you just can't quite outproduce what they're throwing at you.

Bear in mind that the number of ships the AI has scales up with more players, so the balance stays fairly consistent.  I don't find single-player to be much different than four-player, difficulty-wise.  But the playstyles of both are definitely different.  With multiplayer, you pretty much have to work together, and especially with 3 or 4 players this makes for many options such as attacking in pairs, or attacking all as one large group.  The thing that you can do with larger multiplayer, that you can't do in single-player, is group all of the players together for a big push into a particularly difficult planet.  But even that is offset by the waves of ships coming into human planets (in four-player games you have 8x waves coming into your planets, instead of 2x).  So I wouldn't feel too underpowered as a single player, if I were you.  Strategically your options are a bit more limited since you can't divide up techs or split and mass your forces quite as easily, but those are all the drawbacks I can really think of.

Would have been 009E or later, and I do believe there would have been at least one force field on the planet, can't recall it's forces though. I haven't noticed it often, if I manage to reproduce it I'll try and get a useful save.

Okay, thanks.

At the moment though I've been mostly finding the usual "150 ships in your home world in under 2 minutes" kind of maps. Been tempted to upload some of the saves for the easily reproducible ones up here as maps for people who want a challenge.

I think it would be an interesting exercise to have some sort of "favorite maps" section to the community wiki, or something like that.  With basically AI types, starting position(s), seed, map style, and # planets all specified.  With a little description of why the map was cool or hard, that could be a really interesting way for people to share their favorite scenarios with others.