Prerelease 1.010B (More Minor UI Tweaks)

[x4000]

Thanks for the savegame, Revenantus -- I'll check this out for a fix in the next prerelease.

[Revenantus]

Harvester Exo-Shields have become a common feature at my frontier systems;

Have you considered Space Dock Exo-Shields? For maybe -2 metal, -2 crystal?

Personally, I feel that the standard Force Field Generators should also incur an ongoing resource cost, in exchange for costing slightly less to build. It would make for more interesting strategic decisions if I had to decide when would be the appropriate time to take it offline - these decisions already exist for Harvester Exo-Shields.

The inability for forcefields to be repaired makes perfect sense, however, could they not regenerate extremely slowly over time? This would create an incentive to defend them when they are weakened, rather than just considering their a health bar to be a measure of how long the player has before a new one must be constructed.

Fortified Command Stations? The current command station upgrades only increase their resource output, what about a version that has reduced resource output in exchange for increased defense? It could even have a built in turret.

[Revenantus]

I have never had a problem with energy supplies. All generators can be constructed in a single heavily defended location.

What if, generators became less efficient as more were constructed in a single system? This means that it would not be vital to spread the player's energy production around the map, but doing so would provide greater returns on the resources invested in the generators.

This could give the AI a better chance of launching successful attacks against generator farms.

For example, the first T2 Generator in a system provides 40k energy, the second 20k, the third 10k, and so on.

[x4000]

Harvester Exo-Shields have become a common feature at my frontier systems;

Have you considered Space Dock Exo-Shields? For maybe -2 metal, -2 crystal? [/quote]

I love it.  Added to the future DLC list.

Personally, I feel that the standard Force Field Generators should also incur an ongoing resource cost, in exchange for costing slightly less to build. It would make for more interesting strategic decisions if I had to decide when would be the appropriate time to take it offline - these decisions already exist for Harvester Exo-Shields.

You know, I think that is a great idea.  I'll look at doing that -- I think it's a cool idea.  Do you see this as being related to turning on and off the force fields, or just deleting the force fields when you don't want them?

The inability for forcefields to be repaired makes perfect sense, however, could they not regenerate extremely slowly over time? This would create an incentive to defend them when they are weakened, rather than just considering their a health bar to be a measure of how long the player has before a new one must be constructed.

Yeah, I think this would actually be a really good idea for both Force Fields and Fortresses.  It creates some incentive to keep pushing the attack when you are dealing with AI force fields, and with your own force fields it makes them not just a complete loss.  I'll probably do this on a scale where it takes an hour or more for them to fully heal themselves if they are very damaged, but I think that would be a cool addition.

Fortified Command Stations? The current command station upgrades only increase their resource output, what about a version that has reduced resource output in exchange for increased defense? It could even have a built in turret.

That's another cool idea.  Added to my list.

[x4000]

I have never had a problem with energy supplies. All generators can be constructed in a single heavily defended location.

What if, generators became less efficient as more were constructed in a single system? This means that it would not be vital to spread the player's energy production around the map, but doing so would provide greater returns on the resources invested in the generators.

This could give the AI a better chance of launching successful attacks against generator farms.

For example, the first T2 Generator in a system provides 40k energy, the second 20k, the third 10k, and so on.

Wow, this is a really good idea.  I think that will make the whole energy aspect a lot more interesting.  Of course, when people load up old savegames, it's going to really hurt.   Added to my list.

[Revenantus]

Personally, I feel that the standard Force Field Generators should also incur an ongoing resource cost, in exchange for costing slightly less to build. It would make for more interesting strategic decisions if I had to decide when would be the appropriate time to take it offline - these decisions already exist for Harvester Exo-Shields.

You know, I think that is a great idea.  I'll look at doing that -- I think it's a cool idea.  Do you see this as being related to turning on and off the force fields, or just deleting the force fields when you don't want them?

Interesting you should ask that! I was wondering the same thing as I read my own post back to myself;

Here are my thoughts - If a FF is switched on, it incurs its full cost of X Metal and Y Crystal per second. A switched off FF incurs a cost of X/4 Metal and Y/4 Crystal - so leaving one around is never free. FFs can be switched off instantly, but take at least 45 seconds to switch on. A FF that is attacked whilst switched off takes at least 10x regular damage. When a FF is switched off it regenerates its life more quickly, but still cannot be repaired by engineers.

The AI should probably prioritize a switched off FF over a target that it wants to destroy that will be defended by the FF once it is switched on.

Yeah, I think this would actually be a really good idea for both Force Fields and Fortresses.  It creates some incentive to keep pushing the attack when you are dealing with AI force fields, and with your own force fields it makes them not just a complete loss.  I'll probably do this on a scale where it takes an hour or more for them to fully heal themselves if they are very damaged, but I think that would be a cool addition.

Yeah, that seems like an appropriate timescale.

[x4000]

I like it.

[Revenantus]

Defensive unit idea -> Spider Turret

Fires sniper-type shots that damage the engines of ships but not the health. These would make chasing down enemy ships in your systems easier - catching some of the faster ones can sometimes be irritating. The AI could also use these to help defend against deep raiding.

Just musing, since Vorticular Cutlasses and Vampire Claws became immune to tractor beams and were given infinite engine health, there no longer seems to be any particularly effective defensive strategy against them. A couple of points;

Is there a reason they have infinite engine health, rather than just a particularly high engine health?

I recall reading a few posts on this elsewhere, but I'll put forward my own idea regarding tractor beams and physical attack ships. The issue is that a vorticular cutlass trapped in a tractor beam cannot attack. Here's the idea;

Once a vorticular cutlass has entered the range of a tractor beam, it cannot leave the range of the tractor beam turret, but can move at a reduced rate within this area. This would allow cutlasses to be trapped at wormholes by tractor beam turrets but they would still be able to fight back and destroy the turrets holding them, along with anything else that happens to be inside the tractor beam turret's range.

This could actually apply to all ships - they could just move slowly within the range of the tractor beam turret's effect.

[x4000]

Defensive unit idea -> Spider Turret

Fires sniper-type shots that damage the engines of ships but not the health. These would make chasing down enemy ships in your systems easier - catching some of the faster ones can sometimes be irritating. The AI could also use these to help defend against deep raiding.

Love it, added to the future DLC list.

Just musing, since Vorticular Cutlasses and Vampire Claws became immune to tractor beams and were given infinite engine health, there no longer seems to be any particularly effective defensive strategy against them. A couple of points;

Is there a reason they have infinite engine health, rather than just a particularly high engine health?

I recall reading a few posts on this elsewhere, but I'll put forward my own idea regarding tractor beams and physical attack ships. The issue is that a vorticular cutlass trapped in a tractor beam cannot attack. Here's the idea;

Once a vorticular cutlass has entered the range of a tractor beam, it cannot leave the range of the tractor beam turret, but can move at a reduced rate within this area. This would allow cutlasses to be trapped at wormholes by tractor beam turrets but they would still be able to fight back and destroy the turrets holding them, along with anything else that happens to be inside the tractor beam turret's range.

This could actually apply to all ships - they could just move slowly within the range of the tractor beam turret's effect.

Actually, darke had brought this up in another thread, too.  His suggestion was to make the Mark II Tractor beams have a slowing effect on all ships that are immune to tractor beams -- I like the fact that this is an unlockable tech, rather than something that is just a defacto always-on effect.  The raider-type ships (and that now includes cutlasses and vampires) are supposed to be good at slipping past defenses, so it makes sense to me that you'd have to invest in better defenses to stop them (or have a lot of firepower waiting to snuff them out immediately.

My reason for having the cutlasses and vampires have infinite health is that they are 100% useless if their engines are out, so that was making them way too weak when engine-damaging ships were present.

It might be interesting to have a "Gravity Turret" that can be unlocked, and which emits a slowing effect on everything in its range (friendly and enemy).  That might be one of the more expensive ones to unlock, but could be very useful for wormhole defense.  Perhaps that would come after Tractor Beam Turrets Mark II.

[Revenantus]

I have a case of two ships being dragged back and forth between two points in a system. I can't see anything that could be causing it.

I've tried placing a tachyon drone on the route they're following but this does not reveal anything.

I've attached the save game - in the system, Vaxivin, to the left of my home system, a fighter and a bomber and being dragged back and forth between a point near the Ubvoid wormhole and a spot towards the bottom right of the system.

[x4000]

I have a case of two ships being dragged back and forth between two points in a system. I can't see anything that could be causing it.

Thanks for the savegame there -- they were being held by a pair of EtherJet Tractor Mark IIIs.  However, those EtherJets were on another planet -- apparently the two ships of yours didn't get dragged through the wormhole properly with the EtherJet.  I've fixed this (in the upcoming prerelease) so that it will self-correct and pop the ships through to the other planet like it should have in the first place.  It might have had something to do with the engines being disabled on those ships or something, I'm not sure.  Thanks for posting the savegame!

[Admiral]

Something very minor but annoying: I would like to be able to press RETURN (ENTER) to exit the ship rename window, when in the ship text input box, please.

[x4000]

Something very minor but annoying: I would like to be able to press RETURN (ENTER) to exit the ship rename window, when in the ship text input box, please.

Ship rename window?  I'm not sure to what you are referring -- maybe the planet rename window?  For that one, it doesn't register Enter in that field because of the multi-line textbox below it.  Registering the Enter key for the planet name, but not the planet notes, seems inconsistent.

[Admiral]

I think someone else mentioned it

It was me, when a prior change made some other ships tractor-immune. I had suggested a 50-70% slow instead, and was shot down (wisely, in that case).

Cheers!

[x4000]

Ah, gotcha -- well, I'm glad this resurfaced as it did.  I like the idea of having higher-level tractor beams that can do this, so I'm glad your idea found implementation in some form.