Author Topic: Prerelease 1.011O (Forcefield Tweaks, More Upper-Level Difficulty Tiers)  (Read 12335 times)

Offline x4000

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Bug?: The "munitions booster" lines for starships are also drawn when the thing it's targeting is cloaked.

That's presently by design... though whether or not it should be is perhaps debatable.
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Offline x4000

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Encountered a new bug- playing on a LAN with two people, one person consistently doesn't get teamed with the others. They show as hostile, can be attacked, the whole nine yards.

We're running 1.011I, do you need any other info?

Hi bbcisdabomb,

Welcome to the forums!  If you could post your savegame, that might help, but I'll take a look at this and put in some checks that should fix this in either case.  That's a very strange issue, I have to say -- I've not heard of that one before, and lots of people play multiplayer.  I wonder what is different in this case.
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Offline Revenantus

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Perhaps cloaked ships shouldn't be able to have their munitions boosted?

It could make thematic sense that the munitions booster simply can't interact with the cloaked ship for lack of information regarding its actions?

EDIT: They can't fire whilst cloaked anyway. Seems like the line only serves the purpose of identifying the location of cloaked ships.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2009, 09:34:42 am by Revenantus »

Offline darke

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-Electric shuttles, lightning turrets, and lightning/armored missiles are no longer immune to force fields.

I've found this rather nerfs lightning missiles to being almost useless, since one of the main uses I found for them is to take out a stack of ships underneath a forcefield that was otherwise impossible to destroy due to the defenses underneath them rather slaughtering your bombers. :(

It also eliminates a lot of my usage of them as well in relation to starships. Since the only time I use them against starships is when they're "undisturbed", and often (due to playing against serious turtling AIs), they're under forcefields as well. I find the range of the missile is too small to attack them reliably when they're moving, since the cost of a single missile is not worth damaging only a single ship, which is often the case when you target the ship directly (since it tends to explode when it's just moved into range, rather then being over the top of a bunch of them).

Also I'm not sure where it leaves the Armoured Missile too. I only use it at the moment to disturb ships so I can empty some of the ships out of a particularly heavy system. Though previously (before they cost +40 AI to detonate), I've used them to remove particularly annoying things, like cloaking devices in Tech IV planets, particularly obnoxious Ion Cannons (under forcefields of course), and that sort of thing. Given it's damage is the same as a lightning missile, yet it's cost is 20x that it doesn't seem to have much of a use.

If you're worried about people using it to take out AI Data centers, just double the data center's health and knock the missile down to +10 or something so that it takes two to take one down, so the cost balances out, unless the player is lucky and there's two close together. :)


Offline Haagenti

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I've found this rather nerfs lightning missiles to being almost useless, since one of the main uses I found for them is to take out a stack of ships underneath a forcefield that was otherwise impossible to destroy due to the defenses underneath them rather slaughtering your bombers. :(

If you have enough time, a large bunch of cruisers (preferably with munitions support and/or starships) will take out a forcefield as well (from a safe range). The more and higher the cruisers, the better
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Offline darke

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I've found this rather nerfs lightning missiles to being almost useless, since one of the main uses I found for them is to take out a stack of ships underneath a forcefield that was otherwise impossible to destroy due to the defenses underneath them rather slaughtering your bombers. :(

If you have enough time, a large bunch of cruisers (preferably with munitions support and/or starships) will take out a forcefield as well (from a safe range). The more and higher the cruisers, the better

Yeah, I used to use them that way for particularly problematic forcefields like that before I started to use Lightning Missiles on them. I still use them to take out Fortresses that way too, though it seems a particularly cheap and unthematic tactic. :)

Speaking of which, when all the other turrets were buffed significantly, did Fortresses get a boost as well? I have no idea since I've never used them due to research expense. :)

Offline x4000

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Okay, in the next version the lightning missiles and armored missiles will be restored to their former glory. :)

Also, Forts did not get a buff, but I've made a note to go back and look at them again.
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Offline CautiousChaos

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Oooohh, I didn't read this carefully enough, but making lightening missiles ineffective against forcefields does change how and if I would use them in the future.  I had been using them to quell the resistance beneath the forcefield.  I suppose I can live with this now and use them to take out portions of an enemy fleet instead.  Kind of concerned with the latter approach though because enemy fleets tend to be distributed and there's the +2 AI counter cost.  Just something I'll have to keep in mind!

Offline x4000

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Perhaps cloaked ships shouldn't be able to have their munitions boosted?

It could make thematic sense that the munitions booster simply can't interact with the cloaked ship for lack of information regarding its actions?

EDIT: They can't fire whilst cloaked anyway. Seems like the line only serves the purpose of identifying the location of cloaked ships.

Very good points.  Will be in the next version.
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Offline darke

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Okay, in the next version the lightning missiles and armored missiles will be restored to their former glory. :)

Yay! :)

Also, Forts did not get a buff, but I've made a note to go back and look at them again.

Also might want to check the Fortress Baron AI's are actually tossing down appropriate numbers of fortresses. I started a game with two of them and of the first 10 planets explored I had a total of 0 fortresses and 0 super fortresses. :) Two of these planets with IV, and two of them were III, so I figured at least one of them would have something.

Restarted the same map with the entire map visible and poked around and it looks like there's really no more fortresses then the usual game, just a handful more super fortresses. Also for some reason on the galaxy map, even with "I know everything" turned on, it doesn't show the stats when you mouse over a planet, you have to click on it to see what's in there. Seems a bit fiddly. :)

I really think if it's going to be named that, I really should be tripping over at least one Fortress on at least on all non-adjacent-to-start-world worlds since pretty much every other "named for a ship type" AI works that way. :)


Offline x4000

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Restarted the same map with the entire map visible and poked around and it looks like there's really no more fortresses then the usual game, just a handful more super fortresses. Also for some reason on the galaxy map, even with "I know everything" turned on, it doesn't show the stats when you mouse over a planet, you have to click on it to see what's in there. Seems a bit fiddly. :)

Yeah... I've waffled back and forth on this, but I think you're right.  I'll make it so the intel summaries work even without scouting in this mode.

I really think if it's going to be named that, I really should be tripping over at least one Fortress on at least on all non-adjacent-to-start-world worlds since pretty much every other "named for a ship type" AI works that way. :)

Good point.  Added to my list.
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Offline x4000

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Encountered a new bug- playing on a LAN with two people, one person consistently doesn't get teamed with the others. They show as hostile, can be attacked, the whole nine yards.

We're running 1.011I, do you need any other info?

Hi bbcisdabomb,

Welcome to the forums!  If you could post your savegame, that might help, but I'll take a look at this and put in some checks that should fix this in either case.  That's a very strange issue, I have to say -- I've not heard of that one before, and lots of people play multiplayer.  I wonder what is different in this case.

Okay, I found this -- apparently, if you were playing the tutorials and then started a multiplayer game without restarting the program, it would do this.  Who knew!  I've got a fix for this in the next version, but it won't retroactively fix your other game.  I suspect you'll want to restart if you aren't far in there, anyway, since your opponent will be a bit off.  Or, if you want to post your savegame, I can fix it for you and give it back with you both on the same team.  Either way is good with me.  Great catch!
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
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Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!