Prerelease 1.014G (More economy boost, AI Wave boost, engineer tweaks)

[x4000]

The Latest prerelease is now out: http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1014G.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 1.013, so you have to already have 1.013 (or greater) installed. Just unzip it into your game folder (usually C:\Program Files\Arcen Games\AI War\ unless you specified something else). Please make sure that your unzip process keeps the folder structure from the zip file, rather than just unpacking all of the files into the base target directory.

What's new since 1.014F:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.013 are attached at the bottom)

-------------------

-The metal/crystal production of command stations (all varieties) has been very significantly increased, making those all quite worthwhile.

-The ongoing metal/crystal costs of warp jammer command stations have been increased a corresponding amount to the production of the other command stations.

-There is no longer a limit of 3 ships assisting any given constructor.  This lets players pile lots of engineers onto starship constructors, docks, etc, if they want to (and can afford the resource outflow).

-Engineers that are assigned to a constructor will now stay with it permanently until reassigned, even if the constructor's queue is presently empty.  This is consistent with older releases, but an improvement on recent releases.

-Engineer division of labor is now much better -- engineers now prefer to repair/assist targets that are being repaired/assisted by as few other engineers as possible.

-Instead of a confusing multiplier value being shown on incoming waves, the actual number of ships included is now shown.  This allows players to prepare to a much better degree.

-The incoming AI Waves are now 3X larger, which will make them more interesting as well as offsetting some of the increase in the amount of player resources.  The goal here is to continue to make the player feel powerful, but also to make the AI seem a lot more formidable on offense.

-There is now a lower bound under which the AI will never combine its ships.  This prevents early combining of ships on very small maps.

-The resource cap has now been doubled, so that players can now store 600,000 metal and crystal instead of the previous limit of 300,000.

[eRe4s3r]

Mhhh...

I have a really weird issue now

Crystal = 23000 (example)
-77/s = 171-177

Ehm, math is not my strongest, but thats wrong (and it is not actually -77/s because it moves down VERY slowly (like -7/s ,p)

This involves crystal to metal converters (9 of them) and the construction of a spaceship with 10 engineers

confused

Edit: Apparently the statistics are only wrong if you accelerate starships (ie, a flagship)

[darke]

Are orbital command stations supposed to have a reduction in efficiency now? I've never noticed it before. My 8 Home Planet ones are producing one less metal/crystal less each due to it.

[Darkreaver1980]

I just played against 2 AI 7. It was pretty easy so far, feels more like a tower defense game. Because i was never realy in danger, just at the waves but than you have time to prepare for it

i would suggest to enable "mini" crossattacks. The same as "An attack is forming at Planet xy" but a realy small version from it that happens more often and could be on every ai planet that has more than 50-100 ships. Currently i do not build any defenses before i get a wave message about an attack, because i am perfectly save. The AI was the tank+ Entrenched homeworldler. Both are more agressive type of AI and i never noticed it. Or how about starship waves? Same mechanis as the usuall waves but than you will get a message like: "Warning, starship detected. Arrival at planet xy in xy"



i love it that you can assign like 10 engineers to a starship constructor but somehow, the archanids (starship conter) are pretty weak...i took 2 planets at game start just with a single flagship (builded no other ships) and it also destroyed a tier 1 force field with just 2 shots (fast & furious mode) and i had a few (3-10) archanits spamming and blasted them away with 1-2 shots. At the end my starship still hat 95% hp left so i realy think these archanids need a heavy damage buff  

[Revenantus]

i would suggest to enable "mini" crossattacks. The same as "An attack is forming at Planet xy" but a realy small version from it that happens more often and could be on every ai planet that has more than 50-100 ships. Currently i do not build any defenses before i get a wave message about an attack, because i am perfectly save. The AI was the tank+ Entrenched homeworldler. Both are more agressive type of AI and i never noticed it.

I'm not certain what purpose these mini-cross-planet attacks would serve over the standard waves. I suggest that you use a modifier to up the number of AI waves if you want to be attacked more frequently.

Or how about starship waves? Same mechanis as the usuall waves but than you will get a message like: "Warning, starship detected. Arrival at planet xy in xy"

The AI already occasionally sends starships as a part of its waves, though the "Warning, Starship Detected" message would be handy - it's actually already been requested.

i love it that you can assign like 10 engineers to a starship constructor but somehow, the archanids (starship conter) are pretty weak...i took 2 planets at game start just with a single flagship (builded no other ships) and it also destroyed a tier 1 force field with just 2 shots (fast & furious mode) and i had a few (3-10) archanits spamming and blasted them away with 1-2 shots. At the end my starship still hat 95% hp left so i realy think these archanids need a heavy damage buff  

Starships seem to be having a bit of an identity crisis right now. Maybe they need further balancing then...

[darke]

A 50% damaged Leech starship managed to take over all my defensive turrets, along with the entirety of 300+ ships I had defending a world within the space of about 30 seconds, and only got reduced to 10% health.

It's possible starships need a little nerfing. >.> <.<

[Darkreaver1980]

A 50% damaged Leech starship managed to take over all my defensive turrets, along with the entirety of 300+ ships I had defending a world within the space of about 30 seconds, and only got reduced to 10% health.

It's possible starships need a little nerfing. >.> <.<

i agree, the damage is a bit over the top. But than, starships wont help that much in defense because the AI just ignores it  

i would say lower the damage by around 35% and it would be fine. I just played with revenantus and noticed that starships are actually a very high investment that wont help that much on defending  . you could get around 350 mark 1 ships for just one flagship + it costs alot of crystal which is allways running out in my games.

My fleet of 360 mark 1 ships did one shot kill a light starships with 375.000 hp, so for a flagship that would be around 8 shots to kill it. i dont think that starships have to much hp right now.


And please buff the Archanits! theyre suppossed to slaughter player starships and one does around 1-2% damage per shot on a flagship which is laughtable because the flagship fires one time back and trash them all. And make them faster than any starship so the players cant kite em around

Well done so far, it gets better with every new version

edit: could someone say me the reason why engineer wont assist ship docks anymore? it was so nice to have everything automated. It was on the lowest priority so they did the important stuff first

[x4000]

Are orbital command stations supposed to have a reduction in efficiency now? I've never noticed it before. My 8 Home Planet ones are producing one less metal/crystal less each due to it.

Anything can have a reduction in efficiency, but it's supposed to be the lowest-producing ships at the time.  I guess if you have that many home planet ones, that's what is causing some of them  to produce less.

[x4000]

The waves used to be more fearsome, like they are now.  I really like that feeling more, it keeps me more on my toes while still leaving players the "tempo" to be able to go out and attack more, etc.

The idea behind the infrequency of waves is to keep players from having to be constantly on the defense.  There needs to be ample time for them to go out and attack, etc.  You can use the AI modifier to adjust this 2x if you want, like Rev said, or you can play against higher-level AIs, which do more frequent attacks.  Also:  there is a wide variance in when the AI will attack you, and sometimes this is going to be sooner-but-fewer-ships, and other times it will be slower-but-more-ships.

As for the starship balance, I've opened a new topic here:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,745.0.html  Feel free to add comments.   I'm probably going to be off the boards most of today until later tonight, though (EST).  Glad this is moving in the right direction, anyway!

[Admiral]

I played this for about two hours last night on an 80-planet world with 7.3 and 7.6 AIs (Moderate and Easier random, respectively). I started with Parasites as usual.

I felt the game was pretty good for those two hours. I liked the increased frequency of cross-planet attacks, but that might have been due to having a Special Forces Station on a Mk III world adjacent to my homeworld.

I liked the flow-based economics. A lot. Well done.

I would like to be able to place a structure for which I don't currently have the metal or crystal, and have it build at its normal place or whatever reduced pace is allowed by the availability of materiel.

I like the unlimited engineers on a spacedock. I put like eight Eng I on my starting dock and never built another one; it was cranking out Mk III ships in a few seconds and lower ones in a second or two. In fact, it produces so fast that the switching between switch types now (again) causes a noticeable reduction in production efficiency, or it's just a graphical UI artifact if that is not the case.

I attacked a world which had two Raid Starships attack my small fleet shortly after establishing the wormhole beachhead. They were very strong alone (unaccompanied by smaller ships). I had to retreat my (Mk II) parasites to keep enough of them alive for later re-use while the cruisers, fighters and bombers finished them off - slowly. I liked the power of the starship relative to a fleet of about 60-80 or so of my Mk I ships. I felt it was reasonable.

The tab-based options and starting game were great.

I think a single-keypress "generate new map" button would be a big help in finding a universe to play in. Four would be useful: new random map, next map up, next map down, previous random map (keep a queue of, say, the last N with N > 0, like a browser history). I suggest using the arrow keys. This way you can scroll through the maps as fast as your machine can generate them. Additionally, having a "favorites" list of seeds would be nice; hit Control-F to favorite something, and then hit F to loop through all your favorites. These could be computer-wide or tied to your profile (like your name and color).

[x4000]

New version is now up:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,782

Hope the Parasite changes don't bug you too ridiculously much Admiral, but I think the general idea is for the best.  Will be interested in seeing what you think, though.

Glad you are liking the new stuff from G better, I meant to respond to this earlier but missed it.  I think your other specific requests and notes have already been responded to elsewhere, so I'll leave it at that for now (I need sleep -- talk to you tomorrow).