Prerelease 1.014J (Flow-based econ, engr tweaks, gfx updates, wave increases)

[Oewyn]

It's easy to take out the waves of 1000+ ships if they just run around in small groups and keep raiding resources, but if they stay grouped and go straight for command stations, you're pretty much screwed.

Obviously force fields will defend the command station, but they do nothing against infiltrators, and not much to bombers.

The most difficult thing is that by the time i finish off a wave, often, another one appears within a few minutes.  I never have enough time to actually attack a planet as you are constantly fighting to keep your planets clear of enemies.(when i did attack, a wave would come at an inopportune time and i wouldn't have enough time to fly my fleet back, or even scrap my fleet and rebuild it at the attacked planet)  Of course you can always just set a bunch of ships on FRD mode and hope for the best, but against faster ships, they almost never encounter the enemy. 

If the game could be won by just defending, the wave size would probably be fine, but since you have to attack into the heart of the enemy forces and take out their home planets...

If waves happened less frequently, like once an hour, and we had say 5-10 minutes warning before the waves arrive then this wave strength might be feasible.  As it is right now, we would often get only 2 minutes to prepare, which usually involves building as many counter-ships at that planet as possible and building turrets to cap at that wormhole.

[Haagenti]

Sometimes a Warp Jammer works, though it is expensive. With the added resources in patch 14 it may be useful to temporarily ensure that all raids concentrate on only one planet/wormhole so you can overbuild the defenses there.

[Konami]

Haha well what a horrible death that was, for the first time too but didn't mind. Greatly impressed by how much this has improved. I think my game went pear shaped because I was continuing from an old mid game save and wasn't quite prepared for what came, usually when I update I start a new game.

[liq3]

Ok, this is really bothering me.

Basically, since the waves are 8x now (for me, always 500 or 800 units), I'm finding 3 problems in my 4 hour game.

1. Base defense are completely useless. You need 160 Tech I tractors or  66 Tech II to capture just 800, and without overkill in tractors they'll break through anyway.
2. Due to the above, I HAVE to station around 50-100 units and some starships to destroy the waves. I'm lucky they only come in on 2 planets...
3. I'm finding Exo-shields extremely extremely effective (i.e, I'd probably have lost several planets, over and over, without them). I think this is mostly just luck on my part with not getting anti-shield waves (haven't gotten a single anti-shield wave yet).

Base defense need to buffed conisderably (and increase the cost? wouldn't bother me, I'm sittin' on 600,000 metal and crystal atm, with 7 planets).

Only way I could see base def have any chance against waves atm (i.e. actually stopping them at the wormhole), is shoving every single turret I can build around one wormhole, and even then I doubt it'd stop it (my 10-12 turrets + 3 tractor beams just get eaten alive by the parasites).

PS. The waves themselves are incredibly easy. 50-100 units + some starships easily take out every wave due the fact they get stalled on my Exo-shields. <3

[x4000]

Changes are coming... I'll post details in the release notes of the next release.  But, generally speaking, most of the suggestions here have been taken, and I read them all.  Will post more in a while, this next prerelease is going to be really huge (with no less than 12 new ships in it, for one thing, amongst other changes).

[eRe4s3r]

I wouldn't mind turrets being given a 8x Attack power boost either - and Tractors at least a 4x times increase in what they can "lock"

By the way - i know i said turret balance is fine, but that was before i tried with 8x waves - those waves just WAY outclass the turrets - the FIRST wave of a DIF5 +100% Ai was 230 Parasites - 230!!

[x4000]

New version:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,820.msg4822.html#msg4822

Sorry I have not been commenting more today, and/or have been leaving briefer comments.  I just need to spend more time on code instead of talking for a bit, or my todo list is never going to get any smaller.  There were lots of other very important things that I wanted to get in the K release, like the fix to that one crash bug, but there just was not time.  Hopefully all of those can get in L (later tonight), but of course a whole raft of other important things will come up between now and then.