Prerelease 3.091 (Golem buffs, efficiency improvements, square formation move)

[Spikey00]

This thread has turned gold.  This should go into the AI War museum.

[keith.lamothe]

As an aside: Is that a Superfortress sprite shown rotating?  Looks a bit odd.  It was drawn to slide around without rotating like the regular fortresses do. 

As you were.

I used the Superfortress graphics for the Avenger, with the intent that it would be replaced with something unique.  I hadn't realized that I'd changed it from non-rotating to rotating.  One doesn't tend to notice the aesthetics of the thing, too busy getting blasted by large numbers of beams.

[Doddler]

Superfortress and Avenger have always slowly spun haven't they?  I never really saw the problem.

[Kalzarius]

10k ships after:

Now if only we could define a rectangle of where mines and other stationary units would be placed so we could do this for minefields and turrets at gates.  You'd click and drag and see 'oh, 3x3, that's all I want' and blam, 9 units in a perfect grid as tightly packed as possible.  That would make my day.

[madpinger]

Borg Cubes....

Interesting.

[keith.lamothe]

Now if only we could define a rectangle of where mines and other stationary units would be placed so we could do this for minefields and turrets at gates.  You'd click and drag and see 'oh, 3x3, that's all I want' and blam, 9 units in a perfect grid as tightly packed as possible.  That would make my day.

And mine (no pun intended).  That sort of "shape mode" for ship placement is planned along-side shape-move, it's just going to take some significant UI work and time's been pretty crunched lately.

Edit: by the way, the current square move isn't as tightly packed as possible, stuff is spaced out to be 4 * the average collision-radius apart, iirc.  That can be tightened up, particularly for stationary stuff, as the main reason here is to reduce secondary collision checks that would tank cpu back down.

[eRe4s3r]

On the subject of golems, i think they are still a 0-return investment - too high AIP cost for too little useful uses. Even with higher HP they can not dish out damage thats even remotely equal to 5 fortresses. (which are FAR cheaper and faster to build on frontlines or even direct in battle)

i suggest something i haven't seen suggested before, which i think would make everyone use golems no matter the AIP cost.

Give golems the ability to interfere with AI world reinforcement as long as that world is within your supply and as long as the golem is on that planet - yes, including core worlds. - (exception that building that catapults reinforcements to adjacent worlds) - Not with warp attacks/raids, just with the actual reinforcement (spawning around guard posts/wormholes).

This would give players a *real* reason to repair them and bring them with their attack, and use them strategically (AI should still go for the golem with priority)

Thoughts?

Alternatively, this could be a timer or even damage the golems over time - or a buildable feature only buildable by golems... well many ways ;p

Game runs much better with .91 though, so kudos for that.

Edit: I wasn't sure whether to post this in "rant on golems" or here, since both topics talk about Golems. Or in Suggestions.

[x4000]

New version: http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,4643.msg31566.html#msg31566

Went a new way with the golems, we'll see what people think now.

[Kalzarius]

Now if only we could define a rectangle of where mines and other stationary units would be placed so we could do this for minefields and turrets at gates.  You'd click and drag and see 'oh, 3x3, that's all I want' and blam, 9 units in a perfect grid as tightly packed as possible.  That would make my day.

And mine (no pun intended).  That sort of "shape mode" for ship placement is planned along-side shape-move, it's just going to take some significant UI work and time's been pretty crunched lately.

Edit: by the way, the current square move isn't as tightly packed as possible, stuff is spaced out to be 4 * the average collision-radius apart, iirc.  That can be tightened up, particularly for stationary stuff, as the main reason here is to reduce secondary collision checks that would tank cpu back down.

Awesome. I look forward to it.