Author Topic: Prerelease 3.097 (Perf+, ff bearers+, resistance fight fixes, golem pausability)  (Read 11183 times)

Offline WinterBorn

  • Full Member Mark II
  • ***
  • Posts: 181
The technique also ties up a significant # of your llimited FF cap in one place. ;)

Maybe it's worth it just to take a stand one way or another?  Like, perhaps forcefield boxing shouldn't be intended?  I mean blocking warps with forcefields makes sense, but I get the impression that literally boxing in warps isn't really intended usage.  Stuff like gravity turrets should probably be used if you want to block an AI from leaving a portal quickly (although the two-sided-ness of gravity turrets and the boost train problems kind of limits their intended usage).

I think it has its place, strategy-wise. It's the most absolute way to stop enemy forces at the wormhole, but it's also the most expensive and risky, as one FF failing takes the whole system down.



Offline keith.lamothe

  • Arcen Games Staff
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 19,505
I'm interested to know what Chris thinks re:ff-boxing, but I think it's a valid-but-inefficient use of the very limited ff-gen ship caps.  Of course, in a multiplayer or multi-homeworld game it's a bit more doable, and Riots provide some ability to do this though the starship-mounted generators won't hold up to a serious bombardment.  

From a code perspective there's some non-trivial geometry to make sure that a unit blocked by multiple ffs during movement (of it or the ff) is placed back in a point that doesn't intersect with any of the ffs involved.  Even with that fixed up, I intend to leave it where if you "ram" boxed in units with a moving ff such that they literally have nowhere to go, they're probably going to pop out outside the ff network.

It seems like it would be a lot more efficient to put the ffs on the other side of the wormhole, stacked as closely to it as possible, with tractors and whatnot under it and whatever fly-swatting units nearby (one advantage of using Riots is that they don't apply the 75% damage reduction to units under their shields, so they can cover the attacking-turrets).  Of course, this only works if you've got the system on the other side of the wormhole suitably under control that the AI won't constantly assault it.
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 WinterBorn

  • Full Member Mark II
  • ***
  • Posts: 181
Never used the technique my self but more than one post has mentioned catching a mass of ships then detonating a lightning warhead in their midst -- good for cpa's or sundenly liberated AI planets with thousands of ships coming at you in a mob.
« Last Edit: April 18, 2010, 02:54:36 am by waveman55 »

Offline FrostyThePyro

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 124
to be honest first time i used the FF block thing was an accident, I had my riots lined up behind my fleet ready to take a couple thousand ships from a recently de-comand posted enemy position, and they went right into the riots and were funeled between their sheilds, so i moved one to block the funnel.  Made me wish i had a splash damage ship.

Offline keith.lamothe

  • Arcen Games Staff
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 19,505
Yea, using ffs and riots to shape enemy formations is a great thing :)  Actually breaking the pathfinding graph is a bit different, though seems like it should still be supported.
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 superking

  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,205
a waste? surely there is no more efficent way of clearing out a world with 2k ships in than abusing the forcefield trap.

put all your MKIII forcefields on your side of the wormhole, and your entire fleet within or if posible on the other side of forcefields
fill the unshielded middle with lightning turrets
agro the horde
watch 2000 ships die for absolutely minimal losses
repair shield gens
repeat

Offline Draxis

  • Jr. Member Mark III
  • **
  • Posts: 95
Has this release broken the 'Engineers Prefer Non-Military' node?  When it was first introduced, my engineers didn't repair military unless there was nothing else to do in the entire system (which was fantastic).  Now, the node doesnt seem to do too much, my engineers are spending a lot of time repairing military

Offline keith.lamothe

  • Arcen Games Staff
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 19,505
Hmm, it shouldn't have done broken that node.  Thanks, will take a look.
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 keith.lamothe

  • Arcen Games Staff
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 19,505
FDR seems to be working good again. 
For a dead president, that guy sure puts in a lot of hours in AI War ;)

Quote
Melee ships seem to be having a hard time being effective since the recent targeting changes though.
You've mentioned this before, I believe.  In response to earlier complaints I changed how aggregating handles melee ships (they do aggregate, but it "rolls" the source target list by 1 each time its copied, so they spread out across targets much better).  What specifically do they do wrong now?  A save for unit testing would be great, as well.  We'll get it sorted out :)
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 Doddler

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 287

Quote
Melee ships seem to be having a hard time being effective since the recent targeting changes though.
You've mentioned this before, I believe.  In response to earlier complaints I changed how aggregating handles melee ships (they do aggregate, but it "rolls" the source target list by 1 each time its copied, so they spread out across targets much better).  What specifically do they do wrong now?  A save for unit testing would be great, as well.  We'll get it sorted out :)

Melee units do a bunch of strange things really.  First and most glaringly, when melee units come into your systems in a large group, usually they'll just sit there, even if you shoot at them, until you come close to them (I think it's related to their seek radius).  I can probably easily find a save for this behavior, it happens almost every time a cross planet wave of cutlasses or viral shredders appears, which is common when you play on cross planet waves.  :)

Otherwise, they just seem to do kind of odd things that makes them really inefficient.  Cutlasses love fighters, which is odd cause they can't actually hurt fighters, or catch up to fighters.  These 300 cutlasses fly directly over my fleet of 200 frigates, which the cutlasses I'm sure could wreck in an instant, but don't attack them because I'm microing the fighter they so desire.  In other cases groups of melee ships will seemingly become indecisive and start shifting about in two different directions.  In another incident I was watching some cutlasses attacking my ships, and watched as a single cutlass would attack one ship, fly a fair distance, hit another ship once, and then repeat until it died.

I dunno, they just don't seem to be very efficient.  They should be like "dude, I'm in attack range of an enemy ship, its slicing time" instead of focusing on idividual targets.  Well they still can but if someone is close enough to cut up they should probably take the opportunity.

Offline keith.lamothe

  • Arcen Games Staff
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 19,505
Hmm, yea, I might need to sit down and have a talk with their autotargeting/automating code, like I did with engine-damage-focused units a while ago.
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 Draxis

  • Jr. Member Mark III
  • **
  • Posts: 95
Is it intended that kills by beam weapons do not reclaim units tagged by leach starships?  The units were not at cap, had been shot at by the leech, but were not being reclaimed until we turned off the beam frigates and cannons.

Offline keith.lamothe

  • Arcen Games Staff
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 19,505
Not intended, no, but I realize now that that "death branch" of the code lacks the special logic for reclamation; can fix.
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 WinterBorn

  • Full Member Mark II
  • ***
  • Posts: 181
Has this release broken the 'Engineers Prefer Non-Military' node?  When it was first introduced, my engineers didn't repair military unless there was nothing else to do in the entire system (which was fantastic).  Now, the node doesnt seem to do too much, my engineers are spending a lot of time repairing military

Is the stuff you want them to fix asross the system from their anchor point?
Do you have the 80k FRD limit node built?

I've had engineers stationed at one end of the system ignore broken stuff on the other side of the system until I reset their anchor point closer to the center of the system.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!