Prerelease 3.177 (Knowledge Changes, Civilians, 3 Home Planet Outposts)

[keith.lamothe]

Spider turrets are extremely effective for that, yes.  They don't do much for starship-heavy attacks, though.  So it kind of depends on what options you have on.

[triggerman602]

A few starships aren't a big deal to kill with the main fleet incapacitated.

[keith.lamothe]

Tried hybrids yet?

[carlosjuero]

Tried hybrids yet?

I can almost hear the evil chuckle accompanying that post...

[Ozymandiaz]

Tested a new start now, the new home system setup I like

Won't impact my strategy too much (I usually capture all adjacent system for good measure), but makes a nice tactical twist (more realistic, since you are fighting for humanity after all, flavor ftw)and gives a nice resource bonus as well.

[carlosjuero]

I have been doing some testing on a new game (60 planets [Simple map], Tank/Entrenched Homeworlder [Moderate], Lvl 6 AI, Teleporting Battlestation start ship, No Astro trains/mines, Complex Ships) and so far the resource boost the new layout gives helps me build my defenses up a bit quicker (especially the power boost). Haven't had a concerted attack against my home system yet (I have yet to poke either of the two MK IV worlds near my home world - working my way through the lower level worlds) and I am sure that I will find my strategy tested through and through when that happens.

I can see now, though, problems when homeworlds just happen to be situated with an Exo-Galaxy Wormhole (like my current epic 20hr+ game) - those allow waves to start right in your home system and require extra defenses there.

[x4000]

That's a good point, the exo-galaxy wormholes just got a lot harder (the backdoor hackers in general).  But, glad it's looking good in general so far!

[x4000]

New version: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6630.0.html

[3dfx]

Ah,new version...but i didn't see something important in the bug fix -

I'm now in 14h of my campaing,and the farther i go (i have 2/3 of all planets),the more AI ships are scattered around the planet...what i mean is that there are 20-50 ships on these planets that have gone "out of range" in the slow moving zone....and on the planet i just took,there are over 300 ships in this zone !

I dont know if this is a bug,but i have never seen this before,thats why i post.BTW, the ships are VERY far away...it will take them more than 5+ hours to get to the normal pocket around the planet.

[keith.lamothe]

Yes, that one was fixed in 3.178, but thanks for checking   Those ships will still be there in your save, but the behavior that got them all the way out there won't happen again.

[Kjara]

Even though there is a new version out I'll post it here since its mainly concerned with the changes in this version. 

There's really no incentive not to scrap or at least not defend the "military" outpost on your homeworld, as everything there is replaceable and in fact you probably won't use most of it for the first hour of the game (which also allows you to turn off the mkIII plant for a while and have even more resources for the initial buildup).  If you want to encourage players to keep it, a few unique buildings, possibly ones with an ai progress cost or a nice bonus of some sort for the player are probably necessary, otherwise the cost to replace the buildings when you need them is generally much lower than the opportunity cost of having to defend a 3rd grouping.

Perhaps even just mixing the current two groupings so each has some of the civilian buildings and some of the more traditional would be enough?

[x4000]

Even though there is a new version out I'll post it here since its mainly concerned with the changes in this version. 

There's really no incentive not to scrap or at least not defend the "military" outpost on your homeworld, as everything there is replaceable and in fact you probably won't use most of it for the first hour of the game (which also allows you to turn off the mkIII plant for a while and have even more resources for the initial buildup).  If you want to encourage players to keep it, a few unique buildings, possibly ones with an ai progress cost or a nice bonus of some sort for the player are probably necessary, otherwise the cost to replace the buildings when you need them is generally much lower than the opportunity cost of having to defend a 3rd grouping.

Perhaps even just mixing the current two groupings so each has some of the civilian buildings and some of the more traditional would be enough?

It's a very good point -- and basically comes down to the fact that I'm not quite done with the new outposts yet.   But yeah, I was aware of that, and the situation should be considered temporary.  Thanks!