Prerelease/Expans 2.001R (Core Fabricators, Zenith Power Gens, Font+)

[eRe4s3r]

I think he means that these should also build core ships of things you have researched MK3 of. But i would digress, these core fabricators are already pretty powerful and owning one ! just one ! is game deciding (if you are lucky ,p)

[I-KP]

Cheers for the explanations, Chris.  Having a world with over 5000 ships near by and leaving it alone just feels very 'wrong' somehow.  My inner grognard is crying out to set up DMZs but I see I'm going to have to be more aggressive in suppressing that urge for AI War. 
 

[eRe4s3r]

Hehe, yeah with neutering you can prevent those 5000 ship worlds from appearing, and neuter IV and III worlds at all times 

A DMZ doesn't really work though, best is to just neuter everything around you (everything that is at alert, basically) and keep progression as low as possible

Don't leave III worlds on alert un-neutered

a 6 raid starship attack can neuter ALL worlds with ease - the upside is that through this you get a lot of anti-starship ships appearing on the AI worlds, which when you attack with your real fleet are totally easy to wipe out

[I-KP]

I seem to remember someone saying that Raid starships weren't overpowered, and someone else saying that this game is meant to be more about there never being only one way to skin a Meerkat...
 

Honestly, these Raid starships in the hands of a Human walk all over this game.

[eRe4s3r]

At least until the AI catches up with anti starship ships On dif 8 this happens very quickly

And with very i mean "fairly" quickly... 

[I-KP]

True, but it takes a while and even so the Raids never really have a hard time of it - mildly concerning at worst.

I haven't yet played a game where the Raid battlegroup doesn't rampage around like a mad Ogre in a Smurf factory.  It's carnage.

[eRe4s3r]

Yeah.. imo those anti starship ships need to get more power against starships especially raid/leech - the player should have at least a reason to avoid them...

atm you can plow through everything with 6 raid ships but its not all epic win, your scout starships become essentially useless if the AI counters with anti-starship ships..

[I-KP]

That's the thing isn't it: if by boosting the effectiveness of the Arachnids you make all the other starships effectively butter then the issue isn't with the Arachnids it's with the Raids.  For the role that they are supposed to occupy (I think) they should be fast, hard-hitting and fairly fragile if they get caught in a but of a melee - not cheap, early and tougher than a coffin nail as they are now.

[eRe4s3r]

But i like my raids  

I do agree though that they have a lot of HP

And scout starships should have a lot more HP 80k is nothing but the raid ship has 1300000 as opposed to the scoutships 80000

So yeah.. might need some adjustments

[I-KP]

I can tell!   

[AcidWeb]

OK. I tested this prerelease on WINE.

Works much better than .NET 3.5. But still unplayable.
Main menu and all other like main menu (GDI?) flicker. Font look... strange   Campaign and game loading crash game.

But in window mode tutorial works(!), without any flickering, speed extractly like Windows. I completed two first tutorial without problem.

I will try MONO but I think that SlimDX will not work.
Stay tuned ;]

[x4000]

Yeah, Raid Starships have been on my likely-to-be-nerfed list for a while now.  Look for changes with them in today's upcoming prerelease.  There will be some moaning from some quarters, as happens when any overpowered favorite is brought into line, but it should serve the integrity of the game well, which in the end is good for everyone.

[x4000]

OK. I tested this prerelease on WINE.

Works much better than .NET 3.5. But still unplayable.
Main menu and all other like main menu (GDI?) flicker. Font looks... strange   Campaign and game loading crash game.

But in window mode tutorial works(!), without any flickering, speed extractly like Windows. I completed two first tutorial without problem.

I will try MONO but I think that SlimDX will not work.

Well, that is certainly progress, at least!  That's exciting!

[Lancefighter]

sorry for the rather delayed response, but yes; The general idea of an advanced factory is that you can build a mark 4 ship that you can build a mark 3 of -> if you can build mark 3 fighters, you can use an adv factory to build mark 4 fighters. I can only assume that a core factory would follow similar constraints.. after all, who would want to build core autocannon minipods if they dont even have minipod mark2?

I guess what I am saying is that the player should have some say in how useful the fabricator is. I'm assuming that most people wont tech up mark 3 of a ship they dislike or never use, so the core fabricator in this case would be more useful.

However, you then run into multiple people issues; should the core fabricator always produce the same type for everyone, depending on who captured the planet? Or should the core fabricator choose a core unit for each player (when captured), and stick with that unit type per player for the rest of the game?


i guess what it comes down to; I would rather have a say in what the fabricator is useful for.. (see minipods above)

[x4000]

sorry for the rather delayed response, but yes; The general idea of an advanced factory is that you can build a mark 4 ship that you can build a mark 3 of -> if you can build mark 3 fighters, you can use an adv factory to build mark 4 fighters. I can only assume that a core factory would follow similar constraints.. after all, who would want to build core autocannon minipods if they dont even have minipod mark2?

I guess what I am saying is that the player should have some say in how useful the fabricator is. I'm assuming that most people wont tech up mark 3 of a ship they dislike or never use, so the core fabricator in this case would be more useful.

However, you then run into multiple people issues; should the core fabricator always produce the same type for everyone, depending on who captured the planet? Or should the core fabricator choose a core unit for each player (when captured), and stick with that unit type per player for the rest of the game?


i guess what it comes down to; I would rather have a say in what the fabricator is useful for.. (see minipods above)

Oh, I see where you're coming from now.  Don't worry, the Core Fabricators work completely differently from Advanced Factories.  You as the player don't get to choose what kind of ship a Core Fabricator can build -- and that specific fabricator can only build a single type, period, no matter how many core fabricators you have (so if you have one that can build core drones and another that can build core mirrors, each one can build the type it started with, but not anything else -- the drones one only makes more drones, the mirror one only makes more mirrors).

However, also unlike Advanced Factories, you don't have to unlock any techs whatsoever for the Core Fabricators.  So if you capture a Core Armor Ship Fabricator, for instance, and you don't even have armor ships normally and/or have not unlocked any Armor Ship related techs, it doesn't matter -- you still have access to Mark V armor ships from that one fabricator, as long as you control the fabricator.

You don't get to choose what kind of ship a fabricator produces, but you can tell beforehand what it will produce by hovering over it when you have visibility into that planet.  So if it's not something you want, just don't capture the planet after all, that sort of thing.  Hope that makes sense!