Private alpha of Vengeance expansion has started

[doctorfrog]

Oh yeah the holes are super cool, I do really like the broken honeycomb maps.
I'll keep investigating my game when I get the chance and we'll see if there are any trapped wormholes. I honestly really like dealing with those rather than using my zombards to snipe mines around the command stations.

As someone who avoids the "neat-n-tidy" maps, the more messed up the honeycomb, the more I like it, as long as it still scans. Heck, make a random number of holes in between 0-6 or so, make me roll for my busted maps, make others roll for their perfect maps. Or have two generators.

Related mantis asking for a more organic look to the "neat-n-tidy" maps: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=5170

While I'm at it, here's a peripherally related mantis asking for widescreen versions of the circular map types: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=5169

[LaughingThesaurus]

Yeah I think I was just making stuff up. I'm trying too hard to find problems when in reality arcen games just releases really stable things that are hard to test as a result.

[Tridus]

I'm not sure if anything's changed, or if my memory is just faulty here... but I'm finding it a lot harder to defend Fallen Spire chases than I used to. Trying to do one now on the shard that lets you build the first Spire City after you recover it, and the AI is sending crazy stuff at me, including all kinds of Core stuff. Defending it is going poorly. Maybe I need to take more planets so I can field a larger force, I'm not sure, but I don't recall getting pushed back this hard in the past. Maybe the AI is just being smarter with how it's doing things now.

This is before building the first city mind you, it's just the chase.

[keith.lamothe]

I'm not sure if anything's changed, or if my memory is just faulty here... but I'm finding it a lot harder to defend Fallen Spire chases than I used to.

They did get some adjustment since 6.0, but nothing terribly recent iirc, except on higher difficulties.  Is this 8/8 or above?

The AI's increased responsiveness may be hurting to some degree, but I believe the "galaxy-wide-chase" logic they use was already pretty efficient before because it was so focused.

[ZaneWolfe]

The new Exotic AI is so far my favorite among them, (admittedly I've only gotten to test 3 so far) but I find that the complete and total lack of warning before those Exo waves is VERY discouraging. My test run had my ships just 3 jumps from my HW, which I had turned into a fortress of death and carnage, so I figured it was ok to start striking back into AI space and clearing out worlds. Next thing I know a ping goes off, "The AI has launched an Exo Wave" (which was so quiet I didn't even notice the ping) and then 30 seconds later I hear that my HW is under attack, and there is a Exo force right there on my HW, complete with a FREAKING H/K! My starship fleet was too far away to even pretend it could help, and the fleetships were off in the boonies having cleared up a CA Post strike. That exo force tore through my MKIII FF and Hardened FF, a Superfortress, and a Human Mod fort. All while they were being debuffed from a P-Inhib, a MKII Radar Jammer, and I had the P-Booster helping me out. I also had MKIII Military and MKIII Logistics unlocked.

While I don't feel that the exo force itself was too powerful over all (I was at AIP 250 or so) I do feel that the complete lack of warning before suddenly a Exo spawns right next to my HW and kicks my face in is a tad over the top. Maybe give us a bit of a warning? No more than 2-3 minutes though. Since its replacing a wave, it should have no more warning than a normal wave

[Faulty Logic]

Having dual AIs seems to massively increase the number of waves. I got 5 in the first 40 minutes of play (usually get 2 or 3 in that time).

Does each sub-AI get its own waves?

[keith.lamothe]

Having dual AIs seems to massively increase the number of waves. I got 5 in the first 40 minutes of play (usually get 2 or 3 in that time).

Does each sub-AI get its own waves?

No, the dual-AI gets waves as a whole, not each sub part individually.  Sounds odd, because I had not intentionally modified wave intervals (iirc).

Can you run a quick test on a similar setup with single-type AIs (or maybe one single-type and one dual-type, with the same primary type) to see if they're still using the intervals you expect?

[Faulty Logic]

Testing for an hour with Vanilla and Vanilla/Neinzul Youngster gives me a lot of waves in the first hour (~7). Only three were from the first AI. About half of the waves from AI 2 were younglings, half normal schizo waves.

I expect about 4, maybe 3 or 5 waves in the first hour.

Relevant section of logs attached.

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, right: Neinzul Youngsters get 2x (frequency) waves by design

[Faulty Logic]

That's the kind of thing that should really be in. the. description.

[keith.lamothe]

I thought it was   But I see that it isn't, will fix.

[Cinth]

Newp.  Says it launches waves with 1/2 the normal warning time.

[iozay]

Ghehe! Good luck with the Alpha ^^ I will skip this one due to my horrible lack of experience with AI wars(Honestly, I love the game. I just lack the experience to give proper feedback in my opinion).

It looks interesting so far! Keep up the great job

[chemical_art]

Oh Keith, I now see new the AI toys for homeworld defense.

Sounds !fun!

[keith.lamothe]

Oh Keith, I now see new the AI toys for homeworld defense.

Sounds !fun!

Oh, I haven't even gotten to adding the definitions for the homeworld defense toys yet

Do you mean the Dire Guardians?