Arcen Games

General Category => AI War Classic => : Faulty Logic August 08, 2012, 08:32:58 PM

: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 08, 2012, 08:32:58 PM
The UI was annoying.
The backwaters were all the same.
Winning the backwater battles seemed really simplistic (we are winning when you're there, but losing otherwise.
The new ships you got as a reward for your quest were underwhelming.

So, I was personally disappointed... before coming to my senses. These guys were nice enough to release a playable beta far earlier than they were obliged to.

The UI is still being developed, and will likely be streamlined.
The backwaters will not all be the same.
You get far better results giving direct orders to the champion than FRDing.
Any and every ship is an asset in this game, and the main reward is upgrading your invincible, free ship anyway. Also, you get another source of patrolling allies.

And any new vector of choice makes for more interesting games.

The only standout problem was the UI. Why not just have every normal player come with a champion?
The champion only player could remain a lobby option for just that: a player that only got a champion. For normal players who want to play without the champion, you could include a checkbox in the game lobby.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Coppermantis August 08, 2012, 08:36:57 PM
Yeah, there's only a fraction of what's going to be added currently in the beta. There will of course also be the new AI Types and bonus fleet ships (A look into the graphics folder for the expansion shows some really interesting stuff, possibly the most interesting to me is the Dark Spire stuff) and if past behavior is any indication of the future, Arcen will be diligent in listening/responding to Customer feedback.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: contingencyplan August 08, 2012, 08:51:10 PM
The UI was annoying.

...

The UI is still being developed, and will likely be streamlined.


...


The only standout problem was the UI. Why not just have every normal player come with a champion?
The champion only player could remain a lobby option for just that: a player that only got a champion. For normal players who want to play without the champion, you could include a checkbox in the game lobby.


I just asked a similar question in the other thread. To save the devs repeating themselves, here's their reply: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11322.msg114893.html#msg114893
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art August 08, 2012, 09:15:03 PM
Where are the blue wormholes?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 08, 2012, 09:20:28 PM
Where are the blue wormholes?
Around :)

I think there are about 8-10 in an 80 planet galaxy, and they're generated before anybody picks a homeworld so no relation to that.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art August 08, 2012, 09:36:45 PM
Gotcha.

Consider making them as a filter on the galaxy map?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 08, 2012, 09:40:22 PM
Gotcha.

Consider making them as a filter on the galaxy map?
I think the "unexplored wormholes" filter will show them since their initial "you don't know what's on the other side"-ness uses the same mechanic as that lobby setting.  Do they not show up there?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art August 08, 2012, 10:12:12 PM
They do.

You can spot them since they are smaller then normal wormholes.

So there is no need  :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: rallythelegions August 09, 2012, 12:18:31 AM
I, too, am looking forward to see what the new quests will be, and new ships, new modular thingies.

One thing I had a question on: When you upgrade your champion it switches you to a view of the world from the champion view, meaning your main force ships are now ally ships that you can control. This isn't detrimental to gameplay, but it is quite annoying. You can no longer use short cuts to select your main ships, and clicking on the ship button on the right hand side bar does not allow you to move those ships.

I keep looking through the controls and manuals and can't find any way to switch back to the normal view outside of quitting the game and reloading it up.

Am I just missing something?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Coppermantis August 09, 2012, 12:28:12 AM
Go to STATS>Scores and it should list the Champion and the Fleet Player, as well as a "Switch UI to" button for both.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Oralordos August 09, 2012, 12:34:08 AM
Ctrl-L also sends you back to your own view.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Kahuna August 09, 2012, 07:02:47 AM
The only standout problem was the UI. Why not just have every normal player come with a champion?
The champion only player could remain a lobby option for just that: a player that only got a champion. For normal players who want to play without the champion, you could include a checkbox in the game lobby.
I agree with this 100%. The way it currently works is not bad but this^^ would be a lot better and less confusing for the player. Especially new players. I'm a bit confused too. Does the Champion ship count as a second player? If I'm using the Champion is it like playing with 2 home planets?

Also another thing. I think the background in the backwater systems is too bright. I like darker and more "grim" backgrounds which is why I've turned the "nebula slider" quite low. But that slider doesn't affect the background in the backwater systems. I'd like to be able to make the white/gray effect darker (see the screenshots).

Oh and the new fortress is awesome! It might help me survive those exos! :P Can't wait to see the new bonus ships.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: relmz32 August 09, 2012, 08:07:11 AM
i think abstracting the player problem, and allowing a player to have a 'pet' champion via a checkbox is the optimal solution.

Either way, i would like it if switching between champ and 'normal' player UI was easier.

And this champ ship is a curb stomper at low levels (7 and 6 tested so far). Its a free mk2-3 spire siege tower, pre-upgrades, mainly do to bonus damage all over the place. I'm not sure that its ff gen protects other ships.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Kahuna August 09, 2012, 08:27:01 AM
Btw.. isn't Helper player same as Champion player?
If every normal player would just get 1 Champion ship at the start the helper player would be same as Champion player now right?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: zebramatt August 09, 2012, 08:51:49 AM
The current model is awesome for co-op but rather unintuitive for single player. It just feels kinda wonky.

But I'm speaking from a position of limited knowledge here. I'd be interested to know the problems always having the Champions be a separate player solves; or the difficulty the alternative approach presents...
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: pheonix89 August 09, 2012, 09:40:06 AM
Honestly, loving it so far. However, the champions weapon ranges are rediculously short. I mean 8000 on a missile launcher? The main gun is outranged by almost everything in the entire game.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 09, 2012, 09:48:55 AM
Honestly, loving it so far. However, the champions weapon ranges are rediculously short. I mean 8000 on a missile launcher? The main gun is outranged by almost everything in the entire game.
The champion stuff is very short ranged compared to the rest of the game so that the offroad scenarios can be tactically interesting: if a bunch of that stuff had 30k-ish ranges (like much of the normal-game stuff) it would be pretty difficult to have interesting multi-part fights :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 09, 2012, 09:50:38 AM
Honestly, loving it so far. However, the champions weapon ranges are rediculously short. I mean 8000 on a missile launcher? The main gun is outranged by almost everything in the entire game.
The champion stuff is very short ranged compared to the rest of the game so that the offroad scenarios can be tactically interesting: if a bunch of that stuff had 30k-ish ranges (like much of the normal-game stuff) it would be pretty difficult to have interesting multi-part fights :)

Someone suggested bumping up their speed a bit (http://arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9173), which would help mitigate their "average-ish" range.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 09, 2012, 10:00:05 AM
Someone suggested bumping up their speed a bit (http://arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9173), which would help mitigate their "average-ish" range.
I could bump it from 80 to 90 (effective speed, on normal) but it's supposed to be lower than the 100 of the guys in the nebula, and I think that's as fast as I want those.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 09, 2012, 10:16:16 AM
I'd be interested to know the problems always having the Champions be a separate player solves; or the difficulty the alternative approach presents...

Keith mentioned something about it being easier to store arbitrary data in a player class more easily than a ship class, i.e. the EXP.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 09, 2012, 10:20:15 AM
Hold thoughts on the separate player thing for the time being, please.  I'm currently trying to add a combined role (in addition to the champion-only role), we'll see if I can get around the various roadblocks :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 09, 2012, 10:44:44 AM
Hold thoughts on the separate player thing for the time being, please.  I'm currently trying to add a combined role (in addition to the champion-only role), we'll see if I can get around the various roadblocks :)

Good luck
Don't fry any computers  ;D
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 09, 2012, 10:46:32 AM
Good luck
Don't fry any computers  ;D
Oh, I generally don't fry them.

I'm partial to using a baseball bat.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 09, 2012, 10:58:28 AM
Good luck
Don't fry any computers  ;D
Oh, I generally don't fry them.

I'm partial to using a baseball bat.

I hate programing.
Fry some computers for me.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 09, 2012, 10:59:43 AM
I hate programing.
Fry some computers for me.

Actually setting a computer on fire (even only so small as to cause it to overheat and shutdown, no real flames) or to short one out, using only programming code is very difficult.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 09, 2012, 11:15:45 AM
I hate programing.
Fry some computers for me.

Actually setting a computer on fire (even only so small as to cause it to overheat and shutdown, no real flames) or to short one out, using only programming code is very difficult.
Depends on the OS.  If you can get to the voltage settings it's pretty easy to cause hardware destruction.  And once even a single microscopic transistor goes the computer is likely to start tasting colors.

For that matter, some games achieve overheat-shutdown on video cards without trying.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 09, 2012, 11:18:46 AM
Depends on the OS.  If you can get to the voltage settings it's pretty easy to cause hardware destruction.  And once even a single microscopic transistor goes the computer is likely to start tasting colors.

I don't think modern OSes allow that.  But yes.  That would do it.

For that matter, some games achieve overheat-shutdown on video cards without trying.

That, I think, is something else entirely. XD
When I rebuilt my PC for the...uh...fourth? time, I didn't have enough cooling, and Windows, while idle, was floating at 95C or higher.  The default BIOS settings were set to throw heat warning beeps at 80C and to shutdown the computer to prevent damage at 100C, IIRC.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: pheonix89 August 09, 2012, 11:43:21 AM
Honestly, loving it so far. However, the champions weapon ranges are ridiculously short. I mean 8000 on a missile launcher? The main gun is outranged by almost everything in the entire game.
The champion stuff is very short ranged compared to the rest of the game so that the offroad scenarios can be tactically interesting: if a bunch of that stuff had 30k-ish ranges (like much of the normal-game stuff) it would be pretty difficult to have interesting multi-part fights :)
I'll grant that, but being outranged with everything but missiles and heavy beams by a MK 2 flak turret just feels wrong. Bump the missiles to say 15k, double everything else except the beam turret? Or alternately make the nebulae do wonky stuff to ranges, either on their own or by placing something along the lines of a perma-stealthed, invulnerable radar jammer MK1 there. Possibly code it as a seperate nebula jamming effect that all nebula encounter units are immune to but champions are not?

Also, can units you get from nebula ops enter other nebulas? I assume not for game balance reasons, but is there some sort of in-universe reason as well?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: orzelek August 09, 2012, 11:49:30 AM
Honestly, loving it so far. However, the champions weapon ranges are rediculously short. I mean 8000 on a missile launcher? The main gun is outranged by almost everything in the entire game.
The champion stuff is very short ranged compared to the rest of the game so that the offroad scenarios can be tactically interesting: if a bunch of that stuff had 30k-ish ranges (like much of the normal-game stuff) it would be pretty difficult to have interesting multi-part fights :)

Someone suggested bumping up their speed a bit (http://arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9173), which would help mitigate their "average-ish" range.

I agree that champions feel like someone took their targeting sensors and forgot to put new ones back. If they have brawler ranges.. they need to either be faster or don't die that fast. I'm toying with them and ultra low caps so it maybe the cause that they die quite easily.. Heavy hull doesn't help either.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Diazo August 09, 2012, 11:51:29 AM
Depends on the OS.  If you can get to the voltage settings it's pretty easy to cause hardware destruction.  And once even a single microscopic transistor goes the computer is likely to start tasting colors.

I don't think modern OSes allow that.  But yes.  That would do it.
You'd be surprised.

I have to download a 3rd party program but I effectively have full overclocking control, including voltages, on my system through Windows so those commands are exposed at the programming level.
For that matter, some games achieve overheat-shutdown on video cards without trying.

That, I think, is something else entirely. XD
When I rebuilt my PC for the...uh...fourth? time, I didn't have enough cooling, and Windows, while idle, was floating at 95C or higher.  The default BIOS settings were set to throw heat warning beeps at 80C and to shutdown the computer to prevent damage at 100C, IIRC.

I know the feeling.

I've had to pull the side off my case and I've got a room fan blowing straight into my computer. My case is so full there's no room for airflow.  ::)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 09, 2012, 11:52:31 AM
Or alternately make the nebulae do wonky stuff to ranges, either on their own or by placing something along the lines of a perma-stealthed, invulnerable radar jammer MK1 there.
That would work great, actually, thanks for the suggestion :)  I'll just double the ranges on the champion stuff and the nebula stuff and make nebulas always act as radar jammers.

Also, can units you get from nebula ops enter other nebulas? I assume not for game balance reasons, but is there some sort of in-universe reason as well?
You need a shadow drive to transit a wormhole going to a low-gravity grav well (nebula), but going back is normal because it's going to a planetary grav well.  In other words the nebula ships can leave the nebula, but never return.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Toranth August 09, 2012, 02:32:56 PM
Honestly, loving it so far. However, the champions weapon ranges are rediculously short. I mean 8000 on a missile launcher? The main gun is outranged by almost everything in the entire game.
The bigger problem in my mind is that the default gun on the Frigate is only range 2500, which means that when the Shadow Vessel is told to attack something, it gets right up in the enemy's face.  I would suggest making the main gun's range just a little longer - 4000, to match the shortest ranged of the default modules.


Someone suggested bumping up their speed a bit (http://arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9173), which would help mitigate their "average-ish" range.
I could bump it from 80 to 90 (effective speed, on normal) but it's supposed to be lower than the 100 of the guys in the nebula, and I think that's as fast as I want those.
I don't have a problem with the speed of the Shadow Vessel... but last night, I got the Destroyer and the Bomber modules.  I immediately unlocked mini-Bombers Mk III, and sent my triple-drone-moduled Champion forth to do battle.  "Fly, my pretties, fly!" I cackled as my hordes swept forth, destroying all enemies in their path... except for one of the worst, most annoying AI ships - The Zenith Bombard.  Bombards kite.  And more importantly, Bombards have a speed of 44, faster than the mini-Bomber's speed of 40. 

That's right, my mini-bombers were being outrun by Bombards.  By Bombards!
Could we get a smidge more speed?  The Neinzul Enclave drones all have speed 90.


Or alternately make the nebulae do wonky stuff to ranges, either on their own or by placing something along the lines of a perma-stealthed, invulnerable radar jammer MK1 there.
That would work great, actually, thanks for the suggestion :)  I'll just double the ranges on the champion stuff and the nebula stuff and make nebulas always act as radar jammers.
Or, for variety, mix up the Radar Jammer nebulas with Armor Inhibitor, Attritioner, Black Hole Generator, Grav Drill-like slow effect (Not quite that slow, however), planet-wide Anti-Missle, Anti-Sniper, or anti-Dark Matter turret effects... All sorts of fun things.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Coppermantis August 09, 2012, 04:22:57 PM
If the Nebulae are going to have planetary effects of varying types it will need to show text in the corner similar to Black Hole Machine warnings to ensure that the player knows what challenge he/she's facing.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 09, 2012, 06:46:53 PM
Tooltips stopped working on Mac on ship design page after we got Destroyers.
Do you have any more information?  Any error messages or anything in the error logs?  I can't think of something that would stop the tooltips unless there was some kind of error.

Once his Champion Ship appeared at my Home system instead of his.
That's not actually a bug, it uses the same respawn logic as the home command cores do when someone has lost their home command, so it doesn't always go to the same place.

Destroyed the 1st system (Nebula ?) got Destroyers and the fabricator (Which we couldn't build anything at).
Was there only one foldout facility or two?  Should have been one for each player.  Neither player could build anything at either?  Do you have a save? 

I assume there is still aload more stuff to be added as installer was tiny (10mb)
That's basically all the art, but the units that use it are still being implemented.  The music included in the official release installer will be quite a bit larger though.  The code and language-file changes are all delivered to everyone via normal update so none of that's in the installer, etc.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 09, 2012, 07:41:51 PM
So a question: We destroyed the first Nebula ? Got to Destroyers, got the new facility foldout. Is everything impliemented at that point ?
The reason I ask is we both felt very underwhelmed by it. Reason why I stated previously "so far interesting idea, curious how it's going to develop"
Yes, that's about it right now, though it also gives you a new module line (picking from 2 possible ones).  We open our expansions for beta-access very early on, this is actually later than usual because we wanted to get the champions thing at least to the beginning of playable.  But lots more to come :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: RCIX August 09, 2012, 08:40:57 PM
I hate programing.
Fry some computers for me.

Actually setting a computer on fire (even only so small as to cause it to overheat and shutdown, no real flames) or to short one out, using only programming code is very difficult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 09, 2012, 10:17:22 PM
Sadly, I still haven't gotten a chance to really try this out.
And I think I will still wait because of this upcomming change:
When playing as the Normal+Champion role it now only shows the Champion UI (XP/Hull/Shields) instead of the Normal UI (Metal/Crystal/Energy/Knowledge) when you have the champion selected and are in planet view on the same planet as the champion.

The current behavior as described on the current version thread just seems so annoying to deal with it would be a deal breaker for me. Sorry. :(
But I do look forward to trying this once this change gets out.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 09, 2012, 10:34:08 PM
Sadly, I still haven't gotten a chance to really try this out.
And I think I will still wait because of this upcomming change:
When playing as the Normal+Champion role it now only shows the Champion UI (XP/Hull/Shields) instead of the Normal UI (Metal/Crystal/Energy/Knowledge) when you have the champion selected and are in planet view on the same planet as the champion.

The current behavior as described on the current version thread just seems so annoying to deal with it would be a deal breaker for me. Sorry. :(
But I do look forward to trying this once this change gets out.

It's not that bad. Just have to remember to deselect your champ before changing planets.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 09, 2012, 10:38:35 PM
I hate programing.
Fry some computers for me.

Actually setting a computer on fire (even only so small as to cause it to overheat and shutdown, no real flames) or to short one out, using only programming code is very difficult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire

The expression "catch fire" is intended as a joke; the CPU does not usually catch fire. Occasionally referred to as "SDI" for "Self Destruct Immediate".

Emphasis on "usually." ;)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 09, 2012, 10:40:49 PM
Emphasis on "usually." ;)
I liked that, too.  I particularly liked the combination of that and the conspicuous absence of any wrist-slapping template about the tone being too light for an encyclopedia or whatever.  No, the writer may have been laughing when they wrote "usually", but they weren't kidding.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: pheonix89 August 10, 2012, 12:38:09 PM
Because more customization for hero units is always good... Here are some ideas for unlockable modules for the shadow ship.

Flak turret: Small slot. Launches a moderately powerful energy bomb at one target that hits enemies near it. Bonus versus light, ultralight and swarmers, or other appropriate targets for a flak weapon. Does lousy damage versues ultra-heavy and structural, and is inefficient versus single enemies, because each shot is weaker than the the equivalent salvo from other light slot options.

Sniper turret: Unsure on slot size. Does lousy damage, has the worst base DPS of any turret of equivalent MK and slot. Unsure of multipliers. On the upside, strikes from unlimited range and might do engine damage as well.

Weapons Bank: Doesn't actually do anything as an unlock. Instead, adds double, or possibly triple versions of small mounts as medium mount options.

Hardened shield: Basically equivalent to the fixed version, but for the shadow ship. Probably has a lower armor rating. 1/4 hp. Against enemies without serious armour piercing or enough firepower that the 80% doesn't apply, holds up better. If they can hit that hard or have enough AP, it folds like tissue paper. Best used on destroyers and up in conjuction with a normal shield. Immune to armour boosts to prevent massive cheese.

Fleet shield: Identical to a normal shield of the same MK, but takes longer to regen, has a somewhat larger bubble and actually shields friendlies. Having one of these near a siege starship is a BAD thing. Probably best in conjuction with a normal shield.

Support module: Provides limited armor and munitions boosts to friendlies. Possibly should be split in two. If possible, should take advantage of being on a module to boost the shadow ship and its turrets as well. Boosts increase in strength and area with MK. Might be worth giving the standard shield 5 armor per MK just to improve the utility on this.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 10, 2012, 12:40:39 PM
Champion 1 = A
Intentional, because it isn't a unit of your player and thus isn't considered for the UI (to see its UI you could Ctrl+H to cycle to it), but I see your point about making it C instead, it would make sense to just show that champion's UI, though that will be a bit tricky without actually switching the UI overall.

Player ships + player champion = B
Making that A instead... Are you sure you want to have to select only a champion to get its UI?

Player ships + champion 1 = A
Same thing as the first: not actually your player's unit, so it's not considered, but I'm able to make it "mix" UIs (showing your sidebar, and the champion player's resource bar) I guess it could work.

Player ships + both champions = B
Same thing as the second: you want that to be A, but are you sure you want to have to select only a champion to get its UI?

To get to C - stats -> Switch UI
Or Ctrl+H to cycle to it, which will switch your UI automatically.  Or select it and hit Ctrl+M to open its modules, which also switches your UI, although you then have the module screen up too.

It's so weird and unintuitive.
I'm doing the best I can :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 10, 2012, 12:41:59 PM
Because more customization for hero units is always good... Here are some ideas for unlockable modules for the shadow ship.
I've already got the modules for them planned out :)  Mantis if you like, but probably a lot of the ones you're thinking of are already on the list, and others are infeasible, so it goes ;)  But thanks for the feedback!
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: pheonix89 August 10, 2012, 01:52:25 PM
Because more customization for hero units is always good... Here are some ideas for unlockable modules for the shadow ship.
I've already got the modules for them planned out :)  Mantis if you like, but probably a lot of the ones you're thinking of are already on the list, and others are infeasible, so it goes ;)  But thanks for the feedback!
Ok. Thanks for the feedback, and I guess I'll just wait and see a bit. BTW, were any of the ones I mentioned impossible or unfeasable for technical reasons? Would be nice to know before I start making technically problematic suggestions.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Oralordos August 10, 2012, 02:17:02 PM
From the ui design of the module system and what I know of programming, I would say that the weapons bank suggestion would be unfeasible. The other modules have all been done in the game in a non-module way before and don't look like they would take too much effort.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 10, 2012, 02:28:50 PM
From the ui design of the module system and what I know of programming, I would say that the weapons bank suggestion would be unfeasible. The other modules have all been done in the game in a non-module way before and don't look like they would take too much effort.
Yea, we wouldn't do the weapons bank.  The rest are doable (not entirely sure what makes the fleet shield different from the existing one), and some will be done.

Suggestions are welcome, but I probably won't be looking at them until I'm done with what I've got planned :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 10, 2012, 02:34:45 PM
Can we please name our champions? If I am going to spend a large part of my attention on only one unit, I don't want that unit called "Champion N."
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 10, 2012, 02:37:44 PM
Can we please name our champions? If I am going to spend a large part of my attention on only one unit, I don't want that unit called "Champion N."
If you change the player name on the in-game manage-players screen it should do it :)  There really wasn't anywhere I could find to put a button/textbox for it in the lobby.

And if you're playing a normal+champion role it should just be using your player name.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: pheonix89 August 10, 2012, 02:41:33 PM
From the ui design of the module system and what I know of programming, I would say that the weapons bank suggestion would be unfeasible. The other modules have all been done in the game in a non-module way before and don't look like they would take too much effort.
Yea, we wouldn't do the weapons bank.  The rest are doable (not entirely sure what makes the fleet shield different from the existing one), and some will be done.

Suggestions are welcome, but I probably won't be looking at them until I'm done with what I've got planned :)
I had noticed that the shield wasn't protecting allies and bomber drones under it or knocking enemies aside and assumed that was a feature, not a bug. Why would it be hard to have scaled up versions of already unlocked turrets? I was thinking that the reward would just let you have versions of the small modules in a medium slot with increased salvo size or damage.

Oh, wait. Probably sounded like I meant having multiple, actually separate turrets in the medium slots for the weapons bank rather than just scaled up ones, didn't I?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 10, 2012, 02:51:19 PM
I had noticed that the shield wasn't protecting allies and bomber drones under it
It should be protecting the drones at least, and I think it also protects the allied minor faction units (at least it did in my tests, I could take fire in the place of a EEr starbase if I wanted to).

or knocking enemies aside
It's intentional that they don't do that, like the spire capital ship shields don't do that.  The fact that the Riot's shields do is one of their special features.  I think those are the only highly-mobile (as opposed to glacially-mobile) "pushing shields" in the game.

Why would it be hard to have scaled up versions of already unlocked turrets? I was thinking that the reward would just let you have versions of the small modules in a medium slot with increased salvo size or damage.

Oh, wait. Probably sounded like I meant having multiple, actually separate turrets in the medium slots for the weapons bank rather than just scaled up ones, didn't I?
I did think you meant the latter.  It would be possible to define bigger versions of the smaller modules for use in the larger slots, but honestly I'd rather not.  I'd rather have disjoint sets for variety of loadout, etc.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 10, 2012, 02:56:08 PM
Awesome. Now I will destroy entire fleets of enemy ships using only *facehuggers* Faulty Logic.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 10, 2012, 03:08:46 PM
Awesome. Now I will destroy entire fleets of enemy ships using only *facehuggers* Faulty Logic.
Fire the Ad Hominem Cannon!
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 10, 2012, 03:18:09 PM
Awesome. Now I will destroy entire fleets of enemy ships using only *facehuggers* Faulty Logic.
Fire the Ad Hominem Cannon!

Go out and be a Texas Sharpshooter!
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: pheonix89 August 10, 2012, 03:52:08 PM
I did think you meant the latter.  It would be possible to define bigger versions of the smaller modules for use in the larger slots, but honestly I'd rather not.  I'd rather have disjoint sets for variety of loadout, etc.
Ok, cool.

On another not, could the bomber drones get a speed boost. Speed 80 is kind of problematic with a speed 160 mothership. Honestly, though, I don't like the speed halving in nebulas at all. For everything except the drones, the current in nebula speed would fit as a global speed with no nebula speed loss. Speed 80 is freaking fast for something with as much firepower as the shadow ships. Thats marginally faster than fighters. The only starships that are that fast IIRC are raid and bomber ships and the entire point of those is highspeed hit and fade.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 10, 2012, 05:35:34 PM
I really like the Champions as they are now: Lightning Bruisers. They are supposed to be very powerful. I think the main purpose of the bomber drones is for when you need to destroy a structure, so low speed is fine. I don't think any speeds need to be changed right now.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: pheonix89 August 10, 2012, 06:40:48 PM
I really like the Champions as they are now: Lightning Bruisers. They are supposed to be very powerful. I think the main purpose of the bomber drones is for when you need to destroy a structure, so low speed is fine. I don't think any speeds need to be changed right now.
Heh, another troper. And yes I agree that they are supposed to be powerful, but being nearly twice as fast as fighters is pushing it. Although that may be a problem with fighters, because 78 is average or slightly above average, not fast, these days.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 10, 2012, 06:44:46 PM
I could get on board with a slight speed nerf, but remember that the champion unit (plus quest rewards) needs to compensate for a 20% difficulty increase, and speed helps it do that. A lot.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Toranth August 10, 2012, 07:16:36 PM
I could get on board with a slight speed nerf, but remember that the champion unit (plus quest rewards) needs to compensate for a 20% difficulty increase, and speed helps it do that. A lot.
Also, don't forget that at the moment, when the Champion is destroyed it respawns on your homeworld.  To get back to the front can take a LONG time, where as normal units have warp gates to teleport the where ever you wish.
So, speed for the Champion serves a tactical purpose, yes, but also a strategic (and anti-boredom) one.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: zebramatt August 10, 2012, 08:34:30 PM
Can there be an option to cuddle our champions? If I am going to spend a large part of my attention on only one unit, it'd be nice to be able to make it feel a bit better about its lot now and then.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 10, 2012, 08:41:34 PM
Can there be an option to cuddle our champions? If I am going to spend a large part of my attention on only one unit, it'd be nice to be able to make it feel a bit better about its lot now and then.
Just make sure it gets lots of XP and has the biggest, shiniest make-'em-die cannons (and maybe a shield, helps keep the paint looking nice), and it'll be happy :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 10, 2012, 08:44:18 PM
Can there be an option to cuddle our champions?

Can we coddle them too?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Philo August 11, 2012, 02:12:48 PM
When I heard about the Champions I was thinking something along the lines of Dota. Are you gonna have special regenerating skills etc. (or something that a player that would be playing just a champion wouldn't be bored) for the champions or is this basically just a heavy starship that builds it's weapons by experience?

Admittedly I've played this expansion just for an hour now.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 11, 2012, 02:44:33 PM
I would like to do directly-triggered abilities like in the MOBAs, but it'd be a fair chunk of new code and I wanted to get a better feel for how much time the stuff actually listed in the expansion bullet points was going to take me before deciding to bite into that :)

My guess for actual playstyle in multiplayer is that the champion-only players would also be given team-control of a normal player's units so they could bring in and directly control some fleet support on some actions.  Not in the nebula stuff, but there there's more need for direct involvement with the one unit.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Philo August 11, 2012, 02:58:54 PM
I would like to do directly-triggered abilities like in the MOBAs, but it'd be a fair chunk of new code and I wanted to get a better feel for how much time the stuff actually listed in the expansion bullet points was going to take me before deciding to bite into that :)
Well, here's hoping. Directly triggered abilities would be the best. And a skill tree maybe later on :)
I guess items are already in the to do list also?

But a top priority for me would be new sounds for the Champions weapons, and maybe new sound effects for other ship in the other universe. A lot of the feel has to do with sounds so the Champion has got to have them. Also, just being able to name the Champion would improve a lot. But I think this is already on the do list.

Also, I haven't found a way to repair the champion in the other universe, I guess there isn't any possibility. Some kind of quick repair station should be near the wormhole or being able to launch repair drones from the Champion. This considering that having the Champion destroyed is punished in some way.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 11, 2012, 03:08:25 PM
Also, just being able to name the Champion would improve a lot. But I think this is already on the do list.
You can already do this: it uses the name of the player that controls it, and you can control your player name by the profile window, or the name of other player slots through the Manage Players window in-game :)

Also, I haven't found a way to repair the champion in the other universe, I guess there isn't any possibility. Some kind of quick repair station should be near the wormhole or being able to launch repair drones from the Champion. This considering that having the Champion destroyed is punished in some way.
The lack of repair out there is a balance consideration; if you have some degree of control over the normal-space entrance you can just park engineers on the other side of the wormhole and go back there.  If you're operating outside the area where you can do that, you can regenerate health by getting out of the line of fire before your shield generators are overloaded and wait for them to recharge.  I may make the recharge a little faster, but it's there.

If your shields totally fail, then there's no way to repair hull damage in the nebula, which is intentional.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 11, 2012, 04:02:08 PM
Having played through most of an AS game now, here are my personal suggestions:

First, Ancient Shadows is awesome. The Champion(s) suck up your excess attention like mercs do your excess resources.

A new quest, and a big reward for completing all of them:
Resistance is under attack: The deep space corps of the AI has finally gotten to the resistance bases. Save them and gain the ability to call in resistance strikes (1 per 2 hours, AI homeworlds exempt).

If all quests end in victory: you get to build the Shadow Hub. It connects all the backwaters to each other, and gives all of your ships the shadow drive.

Could you give the Frigate some usefulness after you unlock the destroyer? Like cloaking?

For directly triggered abilities, a shortcut I would really like, and which sounds easy to implement (like most things, until you try) would be a missile silo module, which generates AIP-free mini-warheads of its mark, with a high recharge time. These would have about 1/3-1/4 the effectiveness of normal warheads.

Refinement/feedback welcome.
Outright rejection less welcome but acceptable.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 11, 2012, 04:08:49 PM
A new quest, and a big reward for completing all of them:
Resistance is under attack: The deep space corps of the AI has finally gotten to the resistance bases. Save them and gain the ability to call in resistance strikes (1 per 2 hours, AI homeworlds exempt).
Something like that might happen, yea.  And actually that wouldn't be a bad example of a direct-use ability for the champion.

If all quests end in victory: you get to build the Shadow Hub. It connects all the backwaters to each other, and gives all of your ships the shadow drive.
The wormhole graph is set in stone at mapgen, sorry :)  Just getting the offroad wormholes to act differently than normal ones was an enormous change.

Could you give the Frigate some usefulness after you unlock the destroyer? Like cloaking?
I've been thinking about it but in general I don't think it's a bad (just non-ideal) thing that you always use the heaviest hull available to you from the race you want to use at that time.  Perhaps some speed differences, etc would make it less obvious though.

For directly triggered abilities, a shortcut I would really like, and which sounds easy to implement (like most things, until you try) would be a missile silo module, which generates AIP-free mini-warheads of its mark, with a high recharge time. These would have about 1/3-1/4 the effectiveness of normal warheads.
Yea, something like that could work :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Oralordos August 11, 2012, 04:42:18 PM
Question. Does the extra nebula areas mess up the planet number calculations for the purposes of achievement gain?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 11, 2012, 04:43:59 PM
Question. Does the extra nebula areas mess up the planet number calculations for the purposes of achievement gain?
Nope :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 11, 2012, 05:03:16 PM
Yeah, was pretty sure the hub wouldn't work (you would have to implement a third type of wormhole between the backwaters, and a third drive triggered by an event boolean...programming nightmare).

I would like to see something for completing all the quests...something that would have a significant strategic impact.

Idea: warp interdictor: invulnerable, wormhole size forcefield. Now that would be a good reward. Note they couldn't protect anything. Argh, could give perfect home defense. Scrap.

Idea mkII: warp disruptor: interplanetary structures of the AI now work only on their planet.

Idea mkIII: Destroy the CSG network.

Idea mkIV: Give the Champion a superdrive: it can now teleport, and can ignore BHGs.

Idea mkV: AIP reduction (Occam has spoken)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: @B0FH August 12, 2012, 11:57:56 AM
Unfortunately I don;t have time to trawl the 5 pages (shame on me!), so apologies if this horse has been flogged whilst it's ceased to be....

I love the gameplay alternatives that the Champions bring, from the maingame to the nebulae, however I really cannot emphasise how much I hate the fact there is bugger-all penalty for losing it - seen at the top of page 5 talking about it's relatively slow speed so delaying getting back into the fight, but really that's not much of a downer on running around trigger-happy like an old-school DM-a-holic.

I'd suggest (ballpark) something along the lines of a toughness buff (health rather than armour/immunities), but make it once it's dead, it's dead.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 12, 2012, 12:37:44 PM
I'd suggest (ballpark) something along the lines of a toughness buff (health rather than armour/immunities), but make it once it's dead, it's dead.
Permadeath on these would be unspeakably brutal (stuck with a 20% increase to basically all forms of AI aggression), and would largely defeat the purpose of making sure the player had something to work with even while waiting on everything else was dead/rebuilding, unless it had so much health as to be effectively invincible :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: @B0FH August 12, 2012, 12:55:39 PM
ok that makes sense - but how about a timed delay until respawn? Honet i'm not trying to murder us all ;)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 12, 2012, 01:25:13 PM
I was thinking about ways to make respawning cost, but keep normal operations how they are now.
My idea is to make the champion respawn as a "broken" form of whatever it was before death.
It would be much like normal broken golems, you would have to repair it to full health (possibly costing resources) before it would come online and be operational.

Not sure what should be done if the broken form is destroyed. Spawn again? Should the broken form be invincible? How would it remeber which module loadout it had?


EDIT: also, would it be reasonable for the higher level modules to cost resources, but keep the "base" modules free?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 12, 2012, 01:32:13 PM
As far as a death penalty goes, I'm more for something like a 20-30 second warp-in stun before it can move or shoot. Guess it could be higher, but not too much higher. There just needs to be something that makes me not go "I'm on 20% health with no shields, two planets away from home. I should just scrap my ship to save time."
There also is something I'm wondering... Is the champion supposed to be able to gain even a recognizable amount of exp outside of the nebula combat areas? I mean, messing around on Diff 1 just blowing up some command stations and guard posts, I barely get anything out of that. I can gain upwards of 8 levels in the completion of one nebula. Seems a bit skewed to me, but I wouldn't know how to fix it.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Minotaar August 12, 2012, 01:53:02 PM
"I'm on 20% health with no shields, two planets away from home. I should just scrap my ship to save time."

Oh, yes, let's not make suicide a reasonable tactical choice, that just... doesn't feel right  :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Hearteater August 12, 2012, 02:00:22 PM
A stacking XP boost that is lost on death maybe?  Just a completely random thought, and I wouldn't make it super strong.  But even 2% that stacked 5 times (time based, mission based, whatever) would be enough to discourage you from scraping yourself just to save a little time.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Minotaar August 12, 2012, 02:09:23 PM
A stacking XP boost that is lost on death maybe?  Just a completely random thought, and I wouldn't make it super strong.  But even 2% that stacked 5 times (time based, mission based, whatever) would be enough to discourage you from scraping yourself just to save a little time.

That sounds good, actually  :) There could even be different kinds of little boosts.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 12, 2012, 02:49:18 PM
I'd say if the boosts are that small though, they'd have to come fairly easily. A 2% boost to exp gained every mission is very small, and each mission lasts 20 minutes or longer. I'd just as soon scrap my ship anyway and ignore that boost.
Maybe something like a champion-only resource like the unlock points are, specifically for building little champion drones that provide area-wide bonuses or something. All drones die when you do, and you lose all of that resource. Even then, that seems like so much work for something so small. Assuming it wasn't, here's a bit of what the drones would be like;

Attack Boost Drone: Confers a +1% attack boost for all ships in a range around it. Permanently cloaked, but cannot move. The boost stacks with other nearby drones, but only goes up to 10%.
Tachyon Drone: A permanently cloaked, immobile drone that emits tachyon coverage over a considerable area. Acts like a tachyon turret.
Force Field Drone: A force field-carrying drone. The drone itself isn't particularly healthy, but its force field does not shrink as it takes damage. Ideal for protecting allies.
Fortress Drone: ...let's just stop the idea train here. The point is, they give little buffs that you spend living-long moneys on.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 12, 2012, 03:05:26 PM
I oppose penalty on death. You pay for your champion in AI response, and a lot of the fun stems from its immortality and lack of economic impact.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 12, 2012, 03:07:33 PM
^ That is exactly why any penalty should be very laid back in the first place. All I would want is for suicide to not be encouraged by how the game is set up. There's something wrong with a game if it's not an MMO and dying is actually a "good idea" in some situations.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 12, 2012, 03:08:13 PM
My current guess is:

1) Add a respawn counter to each player:
- starts at zero
- counts up 1 every second
- stops at 30
- if the champion is dead:
-- if counter < 30, do not respawn
-- if counter == 30:
--- respawn
--- set counter to 0
- so in effect: die once, no penalty, except probably having to spend time getting back where you were.  I don't really want to add more wait onto that time.  Die twice in quick succession (as in the case of a homeworld defense) and you have to wait, which will deal with the homeworld-defense exploit of perpetually shielding the home command (against overwhelming firepower) with multiple champions.

2) Have it show different text for the scrapping option that says "are you sure you want to warp this champion back to a home command station?" instead of talking about scrapping.  The lore explained in the opening journal is that the ship just automatically warps back to a beacon (which are permanently on the home command stations) when it would normally have been destroyed.  I would have implemented something like scrap as a fast-travel mechanism to begin with, but since scrap already existed I didn't bother :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 12, 2012, 03:14:12 PM
I like that solution.
I still want feedback on possible all-quest-victory rewards (see my last post on page five).


: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 12, 2012, 03:28:09 PM
Heh
I think if you change the idea of 'scrapping' to 'warping' I at least won't feel like I'm actually killing myself and getting rewarded for it. I can agree to that. Beta is beta, I shouldn't have thought that explosion effect was final. =p
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: kasnavada August 12, 2012, 04:02:32 PM
Heh
I think if you change the idea of 'scrapping' to 'warping' I at least won't feel like I'm actually killing myself and getting rewarded for it. I can agree to that. Beta is beta, I shouldn't have thought that explosion effect was final. =p

It's no explosion, it's ninja smoke !
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 12, 2012, 07:12:07 PM
Ninja space ships?
You guys are awesome.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 13, 2012, 01:10:58 PM
I still want feedback on possible all-quest-victory rewards (see my last post on page five).

Idea: warp interdictor: invulnerable, wormhole size forcefield. Now that would be a good reward. Note they couldn't protect anything. Argh, could give perfect home defense. Scrap.
It would take a ton of AI programming to get it to react properly to that anyway :)

Idea mkII: warp disruptor: interplanetary structures of the AI now work only on their planet.
Theoretically possible, though making raid-engines, alarm posts, etc not check adjacent planets would be rather game-changing.

Idea mkIII: Destroy the CSG network.
Not likely ;)  It's not even on in all games.

Idea mkIV: Give the Champion a superdrive: it can now teleport, and can ignore BHGs.
I could do that but it would have to be a new hull type (teleporting and immune-to-BHG are inherent and cannot be granted by modules), so it couldn't be mix-and-matched with other stuff.

Idea mkV: AIP reduction (Occam has spoken)
Certainly possible, but seems kinda underwhelming :)

If I get to the "summon human resistance allies" ability and ones like that, maybe their effects could be doubled or tripled or whatever if all nebulas were successfully completed.  That could effectively give you the ability to just smash the AI homeworlds with a ton of minor faction pain.  Hmm, sounds familiar.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 13, 2012, 03:10:16 PM
Thanks.

Of all my AS suggestions, calling in the resistance (or others) is the one I want most. However, calling them at an AI HW could be overpowered.

Aw, I wanted a teleporting dreadnaught. Or eight. Oh well.

AIP reduction underwhelming? AIP is the strategic core of this game. It could be justified thematically as the minor factions you freed causing the AI exo-galactic trouble.

Also, where are the suggestions? I created this thread as an idea tosspile, but have only seen a few. Post your ideas.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 13, 2012, 03:12:30 PM
AIP reduction underwhelming? AIP is the strategic core of this game.
I meant in the sense of not being anything new or flashy.  Certainly it would be strategically compelling.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: orzelek August 13, 2012, 03:14:52 PM
AIP reduction underwhelming? AIP is the strategic core of this game.
I meant in the sense of not being anything new or flashy.  Certainly it would be strategically compelling.

It would be also quite good incentive to go to more backwater places that contain shadow planets and potentially even take some planet or two with anticipation of nice AIP reduction reward.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 13, 2012, 03:16:27 PM
AIP reduction underwhelming? AIP is the strategic core of this game.
I meant in the sense of not being anything new or flashy.  Certainly it would be strategically compelling.

What about...AI Hacking Response reduction?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 13, 2012, 03:21:42 PM
Or a way to reduce the AI floor?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 13, 2012, 03:24:48 PM
Or a way to reduce the AI floor?

Honestly, I'm not sure the AIP Floor comes up that much.  I mean, prior to hacking-response, a friend and I pulled the AIP reduction so low as to actually increase total AIP due to the floor going up, but other than that...I don't think I've ever hit the AIP Floor
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 13, 2012, 03:29:22 PM
In any Spire Civilian Leader game, floor is a factor. Also, in most games with a big Superterminal hack, or in games where you take very few planets.
Of course, I tend to play at the extreme low end of AIP.

Maybe a structure like a superterminal that reduces the floor instead of increasing it (while also reducing normal AIP).
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 13, 2012, 03:32:50 PM
In any Spire Civilian Leader game, floor is a factor.

Fair point.  I've just never freed enough leaders for it to matter before. XD
(Notably it's a 4-hour break-even time on freeing a civ leader over just destroying them)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Nodor August 13, 2012, 04:10:56 PM
In any Spire Civilian Leader game, floor is a factor.

Fair point.  I've just never freed enough leaders for it to matter before. XD
(Notably it's a 4-hour break-even time on freeing a civ leader over just destroying them)

Which is fine when your average game is 40 hours.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 13, 2012, 04:17:27 PM
And that's just AIP. You also get the k, resources, and energy of the planet, and a one-time -3 AIP on capture (which also resets its hour clock).

Of course, the initial doubling of AIP can be brutal.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Eternaly_Lost August 13, 2012, 08:46:03 PM
We really need a way to repair the starbases in the Nebulas. I keep looking at the damaged one and trying to send Engs into repair it. A module that replaces a shield on the Champion with a repair beam would be wonderful. Otherwise it is forced to sit at the starbase that is almost dead to stop the AI from destorying it well the troops very slowly take over the world. Very slowly in fact, I would like to see it go faster somehow.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 13, 2012, 09:08:35 PM
And that's just AIP. You also get the k, resources, and energy of the planet, and a one-time -3 AIP on capture (which also resets its hour clock).

You don't have to capture the planet to get the AIP ;)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Diazo August 13, 2012, 09:18:46 PM
edit: Deleted. Post I was replying to got modified.

D.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 13, 2012, 09:19:29 PM
Think he means at game start the Civ Leaders tick so you effectively start the game at 20 AIP.

I meant the other half, fixed the quote.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Wanderer August 13, 2012, 09:20:36 PM
Holy mother of... thazza a lottsa postins!

Finally caught up.  Gratz on Beta release.  I'll get to it eventually (keep shoveling through the forum)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 13, 2012, 09:23:47 PM
Finally caught up.  Gratz on Beta release.  I'll get to it eventually (keep shoveling through the forum)
Thanks :)  I figured you'd been recovering from an AI-overdose when it snuck out the new stuff ;)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Wanderer August 13, 2012, 10:05:03 PM
Finally caught up.  Gratz on Beta release.  I'll get to it eventually (keep shoveling through the forum)
Thanks :)  I figured you'd been recovering from an AI-overdose when it snuck out the new stuff ;)
Pretty much.  That and I got distracted by a bunch of used games at Gamestop I'd wanted to play and catch up on the storyline.  Gears 3 was decent, AC Revelations was fun, and I'm still laughing my way through Saint's Row, the Third. 

I'll admit I'm a bit crosseyed at the intent of this expansion.  It's one hell of an answer to wall-clock, I'll give you that.  It just seems so... secondary... to core gameplay that it's definately not what I'd expected.  I'd honestly expected a secondary faction to be 'on the board' with you or something similar.  My brain is still mulling over the possibilities and the implementation.  I'm going to let it go a few more iterations before I snag it because I become a very frustrated early-beta tester with gross bugs in the way and a lot of the other guys here are better about expressing UI issues and the like than I am, and I want to see it with more polish on it when I see it for the first time...

... so with that said... errr... what happens if I beta update without having the expansion?  I've never been expansionless for beta updates before.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 13, 2012, 10:08:34 PM
Nothing should happen (except the non-expansion bugfixes in the updates).
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 13, 2012, 11:53:07 PM
We really need a way to repair the starbases in the Nebulas. I keep looking at the damaged one and trying to send Engs into repair it. A module that replaces a shield on the Champion with a repair beam would be wonderful. Otherwise it is forced to sit at the starbase that is almost dead to stop the AI from destorying it well the troops very slowly take over the world. Very slowly in fact, I would like to see it go faster somehow.
I'm afraid that might end up being OP, though.
Well, first of all, champions don't have resources, and thus wouldn't be able to repair anything. Second of all, if you're microing and defending diligently, you can end up protecting all the starbases without any more than one casualty. Sure, they get damaged pretty badly but it's more about surviving. It seems more tense than if you could just fix them no problem. Maybe a middle ground would be something like giving them a very long regen timer? I mean, if it took no damage for 30 minutes it'd be back to full or something.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: zebramatt August 14, 2012, 01:09:40 AM
Heh
I think if you change the idea of 'scrapping' to 'warping' I at least won't feel like I'm actually killing myself and getting rewarded for it. I can agree to that. Beta is beta, I shouldn't have thought that explosion effect was final. =p

It's no explosion, it's ninja smoke !

It's a good point - if the Champ's 'porting away, he should have his own animation for that!
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 14, 2012, 02:07:52 AM
Dude. Zebramatt. Ninja space ships are the bomb, okay. I don't need a teleport effect anymore.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Eternaly_Lost August 14, 2012, 06:11:01 AM
We really need a way to repair the starbases in the Nebulas. I keep looking at the damaged one and trying to send Engs into repair it. A module that replaces a shield on the Champion with a repair beam would be wonderful. Otherwise it is forced to sit at the starbase that is almost dead to stop the AI from destorying it well the troops very slowly take over the world. Very slowly in fact, I would like to see it go faster somehow.
I'm afraid that might end up being OP, though.
Well, first of all, champions don't have resources, and thus wouldn't be able to repair anything. Second of all, if you're microing and defending diligently, you can end up protecting all the starbases without any more than one casualty. Sure, they get damaged pretty badly but it's more about surviving. It seems more tense than if you could just fix them no problem. Maybe a middle ground would be something like giving them a very long regen timer? I mean, if it took no damage for 30 minutes it'd be back to full or something.

The issue with a regen is that the AI ships that have to destory the Starbases, as my champions never seem to make any ground by themselves, takes forever to do so.

A repair beam that that drains from a normal player should be possible, as well as one that is very slow but free. Plus, it means that unless you do something, the Starbases are not going to get better on their own.

A question, is the ships launched by the Starbases effected by number of homeworlds? And is it really suppose to take  3+ hours a Nebula or am I doing something very wrong? I only got 2 of the hostile starbase destroyed at the 2 hour mark and I think it going to take another hour to get another one.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 14, 2012, 11:27:21 AM
A question, is the ships launched by the Starbases effected by number of homeworlds?
No.

And is it really suppose to take  3+ hours a Nebula or am I doing something very wrong? I only got 2 of the hostile starbase destroyed at the 2 hour mark and I think it going to take another hour to get another one.
In my tests with both released scenarios they tended to take 25 to 30 minutes, with very little of the starbase damage being done personally by me.  I would just focus on taking down the enemy ships (generally the mid-tier ones first to get them off my ally's "bombers", and then the high-tier ones to get them off my ally's mid-tier ships).  And if I could get away with it, getting the attention of a group of enemy ships and leading them on a chase into my ally's starbases for proper chipper-shreddering.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 14, 2012, 11:39:33 AM
A question, is the ships launched by the Starbases effected by number of homeworlds?
No.

And is it really suppose to take  3+ hours a Nebula or am I doing something very wrong? I only got 2 of the hostile starbase destroyed at the 2 hour mark and I think it going to take another hour to get another one.
In my tests with both released scenarios they tended to take 25 to 30 minutes, with very little of the starbase damage being done personally by me.  I would just focus on taking down the enemy ships (generally the mid-tier ones first to get them off my ally's "bombers", and then the high-tier ones to get them off my ally's mid-tier ships).  And if I could get away with it, getting the attention of a group of enemy ships and leading them on a chase into my ally's starbases for proper chipper-shreddering.

Took around 40 minutes for me, with 3 retreats of my hero for repairs. (I realize now it would of been faster to scrap it, which just doesn't seem right... I would support the 20-30 second cooldown from last respawn idea Keith proposed, possibly with a 10 or so second paralysis time after a respawn to make "scrap retreats" and "suicide retreats" less viable)


I would agree that disparity between average experience gained for nebula missions and average experience gained for "normal" activities (guard posts, command stations, etc) seems a bit absurd right now.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 14, 2012, 11:51:19 AM
I'll admit I'm a bit crosseyed at the intent of this expansion.  It's one hell of an answer to wall-clock, I'll give you that.  It just seems so... secondary... to core gameplay that it's definately not what I'd expected.  I'd honestly expected a secondary faction to be 'on the board' with you or something similar.
Yea, and the offroad approach was not my first one, but it was the only one I could think of that accomplished everything I was going for (hero units, places for hero units to grow, more guerilla-fighting, more scripted/journal'd bits, meaningful stuff to do during refleeting without bringing the wrath of the AI down on you, not being insanely long to implement).  And to some extent the other factions do come "onto the board" once their scenario is complete, though it is limited to avoid massive AI reprisal.

Fallen Spire worked "on the board" because the whole theme was getting in the AI's face and bringing the wrath down.  The all-out-war/sky-blackening-fleet side of the envelope was pushed pretty well in LotS, and here I wanted to push on the other side with the guerilla/single-unit side, and I really didn't see a lot of "room on the board" for much of that.

That said, yea, I can understand why folks would look at it and go "hurh?" ;)  I think it will turn out pretty well in the end but there's a long way to go.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 14, 2012, 01:02:10 PM
Something I'm actually curious about is if the number of spawned ships actually goes down per starbase. It seems like the enemy is almost as strong as they always were, without more starbases to produce units from. How does that actually work?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 14, 2012, 01:05:44 PM
Something I'm actually curious about is if the number of spawned ships actually goes down per starbase. It seems like the enemy is almost as strong as they always were, without more starbases to produce units from. How does that actually work?
The main starbase produces groups of ships, the other ones produce single ships (and only the smaller two kinds, thus shorter build times).  As starbases are destroyed, the production rate of all the main starbases (enemy and ally) goes up.  That rule helps speed up the conflict once someone makes progress.  The production rate goes up somewhat more for the side that lost the starbase.  That rule helps keep it from being too much of a snowballing effect where the first side to lose a base is guaranteed to lose.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 14, 2012, 01:15:51 PM
Ahh, gotcha. I was wondering like, why I felt like I wasn't feeling like I was making much headway into stopping enemy production as I went on into enemy territory. But I mean, that's also the kind of thing that benefits me if I mess up and keeps the fight more interesting, so, no biggie.
At least I wasn't seeing things.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 14, 2012, 01:22:16 PM
Ahh, gotcha. I was wondering like, why I felt like I wasn't feeling like I was making much headway into stopping enemy production as I went on into enemy territory. But I mean, that's also the kind of thing that benefits me if I mess up and keeps the fight more interesting, so, no biggie.
At least I wasn't seeing things.
Hitting their production does actually help, though, because the "inbetween" spawns become less frequent and your ally fleet gets more focused, speeding up their doing something about the other enemy bases :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 14, 2012, 01:24:05 PM
Now that you mention it, I remember that. The ally forces seemed to get more of 'all attacking at once' time. Subtle.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Eternaly_Lost August 14, 2012, 05:44:48 PM
A question, is the ships launched by the Starbases effected by number of homeworlds?
No.

And is it really suppose to take  3+ hours a Nebula or am I doing something very wrong? I only got 2 of the hostile starbase destroyed at the 2 hour mark and I think it going to take another hour to get another one.
In my tests with both released scenarios they tended to take 25 to 30 minutes, with very little of the starbase damage being done personally by me.  I would just focus on taking down the enemy ships (generally the mid-tier ones first to get them off my ally's "bombers", and then the high-tier ones to get them off my ally's mid-tier ships).  And if I could get away with it, getting the attention of a group of enemy ships and leading them on a chase into my ally's starbases for proper chipper-shreddering.

My time is in the hour marks for a side world, granted this is at 9/9 but there is very little progress going either way. The AI destroys all the ships on my side and I destroy all the ships AI side and the bases just very slowly lose hp almost randomly depending on were the last group died. Very very slowly. Are you talking about 20 minutes at +10 or something? Because based on what I was watching, I don't see this being done in less then 4-8 hours per nebula. If the goal is 30 minutes, something is very wrong. I could see it being harder on 9/9, but not this slow. I got a level 13 hero that had all the upgrade I can get now unlocked and it has points left to spend. That is with managing the hero to target the AI units that do the most damage to my own side ships.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Oralordos August 14, 2012, 05:57:57 PM
I've only done one mission and that was before the second one came out. It took about an hour to beat. Mostly because I was paying far more attention to my fleet than my champion. This was at 7/7 by the way.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 14, 2012, 05:58:07 PM
Are you talking about 20 minutes at +10 or something?
No, I'm testing starting off at the beginning of a game with an offroad wormhole on my HW, and when the scenario is done the game-timer reads 25 to 30 minutes (the next scenario that I'm working on comes in considerably under that, but the first two are pretty similar time-wise).

The enemy group-spawns (not individual spawns) are a bit bigger for each scenario you've won previously, but the impression I'm getting from you is that this has been happening from all the scenarios.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 14, 2012, 05:59:22 PM
It takes about 40-45 minutes for me (add ten for the new encounter) (25-30 with two champions). This is on 8/8.
Does AI difficulty affect the nebulae?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 14, 2012, 06:03:09 PM
Does AI difficulty affect the nebulae?
No, not at all :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Eternaly_Lost August 14, 2012, 06:05:23 PM
Are you talking about 20 minutes at +10 or something?
No, I'm testing starting off at the beginning of a game with an offroad wormhole on my HW, and when the scenario is done the game-timer reads 25 to 30 minutes (the next scenario that I'm working on comes in considerably under that, but the first two are pretty similar time-wise).

The enemy group-spawns (not individual spawns) are a bit bigger for each scenario you've won previously, but the impression I'm getting from you is that this has been happening from all the scenarios.

I have yet to get to a second one, the first one is taking longer then Fallen Spire to complete. I am in route to my second city shard and the first nebula is still going on. That is with a ship design hack in the middle of that, so I am not moving that quickly on fallen spire.

Does AI difficulty affect the nebulae?
No, not at all :)

Why do I get the feeling that this is wrong? I am tempted to restart this at a 7/7 game to see if I can finish the first nebula.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: orzelek August 14, 2012, 06:31:13 PM
Until now I played only the first one and I think it was in 45-1h mark also. I died few times but it was next to HW so go back time was not significant.

Does ship cap setting affect this in some way? I'm playing on Ultra low.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Eternaly_Lost August 14, 2012, 06:56:33 PM
Until now I played only the first one and I think it was in 45-1h mark also. I died few times but it was next to HW so go back time was not significant.

Does ship cap setting affect this in some way? I'm playing on Ultra low.

I am playing on low, and it very well might as I think keith plays on high caps as that is the standard balance level.

I love to play on high caps, but it tends to crash quite often due to out of heap issues as the wall time gets up there.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Eternaly_Lost August 14, 2012, 07:29:02 PM
Until now I played only the first one and I think it was in 45-1h mark also. I died few times but it was next to HW so go back time was not significant.

Does ship cap setting affect this in some way? I'm playing on Ultra low.

I think I found the issue. I normally play on Epic, but I swapped it over to blitz and a nebula was done in about 30 minutes, and it only took less then a minute for the first damage to a starbase. Rather then the 15 minutes I had been seeing before.

At normal, things flowed quite evenly. I put it back to epic and things were crawling and I got back to the 2-4 hour mark for nebulas.

I think we should have nebula ignore speed options and run at a constant rate( Normal ) for nebulas, as I can tell you that Epic game play is what I like outside of nebula, but inside nebula they are quite literally there own game at several hours per nebula. Things just crawl and make me want to run it at +10, were as outside of them there is plenty to do to fill normal time.

Certainly not what I think was intended with the side missions.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 14, 2012, 07:44:47 PM
I test on Normal-caps, Normal-combat-style (if I'm doing standard numbers I use High/Epic because those are the "native" numbers, but I don't generally do playtesting on that).

So yea, the Epic vs Normal difference would explain it, I think :)  I can set the movement speeds on the nebula stuff and the champion to ignore combat-style, but I can't really make the damage ignore it without creating very different balance for the champions.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: doctorfrog August 15, 2012, 04:05:37 AM
Does the champion vessel make a special sound/message event when it respawns? Because if it has, I haven't noticed it.

Someone second the motion that I'm not merely inattentive, and I'll construct a Mantis for it.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 15, 2012, 04:21:44 AM
I haven't heard or seen anything special when the Shadow vessel respawns. It just silently appears back at Home Command.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 15, 2012, 09:22:49 AM
No, there's no special announcement or whatever of the respawn, that could get spammy.  If you want to reselect it just hit Ctrl+H :)

If folks really want it to I suppose I could have it put an entry in the chat log.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 15, 2012, 09:25:58 AM
No, there's no special announcement or whatever of the respawn, that could get spammy.  If you want to reselect it just hit Ctrl+H :)

If folks really want it to I suppose I could have it put an entry in the chat log.

Make it an option somewhere?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: doctorfrog August 15, 2012, 01:12:13 PM
No, there's no special announcement or whatever of the respawn, that could get spammy.  If you want to reselect it just hit Ctrl+H :)

If folks really want it to I suppose I could have it put an entry in the chat log.

Didn't know this; this is helpful. Thanks.

I'd still like a sound event and/or alert thingi, personally, but then again I kinda wish we had an event + sound editor that let you make the intel log as verbose and spammy as you like. Common sense has restrained me from asking for it, though :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 15, 2012, 04:49:21 PM
It could be set up so that only the owner of the champion receives the message. That way people aren't swarmed with messages about how 'Player4's champion has teleported to planet Murdoch after suffering critical damage (click to view).'
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Nodor August 15, 2012, 05:19:49 PM
I have a VERY suicidal champion.  But playing just a champion in multi-player ...  if I died.. I'm cognizant.

For solo play - Homeworld + Champion, I would prefer the champion ship be part of the filters in the lower left.   Since that's what I use to locate everything else.

Spamming me about the death, is less useful imo.

: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Trandrin August 18, 2012, 09:55:13 AM
The new expansion enticed me back to ai war after a long break. Gotta say the champion is a nice addition to the roster. Played around with a few of the objective missions you can find and came up with a request/question.
One, is it normal for the ships on your side in the nebula to leave it after winning and decimate ai until their deaths and two, could perhaps we see a Warp gate for the production of the special ships we are allowed to build after we best the enemy? We have them for fabricators/docks and such would be nice to send the special ships aswell. Helpfull if there is enemy world(s) between the wormhole and your front lines.
The first one comes up because my last game had the struggle between pirate and miner. After winning the mass swarm of allied ships then went back out into normal space and carved through entire mark 4 world like butter. They cleaned it fully then camped right on top of the command center murdering anything that got close to them.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 18, 2012, 09:59:00 AM
One, is it normal for the ships on your side in the nebula to leave it after winning and decimate ai until their deaths
Yep :)  If the enemies win they typically go on a rampage too, though the target depends on the faction.

and two, could perhaps we see a Warp gate for the production of the special ships we are allowed to build after we best the enemy?
Yea, I've been meaning to do that, just haven't gotten to it.

After winning the mass swarm of allied ships then went back out into normal space and carved through entire mark 4 world like butter. They cleaned it fully then camped right on top of the command center murdering anything that got close to them.
Revenge is best served cold ;)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Kraiz August 18, 2012, 04:54:03 PM
Potential Spoilers below, be warned.

1:  The AI for the scenarios involving Starbase attack and defense needs work.  The NPCs seem to be on FRD, simply engaging whatever the heck seems good.  Since the player engaging the Starbases one-on-one isn't exactly a great idea (Though Bomber Drones make for great fodder when trying to get a few final shots in), he/she has to wait for the NPCs to make a move towards one before it is feasible to attack it.  The problem is then that the player is mindlessly killing enemy NPCs as fast as he can to get his own friendly NPCs to set their next target to be a starbase.  I spend a whole hour doing this in the Shattered Pillar Vs. Dark Spire + Anoids 1v2 match, and got from level 1 all the way up to level 14 in a single challenge.  The whole time just swatting down NPCs in hopes that I could swat all of them down fast enough for the Shattered Pillar NPCs to take a starbase as a target.

Perhaps instead of FRD'ing the military units, perhaps give them attack-move orders to the various starbases?  This way they'll still defend themselves and shoot down incoming enemies, but won't be so clueless as to get within striking distance of a starbase just to turn around and go to another one to fight a single ship.  Either that, or perhaps a radar dampening champion hull to allow the player to feasibly directly attack the starbase? I've used the Human and Zenith models, and have unlocked the Nenzui but haven't used it yet.  If Radar dampening is added onto one of the champion hulls, he can engage the starbases, but isn't completely invulnerable because the base will spawn NPCs which will close range, forcing him/her to fight them.

2:  The Tackle Drone launchers are quite cool, except that they can take ships WAY too far out of the planet.  They have taken my ships nearly twice the distance they shouldbe able to go out of the system's radius (WAY past the 2 yellow circles), and it makes finding and regrouping them terrifically impossible.  Perhaps have the drones not fly so far out, or stop once they hit the ddge of the system?  Anything to prevent me having a play area nearly 3-4x the size of the planet, as finding units and selecting them to give orders becomes very cumbersome at this point.

3:  I play on the "blitz" combat style exclusively--Are the champion and challenge NPCs supposed to scale with this?  The challenge movement speeds are breathtakingly slow.  It's not a huge detriment as I can speed the game speed up by +2-3 and somewhat mitigate it, but it would be nice for them to get a very slight speed boost.  Or perhaps have different hulls have different attributes (IE: Zenith somewhat slower bu theavier armor, Nenzui faster but slightly thinner armor, etc.) just to give players an opytion on how they want to play in the challenge systems.

Other than that, I'm really liking this.  I just saw the Abilities released so am about to boot up and try those out (With my Level 19 Champ, 14 levels of which came from my first challenge).
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 18, 2012, 05:04:25 PM
I'd say make anything non-huge or irreplaceable that is pushed more than >N distance from the the radius the mining golem spawns should just be removed and say it was lost to deep space or something.
Admittedly not my idea, but I can't remember whose idea it was.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 18, 2012, 08:03:26 PM
Potential Spoilers below, be warned.

1:  The AI for the scenarios involving Starbase attack and defense needs work.  The NPCs seem to be on FRD, simply engaging whatever the heck seems good.  Since the player engaging the Starbases one-on-one isn't exactly a great idea (Though Bomber Drones make for great fodder when trying to get a few final shots in), he/she has to wait for the NPCs to make a move towards one before it is feasible to attack it.  The problem is then that the player is mindlessly killing enemy NPCs as fast as he can to get his own friendly NPCs to set their next target to be a starbase.  I spend a whole hour doing this in the Shattered Pillar Vs. Dark Spire + Anoids 1v2 match, and got from level 1 all the way up to level 14 in a single challenge.  The whole time just swatting down NPCs in hopes that I could swat all of them down fast enough for the Shattered Pillar NPCs to take a starbase as a target.

Perhaps instead of FRD'ing the military units, perhaps give them attack-move orders to the various starbases?  This way they'll still defend themselves and shoot down incoming enemies, but won't be so clueless as to get within striking distance of a starbase just to turn around and go to another one to fight a single ship.  Either that, or perhaps a radar dampening champion hull to allow the player to feasibly directly attack the starbase? I've used the Human and Zenith models, and have unlocked the Nenzui but haven't used it yet.  If Radar dampening is added onto one of the champion hulls, he can engage the starbases, but isn't completely invulnerable because the base will spawn NPCs which will close range, forcing him/her to fight them.

3:  I play on the "blitz" combat style exclusively--Are the champion and challenge NPCs supposed to scale with this?  The challenge movement speeds are breathtakingly slow.  It's not a huge detriment as I can speed the game speed up by +2-3 and somewhat mitigate it, but it would be nice for them to get a very slight speed boost.  Or perhaps have different hulls have different attributes (IE: Zenith somewhat slower bu theavier armor, Nenzui faster but slightly thinner armor, etc.) just to give players an opytion on how they want to play in the challenge systems.

Other than that, I'm really liking this.  I just saw the Abilities released so am about to boot up and try those out (With my Level 19 Champ, 14 levels of which came from my first challenge).

Check out the Neinzul Champ ships (when you get them unlocked). Those are very different than the other 2 right now.
The speed of the ships in the nebula is there to make the encounters a tactical challenge. 14 levels on your first encounter sounds about what I get on mine. And on the Shattered Pillar encounter (2v1), its a free for all actually and try and focus on the Neinzul (pinkies) first. Those beam ships hurt plenty.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: RCIX August 18, 2012, 08:16:08 PM
I found the Dark Spire (?) interesting, as you could circle-kite the base to deal a lot more damage. the Neinzul was just way too hard to confront directly.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: RCIX August 18, 2012, 08:29:09 PM
Here's my feedback about the champion construction UI (having just updated to 5.064).

It kinda sucks a bit. You have to go into the UI, click on each slot individually and fill in a module, name and abbreviate it, save it, then apply to selection. Ideally, I'd have the ability to select a "current champion" UI then just drag modules into their appropriate slots or something quicker (not sure what exactly, maybe click the module then click on slots to assign?).


Granted, I was doing this while 2 Hybrid Hives were sitting on my homeworld, but it could definitely use some polishing :P
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 18, 2012, 08:33:39 PM
You have to go into the UI, click on each slot individually and fill in a module, name and abbreviate it, save it, then apply to selection.
Actually you don't have to name, abbreviate, or save it.  Just make whatever changes you want to the current loadout and hit apply-to-selection.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 18, 2012, 08:36:54 PM
There is something off with it right now.. working up a few SS to kinda show it.

Added: Ok. From Normal+ Champ, I clicked on Champ 1 and then MODS. This is how it comes up. SS1
Clicking on another tab and back to ship design gives you SS2.

Cycling with Ctrl+H works as expected. Ctrl+M works as expected.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Kraiz August 18, 2012, 08:40:34 PM
...

Check out the Neinzul Champ ships (when you get them unlocked). Those are very different than the other 2 right now.
The speed of the ships in the nebula is there to make the encounters a tactical challenge. 14 levels on your first encounter sounds about what I get on mine. And on the Shattered Pillar encounter (2v1), its a free for all actually and try and focus on the Neinzul (pinkies) first. Those beam ships hurt plenty.

I have the Nenzui champ unlocked, bu tdidn't see anything remarkable about it other than the cloak.  The purpose behind the speed being slowed is understandable, bu tthe want for it to be tactical doesn't feel right with all the ship speeds being nearly the same.  It's pretty difficult to kite or to retreat once one of the NPCs targets you because you're the same speed.  A bit of variance would make it much more tactically interesting.

I didn't realize it was a FFA for the Shattered Pillar one.  Either way, yeah, the Shadowblades (The beam ones) hurt quite a bit.

Other than the cloak, what's so significant about the nenzui champ that makes it so much different?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 18, 2012, 08:41:22 PM
You have to go into the UI, click on each slot individually and fill in a module, name and abbreviate it, save it, then apply to selection.
Actually you don't have to name, abbreviate, or save it.  Just make whatever changes you want to the current loadout and hit apply-to-selection.

Speaking of naming and saving, I tend to make a loadout for my Riots, and I'd like to name, save, and apply all in one go.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 18, 2012, 08:49:25 PM
Added: Ok. From Normal+ Champ, I clicked on Champ 1 and then MODS. This is how it comes up. SS1
The blank one?  That's really odd, because when I:

1) Start Lobby
2) Pick Normal + Champion
3) Start Game
4) Click on Champion to select it
5) Click MODS

it opens to the Ship Design tab and looks exactly like it should.

If I then click on Champion Unlocks and then back to Ship Design, it also looks exactly like it should.

Do you have a save and steps to reproduce? :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 18, 2012, 08:50:26 PM
...

Check out the Neinzul Champ ships (when you get them unlocked). Those are very different than the other 2 right now.
The speed of the ships in the nebula is there to make the encounters a tactical challenge. 14 levels on your first encounter sounds about what I get on mine. And on the Shattered Pillar encounter (2v1), its a free for all actually and try and focus on the Neinzul (pinkies) first. Those beam ships hurt plenty.

I have the Nenzui champ unlocked, bu tdidn't see anything remarkable about it other than the cloak.  The purpose behind the speed being slowed is understandable, bu tthe want for it to be tactical doesn't feel right with all the ship speeds being nearly the same.  It's pretty difficult to kite or to retreat once one of the NPCs targets you because you're the same speed.  A bit of variance would make it much more tactically interesting.

I didn't realize it was a FFA for the Shattered Pillar one.  Either way, yeah, the Shadowblades (The beam ones) hurt quite a bit.

Other than the cloak, what's so significant about the nenzui champ that makes it so much different?

The Neinzul Destroyer and Cruiser get more special attributes. Specifically Radar Dampening. Each class up gets one additional attribute right now.
Something to try on that encounter. On your way way into the friendly base, do a fly by of the closest spawner for the Neinzul. You should be able to kill one in one pass. Clear off the friendly base (the spawners can handle 2 or 3 attackers from the other faction) then do a fly by on another spawner at the Neinzul base. Hit and run works real well here and when the Neinzul are gone, you pretty much have it won.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Kraiz August 18, 2012, 08:58:51 PM
You mean the Dark Spire?  The DS were the only ones using the beams, and they were the pinky/purple color; the Nenzui were the orange guys (perhaps the colors vary?)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 18, 2012, 08:59:15 PM
Added: Ok. From Normal+ Champ, I clicked on Champ 1 and then MODS. This is how it comes up. SS1
The blank one?  That's really odd, because when I:

1) Start Lobby
2) Pick Normal + Champion
3) Start Game
4) Click on Champion to select it
5) Click MODS

it opens to the Ship Design tab and looks exactly like it should.

If I then click on Champion Unlocks and then back to Ship Design, it also looks exactly like it should.

Do you have a save and steps to reproduce? :)

Multiple champs. The player champ is labeled with the players name. The first extra champ is labeled Champ 1 (so on thru Champ 7 in player 8 position).

Champs are on Dorvi in an encounter. Pause game and click on any of the grouped champs (rainbow flight lol) The grey champ is the player champ. Click on one to select and click on MODS button. That comes up like the ss. Game was started on version 5.063. 

You mean the Dark Spire?  The DS were the only ones using the beams, and they were the pinky/purple color; the Nenzui were the orange guys (perhaps the colors vary?)

Yeah, sorry. I had them backwards.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 18, 2012, 09:22:07 PM
Multiple champs. The player champ is labeled with the players name. The first extra champ is labeled Champ 1 (so on thru Champ 7 in player 8 position).

Champs are on Dorvi in an encounter. Pause game and click on any of the grouped champs (rainbow flight lol) The grey champ is the player champ. Click on one to select and click on MODS button. That comes up like the ss. Game was started on version 5.063.
Ah, ok, thanks.  Found and fixed for 5.066 :)  It was actually the same for the MODS button and Ctrl+M, whichever one you do first with the other player's champion selected will fail, and the second will succeed (because you've already switched to their interface).
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 18, 2012, 09:24:35 PM
Thank RCIX. I went to check on what he was posting about and saw that mess :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: RCIX August 18, 2012, 09:32:10 PM
You have to go into the UI, click on each slot individually and fill in a module, name and abbreviate it, save it, then apply to selection.
Actually you don't have to name, abbreviate, or save it.  Just make whatever changes you want to the current loadout and hit apply-to-selection.
Maybe make that button bigger and flashing? :D
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 18, 2012, 09:40:10 PM
Maybe make that button blue. =p
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: bonesbro August 19, 2012, 12:42:19 PM
I'm playing my 4th scenario this game and it's just brutal.  It's the EE vs. SF mission.  Even taking out a couple of spawners early the SF builds ships much, much faster than the EE and they're steamrolling the map.  I've tried it three times now and can't even come close to winning.  I've been trying to kill enemy ships while staying in missile range of a spawner (ZS-DD with a shield and 3 Missile IIIs).

I just patched up to the version which added abilities, so we'll see how much shadow shield helps.  But right now it's really frustrating and feels unwinnable.

(Two AIs on diff 7 if it matters)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Eternaly_Lost August 19, 2012, 01:07:00 PM
I'm playing my 4th scenario this game and it's just brutal.  It's the EE vs. SF mission.  Even taking out a couple of spawners early the SF builds ships much, much faster than the EE and they're steamrolling the map.  I've tried it three times now and can't even come close to winning.  I've been trying to kill enemy ships while staying in missile range of a spawner (ZS-DD with a shield and 3 Missile IIIs).

I just patched up to the version which added abilities, so we'll see how much shadow shield helps.  But right now it's really frustrating and feels unwinnable.

(Two AIs on diff 7 if it matters)

The three way battle(for the very first mission) is also rather brutal. The spawn of the AI each appears to be 1.5x what your allies are, and both sides just focus on killing you rather then each other. I really needed to run two Champions to be able to beat that, as they might as well be allies with how little they attack each other, meaning you are outgunned almost 4:1 with just 1 Champion there. I only won it when I got it second so I had the upgraded hull and weapons going into the fight. Without it, I need to slow down to -5 to Mirco enough to just hold the AI back, forget about winning that stupid fight.

It is filling up the void rather nicely, but in a slow and drawn out way... Can we get the spawn rate of those ships halfed or something? Because at the number they flow out at, as soon as my two Champions clear out a group, another one and a half spawns. That is with the AI doing what little it can to help.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: RCIX August 19, 2012, 02:20:46 PM
I'm playing my 4th scenario this game and it's just brutal.  It's the EE vs. SF mission.  Even taking out a couple of spawners early the SF builds ships much, much faster than the EE and they're steamrolling the map.  I've tried it three times now and can't even come close to winning.  I've been trying to kill enemy ships while staying in missile range of a spawner (ZS-DD with a shield and 3 Missile IIIs).

I just patched up to the version which added abilities, so we'll see how much shadow shield helps.  But right now it's really frustrating and feels unwinnable.

(Two AIs on diff 7 if it matters)

The three way battle(for the very first mission) is also rather brutal. The spawn of the AI each appears to be 1.5x what your allies are, and both sides just focus on killing you rather then each other. I really needed to run two Champions to be able to beat that, as they might as well be allies with how little they attack each other, meaning you are outgunned almost 4:1 with just 1 Champion there. I only won it when I got it second so I had the upgraded hull and weapons going into the fight. Without it, I need to slow down to -5 to Mirco enough to just hold the AI back, forget about winning that stupid fight.

It is filling up the void rather nicely, but in a slow and drawn out way... Can we get the spawn rate of those ships halfed or something? Because at the number they flow out at, as soon as my two Champions clear out a group, another one and a half spawns. That is with the AI doing what little it can to help.
The trick for that is to just stay defensive and pop ships till a few allies attack some of the Spire stuff, then use that as cover to start circle-kiting the Spire bases. Their beam attacks deal pitiful damage if you do that. the Neinzul are far too strong to do that straight up since you can't dodge their attacks, but the journal gives you a hint: "Individually, the Zenith would have an edge on either one of them, but there's 2" (or something to that effect)

Make sure to unlock/pack the missile launchers. You won't get far vs those bases without them.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 19, 2012, 03:14:29 PM
On the 3-way scenario the enemies each actually have significantly lower spawn rates than the allies, but together they have more.

On the later scenarios, monday I'll put out a patch significantly reducing the scale-up that happens from later scenarios and more champions.  Enough distinct testers have said "Uncle!" that it's clear that the current numbers have accomplished the goal of dealing with the earlier problem of "every scenario after the first is trivial" and "taking multiple champions makes it really easy" :)

Just so you know, it's likely to take several iterations to get that part right, but it'll happen :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: bonesbro August 19, 2012, 04:45:44 PM
It got a whole lot easier with after getting the abilities patch.  Shadow Shield to save my allies (or myself) turned an unwinnable fight into, well, something we won.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: bonesbro August 19, 2012, 05:01:48 PM
Also, I noticed didn't get a scenario in nebulas 5 and 6.  They were just completely empty.  Is this expected at the moment or should it have given me a dupe?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 19, 2012, 05:50:29 PM
Also, I noticed didn't get a scenario in nebulas 5 and 6.  They were just completely empty.  Is this expected at the moment or should it have given me a dupe?

Sounds similar to 9305: nebula past third did not generate scenarios (http://arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9305)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Nodor August 20, 2012, 12:31:40 AM
From playing with the tractor launcher ships.

1.  The 80K range for Military FRD needs to be looked at.  Having to turn FRD off and manually target the entire fleet to prevent it from being outside of the orange line.. by a lot is not best.
2.  8 Mk 1 Ships + 20 Sniper turrets + "something to handle a starship/golem/champion" can take out a 600 ship wave of bombers.   Being able to ignore bomber waves is "different".  (Except for the Champion units...  that required the rest of the fleet.) 
3.  Tractors seemed to send ships about 160K from the Drones.   Putting them in a quarter-circle around the edge of one side of the map, next to some sniper turrets meant that nothing got back to the center - and everything in it left almost immediately.

Suggestion: Halve or quarter the tractor lifespan/distance.  These things are sick and wrong in their current state.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 20, 2012, 01:15:32 AM
Sounds like the new tackle drone launchers would be a certain winner of the next "what is so OP that it is detracting from the game and thus needs to be nerfed?" poll (Or as Keith put it far more "elegantly", what needs the nerf-bat :P), except of course that these things are so new that Keith will probably take "off the cuff" feedback more seriously as there isn't much other feedback to go on yet. ;)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Ozymandiaz August 20, 2012, 11:29:44 AM
So far I am liking what I see in this expansion. I did not think you would expand AI War this way, but I really like it.

I foresee many hours of gaming in the coming months :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Coppermantis August 20, 2012, 02:32:36 PM
Yes, everytime I bring the tackle drones into an engagement there are inevitably a great many ships trapped in the gravity well. It's fairly annoying, actually, since almost nothing can actually reach them.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 20, 2012, 02:46:45 PM
Yes, everytime I bring the tackle drones into an engagement there are inevitably a great many ships trapped in the gravity well. It's fairly annoying, actually, since almost nothing can actually reach them.
Is that still happening in 5.067?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 20, 2012, 03:02:22 PM
I still feel like the disparity of experience gained from nebula missions and "normal game activities" (killing guard posts, command stations, etc) is a little absurdly high right now. While I agree with nebula missions being more rewarding EXP than "normal game" stuff, can the gap between the two be shrunk a bit?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 20, 2012, 03:07:16 PM
I still feel like the disparity of experience gained from nebula missions and "normal game activities" (killing guard posts, command stations, etc) is a little absurdly high right now. While I agree with nebula missions being more rewarding EXP than "normal game" stuff, can the gap between the two be shrunk a bit?
The normal game really isn't supposed to give a significant amount, partly because the focus of a champion's "growth" is supposed to be in the nebulae (they're plenty useful in normal space, and that's the strategic payoff), partly because there are relatively few things in normal space that cannot be made to appear in extreme quantity.  If fleet ships even gave 1/1000th of a point there are players who would be level 100 by mid/late game without ever entering a nebula, and making it only starships or guardians or whatever wouldn't be much better.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 20, 2012, 03:09:57 PM
I still feel like the disparity of experience gained from nebula missions and "normal game activities" (killing guard posts, command stations, etc) is a little absurdly high right now. While I agree with nebula missions being more rewarding EXP than "normal game" stuff, can the gap between the two be shrunk a bit?
The normal game really isn't supposed to give a significant amount, partly because the focus of a champion's "growth" is supposed to be in the nebulae (they're plenty useful in normal space, and that's the strategic payoff), partly because there are relatively few things in normal space that cannot be made to appear in extreme quantity.  If fleet ships even gave 1/1000th of a point there are players who would be level 100 by mid/late game without ever entering a nebula, and making it only starships or guardians or whatever wouldn't be much better.

I'm not saying to give more things to grant EXP (that would lead to ridiculous situations, as you mentioned), but could you increase the EXP gained from killing guard posts and command stations a bit?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 20, 2012, 03:18:18 PM
I'm not saying to give more things to grant EXP (that would lead to ridiculous situations, as you mentioned), but could you increase the EXP gained from killing guard posts and command stations a bit?
If it really makes you happier ;)

But if I get complaints of it being too important to have your champion on hand for every single guard post or command station kill, it's going right back ;)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 20, 2012, 03:19:59 PM
I'm not saying to give more things to grant EXP (that would lead to ridiculous situations, as you mentioned), but could you increase the EXP gained from killing guard posts and command stations a bit?
If it really makes you happier ;)

But if I get complaints of it being too important to have your champion on hand for every single guard post or command station kill, it's going right back ;)

Hmm, there is the "pressure to grind" aspect I didn't think about.

Well, in this case, I'll leave it up to you (though, it really is up to you to begin with ;). But what I mean is that I won't care so much anymore either way), though I would like to hear what other people thing about this.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Nodor August 20, 2012, 04:16:23 PM
I'm already grinding Champion XP.  The question is "where am I grinding it". 

Setting up a strategy to grind endlessly spawning ships in nebulas is easy to do.

Two questions I don't feel I have an answer to.

How many levels are needed equip a full set of top tear weapons/shields on my top level champion ship?  (For instance, to equip all the "level 2" base modules on a frigate is level 12 (11 points for Laser 2, Missle 1&2, Shield 2, Gun 2 & MLRS 2). 
15+ levels for destroyers and I assume 20+ levels for Cruisers)  There may be a level 5...   This math means I want level 50+. 

From my understanding of "difficulty" of nebula, I want about 15 levels per nebula so that on nebula 5+  I am ahead of the XP curve.

Now, I have been in 6 nebulas in 3 different games one of which was pre 5.062...  so I don't feel like I have my arms around this fully yet.

I don't know what the unlocks are, I don't know where the levels are, but I do know that I need a ton of levels to unlock the shiny toys I see - making where I grind the question.


 
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 20, 2012, 04:28:49 PM
The point is to specialize rather than try to max everything (though maxing everything even now takes way more than 50 points).  You can fight quite efficiently with only 2 module lines maxed (a small weapon and a large weapon), but maxing shields is a good idea too. 3 lines to mkV (yes, there will be 5) would be 42 points in the current model.  I'm planning to change the costs from 2/3/4/5 to 2/2/3/3 or something like that, and maybe have every 4th or 5th level give 2 points instead of 1.

There's a bunch of other modules you'll want to use in specific situations, but you won't really be able to max a bunch of them.  If the perceived need to do so becomes and continues to be a big thing I'll do something else with the XP model.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Coppermantis August 20, 2012, 04:40:49 PM
Yes, everytime I bring the tackle drones into an engagement there are inevitably a great many ships trapped in the gravity well. It's fairly annoying, actually, since almost nothing can actually reach them.
Is that still happening in 5.067?

Ah, not anymore. I still think that they're a little too powerful but that's just my opinion.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 20, 2012, 04:46:09 PM
One thing I want to suggest is to at least make the exp outside of nebulas feel like something. The problem I had with the model is just the fact that I get what, only 15 exp for each guard post and for the command station I think? First, on low difficulties, you really encounter only just a couple guard posts. And... assuming you did a nebula before killing anything outside of them, the exp that you earn is extremely underwhelming. I am not asking for anything like ships giving exp or something to that effect. What I do want, is to feel like the champion can gain a little something for being helpful outside of its own ventures. Otherwise, its solo ventures are the main appeal for a long time.
I wouldn't really know how to fix this. I know someone hinted at a suggestion of re-adding AI turrets to the game. If the AI got turrets, that could add to the exp earning game quite enough (first kill of every turret rebuilds not counted or something). On the other hand, I don't really know why they were removed in the first place! Maybe this is a terrible idea to even consider. Guard posts could just be worth MOAR EXPs, but that wouldn't really help either because then you have to bring the champion on every raid into AI territory or lose out on so much exp that you may as well be getting punished directly with that huge exp loss.

Ultimately though... I feel like exp out-of-nebula is not just underwhelming, it's not viable. I don't expect to be getting every module but I do want some growth for doing everything. While I say that, I'll totally admit that I might be completely off base here. It might be worth starting a poll when the whole working out the point earning and spending parts of your plan like you mentioned, just to see how everyone feels.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 20, 2012, 04:51:11 PM
Yes, everytime I bring the tackle drones into an engagement there are inevitably a great many ships trapped in the gravity well. It's fairly annoying, actually, since almost nothing can actually reach them.
Is that still happening in 5.067?

Ah, not anymore. I still think that they're a little too powerful but that's just my opinion.

So still OP, but not "OMG, So OP it is hurting the game and making me rage/bored" (depending on which side the tackle drones are on)?
It seems that their unintentional speed buff with their acceleration being basically infinite now (aka, 0 to max speed in one game cycle), and their ability to easily tractor beyond the gravity well area was causing them to go to stupid OP levels.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 20, 2012, 04:52:06 PM
The problem I had with the model is just the fact that I get what, only 15 exp for each guard post and for the command station I think?
In the currently public version, 20*mk for guard posts, 100*mk for command stations (there are only 3 marks of command station).  So quite a bit more than you're thinking, in practice, since there are rather few mark I AI planets :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 20, 2012, 04:55:34 PM
The Tacklers are still pretty OP, because they take more stuff out of the fight way longer and way more effectively than just about any other method of disabling.  And it "stacks" in a truly horrifying way with heavy-engine-damage and planet-wide-grav setups.

It can be balanced, but the total amount of tackling done is gonna have to come way down :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 20, 2012, 05:18:02 PM
With regards to what I said it was mostly with early game experience and more a focus on nebulas. So, it's not as bad as I thought. That's because I only DID attack mark I planets that had stuff I wanted.
Well... I can see champions being pretty awesome on fallen spire where you don't have to worry about vastly limiting the planets you take. Keep em around for each command station and get hundreds of exp. And.... I remember guard posts are way way more frequent on difficulties that are more sensible (like 7/7 and up).
I'm not really sure, I'd have to put it to practice after both owning the expansion and a computer that will stably run games. I can't really fix this one up without knowing someone who's actually legitimately tech-y. It had fatal error issues with AVWW that I posted about, it crashes on AI War and any other game under the sun. It's usually a memory access violation though, so... I think I have a wild guess as to what's wrong. ;)
On the topic... I think you could certainly let exp values be for now. Those sound reasonable, and I just didn't notice because I was on a lower difficulty (5/5 I believe) with fewer guard posts and a severe lack of deadly things. Maybe something could be done about that but I can see that being a low priority for a long while.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Toranth August 20, 2012, 05:26:51 PM
The Tacklers are still pretty OP, because they take more stuff out of the fight way longer and way more effectively than just about any other method of disabling.  And it "stacks" in a truly horrifying way with heavy-engine-damage and planet-wide-grav setups.

It can be balanced, but the total amount of tackling done is gonna have to come way down :)
Unlike everyone else, I'm not finding the Batwings OP.  They're certainly useful in conjunction with turret-only defenses, or with movement commands.  But I'm finding that if my fleet is on FRD or Attack-move, the TDs launch the closest few ships across the system, then half my fleet (that was targetting those ships) goes chasing off after them.  Anything vaugely resembling formation, position, or support goes out the window at that point.

But for tasks like defending a system against border aggression, or with Grav Drills, they're quite nice.  On offense?  Ok.  On wave defense?  No.
Finally, I'm surprised at the large number of tractor-immune things out there.  All starships, all guardians, and 24 fleet ships.

: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: orzelek August 21, 2012, 12:00:08 PM
The point is to specialize rather than try to max everything (though maxing everything even now takes way more than 50 points).  You can fight quite efficiently with only 2 module lines maxed (a small weapon and a large weapon), but maxing shields is a good idea too. 3 lines to mkV (yes, there will be 5) would be 42 points in the current model.  I'm planning to change the costs from 2/3/4/5 to 2/2/3/3 or something like that, and maybe have every 4th or 5th level give 2 points instead of 1.

There's a bunch of other modules you'll want to use in specific situations, but you won't really be able to max a bunch of them.  If the perceived need to do so becomes and continues to be a big thing I'll do something else with the XP model.

I can guarantee you that there will be people grinding nebula scenarios to get as much xp as possible. It's simply the completionist in us that will want to have everything unlocked, feel happy to have it and then go wreck a homeworld.

Would it be feasible to make more exp from normal combat (guardians, hybrids?, golems etc for exp) and simply add level cap that would increase with each scenario completed. It would need to be balanced in a way that after all scenarios you can get enough levels to get all the toys :D
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art August 21, 2012, 12:02:16 PM
I find it odd that xp gained in nebula is not gained by a set amount, but rather based on ships destroyed there. Since you cannot get xp from destroying ships outside of nebulas, and since nebulas get stronger each time, it encourages grinding so as to kill as many ships you can before it ends rather then trying to end it.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 21, 2012, 12:04:07 PM
I find it odd that xp gained in nebula is not gained by a set amount, but rather based on ships destroyed there. Since you cannot get xp from destroying ships outside of nebulas, and since nebulas get stronger each time, it encourages grinding so as to kill as many ships you can before it ends rather then trying to end it.
Yea, I'm thinking of changing that.  The third scenario (and the fourth one that I'm almost done with) reward pursuing the objectives as hard as you can; the first two reward dragging it out.  Something should be done ;)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Hearteater August 21, 2012, 12:16:08 PM
I was actually expecting XP to work a bit more like Knowledge.  There is a fixed amount in each game.  So the goal would be to successfully complete missions, not come up with optimal farming techniques.  Of course missions might have tiered rewards based on how you did, but I was thinking in terms of secondary objectives and such, not just kills.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art August 21, 2012, 01:08:32 PM
I would be a fan of doing this as well:

Increase the champion xp requirements of all levels by 10
Increase the champion xp gains for all current things by 10
Allow for each ai fleetship destroyed on while the champion is on give 1 xp

The goal being the champion still gains xp very very slowly from destroying ships. Key word being slow. It would take 7500 ai fleetships to lvl to lvl 2, and more still after word. The goal is that it gives a slow, but unlimited, form of xp for the champion if the player is unable to reach more nebulas for a time. It may seem high, but with higher aip it could give toward 1k xp or maybe more per wave.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 21, 2012, 01:17:14 PM
Nothing there to stop someone from setting up on the deepstrike route and farming a constant stream of ships for xp.

I'm thinking grinding just to max our champs is out of the question.

For the curious, 136 points to max out currently. Lvl 100 is around 4,000,000 xp. it took me around 40 hours of straight grinding (before the scaling buff btw) to get there. It would take an inordinate amount of time to max out after Mk V modules come into play. 
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 21, 2012, 01:40:44 PM
Yea, I don't want infinitely-farmable stuff to give XP.  I'm ok with temporarily-farmable stuff (nebula ships) giving XP as long as the scenario progresses towards termination or there's some sufficient motive to finish the scenario; that's true for the 3rd one (and the 4th one, which is basically done now, just gotta do some other stuff before a release), but the 1st and 2nd need work.

For AI ships, I'm thinking having them give 1 point (per mark, perhaps) of shadow-charge might be a good way of having them give something, but not something that can be infinitely farmed.  Even that may prove unbalancing by letting the champion drop truckloads of projected ability units onto the field in the middle of a massive attack.  On the other hand, "in the middle of a massive attack" may be exactly when they need to do so.  On the third hand, it might lead to a lot of having to pause to properly use the abilities (even with better keybinds for using them) before your capacitor maxes out from the AI ship deaths, etc.

Lotsa hands to consider.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 21, 2012, 01:54:39 PM
More to micro  ::)  Honestly, I'd rather see the content added in (yea bug hunt!) and polished afterwards. The only good thing about having all those points was the ability to try out different set ups without running several different games or saving then spending points to see if it works.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: orzelek August 21, 2012, 02:39:22 PM
I would have a bit different question then:

Do you see player gaining access to all high level modules as good or bad thing?

PS.
Making scenario reward you with more or less "things" depending on how well you do it will lead to save/load grind if this makes you lose the ability to receive that "things".
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 21, 2012, 02:49:27 PM
If you have everything then you don't really have to make any interesting choices about what to unlock.

It would be like if an ARS hack gave you all 3 ship designs.  You would be foolish to not take advantage of all the ARS in that way.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 21, 2012, 03:54:22 PM
I kinda like the idea of exp being like knowledge, and ships giving exp. That way... Nebulas can be the dominant and more unlimited exp source, and the champion can gain exp by killing stuff on each planet, but only to a particular cap. So, the champion can gain 3000 exp by killing 3000 enemy ships on planet X, but no more than that.
The question would be whether you'd have to capture the planet or do something to it first. In which case it'd probably be too complicated of an idea to try.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Eternaly_Lost August 21, 2012, 08:28:11 PM
If you have everything then you don't really have to make any interesting choices about what to unlock.

It would be like if an ARS hack gave you all 3 ship designs.  You would be foolish to not take advantage of all the ARS in that way.

There is a simple way around that. Move the weapon types into rewards from nebula, like Hull are and give a pick of say three different types and you start with a basic gun that is neither good or bad. Then, you farm XP to basically increase the effectiveness of the weapon lines you selected, but you can't unlock everything unless you have an unlimited number of nebula.

Even better would be to remove the mk ranks of the weapons from selection. The End user just put what kind of gun they want on it, and with every kill that gun levels up until it reaches it max level. It also provides nice feedback when you glace at the champion to see what weapons on it has done the best (they will be at a higher level then the others) and what ones are not really doing anything for some reason (low to no level up).

This way seems to fit in my mind with the idea of the champion more then how it set up right now. You go to a nebula to get a new hull, upgraded hull and/or weapon type, but you go and kill random AI ships to make your weapons better.

Also, one thing I really like to see is an option between two hulls when you complete a nebula. Basically an option to move your current hull up a level, or unlock a new class. Right now I rather leave some nebulas if it was not for the XP due to the fact that I know that completing them grants me something I can't use at all.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 22, 2012, 07:00:13 AM
There is a simple way around that. Move the weapon types into rewards from nebula, like Hull are and give a pick of say three different types and you start with a basic gun that is neither good or bad. Then, you farm XP to basically increase the effectiveness of the weapon lines you selected, but you can't unlock everything unless you have an unlimited number of nebula.
We get 3 weapon modules and shields at the start. Missile mod is available and you can go kill some AI structures if you think you will need them before you start the first nebula.  Keith has already said no to farming for points. His point is that he doesn't want us grinding to unlock everything. I agree and it would take an inordinate amount of time to grind out the 267 points you would need to max all 19 module lines.

Even better would be to remove the mk ranks of the weapons from selection. The End user just put what kind of gun they want on it, and with every kill that gun levels up until it reaches it max level. It also provides nice feedback when you glace at the champion to see what weapons on it has done the best (they will be at a higher level then the others) and what ones are not really doing anything for some reason (low to no level up).

This way seems to fit in my mind with the idea of the champion more then how it set up right now. You go to a nebula to get a new hull, upgraded hull and/or weapon type, but you go and kill random AI ships to make your weapons better.
This presents pretty much the same issues. Farming or grinding out stuff isn't the direction we need to go in.

Also, one thing I really like to see is an option between two hulls when you complete a nebula. Basically an option to move your current hull up a level, or unlock a new class. Right now I rather leave some nebulas if it was not for the XP due to the fact that I know that completing them grants me something I can't use at all.

16 hulls, 19 module types, MCEK, free ships, and the possibility of upgraded on use abilities? There are always reasons to do the nebulae, and we haven't seen all of what Keith has planned.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Ozymandiaz August 22, 2012, 07:08:36 AM
Yea, I don't want infinitely-farmable stuff to give XP.  I'm ok with temporarily-farmable stuff (nebula ships) giving XP as long as the scenario progresses towards termination or there's some sufficient motive to finish the scenario; that's true for the 3rd one (and the 4th one, which is basically done now, just gotta do some other stuff before a release), but the 1st and 2nd need work.

For AI ships, I'm thinking having them give 1 point (per mark, perhaps) of shadow-charge might be a good way of having them give something, but not something that can be infinitely farmed.  Even that may prove unbalancing by letting the champion drop truckloads of projected ability units onto the field in the middle of a massive attack.  On the other hand, "in the middle of a massive attack" may be exactly when they need to do so.  On the third hand, it might lead to a lot of having to pause to properly use the abilities (even with better keybinds for using them) before your capacitor maxes out from the AI ship deaths, etc.

Lotsa hands to consider.

Indeed. I have played a few games now as normal + champion, and when you suddenly got a huge blob of bombers coming to visit you, a lot of nifty abilities is nice. Last time my champion was dust after a few seconds, and so was my command center while my fleet kept futilely shooting the blob :)

And I know myself enough to say that if I can farm XP from an unlimited source, I will do so. Just as I kinda abused the old AI SuperTerminals. I don't think I am alone in this either ;P
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Nodor August 22, 2012, 09:39:01 AM
With champions, I am more concerned about feeling I MUST farm XP than actually farming XP. 

Right now, I feel I MUST strategize around maximizing the XP from each wormhole.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: orzelek August 22, 2012, 11:50:38 AM
Two posters above are saying good things.

If there is a feeling that to have effective champions we need to grind... we will.
Some limitation maybe in order then - to balance the grind possibilities vs how much we can upgrade the champion.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 22, 2012, 12:03:24 PM
I do have some changes in mind that I think will help players not feel like they have to farm.


The term "grind" is largely unhelpful from a developer standpoint because it's used to mean so many things:

1) Gameplay that is trivially easy (by that stage of the game) but literally mandatory, so the player just goes through the motions because they want to get to the rest of the game.

2) Gameplay that is trivially easy and optional, but has sufficient rewards that the player goes through the motions because those rewards will help them get to the parts of the game they enjoy (or maybe those rewards are sufficient motivation in themselves).

3) Gameplay that may be quite challenging but that the player does not enjoy, but literally has to do to progress, so they do it to progress.

4) Gameplay that may be quite challenging but that the player does not enjoy, and is optional, but has sufficient rewards to motivate the player to do it anyway.

5) Gameplay that the player doesn't enjoy, even if it's challenging, optional, and has no rewards that can't be obtained elsewhere.  In other words, the player just doesn't like that part of the game.

And others.


So, while I understand it is a useful word when describing how you feel about a particular part of the game, if folks could clarify exactly what they mean by "grind" (maybe we need a wiki page with numbered definitions ;) ) in the specific cases they use it, that would help me a lot in actually figuring out what to do about it, if there's anything I can do about it (someone not wanting to be motivated to gain XP is one thing, somoene who just doesn't like champions is another).

Thanks :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: orzelek August 22, 2012, 12:16:12 PM
I think currently it would be quite close to point 4.
The need to drag the scenario so that we can kill as many spawned enemies as possible to get as much experience as possible in that nebula would qualify I think.
Scenario in itself is enjoyable (and challenging) - the need to try to prolong it to have a feeling you got all that you could is not.

I need to try some scenarios after recent changes to see at what point their difficulty lies for me now.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 22, 2012, 12:27:06 PM
I think currently it would be quite close to point 4.
The need to drag the scenario so that we can kill as many spawned enemies as possible to get as much experience as possible in that nebula would qualify I think.
Scenario in itself is enjoyable (and challenging) - the need to try to prolong it to have a feeling you got all that you could is not.

I need to try some scenarios after recent changes to see at what point their difficulty lies for me now.

I think that an earlier proposed solution would be good. Make the spawned enemy minor faction ships in nebulae NOT give exp, possibly increasing exp rewards from destroying structures (both in and out of missions) to make up for it. That way, you are rewarded by completing the objective, instead of deliberately holding off on completing it to get as many enemy ships to spawn (and thus destroy for EXP) as possible.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 22, 2012, 12:32:53 PM
And others.

That's where it falls for me lol. I did send you some feedback this morning about the whole deal.

Since the scaling adjustment, it has been fun and challenging. The rewards are good. That want of a BIG stick to shake at the AI makes you want to get as many levels as you can.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Nodor August 22, 2012, 12:32:58 PM
With champions, I am more concerned about feeling I MUST farm XP than actually farming XP. 

Right now, I feel I MUST strategize around maximizing the XP from each wormhole.

For instance in the Epsilon wormhole scenario, you can target the enemy bases off the bat or "defend ally bases" and "aid ally ships".    Option 2 is far more XP - and far more time.  Killing 200 -400 extra ships is more XP levels.   On the other hand, not having a champion defending vs. bad guys...


: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Draco18s August 22, 2012, 12:34:10 PM
1) Gameplay that is trivially easy (by that stage of the game) but literally mandatory, so the player just goes through the motions because they want to get to the rest of the game.

3) Gameplay that may be quite challenging but that the player does not enjoy, but literally has to do to progress, so they do it to progress.

The balance between these two is why I do not play RPG games any more.  I attempted playing skyrim and merely following along with the quests I encountered at random (either it's the story quest, or one of the NPCs I decided to talk to, because talking to every NPC is #5: boring, optional, and non-challenging, and the rewards are meaningless) and I transitioned from #1: trivially easy and mandatory to #3: overly challenging and frustrating in a span of about 8 minutes.

I went from finding wolves to be a "delightful challenge" to "weaksauce wimps" in the time it took me to do the side quest that gets you your first dragon shout (which I did because I talked to a shop owner in order to buy/sell loot and saw he had a quest).  The next highest difficulty wandering mob equivalent to wolves that I ran into were saber toothed wildcats.

Which still eat me for breakfast.  Turns out there is one animal in between (ice wolves) of which I have encountered three.  The first nearly killed me, the second was killed by another animal, and the third did kill me (undoing about twenty minutes worth of progress).

What have people suggested?  Sneaking around town (a variant of #1) and stealing dwarven platemail (a variant of #4).
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 22, 2012, 12:50:54 PM
I think that an earlier proposed solution would be good. Make the spawned enemy minor faction ships in nebulae NOT give exp
The problem with that is that blowing stuff up and no numbers going up is Not Fun (tm) ;)  There's been plenty of "why do I get nothing for killing normal AI fleet ships?" as it is, and making the individual nebula kills give nothing too is not a good solution.  It may solve one psychological problem, but it creates another.

That said, I do think they give too much in the current situation.  But I think the main solution is to provide sufficient motivation to complete the scenario rather than try to drag it out.  Other feedback I've seen is that the EEr and SP scenarios cannot really be dragged out all that long, but I do see that there is a motivation to do so to the extent possible, and I think that situation can be improved.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 22, 2012, 12:58:45 PM
I'll just reiterate what I suggested. 3~5 points for completing those two in a reasonable amount of time (30-45 min).
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 22, 2012, 05:12:16 PM
I'm still all for a simple XP cap for every planet and nebula, with everything providing XP. That way you can grind on boring ol' junk or you can just play the game normally and either way you'll be able to get all the "knowledge" you can eat up. For that to really work, it would have to be just the right kind of scarce that knowledge happens to be as well. Furthermore, imagine if it led to people making the decision to risk a deep strike for a bit of extra XP to unlock that next module... or even eat the AI Progress to level up a little more.
All the while, the XP cap per-nebula encourages you to keep things moving and to not drag it out. The XP cap for nebulas would have to definitely be higher than any per-planet XP cap.

The question is what happens if you aren't at the XP cap when everything in the nebula/on the planet is dead? Possibly, you could lure ships to those planets for a defense, which would get you XP... or you could simply add a science module for the biggest slots that you build to leave your champion dormant for a while and go beat on the AI with your sufficiently built up fleet or starships. Like science labs, it would slowly push your champion's XP up to the planetary cap.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LordSloth August 22, 2012, 10:57:15 PM
So it looks like 5.070 will have a new AI Type.

Sadistic: I really hope Fortress King will stack with Nuclear Commands.

Sarcastic: While you're at it, why don't you replace stealth guard posts with Neinzul Forts... And make sure the Stealth Master uses em.

Am looking forward a lot to Zenith Siege Engines.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 22, 2012, 11:02:57 PM
So it looks like 5.070 will have a new AI Type.

Sadistic: I really hope Fortress King will stack with Nuclear Commands.
I don't think it will need that to be sadistic.  Those things hurt.  I threw in a minor mercy: the planets neighboring your homeworld still have normal command stations (unless it's a crazy-small map where there's only your homeworlds and the AI homeworlds).

But I think it would stack, yes.

: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: soMe_RandoM August 22, 2012, 11:30:18 PM
I feel that all other nebular give to little XP. i completed 3 spire camp and i could hardely reach any level. i suggest that when its all fixed to quad or even entire system to increase xp range. because in other nebular that don't have spawning ships that, i feel problem is its to much of OSHITZ i was out RANGE THIS ONE SHIP now I'm doomed feeling. this happens all time at start of spire one. if you increase XP range in nebular by allot maybe even entire system, and lower xp gain from ones u complain about but keep range. it work out fine. in end 3 nebular system should give you to unlock m4 sheilds, hopefully, and maybe standard turret range, and 1 bonus turret / modual range. eg Heavy beam. lvl 24 on old system gave me that. however i was stupid and bought 1 extra thing and couldent get mk4. -_-. also what i hate is when beat system with 50-100 ally faction units, that go to next system and kill all guard post within 2 hops. it devastates me since now all that xp gone. so i suggest have XP gain radius increase massivly. Xp with ones where limited xp where u cant grind, and I'm happy to grind because it better xp but, other ones i dislike because missing out on 1 death huge %. and have them clear 2-3 systems of guard post that u missed out on since they split it hurts allot. so i prefer other 2 than new ones since it hurts u less to miss few ships here and there. however other 3 hurt so much.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 August 23, 2012, 01:17:48 AM
About the whole "changing module loadout on the move" issue, the only reason why modules aren't changeable in the field is to prevent easily cheesing the system by just always getting fresh shield modules, right?
Then why not just make the shield modules (and any other potentially limited lifetime modules when in use) be unable to be constructed by the champion itself , but allow the champion to construct its own non-forcefield modules? This would allow switching out "turret" modules easily based on the situation, but still require engineer support to keep its forcefields up if they get destroyed. Thanks to the invincibility the non-forcefield modules have right now, this shouldn't be add any new "exploitiness".

This may require some clever "hackarounds" to implement though.


On a semi-related note, are champion only players not eligible to receive the "overflow" funds from other players?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Ozymandiaz August 23, 2012, 03:01:02 AM
I do have some changes in mind that I think will help players not feel like they have to farm.


The term "grind" is largely unhelpful from a developer standpoint because it's used to mean so many things:

1) Gameplay that is trivially easy (by that stage of the game) but literally mandatory, so the player just goes through the motions because they want to get to the rest of the game.

2) Gameplay that is trivially easy and optional, but has sufficient rewards that the player goes through the motions because those rewards will help them get to the parts of the game they enjoy (or maybe those rewards are sufficient motivation in themselves).

3) Gameplay that may be quite challenging but that the player does not enjoy, but literally has to do to progress, so they do it to progress.

4) Gameplay that may be quite challenging but that the player does not enjoy, and is optional, but has sufficient rewards to motivate the player to do it anyway.

5) Gameplay that the player doesn't enjoy, even if it's challenging, optional, and has no rewards that can't be obtained elsewhere.  In other words, the player just doesn't like that part of the game.

And others.


So, while I understand it is a useful word when describing how you feel about a particular part of the game, if folks could clarify exactly what they mean by "grind" (maybe we need a wiki page with numbered definitions ;) ) in the specific cases they use it, that would help me a lot in actually figuring out what to do about it, if there's anything I can do about it (someone not wanting to be motivated to gain XP is one thing, somoene who just doesn't like champions is another).

Thanks :)

For me a grind is more or less the old super-terminal: I would build up defenses, and then build a command center. Kill as much as possible, then kill my own command center before the AI get too many reinforcements. Rinse and repeat until the cycle can no longer be sustained.

So in other words, repetitive doing the same thing over and over for the same rewards in order to gain an advantage for the later game.

In moderation, some grinding is OK, but when it can be taken to the extreme on the other hand.. ;)

Maybe my explanation was not all that good, will see if I can dream up something better once I get some coffee ;)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Commiesalami August 25, 2012, 03:09:30 PM
I dont know if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but I really don't like how all the nebula missions are going to be in a certain order ...  (If not then all 3 matches I've played have had the missions in the same order) 

For a game that prides itself on being procedurally generated having a differing experience every time, doing the exact same thing in the exact same order for every game seems like a step in the wrong direction.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 25, 2012, 03:18:25 PM
I am pretty sure that is just a statistical quirk. I have had different orders of nebulae in my games.

About xp: I think the current system is close to ideal. It is technically possible to farm, but that means your champion (and your attention) is occupied while the AI does its stuff (reinforcements, waves, cpas, exos, auto-AIP), and experience beyond unlocking mkIV versions of one small weapon and the best large slot does not give the player that much. Besides, there are other, probably more effective ways to use the champ during this time, like clearing out AI worlds.

About an all-quest-victory reward: the shadow dreadnaught.

About balance concerns for both exo-games and non-exo games: it is tricky. I like the route the devs appear to have chosen (make the champion be worth that 20% increase) but I worry that any champion properly balanced for the fallen spire campaign will be unbalanced for the normal game, and vice versa. Other exo sources create the same concern, but to a lesser extent.

 I can think of a number of clunky solutions (have the champ give a flat, rather than +.2 effective-homeworld boost to exos, have the champ have access to better modules/more experience/bigger hulls depending on exos, have the champ not affect exos but affect normal stuff more, etc), but nothing to elegantly address the central concern. Ideas?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k August 25, 2012, 03:44:01 PM
Have exos give XP?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 25, 2012, 04:03:45 PM
On scenario order: the order is mostly random.  One of the four defined scenarios (the mourners one) doesn't seed in the first nebula you enter, because it's the most champion-dependent of the four.  Other than that it just tries to avoid duplicates until it's run out of unique ones (the idea being that come official-release it will not do duplicates at all).
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: rchaneberg August 25, 2012, 05:17:48 PM
How problematic would it be to have only the lead ships of exos give experience, but to also make exos some (small multiplier) more powerful per champion?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Commiesalami August 25, 2012, 06:00:39 PM
On scenario order: the order is mostly random.  One of the four defined scenarios (the mourners one) doesn't seed in the first nebula you enter, because it's the most champion-dependent of the four.  Other than that it just tries to avoid duplicates until it's run out of unique ones (the idea being that come official-release it will not do duplicates at all).

It was a 3% chance to happen which is still possible.  Just checking if it was intended behavior or not because earlier in the thread you refer to the nebula scenarios refer to them as 1st, 2nd, 3rd and thats the same order i've been seeing them in.

Thanks for the quick reply
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 25, 2012, 07:08:29 PM
On scenario order: the order is mostly random.  One of the four defined scenarios (the mourners one) doesn't seed in the first nebula you enter, because it's the most champion-dependent of the four.  Other than that it just tries to avoid duplicates until it's run out of unique ones (the idea being that come official-release it will not do duplicates at all).

It was a 3% chance to happen which is still possible.  Just checking if it was intended behavior or not because earlier in the thread you refer to the nebula scenarios refer to them as 1st, 2nd, 3rd and thats the same order i've been seeing them in.

Thanks for the quick reply
One thing is that it uses the mapRandom to pick the scenarios, so saving, entering a nebula, reloading, and entering it again will give you the same scenario.  An entirely different map (different map type, for instance, but same seed) will give you different rolls.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Martyn van Buren August 25, 2012, 07:28:05 PM
For what it's worth I am very definitely against any sort of farming; I would definitely prefer a system where the exp reward for each mission is fixed.  I really dislike that RPG temptation to track down every last little fight in order to make sure I don't miss out on getting to higher-level abilities.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art August 25, 2012, 07:59:41 PM
I, too, would rather support fixed exp rewards. It gets to the point I try to tip the odds in my favor in some scenarios, then have my ship(s) sit next to a starbase and farm xp for doing nothing.

If the rewards were fixed it would also be easier to balance by virtue of having each player get a similar max lvl of xp, and same amount of xp per hull unlock.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: rchaneberg August 25, 2012, 08:13:00 PM
Should there be a mechanic to try and balance champions for both play with exo sources and without?  If so, how would one do it without making it experience based?
Maybe having an additional Super-Dreadnaught hull somehow tied to whether exos are on or not?

I can't really envision anything that doesn't feel restrictive to non-exo games, though I almost never play without exo sources.
The point may be moot however if exos disregard the presence of champions or is only very subtly scaled as they don't seem very powerful in the presence of the ultra-chokepoints that seem to develop in reaction to the threat of exo attacks.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Martyn van Buren August 25, 2012, 10:05:22 PM
Is there any reason popping command stations and defeating exos shouldn't just award the same amount of exp to all champions in the game?  I mean presumably even if one isn't present when you take a world it's helping by holding the fort somewhere else.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Sunshine! August 27, 2012, 01:56:57 PM
I think the Hero ship should have more interaction with the primary aspects of the main game, rather than being relegated to only getting upgrades and new stuff from the nebulae.  In general, the harder the game is the more opportunities the hero should have to find upgrades outside the nebulae.  Below are ideas for how to integrate Zenith, Neinzul, and Spire upgrades as rewards for doing stuff outside the nebulae.

Another of the problems with Hero ships is that the costs of unlocking are problematic.  If you get to level 10, you can have one fully upgraded Large module and one fully upgraded Small module, which gives your ship little in the way of variety, and does not really encourage experimentation or multi-weapon deployment.  The suggestions below seek to address this as well, though in the random, unplanned way that characterizes technology unlocks in the normal game.

If you want to balance the Hero ship with Fallen Spire and the regular game, have all retrieval missions for Fallen Spire provide global XP to the hero and have the number of spire facilities control the unlock of certain ships and modules.  Retrieval of the refuge ship would give all heroes access to Spire frigates AND the lowest mark of a random spire modules, and then whenever a new spire ship class is available to build for the normal player, the Shadow (Spire) version of that ship class becomes unlocked for the hero, along with the lowest mark of a random spire module.  This is purposefully more powerful than the Zenith and Neinzul options below, because the power level necessary in a Fallen Spire campaign over its entire course is significantly higher.

If you have Golems (Hard) turned on, the normal player capturing a Golem should provide all hero players with (randomly) either a Zenith shadow vessel of the lowest available unlocked mark (so no unlocking a Zenith Destroyer if you don't already have another destroyer hull unlocked) OR the next mark of a random Zenith weapons module.  For Golems (Medium) it could instead have a random chance of providing upgrades (50% or lower?)

If Hybrid Hives are turned on, have it so that each level of Hybrid Hive is worth a certain level of "salvage".  When enough salvage is collected by the hero, it unlocks (randomly) the lowest applicable mark of Neinzul hull (same restrictions as above in the Zenith example) or a random Neinzul weapons system.  Unlike the previous two suggestions which are not necessarily based on the hero's actions, this suggestion prompts the players to aggressively pursue the Hybrid Hives, which I think is fitting because of the Hybrid Hives using a different logic that allows them to function more intelligently than the typical AI forces.

Edit: Human/generic upgrades could be gained by rescuing rebel human colonies and destroying marauders.  Destroying Golems and Spirecraft in exo waves should also contribute to unlocking Zenith and Spire modules, I suppose.

With all of the above turned on, heroes won't actually have to do nebulae missions to advance, which I think is an important choice to be able to have.  There will still be incentive to do so (free hulls and new weapons modules, plus knowledge for any normal players).  Without Fallen Spire they'll need to do nebula missions to get the next tier of ships, but it will still provide flexibility to hero players by giving them a broad range of mission choices and make hero play a little less one dimensional.

One other thing I would really like to see is a way for Normal players to assist Hero players in nebulae in some minor way so that it doesn't feel like we're playing two separate games, with me just watching and waiting for the nebula mission to clear up so I can move on with hero assistance.  Perhaps include an unlockable ship, the Shadow Transport (shipcap 1 or 2 to prevent easy shipping of your entire fleet at once, 2500 knowledge cost), which can carry a small number (25? 20?) of ships and traverse the nebula wormhole?  Say that the reverse-engineered shadow drive is so large it could only fit on a transport, and with significantly decreased transport capacity at that.  That way I (as a normal player) can join a Hero player in one of these battles, but ships I send will generally be hopelessly outclassed on their own.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 30, 2012, 07:47:10 AM
I think that the champions (especially if they ever hit cruiser size) are OP in a normal (non-exo) game. The extra ships almost never make a difference to AI attacks, but the champion unit (and all the k, and all the awesome micro faction bonus starships) add a huge boost to fleet power. Again, I can't think of an elegant way to balance for both normal and exo games, but it definitely needs work.

Further unlikely ideas:
Make the AI more likely to attack while your champion is tied up in a nebula.
Give each AI a nemesis unit that constantly tries to murder your champion.
Let the presence of a champion in a game allow occasional triple waves, or unnannounced mini-exos, mini-waves, or mini-cpas (about 1/5 normal size).
Missile silo or other super-modules only allowable with exo sources (maybe a different one for each possible exo-source).
Let the champ get bigger hulls only in the presence of exos.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art August 30, 2012, 06:56:09 PM
I am still struggling to find a compromise for champions on low planet games. On the one hand they tend to gather less aip, on the other hand they several gimp champion growth. On the one hand I try to remember with my gimped champion that I am paying less via less aip, but on the other hand I lament not being to get a cruiser.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 30, 2012, 06:58:55 PM
I'm probably going to change it from having planets/10 scenarios to just 8 scenarios on every map, for balance reasons.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic August 30, 2012, 07:03:26 PM
I approve of having a fixed number of nebulae.


On a tangentially related note, why are the nebula reward ships immune to transport? It just seems inconvienient. Same question for the resistance ships, incidentally.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 30, 2012, 07:44:53 PM
If it's set to a flat 8 no matter what, then 20 planet games might very well just get silly with how many offroad scenarios you can do without ever having to expand your empire.
...but there's not really a solution to that, that I see. Not even completely sure it's a problem.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe August 30, 2012, 08:09:52 PM
20 planet games tend to be pretty silly now :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth August 30, 2012, 08:28:07 PM
I'm probably going to change it from having planets/10 scenarios to just 8 scenarios on every map, for balance reasons.

Dies a little on the inside
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Toranth August 30, 2012, 08:45:48 PM
I'm probably going to change it from having planets/10 scenarios to just 8 scenarios on every map, for balance reasons.
Dies a little on the inside

Agree with Cinth here.  More scenarios is just more fun.  More scenarios means more toys (unlocks). 
And it can be really unfortunate if you simply don't get the ship type/module you wanted by the time you run out of nebulas.  My experiment game didn't give me the Spire ship line till scenario 11 of 12 (the third Gray Spire scenario).
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Hearteater August 30, 2012, 09:48:16 PM
Best of both worlds? MAX(8, planets / 10)?  Because at 120 planets, 8 nebula are going to be much harder to reach compared to an 80 planet map.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 30, 2012, 10:29:28 PM
Maybe allow a setting for the magnitude of nebula spawns. On 1, it would spawn 2. On 4, it would spawn 8. On 10, it would spawn... ONE FOR EVERY PLANET IN THE GALAXY!!!
Or maybe like 20 or something.
That's if it really needs a change, in practice. On 120 planet maps, are things not already more spread out as it is? If that's the case, it'd make sense for the nebula to be spread out as a result as well.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Coppermantis August 30, 2012, 11:13:10 PM
I think making it minimum 8 but scale up for number of planets would work fine. Having it set at 8 would make larger games harder to get nebulae.

Making it scale based on setting could work, but then it would have to be a minor faction which would be odd with the current champion setup in that it could be disabled or enabled regardless of whether or not there are champion players.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 30, 2012, 11:43:28 PM
I wasn't sure if it would have to be a minor faction, or if it could be like, its own option... but like, I wouldn't know where to put it. In the interest of simplicity, 8, or planets/10 if that would be higher, would be ideal. In the interest of configurability, scaling setting of awesome?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: PokerChen August 31, 2012, 03:25:25 AM
Hmmm... I only had 5 in the last game. Granted, that was a few patches ago.

They are silly powerful. I'm never that sure about having a ship that can knock down a core guardpost in a snap - I'm looking specifically at the Spire-lines, which mounts a lot more siege power than the equivalent Spire-fleets (excluding their beams) :P
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: doctorfrog August 31, 2012, 04:32:09 AM
So, one thing I notice as a sporadic, fairly novice player:

I can select one champion.

I can select none at all.

I can select 8 champions.

The game really gives me no indication as to how difficulty/easy I am making the game by doing this. Am I cheesing the heck out of it by selecting 8? Or will the AI push back against this somehow? I don't have much of an idea what it means to play with champions.

I know this is a beta, but I'd say this uncertainty extends to nearly all the options in general, and I think that the lobby scripts are supposed to resolve this to a degree, but they haven't yet.

With all four expansions enabled, and the thousands of possible combinations of options, it is increasingly difficult to even start a game and have any idea of what sort of game a new player is in for. Even the "middle of the road" difficulty for certain faction levels is FOUR. Four? How does that translate to "Average" or "Medium" for a new player? What can that possibly mean? How do they tell reliably whether a given faction will help or harm them? Look at all these great options! There are popups that kind of tell me what they do, but I still don't know what they mean.

It's great to see AI War get some major focus after the long dev cycle for AVWW. I think one thing you should consider adding to your priorities is a more intuitive method for communicating to new or returning players what in the heck they're in for in a new game.

Easiest way (IMO):

Any thoughts? Hopefully I don't sound nuts, but this is a slightly intimidating game.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus August 31, 2012, 08:48:40 AM
While making the settings more intuitive is something I agree with...
Every champion you add is a +20% to the AI strength overall, similar to every homeworld (either single player or multiplayer) being +100%... I believe. But, the AI strength adjustment is such that the strength you gain out of having multiple homeworlds or champions will outpace it, if you use them effectively.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 September 01, 2012, 01:16:24 AM
I'm going to go off the current topic a bit but still stay true to the thread's topic, the bonus ships.

Is it just me, or do the new ships seem rather OP?
I haven't tried the siege engine or the tackle drone launcher yet, but I have experianced the Spire railcluster and the Zenith medical frigate:

Spire railcluster:
1. They seem a bit durable for the DPS they can dish out, especially at higher marks. Though their level of durability may be in line with the other Spire stuff, I have not played much with the other Spire stuff to make a comparison.
This feeling is exacerbated by the fact that they get a good bonus against what should be their counter (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9344)
2. For a ship type that is described as being a counter to lots of smaller ships, their single target DPS seems pretty darn high.

Zenith medical frigate:
1. Their DPS is really, really high (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9376), which when combined with their repair abilities, makes them OP
2. Amusingly, they are not immune to reclaimation (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9348)



Also, when hybrids get their drones, is the ship cap properly being factored into the drone's "cost"? Because I have had several attacks by hybrids with almost as many low ship cap ships as I am used to seeing from them when they have normal cap ships.
As you can imagine, this hurts, a LOT.  :o


Anyone else have any thoughts about this?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic September 01, 2012, 04:17:24 AM
I have experienced tackle drones, and they are really, really good in either your hands or the enemies. Both the "spawner" ships (tackle drone launcher and spire blade spawner) seem extremely good. Maybe halve their spawn rate, have them use some of their own health to spawn a drone, lower their drone speed, or lower their cap further.

The seige engine is certainly not OP. They are basically a very good turret with the ability to move around.

Agreed on the railcluster and Z medic stuff, though the railcluster is supposed to specialize in simple DPS, so it shouldn't be nerfed too much.

Can't speak to the Scapegoat, as I have never seen one.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Toranth September 01, 2012, 07:38:31 AM
I'm going to go off the current topic a bit but still stay true to the thread's topic, the bonus ships.

Is it just me, or do the new ships seem rather OP?
I haven't tried the siege engine or the tackle drone launcher yet, but I have experianced the Spire railcluster and the Zenith medical frigate:
Having now played against an AI that was using using each of the bonus ships except Tackle Launchers, I'm not too concerned.
Yes, the ships are powerful.  But not too powerful.  I still find that AI Blade Spawners and SSBs are far nastier than any of the new ships.

Railclusters are just high-DPS, high-HP ships.  The caps are low, so even the AI doesn't get very many - 1 per post-ish levels.  That limits them from being a super pain to merely being nasty.  A slight nerf might be in order, but they're still just towards the high end of the fleetship DPS, not the top.  The multiplier against their counter thing should be changed, however - I agree with you there.  I don't know why these were ever Polycrystal hulls to begin with.  Seems... odd.

The Medic is a mid-high HP ship with good DPS.  However, the Medic's healing ability goes to waste in AI hands.  In human hands, the Medics are very useful for extended expiditions - neutering AI worlds, clearing highways, raiding, etc.  I suspect they need a DPS nerf to go with their support role, because right now they are just awesome.

The Siege Engine is actually pretty weak in AI hands, since the AI is easy to manipulate if you pay attention to it's targeting practices.  Perform hit & run style attacks against them and you can kill 100 or more without taking much damage.  Only if the Sieges get all threat-like and decide to visit your planets do they become a real danger.  Kill them quick, then, or lose all your defenses.
Humans have some of the same problems - I found these wonderful for taking out fortresses (Especially those under force fields).  I found them of moderate use on defense.  They were of NO use anywhere else.  I acquired ZBombards from an ARS that same game, and got way more use of those.

Reprocessors are med-high-HP but don't do much damage.  The special ability is, again, wasted in AI hands.  In human hands, I'm sure they're giving me resources, but I can't say I've been able to tell how much they help.  Usually, when they kill things, I'm too busy to pay that close attention to my resource levels.

Scapegoats are odd.  They preserve an AI ship from death, but at the same time they take up a slot on the AI's system-cap.  I attacked a homeworld that had 300 Mk V Scapegoats on it, and was distinctly unimpressed.  I suspect this is another case of "Wasted in the AI hands" because it will require careful use to preserve special ships, rather than low-hp cannon fodder.

Tackle drones.  I've not played against an AI using them, so I cna only speak to human usage.  I think this is going to be a love-it-or-hate-it ship.  I can't stand the things.  They ruin my formations, put the enemy ships in places I don't want, and in general don't kill things.  Also, there are a LOT of ships immune to tractors out there.  As part of a heavy defense, they are terrible.  As part of an offensive fleet, they are awkward and dramatically increase the level of micro required.  Finally, they are very expensive, very low cap, and very slow to build.
On the other hand, there's nothing better for dealing with light border agression or stray threat in your otherwise un/lightly defended systems.  Plant a few of these on top of a FacIV or fabricator, and stop worrying about casual attacks.

Looking forward to the last two bonus ships yet to be revealed.  What wonders await us?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Soyweiser September 01, 2012, 02:59:25 PM
Spire blade spawners are awesome. Using these I kill build up trains of special forces. Enter wormhole, let train get near. Kill as much of them. Retreat. Weakened group goes away. Repeat. Even better, add the champion to spawn shields, and the enclave starships for even more stuff for the special forces meatgrinder.

They also target most guardposts, clearing up planets rather nicely. Work great on the defense if you have multiple fronts. (Move them around, they only need to enter the map). The only thing they cannot defeat is gravity. In a world with gravity changing stuff the spawned blades move very very slow.
: Champions bonus to the AI
: Diazo September 07, 2012, 09:51:45 AM
Alright, having played a game with the Champion and heard other players feedback, I think the bonus the AI gets need to be relative to the number of nebulas completed.

My reasons for this are that the flat 20% bonus is one of the reason I lost my last game.

Because I got pinned and was scrambling to stay alive I was only able to complete 3 nebula scenarios and so never got larger then the destroyer hull.

Compared to people talking about their champion soloing high mark systems (or even a homeworld), mine was lucky to survive raiding a guardpost in a Mk III system.

So I was eating these waves that were 20% bigger when my champion really was not worth 20% in the slightest.

So maybe the AI starts with a 3% bonues, that goes up by 3% for every nebula completed? That would give it the 20% bonus after the 6th nebula which means you should have the cruiser hull and is when the champion really starts to shine.

Keeping in mind that I played this game on 10/10, here are the numbers that prompted me to post this suggestion:

Last CPA of the game: 10,000 units, so 8,000 units base + 2,000 units from the Champion bonus.
Last wave of the game: 5,200 units, so 4,300 units base + 900 units from the Champion bonus.

My champion on a destroyer hull was simply not that powerful, not even close. Now, it was 10/10 so I expect punishing, but even the bonus part normal wave at 900 units would simply blow past my champion in a single salvo, I expect my champion to at least slow down the bonus ships the AI is getting due to it's presence.

D.

: Re: Champions bonus to the AI
: TechSY730 September 07, 2012, 09:53:47 AM
Alright, having played a game with the Champion and heard other players feedback, I think the bonus the AI gets need to be relative to the number of nebulas completed.

My reasons for this are that the flat 20% bonus is one of the reason I lost my last game.

Because I got pinned and was scrambling to stay alive I was only able to complete 3 nebula scenarios and so never got larger then the destroyer hull.

Compared to people talking about their champion soloing high mark systems (or even a homeworld), mine was lucky to survive raiding a guardpost in a Mk III system.

So I was eating these waves that were 20% bigger when my champion really was not worth 20% in the slightest.

So maybe the AI starts with a 3% bonues, that goes up by 3% for every nebula completed? That would give it the 20% bonus after the 6th nebula which means you should have the cruiser hull and is when the champion really starts to shine.

Keeping in mind that I played this game on 10/10, here are the numbers that prompted me to post this suggestion:

Last CPA of the game: 10,000 units, so 8,000 units base + 2,000 units from the Champion bonus.
Last wave of the game: 5,200 units, so 4,300 units base + 900 units from the Champion bonus.

My champion on a destroyer hull was simply not that powerful, not even close. Now, it was 10/10 so I expect punishing, but even the bonus part normal wave at 900 units would simply blow past my champion in a single salvo, I expect my champion to at least slow down the bonus ships the AI is getting due to it's presence.

D.

I could go with something like that. It would be similar to what is done with the fallen spire stuff.
After your first city, the AI is concerned, but isn't panicking. By your fifth city, the AI is starting to hate you, and is really laying on the pressure.
: Re: Champions bonus to the AI
: Kahuna September 07, 2012, 10:00:16 AM
So maybe the AI starts with a 3% bonues, that goes up by 3% for every nebula completed? That would give it the 20% bonus after the 6th nebula which means you should have the cruiser hull and is when the champion really starts to shine.
Should be 4% or 5%.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Diazo September 07, 2012, 10:33:05 AM
So maybe the AI starts with a 3% bonues, that goes up by 3% for every nebula completed? That would give it the 20% bonus after the 6th nebula which means you should have the cruiser hull and is when the champion really starts to shine.
Should be 4% or 5%.

If the champion stays as is, ya.

The impression I'm getting though is that the champion is currently too powerful in the normal space outside nebulas and we are looking as a nerf of some sort there.

Keep in mind this would go above 20%, so at 3% per, after the 9th nebula (does it seed that many?) you would be at a 30% bonus.

D.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth September 07, 2012, 10:40:23 AM
120 planet maps seed 15 nebula.  You guys are killing me here. Someone who knows all the modifiers can do the math but I play 16 HW and 8 champs on 120 planet maps.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Diazo September 07, 2012, 10:45:25 AM
Actually, that is a good point.

What bonus does the AI get for multiple champions?

With 8, is it just the flat 20%? Or 20%*8 for a 960% bonus or is is 20%^8 for a 460% bonus?

D.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth September 07, 2012, 10:52:45 AM
160%

You can't really go up with it or you stand to hurt multiplayer. And also, even 8 cruisers get stomped by any kind of heavy wave.

I wonder if i have a good save I can give you guys so you can see the "other" end of the spectrum ;)

Would anyone be interested?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Diazo September 07, 2012, 10:56:12 AM
Oh, of course, the one possibility I did not list. (20+20+20....)

Anyways, for 8 champions under my suggestion that would start the game at 24%, going up 24% per nebula completed so that after the 6th nebula you are at 168% bonus.

Not sure how that would make things harder for multiple champions, you have 8 cruiser sized champions flying around by that point after all.

D.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth September 07, 2012, 11:00:53 AM
15 nebula. 24%*15.  360% increase after the 15th nebula. That's a bit more than the 160% I see now.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Toranth September 07, 2012, 11:04:24 AM
120 planet maps seed 15 nebula.  You guys are killing me here. Someone who knows all the modifiers can do the math but I play 16 HW and 8 champs on 120 planet maps.
With 16HW and 8 Champions, every time the AI sends a wave at you, it will be a double wave, with each part being 9.6 times as strong as normal.  Yes, that means in multi-HW games, the Champion's +20% AI strength becomes a +40% AI strength.


You can't really go up with it or you stand to hurt multiplayer. And also, even 8 cruisers get stomped by any kind of heavy wave.
That's where I am right now; 8 Champion Cruisers getting either a) stomped or b) ignored by high-end waves or exowaves.

I need to do some more experiments, but right now I think there may be an issue with Champions and Exowaves.  I'm currently trying my first real 8 Champion + Fallen Spire game, and with 1 Spire City built the timed Exowave is charging at 10%/minute.

For comparison, I went back and opened a save from an earlier FS campaign.  In the 10/10, 11 HW, 6 Spire City game, the Exowave was charging at only 2%/minute.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Diazo September 07, 2012, 11:08:57 AM
And everyone I'm seeing playing with champions is reporting that once you get the cruiser hull, the champions start to become overpowered.

I can only imaging it gets worse on the bigger hulls.

If you've done all 15 nebulas and have 8 Dreadnaughts/Super-Dreadnaughts (whatever the biggest hull is) with full unlocks roaming around, is 360% that out of line?

You probably only need 5 of those Champions on the attack which leaves 3 champions and your entire regular fleet for defense.

For comparison, a single champion would give the AI a 48% bonus after 15 nebulas under this scenario.

(Disclaimer: I have only played single HW, single Champion, this is theory crafting on my part.)

D.

Edit as per post above: Are champions really that weak to exo-waves? The general feel I'm getting is that champions are OP, but that might only be against the AIs regular forces.

: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth September 07, 2012, 11:24:57 AM
I doing 16 HW 10/10 8 champ Fallen Spire run. Working at getting the 4th shard, so 3 city hubs up and running. My AIP is around 175 after I've hit all the redux possible. The last Exo that came my way was 1150 ships there about with waves coming in at around 10k per double. It is getting brutal to make progress. I've 42 hours invested and 22 since I started doing the FS stuff.
I think my last CPA was in the 35k region (AI didn't have 35k ships to send)

My champs do well supporting my defense and offense.

I don't think the next hull will have over twice the firepower to make up the extra 200% increase there.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Diazo September 07, 2012, 11:30:41 AM
Okay.

I need a check on champions. As I understand it, there are going to be 5 hulls sizes of various types that get unlocked as you progress with the hull types being awarded for number of nebula completed.

This reasonably set progression of hull sizes and their corresponding increase in power should allow a percent increase per nebula to be set and balance the increasing power of the champions that way.

In my opinion this is better then the current flat 20% the entire game. In the early game the Champion is not worth 20% bonus by any definition and in the late game the champion is worth a lot more then 20% in normal space outside of nebulas. (At least on single HW, maybe the multi-HW bonues should not scale linearly?)

The numbers are variable of course but I certainly favor the bonus increasing based on the number of nebulas complete rather then the same bonus the entire game as the champion gets more powerful.

D.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth September 07, 2012, 11:43:07 AM
We have one size that isn't in as far as I know.

4~5% per hull size unlock would be reasonable. That would put you at a 20% mod with the biggest hull size. It would also keep the max mod at 160% for 8 champ games.

: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Toranth September 07, 2012, 11:43:23 AM
And everyone I'm seeing playing with champions is reporting that once you get the cruiser hull, the champions start to become overpowered.

<snip>

Edit as per post above: Are champions really that weak to exo-waves? The general feel I'm getting is that champions are OP, but that might only be against the AIs regular forces.
Champions, especially cruisers, are great at taking out average AI worlds.  A single Cruiser Champion of any variety can clear a Mk IV world with 200 ships without much difficulty (depending on ship types - Blade Spawners and Spire MiniRams are severe anti-Champion ships even in small numbers).  However, long alerted world with 600 Mk IV ships?  That Champion is toast.

With Waves and Exowaves, the biggest issue is that there are simply so many ships, and those ships have no interest in sticking around to play with your Champion.  Sure, you killed 100 of them... but so what?  There's thousands more where those came from, and they're already on top of your Home Command Station blasting away.



Okay.

I need a check on champions. As I understand it, there are going to be 5 hulls sizes of various types that get unlocked as you progress with the hull types being awarded for number of nebula completed.

This reasonably set progression of hull sizes and their corresponding increase in power should allow a percent increase per nebula to be set and balance the increasing power of the champions that way.

In my opinion this is better then the current flat 20% the entire game. In the early game the Champion is not worth 20% bonus by any definition and in the late game the champion is worth a lot more then 20% in normal space outside of nebulas. (At least on single HW, maybe the multi-HW bonues should not scale linearly?)

The numbers are variable of course but I certainly favor the bonus increasing based on the number of nebulas complete rather then the same bonus the entire game as the champion gets more powerful.

D.
From my experience, I'd say that's backwards.  At the beginning of the game, when the AI hasn't reinforced much and AIP is low enough that waves are still small, the Champion basically has free run of every system outside of Deepstrike.  As the game goes on, however, the Champions get more powerful.  But the AI also gets more powerful, and the percentage increase to the AI results in a much higher absolute increase in power.  At that point, the usefulness of the Champion begins to shrink rapidly.

Champions are probably at their most powerful right after your first or second Nebula (if you rush right to the scenarios), because they unlocked some stuff and gotten some XP for upgrades, but the AI hasn't gotten going yet.




I doing 16 HW 10/10 8 champ Fallen Spire run. Working at getting the 4th shard, so 3 city hubs up and running. My AIP is around 175 after I've hit all the redux possible. The last Exo that came my way was 1150 ships there about with waves coming in at around 10k per double. It is getting brutal to make progress. I've 42 hours invested and 22 since I started doing the FS stuff.
I think my last CPA was in the 35k region (AI didn't have 35k ships to send)

My champs do well supporting my defense and offense.

I don't think the next hull will have over twice the firepower to make up the extra 200% increase there.
Just curious - see if you can time the increase rate on one of the timed Exowaves.  I'd like to know if the huge charge-rate I'm seeing is something peculiar to my settings.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth September 07, 2012, 11:50:15 AM
I doing 16 HW 10/10 8 champ Fallen Spire run. Working at getting the 4th shard, so 3 city hubs up and running. My AIP is around 175 after I've hit all the redux possible. The last Exo that came my way was 1150 ships there about with waves coming in at around 10k per double. It is getting brutal to make progress. I've 42 hours invested and 22 since I started doing the FS stuff.
I think my last CPA was in the 35k region (AI didn't have 35k ships to send)

My champs do well supporting my defense and offense.

I don't think the next hull will have over twice the firepower to make up the extra 200% increase there.
Just curious - see if you can time the increase rate on one of the timed Exowaves.  I'd like to know if the huge charge-rate I'm seeing is something peculiar to my settings.
 
42:18:01 85%
42:28:01 The Pain Train has left the station
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Diazo September 07, 2012, 11:53:34 AM
From my experience, I'd say that's backwards.  At the beginning of the game, when the AI hasn't reinforced much and AIP is low enough that waves are still small, the Champion basically has free run of every system outside of Deepstrike.  As the game goes on, however, the Champions get more powerful.  But the AI also gets more powerful, and the percentage increase to the AI results in a much higher absolute increase in power.  At that point, the usefulness of the Champion begins to shrink rapidly.

Champions are probably at their most powerful right after your first or second Nebula (if you rush right to the scenarios), because they unlocked some stuff and gotten some XP for upgrades, but the AI hasn't gotten going yet.

Now I'm wanting to suggest a different calculation for the AIs bonus for each number of champion.

Actually, does the champion bonus apply to the inital game seed? If not, we are simply going to have to accept in the early game that 8 champs provide more benifit then 1 champ.

Hmm, what about for the AI bonus something like (numbers need tweaking but for the sake of my point):

Initial bonus = (# of champions) * 2.
Bonus per nebula complete = (10 - # of champions) / 2

That way the more champions you have the higher the AIs inital bonus, but it ramps up slower to compensate.

D.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth September 07, 2012, 12:09:29 PM
Now I'm wanting to suggest a different calculation for the AIs bonus for each number of champion.

Actually, does the champion bonus apply to the inital game seed? If not, we are simply going to have to accept in the early game that 8 champs provide more benifit then 1 champ.

Hmm, what about for the AI bonus something like (numbers need tweaking but for the sake of my point):

Initial bonus = (# of champions) * 2.
Bonus per nebula complete = (10 - # of champions) / 2

That way the more champions you have the higher the AIs inital bonus, but it ramps up slower to compensate.

D.
I get what you were saying D.

I can offer you my play experience in the very early game (10/10 mind you) with 8 Human Destroyers. From level 1 to level 5 (enough to get shields, lasers and missiles to Mk II) I hit AI systems. Mind you shields and missiles make it a bit easier but, it usually goes about like this.

Enter system. Haul butt to the outskirts and start picking off the horde of now angry ships (often times you will wake the entire planet on entry). Fall back and repair and/or replace champs and head back in. After clearing the initial allotment of ships, hit guard posts, and pretty much anything else I can clean up before I have to retreat again. Each system I clear, I have to visit at least twice. How well I can clear post Destroyer is determined by unlocks really.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Toranth September 07, 2012, 12:26:13 PM
From my experience, I'd say that's backwards.  At the beginning of the game, when the AI hasn't reinforced much and AIP is low enough that waves are still small, the Champion basically has free run of every system outside of Deepstrike.  As the game goes on, however, the Champions get more powerful.  But the AI also gets more powerful, and the percentage increase to the AI results in a much higher absolute increase in power.  At that point, the usefulness of the Champion begins to shrink rapidly.

Champions are probably at their most powerful right after your first or second Nebula (if you rush right to the scenarios), because they unlocked some stuff and gotten some XP for upgrades, but the AI hasn't gotten going yet.

Now I'm wanting to suggest a different calculation for the AIs bonus for each number of champion.

Actually, does the champion bonus apply to the inital game seed? If not, we are simply going to have to accept in the early game that 8 champs provide more benifit then 1 champ.

Hmm, what about for the AI bonus something like (numbers need tweaking but for the sake of my point):

Initial bonus = (# of champions) * 2.
Bonus per nebula complete = (10 - # of champions) / 2

That way the more champions you have the higher the AIs inital bonus, but it ramps up slower to compensate.

D.
I like the idea of the Champions affecting the intial seed.
I also like the idea of the AI strength bonus ramping up as the Champions get stronger/complete nebula scenarios (successfully).  That reflects that the Champions are getting stronger, and that the player is gaining more of the allied ships from nebulas. 

However, your suggested rate seems a little mean.  From what I understand, here's what the rate would be.
1 Champion
Inital bonus:  2%
Per nebula bonus:  4.5%
Final (15 nebula):  69.5%

8 Champions
Initial bonus:  16%
Per nebula bonus:  1%
Final (15 nebula):  31%

Not sure what a good rate would be.  This seems like a topic for lots of discussion.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k September 07, 2012, 01:02:40 PM
How about making nebulas cause AIP? That's more transparent than some magic multiplier. Though with the random rewards of the nebulas you may end up with a nebula giving you a terrible reward (e.g. the Neinzul have given me an insanity inducer but no ship to use it on while the Spire have given me their ship but I have nothing except shields to fit into the large slots which makes the thing more like a flying paperweight) and people could get scared of going for nebulas if they don't think the reward could compare to the AI strength increase.

Though maybe one of the issues is that any percentage bonus will affect higher difficulties more than lower ones while the champion does not scale to the difficulty in the slightest.

Perhaps the AI should just get one respawning champion unit per human champion (and no other benefits) even if it's not the Heroic type. Hell, it could even be set up to mess with nebula scenarios under certain circumstances.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: orzelek September 08, 2012, 04:35:34 AM
I'm not sure that champion modifier needs to be harsher.

As it is now it could use some reverse logic to add more reinforcement points for planets when you have large champion with low AIP - you simply overpowered AI by doing many nebulas but not getting more AIP.

Even now champion usefulness is highly dependent on what AI's you roll with and bonus ship composition. Vs Bully and Spire Hammer you can cruise AI planets easily, versus more standard AI's it can hurt a bit and turtles will stop you a bit better. Fortress baron will make you die quickly since champion vs fort is quite difficult at start and requires using tons of shadow fields later.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k September 08, 2012, 06:16:42 AM
Anyone else constantly using the human ships? The main gun is quite powerful and comes with a range of high multipliers and the many small slots seem to be more effective damage output than large slots (at least in my game, I only have the basic shields and missiles and a fighter drone module for the large slots).
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Toranth September 08, 2012, 07:37:28 AM
Anyone else constantly using the human ships? The main gun is quite powerful and comes with a range of high multipliers and the many small slots seem to be more effective damage output than large slots (at least in my game, I only have the basic shields and missiles and a fighter drone module for the large slots).
Each ship has some specialized modules that make them worthwhile.
A Neinzul Cruiser with 6 Mk IV Insanity Inducers and 4 Mk IV Bomber Bays is a force of terror when raiding the AI.  In addition, Neinzul get the Repair Field and Decoy abilities.
A Spire Cruiser with 5 Photon Lances and 2 Shields is both tough and extremely deadly.
The Zenith Cruiser can get 2 Shields and 4 Heat Beams - devestating against waves and mobs of AI fleetships.
The Human Cruiser, on the other hand, has 16 small weapons bays.  I like to fill these up with Nano Subverters or Doom Accelerators and go to town.  For small modules with special features, the Humans truly shine.  Humans also get the Attack Booster ability.

I find myself flipping between the ship types based on mission.  It makes it very hard to decide which modules to spend XP on, though.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic September 08, 2012, 09:11:29 PM
I use the human ships almost exclusively. A human cruiser with 4 shield modules and 16 small modules (I usually just stick to the basic ones) carves through most enemy fleets. I switch to a spire cruiser to wear down forcefields or take structures down quickly, or a neinzul to repair my fleet for free after a huge battle, but those are rare cases.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art September 08, 2012, 10:10:40 PM
I'm not in favor of a pure % aip game, because the power of the champion is constant (in that it raises at a pretty standard rate) while aip fluctuates so much in games.

With aip floor riding game 20% is barely noticable, but in a game with exo waves or a fallen spire games 20% is lethal.


The relative impact of champions is also inversely proportion to aip. aip is often the result of the human player getting more powerful. To illustrate.

The power of the champion when the player is at 10 aip (one planet) is exponentially more powerful relatively then a player at 220 aip (10 player worlds + other aip games). But wait, you can reasonably say, champions get upgrades! This brings up the next point.

Further compounding the issue is that with various tactics the champion can increase in power without increasing aip. So map placement is very important. Some maps may with clever planet hopping allow the player in a 80 planet game to get cruisers with only 4 or 6 planets taken by the player. To balance this, the current model of having nebulas tied to planet count is done, but that results in players not getting the full AS experience. Yet the alternative of always having 8 nebulas regardless of planet count results in the player being able to get cruisers without taking a single world which is its own problems. I already can imagine games where players on a 10 planet game assaulting ai homeworlds with cruisers and wearing them down.

So with these points, I am not in favor of a pure % in aip due to the massive fluctuations of map types, number of planets, play styles resulting in so many varying ai responses. Fallen spire causes a drastic change to the game, but it causes the same responses on its campaign no matter what map type, number of planets, or play style, because its difficulty is not tied to aip but rather ai difficulty numbers.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k September 09, 2012, 04:02:08 AM
Anyone else constantly using the human ships? The main gun is quite powerful and comes with a range of high multipliers and the many small slots seem to be more effective damage output than large slots (at least in my game, I only have the basic shields and missiles and a fighter drone module for the large slots).
Each ship has some specialized modules that make them worthwhile.
A Neinzul Cruiser with 6 Mk IV Insanity Inducers and 4 Mk IV Bomber Bays is a force of terror when raiding the AI.  In addition, Neinzul get the Repair Field and Decoy abilities.
A Spire Cruiser with 5 Photon Lances and 2 Shields is both tough and extremely deadly.
The Zenith Cruiser can get 2 Shields and 4 Heat Beams - devestating against waves and mobs of AI fleetships.
The Human Cruiser, on the other hand, has 16 small weapons bays.  I like to fill these up with Nano Subverters or Doom Accelerators and go to town.  For small modules with special features, the Humans truly shine.  Humans also get the Attack Booster ability.

I find myself flipping between the ship types based on mission.  It makes it very hard to decide which modules to spend XP on, though.

Well, most of those modules require luck to unlock (of the listed ones I only have the photon lance and insanity inducer but I don't have a neinzul hull). Since my champion fights fleet ships 90% of the time I get very little use out of those beam weapons. The rail clusters work but I'm not convinced they're as goodas a human champ's arsenal.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Vihermaali September 09, 2012, 06:25:25 AM
I bought the ancient shadows pack, got key, I have normal + champion role, yet there is nothing in the blue wormholes. Just  a big empty area, and I have explored at least 6 different blue wormholes. All empty. My first thought was "maybe its just not implemented yet", but then I saw this thread and people talking about them.

I have no idea how to get different shadow frigate types, apparently there are others, but if the blue wormholes are not working, there is very little I can say about the new expansion.

Am I doing something wrong? I got the setup .exe for ancient shadows and installed it into my steam ai war directory.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic September 09, 2012, 06:38:17 AM
By "explore" do you mean "sent the champion in" ? The nebulae are intentionally blank until that happens.

If it is still a problem, try disabling the Dark Spire minor faction, as it can apparently cause this to happen.

Of course, updating to the latest version is a good idea.

If none of those work (or none are applicable), post a save, and the developers will be around eventually. As a standard player, I can try to find out what is wrong from a save, but can't guarantee any solutions.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Vihermaali September 09, 2012, 06:42:29 AM
By "explore" do you mean "sent the champion in" ? The nebulae are intentionally blank until that happens.

If it is still a problem, try disabling the Dark Spire minor faction, as it can apparently cause this to happen.

Of course, updating to the latest version is a good idea.

If none of those work (or none are applicable), post a save, and the developers will be around eventually. As a standard player, I can try to find out what is wrong from a save, but can't guarantee any solutions.

THANK YOU!

Yes, I had the dark spire enabled in all of my games this far. I started a new game, disabled dark spire, and there was life in a nebulae when my champion went in. It seems like that's a serious bug.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic September 09, 2012, 06:43:43 AM
Happy to help. It is a bug, but the developers already know about it, so it should be fixed soon. Good luck in your war against the AI.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Vitka September 09, 2012, 10:46:08 AM
Maybe rather flat 20% increase, percentage should be proportional to levels of all champions, with appropriate floor/ceiling?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k September 09, 2012, 04:01:15 PM
That will make people try to minimize the number of levels they gain.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Toranth September 09, 2012, 04:18:41 PM
Maybe rather flat 20% increase, percentage should be proportional to levels of all champions, with appropriate floor/ceiling?
That will make people try to minimize the number of levels they gain.
Also, unfortunately, each level does not necessarily make the Champion stronger.
Upgrading ship size, and upgrading modules does... but what good does that Mk IV Laser module do you when you are running a Neinzul ship with all Insanity Inducers?

After lots of games with Champions, I am completely convinced that the 20% flat increase in AI strength is not right.  Unfortunately, Champion strength is disjoint based on unlocks and levels.  Balancing something like that is going to be difficult.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic September 09, 2012, 05:44:33 PM
The .2 HW mechanic is supposed to have champion power scale as you get more AIP, maintaining a rough equilibrium. In practice, the champion is consistently overpowered or underpowered, depending on the presence of exos, and how players treat AIP (champions are heavily in favor of ultra-low AIP as they stand).

 I would like it to have no effect (or a constant firepower boost) on exo-waves, but a heavy modifier of base-game stuff (like counting as a third or half a homeworld) comes to mind.

Alternatively, have the champion count as a third source of normal waves.

I don't like the idea of punishing experience or levels in any way; if you manage to get your champion to the relevant nebulae with sufficient health to win (clearing paths, dealing with threat, having championless time to defend against champion-boosted waves, etc.) then you should be rewarded.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Kjara September 09, 2012, 09:06:26 PM
I was playing around with champs in a 7.6 game, and I basically soloed both homeworlds with one cruiser.  It took a few runs, but a Zenith cruiser with 2x Interceptor bays and 4x bomber bays or 6x bomber bays (for the double shield + fortress by the command center) + microing the shield projector (with full shadow energy this is basically another 100k hp for your champ, plus it helps you keep the drones alive to increase their dps as well) let me take out 1-2 posts per run.  Once I cleared out all of the posts it then took about 3-4 runs for the bomber drones to finish the two shields and the fortress.  The entire fleet ball stayed on home on the defense to handle the counter attacks this spawned and the two of the free modular fortresses covered my home command center.  Ended up taking 3 planets (3 of the 4 adjacent planets to the homeworld) -- mostly for energy even though the mission energy and income rewards helped with this a huge amount.

This was clearly a ultra low AIP game, as I killed the 2nd ai homeworld at around 60 aip, but being able to suicide the champion repeatedly let me keep the AIP low without having to spend any resources (that I didn't have due to not taking many planets).  I think that the champ increasing in power needs to increase AI response in some fashion, not clear what the best choice is here though. 

How about increasing the AIP floor for completing champ missions or for leveling the champion to encourage you to take more planets? 
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus September 09, 2012, 09:15:16 PM
Don't punish success.
At least, don't punish leveling. It'd make sense if the AI picked up on champion ship operations and tech rewards and stuff, because unlocking things with knowledge already costs AI Progress. But, leveling should definitely not be punished. All that will do is discourage general use of the champion.
If there is some kind of AIP Floor increase, it should be no more than 5 points per nebula victory
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k September 10, 2012, 02:23:18 AM
If you want to be crazy add shadow wormhole seals to some AI systems with shadow wormholes. These would prevent using the wormhole until destroyed and cost AIP to break. Maybe the three closest nebulas shouldn't have them while the rest does so you can get a bit of a tech baseline before the AIP increases. The inspiration for this idea was an AI system over a nebula that had a black hole machine (I opted to conquer the system instead as it also contained a cursed golem).
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Vitka September 10, 2012, 03:56:59 AM
Don't punish success.
At least, don't punish leveling. It'd make sense if the AI picked up on champion ship operations and tech rewards and stuff, because unlocking things with knowledge already costs AI Progress. But, leveling should definitely not be punished. All that will do is discourage general use of the champion.
If there is some kind of AIP Floor increase, it should be no more than 5 points per nebula victory
I concede my point. Unlock-dependent increase is better than level-dependent.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe September 10, 2012, 10:20:34 AM
I'm thinking that making it primarily dependent on the champion-hull-size unlocked would be best, as well as tying the actual scaling of the nebulae to that primarily, instead of number of nebula wins.

I've hesitated doing this because it's potentially tough to make sure the AI thread is up to date on what hulls are available, but we'll see.

On the issue of exo-buffs vs wave/reinforcement/etc-buffs, yea, I think it could use a separate modifier for that purpose.  But I've also gotten complaints that the champion isn't worth the 20% increase in waves and cpa's, so it's a bit tricky to figure out exactly what's going on.  I think partly it's a question of actually exploiting the champion fully, and that it may be good to make it a little more generous with the module unlock rewards.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Diazo September 10, 2012, 10:48:56 AM


So, ya. I don't like the flat 20% bonus. However, I have not played around with the champion enough to suggest a change, although I think it would have to scale with the champion somehow.

D.

[/list]
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LordSloth September 10, 2012, 03:07:24 PM
Some brainstormed ideas about champions (warning, quality of suggestion may be pitiful).

Mario: Champion starts with one extra life. Gains one extra life for each system 'liberated' from the AI (command station killed). If there are no lives remaining, it spawns as champion core back at the homeworld. The Champion maintains much of its immortality, but punishes recklessness by encouraging the player to take more and more territory, advancing their doom. Ideally, Homeworld raiding would be less desirable.

Warp Pipe: Remove the ability to scrap champions. Add a 'teleport' ability that immobilizes the champion (cancelling shields, cloak), drains half of current shadow charge, then rapidly charges to 1000, respawning (without removing life counter) the champion at the homeworld once it hits full.

Rename Zenith (flamewave) ship to Fireflower hull.

Champion Controller: cribbing from a command station core, the controller spawns at the start of the game around an allied homeworld. This unit is only available to champion players, and comes with a dedicated repair/engineer beam for building modules without the support of allies. The beginning of a co-op game is often a balance between wanting to avoid building every allies power stations and 5-10 labs, and allies asking for some engineer love.

Short: Remove the abbreviation field from the champion modular window. I can't spot the abbreviation anywhere else.

Champion Mark: The saved designs for champions only remember type and placement of module. In other words, you only place Laser Modules, not Laser Modules MKI, MKII, MKIII, MKIV.  If you
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 September 10, 2012, 03:17:54 PM
Champion Mark: The saved designs for champions only remember type and placement of module. In other words, you only place Laser Modules, not Laser Modules MKI, MKII, MKIII, MKIV.

Yes, PLEASE do this!

I am assuming that under this system, champions will auto-pick the highest mark available (given both unlock and hull restrictions)?

EDIT: I am also assuming that to get the champion to "refresh" its modules with the latest marks, you can just reapply the ship template?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Eternaly_Lost September 10, 2012, 05:56:46 PM
I'm thinking that making it primarily dependent on the champion-hull-size unlocked would be best, as well as tying the actual scaling of the nebulae to that primarily, instead of number of nebula wins.

I've hesitated doing this because it's potentially tough to make sure the AI thread is up to date on what hulls are available, but we'll see.

On the issue of exo-buffs vs wave/reinforcement/etc-buffs, yea, I think it could use a separate modifier for that purpose.  But I've also gotten complaints that the champion isn't worth the 20% increase in waves and cpa's, so it's a bit tricky to figure out exactly what's going on.  I think partly it's a question of actually exploiting the champion fully, and that it may be good to make it a little more generous with the module unlock rewards.

I think the Champion needs to scale upwards in power with # of homeworlds, as I rarely find that my Champion can do that much outside of nebulas once I really start to get anywhere in my games. My weak exo-waves that come in with only one or two HK just make them disappear so quickly that I don't even bother use them outside of nebula. I just sit them outside the next one and wait until I have time to kill (A shard is flying across the galaxy) then send it in to play to kill time.

On the other side of thing, it is an extremely great way to kill time well you are waiting for Fallen Spire stuff (fleets to be built, shards to fly in) happens.

Champion Mark: The saved designs for champions only remember type and placement of module. In other words, you only place Laser Modules, not Laser Modules MKI, MKII, MKIII, MKIV.

Yes, PLEASE do this!

I am assuming that under this system, champions will auto-pick the highest mark available (given both unlock and hull restrictions)?

EDIT: I am also assuming that to get the champion to "refresh" its modules with the latest marks, you can just reapply the ship template?

I too would much rather see the Champion both autopick and autoupgrade it modules to the highest level on respawn. I dislike unlocking higher levels until I get a new hull because I have to go in and replace everything and with so much to unlock I can't just make a ton of presets for every mk combination.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cyborg September 10, 2012, 10:58:11 PM
I have had so much trouble getting into this champion stuff. :-\

: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Diazo September 10, 2012, 11:02:45 PM
A question on the new Heroic AI type.

How does it value Champions for wave sizes?

Are they a flat bonus? I have one Heroic and one non-Heroic AI in my current game and I do not see any way size between the two so I'm wondering.

D.

edit: Not really Ancient Shadows related, but all guardians seem to be immune to translocation from a military command station even though their immunities list does not show it? Can someone confirm please.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k September 11, 2012, 05:31:18 AM
Transloc does not work on "certain large ships". I think it doesn't work on starships either.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Soyweiser September 11, 2012, 09:17:28 AM
iirc it works on leech starships. I had one warped away in a gravity drill system. Took forever for it to get killed.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Soyweiser September 11, 2012, 10:08:13 AM
Ps the whole Epsilon Eridani mission takes for ever.

The half speed on your own ship is annoyin as hell, it means you can never reach any hotspot. (Combined with the fact that the ships in the nebula all have double the range the champion has). The Intimidators always spawn in groups of three, and those three are not really targetted all that well by the AI. So you constantly need to hunt those down. It is pretty easy, but it just takes for ever.

And when you have the enemy wittled down to only the starbase. It constantly spawns groups of 18 enemies at once. Who then easily mop up the starships spawned one at a time by the friendly bases. It turns it all in a uninteresting grind. You know you are going to win, but the AI makes it annoying. (kill the intimidators, kill the other ships, escort your ships to the enemy starbase. And before you can reach the starbase and your front ships, the new spawn is there. Repeat). Even more fun, the intimidators not only out range the default champion, they are also quicker. !fun.

Really annoying. Takes half an hour to clear almost.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Fluffiest September 11, 2012, 10:28:17 AM
I think the Champion needs to scale upwards in power with # of homeworlds, as I rarely find that my Champion can do that much outside of nebulas once I really start to get anywhere in my games. My weak exo-waves that come in with only one or two HK just make them disappear so quickly that I don't even bother use them outside of nebula. I just sit them outside the next one and wait until I have time to kill (A shard is flying across the galaxy) then send it in to play to kill time.

On the other side of thing, it is an extremely great way to kill time well you are waiting for Fallen Spire stuff (fleets to be built, shards to fly in) happens.

Is the Champion even meant to be balanced with the Fallen Spire game? It seems like it wouldn't be. I suspect the only way to make a Champion that's useful in Fallen Spire without being hideously overpowered the rest of the time would be to add special Champion unlocks that are only available with certain numbers of Spire cities or city modules.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus September 11, 2012, 11:08:46 AM
I think the Champion needs to scale upwards in power with # of homeworlds, as I rarely find that my Champion can do that much outside of nebulas once I really start to get anywhere in my games. My weak exo-waves that come in with only one or two HK just make them disappear so quickly that I don't even bother use them outside of nebula. I just sit them outside the next one and wait until I have time to kill (A shard is flying across the galaxy) then send it in to play to kill time.

On the other side of thing, it is an extremely great way to kill time well you are waiting for Fallen Spire stuff (fleets to be built, shards to fly in) happens.

Is the Champion even meant to be balanced with the Fallen Spire game? It seems like it wouldn't be. I suspect the only way to make a Champion that's useful in Fallen Spire without being hideously overpowered the rest of the time would be to add special Champion unlocks that are only available with certain numbers of Spire cities or city modules.
That's kind of a neat idea, that might be stupidly hard to implement.
Like, the Spire that you build up give you additional classes of ships as you go to give you a unique champion to contribute to the uber spire fleet.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe September 11, 2012, 11:12:34 AM
I have had so much trouble getting into this champion stuff. :-\
You're the one who asked for "Arcade Mode" :)  That's not the only inspiration behind it, but is one of them.

A question on the new Heroic AI type.

How does it value Champions for wave sizes?
It just adds the champion on top of the wave that's there.

Ps the whole Epsilon Eridani mission takes for ever.
Half an hour is within the target range, though I find it generally takes me more like 15 minutes, or less depending on how I do it. 

If your ally fleet gets wiped out, and it's a late enough scenario that the enemy is getting a lot of scaling bonuses, then the central starbases spawns could be pretty frequent, yea, but by then you would have a pretty big champion and have more flexibility to make stuff happen.  One key thing is to keep your ally's anti-starbase ships (the lowest-tier ones) alive by shielding them from enemy starbase fire and killing the enemy mid-tier ones.  Depending on how big you are and what modules you've specialized in, you can do enough damage to the enemy starbase that cover from nearby allies, your shield ability, and your shields will allow successful attack runs of your own.

If it's one of the early scenarios it can basically be steamrolled in 10-15 minutes by your allies if you use the shield ability judiciously and kill off those enemy mid-tiers before they gobble up the ally anti-starbase ships.

Is the Champion even meant to be balanced with the Fallen Spire game?
Yea, it should work with pretty much any other setting, or at least not break it.  In FS's case I think I'll just take an earlier suggestion and make the champion have only a very minor impact on FS exo size.  I mean, a champion is a threat, but compared to even a 2-city fleet...
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Diazo September 11, 2012, 11:24:44 AM
A question on the new Heroic AI type.

How does it value Champions for wave sizes?
It just adds the champion on top of the wave that's there.

Ok, that's yet another ow to the Heroic AI type.

So that is, umm..... way to many owies at this point.

But that's what makes it fun.  8)

D.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: rabican September 11, 2012, 12:01:46 PM
Transloc does not work on "certain large ships". I think it doesn't work on starships either.

Works on some ,debends on mark  in some cases. I don't think anyone knows what it works and doesn't work against.


: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Vihermaali September 12, 2012, 06:08:30 AM
I have played for a while now, I have a shadow destroyer and I have cleared 4 blue wormholes (nebulae?).

It feels to me that the shadow ships is like a 1-ship fleet.  I created a game with random medium/easier AI types, and as a result one of them is a "turtle", AI Eyes on every other planet! I send in my shadow destroyer and it takes out all guard posts that don't have a forcefield. After this I send in raider/scout starships and sit them under shadow ship forcefields while they take out posts that are cloaked and/or under forcefields. I no longer need to send my whole fleet to take out a planet, I can just use my shadow ship to do that. This is of course without any extra AI firepower like spire waves, AI golems, hybrids etc.

So in short, I feel like the shadow/blue wormhole side missions are fun as themselves, but they do only feel like "side missions". A shadow ship champion doesn't feel like a complete game changer like a "fallen spire" campaign does. Main dynamic change seems to be that I leave my fleet home while the shadow ship kills everything except forcefielded structures and fortresses. Shadow ship has also been acting as a fast response ship when sh*t happens (EMP guardian disables a system and several hundred ships pour in, for example).

But this was vs standard 7.0 "medium/easier" ai types with almost no extra options added, so I may have to ramp the difficulty up quite a lot
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe September 12, 2012, 10:38:43 AM
I send in my shadow destroyer and it takes out all guard posts that don't have a forcefield.
Have the AI's special forces not rudely interrupted this process?  They don't respond on all planets, but I imagine you would have hit one of the CSG planets by now.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth September 12, 2012, 10:48:15 AM
[Have the AI's special forces not rudely interrupted this process?  They don't respond on all planets, but I imagine you would have hit one of the CSG planets by now.
They do. It's fun kiting them around planets while I take down as much of the infrastructure as I can. Inevitably though, I end up finding the Grav Guardian at a bad time and it is quite literally GG for that little raid  :o
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe September 12, 2012, 10:57:12 AM
[Have the AI's special forces not rudely interrupted this process?  They don't respond on all planets, but I imagine you would have hit one of the CSG planets by now.
They do. It's fun kiting them around planets while I take down as much of the infrastructure as I can. Inevitably though, I end up finding the Grav Guardian at a bad time and it is quite literally GG for that little raid  :o
To illustrate:

Where you goin'?! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbSpAsJSZPc&feature=player_detailpage#t=47s) ;)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth September 12, 2012, 10:58:59 AM
[Have the AI's special forces not rudely interrupted this process?  They don't respond on all planets, but I imagine you would have hit one of the CSG planets by now.
They do. It's fun kiting them around planets while I take down as much of the infrastructure as I can. Inevitably though, I end up finding the Grav Guardian at a bad time and it is quite literally GG for that little raid  :o
To illustrate:

Where you goin'?! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbSpAsJSZPc&feature=player_detailpage#t=47s) ;)

That pretty much sums it up  :D
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 September 12, 2012, 11:06:53 AM
An example of when you can use micro/fleet tactics to improve your effectiveness. ;)


More seriously, rewarding some level of micro/fleet tactics does not go against your design vision, right? It just that you don't want to make it so rewarding that players feel pressured to "hyper-micro" to get that huge reward, right?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe September 12, 2012, 11:13:40 AM
More seriously, rewarding some level of micro/fleet tactics does not go against your design vision, right? It just that you don't want to make it so rewarding that players feel pressured to "hyper-micro" to get that huge reward, right?
In general micro having some positive payoff is fine, but that's a bit beside the point here: champions are specifically units that need micro to really shine, and that's part of their design.  That's why you get one of them (unless you quite deliberately add more).  We wouldn't want other units to be that micro-inclined.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k September 12, 2012, 11:36:43 AM
In my experience the special forces don't do all that much to stop a champion, a steady stream of MkI ships is more like targeting practice than an actual threat. Well, maybe if you use a beam-specced spire champ you may have trouble gunning them down but with enough multi-target weapons you'll rip those spec forces apart before they even get in range.

BTW, what exactly do SF rally guardians do now?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: rabican September 12, 2012, 01:41:17 PM
Some random thoughts about things in expansion :

Z Medic Frigates

That cap dps seems to be hell of a lot more than any other fleet ship versus their favored target. Or maybe my math just sucks. Also along with reprosseccor its the lowest cap ship without reclaim immunity. Not sure if that is intended, couple of hundred zombified of these might make interesting things happen to your economy.

Other than that, pretty great ship, repair aspect isn't that great in close fights but great in supporting offensive fleet for extended periods of time.

Repossecor

Haven't noticed resource refund thingie working at all.

Shadow ships

Overall balance is uh , pretty problematic for these. Low aip game they absolutely dominate the game. Higher, not that much but still great ship. Not sure if overall balance needs much changes, although pretty overpowering , they are great fun to use.

One thing i might be worth tweaking is increasing the Reinforcement pulses more when champions are in play.  As this is where champions shine most, taking out even heavily fortified systems out without any real cost.


Shadow shield projector

This is especially early on ridiculously good.  More problematically its the first activate skill that you get and better than any of the latter skills you get. By a lot.

I would suggest increasing its hadow charge cost to 400-500 range instead of the current 200. This way you can have worse, cheaper abilities later on.

Zenith - Human Shadow ships

Spire, neinzull, human(zenith, the three classes of the shadow vessels. Zenith and human are so similiar in modules and skills that there is no difference between the two hull types.

Neinzull Shadow ship

The vampirism is pretty sick but doesn't really matter as its not big deal if the ship dies.

Insanity inducer has some  targeting issues(i think),  i only get half the amount of expected kills per volley, or less. With 6 mark IV inducers i should  be getting 24 zombies per volley, but in practice the number seems to be between 4-12.   

Ship modules

Most of these modules for shadow ships stink of math and balance. With couple of expections (subverter, insanity inducer, photon lance, bays,  plasma siege and maybe translocator & missile ) All the other modules might as well be the same. 



Some bad ideas:

Ship abilities , pretty simple things, fairly sure easy to accomplish

Neinzull :
<insert name here> : Spawn X (15 * hull type mark + ship level or something) of neinzull younglings.

 : Make temporary (1min mayhaps) cloacking super booster.

Spire :

:(with spirecraft enabled)  consume an spirecraft asteroid to instantly produce a  of computer controlled (zombified or ally faction) spirecraft of random type.

: Eat up a friendly ship,  regain health and spawn number of drones based on ship health/cost.

Human :

: Build a shadow turret. Self explanatory, longer duration and cheaper than current shadow ablities.


Zenith:

: Make a shadow simulcarum of your champion. Computer controlled and self attritions fast.


General:

: Mini nuke X (X0k, not martyr grade) of damage in large area. Needs high shadow cost.

: temporary gravity, armor inhibitor, black hole effect.


I heard something about 4th grade shadow ship hulls, so here are some ideas for those:

Forget about nebulae balance, and add some range and crazy **** in modules.

(mod edit: one thing as per profanity policy (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1381.0.html))
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k September 12, 2012, 03:00:50 PM
I'm wary of demanding nerfs for the champion since they're supposed to be used as a player's entire arsenal so they must be capable of doing things on their own. Currently the AI's bonus strength isn't properly balanced for the champion strength so the game's difficulty can go wonky in both directions.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic September 12, 2012, 06:12:17 PM
Zenith siege engines are absolute brutality in the hands of the AI. A decent sized threatball had enough to one-shot a champion cruiser. Under quintuple ability shields. And when the special forces captain gets his hands on them... let's just say that spire dreadnaughts have died. Yes, plural.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Vihermaali September 13, 2012, 04:49:27 AM
I send in my shadow destroyer and it takes out all guard posts that don't have a forcefield.
Have the AI's special forces not rudely interrupted this process?  They don't respond on all planets, but I imagine you would have hit one of the CSG planets by now.

Special forces as in guardians (gravity, artillery etc.)? Yeah they are nasty, but with my upgraded mlrs + lasers (6 of both) gravity guardians seem to fall fairly quickly, artillery dies almost instantly and rest I usually ignore. I try to fly from post to post and pick off nastiest guardians while I'm at their guard post. Eventually AI sends all ships in the planet after my shadow ship (or I fetch them myself by flying around a lot) and after that point I need to do things in more traditional way (or fly until death) unless its a low level planet (in which case I just stand still under a FF and kill everything as they come).

Only real threat in this game this far (in addition to forces with EMP guardian wandering in) has been those cross-planet attacks where ships get released, so like I said in a previous post, I guess I really should ramp the difficulty up to see the true balance.

My Ai War history: I've completed 1 solo ~7diff game, one co-op ~7 diff game and one co-op spire campaign where we conquered 95% of the galaxy planets. Several failures and in-completes.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Mánagarmr September 13, 2012, 05:10:18 AM
Special forces as in guardians (gravity, artillery etc.)? Yeah they are nasty, but with my upgraded mlrs + lasers (6 of both) gravity guardians seem to fall fairly quickly, artillery dies almost instantly and rest I usually ignore. I try to fly from post to post and pick off nastiest guardians while I'm at their guard post. Eventually AI sends all ships in the planet after my shadow ship (or I fetch them myself by flying around a lot) and after that point I need to do things in more traditional way unless its a low level planet (in which case I just stand still under a FF and kill everything as they come).
I see you have not met the Special Forces (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11608.0.html) yet then.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Vihermaali September 13, 2012, 05:42:32 AM
Special forces as in guardians (gravity, artillery etc.)? Yeah they are nasty, but with my upgraded mlrs + lasers (6 of both) gravity guardians seem to fall fairly quickly, artillery dies almost instantly and rest I usually ignore. I try to fly from post to post and pick off nastiest guardians while I'm at their guard post. Eventually AI sends all ships in the planet after my shadow ship (or I fetch them myself by flying around a lot) and after that point I need to do things in more traditional way unless its a low level planet (in which case I just stand still under a FF and kill everything as they come).
I see you have not met the Special Forces (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11608.0.html) yet then.

Yes, haven't seen those yet.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Bognor September 13, 2012, 10:37:36 AM

Z Medic Frigates

That cap dps seems to be hell of a lot more than any other fleet ship versus their favored target. Or maybe my math just sucks. Also along with reprosseccor its the lowest cap ship without reclaim immunity. Not sure if that is intended, couple of hundred zombified of these might make interesting things happen to your economy.

Actual zombies from a Botnet Golem - unlike ships you've reclaimed by other means and can control - have no energy cost.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: rabican September 14, 2012, 05:12:22 AM

Z Medic Frigates

That cap dps seems to be hell of a lot more than any other fleet ship versus their favored target. Or maybe my math just sucks. Also along with reprosseccor its the lowest cap ship without reclaim immunity. Not sure if that is intended, couple of hundred zombified of these might make interesting things happen to your economy.

Actual zombies from a Botnet Golem - unlike ships you've reclaimed by other means and can control - have no energy cost.

Was thinking more about zombies constantly repairing each other. Not sure if that would cause resource drain or not
: Railguns!
: Histidine September 14, 2012, 11:38:10 AM
Actual sniper range on champion railguns would be nice. Nebula units/starbases could get sniper immunity/counter-sniper flares if you don't want people sitting under home base coverage sniping things from absolute safety.

On modular fortresses: All the forts can mount four different weapon types (needler, MLRS, laser, missile), and the human fort can swap out shield modules for HBCs. Except for the Spire fort, which has only three weapons (no missile module).
Perhaps it could get railguns, in line with FS ships/city structures?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LordSloth September 26, 2012, 02:50:29 PM
Unfortunately, I haven't had the energy, internet, or sp setup ideal to get zenith reprocessor testing out of the way. I know they work and work quite well now. I wanted to see how quickly I could extract resources.

Some 20 minutes of gameplay have led me to the conclusion that the AI Missile Guard Post needs buffing. With cloaking, the Reference is close to the actual outcome.

8 Zenith Processors Mk1 can defeat one Missile Guard Post Mark IV rather handily, as in 89% win. If it is one-on-one, it turns into an 86% loss. Now, the missile guard post can do a significant amount of damage to these guys if they're uncovered early, but the time to kill is a little sad.

For comparison, a full cap of Bomber MkIII can kill a full cap of Fighters Mk1 in 72 seconds. If, for some reason, the Zenith Reprocessors didn't attack the missile post, it would take 288 seconds to kill the reprocessors, which would kill the post in 32 seconds.

It's fine for guard posts to be relatively weak, after all they bring in reinforcements, and we have guardians around. I'm perfectly happy with their health so far. I do wish they came with some more firepower however, and that it scaled up a bit more clearly, instead of having reload times reduced.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 September 26, 2012, 02:55:02 PM
Unfortunately, I haven't had the energy, internet, or sp setup ideal to get zenith reprocessor testing out of the way. I know they work and work quite well now. I wanted to see how quickly I could extract resources.

Some 20 minutes of gameplay have led me to the conclusion that the AI Missile Guard Post needs buffing. With cloaking, the Reference is close to the actual outcome.

8 Zenith Processors Mk1 can defeat one Missile Guard Post Mark IV rather handily, as in 89% win. If it is one-on-one, it turns into an 86% loss. Now, the missile guard post can do a significant amount of damage to these guys if they're uncovered early, but the time to kill is a little sad.

For comparison, a full cap of Bomber MkIII can kill a full cap of Fighters Mk1 in 72 seconds. If, for some reason, the Zenith Reprocessors didn't attack the missile post, it would take 288 seconds to kill the reprocessors, which would kill the post in 32 seconds.

It's fine for guard posts to be relatively weak, after all they bring in reinforcements, and we have guardians around. I'm perfectly happy with their health so far. I do wish they came with some more firepower however, and that it scaled up a bit more clearly, instead of having reload times reduced.

3728: Guard Posts have pathetic firepower (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=3728) (despite its name, this issue is also about the guard post durability)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe September 26, 2012, 02:59:56 PM
Oh yea, basically all the non-core guard posts are spitball-guns mounted on cotton candy, except the shield generators.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Mánagarmr September 26, 2012, 03:08:06 PM
I remember back in the day when a Special Forces guardpost would SHRED anything you threw at it, forcing you to use long range bombardment to take it down...
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Histidine September 28, 2012, 11:54:39 AM
I just had a really, really bad experience with the Epsilon Eridani nebula scenario.

So I'm helping out with my Zenith Shadow Destroyer, covering my allies, pushing them back to their large starbase.
Unfortunately it pretty much stalemates there (the EER don't spawn fast enough or in a sufficiently coherent bloc) to really threaten their large starbase.

Then I get myself killed (I had let my shields drop carelessly earlier).
By the time I can clear out the AI forces in the way and get back to the nebula, the EER have lost two or three of their small starbases. Nothing I do from there stops the Sorrow's Fang from getting critical mass and steamrolling what's left of my allies.

 :-\
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe September 28, 2012, 12:15:35 PM
Yea, it tries to remain threatening throughout the scenario :)  The large starbases can be hard to take down, but as long as you protect your side's attack forces long enough for them to get a couple shots in against it each "wave" (mainly thinking of the larger coherent spawns from the ally large starbase) you'll wear them down.  If your ships are not even getting to the large starbase then there are some things you can do to swing the open-space battles more in your allies' favor.  In particular, pay attention to the fact that each side has:

1 "bomber" ship type good against starbases
1 "bomber-killer" ship type good against the bomber type
1 "command" ship type good gainst the bomber-killer and, by sheer weight of base dps, not bad at killing anything else either

and then the starbases, which are particularly good at shredding the command ships and champions, but also can wipe up the two smaller types by sheer dps.

Also, for your own part, needler modules (and the human champ main gun) are good against the bomber types, mlrs modules are good against the bomber-killer types, and laser modules are good against the command types.  Missile modules are pretty good against starbases, but generally if you're smaller than a cruiser you don't want to do your own starbase-attack-runs, and even then expect to take heavy damage.

So basically to take down a starbase you want to protect your ally's bombers, which means killing the enemy's bomber-killers and when facing fire you can't stop that way (like starbase defensive fire), cover them with projected shields and your own shields.  If you expect to need more ooph here, mount some mlrs to clear out the enemy bomber-killers (and possibly lasers to deal with enemy command ships)

And when defending an ally starbase you want to kill the enemy bombers asap.

For overall open-space combat, I find that killing the enemy command ships (i.e. use lasers) is more important.  But most of the significant combat is usually around a starbase on one side or another.

And of course there are other modules you'll pick up along the way that have other uses, some outside and some inside the nebulae.  But the basic set available from the start lets you handle the early/mid scenarios pretty well.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic September 28, 2012, 09:27:01 PM
early/mid scenarios

Scenarios have a restricted order?

What is it?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe September 28, 2012, 10:44:02 PM
early/mid scenarios

Scenarios have a restricted order?

What is it?
Of the 9 scenarios, 3 can only happen after all the others.  There are a few other story-based dependencies before that, and the mourners one can't happen as the first one.  That's about it.

By early/mid I meant "other than those last 3", mainly.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LordSloth September 29, 2012, 12:04:10 AM
Report: Fallen Spire campaign is definitely more interesting now. Six player co-op game, 7.6/7.6 Support/Assassin AIs, Easy Broken Golems, 7/7 Hybrid Hives, 7/7 Hybrid Hives, a few other less relevant things on an 80-star X-map.

Lost a command station (but the subspace reciever survived with 8% health and no shield coverage with hostiles in system on the first shard. Lost the Refugee ship on the second and then the fleets to an ill-considered nuke. We then lost the 60%+ completed doomsday nuke and another home command station to yet another nuke mk1.

"Teamwork" aside, it was considerably easier to underestimate the forces needed to protect the shard than in previous fallen spire games. This is good, but it does lean a bit more towards taking out all warpgates adjacent to the travelled path than I expected. It put some pressure back in the pursuit, but not the tedium.

I'd vote for replacing the four times multiplier with a three times one, on a first impression.  The objectivity of this opinion is a bit skewed by the bountiful teamwork we received.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe September 29, 2012, 10:21:10 AM
I think the presence of those nukes may indicate one of the problems ;)  Glad it was more interesting :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Histidine September 30, 2012, 03:47:48 AM
(http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/541813735274021554/6A7572F050E8E7DD62E4D1F739999866FBF5A4B7/)
(7/7 game, FS 4/10, one homeworld + champion)

Yep. Definitely more interesting. And this is just half their remaining force!

I concur with LordSloth; even 2x previous size would make it considerably harder to defend the shard than before (you may be facing half the total number of ships, but they're coming at you in groups twice as big, bad enough even without Lanchester's Square Law)

Oh, and thanks for the nebula advice, Keith. I always knew laser was best base module, but now I know why  :P
(killing cruiser groups before they reach critical mass is really helpful)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LordSloth September 30, 2012, 01:43:09 PM
So this isn't specifically Ancient Shadows, but: I think Scout Starship health is too low nowadays. 100,000 300,000 900,000 health.  Admittedly, it is more than a decloaker. On the one hand, Scout hull means that nobody gets a multiplier. Their raw health is lower than that of a fighter. If guard posts get a rebalance pass after the tweak we've had to guardians, scout starships could probably have their health adjusted.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: dotjd October 01, 2012, 12:44:13 PM
I tried a 10/10 game with Heroic and Fortress King.

24 minutes in, the AI force-fed me 5 spire destroyer champions with plasma lance/siege cannon modules.  I had a full cap of basic turrets mk. 1/2, which I had specifically built to gank the champions the AI sends with waves.  The turrets didn't exactly help when a single plasma siege cannon would one-shot several turrets at a time, heh.  And their overlapping shields sealed the deal.

These weren't from a wave either; as far as I can tell, they just decided to show up with 0 warning. Speaking of zeroes, that's also how many chances I had.

I guess Heroic is supposed to do stuff with their champions the same way crafty spire sometimes sends spirecraft around?  That's cool, although I have to note that it's arbitrarily deciding to send things with orders of magnitude more firepower than the waves I was getting. =p
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 01, 2012, 12:50:30 PM
I tried a 10/10 game with Heroic and Fortress King.
gg ;)

24 minutes in, the AI force-fed me 5 spire destroyer champions with plasma lance/siege cannon modules.
Open wide!

These weren't from a wave either; as far as I can tell, they just decided to show up with 0 warning.
Yea, heroic gets the wave ones, and periodically spawns "threat" champions on its homeworld.  5 in 24 minutes (earlier, counting travel time) is a bit more than I expected, but given that it was 10/10 it sounds possible.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 October 01, 2012, 12:53:34 PM
I concur with LordSloth; even 2x previous size would make it considerably harder to defend the shard than before (you may be facing half the total number of ships, but they're coming at you in groups twice as big, bad enough even without Lanchester's Square Law)

Yes, PLEASE read over Lanchester's laws. They reveal SO many important details when balancing, especially how unit count, unit strength, and time of engagement interact with each other balance wise. Not just in this case, but for the whole game.

In particular, the various quantities do NOT scale linearly. (in this case, quartering duration but average quadruapiling enemy counts does not imply the same overall "difficulty")


EDIT: I wonder if it could also give some insights into why the AI getting just a moderate more above cap of low ship cap types feels (and may be objectively) much more threatening than the AI getting significantly more above cap of high ship cap types.
EDIT2: Though a glance over reading seems to imply that high cap ships should be STRONGER than their cap * individual strength would imply, even though in game experience seems to imply the opposite.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 01, 2012, 01:03:01 PM
I'm aware that 2x the ships is not 2x the difficulty, and that a*X ships in 1/a time is not the same difficulty as X in 1, and that MkII ships having 2x the health and 2x dps is not merely 2x as dangerous as a MkI ship (both due to the squaring phenomenon and two stats being increased).  In general things scale up more than linearly because the game should get more intense as you go along.

For the shard-chase stuff I don't mind adjusting numbers but part of the reason I didn't tone it down (much, it is actually slightly lower due to the intervals being an integer of seconds and me erring on the side of higher interval when no whole number was available during the division) is that the two bits of feedback that most stood out to me about the chases were: too long, and too easy.

As usual, we tend to take something of a binary search approach to balance ;)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LordSloth October 01, 2012, 01:23:25 PM
Given an ideal most fun center, I think the current pursuit is closer to it than the previous setup.

As an alternate idea, perhaps the first shard would be at 1x. The second shard at 2x, the third at 3x, and following ones at 4x. I'd be a lot more likely to engage in the shard pursuit. That said, I've got a singleplayer game going on where I'll be exploring how the Fallen Spire campaign balance actually plays out (with save-restore experimentation to see how I can prepare/handle things). I haven't retrieved the first shard by the five hour mark (in part due to nervousness) but more realistically, due to preparing for the hybrid hives, cross planet attack, and spirecraft exo-galactic strikeforces that hit around hour four. I've done a decent job of securing my starting cluster, but I could have done much better. I haven't properly adjusted to the Neinzul Youngling AI yet, though I've got a few working tricks up my sleeve. Thankfully, the other AI is only a counterspy, and I'm getting use out of my scout starships.

In other words, I haven't gotten to the really juicy and satisfying revenge for all the headaches that the spire frigates will give me. But I'm doing much much better at getting there (albeit with some save-requiring slipups) than I did in my games where I paired the hybrid hives with Gravity Drills and Special Forces Commander.

Infiltrators absolutely humiliate hybrids and super hybrids by the way. I recommend avoiding them as your starting ship on 7 to 7.6 against hybrid hives. They're simply too cheap and effective and eliminate a good portion of the danger, although hardly all of it. I'd put mk1 and 2 against 10 hives any day, throw in mk3 and I'd laugh at 20+. Cheap enough to suicide against even more.

Edit P.S. That new beta release looks fantastic. I should have feedback on its Fallen Spire effects later tonight or tomorrow.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: dotjd October 01, 2012, 09:54:53 PM
I started up a sandbox game because I wanted to see how far the nebula questlines go.  Some more impressions.

-I can't decide what unlocks to get.  I ended up getting a bunch of level 2 unlocks (because only 1 point, natch) and after the 9th mission I finally got HBCs modules and sighed.  They seem to be balanced like knowledge costs; you can get a small number of things all the way through but nowhere near everything.  That's great, except I also really get the impression you're supposed to swap champions often and mix and match modules for each nebula encounter.  And then the character of the missions changes near the end, from mobile ship suppression to base killing.

-The balance... I'm not really sure how to say what I mean, but it feels like you're intended to have to cheese things and/or used advanced micro to clear the later ones.  I still have no clue how I'm supposed to clear the colony ship one if it spawns near the end.  60 exploding colony ships every 10-20 seconds?  Not a single ship had a chance.  I ended up doing it after 2 hours of savescumming by loading a zenith champ up with 2 bomber bays (for distractions), 2 missiles (for dps), and then running through and killing the bases as fast as I could.  Won with 1% health left after too much pain.  Your ship is way too slow to even try engaging the regular enemy ships in that fight, let alone the colony ships.

-I hate how the large enemy bases decide to spawn more things once you clear the small bases out.  It's like, you think you made progress, but NOPE.  Especially hate how large starbases end up spawning 6+ advanced command cruisers at a time, because they take forever and a day to kill and poison the well by murdering bombers so efficiently that your allies are useless for the rest of the fight, and you basically have to clear the large starbase by yourself.  With very long & tedious needle pricks.

-Yeah uh, I ended up recharging shadow, running up to a large starbase, spamming the shield, and running away after 20s to begin the long recharge (and exit the nebula to repair shield modules).  If there's a better way to do it, I didn't find it.

-The shadow regen thing isn't very good.  You can't use it in a firefight, and while it's nice that you can heal a starbase, it doesn't actually help you achieve victory.

-Shield modules being able to die, but not other modules, feels wrong (although I can see why it turned out this way).

-Speaking of which, is something broken with the Neinzul champion's radar damping?  Some tooltip might be lying to me, but I'm not sure which one.  Missiles get something like 6k more range than the radar damping (16k vs 10k iirc), meaning you should be able to sit outside a starbase's radius and ping it to death.  But that, uh, doesn't work; the starbases are ignoring it or something, and firing at me from max missile range.  The tooltip doesn't mention that as one of their immunities though...

-Does vampirism only apply if the main gun deals the final blow to an enemy?

I kept trying after eventually getting 9 clears and my battleship.  10 looped back to the beginning of the rotation and gave me grey spire.  ~45 gatlings spawned at the start.  gg.

Overall: I much prefer the variety here to the fallen spire stuff.  There are many more ways to play it, and many more missions that aren't boring.  With some time this is going to turn out really well, I think.

re: new fallen spire: the shard moves too fast.  My fleetball can't keep up.

zen siege engine: could use longer range.  I can't see a way to use them without suiciding them, aside from an elaborate whipping boy setup.

possibly broken (have not tried): shield bearer + med frigate
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Histidine October 03, 2012, 03:30:17 AM
contingencyplan's golem thread (http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11735) reminded me of one of the things that bothers me a bit about champions: the 20% ship count increase the AI gets doesn't scale with champion strength at all. So, here's some random idea spitballing for fixing that:


They seem to be balanced like knowledge costs; you can get a small number of things all the way through but nowhere near everything.  That's great, except I also really get the impression you're supposed to swap champions often and mix and match modules for each nebula encounter.  And then the character of the missions changes near the end, from mobile ship suppression to base killing.
There's also the problem that while spending knowledge to unlock units increases the size of your force, spending unlock points to upgrade modules that you're not presently using doesn't increase your strength in any direct way at all. I'm not really seeing a reason to do anything other than max out shields + 2 or 3 weapon modules that between them can handle pretty much anything your champion faces (with me it's usually laser/paralyzer + bomber drone.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 03, 2012, 10:40:27 AM
the 20% ship count increase the AI gets doesn't scale with champion strength at all
It generally scales up over time, though, as the AI's base amount goes up.  If you outstrip that with your champion's growth, good for you.  From what I've seen the reverse is often true: people get to mid/late game and don't feel that what their champion gives them balances off the 20% bonus the AI gets.  I don't think they're necessarily considering all the advantages it gives them, but I wouldn't want to make it harsher with scaling up the counter-bonus.

Adding AIP-on-growth would just discourage people from using them as many players run the other direction as fast as humanly possible from anything that adds AIP.  Learned that with an old implementation of golems.

Adding response exos... maybe, but we do that with all the other superweapons so I wanted something different.

For the duels... very complex to be adding now :)  And I don't know how many iterations that would take to get right, if ever.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LordSloth October 03, 2012, 10:52:42 AM
Adding a response to the champion is a bit troublesome. They often play at their own place in a multiplayer game. Adding something in that would strike at the normal player's world would be a bit of a headache. Then again, we already have people triggering raid engines in co-op...

Rather than force the champions to come to the normal player's defense, I'd rather something that requires the normal player to come to the champion's aid.

A literal hunter-killer, if you will, except a special special forces version. Would need it's own balancing.

I'm not certain if it actually needs a change, however - I've been humiliated by hard spirecraft before having the opportunity to find out, lately. I'm expecting to take part in a champion focused co-op game this evening for this LP Lilli is doing over at SA.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: relmz32 October 04, 2012, 09:15:24 AM
I've been pretty busy lately, but i was able to sit down and spin up a 5.088 game with 7-7 last night, and it was pretty sweet.
Things i liked:

Didn't like:
Things I think could be improved:
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: rabican October 09, 2012, 03:01:50 AM
Doing nebulaes is one of the very the very few things that gives you great benefits without increasing aip. This means that is hugely beneficial to just do every nebulae at start. Debending of map type this might be fast and easy(crosshatch, etc) or just tedious (snake). Deep strike threat really isn't threatening when you can beachead couple of modular forts :)

This is why there is so much disagreement on wheter or not champions are worth the 20% orwhateveritis. If you go to 1000 aip with just say destroyer hull its definately not worth it . If you are at 20aip with battleship hull you can just cruise through the rest of the game.

I know its too late to suggest anything about how you get to nebulaes or anything. But anyways , it would be nice if new nebuale would appear after some time or when you hit certain aip or fulfill some other condition. Having bunch of citadel ascendant ships jump in , throw you with some asteroids and space cows  and then flee through previously unknown nebulae wormhole would be great fun.

Ooohkay, about nebulae missions themselves. My favorites are Mr. Ravenous, dyson gatlings, colony ship massacare(this one does have some scaling issues) and the brawl (just because of the scale of it). These mostly feel different, and there is only so many times you can run onto starbase throw some shields before it becomes repetitive.

Some ideas for new nebulaes if there are still plans to add some in future:

AI shipyard: You stumble upon AI's shipyard building up a exo strikeforce . Destroy the builders or be exofied. No friendlies just you versus teh macfhine.

Final confrontation with citadel ascendant: Complete with mad scientist space lab of horrors.

Neinzull nesting grounds: I must imagine i'm bit unclear what neinzull are but i imagine they are closest to space monsters this game has. Ancient insane neinzull oldlings spewing out endlesss amount of twisted younglings.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: dotjd October 09, 2012, 10:40:22 AM
Could you add some kind of indicator for the wormhole going to the nebula? The color of the wormhole is good, but it can still be a pain to find. I think, if you get a scout in an adjacent system, that should, at least, reveal the nebula in the galaxy map, without revealing the world itself.

You can filter the galaxy map by Unexplored Wormholes: search for that item in the first of the two drop-downs at the bottom.  If you use default settings and have unexplored planets displayed (as opposed to only having explored planets visible and having to go through a womrhole to see where it leads), that'll show you where all the blue wormholes on the map are.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: relmz32 October 09, 2012, 01:57:56 PM
Could you add some kind of indicator for the wormhole going to the nebula? The color of the wormhole is good, but it can still be a pain to find. I think, if you get a scout in an adjacent system, that should, at least, reveal the nebula in the galaxy map, without revealing the world itself.

You can filter the galaxy map by Unexplored Wormholes: search for that item in the first of the two drop-downs at the bottom.  If you use default settings and have unexplored planets displayed (as opposed to only having explored planets visible and having to go through a womrhole to see where it leads), that'll show you where all the blue wormholes on the map are.

Thanks! I actually discovered that last night! :P
But i very much appreciate the help!
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Mermel October 10, 2012, 08:39:06 AM
I pretty much like the concept of Ancient shadows, but there are still some major issues I have with it.
Balance mostly, but that should eventually be doable.
It feels to me like a lot of the scenarios require a certain loadout to be beatable in any reasonable manner or beatable at all. The colony ship one in particular.
I havn't found any other way but carrier type modules (Bomber, fighter...) to be of any major use here.
I found that scenario with a cruiser hull, not sure how many I did before though.
The ships came at 2 to 4 second intervalls with 16 spawing with each wave. It's absolutely impossible to do that with a lot of cheese or luck.
Another thing in general is, that once you die in one of the further out nebulas, the scenario is pretty much done. The champion becomes such a large factor in time when the scenarios scale up, his absence is almost an instaloss.

So, the fact that certain weapon loadouts higly favor certain scenarios and the loss of the champion is almost certain defeat and the need for cheese, in the current balance, lurks at every corner made me thinking of ways to solve this without major finetuning every single scenario. It's okay some are harder, some are not. So:

1.
Allied main starbases get the ability to repair the champion and rebuild it's modules at a reasonable rate.
No more need to cheese and see what's in there, reload and fly in with an appropriate champion setup. No need to place engineers outside, no need for a lot of rather annoying stuff.
More tactical depth, as you have a place to retreat to and maybe even change your loadout mid scenario to adapt to a changed battlefield.

2.
Speedboost ability.
Available from the start, just like the shield.
Double movement speed for a short time (Couple of seconds)
This may even only be usable within Nebulas, as the champion already is pretty fast outside.
Brings more action, brings more satisfaction, gives more choices than shieldspam and wait til the energy is up again in the scenarios. Basically a secong ability you want to do all the time, but can't.

So, for me these two pretty much nail it.
The champion on the outside is fine as he is for me and inside the nebulas, those two changes above should completly do the trick
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 10, 2012, 09:14:26 AM
On certain scenarios requiring certain loadouts, I have heard that from multiple players, but the thing is that generally the different players present different loadouts as "the only one that works".  You can see how the feedback partly cancels itself out there :)

But yea, having allied large starbases repair/assist-module-build (or at least assist-module-build, we'll see) the champion has been on my list for a few days.

As for a speedboost ability, that does make sense, yea, I'll think about it.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Hearteater October 10, 2012, 09:36:17 AM
Part of the multiple divergent "only-one-way" feedback could come about is if the scenarios are tuned too difficult and people are finding that to win with a given load-out leaves little margin of error.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Mermel October 10, 2012, 10:22:58 AM
Another might be, that not everyone has every module at any given time.

A cheat like way to have every module available at max level would be pretty neat for balancing.
There actually are optimal loadouts for a lot of scenarios.
Pure laser loadout for the the dyson with bombers makes it challenging, but not hard for exampel.
This is as it should be. An optimal loadout makes a scenario challenging in a way that if you think about the situation and act accordingly, there is not much that could go wrong, giving a marging for error.
In said exampel it is theoretically possible to beat the scenario without taking a single hit to a starbase or the champion itself.
You place your fully loaded champion relatively close to the bases, so that new dysons have a long way to fly, while your support ships are available in an instant. Optimal blocking range is within firing range of the smaller base, but far enough to keep the dysons from hitting the base.
When using the shield to allow your bombers to build up and making no errors, a perfect streak like the one mentioned is possible.

The best balance is, when every scenario is beatable with every loadout, giving suboptimal loadouts less and less marging for error.

So.... are there cheats for that already? :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 10, 2012, 10:28:11 AM
You can do this already sans the bomber drones :)

That is pretty much my strat for Dyson when I get it early on. Spam shields on the bases while the allied ships do the work. If I have Bomber drones then I get aggressive and take the fight to the Dysons.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Mermel October 10, 2012, 10:46:29 AM
Yepp, that's what I meant.... this one is pretty neatly balanced.

Optimal modules against the dysons make this one managable to the point where failure only comes when you overdo it and push the dysons back too much and insist on a battle far from the center.

Suboptimal and you have to be defensive and need a hint of luck if you wish to keep both bases alive
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 10, 2012, 10:50:54 AM
The cheat for unlocking all modules (also gives a lot of xp) is "facilitate communications".  The cheat for just getting a lot of xp is "terminate hostilities".  There's also a "gain xp" cheat for gaining a relatively small amount of xp.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Mermel October 10, 2012, 11:25:16 AM
Merci beaucoup, monsieur lamothe

Edit:
After a first test run I can confirm to 100%, that the colony ship scenario needs to be tweaked in some way.
I tried it with a Spire Battleship, equipped with mostly photon lances and needler modules, all at highest mark. The enemy bases went down fast, but actually the scenario was completly over before I could even reach the 4th one.
The main base as well as my Spire Battleship were killed simultaniously after less than two minutes.

A Zenith Battleship on the other hand, loaded with bombers and interceptors, as well as needler and flak modules, does the trick. There is still a loss of friendly bases, but the large number of spawned bombers and interceptors distracted enough of the colony ships to make the scenario beatable.

First thoughts on it:
Less colony ships, more firepower per colony ship, a little less speed on them.
I think it would enable a player to actually do something about them, mostly they were in and exploded before my guns could even react to them.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 02:07:38 PM
How do the repair beams in nebulae work?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Mermel October 10, 2012, 02:23:12 PM
There aren't any, I made a suggestion to add them.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 03:10:59 PM
Just did a lvl 4 nebula with the sorrow fangs...

I was not amused to see that we slogged through taking 4 of the 5 smaller bases without losing a single one, losing one as I soloed the 5th, then having the last enemy large starbase blitz ships in a frenzy destroying all of the bases.

I've thought about removing this avatar for a while, but never has the look on my face matched it so much here.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 10, 2012, 03:15:51 PM
Just did a lvl 4 nebula with the sorrow fangs...

I was not amused to see that we slogged through taking 4 of the 5 smaller bases without losing a single one, losing one as I soloed the 5th, then having the last enemy large starbase blitz ships in a frenzy destroying all of the bases.

I've thought about removing this avatar for a while, but never has the look on my face matched it so much here.

Have you tried to sneak around back and take out the large base first?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 10, 2012, 03:19:24 PM
I've thought about removing this avatar for a while, but never has the look on my face matched it so much here.
I've always thought it was a good avatar, assuming the game did that sort of thing to you regularly.

By lvl4 nebula, do you mean your champ was level 4, or it was the 4th nebula, or what?

Several scenarios use the same basic spawning logic, but this is the second time I've heard of this one doing the last-minute-blitz-ftw, so I'm wondering if something odd is going on.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 03:20:36 PM
Just did a lvl 4 nebula with the sorrow fangs...

I was not amused to see that we slogged through taking 4 of the 5 smaller bases without losing a single one, losing one as I soloed the 5th, then having the last enemy large starbase blitz ships in a frenzy destroying all of the bases.

I've thought about removing this avatar for a while, but never has the look on my face matched it so much here.

Have you tried to sneak around back and take out the large base first?

That would be my second attempt, but it seems absolutely positively unintiuitve from the goal of almost every other nebula invovling enemy starbases, where you try to work with your allies which are better well suited to do it.

Even with 5 plasma cannons (which I'm lucky enough to have) I do maybe 8% damage to it, and even the extra shields via shadow charge stops less then 2 volleys, so you get 2, maybe 3 volleys off before the ship is toast, meaning it would take 5 or so suicide runs to take out the one large starbase.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 03:25:15 PM
I've thought about removing this avatar for a while, but never has the look on my face matched it so much here.
I've always thought it was a good avatar, assuming the game did that sort of thing to you regularly.

By lvl4 nebula, do you mean your champ was level 4, or it was the 4th nebula, or what?

Several scenarios use the same basic spawning logic, but this is the second time I've heard of this one doing the last-minute-blitz-ftw, so I'm wondering if something odd is going on.

Checking it over, it was actually my third nebula.

What was annoying was that the enemy just seemed to keep pumping out craft much faster with its lone big starbase then the 5 bases on my side. The enemy starbase would seem to pump out over half a dozen craft , mostly command ones, while my side's each starbase would pump out one craft.

The match ended with there being almost 20 enemy craft gunning toward the final base, while I never have seen 20 friendly craft in all my games.

I went toward the end thinking "my starbase will go strong too!" but its power levels stayed the same.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 10, 2012, 03:33:53 PM
Just did a lvl 4 nebula with the sorrow fangs...

I was not amused to see that we slogged through taking 4 of the 5 smaller bases without losing a single one, losing one as I soloed the 5th, then having the last enemy large starbase blitz ships in a frenzy destroying all of the bases.

I've thought about removing this avatar for a while, but never has the look on my face matched it so much here.

Have you tried to sneak around back and take out the large base first?

That would be my second attempt, but it seems absolutely positively unintiuitve from the goal of almost every other nebula invovling enemy starbases, where you try to work with your allies which are better well suited to do it.

Even with 5 plasma cannons (which I'm lucky enough to have) I do maybe 8% damage to it, and even the extra shields via shadow charge stops less then 2 volleys, so you get 2, maybe 3 volleys off before the ship is toast, meaning it would take 5 or so suicide runs to take out the one large starbase.

I'm assuming you're using the Spire DD with Mk III modules (plasma gives part of it away :)).

Sacrifice one of your Plasmas for a shield MK III. That is 15 mil more hp your ship can absorb (on top of it's ability). For light mods try MLRS in all 4 slots.

Suggested plan of attack (what works for me, ymmv) would be to beeline for the small base your allies are attacking and clear the pirate ships there. Kill the Intimidators that are close and most of the other ships. Make your way to the large base, skirting the small bases ranges.  Get in close and drop a FF that covers your ship and the large base (pushes away any spawns). If you run out of SP then beeline straight out back to the allied side and work on clearing the ships until you have the SP to go back. If you can manage to keep your shield module alive that would be great. The missiles the bases shoot at you can be kited indefinitely, allowing you to eat a few at a time and take no damage. Once that large base goes down, the rest follow quickly.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 03:48:57 PM
Idk what game you are playing, but none of that works for me.

I can't kite first of all. The missiles move faster then my craft.

The large starbase, after its bonuses, does 10 million damage every 3 seconds. That toasts your shadow shield in 10 seconds tops, and a lvl 3 DD shield in 6 seconds. With its superior range, you take a volley that you have to bite before you are in range and can plop your shields, and with the missiles superior range and speed you can't escape.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k October 10, 2012, 03:53:55 PM
Did shields get buffed? Last time I checked they had 3.5M*mk HP so a MkIII has 10.5M, not 15M.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 10, 2012, 03:55:57 PM
The enemy starbase would seem to pump out over half a dozen craft , mostly command ones, while my side's each starbase would pump out one craft.
Small bases are supposed to do them one at a time, large bases are the ones that spawn the groups.  So your large one should have been spawning groups.

The match ended with there being almost 20 enemy craft gunning toward the final base, while I never have seen 20 friendly craft in all my games.
Right at the beginning you should be seeing 3*(small bases) + 7 for the large base, which I think totals 25, though it's been a while since I've looked at that scenario.

I went toward the end thinking "my starbase will go strong too!" but its power levels stayed the same.
Both sides' large bases scale up as the small bases (of either side) are destroyed, but the side losing the small bases gains more (the alternative is that the scenario snowballs for whoever takes out a couple small bases first).  But the enemy side gets the scaling bonus for you having a destroyer, and a small bonus for you having one a couple scenarios first, and a bonus if you have multiple champions. If you have a save during the part when only the enemy large base is alive and your ally bases are still alive I could inspect the math in action to see if it's off its rocker or something.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 03:56:28 PM
Did shields get buffed? Last time I checked they had 3.5M*mk HP so a MkIII has 10.5M, not 15M.

The MK IV has the 15 million shields, I think that is where the mix up is.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 10, 2012, 03:58:53 PM
Did shields get buffed? Last time I checked they had 3.5M*mk HP so a MkIII has 10.5M, not 15M.

Opps. It's 3.75*MK. 11.25 for MK III 15 for MK IV. Yeah, I went back and looked lol. Apparently, getting information from the unlocks tab without looking at what mark is next can lead to errors :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 04:01:44 PM
Here we go:

(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/576717989230783419/3037263D4D51F7FE37DAEEC3BF6F8F3479FCAA9B/)

Enemy has over 50 ships for what it is worth

: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 10, 2012, 04:11:25 PM
Eeeeshhh. I am going to chalk that up to you use a completely different set of modules than I would ever use. I don't really care for the lance in particular.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 04:14:53 PM
Eeeeshhh. I am going to chalk that up to you use a completely different set of modules than I would ever use. I don't really care for the lance in particular.

Ok, except the modules have nothing to duo with defense (we both use shields) nor speed, so the tactic wouldn't work even with different modules. Any module aside from missiles would take two enemy volleys to get in range, the missiles move faster then you, and your shadow shields + your craft shields + hull would stop a baker's dozen volleys before you vape, allowing 3 to 4 volleys of your own plasmas max before you get toast too.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 October 10, 2012, 04:18:19 PM
Something fishy may be going on here, if the main base of the enemy gets some extra "reinforcements" as the enemy minor bases go down, but the same does not happen if the allied main base doesn't get a similar boost when the allied minor bases go down. Can any confirm if this logic is working or is broken for allies? From what Keith said, this sort of "make the main base work more as minor bases are lost" logic is supposed to apply to any side of the fight.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 04:22:35 PM
Something fishy may be going on here, if the main base of the enemy gets some extra "reinforcements" as the enemy minor bases go down, but the same does not happen if the allied main base doesn't get a similar boost when the allied minor bases go down. Can any confirm if this logic is working or is broken for allies? From what Keith said, this sort of "make the main base work more as minor bases are lost" logic is supposed to apply to any side of the fight.

Doing a careful observation of my game, I saw there that with the allied big starbase having one smaller one left, it would deploy 9 craft at a time, while the enemy SB would deploy 11 at a time about between 50 - 75% faster give or take. It is a total mess, toward the end the enemy SB deployed 3 waves before the allied one did one wave.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 October 10, 2012, 04:36:19 PM
Something fishy may be going on here, if the main base of the enemy gets some extra "reinforcements" as the enemy minor bases go down, but the same does not happen if the allied main base doesn't get a similar boost when the allied minor bases go down. Can any confirm if this logic is working or is broken for allies? From what Keith said, this sort of "make the main base work more as minor bases are lost" logic is supposed to apply to any side of the fight.

Doing a careful observation of my game, I saw there that with the allied big starbase having one smaller one left, it would deploy 9 craft at a time, while the enemy SB would deploy 11 at a time about between 50 - 75% faster give or take. It is a total mess, toward the end the enemy SB deployed 3 waves before the allied one did one wave.

So, the logic seems to be working for both sides, but for allies, the the strength of this logic seems to be an order of magnitude below what the enemy gets. Is that right?

Yea, that sounds fishy. 11/9 seems to be a reasonable ratio (given that usually, the allies themselves admit to being outgunned, but barely, thus the champ can swing the battle in their favor, giving the champ player a purpose). A 33/9 ratio does not sound reasonable.  :o
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 10, 2012, 04:40:35 PM
Don't know if it is or isn't working but there are different scalers that have an effect. # of nebula beaten, max size champ hull unlocked and number of champions present. All those play a part in the spawn rate of the enemy bases.

@ Chemical: They only scenario I use the Spire champ in is the IMT scenario. I prefer the Zenith champ and in the situation you were in, probably would have stayed with the Human champ.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 04:44:21 PM
Something fishy may be going on here, if the main base of the enemy gets some extra "reinforcements" as the enemy minor bases go down, but the same does not happen if the allied main base doesn't get a similar boost when the allied minor bases go down. Can any confirm if this logic is working or is broken for allies? From what Keith said, this sort of "make the main base work more as minor bases are lost" logic is supposed to apply to any side of the fight.

Doing a careful observation of my game, I saw there that with the allied big starbase having one smaller one left, it would deploy 9 craft at a time, while the enemy SB would deploy 11 at a time about between 50 - 75% faster give or take. It is a total mess, toward the end the enemy SB deployed 3 waves before the allied one did one wave.

So, the logic seems to be working for both sides, but for allies, the the strength of this logic seems to be an order of magnitude below what the enemy gets. Is that right?

Yea, that sounds fishy. 11/9 seems to be a reasonable ratio (given that usually, the allies themselves admit to being outgunned, but barely, thus the champ can swing the battle in their favor, giving the champ player a purpose). A 33/9 ratio does not sound reasonable.  :o

I'm guessing part of the reason it is most pronounced in this scenario is that the victory condition (blow up all starbases) is among the hardest to accomplish by yourself (if not the hardest). The starbases hit you the hardest by far with their massive range and bonuses. In other scenarios where I notice the battle is not turning my way as my ship gets stronger, I can compensate by doing the job myself. But for this one the requirements to be able to pop the large starbase is enough to be hard even in a cruiser, let alone a destroyer.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 04:48:00 PM
Don't know if it is or isn't working but there are different scalers that have an effect. # of nebula beaten, max size champ hull unlocked and number of champions present. All those play a part in the spawn rate of the enemy bases.

@ Chemical: They only scenario I use the Spire champ in is the IMT scenario. I prefer the Zenith champ and in the situation you were in, probably would have stayed with the Human champ.

There's no doubt my ship wasn't optimal for the situation.

My beef was that I had a decesive lead throughout the whole match till the goal line, where the enemy then proceeded to drive me completely the other way very, very rapidly.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 10, 2012, 04:51:32 PM
Doing a careful observation of my game, I saw there that with the allied big starbase having one smaller one left, it would deploy 9 craft at a time, while the enemy SB would deploy 11 at a time about between 50 - 75% faster give or take. It is a total mess, toward the end the enemy SB deployed 3 waves before the allied one did one wave.
The group sizes don't go up with the scaling; it randomly picks between 3 different groups to build (one heavy on the smaller, bomber-like ships, one heavy on the command ships, and one heavy on the middle ships).  The scaling impacts how long it takes to build the group.

The smaller bases just pick whether to build a small ship or a medium ship, and their rate of construction doesn't scale (the medium ship takes longer).
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 10, 2012, 04:56:08 PM
I believe it. I loaded up the save and gave it the old college try (three times). I guess with the Spire ship you could specialize it for taking out the Intimidators. Load modules with bonuses to heavy hull types and take the max level modules. Plasmas and lasers should work pretty well on them and give a decent bonus on the bases.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 04:57:04 PM
Gotcha.

Then at nebula 3 when the enemy starbase is alone and the allied starbase has one smaller one ship, then the enemy spawns between 2 and 3 times as rapidly.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 10, 2012, 05:01:56 PM
In general I think the problem is related to the scaling up as the small starbases go down; that scenario has 6 (iirc) small stabases per side, which is higher than what you find in other scenarios for a single faction... and actually in the other ones losing a starbase gives the enemy more of a boost than it gives you, but I may have done the opposite here.  Will take a look when I'm in there, right now working on getting the allied large bases to repair/assist champions.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 10, 2012, 05:42:18 PM
If I remember correctly, it was done that way to keep one side from just steamrolling the other side. To prevent a cascade failure, so to speak. Supposedly to keep the difficulty of the scenario consistent.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 10, 2012, 06:07:22 PM
I understand why it is done.

But at least in my game it actually makes the difficulty inconsistent. If I don't game the system and pick on the big SB first it will get stronger over as its back is against the wall.

It should optimally be  that the SB surges in power to compensate, but if more then a 3 small SB deficit is done on either side that side should have the advantage.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Histidine October 11, 2012, 01:33:52 AM
Keith, could you take a look at IMT/Mourner vs. DS/CA as well? Haven't tested it rigorously, but I suspect it suffers from a similar problem.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Mermel October 11, 2012, 09:52:54 AM
While I was playing a bit more with the scenarios I noticed randomness is a pretty big factor in most of the multi starbase ones. The allied ships tend to hop around at times, squandering pretty big opportunities to just take out a base in favor of minor targets. Those are pursuied away from the main target, spoiling the big chance. (I admit, it got better, but it's still random at times)

I was wondering if there could be another champion ability in this. Something like a beacon to cause allied ships in a certain radius to move to the beacon or attack it, if it is set on an enemy target.

Inside a nebula this would offer a quiet limited, but sometimes crucial tactical option. And if applied to all allied, non human controlled ships outside a nebula (I'm thinking of zombie bots, human resistance, allied enclaves etc...) a very interesting mechanic for Champion players. It is never a direct control, but rather a limited direction of how things work out on the battlefield, making playing a champion unit more interesting and the feel of having kind of a leader unit more dominant.

I'm not sure what exactly the chamion should be in the end, but it feels like this one is actually supposed to be kind of a micromanagment unit.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 11, 2012, 10:02:16 AM
While I was playing a bit more with the scenarios I noticed randomness is a pretty big factor in most of the multi starbase ones. The allied ships tend to hop around at times, squandering pretty big opportunities to just take out a base in favor of minor targets. Those are pursuied away from the main target, spoiling the big chance. (I admit, it got better, but it's still random at times)
Which scenarios?  For the last 3 scenarios (2v2, 3v2, 5v4) I added I gave it some alternate autotargeting logic that keeps both sides considerably more focused on "kill the nearest enemy base, unless something I'm better against is closer".  I didn't retrofit the earlier base-v-base scenarios (EEr,FFA,ColonyShips) with it on advice that their existing feel was worth maintaining.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Mermel October 11, 2012, 10:18:41 AM
I'm not sure what the name of the specific one I was thinking about is. I guess it's FFA. The one where three factions in the nebula battle each other.
I can't provide a save file for the specific situation, but I remember almost dropping it, after seeing a medium fleet of friendly ships turning away from one of the spire bases within reach to hunt a single light spirecraft on the way to the neinzul multiple times.

The situation changed after a while and the ships seemed to be more focused on killing the bases, not sure though what changed there.

My observations are consistant with what you say, the seeming randomness is only in the earlier ones a real factor. And actually, the three factions one was the only one where it really bothered me.

The one with the two human factions was okay in that way. It could theoretically end quicker, but it always played nice as it was.

About the colony ship one I can't really give a good feedback, as I only encountered it relatively late by now with a cruiser hull and the ships and bases were only a minor factor in comparison to the flood of colony ships.

edit: I think in this specific case it was actually the first scenario to pop up, so my best option of doing something was waiting until a fleet assembled and protect them with the shield. That might be a factor, as the champion can handle the situation with some stray ships a lot more effective as soon as he hits tier 2. I feel like there is a constant change from player reaction to player action, the higher the champion tier gets. This might be intended and isn't bad at all, just a little frustrating in that specific case.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Winge October 11, 2012, 08:17:48 PM
Something fishy may be going on here, if the main base of the enemy gets some extra "reinforcements" as the enemy minor bases go down, but the same does not happen if the allied main base doesn't get a similar boost when the allied minor bases go down. Can any confirm if this logic is working or is broken for allies? From what Keith said, this sort of "make the main base work more as minor bases are lost" logic is supposed to apply to any side of the fight.

Doing a careful observation of my game, I saw there that with the allied big starbase having one smaller one left, it would deploy 9 craft at a time, while the enemy SB would deploy 11 at a time about between 50 - 75% faster give or take. It is a total mess, toward the end the enemy SB deployed 3 waves before the allied one did one wave.

So, the logic seems to be working for both sides, but for allies, the the strength of this logic seems to be an order of magnitude below what the enemy gets. Is that right?

Yea, that sounds fishy. 11/9 seems to be a reasonable ratio (given that usually, the allies themselves admit to being outgunned, but barely, thus the champ can swing the battle in their favor, giving the champ player a purpose). A 33/9 ratio does not sound reasonable.  :o

Yes, it is definitely not reasonable.  I was doing the 2v2 for the first time today.  The only way I could beat it was near-suicide against the Dark Spire to drop their main starbase as quickly as possible.  Even then, when the enemy had half the number of starbases they would get at least 2 times as many ships as my allies.  This is not my week for nebulas, it seems  :'(

Edit:
I finally got the 3 way battle, after getting 2 IMT scenarios early (those hurt  :o).  Easy win, I figured.  Rather than waste time, I decided to basically alpha the Dark Spire starbases.  In doing so, I apparently created an...imbalance in the number of forces in the nebula.

(http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=11325.0;attach=6195)

I managed to win by extensive kiting, a few shields (although the Hatred class has the Plasma Siege Starship's "shield splash" effect ::)).  I did not notice the same effect with the Neinzul Astrids.  I decided to run partway through the scenario, killing all of the small Dark Spire Starbases.  I didn't get quite the same effect, but I did still notice an imbalance.  At any given time, the Dark Spire had more heavy ships (Hatred class) than both of the other factions combines (Monolith and Nova classes).  I will probably toy with this scenario one or two more times tomorrow and see what other results I can create.  Right now, it feels like the 'balancing factor' for either Dark Spire or a losing AI is way off.  Granted, that's very little testing on my part, and I have a rather strong ship for that particular scenario (I've beaten that scenario with only the Frigate; I had a cruiser with all Mark IV heavy modules and Mark III light modules).  For all I know, I could have tripped some type of "spawn at hp" trigger hitting the Dark Spire so quickly...

This is definitely not my week for nebulas.

Edit Mark II:
Looks like I'm not the only one who is getting hammered by this effect.  Noticed a post from Chemical_Art 2 pages ago that sounds like the same phenomenon.  When I do testing tomorrow, I'll post a few saves as well.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 11, 2012, 11:33:14 PM
I'm going out on a limb and saying the "max hull size unlocked" scale factor might be a tad bit tight. I don't think it is the # of wins part since that has been in for while now (15% per win) and I don't remember seeing this many folks with problems.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Histidine October 12, 2012, 12:47:10 AM
I'm going out on a limb and saying the "max hull size unlocked" scale factor might be a tad bit tight. I don't think it is the # of wins part since that has been in for while now (15% per win) and I don't remember seeing this many folks with problems.
Yeah, this is my experience as well; BB scenarios in particular make you do everything yourself. At least you have the firepower to circle around the back and punch out the big starbases so the uber-spawns stop (good luck doing this on the 5v4 brawl though).

IMO scenarios should ramp up in scale with larger hulls (so you're still a small but vital part of the picture, rather than the allied spawns being just distractions while you charge down the enemy's throat), but not so much in terms of difficulty. To be sure, the fact that starbase stats and small starbase spawns are fixed might make implementing this elegantly a bit hard.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 12, 2012, 01:20:37 AM
BB scenarios in particular

Everything after you get Battleship hulls are repeats. There aren't any scenarios specifically for the BB yet (if at all). Scenarios 10-15 should be hard. It is all extra goodies at that point. 1-9 (first go round with each scenario) should be challenging and feel rewarding when you beat them. The feeling I'm getting from the recent posts are that folks are bashing heads against the wall... I think the scenarios mention can be toned down a little and not kill the challenge in them and keep the feel they have.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Winge October 12, 2012, 08:28:05 PM
Well, I decided to run a few tests.  I've attached saves for the 2 ship types I used for these tests.

Tests 1-4 used a Human Shadow Cruiser (first save)
Test 5 used a Spire Shadow Cruiser (second save)

For all tests, I focused almost entirely on the Starbases, frequently without ally support.  Allies occasionally killed other starbases without my help on occasion.  I recorded 'significant events' (starbase destruction, large starbase HP @ 50%, complete elimination of an enemy, retreat for shield recharging, etc.).  For each event, I noted the game time stamp and each type of ship (allied and enemy, heavy, medium, and light).  The results are in the attached Excel 2003 document.  Each test represents a different kill order or champion type.

Test 1 and 5 order:  Small Dark Spire (DS) > Large DS > Small Neinzul Astrid (NA) > Large NA
Test 2 order:  Large DS > Small DS > Large NA > Small NA
Test 3 order:  Small NA > Large NA > Small DS > Large DS (I really, REALLY do not recommend that path right now :o)
Test 4 order:  Large NA > Small NA > Large DS > Small DS

I never managed to repeat my 46 Dark Spire Hatred swarm from last night; the highest I got this evening is 24 Hatreds.  That said, I noted 2 things from these tests.
1.  The spawn rate for the Dark Spire Large Starbase seems way high compared to the others.  The only test I saw more Novas than Hatreds was test 2, where I struck the Large DS Starbase first.
2.  Large ships (especially the Hatred) love chasing after the Bomber Drones (bonus against Polycrystal).  Is that a bad thing?  I don't know, but I decided I needed a control test--hence, test 5 with the Spire Cruiser.  It appears that was part of my problem--I saw 15 Hatreds max instead of 24.  That is still around 50% more than the maximum number of either Novas or Monoliths.

Obviously these tests aren't perfect, but almost all of them seem to show that the Dark Spire's Hatred spawn rate in the FFA scenario are much higher than they should be.  Also, on a completely unrelated note, can we please get different icons for the Dark Spire Vengeance and Shadowblade ships?



PS:
Is it really a game if you're building a spreadsheet while playing?  :P
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Hearteater October 12, 2012, 08:59:34 PM
Is it really a game if you're building a spreadsheet while playing?  :P
That's when the game really begins.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 12, 2012, 10:20:10 PM
I remember a while back shard recovery waves were increased by 4x but shard speed was increased by 4.

What I wonder is that does the 2 stage of FS, where you do the frigate recovery, if that also uses the same enemy response mechanic.

Because if so, that stage is now 4x harder then it was. I just tried it in my game and my poor frigate got pounded by 2 warbirds to death as the rest of my fleet got washed away.

If this is true, it could be remedied by having the special spire frigate having an extra 4x health, and is removed when it builds its spire building to advance the story line.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 12, 2012, 10:29:27 PM
What I wonder is that does the 2 stage of FS, where you do the frigate recovery, if that also uses the same enemy response mechanic.

Because if so, that stage is now 4x harder then it was. I just tried it in my game and my poor frigate got pounded by 2 warbirds to death as the rest of my fleet got washed away.

If this is true, it could be remedied by having the special spire frigate having an extra 4x health, and is removed when it builds its spire building to advance the story line.
I didn't actually change either the spawn rate of that chase exo or the speed of the frigate.  Just the shard ones.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 12, 2012, 10:49:03 PM
Ok, was just curious.

I guess I'll use my champion as another dedicated shield bear for that poor frigate.

I guess the RNG just said "GG" when it gave two warbirds on the first spawn. I <3 them too much to be mad at them though.

EDIT 1: It was indeed RNG. I redid it and there were no warbirds, frigate had 75% health this time when it returned.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 13, 2012, 12:42:54 AM
On my 4th nebula I couldn't avoid doing the 1 v 1 starbase slug described earlier.

I tried doing suicide runs on the main SB.

Eventually the same result happened. I had 40 enemy craft compared to my 12 allies as my allied starbases fell rapidly. I got the big enemy SB down to about 10% before all my allied SB fell.

It's annoying.Even when my allied SB is losing its starbases and the enemy does not the enemy wins so decisively that I cannot stop it. But when the result happens to the enemy, he can blitz to beat me back. I still had my destroyer so I wasn't in BB range where I could curb stomp the enemy SB.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: rabican October 13, 2012, 01:39:46 AM
On my 4th nebula I couldn't avoid doing the 1 v 1 starbase slug described earlier.

I tried doing suicide runs on the main SB.

Eventually the same result happened. I had 40 enemy craft compared to my 12 allies as my allied starbases fell rapidly. I got the big enemy SB down to about 10% before all my allied SB fell.

It's annoying.Even when my allied SB is losing its starbases and the enemy does not the enemy wins so decisively that I cannot stop it. But when the result happens to the enemy, he can blitz to beat me back. I still had my destroyer so I wasn't in BB range where I could curb stomp the enemy SB.

Which nebulae? They don't have set order.

From my experience(i've done them whole chain 5+ times) all of them apart from the colony ship and maybe rare case of 2vs2 one should  always be doable, with nearly any loadout. I'm assuming this is on of the epsilon missions, either 1v1v1 or the first one vs thugs? In both cases you should have victory by just escorting your bombers. Trying to kill everything might mess things up a bit, as your avalanches tend to suicide if they dont have anything to shoot at. And unless you have enough of them, that is bad.

Before BB that is, after that gets it gets messed up. Only way to win any scenario is snipe the big one , and some of those (3vs2, colony) is probably impossible.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Winge October 13, 2012, 05:14:11 AM
On my 4th nebula I couldn't avoid doing the 1 v 1 starbase slug described earlier.

I tried doing suicide runs on the main SB.

Eventually the same result happened. I had 40 enemy craft compared to my 12 allies as my allied starbases fell rapidly. I got the big enemy SB down to about 10% before all my allied SB fell.

It's annoying.Even when my allied SB is losing its starbases and the enemy does not the enemy wins so decisively that I cannot stop it. But when the result happens to the enemy, he can blitz to beat me back. I still had my destroyer so I wasn't in BB range where I could curb stomp the enemy SB.

I'm running into that situation on the 3 v 2 nebula.  I understand that our allies are supposed to be outnumbered, but that is riddiculous.  I cannot even kill one Small Starbase before I lose 2 Small Starbases.  And forget about the larges; any real attempt to kill them causes me to lose my shadow ship and all of my allies except the Shattered Pillar.  Is there a method to log Nebula Spawns?  Something has seemed way off for the last 3 nebulas, at least.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Histidine October 13, 2012, 07:40:43 AM
Now that shards only count hops from homeworld for spawning, I think it'd be fine if they were seeded a bit further out. I kind of miss planning expeditions deep into AI space to retrieve them.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 13, 2012, 08:51:36 AM


Which nebulae? They don't have set order.

From my experience(i've done them whole chain 5+ times) all of them apart from the colony ship and maybe rare case of 2vs2 one should  always be doable, with nearly any loadout. I'm assuming this is on of the epsilon missions, either 1v1v1 or the first one vs thugs? In both cases you should have victory by just escorting your bombers. Trying to kill everything might mess things up a bit, as your avalanches tend to suicide if they dont have anything to shoot at. And unless you have enough of them, that is bad.

Before BB that is, after that gets it gets messed up. Only way to win any scenario is snipe the big one , and some of those (3vs2, colony) is probably impossible.

It was the 1 v 1 one. Perhaps I should recap my history of it.

I had done what you had done the first attempt. I escorted the bombers. I won pretty decisively as I slogged to destroy all but the largest starbase while losing 1 of my own smaller ones. At that point though, the enemy was pumping out ships more then 3 times as fast and my destroyer couldn't them fast enough so a very aggravating counter blitz occurred and I lost.

The above was me following someone else's advice and trying to attack the big SB first, not last, and it also had the same result. The enemy had 40 craft on the field despite the antisnowball logic working on both sides.



For me, it just demonstrates the snowball logic really doesn't accomplish its goals on the 1 v 1 nebula. If the allied SB starts losing, the anti snowball logic does not counter enough to make a difference . If the enemy starts losing, it can counter enough to make what make a player victory a defeat. In both my situations, the enemy had 5 waves on the field when my last SB fell. I think I know why, its because the enemy nebula coefficent for nebula progression even by the player's third nebula (this is the third nebula you visit, meaning you accomplished two...I don't see this "nebula scenario X is nebula Y page anywhere, so that's what I always mean when I say nebula #) is much greater then the snowball logic, meaning it only really helps the ai.

Or, more specifically, it widenes the gap between allied and enemy spawns at the endgame of the nebula, and since nebula difficulty is tied to the gap in spawns, it serves to make the end game of a nebula harder.

I do have a question: Has anyone taken a game where in the 1 v 1 both human nebula, with the same champion loadout throughout, and you lost 3 or 4 smaller SB's while the enemy lost half that despite your best efforts of protecting your spawns, but came out to win anyway because you had a greated allied spawn rate?

My guess is the above question has the affirmative very rarely, because if you can't win at the beginning of the nebula match, were the gap between allies and enemy is smallest and thus easiest, then you certainly can't win at the end game where the gap is widest and the game is hardest.

Keep in mind these observations are limited singly to the nebula where you have the 2 human factions in a 1 v 1 brawl. In the other nebulas other things are going on so this logic isn't so clear cut.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 14, 2012, 12:42:27 PM
What is the goal lvl when you unlock the largest hull?

I had a lvl 29, which enabled me to get one module a lvl V, two modules to lvl IV, and a sprinkling of modules to lvl II.

For me it feels like after the DD I can never take full advantage of my modules for points are so tight. For example my above info I didn't get any module above II till I got the battleship, and with my frugality was I still unable to get three modules to V.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 14, 2012, 01:04:53 PM
After 9 scenarios, I'm around lvl 45.
The better you perform, the more XP you earn really.
I still think 2v2 2v3 and 4v5 have the XP reward is a little low right now compared to the rest.

: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 14, 2012, 01:07:45 PM
How so? I think if anything it is the opposite, the more you struggle the more xp you get.

From what I understood of the xp model, you get a set amount of xp from completing the nebula, and you get additionally slaying of things in.

Maybe because I am very aggressive and slay most missions quickly, I don't the full xp.

I admit I'm not sure what to do. I thought I was doing my best in accomplishing the mission quickly, but I guess that is shooting myself in the foot, and I should try to instead drag out the nebulas as long as I can.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 14, 2012, 01:21:40 PM
The XP model changed early in September. Someone forgot to put the changes in the patch notes  :P

So unless it changed again, there are 3 factors in calculating XP.

The Base, Champ level multiplier, and a Performance multiplier (time based).

The XP gains from inside the nebula mainly come from bases (in base vs base). The enemy ships give a negligible amount of XP now.

So faster completion will net you better XP rewards.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 14, 2012, 01:32:06 PM
The base-vs-base rewards are based on how fast you win, the others generally use some other metric.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 14, 2012, 01:36:11 PM
*shrug*

Oh well.

I feel sorry for those who only update on official patches then. They'll be having around lvl 25 when they hit max hull then, for I tailored my ship to doing the missions really fast and having been playing on and off throughout the beta.

Still,  does having a 50% difference in lvl (which equates to a godly amount of xp difference) seems a bit much between an ok and almost perfect run of the nebulas? Especially since the nebula order and rewards is tied to maps and not constant, and if you fall behind you don't just struggle to finish nebulas but since you are getting less xp it is harder to catch up?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 14, 2012, 01:41:54 PM
Well... I dunno :p

But before I came up with really good strategies, I would go out and get 5 levels in AI space so I could have MK II shields, missiles, and lasers.

That alone is a good launching point to getting faster in the first nebula, and saves you some points so you have extra when you upgrade hulls.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 14, 2012, 01:50:28 PM
Wraith lance guardposts hurt.

I'm glad I can savescum, for they are definitely the most micro intensive heavy guardpost there is.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 14, 2012, 05:45:22 PM
The xp rewards are higher if you finish faster so that there's no motive to intentionally drag things out.  I can tighten up the min/max range a bit (not lowering the max, probably), if it's an issue but in general the usefulness of the champion will be proportionate to how well you do with it.  A lvl 45 battleship is not just a gimme, you have to work for it.

Though the last version did make it easier, in terms of making the scenarios easier.

Also, gaining some early levels off the AI is definitely not a bad thing to do; the scenario XP rewards scale up as you're higher in level but the normal-space rewards don't (so there's not much motive to kill guard posts with them past the very early part).

As far as those only updating on official versions, we are hoping to do 6.1 a month or two after 6.0, so we can update to the newer unity version, so the wait won't be so long as this time.  But yea, there's tradeoffs both ways to playing betas vs only the releases.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 15, 2012, 05:09:55 PM
I'm certainly not wanting to lower the max, I'm asking for a small boost for the min.

It's more to ensure that if a player ever gets a lost or struggles in a nebula they aren't in a huge hole for the rest of the game. It can quickly snowball in its current form, and some of it I like but not too much. I'm looking for around a min of ~33 levels. This would enable a frugal person to get 3 module lines to V with a few points to get some IIs.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: orzelek October 15, 2012, 06:42:07 PM
3 module lines to V... so basically any kind of champion switching is out of the window - I think it may not be enough.
And knowing the rng... players will get hit by it at least few times in nebulas :D
You can get 1-2 specialized modules and one general for example to V. This means that after you finish that nebulas you need to chose one setup and stick with it - and then spend all the points. But that would actually mean you have less to win the nebulas which leads to a circle. So you will probably end up with modules that are considered best for nebulas and then simply use champion with what you have.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: chemical_art October 15, 2012, 06:48:49 PM
That's true, but remember with the current mechanics I had a lvl 27 despite not losing a single nebula after 9 nebulas. So for someone who may lose one nebula they could be lvl 25 or worst. So a lvl 33 minimal is kinda a big jump.

I don't want to completely gimp the higher rewards, but I find an higher "bottom" would help.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Dichotomy October 16, 2012, 12:54:54 AM
Could the new modules automatically come with the mkII version unlocked? I think this would give a slight boost (effectively) to the champion level, and encourage experimentation/varied loadouts.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k October 16, 2012, 04:35:42 PM
Gah, the three way scenario as your first one is brutal. Your champion is so damn weak at that point that it has almost zero effect on the battle and no chance at assassinating any bases. Doesn't help that your champ is the slowest unit on the whole battlefield when it's supposed to be the one that runs around and does all the odd jobs.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 October 16, 2012, 04:37:41 PM
Doesn't help that your champ is the slowest unit on the whole battlefield when it's supposed to be the one that runs around and does all the odd jobs.

This is actually a pretty good point. The champ does feel too slow in nebulas to really support its role. Usually it can overcome this limitation with crazy power, but for the first nebula, you rarely get that kind of power.

Any chance of champs only going 3/4 or 2/3 or something like that of their base speed in nebulas, and let everything else get the normal 1/2 speed?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Toranth October 16, 2012, 04:45:33 PM
Doesn't help that your champ is the slowest unit on the whole battlefield when it's supposed to be the one that runs around and does all the odd jobs.
This is actually a pretty good point. The champ does feel too slow in nebulas to really support its role. Usually it can overcome this limitation with crazy power, but for the first nebula, you rarely get that kind of power.

Any chance of champs only going 3/4 or 2/3 or something like that of their base speed in nebulas, and let everything else get the normal 1/2 speed?
I think the idea is to prevent the Champion from being able to kite the enemy starships.

Though, I'm not sure that's a concern anymore, what with the scenarios XP rewards being time based, and the ships now more likely to attack starbases than ships.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k October 16, 2012, 04:47:44 PM
Is kiting really a concern when your champion can just respawn anyway? Your allies are the problem in the nebulas and they won't kite either way.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 16, 2012, 04:56:03 PM
If by the 3-way scenario you mean the zenith-allies vs dark-spire vs neinzul-astrid free-for-all, even a level 1 frigate has a substantial impact in my testing.  Going heavy-laser or heavy-mlrs and killing the enemy heavy or medium (respectively) ships while using your projected shields to keep your ally bombers alive goes a long way to influencing the battle in your favor.  Assassinating starbases is not supposed to be possible until you're much stronger (though a brave frigate can mess with a dark spire base to some extent).

Champion speed is indeed intentionally slower than all the other nebula ships, but not by a huge margin.  The speeds in the nebula are lower because tactical depth gets harder to maintain the faster the speeds (and longer the ranges) of the units.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Eternaly_Lost October 16, 2012, 07:24:14 PM
Could the new modules automatically come with the mkII version unlocked? I think this would give a slight boost (effectively) to the champion level, and encourage experimentation/varied loadouts.

I think that we need a bit more points, rather then auto unlocking everything at mk2 if you can only get 3 modules to rank V. Maybe a way to do so would be to increase the number of points you get at higher levels, rather then scale down the costs. So say at level 15 you start to get 2 points per level rather then 1 point and you get 3 per level at 20. This would be a lot more points, but it would also let you get a lot more options in game.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: LaughingThesaurus October 16, 2012, 08:46:38 PM
I vote that your options are your points, rather than your ability to be an omnipotent jack of all trades ship that can instantly switch between any layout. That said, without experiencing the system, I can't say that it needs no adjustment. I can say that limited points is not a problem.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Coppermantis October 18, 2012, 12:00:55 AM
Okay, I really need to know: How on earth do I beat the In Memoriam Terra nebula? I talked about this in my AAR but nobody reads that, so:

I read in another AAR that Spire hulls+Siege modules are useful. That's great, but I don't have either of those. All I have are human, Zenith and Nienzul hulls. The Cookie Monster outranges everything except missiles, which I can only have a few of, and it's faster than my painfully slow champion which for some reason moves at half speed in nebulae. It's almost literally impossible for me to do any damage while the Neinzul are out since it's constantly switching direction and can just kite my champion to death. I could shield micro but it moves too much for that, and it wastes charge that I need for defending the bases.

I've tried staying back and not getting involved too much when it's pursuing the enclaves, but that doesn't work since it has too much health when it takes on the bases. Doing some damage during that period seems to work, but I keep getting my shields taken out due to its kiting, and have to waste time getting them fixed at the base.

Can someone who has beaten it without a spire hull give me some hints? I've never been more frustrated with AI War than I am now.



EDIT: How much does it scale with multiple champions, if at all? I'm not sure how that works. I can add more champions through the manage players window which could help me flank the Ravenous Shadow, but the scenario would then get harder, I assume. The main game notwithstanding.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 18, 2012, 12:11:18 AM
Zenith Hull for sure.

Polarizer and IRC are good small mount modules, highest Mk you can get (I had slightly better results with Polarizers).

Missiles are pretty good for your larges. Pack a shield mod if you feel you can spare the slot.

All the champions are faster than the RS. It moves at 52 speed. The slowest Champ moves at 72 in the nebula (Spire).

This scenario is all about dealing damage. Get on the RS as fast as you can and try to stay on it. Shields on you and allies will help a lot. When the RS is at the bases, shield those as you can to extend their life.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Coppermantis October 18, 2012, 12:15:25 AM
I don't have either of those modules. ;_;

Also, I just checked, my RS is moving at 104 speed with my champion at 75.


I think I just might be screwed unless the multiple champs strategy is viable. However, I'm worried that I might hurt myself in the long run by doing so.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 18, 2012, 12:25:02 AM
Hrm. RS should only move at 52. Check again? It shouldn't have any speed modifier. If it really is 104 then it is a bug :/.

I was a bit off with the Spire speed. It's 68. Math is hard :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Coppermantis October 18, 2012, 12:30:25 AM
Hrm. RS should only move at 52. Check again? It shouldn't have any speed modifier. If it really is 104 then it is a bug :/.

I was a bit off with the Spire speed. It's 68. Math is hard :)

(http://i.imgur.com/COP03.png)

It says 104 for me, and the fact that it outruns my champion seems to suggest that the tooltip is accurate. Guess it's bugged if it should be moving at 52.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 18, 2012, 12:38:21 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/COP03.png)
(http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=11325.0;attach=6225)

Something is amiss.

I pulled that from the Mk V section of the F1 index. It is the same in game for me.




: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Coppermantis October 18, 2012, 12:42:21 AM
Wait.

Does the game speed affect the actual number, or does the number stay the same but represent a higher value? I'm playing on Blitz speed.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 18, 2012, 12:44:56 AM
I think you found it. Blitz doubles the speed of the ships.

In the nebula, all ships are supposed to move at half speed.

The RS is the only entity in the nebula to be immune to gravity effects and move at its base speed.

This looks like something that Keith will fix. It drastically changes the balance in the IMT scenario.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Bognor October 18, 2012, 08:42:18 PM
Sorry if this has already been discussed, but is it intended that the Neinzul Mourners scenario lacks a large starbase, and thus any means to repair/construct?

Knowing this scenario exists means I'll now want to take a Cloaker Starship and engies with me to any nebula just in case it's this one, which seems to defeat the intent of making large starbases able to repair/construct.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Faulty Logic October 19, 2012, 12:41:04 AM
Wow, just looking at my OP for this thread... Ancient Shadows has come a long way.

I think the Mourner scenario was slated to be rebalanced with a large starbase, though I am not sure.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: Cinth October 19, 2012, 01:13:59 AM
I think the Mourner scenario was slated to be rebalanced with a large starbase, though I am not sure.

Might have run out of time this week to get to it. I did Mantis it though.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 19, 2012, 11:03:54 AM
I think the Mourner scenario was slated to be rebalanced with a large starbase, though I am not sure.
I started to do it, but the balance implications were kind of complicated and I decided not to deal with it.  I thought just making the starbase large would make it too easy, since those things are much tougher to kill.

So I could just ramp up the enemies, but then your champ gets kinda washed out, and that scenario is generally an early one.

But I wouldn't say it mandates bringing an engie pit-crew along; it's probably the scenario that is most tolerant to you needing to take it easy for the early part.  Just fight off the auto-spawns (1 prison at a time) while you wait for your pit crew to get in range.  Your rewards in that particular scenario are based off the max amount of enemies on the board at once, so you can just build up a big ball of allies (in theory) and smash the last 4+ prisons at once (presumably having had time to refit with the pit crew if necessary) and still get that level of reward.

Granted, that's only if you know all those details, but much of the game (especially the radical-expansion stuff like Fallen Spire and Champions) is way harder the first time and/or when you don't know the details.  Adds variety :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: onyhow October 20, 2012, 01:28:56 PM
I really think nebula frigates should get Heavy bonus...considering that nebula cruisers have ridiculous hp compared to frigates and heavy frigates, and there's no nebula ship counter, at all...(course, it's gonna affect your ship too, but still)

Also, difficulty for Epsilon Eridani mission is...rather ridiculous...
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 20, 2012, 01:42:43 PM
I really think nebula frigates should get Heavy bonus...considering that nebula cruisers have ridiculous hp compared to frigates and heavy frigates, and there's no nebula ship counter, at all...(course, it's gonna affect your ship too, but still)
The frigates have a bonus vs ultraheavy (starbases), and starbases have a bonus against heavy (cruisers).  It's a quadrangle, rather than a triangle :)

Also, difficulty for Epsilon Eridani mission is...rather ridiculous...
What are the circumstances?  What size champion do you have (Frigate, Destroyer, etc)?  How many missions have you won thus far?

In my testing and from player feedback during the beta, EEr was one of the easier scenarios :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: onyhow October 20, 2012, 10:45:54 PM
The frigates have a bonus vs ultraheavy (starbases), and starbases have a bonus against heavy (cruisers).  It's a quadrangle, rather than a triangle :)
Oh huh...still, I think the cruisers hp is mite too high compared to other ships...

What are the circumstances?  What size champion do you have (Frigate, Destroyer, etc)?  How many missions have you won thus far?

In my testing and from player feedback during the beta, EEr was one of the easier scenarios :)
It's just that, to me, comparing to other starting scenarios it's harder (due to spawn rate)...I just seriously don't like how the spawn rate got incresed the more starbases you destroy...it just feels like rubberband AI in racing games...

Then again, it's all my opinion...
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: TechSY730 October 20, 2012, 10:58:10 PM
It's just that, to me, comparing to other starting scenarios it's harder (due to spawn rate)...I just seriously don't like how the spawn rate got incresed the more starbases you destroy...it just feels like rubberband AI in racing games...

Then again, it's all my opinion...

True, it is a bit annoying. But recently, it was rebalanced, and now the allied faction gets this "rubberbanding" too (though not to quite the same degree), so it isn't all bad. That, and even though the per-starbase spawn rate goes up as bases are lost, the overall rate goes down a bit (I think), though the rate of the decrease, well, decreases as the number of bases goes down (meaning, taking out a base has diminishing returns until you take out the last one, which of course it drops to 0 after that)

This helps to mitigate the "first one to lose a base will almost certainly accelerate to defeat" factor.

I won't say that in some cases, the logic overcompensates a bit. I'm sure there are some scenarios where the math is a bit off and the overall rate goes UP dramatically (it's OK if it goes up a little bit for some of the later, harder scenarios, but IMO, NO scenario should ever get a dramatic increase in overall spawn rate as bases goes down). But that would just require a be a balance tweak to fix.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 20, 2012, 11:57:10 PM
The frigates have a bonus vs ultraheavy (starbases), and starbases have a bonus against heavy (cruisers).  It's a quadrangle, rather than a triangle :)
Oh huh...still, I think the cruisers hp is mite too high compared to other ships...
The cruisers also cost a lot more for the bases spawning them, and only spawn from the large bases in the group spawns.

Basically, they're MkV ships balanced like they had a cap of 4, frigates are MkII balanced like they had a cap of 12, and heavy frigates are MkIV balaned like they had a cap of 12.  So a cruiser costs (5/4) / (2/12) = 7.5 as much as a frigate.  I think the actual cost number may be higher than that.

One thing the cruisers do is give the champion an obvious place in the outside-base-range fights: stack enough anti-heavy and down those cruisers go.  Of course there are other things you could stack instead (anti-medium is good for protecting your frigates from the enemy heavy frigates, since your frigates are what usually get the job done against starbases; or if you have enough anti-ultraheavy you can take the bases yourself).

I just seriously don't like how the spawn rate got incresed the more starbases you destroy...it just feels like rubberband AI in racing games...
I tried it without any adjustment initially and the scenarios just dragged out, so both sides' large bases (not the small ones) produce faster as small bases go down.  If you want a lore explanation, its that the large bases are using whatever mineral deposits the small bases were using.  Originally I'd designed the scenarios to have little miner ships running around to resources and there's the usual "crash the peon line" tactics, but in the end it seemed overly complicated and more likely to create negative emergent results instead of fun battles.

FWIW, when an enemy small base goes down, your large base gets more of a boost than the enemy base.  Similarly, if your base goes down, the enemy gets more of a boost than you do.

To an extent it actually encourages the snowballing because I found that made for more interesting and less-draggy scenarios, but the underdogs would still have a chance to pull out ahead.

The other thing that comes into play is that both sides scale up (the enemies faster than the allies) with your highest unlocked champion hull size, the number of player champions, and (much less so) with the number of scenarios you've won that game.

So when you're bigger you have to fill bigger things on your feet; otherwise the scenarios would just get easier and easier as the game went on, or I'd have to make them mostly linear in order so they could be balanced against exactly one hull size, etc.

Then again, it's all my opinion...
And player opinions are quite valuable in figuring out how to refine things like this.  But they're more valuable when the players have more info about what's actually going on.  There's a degree of "black box" to the game by design because it's often more fun to play without knowing all the details, but when time comes to figure out how to make it better, the details need to come out.  Hence the above.  Albeit I'm rambling because its late and I'm tired :)
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: onyhow October 21, 2012, 12:37:55 AM
So winning side actually get bigger boost? When I'm saying that I got the feeling that it's more on the losing side!

Thing about cruiser is that sometimes I just tend to see large groups of them being really hard to take out while the frigates go down like flies....also it tends to be a bit hard to babysit when most ships in nebulae tend to outrun you...

Thanks for clarifying though!
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k October 21, 2012, 07:20:40 AM
Problem with the three way is that you can't tell your allies to focus on one enemy, resulting in both being stripped down to their large starbase. I tried beating the Spire first but when they were down to only the large starbase my allies stopped bothering and their bombers dispersed to who knows where (those nebula ships are hard to tell apart), only one small base keeps sending a single bomber to the enemy starbase which responds with a full army at exactly the same rate. Since the bombers don't stop moving until they reach the target and the forces meet along the way I cannot use shields to protect them.

EDIT: After all that struggling I manage to win the scenario and what do I get for my efforts? The Zenith Frigate (at that level pretty much identical to the Human Frigate I have except without the damage bonus vs light), the flak module and the Zenith mod fort. Well, at least I got a mod fort but I wish I had gotten something to make my champion stronger... After all the next nebula is just behind a planet that's in the range of a MkIV Raid Engine.
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: onyhow October 21, 2012, 09:48:49 AM
^ Eh Zenith Shadow Ship excel at doing high damage to single target (it got 2 sec cooldown), while human ones are better at mowing down smaller ships...
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: keith.lamothe October 21, 2012, 12:37:40 PM
I tried beating the Spire first but when they were down to only the large starbase my allies stopped bothering and their bombers dispersed to who knows where (those nebula ships are hard to tell apart), only one small base keeps sending a single bomber to the enemy starbase
Er, that would be a bug :)  It's supposed to all focus down the other enemy, which it shouldn't have much trouble doing unless the scaling is very high.

Do you have a save where the allies are literally not going after anything with an enemy base still up?
: Re: Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions
: KDR_11k October 21, 2012, 05:11:27 PM
They're attacking, just in an unorganized fashion that gets them all killed and they seem to prefer attacking small bases over large ones (when the Spire base was exposed they instead went for the Astrid small base or headed straight for the area where the Spire and Astrid fleets met when they were attacking each other). Towards the end they had a roving death squad of 14 heavies that only died when they finally decided to attack the Astrids.