Reactions to Ancient Shadows and Suggestions

[chemical_art]

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.

[TechSY730]

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. 

[Cinth]

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.

[chemical_art]

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. 

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.

[chemical_art]

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.

[keith.lamothe]

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).

[Cinth]

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.

[chemical_art]

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.

[keith.lamothe]

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.

[Cinth]

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.

[chemical_art]

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.

[Histidine]

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.

[Mermel]

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.

[keith.lamothe]

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.

[Mermel]

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.