Requesting Feedback: Zenith Hydra, Zenith Devastator, Neinzul Railpod

[chemical_art]

At first i was thinking of having the offspring scale up as well, but the idea of ot spawning more as mk goes up is more entertaining and more reminescent of a hydra growing more heads.

[chemical_art]

The lower rof should help tremendously with the missile guard post. Fairly often i find it to be in a position where even if i beelined straight to it id fire at least twice as many volleys as others.

[MaxAstro]

Honestly I'm a masochistic bastard - I'd prefer all guard posts to be as tactically challenging as missile posts are now.

In my mind, guard posts cost nothing but time to overcome (since time = money) and never come back when destroyed, so I feel like they should be obstacles instead of speed-bumps.  But I think people are ~used~ to guard posts being speed-bumps, so there is some resistance to the idea of them being game-changers.

When I am analyzing a planet to decide how to take it, one of the first things I think is "Does it have missile guard posts?", right before "Does it have arachnid posts?".  Honestly I think the more guard posts that make you stop and say "Whoa, gonna have to pay attention to THAT" the better.

But again, I'm a masochist. 

[keith.lamothe]

Guard posts are waaaaaaay more painful than they were in 6.0, so let's leave it to the 7.0-to-8.0 cycle to figure out if we want them even moreso

As it is when 7.0 hits I think a lot of folks upgrading from 6.0 are going to run into the revised guard posts and guardians and wonder if anyone got the license plate number on that freight train.

[LaughingThesaurus]

At the same time though, it's pretty easy to wind up with a combination that is very hard to fight. I'll find a missile guard post covered by a force field, and suddenly I realize that I don't have enough knowledge in my bank to get any missile-immune raiders. I find a superfortress covering another fortress, and I just say "Well I guess I'm not going to attack that planet at all." I've actually spent two hours attacking a mark IV world on difficulty 6, and it seems to instantly be fully reinforced any time I attack it, it's got an ion eye, and it has some double-force-fielded guard posts under fortresses as well as compelling reason for special forces to defend it and I just got to a point that I stopped that game entirely and started something else. I'm on 120 AIP and this is not anywhere near a core world. The simple addition of a force field or a fortress makes attacking guard posts quite a bit more complicated as it is, and guard posts are so darn common that having a really arduous uphill battle with every single one gets frustrating and overly lengthy. Yet, I'm also in a position where as soon as a wave arrives, it dies in like 2 seconds flat to a quarter of my fleet. I'm sure if I actually picked up turrets, they'd be dead before they got out the wormhole. Doesn't that seem a little off to you?

I think, I mean, there are sort of the triangle-equivalent guard posts that have easy counters. Then there are missile guard posts that are a part of that group that are a legitimately pretty big threat. Maybe those easy-counter guard posts should be common and relatively easy to fight, and we can introduce more uniquely dangerous guard posts that pop up from time to time that DO give you a really legitimate concern. Kind of like a mini-fortress or a core guard post. I would be fine with that. We'll have a bunch of speed bumps we have to think a little bit about, and then a couple bigger roadblocks. Probably roadblocks set up such that if you screw up the attack it actually puts you in danger. As it is, fighting stuff like missile guard posts legitimately only takes time and care, and if I screw up, I sit around on +10 speed watching people grind in Final Fantasy. AI Waves are pretty pathetic in comparison to the defenses I've encountered on the lower difficulties. I mean I guess I'm all for unique hazards but the ones I've seen (admittedly from a shield ninny) have been not ruinous, but annoying. Not dangerous, but time consuming.

[chemical_art]

So far, I've written off the railpods.

They simply don't provide enough impact in my games. This is a direct result of them losing 50% of their health, rather then losing health based on the damage they give. Their damage should either scale up, or their attrition should scale down. I get exponential more damage in using fireflys or autobombs. Yes, I understand the range difference, but their AOE more then tips the scale in their favor...

[TechSY730]

At the same time though, it's pretty easy to wind up with a combination that is very hard to fight. I'll find a missile guard post covered by a force field, and suddenly I realize that I don't have enough knowledge in my bank to get any missile-immune raiders. I find a superfortress covering another fortress, and I just say "Well I guess I'm not going to attack that planet at all." I've actually spent two hours attacking a mark IV world on difficulty 6, and it seems to instantly be fully reinforced any time I attack it, it's got an ion eye, and it has some double-force-fielded guard posts under fortresses as well as compelling reason for special forces to defend it and I just got to a point that I stopped that game entirely and started something else. I'm on 120 AIP and this is not anywhere near a core world. The simple addition of a force field or a fortress makes attacking guard posts quite a bit more complicated as it is, and guard posts are so darn common that having a really arduous uphill battle with every single one gets frustrating and overly lengthy. Yet, I'm also in a position where as soon as a wave arrives, it dies in like 2 seconds flat to a quarter of my fleet. I'm sure if I actually picked up turrets, they'd be dead before they got out the wormhole. Doesn't that seem a little off to you?

Well, why are you attacking that world then? Is what is on it, or what clearing it gives you access to, really worth that much trouble?
And it is a Mk. IV. Strength wise, it would most certainly, on average, accumulate "strength" faster than waves unless your waves are also Mk. IV (which at 120 AIP, they won't be)

That said, I do think wave multipliers are set a bit too low on lower difficulties, and from your description, defense multipliers may be a bit too high on lower difficulties.

I mean I guess I'm all for unique hazards but the ones I've seen (admittedly from a shield ninny) have been not ruinous, but annoying. Not dangerous, but time consuming.

Yes, Shield ninny and fortress baron do specialize in some of the most "grindy" defenses. And in fact, that is sort of the nature of an AI that focuses on defense at the expense of defense, being a "road block".

Many of the other AI defensive "toys" are much more interesting to deal with, though sadly, most of the "cool" ones introduced recently are restricted to the AI homeworld.

However, I do think the fortresses need to be changed to a less "grindy" setup.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Well, I of all things picked a map with lots of chokepoints, so not only does this planet lie at a chokepoint, it's also got the only ASC that's like, in a sensible location. There's another one right by a core world I think and that's all. Now, I could skirt around the planet probably, but that would leave me in an awkward and dangerous surrounded-type position. I've actually started another game on a big map with lots of wormholes so I can have a lot of open paths. I'm admittedly still experimenting with a lot of things in AI War, but the defense and attack felt really disproportionate to me for sure. I can tell you that much. Just about 200 ship waves, and like 400 of a mix of mark III and IV ships defending just one planet that seem to get reinforced from some infinite vacuum.

[Kahuna]

Honestly I'm a masochistic bastard - I'd prefer all guard posts to be as tactically challenging as missile posts are now.

In my mind, guard posts cost nothing but time to overcome (since time = money) and never come back when destroyed, so I feel like they should be obstacles instead of speed-bumps.  But I think people are ~used~ to guard posts being speed-bumps, so there is some resistance to the idea of them being game-changers.

When I am analyzing a planet to decide how to take it, one of the first things I think is "Does it have missile guard posts?", right before "Does it have arachnid posts?".  Honestly I think the more guard posts that make you stop and say "Whoa, gonna have to pay attention to THAT" the better.

But again, I'm a masochist. 

And which difficulty level do you play on?

[Kahuna]

So far, I've written off the railpods.

They simply don't provide enough impact in my games. This is a direct result of them losing 50% of their health, rather then losing health based on the damage they give. Their damage should either scale up, or their attrition should scale down. I get exponential more damage in using fireflys or autobombs. Yes, I understand the range difference, but their AOE more then tips the scale in their favor...

You need a cap of Mobile Space Docks to unlock their full potential.

[chemical_art]

You need a cap of Mobile Space Docks to unlock their full potential.

Compared to other younglings, they are inefficient.

You can devote your whole economy to making them, and it'll take several minutes  of continuous production to remove one shield generator.

[keith.lamothe]

So far, I've written off the railpods.

They simply don't provide enough impact in my games. This is a direct result of them losing 50% of their health, rather then losing health based on the damage they give. Their damage should either scale up, or their attrition should scale down. I get exponential more damage in using fireflys or autobombs. Yes, I understand the range difference, but their AOE more then tips the scale in their favor...

They may or may not be for you, yea.

But I should note that originally I had them die after one shot, but I changed it to two because otherwise aggregate targeting data could not be passed on "from generation to generation" and that didn't work well at all (sniper ships of a particular mark all use the same target list on a planet, saves a lot of CPU that way).

Were it not for that, they would still die after one shot, because their usefulness is not in their inherent DPS (which is way higher than I could justify for a unit with any sustained fire capacity) but in the effective DPS they grant a space dock (or mobile space dock), in return for loads of m+c.  It's possible the m+c cost is actually too high right now because I just copied the standard youngling cost (iirc).

And yes, they're horribly inefficient at taking out shield generators.  I submit to you that you should use something else for that after railpods have scoured the planet of anything not under a shield   If they killed shields efficiently they'd be an I-Win button in a lot of cases.

[chemical_art]

And yes, they're horribly inefficient at taking out shield generators.  I submit to you that you should use something else for that after railpods have scoured the planet of anything not under a shield   If they killed shields efficiently they'd be an I-Win button in a lot of cases.

In my admittedly limitted tests, they don't inheriently go for non shield targets. Well, maybe they do, now that I think about it (zombards immune to snipers).

Will have to retest it.

In that case though, I'd like them not target structures, so they don't kill your economy.

[chemical_art]

It's possible the m+c cost is actually too high right now because I just copied the standard youngling cost (iirc).

That's my only real complaint. It kills my economy, even by nenzul standards in upkeep.

[keith.lamothe]

It's possible the m+c cost is actually too high right now because I just copied the standard youngling cost (iirc).

That's my only real complaint. It kills my economy, even by nenzul standards in upkeep.

What cost are you seeing for the mkI, and what would be reasonable in your view?