Science Lab MkIII Suggestion

[Pumpkin]

I was about to post this on Mantis, but maybe I should post on the forum first. (Er, too late, I posted on the forum)

I thought I would pay some Knowledge (maybe around 1000 or a bit less) if I can get permackloaked science lab. MkII is fine to check ARS content but need a little counter-tachyon raid before being able to go scout ARS alone. The idea is to have a lone ARS scout.

Suggestion:
- ship cap 1
- cloaked and tachyon immune (MkII is just cloaked) + blind to avoid cheese scouting
- same immunities as MkII, plus maybe some (nuke immune? whatever, in both case)
- speed 120 (MkI is 52 and MkII is 60)
- gather 10 K/s or so (MkII is "just" 3K/s, better to build a bunch of MkI)

What da ya thing?

[Shrugging Khan]

Wait...perma-cloaked in the sense of being tachyon burst immune?

So, an unstoppable K gatherer? Sounds overpowered to me.

[Mánagarmr]

So, an unstoppable K gatherer? Sounds overpowered to me.

This.

[Pumpkin]

So, an unstoppable K gatherer? Sounds overpowered to me.

It would be still unable to get K from AI worlds, am I wrong? Gathering K on taken planets was never a problem; the problem is "does 20 AIP are worth 3000 K (and some metal)?" I don't understand your reaction. Please enlighten me.

[Aklyon]

Punching tachyon guardians isn't exactly hard to do with most ships, and you could always quickly pause when the lab arrives if you needed to check before the lab gets shot at.

[Mal]

I like the idea but I have to agree with the others. The perma-cloak is pretty darn good! K gathering is so fast with science II's anyway..I am not sure this guy is fulfilling a role that does not already exist.

If we were to make a science III, it would have to fill a gap in the game without making science I's or II's obsolete...unless it came with a justifiable cost or trade-off.

My counter-proposal to your science III would be:

Science Deep Dive Lab Mk III Metal: 100k, Energy 50k
Speed 30 No Cloaking Health - 10k
Immunities - Transport, Cloaking,
The Science Deep Dive Lab gathers an additional 500 knowledge from an already tapped out planet. However, the AI reacts with moderately increasing exo waves and/or special forces in the area to stop you from revealing it's hidden secrets.

So this gives you the option of turtling a bit to gather some additional K but at the cost of letting the AI punch you pretty hard if your position is not fortified. The higher energy cost also might be a limiter to spamming it early game where resources are tighter. Additionally, if you use it late game, it's cost of sending special forces and an exo wave can be killer if you are not prepared right. But! It does serve a purpose in letting you grab quite a bit more knowledge when you use it on your empire...and the fact that it spawns an exo wave means that your lighter defended inner empires would require your mobile defense forces most likely and the sacrifice of turrets elsewhere maybe.

[Pumpkin]

Punching tachyon guardians isn't exactly hard to do with most ships, and you could always quickly pause when the lab arrives if you needed to check before the lab gets shot at.

I like the idea but I have to agree with the others.

Yap. Me too. Bad idea at first, indeed.

The Science Deep Dive Lab gathers an additional 500 knowledge from an already tapped out planet.

Do you mean 500K more per human planet? On a 12 planets human empire (which is few in late game, I often end up with 15 or 20 human planets) it mean 6,000K, two planets worth, 40 AIP not increased. Let see what you proposed to balance it.

However, the AI reacts with moderately increasing exo waves and/or special forces in the area to stop you from revealing it's hidden secrets.

So the AI send special forces in deep fortified human territory. It doesn't seem balanced to me. It doesn't even seem a threat. Exo wave? Well, could be... but not for a global 6,000K or so.

I love the idea of digging K down too. (Heck, I even noted it as a possible reward for an expansion-lite I'm planning under the hood, but shhh)

Yeah, MkII Lab doing ARS scout is fine. I just wanted... I don't know, sort of easing the process. I feel like looking what's in an ARS should be as easy as scouting the planet. But MkII lab special scouting as it is now is fine; it spice things up without being big matter. Forget about it, I just needed to ear "your idea sucks" to realize it actually sucks. Sorry for that.

EDIT:
While I'm thinking about it: the hacker already do a "more K for no AIP", and its deal is pretty balanced.

[steelwing]

The discussion in this thread reminded me to ask...Does K-hacking take away from the 3000 knowledge you can harvest from a planet after you capture it?

[Pumpkin]

The discussion in this thread reminded me to ask...Does K-hacking take away from the 3000 knowledge you can harvest from a planet after you capture it?

I think yes, but it require field testing. It would be a bit too unbalanced to gather 6000 K from one planet.

[Mal]

So the AI send special forces in deep fortified human territory. It doesn't seem balanced to me. It doesn't even seem a threat.

I had to do a double take at this statement. Maybe its just because I play with hunter (usually 4/10 sometimes 5/10) on or something...but special forces is always pretty scary...hunter/killers and their masses of guardians late game when this would most likely be used...you can certainly defend against it with super-weapons or a stockpile of armored warheads..but barring that...its gonna be rough to say the least.

[Aklyon]

SF is usually a mass of riots and assorted other ships if you don't have hunter enabled, Mal.

[Pumpkin]

So the AI send special forces in deep fortified human territory. It doesn't seem balanced to me. It doesn't even seem a threat.

I had to do a double take at this statement. Maybe its just because I play with hunter (usually 4/10 sometimes 5/10) on or something...but special forces is always pretty scary...hunter/killers and their masses of guardians late game when this would most likely be used...you can certainly defend against it with super-weapons or a stockpile of armored warheads..but barring that...its gonna be rough to say the least.

Everybody is not as mad as you, Mal. As Aklyon said, SF are not that scary, without the hunter plot. Anyway, we could always find something to fill the "threaten the player/react to player taking advantage/balance feature with AI bonus". I think the point is that "more K" is already doable in some different ways: take one more planet (3000K for +20 AIP), hack a planet (3000K for some HaP and an AI's retaliation), capture a Spire Archive (capture a risky planet and defend it until Archives are drained), etc. Each of these ways are balanced and interesting, and which is more unique.

I know I'm giving lesson when I started this thread with a crappy idea. My point was not to change something to K gathering, but K gathering is also something Acren did well and which is pretty balanced and interesting as it is now. The same can be said for ARS scouting, and that's why my idea was crappy. I just needed someone say it.

Why do I talk about that back and forth? He got the point, calm down, Pumpkin.
Ah, sorry about that.

[Mal]

SF is usually a mass of riots and assorted other ships if you don't have hunter enabled, Mal.

Everybody is not as mad as you, Mal.

- The Nefarious Pumpkin


Hahaha...ok...then yes this suggestion I made is not a great one as well hahaha.

[Pumpkin]

Everybody is not as mad as you, Mal.

- The Nefarious Pumpkin

There must be an achievement to make me laugh that hard!
Actually, my full pseudo is "the black pumpkin", but I don't know why I'll start using "the nefarious pumpkin" right now!

[tadrinth]

I think a better option is to add the ability to see ARS unlocks to the MkIV scout.