Semi-Poll: Increased AIP for indestructible capturables?

[keith.lamothe]

And the approach that finally worked for golems doesn't sound particularly good here.  Losing an AdvFact to an exo, and then getting an exo for rebuilding it might be amusing to me and some players, but...

Late to reply, but I think if you made it so that the AI somehow attacks harder temporarily in responding to rebuilding a factory, that would be fine.

Ok, but the increase would have to be pretty nasty, on scale with an exo, to really be an appropriate deterrent.  And if it was an exo that took the thing out in the first place that seems like a vicious cycle waiting to happen.  I don't mind personally, it's those kinds of death spirals that actually wins games for the AI, but I'm not thinking it looks so great from your perspective

And then it seems like it would encourage rebuilding them one at a time, waiting until the temporary period from the previous one wore off... not wanting to encourage waiting.  But maybe I'm wrong that it would.

[chemical_art]

And the approach that finally worked for golems doesn't sound particularly good here.  Losing an AdvFact to an exo, and then getting an exo for rebuilding it might be amusing to me and some players, but...

Late to reply, but I think if you made it so that the AI somehow attacks harder temporarily in responding to rebuilding a factory, that would be fine.

Ok, but the increase would have to be pretty nasty, on scale with an exo, to really be an appropriate deterrent.  And if it was an exo that took the thing out in the first place that seems like a vicious cycle waiting to happen.  I don't mind personally, it's those kinds of death spirals that actually wins games for the AI, but I'm not thinking it looks so great from your perspective

Well, for golems, if you lose your golems through combat, you still deal with the exo waves even if they are gone. For spirecraft, if your asteroids are gone, the exos don't go away. So I don't see the thought of exos causing exos [that the player chooses to cause] is any worst; at least the player always has the chance to reap the positive benefits.

[chemical_art]

And then it seems like it would encourage rebuilding them one at a time, waiting until the temporary period from the previous one wore off... not wanting to encourage waiting.  But maybe I'm wrong that it would.

As for this...if it happened in the first place, it likely resulted from an external exo wave (golem, etc.)

This exo wave won't go away...so if you try to wait it out, you are still going back to the original challenge of keeping the irreplacable alive through several exo waves....if you can manage to keep them alive over several exo waves, why not have them wait it out? Odds are, they won't be able to survive several exo waves if they lost it in the first place.

And even then, the ai is still fortifying and preparing CPA's.

[TechSY730]

It seems to be coming back to that classic problem, how to make satellite worlds consistently defensible (and worth the effort of doing so) without giving the player OP amounts of defensive ability, against an opponent that doesn't have to "discover" that you have something important (as they used to own it themselves, and then you took it), and without completely restructuring how things like unit caps, economy, how cross planetary traversal works, how the AI works (including how the AI attacks), and/or many other core aspects of the game, without making the AI a moron, or introducing grind.

...I honestly don't see any way to "solve" this given these constraints other than to give up on the whole design goal of sometimes making the player take a tricky defense situation (aka, satellite worlds for capturable) and allow capturables to be moved and accept that how the game is setup makes it such that asking the player to defend remote worlds is an unreasonable request, especially at the "higher" end of the game, and changing all mechanics that ask the player to do so such that they don't anymore.

Can someone please tell me I am wrong?

[keith.lamothe]

Can someone please tell me I am wrong?

It'd be pretty simple to add a way to defend the irreplaceables, but doing so without making them too easy to hold is trickier.

Edit: without impacting overall defensive balance at all.  Just a permacloak exoshield on these would do the trick.

[Faulty Logic]

Can someone please tell me I am wrong?

Yes.

Even at the highest difficulties, I frequently take and hold multiple satellite worlds. The FactIV/ACS is (usually) worth actual effort to hold, other fabs are a luxury that I'm not too upset about losing.

For the base game, there is nothing wrong with the current system. Fabricators are strategically important even if you lose them, because the ships are still available during the HW assaults, but it still hurts to lose them because its ships have to leave the routine fleet. FactIVs are like fabricators, but more: they are really nice to hold, but you still get strategic value out of them if they are lost.

As for exos, the role of the fabricators/factory/ACS (increase firepower of the human fleet) is filled by whatever is causing the exos.

And even then, you can get value out of the irreplaceables, both from hoarding, and not losing all of them (I haven't actually seen an exo group target a fabricator, so holding them hasn't been a problem for me).

[chemical_art]

For the base game, there is nothing wrong with the current system. Fabricators are strategically important even if you lose them, because the ships are still available during the HW assaults, but it still hurts to lose them because its ships have to leave the routine fleet. FactIVs are like fabricators, but more: they are really nice to hold, but you still get strategic value out of them if they are lost.

...

And even then, you can get value out of the irreplaceables, both from hoarding, and not losing all of them (I haven't actually seen an exo group target a fabricator, so holding them hasn't been a problem for me).

See, that is an issue though. You are suggesting the units are fine, even if the irreplacable is lost, because you are hoarding the units.

Hoarding isn't fun.

If you are hoarding, you are doing what Keith suggested at the start of all this; in the end, you are saving your best units until the hardest part of the game, because you cannot expect those units to be able to replaced if you use them during easier parts of the game.

[keith.lamothe]

Hoarding isn't fun.

Always and under every circumstance?  Or just "when I feel motivated to do more than a certain amount of it"?

[chemical_art]

Hoarding isn't fun.

Always and under every circumstance?  Or just "when I feel motivated to do more than a certain amount of it"?

Well, yes, I would say every time.

If I expect an hard shard chase, so I spend time hoarding till I get 999999 out of every resource, that isn't fun.

If I spend hours to build caps of mercs, because I need them later for resources/ firepower? That isn't fun (please don't nerf this, I really need it sometimes)

I have to save my awesome units till the very end, that isn't fun compared to me using them and replacing them.

If I have to save K, because I don't know if my next ARS unlock will be useless or not? That is not fun (rarely with hacking, but the idea is still relevant)

I guess my counterclaim is: When is hoarding fun?

[Vyndicu]

I guess my counterclaim is: When is hoarding fun?

I once had a fun map seed where I could start early game with a botnet golem. But I couldn't use it because of what AI was using as common unit with a bonus to "ultra-heavy" hull. So if I hoard it then I could use two regen golem, widow golem, cursed golem, and an artillery golem as my "golem fleet". Let just say hypothetically if I manage to get that far with all golems on map in a super fleet. I would feel bad just a tiny bit for the AI. 

[LaughingThesaurus]

One of my standpoints on hoarding is that you should just not be doing it if it isn't fun. If it's absolutely required to hoard in a way that is unfun, as in there is absolutely no alternate strategy at all, then there needs to be a big fix in the works for that immediately.

Idea for capturables: Give them an exoshield that is cloaked but not permacloaked, if exo shields are actually researched for harvesters. If the planet that that the fab is on is actually knocked out, then the capturable is disabled until it's taken back. It's also put on, say, a 20 minute attrition timer. If it's destroyed by that or somehow decloaked and killed, then you lose it forever. The reason I say it should be researched is really just because I'd kind of prefer if the shield were human tech. Do you really want to hunt down permacloaked fabricators or fact IVs under the AI's control? I don't think it's quite so possible. That'd probably be the case if you stole the AI's exoshield tech.
Although that bit doesn't really matter. Important part is, it's hard to lose it directly but you will lose it if you slack off or can't find a way to rebuild on the lost planet.

[Winge]

One of my standpoints on hoarding is that you should just not be doing it if it isn't fun. If it's absolutely required to hoard in a way that is unfun, as in there is absolutely no alternate strategy at all, then there needs to be a big fix in the works for that immediately.

Idea for capturables: Give them an exoshield that is cloaked but not permacloaked, if exo shields are actually researched for harvesters. If the planet that that the fab is on is actually knocked out, then the capturable is disabled until it's taken back. It's also put on, say, a 20 minute attrition timer. If it's destroyed by that or somehow decloaked and killed, then you lose it forever. The reason I say it should be researched is really just because I'd kind of prefer if the shield were human tech. Do you really want to hunt down permacloaked fabricators or fact IVs under the AI's control? I don't think it's quite so possible. That'd probably be the case if you stole the AI's exoshield tech.
Although that bit doesn't really matter. Important part is, it's hard to lose it directly but you will lose it if you slack off or can't find a way to rebuild on the lost planet.

One note on that:  CSGs will still reveal the position of capturables, albeit not their identity (that part is trickier).  I noticed that in an amusing comment on someone's AAR, where there was a CSG-A on a planet, but the (cloaked) ARS didn't show up on the summary.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Yeah, I know about the CSG forecast for special structures, but that isn't something that everybody really knows.

[Aeson]

If Advanced Factories become indestructable or can be rebuilt after destruction, the Neinzul Enclave IVs will need to be looked at. Currently, a Neinzul Enclave IV requires about five planets of knowledge to unlock, without considering the cost of getting the Mark II and Mark III versions. With those, it costs six planets of knowledge. I can currently justify this in a game with exo-waves since I wouldn't necessarily be able to effectively defend the Advanced Factory, and I might be able to justify this in a non-exo game if the two Advanced Factories spawn in very bad locations, but I don't think I could if I were able to rebuild the Advanced Factory several times over before I approach the AIP cost of getting Enclave IVs. (Note that I'm not saying that I always get Enclave IVs in games with exo-waves, nor am I saying I always consider getting them in games with exo-waves; rather, I'm saying that in games with at least one exo-wave source, I'll consider getting Enclave IVs rather than trying to hold an Advanced Factory if I want to make use of Mark IV fleet ships).

As for the use of temporarily increased AI attacks against a rebuilt (or rebuilding) Advanced Factory, wouldn't this either need to be a CPA/exo-wave style event or cause the planet to lose the main benefit of a Warp Jammer command station, to avoid sidestepping the penalty by using a Warp Jammer command station?

With regards to the "take planet, build fabricator or Mark IV fleet ship caps, decide to hoard or use caps after loss of fabricator/factory" stuff, I think this is essentially the same as using the ships out of a Zenith Reserve. It's a trade-off between the potential use of the ships now against their potential use in the future. If my replaceable fleet is doing well enough, I'll hoard the ships that I can no longer replace so as to have them for a later stage of the game, otherwise I'll make use of them as I see fit. As a side note on the general usefulness of fabricators, I don't usually go out of my way to take fabricators, but if there is one which is easily defended, or only accessible through a world I want to take, I might make use of it as a fortress world that gets its own dedicated cap of some ship type, or to provide a fortress world with a dedicated defensive group. If there are active exo-waves in the game, though, fabricators and advanced factories tend to become a lot less valuable to me, both because they tend to get destroyed (either as the objective of an exo-wave, or incidentally as the exo-wave goes through) and because whatever exo-source I turned on is usually at least useful enough to make up for the lost potential of mark IV fleet ships or whatever comes out of any fabricators I might otherwise have taken.


As for potential AIP penalties for rebuilding an Advanced Factory, this depends to some extent on what gets done with Neinzul Enclave IVs, and also whether or not you want to encourage taking the other Advanced Factory instead of the one we already took if we lose it. Current Enclave IV knowledge costs suggests that the value of a relocatable and infinitely rebuildable Advanced Factory is about 100-120 AIP, while a one-time replacement is worth about 20 AIP. So if you want to encourage the player to take the other Advanced Factory instead of rebuilding the one that was already taken, the AIP cost for reconstruction needs to be at least similar to the AIP cost of taking a planet, while not being so high that the Enclave IV becomes clearly superior in any situation. On the other hand, the AIP cost also can't be so low that it is never worth unlocking Enclave IVs or taking the other Advanced Factory. This would suggest to me that the AIP penalty for reconstruction should be between 10 and 40 AIP (and if you want me to consider taking the other Advanced Factory rather than rebuilding the one I already took, the reconstruction cost probably needs to be at least equal to 20, since I probably took the Advanced Factory on the world I considered more defensible or which was in a more strategically useful location).

I see several ways that this could be handled:
1. The AIP cost of rebuilding an Advanced Factory could be approximately equal to the cost of unlocking Enclave IVs (say, 60-100 AIP, to account for the 20 from taking the planet and the benefits that an Enclave IV has which the Advanced Factory doesn't provide, assuming that Enclave IVs remain the same as they are at present), at which point it becomes a Human Advanced Factory, whose remains cost no additional AIP to rebuild.
2. The AIP cost of rebuilding an Advanced Factory could be set so that in a game where you end up needing to rebuild the Advanced Factory, you likely end up paying only a little less AIP than you would have if you had unlocked Enclave IVs instead of taking the Advanced Factory.
3. Enclave IV knowledge costs could be adjusted so that the AIP cost of the knowledge for Enclave IVs is similar to the AIP cost of a 'reasonable' number of reconstructions of the Advanced Factory, which begs the question of how many times is a reasonable number of times to reconstruct the Advanced Factory.

[Jonz0rz]

What about adding hacking to Fabs?

If you hack it before you capture, you gain the blueprints and can rebuild if it it's lost. Make it expensive to rebuild, like fortress/zenith trader goodies, but you can place it on any planet you want, so the odds of losing it a second time goes down dramatically.

Due to increased hacking response, you won't be able to hack all of them, but you can secure a few key fab types if you want.

I'd say make it cause significantly higher hacking response than an ARS, since an ARS gives you permanent access to ships whether you hack it or not, and this would guarantee access to (higher level) fab ships, which you could otherwise lose the ability to build.

Oh, and give it it's own hacker type since ARS and Fabs are often found on the same planet.