Shattered Pillar Zenith Question (or, tweak XP mechanics?) (or, Am I Too OCD?)

[contingencyplan]

So I rolled the Shattered Pillar Zenith scenario for my first nebula. I observed that the bases only reward XP on death if my champ is within range of them (which I believe is part of the "champ has to be close enough for the reward" mechanic). This is a bit annoying, though: I barely got over to one of the Neinzul buildings in time for the XP reward, and there was no way for me to get to the Spire building halfway across the map before it went down, meaning I "lost" half of the available reward and almost lost all of it for those two buildings. Since this is the first scenario, it takes far too long to repel the enemy ships (in my view) as it is, so the sooner I can level up the sooner I can actually finish the scenario.

Is this intentional? It seems that this scenario is intended to mirror MOBA games, with these base buildings serving as the "towers." In MOBA, though, the player is generally not intended to take on the towers, instead choosing to keep their creeps safe so the creeps can take down the towers. As a result, the XP reward for the towers is given to the player regardless of how close the player is when the tower goes down.

Would it be possible to ensure that the champ receives the XP reward for these buildings, even if they had to go back for repairs or to kill the ships attacking one of the Zenith buildings? I'm thinking something like an "always reward XP" flag for those buildings, though of course there would be several ways to implement it. I'd also think such a flag would also be worthwhile for a few other buildings, like the command center, though that may be deemed too game-breaking / exploitable.

Alternately, am I being too OCD about it? Is the player expected to not get all of the possible XP from that scenario? Worst-case situation, should the player not expect to receive any of the XP for the buildings (due to slow travel time + spending most of the effort killing enemy ships)? What is the "balance point" (as much as XP gain can be balanced) for the scenario?

As a side note, somewhat asking for a spoiler, but does the number of buildings that survive affect the rewards from the scenario? Or am I being too OCD about that as well?

[Mánagarmr]

If this is the case, it honestly need to be changed so that everyone in the Nebula at the time gets the bonus, otherwise it's a little bit silly.

[Wingflier]

If this is the case, it honestly need to be changed so that everyone in the Nebula at the time gets the bonus, otherwise it's a little bit silly.

Seconded.

[contingencyplan]

Double-checked, and yeah, the buildings don't give XP unless you're close enough. Save attached --- nebula is Mikzing (Mixing? ), up-right of the center of the circle. Let the champ continue on its merry; when the Neinzul large starbase goes up, no XP change occurs.


Additional note: checking the patch notes, the XP-get range is 20k (unless it has been changed and I didn't see it). It's worth noting that 20k is less than the range of the two large starbases (not sure about the smaller ones), meaning that to get XP from them, you have to put your champ at risk of a quick death, which seems a bit perverse for a risk-reward mechanic.


Edit: Just read the transcript for killing the Neinzul base first. The "As your own poets have said..." bit is a nice touch.

[contingencyplan]

As a related question, is it intended for nebulae to spawn on AI Homeworlds? If you send scouts to the lower concentric circle cluster, you will find one of the AI Homeworlds, with a nebula wormhole on it.

[Cinth]

I actually tried to get the "XP gather" range increased in the beta.

Really the biggest reward comes from completion of the scenarios. It's possible to net up to 5 (most I've seen at the highest end) levels. During the fight, I might get 2 levels worth. Focus on your strategy and completing it quicker to increase your rewards .

Also, don't be afraid to beat on the AI some to gain your first few levels that way. Walking into your first scenario with MK II modules is a pretty big boost in firepower and can help increase your potential rewards on completion.

On the Gather Range... remember the radar jammer effect in the nebula. Everything (I'm sure the bases are included) has half its listed range. A base would need a range of 40k to put the champ in harms way at the edges of the gather range.

As a related question, is it intended for nebulae to spawn on AI Homeworlds? If you send scouts to the lower concentric circle cluster, you will find one of the AI Homeworlds, with a nebula wormhole on it.

Just going to parrot what has already been said about this one.

The nebula seed before anything else. So a nebula seeding on an AI homeworld is pretty much rng.

[contingencyplan]

I actually tried to get the "XP gather" range increased in the beta.

Really the biggest reward comes from completion of the scenarios. It's possible to net up to 5 (most I've seen at the highest end) levels. During the fight, I might get 2 levels worth. Focus on your strategy and completing it quicker to increase your rewards .

Also, don't be afraid to beat on the AI some to gain your first few levels that way. Walking into your first scenario with MK II modules is a pretty big boost in firepower and can help increase your potential rewards on completion.

On the Gather Range... remember the radar jammer effect in the nebula. Everything (I'm sure the bases are included) has half its listed range. A base would need a range of 40k to put the champ in harms way at the edges of the gather range.

I think I'm gonna try that on a retry of the above game (8HW Hives took that "be fruitful and multiply" idea and RAN with it), to make the first mission easier.

And yeah, I'd forgotten about the radar jamming thing, so that makes things a fairer.

As far as the XP range, would it really be so bad to basically set that range to infinity (i.e., just automatically collect all XP based on deaths in the grav well)? The only reason I can see not to (aside from perhaps having to rebalance the numbers) is that it permits the strategy of just parking the champ and gleaning XP.

• From my limited experience and understanding of the scenarios, if the player does not get his champion involved, then the scenario will end in failure. Thus, parking the champ is really not an option; an "infinite" range actually simplifies matters by letting the Player focus on winning the scenario rather than maximizing his XP / min by micromanaging his champion's position.
• For non-nebula situations, it's more feasible to park the champion and let the fleet do the killing, but from what I can tell, the XP gain is minor for the command center and guard posts, so it makes sense to get the champion involved to kill stuff faster (increasing XP / min). It also helps things by avoiding the "no don't kill that yet!" OCD fodder (at least for me).

The camping is the only downside I can see offhand, but perhaps someone with a more cheddar-fueled brain can see some other exploit. Perhaps it really has an effect with mulit-champ games?

As a related question, is it intended for nebulae to spawn on AI Homeworlds? If you send scouts to the lower concentric circle cluster, you will find one of the AI Homeworlds, with a nebula wormhole on it.

Just going to parrot what has already been said about this one.

The nebula seed before anything else. So a nebula seeding on an AI homeworld is pretty much rng.

Ah, yeah, I remember seeing that now. Maybe it would be possible to add "don't spawn the homeworld on a nebula connection" to the post-start seeding logic?

[Cinth]

If I recall correctly the target level for where your champs should be after 9 scenarios is around 45-50. That is an average of 5-5.5 levels gained per scenario. If you make it easier for champs to gain xp, then it stands to reason we will end up having more points to spend and Keith would probably revert the module cost change.

On another note, the limited range promotes working together of multiple champs in a nebula to accomplish the goal. If the range was practically unlimited, then there is nothing stopping someone in a multiplayer game form leeching xp or, parking champions in a corner of a planet and wiping the system clean with your normal fleet. The way it is now, champs have to work for the xp or be close enough to be considered a participant.

To me the seeding is fine (opinion). It works both ways. You could end up with all of them mostly in your corner of the galaxy. It keeps new games from being the same ol' same ol'. Praise variety and curse you luck when they seed on the other side. 

[keith.lamothe]

The xp-gaining range is more than it used to be, but sure, I can just go ahead and remove the range check so you get the XP if you're in the nebula (or planet, when you're killing guard posts and command stations) at the time.

But yea, probably too OCD, since most of the XP you gain is from winning the scenario (which you get regardless of where you are in the galaxy), not from the kills   This is particularly true later on, as the win-scenario rewards scale up (sub-linearly, relative to what's needed to level) with your level, where the kill-rewards do not.

[Mánagarmr]

I only see the range limit as increasing micro and OCD. Why was it included in the first place? I'm curious as to what it was supposed to prevent.

[keith.lamothe]

Mainly it was to make the decisions of "do I want my champion to get XP from killing X?" and "do I want my champion involved in the battle to kill X?" the same.  Particularly for the non-nebula stuff that gives XP.  Bringing your champion along to kill guard posts; parking it somewhere on the planet while your fleet kills guard posts is another.

But in practice, in the current implementation (the xp range limit was an early thing), I don't see why someone wouldn't bring the champion in to the fight unless there were something in range that would eat it for breakfast.

[Mánagarmr]

Pretty much. The Champion is powerful enough to always be used in combo with your main fleet, unless it's off having fun in a nebula somewhere, so I don't really see that as much of a choice as a "no brainer"

[xX Eldest Xx]

By the by, that specific scenario is hard. I spent about an hour last night and two this morning reloading and trying to beat the neinzul and the dark spire. No matter what I try, the neinzul (nine-zul? or nane-zul?) bases go down first and then around 40 dark spire swarm the zenith. The best I've managed so far is to to drop both the satellite bases and have the main down to about 52% before the swarming occurs.

Any advice?

[keith.lamothe]

Any advice?

On offense: get good at shepherding allied frigates (the things that kill starbases fastest) by using mlrs (or other anti-medium) modules to kill the enemy stuff that is particularly good at killing the allied frigates, and by dropping projected shields to protect them from enemy starbase and other fire.  The mlrs part may not be as applicable to the dark spire enemies since they are less hull-type-specific in their damage.

On defense: use needler (or other anti-light) modules to kill the enemy frigates fast.  Taking a human champ can help here because that one's main gun is anti-light, and the main gun is something like 18 times as powerful as an individual light module of the same mark (1 for frigate, 2 for destroyer, etc).  Drop projected shields on the allied starbase under fire.  At the same time, the more the enemies are within the base's range the faster those ships will die and the more of your ships will survive.

More generally: which ships are giving you the most trouble?  It may actually be the dark spire command ships (that fire siege plasma), in which case bringing laser (or other anti-heavy) modules will help kill them fast.

And if your champion is a bit bigger, Dark Spire bases are the easiest to take solo because you can micro-move your champion around to take much less damage from the photon lances.  Very risky, though.  If you try, try to bring as much anti-ultra-heavy (missiles work, as do polarizer and IRE modules on the light side if you have them, and to some degree Doom Accelerators) as you can.

[KDR_11k]

It may actually be the dark spire command ships (that fire siege plasma), in which case bringing laser (or other anti-heavy) modules will help kill them fast.

For very slow values of "fast". A Shadow Frigate mounting six MkII lasers needs like 5 volleys to destroy ONE command ship and there are like three per wave.