So, Carriers....

[Solarity]

This thread has been inspired by carrier invincibility.  I'm sure at some point we have all been caught out by carriers with external protection provided by all the other enemy units in a particular system.  Keith suggested in this thread here that carriers be able to could be metamorphosed into a few more ugly ships.

My suggestion would be similar but only into one large ship with the combined health of all the units held within, or, allow the units inside the carrier to fire out as normal but once the carrier gets destroyed then all the units do as well.  Think 'ghetto gunship' from forged alliance.

[keith.lamothe]

My suggestion would be similar but only into one large ship with the combined health of all the units held within

That would involve defining a new ship type and a new mechanic whereby a ship could be created with variable health, and it would have the same attack power regardless of how many ships were in there, etc.  In short, I think we can do better than that  

, or, allow the units inside the carrier to fire out as normal but once the carrier gets destroyed then all the units do as well.

Then it would be the inverse of the above: always has the same health regardless as above, but variable attack power.  But the point is moot: the ships don't actually "exist" while inside the carrier; it just keeps a count of how many ships of each type are in there, and "reproduces" them on death.

[Cyborg]

How about all of the ships come together and form the AI version of Voltron? Pablo, we need theme music for that. Some heavy synth.

But seriously, how about just scrapping all of these cheap rules around the carrier and offsetting it with some teeth?

[keith.lamothe]

How about all of the ships come together and form the AI version of Voltron? Pablo, we need theme music for that. Some heavy synth.

I would totally go for that.  Better would be having multiple different things the AI could "cash in" a big pile of excess ships for, and you wouldn't know ahead of time which one it would do.  But for now we need to stick pretty close to existing mechanics

But seriously, how about just scrapping all of these cheap rules around the carrier and offsetting it with some teeth?

That's basically what I was suggesting: no invincibility, but if you blow it up it throws a mini-exo (with a budget similar to the total of the ships it has inside) in your face, right from its current location.  That way if you pop 20 at once it doesn't kill your machine, just you.

[Solarity]

or how about something completely different, once the AI carrier has been created and is flying its way towards your space, they will often sit around a wormhole waiting for a better chance for attack.  How about when they are sitting there adding to threat, the AI has a chance to modify the carriers building a system to system rapid transit device (you get the idea) that allows a carrier to be propelled though a wormhole at a random tangent past all the defenders at the expense of the carrier itself.

[keith.lamothe]

or how about something completely different, once the AI carrier has been created and is flying its way towards your space, they will often sit around a wormhole waiting for a better chance for attack.  How about when they are sitting there adding to threat, the AI has a chance to modify the carriers building a system to system rapid transit device (you get the idea) that allows a carrier to be propelled though a wormhole at a random tangent past all the defenders at the expense of the carrier itself.

So basically a one-shot jumpship.  That would be effective, and I periodically think of letting the AI literally "hop" over chokepoint worlds under some circumstances, but it couldn't be too common a thing or it basically invalidates much (most?) existing defensive strategies.  Basically I think people would find it way more annoying than the current situation, but I could be wrong about that.

[Solarity]

Sorry this is slightly off topic again (work is REALLY BORING) but are you guys ever going to do something like an enviromental exapnsion pack, eg asteroide fields that interact with your units / buildings, stars that expand and go to supernova, real blackholes that suck things in, solar flares etc?

[keith.lamothe]

Sorry this is slightly off topic again (work is REALLY BORING) but are you guys ever going to do something like an enviromental exapnsion pack, eg asteroide fields that interact with your units / buildings, stars that expand and go to supernova, real blackholes that suck things in, solar flares etc?

The general idea of "space weather" and environmental stuff like that is something we've thought about doing for an expansion, yes, but can't promise anything

[Solarity]

It would be awsome 

[Cyborg]

This thread does have some awesome ideas. But for a quick fix… need to fix the carrier rules. For what it's worth, I don't support planet hopping by the AI unless we get a counter.

[keith.lamothe]

But for a quick fix… need to fix the carrier rules.

Which rules, specifically?  I assume you're not talking about the rules governing when they spawn, but rather the rules relating to them in combat.  Specifically, not being able to target them while (some number of) other AI ships are around.  And/or something else?

[Wanderer]

or how about something completely different, once the AI carrier has been created and is flying its way towards your space, they will often sit around a wormhole waiting for a better chance for attack.  How about when they are sitting there adding to threat, the AI has a chance to modify the carriers building a system to system rapid transit device (you get the idea) that allows a carrier to be propelled though a wormhole at a random tangent past all the defenders at the expense of the carrier itself.

So basically a one-shot jumpship.  That would be effective, and I periodically think of letting the AI literally "hop" over chokepoint worlds under some circumstances, but it couldn't be too common a thing or it basically invalidates much (most?) existing defensive strategies.  Basically I think people would find it way more annoying than the current situation, but I could be wrong about that.

I would feel the need to try to cry in public at that one.  Talk about having to stay on the ball in regards to threat removal...  Counters can cause significant havoc trying to get defenders back to the system, I can't imagine what a 1000 ship carrier would do that could teleport and deploy in a heartbeat somewhere behind my lines.

[keith.lamothe]

I would feel the need to try to cry in public at that one.  Talk about having to stay on the ball in regards to threat removal...  Counters can cause significant havoc trying to get defenders back to the system, I can't imagine what a 1000 ship carrier would do that could teleport and deploy in a heartbeat somewhere behind my lines.

Yea, that's my thought too.  It's a mechanic that I think could be fun, but it'd have to be pretty uncommon (probably not present at all outside of an AI Plot or superweapon-minor-faction), you'd have to be able to find out it was coming, and you'd have to either know where it was going to hit (i.e. counterattacks, which we already have) or be able to stop it from happening at all.

So not really appropriate to the carrier mechanic

[zoutzakje]

But seriously, how about just scrapping all of these cheap rules around the carrier and offsetting it with some teeth?

That's basically what I was suggesting: no invincibility, but if you blow it up it throws a mini-exo (with a budget similar to the total of the ships it has inside) in your face, right from its current location.  That way if you pop 20 at once it doesn't kill your machine, just you.

As a fan of exo's (odd, right?) I really like this idea. Will make me really careful when there are multiple carriers attacking me. But I'm wondering if it would be more interesting to decide exo size by ship mark as well (for example, 100 Mk III ships in a carrier will get a slightly larger budget than 100 Mk I ships).

[keith.lamothe]

As a fan of exo's (odd, right?) I really like this idea.

I'm a fan of them too.  We thought about using something like that mechanic for carriers when carriers were first added, but didn't want to be using it everywhere.  Even here I hope we'll get something more varied eventually, but I think the current approach of carriers being literally invincible in the presence of x AI ships is... not something that should be left as-is.  Maybe if 1 out of 10 carriers spawned as a carrier that were like that, or something like that, but every single one of them being like that gets tiresome.

But I'm wondering if it would be more interesting to decide exo size by ship mark as well (for example, 100 Mk III ships in a carrier will get a slightly larger budget than 100 Mk I ships).

I would determine the budget by adding up the budget points of the actual types in the carrier (I'd have to use some reference numbers for types that are not eligible for exos, like younglings), and higher mark ships already have higher budget value than their lower mark equivalents.  Similarly, something like an Electric Bomber costs way more exo-points than a Fighter.