So, this whole crystal thing

[orzelek]

Can we start from original idea with lets say 3 difficulty levels:
1. Easy - no delays after mine loss and AI pretends to don't see it.
2. Medium - AI gets a bit more annoyed after it destroyed the mine for 1 hour and you can't rebuild the mine.
3. Hard - when mine is lost it's gone. For the thrill seekers around here.

And lets see how it will end up. With small enough cap vs units costs you could prevent the extreme hoarding approach... I think. All the rest would be in the cost vs resource availability balance.

[Wingflier]

I still think having a minor faction respond in a "hacking" fashion doesn't fall into either "while netflix is downloading" or "more AI treadmill stuff" category.

I agree with this.

Keith, you don't want to make the resource finite like Knowledge, and you don't want it to be infinite either because then people can just AFK without any consequence.

The Cynetic suggestion elegantly solves both of those problems. Oh, feel free to afk and harvest Cynetic. But when you lose that planet you've been harvesting from for 3 hours, expect a helluva fight.

You make it sound like it would be overly complex but it's not.  It's not more complex than the current ARS Hacking mechanics.  The game would even tell you at the top left what the AI's response would be just like for ARS Hacking attempts:

AI's expected response to more Cynetic Hacking on Planet Murdoch:  Low.
AI's expected response to more Cynetic Hacking on Planet Earth: High.

The type of Stronghold build would depend on the amount of Cynetic Hacked from the planet in question, with an AI Progress multiplier.  So, for example, each "Tier" of Stronghold would have a threshold of Cynetic hacked.  Say it's 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000. When you cross this threshold, you get the nastier Strongholds. AIP simply acts like a multiplier. Reaching 100 AIP means it's a 1.0x multiplier, anything below 100 AIP lowers the multiplier.  150 AIP may be like a 1.25x multiplier etc. These determine your total "Stronghold" score, which determines what type of Stronghold the AI will build, and how quickly they will build Guard Posts on the taken planet.

The problem I have with just a "Increase AI Fleet Size" suggestion is that, well, primarily it's boring. We already have a number of mechanics which already do that. Plus we tried that with Champions, and quite frankly, it didn't work. For some players it was making the game unnecessarily hard, for others, it seemed to make no difference at all. And besides that, it's an "invisible" mechanic. If we're going to make this new "resource" mechanic something powerful, then the player should directly realize the consequence of mining it, because that's more fun.

And when you think about it, if the only thing the new "Crystal" is doing is making your defenses about 10% stronger (with the Military Builder), but also making the AI 10% stronger overall...then haven't you basically accomplished nothing? Those two mechanics just cancel each other out which makes using the entire thing pointless. I would just avoid it altogether.

With the Cynetic mechanic, you have the ABILITY as the player to ONLY benefit from the new resource for the entire game. It is UP TO YOU how powerful it is. But on the flip side, it can also cause you to lose the game if you become too greedy. It isn't just a convergence of factors that cancel each other out, it is under the player's control, and adds a whole new layer of strategy to the game.

[Wingflier]

Can we start from original idea with lets say 3 difficulty levels:
1. Easy - no delays after mine loss and AI pretends to don't see it.
2. Medium - AI gets a bit more annoyed after it destroyed the mine for 1 hour and you can't rebuild the mine.
3. Hard - when mine is lost it's gone. For the thrill seekers around here.

And lets see how it will end up. With small enough cap vs units costs you could prevent the extreme hoarding approach... I think. All the rest would be in the cost vs resource availability balance.

As Keith said, nothing preventing the player from just harvesting it for hours on Netflix til he hits the cap, then self-destructing the mine himself so that he takes no penalty.

[Cinth]

@ Keith: I would be cool with a small flat AI bonus strength per mine and the bonus strength when it gets popped.  I kinda like the FS shipyard mechanic where the more yards you have the more you can build (type wise not just caps).  Something along the lines of moving to unlock a small mobile fleet or a big nasty.
You get the AIP penalty if you want to unlock the shiny stuff.

Bear in mind that taking the planet the crystal source is on already costs AIP.

I mentioned that on the last line
The bonus to AI strength doesn't have to be large individually for each mine.  One or two could be relatively trivial (not including the AIP which has its own counters).  Maybe a 2.5% overall passive (hard cap) and a 2.5% for popping.  AIP can be reduced through normal means so one or two planets should be detrimental for the 10/10 crowd

@Wingflier: I think it is more the scope and the amount of time Keith has to invest in doing something like this over the next day or two.  I also think that the utility that we will get with "outside supply" building will be far greater than some minor increase in player firepower.  I just think that your suggestion and more minor factions seem like they are more suited to an expansion so there is more time to iterate, and Keith will have time dedicated to it.

[keith.lamothe]

then self-destructing the mine himself so that he takes no penalty.

If these had any penalty on death I don't think I'd allow scrapping them, or at least the penalty would also apply when scrapping.

@Wingflier: I think it is more the scope and the amount of time Keith has to invest in doing something like this over the next day or two.

I'm not planning on doing this for the next release, but maybe the one after.

[Vyndicu]

I still think it might encourage you to take throwaway territory and take over crystal mines and abandon it as soon you run into trouble outside of your chokehold area. If we go with by planet threat level that is.

The very reason why I suggest either mining golem or neinzual preservation is because they already exist in-game. The very reason why I went with "similar" crystal mining hacking respond is the mechanic for it is already in place and in use. I don't know what kind of work that might entitle if we went the minor faction route. So it might be a whole lot more overhead than I thought.

What you think Keith? Up to creating a new minor faction based on existing faction for crystal mining?

[keith.lamothe]

What you think Keith? Up to creating a new minor faction based on existing faction for crystal mining?

If it needs to be that complex I don't think it's a suitable replacement for a core resource.  Metal, Energy, Knowledge... even AIP, really.  None of these are all that complex.  Crystal needs to be fairly simple too.

Also, it wouldn't really be a minor faction because it would have to always be enabled, because the lobby doesn't give you an option on whether to have a crystal section on your resource bar

[chemical_art]

then self-destructing the mine himself so that he takes no penalty.

If these had any penalty on death I don't think I'd allow scrapping them, or at least the penalty would also apply when scrapping.

You see, this is a problem for me:

If you give any penalty at death, at all, you encourage chokepoints as the most efficent method overall. It's one thing to have it passively be easier to defend the terroritory as a chokepoint, but if a chokepoint prevents the negative consequences of death while non-chokepointed effects do not, then anything involving per-planet caps seems pointless to the greater effect of avoiding the negative effects.

[Cinth]

@Wingflier: I think it is more the scope and the amount of time Keith has to invest in doing something like this over the next day or two.

I'm not planning on doing this for the next release, but maybe the one after.

I was thinking of the amount of time you might have to invest overall... presumptuous on my part, I know.

[Winge]

That leads me more in the direction of it being a "population" resource like energy where it's not harvested at all and thus can't be hoarded via netflix, or it being an "exhaustible" resource like knowledge where you can harvest it all pretty quickly but then it's gone... but I don't want to go either of those routes, as we already have resources that do those things.  Making it energy-like would be tolerable to me, but I'm hoping there's a better way.

That is my inclination as well.  In my opinion, that handles the "destructibility" argument well (you lose the cap if you lose the building, and you have to rebuild it before you can build back up to the cap), prevents Netflix Syndrome, and provides the necessary carrot for the player (more/special units, up to a point).

[Wingflier]

Well, aside from the Cynetic mechanic, the one I'm most sold on is to have it operate like "Energy" in the sense that the more nodes you have, the higher your "energy" is. But if you lose nodes, and fall below the amount of "energy" you are using, all your "Crystal" structures are disabled until you destroy some or rebuild the Crystal nodes.

If this is the way we're going to do things, I think the best punishment is that when you lose "Crystal" nodes, the AI becomes extremely aggressive for a certain period of time. After which you can rebuild the lost Crystal nodes.

I still think it's kind of a pointless mechanic, and I wouldn't personally use it (I can win the game just fine without it, it gives me more vital structures to defend, and "beachheads" on enemy planets aren't useful anymore), but if I had to accept an iteration of it that would be it.

[Hearteater]

I'm not super thrilled about getting per-planet turrets through this mechanic honestly.  It seems tedious.  Dropping 2 Mini-Forts is fast and takes minimal time.  Dealing with placement of 6ish lines of turrets is just extra tedium, especially with a special builder we need to move around.  I'm ok with the mines acting more like energy.

Previously thoughts along these lines:

* Maybe Crystal could be used to active some generically useful ability, like a Starcraft Stim Pack for fleet ships.

* Maybe Crystal Mines could power special units/structures creating a continuous expenditure rather than a one-time up-front cost:
-- Crystal Force Shield: when it takes damage you lose crystal instead.  Advantage over a normal shield is crystal can be gained even while it is under attack.
-- Worm Hole Disrupter: While powered up, consumes crystal every second, but nothing can travel through any nearby worm hole in either direction.
-- Warp Space Burrower: Temporarily becomes a one-way worm hole leading to a target system.  Costs crystal for each of your ships that travels through it and increases the more hops away it is going.  Might require a target unit to warp too, so you can just cheaply shoot scouts everywhere.
-- Crystal Warhead: Stealthed Rams that spend 1 crystal to deal X damage to the target they hit, always spending just enough Crystal to destroy their target if possible.
-- Crystal Turret: A powerful HBC-like turret, possibly with a per-system cap instead of global.  However, every shot costs Crystal.
-- Crystal Supply Depo: Generates supply in a system even if supply can't be normally be generated there.  Costs crystal/second.  Run out of crystal and you lose supply in that system.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I kind of like active abilities that you spend crystal on myself.

Rejuvinate: Cost x crystal per fleet power of each ship in selection. Any ship that is paralyzed or engine damaged or otherwise negatively affected (armor rot, gravity ripped, etc) will have the negative effects healed. Regular HP damage remains.
Overload: Overload the selected ships, causing the reload speed to be halved for most weapons. After the ability, ships cannot fire for a short time. Similar cost to above. Sustained beams cannot be overloaded, or if they can be, last half the time while causing the same damage.
Snipe: Gives all selected ships sniper range for one shot. Similar cost to above.

Basically, all ships have them, and the ability costs more crystal depending on the overall power of the ship using it... if there's a good number that works to determine that. If you have multiple ships selected, all ships use the ability and the total cost is added up for all of them. If the AI catches these kinds of abilities going on, it may get a boost to reinforcements or waves for the next pass of waves/reinforcements.
I do understand that active abilities are sort of against what the game was about in a way, but the floodgates have been opened a bit with champions and I've done my best to keep micromanagement to a minimum.

[Faulty Logic]

The more I think about it, the more I don't like this proposed change (any of them).

So what if metal and crystal are functionally identical?

I (like most AI War players) am so used to them as they are that there should be a damn good reason for a change, and the "it might be cool if x" suggestions haven't come close to that threshold.

I don't want a mandatory new set of situationally bonus/penalty structures scattered around the galaxy with no option to turn them off.

If we want some resource between materials and k, then we can include a minor faction for it. There is no reason to make this new mechanic correspond with crystal.

[_K_]

I (like most AI War players) am so used to them as they are that there should be a damn good reason for a change, and the "it might be cool if x" suggestions haven't come close to that threshold.

That is true.

People dont suggest drastic changes because these always cause serious opposition from someone and are shot down as result.

But here is one such suggestion:
So we want it to be a core resource? Fine! How about we make crystal mines increase global caps for every unit. Call it "Processing power" instead of crystals, rename crystal mines to "AI Processor", and rename CoProcessors to something else.
You start the game with 50% caps and can go all the way to 200% caps, probably not linearly though. Personally, I like stuff going exponential.

But, as you see, such change would need a quite massive rebalance, as it makes the player strength increase much more than it does right now. And a complete rebalance isnt an easy thing to do.