Something awful--let's play

[Kjara]

I just noticed a let's play happening at something awful. 

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3294565

[keith.lamothe]

Cool   I laughed at the discussion of shields and forcefields, seems like everyone has that moment

I'll try and keep an eye on that, thanks

[x4000]

Yeah, I saw that and thought it was really cool, too.

[Epsilon Plus]

Oh, that's for drawing my attention to this - I usually gloss over Let's Play unless someone directs me to it. It'll be interesting watching how this unfolds, it seems that they're all taking VASTLY different paths in research and map control than I normally would.

[keith.lamothe]

Not sure if any of the players are veterens or commenters on the DF LPs, but someone should make sure they know about the "pull the lever" cheat

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, that's for drawing my attention to this - I usually gloss over Let's Play unless someone directs me to it. It'll be interesting watching how this unfolds, it seems that they're all taking VASTLY different paths in research and map control than I normally would.

I noticed you chipping in on Riot usage over there, here's a few points of clarification for the stuff you were unsure on and a few others:

- The Riot's main gun (the one not attached to a module) can actually take engines down to 0%, but it only has 3000 range.

- The lasers have a lower "engine damage floor" (meaning the lowest % they can take engines to) than machine guns (25%/10% vs 50%/30%), as well as a longer range (20,000 vs 11,000), but the machine guns have a much higher engine dps (3 shots a second for 30/60 ed vs 4 shots per 4 seconds for 17/34 ed).  Finally, the lasers have a MUCH higher minimum-hit-percent (80 percent vs 10 percent), making them highly effective even against high-shields targets at extreme range.

- The Riot I can mount two shotguns, and if you don't need the mobile forcefields or tractors it's highly suggested because they put out a LOT more engine dps than either the mg's or the lasers.  Those ffs and tractors can be very useful in some cases; pinch-hitting as an exoshield or tractor, etc. For reference, the shotguns fire 25/49 shots per 5 seconds at 28 ed each.

- The Riot II has some mark-2 hardpoints; the mark-2 mg's, lasers, and shotguns all have significantly lower engine-damage-floors.  Also, the Riot II can mount (in its mark-2 heavy hardpoint) a Riot Tazer, which is an AOE 0.75-second paralyze that also does very light engine damage.  Multiple Riot IIs with tazers (particularly if more than one player builds them to cap) can get pretty crazy in small spaces.  FWIW, the II cannot mount a tractor.

- The Riot III can't mount a tazer, but can mount 3 Mk II mg/lasers and 2 Mk I Shotguns AND 2 Mk II Shotguns.  Basically it shreds engines with zero remorse

- Neither the Raptor nor Raider are immune to engine damage.

Anyway, tons of stats, but might be helpful if the AI is handing them their hindquarters on a Raptor

[Epsilon Plus]

Ah, thanks - I wasn't exactly able to hop onto the wiki or get in-game to check.

[keith.lamothe]

In case one of the people in the SA thread is reading this, I saw the story of the, ah, "interesting" consequences of the dyson sphere spawning in the same system as a black hole machine.  I just put a fix in for the next prerelease that when loading a game (including initial generation) will remove any black hole machines on a planet that has a dyson sphere.  Basically the intent behind the dyson is to mess things up and generally trash that chunk of the galaxy, but having a huge backlog of non-decaying dysons to be unleashed when the dyson is _liberated_ (rather than re-enslaved) was not intended

Not sure when the prerelease will become available, we're kinda focused on Tidalis work right now, and in your case it sounds like the situation is already "resolved" in that the black hole machine has already been blown to bits.

Anyway, thanks for letting us know.

Edit: by the way, we actually later removed this change and instead made the Dyson Gatlings immune to black hole machines as suggested by another player.  Silly me for not thinking of it at first.

[superking]

I think you should sticky this, it explains alot in a manner that is entertaining to read.
or even ask permission to port the entire story onto this forum to be stickied.
its reading stuff like this that makes people like us buy games  

trivia:

I hated AI war when I picked it up. played for 2 hours with a friend and quit in disgust.

I picked it up again when somebody on the TA Spring forum mentioned 'Free Ranging Defender' mode and the ball started rolling from there. knowing about that and all sorts of things would have prevented my first unhappy impression  

[superking]

also, if you read the last post, there is a possibly undesired behavior occouring on a planet containing both a diason sphere and a black hole generator

[danando]

cool stuff and lol  super king