Author Topic: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*  (Read 1796 times)

Offline Shakura Jolithion

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Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« on: July 16, 2013, 03:44:42 pm »
I'm playing my first spire game (why did I choose to bump up to a 100 planet map for my first spire match? QQ) and a few minor things I've noticed... I've freed and taken the planets of 3 Spire Civilian Leader Outposts, yet every hour it shows 7 "+1 AIP" messages in the log (from the 7 they control), but only 2 "-3 AIP" messages while I own 3 outposts. I can't tell if the game is skipping a message or if it's genuinely not registering the 3rd leader outpost.

My 2nd problem is that with both the Riot Starships and with the Spire Shard reactor is that the default blank versions (come with no modules... which you have to pay for) are *listed* as the same price as anything with a template, when the templates should be more expensive (due to having modules already installed). Was there a change (or perhaps I never noticed) that allows for you to get these modules 'free' by building the template version instead of the blank version?

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2013, 03:52:44 pm »
I'm playing my first spire game (why did I choose to bump up to a 100 planet map for my first spire match? QQ) and a few minor things I've noticed... I've freed and taken the planets of 3 Spire Civilian Leader Outposts, yet every hour it shows 7 "+1 AIP" messages in the log (from the 7 they control), but only 2 "-3 AIP" messages while I own 3 outposts. I can't tell if the game is skipping a message or if it's genuinely not registering the 3rd leader outpost.

The civ leaders will do -3 AIP on the hour every hour (plus ~10 minutes) if they are owned by the AI, but in a neutral system.
If you capture the planet then they perform -3 AIP immediately and then once every hour after that, this will NOT be on the hour.

Offline Tridus

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2013, 04:00:11 pm »
My 2nd problem is that with both the Riot Starships and with the Spire Shard reactor is that the default blank versions (come with no modules... which you have to pay for) are *listed* as the same price as anything with a template, when the templates should be more expensive (due to having modules already installed). Was there a change (or perhaps I never noticed) that allows for you to get these modules 'free' by building the template version instead of the blank version?

The way the shard reactors work is that they build the building (for the listed cost), and then it queues up the items in the template and starts building them. So you pay the cost for the modules as the modules are being built, which happens after the shard reactor is done.

The only difference is that with the empty template, you have to tell it what to build. With the templates, the game just tells it what to build. Both start up new construction to build those things after the reactor itself is done, so the cost is the same no matter how you do it.

Offline Shakura Jolithion

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2013, 04:19:56 pm »
I'm playing my first spire game (why did I choose to bump up to a 100 planet map for my first spire match? QQ) and a few minor things I've noticed... I've freed and taken the planets of 3 Spire Civilian Leader Outposts, yet every hour it shows 7 "+1 AIP" messages in the log (from the 7 they control), but only 2 "-3 AIP" messages while I own 3 outposts. I can't tell if the game is skipping a message or if it's genuinely not registering the 3rd leader outpost.

The civ leaders will do -3 AIP on the hour every hour (plus ~10 minutes) if they are owned by the AI, but in a neutral system.
If you capture the planet then they perform -3 AIP immediately and then once every hour after that, this will NOT be on the hour.
Weird. But then why do the 2 I captured tick at teh exact same time as the AIs do, yet a third of mine won't? I definitely didn't capture them at the moment of the tick... could it be that I captured them before the first tick and that affected it somehow?

@Tridus Thanks, I thought I had seen it with combined costs shown in the build-menu before, but I guess I'm remembering wrong. Either way, good to know :)

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #4 on: July 16, 2013, 04:25:00 pm »
Weird. But then why do the 2 I captured tick at teh exact same time as the AIs do, yet a third of mine won't? I definitely didn't capture them at the moment of the tick... could it be that I captured them before the first tick and that affected it somehow?

You own all three?

Offline Aeson

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #5 on: July 16, 2013, 04:47:59 pm »
Are you certain that all three Spire Civilian Leaders remain among the living? The AI considers them to be valid targets (and according to the patch notes, they have the same priority as things like the Advanced Factory, so they should be valid targets for exo-waves and aren't likely to survive long if they aren't covered by forcefields or other defenses when AI forces hit the planet they are on) once you've taken control of the planet, and I find that I frequently lose mine if I don't make an effort to protect them with forcefields and enough defenses to repel a wave, or at least delay it until I can get a response fleet into the system to clean up. They're especially hard to keep alive if they're at a border or isolated world, or if the AI makes significant use of fleet ships or starships which ignore forcefields, or which can deal splash damage to units protected by forcefields.

Offline Shakura Jolithion

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #6 on: July 16, 2013, 05:04:43 pm »
Yes, they're all 3 definitely alive. Every exo-wave avoids the planets with the SCLs to begin with (yay controlling ingress points), but all 3 are definitely alive before and after the tick. I'm starting a new game (for a lot of other reasons) and I'll make sure to keep track of whether they function properly this time or not, and whether it's just a message log bug or I'm misunderstanding mechanics.

Offline Tridus

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #7 on: July 16, 2013, 05:05:37 pm »
Weird. But then why do the 2 I captured tick at teh exact same time as the AIs do, yet a third of mine won't? I definitely didn't capture them at the moment of the tick... could it be that I captured them before the first tick and that affected it somehow?

Did you capture them within the first hour? The SCLs are inactive for the first hour. If you capture one and then that first hour hits, the all wake up and start doing stuff, so they'll all be on the same timer. If you own it when it first starts, that'd explain the behavior. (They also behave that way if you destroy the AI command station but don't capture the system. It stays an AI unit and on the same timer, but will do the -3 when it ticks. That's undocumented beavhior, and the AI won't target those ones like it will ones you control.)

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@Tridus Thanks, I thought I had seen it with combined costs shown in the build-menu before, but I guess I'm remembering wrong. Either way, good to know :)

It's possible ships and buildings don't behave the same way with modules, I don't know. :)
« Last Edit: July 16, 2013, 05:08:08 pm by Tridus »

Offline Shakura Jolithion

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #8 on: July 17, 2013, 02:49:16 pm »
Did you capture them within the first hour? The SCLs are inactive for the first hour. If you capture one and then that first hour hits, the all wake up and start doing stuff, so they'll all be on the same timer. If you own it when it first starts, that'd explain the behavior. (They also behave that way if you destroy the AI command station but don't capture the system. It stays an AI unit and on the same timer, but will do the -3 when it ticks. That's undocumented beavhior, and the AI won't target those ones like it will ones you control.)
I captured the first TWO in the first hour, so that would explain it. Thanks :)
Also... I can just destroy the AI station and leave the outpost to tick safely, if I'm reading you correctly? Because that would save a lot of trouble building stations and defenses :o
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It's possible ships and buildings don't behave the same way with modules, I don't know. :)
They do, I checked and apparently just remembered wrong or something >_> Thanks for all the help everyone. Definitely no glitches then and a lot of questions answered :D

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #9 on: July 17, 2013, 02:57:03 pm »
Also... I can just destroy the AI station and leave the outpost to tick safely, if I'm reading you correctly? Because that would save a lot of trouble building stations and defenses :o

Correct.

Capturing them is of minor benefit (an additional -3 AIP).  But if you want to capture the system anyway (say, for a mark 4 factory) then there's no real downside.

Offline Shakura Jolithion

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #10 on: July 17, 2013, 09:21:01 pm »
Did a search of the forums, and couldn't find a definite answer anywhere... so on another topic, is there any way to edit the wiki or volunteer to? I feel like a few things need minor clarification/better descriptions (looking at Spirecraft ships that lose % health on jumps outside of supply- %Max Health or %Current health?), and since I have the wiki open constantly while I play for reference and other things, I figure I could help out. That, and the threads mentioning the wiki that showed up from my search are like 2 years old... >.>

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #11 on: July 17, 2013, 09:53:13 pm »
Did a search of the forums, and couldn't find a definite answer anywhere... so on another topic, is there any way to edit the wiki or volunteer to? I feel like a few things need minor clarification/better descriptions (looking at Spirecraft ships that lose % health on jumps outside of supply- %Max Health or %Current health?), and since I have the wiki open constantly while I play for reference and other things, I figure I could help out. That, and the threads mentioning the wiki that showed up from my search are like 2 years old... >.>

Wiki permissions are fairly controlled.
I can make changes, so if you PM me and let me know which pages and what they should or could say, I'll see what I can do.

Offline Bognor

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #12 on: July 17, 2013, 11:30:37 pm »
Did a search of the forums, and couldn't find a definite answer anywhere... so on another topic, is there any way to edit the wiki or volunteer to? I feel like a few things need minor clarification/better descriptions (looking at Spirecraft ships that lose % health on jumps outside of supply- %Max Health or %Current health?), and since I have the wiki open constantly while I play for reference and other things, I figure I could help out. That, and the threads mentioning the wiki that showed up from my search are like 2 years old... >.>
You can also PM TigersFan to request your own account, or write suggestions in any of the threads about the Wiki.
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Offline Diazo

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #13 on: July 18, 2013, 11:33:21 am »
Did a search of the forums, and couldn't find a definite answer anywhere... so on another topic, is there any way to edit the wiki or volunteer to? I feel like a few things need minor clarification/better descriptions (looking at Spirecraft ships that lose % health on jumps outside of supply- %Max Health or %Current health?), and since I have the wiki open constantly while I play for reference and other things, I figure I could help out. That, and the threads mentioning the wiki that showed up from my search are like 2 years old... >.>

Wiki access is pretty easy to get as long as you are posting here are the forums.

You have to get an admin to make your account for spam-prevention purposes, but posting here on the forums is usually sufficient.

I'd love to get more people involved in the wiki. I'm currently half-way through automating updating the ship stats and hoping to get that finished in the next week or two.

D.

Offline Shakura Jolithion

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Re: Spire Expansion Questions (Glitches?) *Minor Spoilers*
« Reply #14 on: July 20, 2013, 09:21:25 pm »
I'll look into helping out with the wiki, thanks :)
And on a new game, I've noticed that no matter *when* I capture the Spire Civilian Leaders (or free them), all 10 will always tick every hour on the hour, all together. Not sure what happened in my old game but not really an issue anymore one way or another :P