Author Topic: Super terminal  (Read 7807 times)

Offline Wingsofdomain

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Super terminal
« on: August 28, 2011, 01:28:17 pm »
Wtflipp? Are the supposed to work like this?

Reduces aip with 1 but increases aip floor by 0.2 and sends a "wave" each time. So the effective aip will be (aiptotal-aipfloor)/4. But it continues to spawn ships even when I've hit the floor? Whats that good for? I thought it would onnly spawn ships WHEN it actually DOES REDUCE AIP as the tooltip says. If I don't wanna have my whole fleet all the time (it sends core ships after awhile) at that planet shall I blow up the terminal then?

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2011, 01:30:14 pm »
The additional AIP reduction beyond the floor is basically "stored" and applied to future AIP increases, from the player perspective.
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Offline Wingsofdomain

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2011, 02:08:14 pm »
The additional AIP reduction beyond the floor is basically "stored" and applied to future AIP increases, from the player perspective.
wiat so there is a reason to keep it even if it doesn't visually reduce any aip? so... does it ever stop sending ships?

Offline Gudamor

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2011, 02:14:29 pm »
Destroy your command center and the terminal stops producing ships. You can rebuild the command center later when you need reductions to start again.

Offline Ranakastrasz

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2011, 02:20:52 pm »
It does visually reduce AIP. Look at the tooltip for the AIP meter. It will have a value called AIP reduction. That will continue going up as long as you hold it. Also, there is a nice equation that explains the effective AIP.

Floor = Base AIP*0.2

AIP = Base AIP-Reduction, Unless AIP-Reduction < Florr, In which case AIp = Floor

This means that the AIP reduction is not wasted. If you have surpluss AIP reduction, it will be *used* to reduce the rate of AIP increase by 80%.

Offline x4000

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2011, 03:24:01 pm »
Yep, it's never a waste unless you are at a stage of the game where you are already at the floor and will have no more aip increases before game over. That would only be if you are somehow at the aip floor after killing one ai and being in position to kill the next without taking any more planets.
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Offline Wingsofdomain

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #6 on: August 29, 2011, 01:17:13 pm »
The planet is the middle of a cross which leads to a core planet so I can't just leave it :P. although I am not ready to attack the core planet so I could leave the planet umpopulated until I am. But that thing never stops sending ships? Whats the point? 100 core ships every 15 sec, are you supposed to blow it up or leave the planet, or are you supposed to actually defend yourself from those waves?

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #7 on: August 29, 2011, 01:21:30 pm »
But that thing never stops sending ships? Whats the point? 100 core ships every 15 sec, are you supposed to blow it up or leave the planet, or are you supposed to actually defend yourself from those waves?
Some players have managed to permanently hold it off, and still be able to do other things.  But yes, it's supposed to overwhelm you to the point that you need to destroy it.  Honestly I think the "leave the planet and come back and reactivate" isn't intended, but I'd have to ask Chris.  Not that it should keep spawning ships indefinitely if you lose the planet (though, maybe... bwahahaha), but I thought it was supposed to be a "one-use" thing.
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Offline Wingsofdomain

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #8 on: August 29, 2011, 01:26:32 pm »
But that thing never stops sending ships? Whats the point? 100 core ships every 15 sec, are you supposed to blow it up or leave the planet, or are you supposed to actually defend yourself from those waves?
Some players have managed to permanently hold it off, and still be able to do other things.
Playing AI wars really reminds me how bad I am at RTS.

Bah I will destroy it... I am already playing the game on such an easy diff.

One thing the terminal did for sure thought was increasing my kill/loss ratio ^^'

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #9 on: August 29, 2011, 01:39:57 pm »
But that thing never stops sending ships? Whats the point? 100 core ships every 15 sec, are you supposed to blow it up or leave the planet, or are you supposed to actually defend yourself from those waves?
Some players have managed to permanently hold it off, and still be able to do other things.
Playing AI wars really reminds me how bad I am at RTS.
The strategies I've seen for holding off the super terminal indefinitely tend to have more to do with just piling a _ton_ of stuff on the planet, high tech, maybe some spire capital ships, etc.  Just overwhelming force.  Not a lot of skill :)
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Offline Commiesalami

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #10 on: August 29, 2011, 01:46:00 pm »
I never considered destroying my command center to stop the flow (I just though they terminal kept on doing its thing), but I think that is a loophole which should be closed up.

A quick fix would be to make it so the super-terminal self destruct when a human command station is destroyed like a colony ship. 

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #11 on: August 29, 2011, 01:50:02 pm »
A quick fix would be to make it so the super-terminal self destruct when a human command station is destroyed like a colony ship.
Yea, that would probably be the polite thing to do.  But what I actually want to do is make it so that it just keeps spawning them if there's no AI command station ;)  You lose the planet, you better kill that terminal quick or you're likely to lose the game, etc.  But that's probably a bit too mean.
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Offline Wingsofdomain

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #12 on: August 29, 2011, 03:30:58 pm »
A quick fix would be to make it so the super-terminal self destruct when a human command station is destroyed like a colony ship.
Yea, that would probably be the polite thing to do.  But what I actually want to do is make it so that it just keeps spawning them if there's no AI command station ;)  You lose the planet, you better kill that terminal quick or you're likely to lose the game, etc.  But that's probably a bit too mean.
So if you lose the cmds it will continue to spawn ships but not reduce AIP? I like your idea more even if it's mean, (it's a pretty nice gift anyway don't you think?) but it doesn't really make sense. The fact that the ships spawn by the terminal doesn't make sense either... were there <2500 hidden core ships in that terminal? The only thing that I thought made sense was that, "as long as the aip reduces the ships spawn" but making aip.reduction>total.aip doesn't xD. It's nice from a gameplay perspektive but some times it feels like I read tooltips more than actually playing :S.

You may notice that my English limits me to express what I am actually trying to say.. (<-----lol my english teacher would be proud of me if he read just that single sentence)

Offline BobTheJanitor

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #13 on: August 29, 2011, 03:42:39 pm »
Yea, that would probably be the polite thing to do.  But what I actually want to do is make it so that it just keeps spawning them if there's no AI command station ;)  You lose the planet, you better kill that terminal quick or you're likely to lose the game, etc.  But that's probably a bit too mean.

Mean indeed! There's got to be time to set up some sort of defense to have a chance to handle a superterminal. I like the chance to get your defense set up before you build your own command station and trigger it. Maybe, if it's not too hard, a set up timer? As soon as the AI comm station blows you get a warning 'super terminal activating on XX in 5:00' or something, and once it's started you can never stop it until it's destroyed. I would suggest upping the cap on spawning, if anything. I think it caps out at MkIV ships, and something like 250 every 15 seconds or something close to that. With the bigger fallen spire ships, it is possible to fight off that level of spawning indefinitely.

Offline Wingsofdomain

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Re: Super terminal
« Reply #14 on: August 29, 2011, 03:57:09 pm »
Yea, that would probably be the polite thing to do.  But what I actually want to do is make it so that it just keeps spawning them if there's no AI command station ;)  You lose the planet, you better kill that terminal quick or you're likely to lose the game, etc.  But that's probably a bit too mean.

Mean indeed! There's got to be time to set up some sort of defense to have a chance to handle a superterminal. I like the chance to get your defense set up before you build your own command station and trigger it. Maybe, if it's not too hard, a set up timer? As soon as the AI comm station blows you get a warning 'super terminal activating on XX in 5:00' or something, and once it's started you can never stop it until it's destroyed. I would suggest upping the cap on spawning, if anything. I think it caps out at MkIV ships, and something like 250 every 15 seconds or something close to that. With the bigger fallen spire ships, it is possible to fight off that level of spawning indefinitely.

OR how about a simple "activate button" once it's activated you can't turn it off.

And another suggestion... how about a superterminal warp hole where the ships actually spawns (which the ai build to protect the terminal) and change the terminal to be captureable aswell as the target of the zombie ships. It would make more sense!
 -The ai doesn't wanna lose the terminal so defends it.
 -The terminal gets destroyed when it's destroyed.
....and maybe when the terminal finally blows maybe all the zombie ships goes with it...