Super-Terminal 'Re-Balancing'

[Draco18s]

So wait, you're saying that TF pyro is actually you, Keith?

[map66]

Yeah, I'm assuming the Super-Terminal isn't WASD at the moment, and a decimal place slipped somewhere or other in it.   I just tried to take one down, and ended up with a response of 51 million AI ships (seemingly all carriers) in the system by the time the game hard crashed.  Guess I'll have to bypass that system...

[Faulty Logic]

a decimal place slipped somewhere or other in it.

Even if that was the case, I really like the Superterminal the way it is. Yes, it can kill you with the slightest mistake. That's how it should be.

[Teal_Blue]

Appropriate response sounds fine. I'm not so sure hard crashes are though. Isn't there a way to gate numbers and display them, but side step the whole lockup thing? Maybe a sort of approximate ship display well under the crash threshold and a display of the summary numbers?

While it is thematically cool to see everything sort of go bye bye, locking up my system is not cool at all.

-Teal

[TechSY730]

Appropriate response sounds fine. I'm not so sure hard crashes are though. Isn't there a way to gate numbers and display them, but side step the whole lockup thing? Maybe a sort of approximate ship display well under the crash threshold and a display of the summary numbers?

While it is thematically cool to see everything sort of go bye bye, locking up my system is not cool at all.

-Teal

Carriers already sort of do that given that the units in them don't actually "exist" until they are deployed.

Maybe the solution is to allow carriers of carriers? (I'm joking of course).

More practically, maybe improving the "globbing" stat computation of carriers (a more memory efficient way to track strength of their contained units) and increasing how many units can be in a carrier if the number of units are that huge? (like, still prefer 2000 per carrier, but allow more if something REALLY BIG is coming in)

[Kahuna]

Yeah what's with this?

EDIT:
Added another screenshot
Even if I could destroy all of that with a full caps of all Lightning Warheads it wouldn't be worth it. That threat is from hacking the SuperTerminal for 66 AIP reduction. Using those Warheads would cost 36 AIP. ~45000 threat for -30 AIP isn't worth it.

So the best option is to hack the SuperTerminal for 30 AIP reduction and then destroy it.
SuperTerminal= -30 AIP

[keith.lamothe]

On 10/10 it's extremely nasty, yea.  On lower difficulties it's easier to get somewhat more reduction out of it (similar to how data centers and coprocessors give less reduction on higher difficulties).

[Kahuna]

Actually..
SuperTerminal might not need rebalancing after all. In that screenshot I had hacked the SuperTerminal for 66 AIP reduction and I had 143 Hacking Points when I started hacking. If I had.. lets say 250 Hacking Points.. it might be worth it to hack the SuperTerminal for over a hundred AIP reduction.. maybe even something like 150 AIP reduction and then just nuke the threat for a total of 100 AIP reduction. All or at least vast majority of the threat should be on the same planet so I could get all of them with one nuke though.

Maybe I'll try this at some point.. it would be the first time I use a nuke in this game.
This would be even easier on lower difficulty levels. On low difficulty levels Lightning Warheads might be enough.

[RockyBst]

Until it starts spawning Mk V threat ships, of course. They're still nuke immune, right?

[Hearteater]

I find it really odd that ST don't cost hacking points.

[Kahuna]

I find it really odd that ST don't cost hacking points.

It does cost hacking points.

[Kahuna]

Until it starts spawning Mk V threat ships, of course. They're still nuke immune, right?

In the game those screenshots are taken from it already did spawn Mark V ships and yes they are immune to nuke. But if they're in Carriers.. like they almost always are.. they can be nuked.

[Hearteater]

I find it really odd that ST don't cost hacking points.

It does cost hacking points.

I hacked a ST next to my home system on 10/10. At no point did the number under "Hacking" change. It is listed as "13 HP spent on ST" in the tooltip, but however the math works out, I also gained exactly 13 HP by hacking the ST. That means it effectively doesn't cost HP.

[Kahuna]

I find it really odd that ST don't cost hacking points.

It does cost hacking points.

I hacked a ST next to my home system on 10/10. At no point did the number under "Hacking" change. It is listed as "13 HP spent on ST" in the tooltip, but however the math works out, I also gained exactly 13 HP by hacking the ST. That means it effectively doesn't cost HP.

I just tried hacking the SuperTerminal again.. and this time it didn't cost any HP. Strange. As you can see in the screenshots I posted earlier.. in the first screenshot I have 154 HP and in the next screenshot I have only 7. The only thing I did between those screenshots was hacking the SuperTerminal. Aka the first time it did cost HP. For some reason this time it didn't. This needs to be investigated.

It seems like it only starts costing HP when the response gets strong enough. Which is weird.

EDIT: Added a screenshots. It says I've spent 23 HP on hacking the SuperTerminal.. yet I still have the same 162 HP. Maybe it actually charges the HPs after a certain amount of time or something.

[keith.lamothe]

Iirc it costs 1 HaP per tick for the first X ticks (I don't recall the precise value of X, possibly 20) then 1.5 per tick for the next X after that, then 2.25 per tick for the next X after that, etc.

You also gain 1 HaP per tick because you gain 1 AIP per tick (and also lose 2 AIP per tick, giving a net of -1 but a positive effect on the floor).

The first X ticks still cost HaP in the sense that if you'd gained that AIP in some other way you'd be gaining HaP, not just holding steady on it.