The AI's response to champions question...

[Faulty Logic]

The exo-response is not .2, anymore. Personally, a champion makes FS easier, because the champ excels at recovering shards.

I maintain that the current system, while imperfect, has no glaring flaws.

[chemical_art]

The exo-response is not .2, anymore. Personally, a champion makes FS easier, because the champ excels at recovering shards.

I maintain that the current system, while imperfect, has no glaring flaws.

It does? Glancing at the notes, the latest reference I get from exo waves relating to champions is

Exos now get less bonus from the presence of human Champions in the game.

    Thanks to Cinth, Faulty Logic, and others for the feedback inspiring this change.

So there, according to the notes, still a response. I'm curious what the mechanics are specifically.

[chemical_art]

I maintain that the current system, while imperfect, has no glaring flaws.

So why not work toward refinement? Keith said himself the nemesis and aip 0.2 where done for they were simple, and for the nemesis specifically he said it was really important the code was simple due to a time crunch.

So why not discuss it?

[Faulty Logic]

Discussion is fine, but your posts seem rather more strident than necessary.

I also wanted to wait for some evidence as to how hard the nemesis fleet actually is, before we declare it insufficient.

[chemical_art]

Discussion is fine, but your posts seem rather more strident than necessary.

I also wanted to wait for some evidence as to how hard the nemesis fleet actually is, before we declare it insufficient.

Sorry, just got off work. I'll go off 

But I'll say that the difficulty of the nemesis fleet and an directed offensive response are somewhat independent. One is purely defensively, I'm looking for an offensive mechanism as well.

A defensive fleet that is solely based off HW strength is boring until the very moment you are attacking the HW's, and with current game mechanics, you don't do that until you think you can win.

[Faulty Logic]

But the strength of the HW affects how much you expand, which affects AIP, and thus the champion-dependant proportional AIP increase. My current game is an extreme version of maximum-champion + minimum AIP; I'll rejoin this discussion after I finish.

I am inclined in favor of some sort of offensive boost though.

[Cinth]

Without support or a ton of really good micro (or a cheese), Champs alone will not take a HW on the first go. Also, if your AIP isn't high enough, you won't be able to kill enough nemesis to overcome the respawn rate.

Nemesis have every module available that we do. They are going to shred the first assault or two, while you work those numbers down.

I've seen, beaten and cheesed the nemesis. It takes a bit now.

And lets not make things to frustrating for champ only players while we are at it.

[chemical_art]

For the record, I'm not looking to buff defensive nemesis in any way, shape, or form. If anything, I want a more offensive stance to compliment them. It's not an issue of using a single HW to storm the AI HW, its the journey up until you are fighting the ai hw that I am trying to examine.

[chemical_art]

For example, what if the ai launches offenses of some sort that mirror the logic of the nemesis strength. It increases when nebulae are completed by a very dramatic margin, but decrease in strength as aip raises?

That'd make getting the BB with a single planet (or two) a more...intense ride at the very least.

[Hearteater]

Each time you complete a Nebula, 25% of the Nemesis fleet is released into an Exo.  This discourages doing all Nebula at low AIP because a low AIP 0th Nebula is going to produce absolutely brutal ships.  By making it an Exo (or Exo-like) it prevents it from splitting up and being diluted.  Since it is tied to an event, the player also has some control over the timing, which means it can be a little nastier than a randomly occurring penalty.

[keith.lamothe]

I think some kind of offensive use of the nemesis ships in response to champion progress would be fine... for you guys who are already pretty good at the game   I don't know how fun it's going to be for somebody who normally plays (and only sometimes wins) 7/7 to fire up a champion game, fly around a bit, and get stomped by a Sledge Hammer AI having a temporary moonlight as a Heroic AI.

That said, it's not a binary choice between "no offensive component" and "hammertime!".  A balance could be struck, but it seems trickier to me than it appears to seem to y'all.

Fallen Spire has this happen to, in that I think a lot of gameovers happen the first time someone tries to recover a shard, or the first time they try to build a city.  But there I think there's a better sense of "I'm asking for it", at least by the time they get to the city part.

But I see the balance-tension in that if I make it easy enough on players who just want to add a hero unit, you guys will just grab the ball and run through the endzone, into the parking lot, and drive off with the AI's car

[Cinth]

Maybe trade the 20% increase in AI strength (or part of it) for the AIs own set of champion ships.

1 to 4 ships that roam the galaxy looking for player champions? Have their hull size = the max hull size the player has unlocked.

[Hearteater]

But I see the balance-tension in that if I make it easy enough on players who just want to add a hero unit, you guys will just grab the ball and run through the endzone, into the parking lot, and drive off with the AI's car

We would never.  I'm returning the AI's car that clearly someone else stole.

How about releasing 5% of the Nemisis fleet per Nebula completed.  So 1st Nebula is 5% release, so hopefully small enough to warn you that bad stuff comes your way after a nebula.  2nd Nebula releases 10%.  3% per Nebula might be better.

[Faulty Logic]

Just reporting that nemeses do their job. They wipe the floor with a battleship and 21 nebula facilities worth of starships.

I wouldn't mind some kind of offensive boost beyond the .2, but nothing major.

[keith.lamothe]

Just reporting that nemeses do their job. They wipe the floor with a battleship and 21 nebula facilities worth of starships.

The nemesis fridge has a new piece of paper proudly magnet'd to it