The early game

[Sunshine!]

Speaking of early game, I thought this screenshot might be appropriate... (keep in mind, the only thing I've sent off my planet by this point is scouts).

[keith.lamothe]

Also:
Keith and X, I have to thank you guys for being rational and understading.

Likewise.  So long as a criticism is presented in a rational and understanding way (as opposed to this-is-the-end-of-the-world-and-can-never-be-fixed), I'm quite happy to respond in a rational fashion  

Rational Ninjas

[TechSY730]

Speaking of early game, I thought this screenshot might be appropriate... (keep in mind, the only thing I've sent off my planet by this point is scouts).

That's not a screenshot, that's a save game.

[Sunshine!]

Whoops, my bad!  Here's the screenshot.  I'm not really on top of my game today.

[TechSY730]

Well, I opened up your save game and checked out what was happening (besides you getting pwned).

The devourer golem is pretty close to where you are, did he have something to do with this?

I think this game is going to need to be restarted with the same settings to see what happened to trigger this. I can try to do that, but the devs with their "magic" debugging powers can probably do better than I can.

[BobTheJanitor]

Speaking of early game

Who was speaking of the early game? Try to stay on topic! 

I definitely know the feeling of 'what the heck prompted the AI into that response?' Like my other thread about the magically appearing carriers. I get the feeling there's some weird threat generation thing going on somewhere, but I have no clue how to pinpoint it.

[TechSY730]

I definitely know the feeling of 'what the heck prompted the AI into that response?' Like my other thread about the magically appearing carriers. I get the feeling there's some weird threat generation thing going on somewhere, but I have no clue how to pinpoint it.

YES!!

I'M NOT CRAZY!!!

I thought I was the only one seeing threat from nowhere far greater than the amount that could of possibly been produced by border aggression or carriers by that point of the game.
If you look back at my posts from two weeks ago or so, you will see me continuously bringing this up.

[Draco18s]

Pirate trolls are scary. Sailing their scurvy crews on creaky old ships through the sunless seas in the forgotten bowels of the earth. A constant danger on subterranean scuba diving vacations, or so I hear.

HAHAHA! XD

Also:
Keith and X, I have to thank you guys for being rational and understading.

Likewise.  So long as a criticism is presented in a rational and understanding way (as opposed to this-is-the-end-of-the-world-and-can-never-be-fixed), I'm quite happy to respond in a rational fashion  

Rational Ninjas

I made some 9 points to things I didn't like or irritated me, only got responses from other players (one of whom accused me of getting my comeuppance because I didn't download the free demo before buying) and none from the developers.

Except that he locked that thread (because they have one megathread for reviews) and the other thread where I was "trolling."

Apparently my criticism over the tutorial not explaining core game mechanics (it'd be like AI War telling you that "the AI attacks you periodically," but not that they come through wormholes from AI controlled planets with an intact warp gate*) was unwarranted.

*Thread was a confusion over how a mechanic was presented, and when it was pointed out that the OP misunderstood the mechanic, I said, "Yes exactly, the game isn't terribly well explained to new users."

[Sunshine!]

Well, I opened up your save game and checked out what was happening (besides you getting pwned).

The devourer golem is pretty close to where you are, did he have something to do with this?

I think this game is going to need to be restarted with the same settings to see what happened to trigger this. I can try to do that, but the devs with their "magic" debugging powers can probably do better than I can.

I have no clue - I got swarmed by spire before I did anything, SSed, saved, restarted on a new seed.  Rolled a Mad Bomber and Retaliatory, so I think I'm ultimately just as screwed this game as that last game XD

Edit: Who decided it was a good idea to give a Mad Bomber a raid engine on that mk3 planet two hops from my homeworld?

Edit2: Probably the same person who decided that Shield Bearers and Muniboosters made GREAT bonus ships for a Mad Bomber

[TechSY730]

I have no clue - I got swarmed by spire before I did anything, SSed, saved, restarted on a new seed.  Rolled a Mad Bomber and Retaliatory, so I think I'm ultimately just as screwed this game as that last game XD

Edit: Who decided it was a good idea to give a Mad Bomber a raid engine on that mk3 planet two hops from my homeworld?

Edit2: Probably the same person who decided that Shield Bearers and Muniboosters made GREAT bonus ships for a Mad Bomber

Clearly, you forgot to sacrifice to the RNG god today.

[BobTheJanitor]

Apparently my criticism over the tutorial not explaining core game mechanics (it'd be like AI War telling you that "the AI attacks you periodically," but not that they come through wormholes from AI controlled planets with an intact warp gate*) was unwarranted.

*Thread was a confusion over how a mechanic was presented, and when it was pointed out that the OP misunderstood the mechanic, I said, "Yes exactly, the game isn't terribly well explained to new users."

Bad tutorials are the bane of games as a whole. It's sad how most studios seem to toss them in as an afterthought, or not at all. I'd argue that you can't have fun (or can only have very limited, surface fun) with a game that you don't understand. Why would the developers work so long to put all that stuff in there, but then not bother to give you the keys to use it?

And look at some of the games that most people would probably agree are some of the best. Like almost anything that Valve puts out. They are massively filled with tutorial elements. Of course, they are masters at this and so you never know that you're being tutored, but nonetheless by the time you finish Portal, you have learned all kinds of amazing tricks for using the portal gun. And you get them all in tiny, bite sized pieces so that you hardly notice the process. But imagine if the first 50% of portal was cut off and you start out on one of the more challenging levels with the full portal gun in hand. And the only instruction it offered was a single picture with lots of text written over it and arrows pointing everywhere. Most people wouldn't make it out of the first room, and Valve's sales would drop. Instead they start you out incredibly simply, but with lots of good voice acting, level design, and so on to keep you interested. The curve is so smooth that almost anyone can sit down and play.

That's at the far end of good tutorial. At the other end you have games that flat out fail to explain their mechanics anywhere.A small example: I enjoyed Magicka, but nowhere in the game does it ever tell you that you combine fire and water magic to make steam. They had a whole (fairly decent actually) tutorial level, but they missed out on even explaining one of the core abilities. And it doesn't help that the meteor shower spell, that comes as a bonus for early purchasers, required steam to cast. So you had legions of gamers scratching their head and saying 'what the heck is that symbol?' Bad tutorial design! I have no idea where I was going with this, so I'll quit while I'm behind.

[TechSY730]

Speaking of early game, I thought this screenshot might be appropriate... (keep in mind, the only thing I've sent off my planet by this point is scouts).

Okay, I restarted the game with the same settings, and found your problem. Those spire ships were on special forces, and unfortunately, your planet is sort of a good connector between the planet they came from and the planet they were going to.

Yes, on lower level AIs (including 7), special forces ships will try to avoid hostile planets. But they will go ahead and go through them if there is no other way or if any other way would be significantly longer. You chose a nice planet where many such pairs of planets would require a path through your home to get there within any sane number of hops.


This does raise a new issue, ships with per planet and per guard post caps (for the AI) and special forces. It seems that special forces are one way that the AI can "cheat" those limitations, and your game, poor sir, was a game the AI decided to abuse this loophole.

I don't know what can be done about this though.
Maybe prevent ships with per planet or per guard post limitations from able to be in special forces, because they have similar levels of power to starships, and starships cannot be in special forces for this very kind of reason.

[Zeyurn]

To go back to Riots for a second..  I've never expected them to do good damage so I would never want to consider fixing them by upping the DPS.  However, they USED to be really good at tearing through the engines of other ships if you kit them out with shotguns and such (I never used the tazers because I used riots to kite things to halt them all so I could pick them apart slowly later).  Now I find that Riots simply don't do this function very well at all, and their shields are completely weaksauce compared to high level Spire ships from the City Hub.

I finally got to play my first experience with the big ships from LotS and... wow.  They are freaking amazing.  Love the meteorite ships too, my wife giggles madly as she sends Martyrs everywhere and ignores me when I complain that they're limited

[TechSY730]

To go back to Riots for a second..  I've never expected them to do good damage so I would never want to consider fixing them by upping the DPS.  However, they USED to be really good at tearing through the engines of other ships if you kit them out with shotguns and such (I never used the tazers because I used riots to kite things to halt them all so I could pick them apart slowly later).  Now I find that Riots simply don't do this function very well at all, and their shields are completely weaksauce compared to high level Spire ships from the City Hub.

I finally got to play my first experience with the big ships from LotS and... wow.  They are freaking amazing.  Love the meteorite ships too, my wife giggles madly as she sends Martyrs everywhere and ignores me when I complain that they're limited

Why would they be having trouble taking out engines nowadays? Relative to when riot control starships were introduced, I know that HP generally has been scaled up massively, but hasn't engine health stayed about the same for fleet ships?

[Zeyurn]

To go back to Riots for a second..  I've never expected them to do good damage so I would never want to consider fixing them by upping the DPS.  However, they USED to be really good at tearing through the engines of other ships if you kit them out with shotguns and such (I never used the tazers because I used riots to kite things to halt them all so I could pick them apart slowly later).  Now I find that Riots simply don't do this function very well at all, and their shields are completely weaksauce compared to high level Spire ships from the City Hub.

I finally got to play my first experience with the big ships from LotS and... wow.  They are freaking amazing.  Love the meteorite ships too, my wife giggles madly as she sends Martyrs everywhere and ignores me when I complain that they're limited

Why would they be having trouble taking out engines nowadays? Relative to when riot control starships were introduced, I know that HP generally has been scaled up massively, but hasn't engine health stayed about the same for fleet ships?

There's a few reasons.  One is that everything is faster than it used to be, so there's less time (even on Epic) to take out engines before they get to where they need to go.  Two is that Riot's can't reduce to 0 engine anymore with the long range shots, only 10%.  Three is that Riot HP is miserable compared to other starships so using them and expecting them to live requires more micro.  Four is that the computer likes unlocking hyper fast things just to spite me but I'm not honestly counting that