The new hacking mechanic

[Cyborg]

I object to the warheads without interceptors.

[Wanderer]

One of the ideas I was toying around with (which comes from the non-zombie, offplanet spawns) was a possible exo-target for the spawn.  In other words, when the spawn fires up, it takes a ship from the list, lead ships it, and hands it an exo-wave goal.  This would keep you more interested in keeping anything on the planet from leaving instead of balling up in the center and letting everything come to you.

Also, off-planet spawns just got a lot more deadly exciting.

For 'which tic will be your last', it's just not fun that way.  It's a tactical/strategy game.  I don't want to go gambling in the middle of it.  The 'oh crap, do I blow it now or pray for good rolls' when you're on the edge of handling it is fine and fun, I'm still involved in the decision.  The 'alright, still have 2/3s of my fleet and.... 900 MK V ships?' is a savescum waiting to happen.  Edit: The reduction discussed for mark increases will help tremendously with that...

The reduction Hearteater and yourself are currently discussing has my full support, because my support was all-important.

One of the reasons I dislike it reacting to the hacker instead of the hacking is because you still need to 'position' the hacking equipment if you don't want to leave it sitting on the wormhole.  That's 5+ spawns that might make or break you at some point, if you ride the edge.

Raid Starships, if exo-targets are implemented, should basically always get these.  I laughed when 5 Raids flew straight at the fleet ball.  Kinda defeats the point.

For some additional guardian combos: Gravity + Artillery, Gravity + Carrier, Heavy Beam + Flak.  Toss in the new Warbirds too.  Those things just don't DIE and they chew up little fleet.  Price accordingly.

With the paralytics, just make sure it fires off THEN the spawn arrives after the warhead pulse effect, so it might affect existing ships but it won't affect the new arrivals.

[Nice Save]

With the paralytics, just make sure it fires off THEN the spawn arrives after the warhead pulse effect, so it might affect existing ships but it won't affect the new arrivals.

You mean like an EMP guardian? Are they eligible to be picked?

[Wanderer]

With the paralytics, just make sure it fires off THEN the spawn arrives after the warhead pulse effect, so it might affect existing ships but it won't affect the new arrivals.

You mean like an EMP guardian? Are they eligible to be picked?

Probably, but an EMP guardian spawned offworld would go from 'fun and possibly deadly' to 'devastating' real fast.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, as entertaining as I would find throwing EMP guardians at you as a wild roll, it could get pretty silly

Same deal with EMP (or Nuke, goodness) warheads, really.  Lightning warheads might be fair game because their overall impact isn't that great, but even there the human's general lack of tools for dealing with warheads (since the AI only uses them in one specific circumstance, and that's actually a minor faction).  I'd be more likely to have it spawn a huge mess of autobombs or something, though obviously it needs to not do that unless the AI has autobombs

[Toranth]

In contrast to all the people playing with the new Superterminal, I had my first adventure with the new hacking mechanics using the ARS hacking.  I love it!  Being able to choose ship types, even in a very limited sense, allows a lot more choice into what sort of style I want to play.  However.  I encountered something that makes me go back to what techsy730 said earlier:

If a hacking effort is done, the AI needs to stop responding to it (like the ARS has been hacked, or all knowledge gathered). This includes both spawning waves and increasing "hacking suspicion"

Why the emphasis?  Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll give you both:



What, too little?  Ok, more:


The sharped eyed amongst you will undoubtable have spotted the problem here.  That's right!  Even though it's an AI Raid, it says "Human Raid Starship"!  What, that's not it?  Oh, well, yeah, perhaps it was that 4828 Mk III Raid Starships appeared out of nowhere in approximately one tick?  Yup, that's it.

I've got the logs that I'll include below but to summarize, I was hacking my fourth ARS.  Since I was playing Fallen Spire and had already detected (but not recovered) the Core shard, I had a major fleet of Spire ships, including a Dreanaught.  i'd unlocked all the weapons and shield techs, and had spent many hours slowly tormenting the AI and playing with the new hacking mechanics.  All this meant that even the fourth ARS hack was easy.  Each spawn was about 2 dozen Core fleet ships, or Zombie Guardians.  Sometimes 8-10 Raid III starships.  All died to the Spire fleet.
While the timer was counting down, however, I went off and did other things in the universe.  When the "Success" announcement popped up, I finished what I was doing, jumped back to the ARS, and told the fleet to destroy the AI Command Station.  Total elapsed time?  A little over 10 seconds.

During that time, the AI responded to the presence of the SDHacker by triggering a new wave, using the brand-new 810,000 aggression value from having already hacked 4 ARSs.
The base strength went from 30 to 100. 
The wild roll count went from 7 to 21. 
The average result went from 100-200 strength (with a big surge reaching 700 strength) to an average of 40,000 strength, and the third (of three simultaneous spawns) having 250,000 strength.

That's a change from 20-something total Core ships per spawn to 200+ of EACH Core ship per spawn.  From 8-10 Raid IIIs up to 800-1000 Raid IIIs.  The 250,000 strength surge?  3800 Raid IIIs.
Incidentally, an entire Spire fleet lasts less than 10 seconds against a mere 937 Raid III starships.



Contents from the CounterSabotage log below.  I've included both the last few normal ARS-4 spawns, as well as the ARS-5 ones.

Code: [Select]

3/10/2012 3:40:51 PM (5.029) 27:20:00 Counter-Saboteur Spawn on Kinpan (playerNumber:9)
spawnStrength = max(1,(AIDifficulty * Handicap)) * 2.5 = 17.5
kRaidAntagonism = TotalAmountOfKnowledgeRaided * (10000/3000) = 0
kRaidAntagonism *= (8/TotalHumanPlayersThatGetKnowledgeCount) = 0
superTerminalAntagonism = TotalNumberOfSuperTerminalTicks * 1500 = 0
shipDesignHackingAntagonism = if 1 Adv Research Station hacked then 30k, if 2 hacked then 90k, if 3 270k, etc = 270000
totalHackingAntagonism = 270000
multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = max(1,(totalHackingAntagonism-80000)/160000) = 2.19
spawnStrength *= multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = 38.28
maximumNumberOfWildRolls = 1 + (totalHackingAntagonism/40000) = 7
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 38.28
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 57.42
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 114.84
wild-roll:ZombieGuardianSpawn, spawnStrength = 137.81
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 137.81
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 206.71
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 206.71
spawnedType:AIGuardianZombieV quantity:10 (strength-each:21.78)


3/10/2012 3:41:01 PM (5.029) 27:20:10 Counter-Saboteur Spawn on Kinpan (playerNumber:9)
spawnStrength = max(1,(AIDifficulty * Handicap)) * 2.5 = 17.5
kRaidAntagonism = TotalAmountOfKnowledgeRaided * (10000/3000) = 0
kRaidAntagonism *= (8/TotalHumanPlayersThatGetKnowledgeCount) = 0
superTerminalAntagonism = TotalNumberOfSuperTerminalTicks * 1500 = 0
shipDesignHackingAntagonism = if 1 Adv Research Station hacked then 30k, if 2 hacked then 90k, if 3 270k, etc = 270000
totalHackingAntagonism = 270000
multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = max(1,(totalHackingAntagonism-80000)/160000) = 2.19
spawnStrength *= multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = 38.28
maximumNumberOfWildRolls = 1 + (totalHackingAntagonism/40000) = 7
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 76.56
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 76.56
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 114.84
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 172.27
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 258.4
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 516.8
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 775.2
spawnedType:CoreBattleCruiser quantity:25 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:CoreBomber quantity:28 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:CoreFighter quantity:20 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:CoreSpireTractorPlatform quantity:19 (strength-each:33.57)


3/10/2012 3:41:12 PM (5.029) 27:20:20 Counter-Saboteur Spawn on Kinpan (playerNumber:9)
spawnStrength = max(1,(AIDifficulty * Handicap)) * 2.5 = 17.5
kRaidAntagonism = TotalAmountOfKnowledgeRaided * (10000/3000) = 0
kRaidAntagonism *= (8/TotalHumanPlayersThatGetKnowledgeCount) = 0
superTerminalAntagonism = TotalNumberOfSuperTerminalTicks * 1500 = 0
shipDesignHackingAntagonism = if 1 Adv Research Station hacked then 30k, if 2 hacked then 90k, if 3 270k, etc = 270000
totalHackingAntagonism = 270000
multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = max(1,(totalHackingAntagonism-80000)/160000) = 2.19
spawnStrength *= multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = 38.28
maximumNumberOfWildRolls = 1 + (totalHackingAntagonism/40000) = 7
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 57.42
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 114.84
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 114.84
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 114.84
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 114.84
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 114.84
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 114.84
spawnedType:CoreBattleCruiser quantity:2 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:CoreFighter quantity:2 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:CoreSpireTractorPlatform quantity:4 (strength-each:33.57)


3/10/2012 3:41:23 PM (5.029) 27:20:30 Counter-Saboteur Spawn on Kinpan (playerNumber:9)
spawnStrength = max(1,(AIDifficulty * Handicap)) * 2.5 = 17.5
kRaidAntagonism = TotalAmountOfKnowledgeRaided * (10000/3000) = 0
kRaidAntagonism *= (8/TotalHumanPlayersThatGetKnowledgeCount) = 0
superTerminalAntagonism = TotalNumberOfSuperTerminalTicks * 1500 = 0
shipDesignHackingAntagonism = if 1 Adv Research Station hacked then 30k, if 2 hacked then 90k, if 3 270k, etc = 810000
totalHackingAntagonism = 810000
multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = max(1,(totalHackingAntagonism-80000)/160000) = 5.56
spawnStrength *= multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = 97.34
maximumNumberOfWildRolls = 1 + (totalHackingAntagonism/40000) = 21
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 146.02
wild-roll:PickNeighboringAIPlanet, spawnStrength = 146.02
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 146.02
wild-roll:PickNeighboringAIPlanet, spawnStrength = 146.02
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 292.03
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 292.03
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 438.05
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 438.05
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 657.07
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 985.61
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 1478.41
wild-roll:QueueAnotherSpawnAfterThisOne, spawnStrength = 1478.41
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 2217.61
wild-roll:QueueAnotherSpawnAfterThisOne, spawnStrength = 2217.61
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 3326.42
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 3326.42
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 3326.42
wild-roll:PickNeighboringAIPlanet, spawnStrength = 3326.42
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 4989.63
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 4989.63
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 7484.44
spawnedType:CoreBattleCruiser quantity:194 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:CoreSpireTractorPlatform quantity:190 (strength-each:33.57)
spawnedType:CoreBomber quantity:182 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:CoreFighter quantity:180 (strength-each:2)

27:20:30 Counter-Saboteur Spawn on Kinpan (playerNumber:9)
spawnStrength = max(1,(AIDifficulty * Handicap)) * 2.5 = 17.5
kRaidAntagonism = TotalAmountOfKnowledgeRaided * (10000/3000) = 0
kRaidAntagonism *= (8/TotalHumanPlayersThatGetKnowledgeCount) = 0
superTerminalAntagonism = TotalNumberOfSuperTerminalTicks * 1500 = 0
shipDesignHackingAntagonism = if 1 Adv Research Station hacked then 30k, if 2 hacked then 90k, if 3 270k, etc = 810000
totalHackingAntagonism = 810000
multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = max(1,(totalHackingAntagonism-80000)/160000) = 5.56
spawnStrength *= multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = 97.34
maximumNumberOfWildRolls = 1 + (totalHackingAntagonism/40000) = 21
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 97.34
wild-roll:RaidStarshipSpawn, spawnStrength = 233.62
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 467.23
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 700.85
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 1051.27
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 1051.27
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 1051.27
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 1051.27
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 2102.54
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 2102.54
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 3153.81
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 3153.81
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 3153.81
wild-roll:PickNeighboringAIPlanet, spawnStrength = 3153.81
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 4730.71
wild-roll:PickNeighboringAIPlanet, spawnStrength = 4730.71
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 9461.42
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 14192.13
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 14192.13
wild-roll:RaidStarshipSpawn, spawnStrength = 25544.79
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 38317.18
spawnedType:RaidStarshipIII quantity:587 (strength-each:65.33)


3/10/2012 3:41:33 PM (5.029) 27:20:40 Counter-Saboteur Spawn on Kinpan (playerNumber:9)
spawnStrength = max(1,(AIDifficulty * Handicap)) * 2.5 = 17.5
kRaidAntagonism = TotalAmountOfKnowledgeRaided * (10000/3000) = 0
kRaidAntagonism *= (8/TotalHumanPlayersThatGetKnowledgeCount) = 0
superTerminalAntagonism = TotalNumberOfSuperTerminalTicks * 1500 = 0
shipDesignHackingAntagonism = if 1 Adv Research Station hacked then 30k, if 2 hacked then 90k, if 3 270k, etc = 810000
totalHackingAntagonism = 810000
multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = max(1,(totalHackingAntagonism-80000)/160000) = 5.56
spawnStrength *= multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = 97.34
maximumNumberOfWildRolls = 1 + (totalHackingAntagonism/40000) = 21
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 146.02
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 219.02
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 219.02
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 438.05
wild-roll:RaidStarshipSpawn, spawnStrength = 1051.27
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 1576.9
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 2365.36
wild-roll:PickNeighboringAIPlanet, spawnStrength = 2365.36
wild-roll:PickNeighboringAIPlanet, spawnStrength = 2365.36
wild-roll:ZombieGuardianSpawn, spawnStrength = 4257.47
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 4257.47
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 4257.47
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 4257.47
wild-roll:TachyonPulse, spawnStrength = 4257.47
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 4257.47
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 6386.2
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 9579.3
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 14368.95
wild-roll:QueueAnotherSpawnAfterThisOne, spawnStrength = 14368.95
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 21553.43
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 32330.15
spawnedType:RaidStarshipIII quantity:495 (strength-each:65.33)

27:20:40 Counter-Saboteur Spawn on Kinpan (playerNumber:9)
spawnStrength = max(1,(AIDifficulty * Handicap)) * 2.5 = 17.5
kRaidAntagonism = TotalAmountOfKnowledgeRaided * (10000/3000) = 0
kRaidAntagonism *= (8/TotalHumanPlayersThatGetKnowledgeCount) = 0
superTerminalAntagonism = TotalNumberOfSuperTerminalTicks * 1500 = 0
shipDesignHackingAntagonism = if 1 Adv Research Station hacked then 30k, if 2 hacked then 90k, if 3 270k, etc = 810000
totalHackingAntagonism = 810000
multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = max(1,(totalHackingAntagonism-80000)/160000) = 5.56
spawnStrength *= multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = 97.34
maximumNumberOfWildRolls = 1 + (totalHackingAntagonism/40000) = 21
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 194.69
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 292.03
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 292.03
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 584.06
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 876.09
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 1752.19
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 1752.19
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByTwo, spawnStrength = 3504.38
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 3504.38
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 5256.56
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 7884.84
wild-roll:PickNeighboringAIPlanet, spawnStrength = 7884.84
wild-roll:PickNeighboringAIPlanet, spawnStrength = 7884.84
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 7884.84
wild-roll:InnocuousRoll, spawnStrength = 7884.84
wild-roll:RaidStarshipSpawn, spawnStrength = 18922.85
wild-roll:ZombieGuardianSpawn, spawnStrength = 34059.75
wild-roll:ZombieGuardianSpawn, spawnStrength = 61305.06
wild-roll:ZombieGuardianSpawn, spawnStrength = 110344.62
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 165516.93
wild-roll:MultiplySpawnSizeByOneAndAHalf, spawnStrength = 248275.39
spawnedType:RaidStarshipIII quantity:3801 (strength-each:65.33)

I've kept the logs in entirety, plus several saves, in case you wish to review them.

[chemical_art]

lol

lol

lol

Yes, that does highlight a problem, doesn't it?

I'm surprised golems aren't in the rolls to prevent thousands of starships from being formed. Same for H/K's.

...


So on a 8 hw game, maybe someone could hack that 5th station.

Maybe then you could have a Motherships spwaned when you have the next wave after the 5th hack >.<

[keith.lamothe]

Thanks for the report of it giving them human raid starships, will fix that



...



Ok, just kidding.  Well, I will fix that.  But the main thing isn't that it keeps spawning after the hacking is done (though that did bring this to light due to how SD-hacking applies its antagonism), the main thing is that the multiplicative rolls need to add x% of the pre-rolls strength, not x% of the current already-multiplied strength, or we just get into arithmetic overflow territory before too long (and the player's been hosed with 4000 raid starships significantly before then).  The actual "x" in the x% above probably needs to increase to compensate, but right now as the number of rolls goes up it's just a multiplicative disaster waiting to happen

[clone]

I just pulled off my first ship design hack.  This is a really fun new mechanic.

[Hearteater]

Yeah, but hacking antagonism needs to stop when hacking is complete or scrapping the hacker will be standard operating procedure which seems silly to encourage.

[keith.lamothe]

Yeah, but hacking antagonism needs to stop when hacking is complete or scrapping the hacker will be standard operating procedure which seems silly to encourage.

Previously knowledge raiding with the stationary stations kind of necessarily involved scrapping afterwards, and as it is now you could just stuff them in a transport once they were done to save the extra tick, but yea, no need to require player intervention like that; basically it's just a punishment for not being right there on the ball, etc.   So I've already changed it for 5.030 to stop when the hack is "done" (both k-h and sd-h).

[Toranth]

Yeah, but hacking antagonism needs to stop when hacking is complete or scrapping the hacker will be standard operating procedure which seems silly to encourage.

Previously knowledge raiding with the stationary stations kind of necessarily involved scrapping afterwards, and as it is now you could just stuff them in a transport once they were done to save the extra tick, but yea, no need to require player intervention like that; basically it's just a punishment for not being right there on the ball, etc.   So I've already changed it for 5.030 to stop when the hack is "done" (both k-h and sd-h).

I know I will really appreciate this.  I've played around with my little scenario many more times, and discovered that if you've moved your SDHacker around, the 10 minute terminator won't be on the same 10 second cycle that the anti-hack spawns are on.  So you could actually trigger this behavior just one second after the hack completes.

Let me show you the results of the game above:


In the end, I won.  Why?  Pure luck.  The only adjacent AI world to the ARS I was hacking had a Grav Drill on it.  I was too busy panicking yesterday to notice, but when I'd calmed down I was able to react appropriately (savescum and try something else).  Sent in my Spire fleet to defend the wormhole out to my worlds.  Speed 8 Raids in dense groups vs Spire Photon Cannons is brutal.


One of my experiments was to see what would happen to the Exogalactic fleet if it faced a 5000 Raid III spawn.  So I destroyed the Grav Drill as soon as the countdown ended, and waited to see what would happen.  Answer - The humans lose.  The AI crushed the initial Spire fleet, then proceeded to destroy everything between it and my homeworld.  Without the Grav Drill holding them in place, each Spire grouping was equal to fewer than 500 Raids.
Unfortunately, there were no more ARSs in the universe, or I would have tried to see what the sixth hack spawns look like.  I wonder, maybe if I... 

Finally, by the fourth hack, every spawn was either Spire Tractor Platforms (probably the most expensive ship the AI had unlocked), Zombie Guardians, or Raid Starships.  By the fifth hack, the Tractor Platforms weren't appearing anymore.  Everything was either Zombies or Raids, and almost all spawns were off-world.  How hard would it be to get a little more variety in the spawns?

[keith.lamothe]

Speed 8 Raids in dense groups vs Spire Photon Cannons is brutal.

Oh goodness.  That's like dynamiting fish in a bucket.  A pretty sweet defensive setup for killing, well, anything that you can outrange

One of my experiments was to see what would happen to the Exogalactic fleet if it faced a 5000 Raid III spawn.  So I destroyed the Grav Drill as soon as the countdown ended, and waited to see what would happen.  Answer - The humans lose.  The AI crushed the initial Spire fleet, then proceeded to destroy everything between it and my homeworld.

Singing "Base Game Ships FTW!  Take that, you expansion losers!" all the way to the bank

Finally, by the fourth hack, every spawn was either Spire Tractor Platforms (probably the most expensive ship the AI had unlocked), Zombie Guardians, or Raid Starships.  By the fifth hack, the Tractor Platforms weren't appearing anymore.  Everything was either Zombies or Raids, and almost all spawns were off-world.  How hard would it be to get a little more variety in the spawns?

Not very hard, right now I'm prioritizing fixing bugs and balance problems with the new stuff, but adding more possibilities to the wild-magic table is likely to be an enduring developer pasttime

[Toranth]

Because I am incapable of leaving well enough alone...
I started up a new game for the express purpose of seeing how badly I can break the dev, er, hacking mechanic.

First off, I've found one significant bug, one basically-fatal issue, and one massive exploit.

The significant bug is that, for some reason, on my first ARS hack, the AI aggression was already at 270,000.  I'd never touched an ARS, never knowledge raided, and did not use the SuperTerminal.  Despite this, the first spawn of the first ARS hack showed "shipDesignHackingAntagonism = 270000".
Mantis report:  AI Ship Design Hacking Antagonism starts at 270,000

The basically-fatal issue is that when the aggression would exceed 810,000 (after the fourth hack was complete) anything I attempted that would have caused a hacking reaction (Hacking the fifth ARS, K-raiding, or using the SuperTerminal) caused the game to hang.  The process pegged one processor, and just chugged.  I let it run an hour or so, and it did not recover.  I'll try letting it run overnight, see what happens.  In the meantime, I had to kill the AIWar process to get anything done.
Mantis report:  Hacking when existing aggrevation exceeds 810,000 causes AI War to hang

And the massive exploit (which I was tempted not to reveal yet) is that ARS hacking does not seem to have any sort of check to see if you are hacking multiple ARSs simultaneously.  Even with the absurd spawns and the hang bug and everything, I was able to hack all five ARSs in this game by doing it at the same time.  Had to be REAL careful to make sure they all finished within one spawn-cycle, though, or the hang-issue got me (AI counter-hack?).

I've attached some saves and logs in Mantis.



And now, the adventure of the Fifth Hack, in pictures!

First, the setup:


So, what was I using to defend the SDHacker?  Well, everything.  By which I mean, EVERYTHING.  All triangle fleet ships up to Mk IV plus Blade Spawners up to Mk V.  All starships up to Mk III.  A full cap of Fortresses, Mk I through III.  2 Cursed Golems, 1 Armored Golem, 1 Black Widow Golem, 2 Artillery Golems, 1 Hive Golem, and 1 Regenerator Golem.  A full cap of all turrents Mk I to III and HBC IV.  Plus, 40 Spire Shipyards worth of Spire ships:  164 Spire Frigates, 40 Destroyers, 20 Cruisers, 10 Battleships, and 5 Dreadnaughts.  All Spire techs unlocked.  Two Zenith Reserves (a Mk I and a Mk IV) worth of ships.  A Full cap of MRS, Zenith Spacetime Manipulators, most of a full cap of engineers, remains rebuilders, warp gates to send new ships back in, output from several Fabricators, etc, etc, etc.

Then, when all was ready, I brought in the Ship Design Hacker.
And all heck broke loose.

Here's a picture of what I saw 5 minutes in:

Lot of pressure there, but I'm handling it.  Beginning to get a little bit of a fringe around the edge of my Grav Turret range.
Here's 1 minute remaining:



The fringe is quite pronounced here.  Still, only one minute to go!


Success!  But can I survive the aftermath?



Yes, we can!  Or, at least, the small number of survivors can.
What did I lose?

22 Spire frigates
7 Destroyers
9 Cruisers
1 Battleship
50% or so of the full Mk 1 to 4 caps of triangle ships.
Almost all of all starships.
1000+ turrets
20 forcefields
0 blade spawners

And what did I face during this hack?


Now, if you remember, there was just one spawn earlier where I reported almost 5000 Raid IIIs.  Yet, this time, there were fewer than 7000 total in 10 minutes? 
Yup, that's right.  This was a sandbox game.  I was facing 1/1 AIs.  The base spawn strength of the 7.6 AI I was facing before was 19.  The base spawn strength of the 1/1 AIs is 2.5.  So, to get an accurate picture of what, say, an 8/8 player would face attempting this, multiply the number of enemy units shown by 10.


In conclusion?  The answer is that NO, it is not possible to hack five ARSs, or K-raid 30 planets, or ride the SuperTerminal down for 500 AIP reduction.  No.  Not under any reasonable cicumstances.  Not even in most unreasonable ones.  8 homeworlds?  Even if the AI doesn't get you, your melting processor will.  The surges where I was getting 500 Raid IIIs in 1/1?  On 8/8 with 8 HW, that'd be about 40,000 Raid IIIs.  On Ultra-Low caps, that's still 10,000 ships.

[Eternaly_Lost]

Because I am incapable of leaving well enough alone...
And the massive exploit (which I was tempted not to reveal yet) is that ARS hacking does not seem to have any sort of check to see if you are hacking multiple ARSs simultaneously.  Even with the absurd spawns and the hang bug and everything, I was able to hack all five ARSs in this game by doing it at the same time.  Had to be REAL careful to make sure they all finished within one spawn-cycle, though, or the hang-issue got me (AI counter-hack?).

Personally, I feel that if you can manage and split your forces to hack 5 different planets at the same time, you can get all 5 of them. That is not a small effort to pull out after all.