Things I Noticed This Weekend

[corfe83]

A few bugs I've noticed while playing this weekend:

Bugs:

A) I tend to build large clusters of turrets near wormholes, and am disappointed that turrets don't shoot at astro trains automatically. I assume this is because they have tons and tons of health, but if my cluster would shoot at the trains every time they went by, for the entire game, I could knock them many millions of HP with each pass, and by the end of the game (after a number of passes, and after installing a number of Mk. III turrets at my chokepoints toward the end of the game), I may actually kill a few trains. Right now I sometimes micro this, but I'm afraid I'll never actually destroy any if it doesn't happen every time (i.e. automatically).

B) Custom star layouts (I forget the official name, but I'm talking about when I shift-click-drag stars around on the map you see by hitting "tab") work great, except that when I reload a save, it should remember if I was viewing my customized view and not the default view. I prefer to always use my custom view, and right now I have to manually go choose to view it each time I load a save.

C) Transports seem to load much slower than before. It used to be, if my transport was stationary, I could unload all 200 ships in a transport, let the ships' auto-fire take out a few targets, and then load the transport back up almost instantly. Now the transport seems to need to linger for a while, for all the ships to load back up. It seems when this happens, a number of ships are right there on top of the middle of the transport, they just don't go in for a few seconds, like they're all at the right spot, but only a few can go in at a time. Was this an intentional change, or is it a bug?

Other comments:
1) I love the new command stations, the mineral harvester upgrades, and heavy beam cannons (even though these have been in a while)! These all rock!

2) I've embarrassed to say I've never beat a game of AI War yet, as I usually lazily try to conquer too many systems at the beginning without enough defense, but I'm actually being careful this time, and am playing a game now which looks like it could become a success. I'm looking forward to trying the new revamped endgame.

[keith.lamothe]

A) I tend to build large clusters of turrets near wormholes, and am disappointed that turrets don't shoot at astro trains automatically. I assume this is because they have tons and tons of health, but if my cluster would shoot at the trains every time they went by, for the entire game, I could knock them many millions of HP with each pass, and by the end of the game (after a number of passes, and after installing a number of Mk. III turrets at my chokepoints toward the end of the game), I may actually kill a few trains. Right now I sometimes micro this, but I'm afraid I'll never actually destroy any if it doesn't happen every time (i.e. automatically).

That's not a bug, it's just saving their breath, so to speak.  The AI engineers will repair astro trains (iirc), so the gradual-over-the-game thing doesn't really work.  Some of the newer astro train types (turret trains, notably) don't actually have as many hp and are auto-targeted because they can actually be reasonably killed.

B) Custom star layouts (I forget the official name, but I'm talking about when I shift-click-drag stars around on the map you see by hitting "tab") work great, except that when I reload a save, it should remember if I was viewing my customized view and not the default view. I prefer to always use my custom view, and right now I have to manually go choose to view it each time I load a save.

Also not a bug, but I'll keep it in mind as a suggestion

C) Transports seem to load much slower than before. It used to be, if my transport was stationary, I could unload all 200 ships in a transport, let the ships' auto-fire take out a few targets, and then load the transport back up almost instantly. Now the transport seems to need to linger for a while, for all the ships to load back up. It seems when this happens, a number of ships are right there on top of the middle of the transport, they just don't go in for a few seconds, like they're all at the right spot, but only a few can go in at a time. Was this an intentional change, or is it a bug?

This is indeed a bug, due to a quite serious one where ships were being skipped by the simulation because the ship processed right before them changed planets or loaded into a transport.  It was reported a bit earlier and I fixed it (for 3.181) within the last couple hours.

1) I love the new command stations, the mineral harvester upgrades, and heavy beam cannons (even though these have been in a while)! These all rock!

We're very glad you enjoy them

2) I've embarrassed to say I've never beat a game of AI War yet, as I usually lazily try to conquer too many systems at the beginning without enough defense, but I'm actually being careful this time, and am playing a game now which looks like it could become a success. I'm looking forward to trying the new revamped endgame.

This is definitely a game that gives you many more miles of rope than is necessary to hang yourself

[corfe83]

Thanks for the reply. I'll be looking forward to the transport loading fix in the next beta release, as it will greatly benefit my command station sniping activities

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, by the way, while loading is supposed to be instant, there was an intentional change to make transport unload happen gradually to cut down on low-cost spamming of units.  There are two ways to get around the restriction:
1) Spread the load across multiple transports, i.e. 10 transports will unload 200 bombers much faster if they're all only carrying 20, rather than 1 carrying 200.
2) Scrap the transports you want to unload _instantly_.  If you need to load them back up for the trip back, bring spares

[corfe83]

I assume this "slow unloading" change will be coming out in the next release? I'm not seeing it currently.

I'd love to spread my units across more transports, but unfortunately it takes a lot of repetitive micro to load 200 bombers across 20 transports. Are there plans to make this easier, or is there a way to accomplish this today that I'm not aware of?

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, forgot to mention that the slow unloading only happens when outside supply, so if in your own territory or raiding an adjacent system it's fine.

(edit: accidentally submitted before done)

[keith.lamothe]

And yes, I do plan to make it easier to load a group into multiple transports, though it's probably a ways off with all the stuff on our plate right now.

[corfe83]

Ah - yes, I already know about the slow unloading when out of supply, and will appreciate the "bulk load transport" feature when you get to it!

Again, thanks for the helpful replies, and keep up the great work!

[keith.lamothe]

We try

Have you been eaten by any Neinzul tried the new CoN expansion yet?

[corfe83]

I haven't. Definitely planning on buying it soon. I'm going to see how my current game pans out, and see if I can actually manage to beat the base game with the first expansion, first

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, if you're trying to finish one stick with TZR for now, CoN's balance is a little... volatile right now

[MaxAstro]

I thought Astro Trains had been changed to be unrepairable, specifically so that you can wear them down?  In a recent game I brought a Booster Train down to about 75% health and it stayed there through at least a couple hours of gameplay.

That said, while I would love to have turrets auto-target trains what I do not want is for FRD ships to autotarget trains (except Turret Trains, of course); I don't need my whole army getting distracted attacking a train instead of something else.  So I'm OK with the current behavior.

[corfe83]

I agree FRD ships should not chase astro trains.

If that is true that trains are no longer repairable, then making turrets attack them would be nice.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I had vaguely recalled that the trains were no longer repaired, wasn't sure.

The issue with having the turrets auto-attack is that they then might be stuck reloading when a more destructible threat comes through.  With most turrets this isn't a huge deal since the reload time isn't that long, but with lightning turrets or snipers or whatnot it can be a pain.

[Diazo]

Yea, if you're trying to finish one stick with TZR for now, CoN's balance is a little... volatile right now

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Forgive me please, but I just had to.

D.