Those botnet golems

[chemical_art]

I love botnet golems.

And I proposed making their hard option give exos just like normal games.

However, given how AI Wars has shifted_so_hard away from units away from reclaimation, both with exos and the what not, I think their hard option should be tweaked.

I no longer play games with botnets because if I'm playing hard enough that I need them, the exos will wipe me out. In no small part because they are fairly useless in exos due to all the non_fleetship_crap that is thrown at me.

This is doubly so because of just how much harder exo waves hit at higher difficulties.

So I propose the botnets maintain their mechanic, but their exo growth rate reflects their lesser power. I'm thinking around 75%.

Getting my first exo of them at 4 hours in giving a fleet headed by a H/K is a bit much...even for someone who indirectly caused both of these elements to happen in the first place.

[Cinth]

And now you kinda see what I was talking about when I was speaking against breaking them out of the golems set.

[chemical_art]

And now you kinda see what I was talking about when I was speaking against breaking them out of the golems set.

Well the alternative is to nerf it to oblivion almost. In its current form, it is truly a force of its own.

In an otherwise base game, the golem can singlehandedly take you to the enemy HW (but not take it).

But with other exo waves floating around, its power drops significantly.

[Vyndicu]

Yes I agree that botnet golems need a change.

I think the big issue is how do we move botnet golem down to useful state but not outright over-powered.

I feel that almost everything else that can do reclaim damage or turn AI ships into zombie have far greater survival or utility. Some good examples are zenith reprocessor (utility giving resource upon killing), youngling nanoswarm (cheap one-shot spamalot), parasite (you have more of them as opposite just one), and spire teleporting leech(teleport enough said) for bonus fleet ships.

Leech Starship is well easier to replace for ONE thing. Merc Parasite for when you have too much metal/crystal stockpiling.

I am not sure which direction I would like botnet golem to take. More tanky? Longer range? Remove self-attrition? Move botnet golem's exo-wave back with the other golems and change golems' exo-wave to have less immune to reclaim damage stuff? Or even re-work how botnet spawn zombies?

[Kahuna]

Making Botnet have it's own exo was a bad idea. It's not worth the additional exo. That change basically removed it from the game. Why couldn't is just be nerfed?

[chemical_art]

Making Botnet have it's own exo was a bad idea. It's not worth the additional exo. That change basically removed it from the game. Why couldn't is just be nerfed?

My appeal, at the time, was that it was an all or nothing craft. So if you nerf it down, why bother when you have so many other craft that reclaim just fine?

If it could be reclaimed, it was, if it wasn't, it did not.

It is the apex of reclamation, with a unique twist on its respawns.

Would it really be a golem if it was nerfed? It is a very narrow role, by far the narrowest. To have golem like power with such a common immunity...you need to be off the wall strong otherwise.

Imagine just how strong an ion cannon golem would have to be against its targets, considering so many craft (and the deadliest) are immune to it.

It is inherently a narrow role, one that is all or nothing.

[Kahuna]

Hive Golem used to be overpowered too yet it didn't get it's own exo.. it was nerfed. Botnet reclaims 25 ships every second which means it eats a whole CPA in about 3 minutes so it's clearly overpowered.. or was. It's reload time could have been increased by 1 seconds and the number of shots reduced by 10. Then it would reclaim about 13 ships every second. Something like that might have been more reasonable.

[chemical_art]

Hive Golem used to be overpowered too yet it didn't get it's own exo.. it was nerfed. Botnet reclaims 25 ships every second which means it eats a whole CPA in about 3 minutes so it's clearly overpowered.. or was. It's reload time could have been increased by 1 seconds and the number of shots reduced by 10. Then it would reclaim about 13 ships every second. Something like that might have been more reasonable.

In my ultra low cap games, that is still all or nothing. Eating 13 ships every second is a cap of triangle ships every two seconds.

If you make it so it can't eat waves, when half of those waves are immune to reclaimation to begin with, it is no longer a golem.

[Zeyi]

With all the hacking changes coming in the next expansion, what if the botnet golem didn't bring exos but had some other prerequisites before its activation, for eg hacking a data center. This would give the botnet golem a new trade off as you miss out on reduced AIP but gain a very powerful tool.

You could even make it so hacking each data center allows it to convert only a certain number of ships but I think this could be overly complicated and messy on different ship caps. Unless you seeded different data centers to the usual ones for this purpose.

Just to throw other ideas out there:
If people didn't want to lose out on their reduced AIP then you could even give the golem itself the ability to build some kind of structure on human planets that supports X ships, and if the AI takes them out you lose your zombies. These structures could be fairly expensive and have a max cap of 1 per planet.

[kasnavada]

Another idea which could solve the problem is that the CPA for the Botnet Golem should come only if the Botnet was set online...

[Kahuna]

Another idea which could solve the problem is that the CPA for the Botnet Golem should come only if the Botnet was set online...

Oh so the "exo timer" would only charge up when the Botnet is online? Hm that sounds interesting. This would surely make Botnet Hard much more reasonable. I like this idea.
The question is how long could the Botnet be online before the exo got from 0% to 100%. 10 minutes.. 15 minutes.. 30 minutes?

[chemical_art]

Another idea which could solve the problem is that the CPA for the Botnet Golem should come only if the Botnet was set online...

I like this very much, if possible.

[keith.lamothe]

However, given how AI Wars has shifted_so_hard away from units away from reclaimation

At the same time I get feedback from folks who exploit reclamation to basically disqualifyingly-cheesy levels.  They don't research mkII/III/etc fleet ships, they reclaim them.

Anyway, yea, I could make the botnet exo counter not go up if the botnet isn't online for the player.  That basically takes out any additional pressure before you get the botnet, and any pressure after losing the botnet, but we could give it a try.

As was asked, though, how many minutes of online-time should be needed for the first exo?  The interval and size will go up for each exo like normal, of course.

[chemical_art]

Anyway, yea, I could make the botnet exo counter not go up if the botnet isn't online for the player.  That basically takes out any additional pressure before you get the botnet, and any pressure after losing the botnet, but we could give it a try.

Sounds reclamation itself should be looked at. Of course that is its own can of worms.

As was asked, though, how many minutes of online-time should be needed for the first exo?  The interval and size will go up for each exo like normal, of course.

This ties into the question of game choices. In a vanhilla 7/7 with my only source of exos being the botnet? I can get it easily in 90 minutes. In my 9/9 game with fallen spire? It would have taken me I guess around 7 - 9 hours.
 In the case of the later, the exo with the H/K leader occurred 4 hours in. Considering this was the weakest of the exo waves, I consider it over the top./color]

[Hearteater]

I think getting extra CPAs for having a Botnet would actually be a buff...more ships to reclaim!  Unless it was a zombie CPA.