Viral shredders number limiting mechanic broke?

[keith.lamothe]

How about giving them a damage cap, like electric shuttles have?

Right, I was thinking of that too (think I even said it... anyway).

So yea, I can see why there's conflicting feedback here: some players are primarily single-player, some are speaking from MP experience.

Well, we can add some form or another of mechanic that makes the martyr not unlimited-aoe.  Frankly in my experience a ship that can hit an infinite number of targets for some flat amount of damage is not only inherently unbalanced, but inherently impossible to balance unless the game has pretty strict "how many units can fit on the head of a pin?" rules.  AIW most definitively does not have strict rules on that point

Anyway, yea, the potential for asymptotically high total damage output is kind of a bad thing.  So we can do something like the electric shuttle but let it hit everything (just with attenuated damage).

On the other hand, back to the MP question: in MP the exos (including from Spirecraft-Hard) have their point-budgets multiplied by the number of players.  Please refresh my memory: would the advantage provided by Spirecraft also scale upward with the number of players?  Otherwise you'd be stuck with the same number of martyrs (and whatever else) that one player would have, but you'd be getting hammered by much larger exos.  I as the developer would find that funny, not sure if you would

[Ranakastrasz]

How about giving them a damage cap, like electric shuttles have?

Right, I was thinking of that too (think I even said it... anyway).

So yea, I can see why there's conflicting feedback here: some players are primarily single-player, some are speaking from MP experience.

Well, we can add some form or another of mechanic that makes the martyr not unlimited-aoe.  Frankly in my experience a ship that can hit an infinite number of targets for some flat amount of damage is not only inherently unbalanced, but inherently impossible to balance unless the game has pretty strict "how many units can fit on the head of a pin?" rules.  AIW most definitively does not have strict rules on that point

Anyway, yea, the potential for asymptotically high total damage output is kind of a bad thing.  So we can do something like the electric shuttle but let it hit everything (just with attenuated damage).

On the other hand, back to the MP question: in MP the exos (including from Spirecraft-Hard) have their point-budgets multiplied by the number of players.  Please refresh my memory: would the advantage provided by Spirecraft also scale upward with the number of players?  Otherwise you'd be stuck with the same number of martyrs (and whatever else) that one player would have, but you'd be getting hammered by much larger exos.  I as the developer would find that funny, not sure if you would

Too true. Do asteroid counts scale up with more players? I think they ought to.

[Zeba]

Flatline, on the subject of no-other-worthwhile-spirecraft, have you tried much with the implosion artillery?  They can be great against the mega-huge stuff in the later exos.

Implosion arty are my system nueter of choice. Nothing kills the wormhole guardposts as quickly as they do.

[Commiesalami]

Huh ... I've noticed that there a lot more asteroids in my 2-player games than in my solo games.  Differing between 3-4 per system in solo, with 5-8+ (one time there was over a dozen!) in a 2-player game. 

Theoretically you could test this with a 8-planet start and scout out till you see the first batch of asteroids.  (I'm at work and can't test this now)

[keith.lamothe]

Just checked and the quantity of asteroids seeded pays no attention to the number of players.  The rationale is that in MP the group takes somewhat more planets than usual anyway.  And it appears the quantity of asteroids is already quite ample

[keith.lamothe]

Just keeping a grocery list of probably-need-to changes from this thread:

- Make viral shredder growth-slowing calculations factor all shredders under that player's control.
- Increase severity of viral shredder growth-slowing by, say, 20%.

- Cut martyr-per-asteroid production.  The only clean way to do that right now is to make the ones that currently produce 2 to produce 1, and the ones that currently produce 4 to produce 2.
- Put some kind of cap on the total damage a martyr blast can do so that a mkI doesn't wind up doing billions upon billions of damage.

- Revisit balance of other spirecraft to make sure there's some reason to build them.

[Hearteater]

perhaps have the scaling much harsher if the player doesn't actually have the bonus ship type for shredders (i.e. they got them from a reserve).

Still thinking of making this change as well?  Seemed like a good idea.

[keith.lamothe]

perhaps have the scaling much harsher if the player doesn't actually have the bonus ship type for shredders (i.e. they got them from a reserve).

Still thinking of making this change as well?  Seemed like a good idea.

Waffling on it.  I do like it, but seems like it would lead to confusion and bug reports when players can't figure out why their shredders are doing so much more poorly in this game as opposed to the one they just played, etc.

I would be more likely to simply have reserves just not give shredders, since they're pretty unique in the whole "getting a handful of them is almost as good as getting the bonus ship type itself" thing.

[keith.lamothe]

On the other hand, what about leaving the martyr the starkly annihiliatory thing it is but cutting it so that each asteroid produces exactly 1 martyr of the corresponding mark (taking away the option to build 2x as many of the next lower mark)?

Too much? Too little?

[Mayjori]

On the other hand, what about leaving the martyr the starkly annihiliatory thing it is but cutting it so that each asteroid produces exactly 1 martyr of the corresponding mark (taking away the option to build 2x as many of the next lower mark)?

Too much? Too little?

just right imo

[Hearteater]

Agree.  I always thought that was more confusing than necessary.

[Zeba]

I would be more likely to simply have reserves just not give shredders, since they're pretty unique in the whole "getting a handful of them is almost as good as getting the bonus ship type itself" thing.

NOOOOOO!!!!! 

[keith.lamothe]

I would be more likely to simply have reserves just not give shredders, since they're pretty unique in the whole "getting a handful of them is almost as good as getting the bonus ship type itself" thing.

NOOOOOO!!!!! 

Is that based on a rational objection, or an emotional one?

I guess the big question there is: if you know how to "grow" a swarm from a bunch of reserves (or parasited shredders, would need to make them immune to reclamation too), do you therefore think it's not a good idea (due to redundancy) to pick shredders for your starting bonus type?  I mean, sure, it's easier to build a swarm if you can build the first cap at your docks, but the "marginal utility" of having the bonus type is just way less if you already have the ability to raise a swarm.

For that matter, if you get Shredders from an ARS, do you feel like you didn't get a good value because you could have raised your own swarm from a reserve?

[keith.lamothe]

Agree.  I always thought that was more confusing than necessary.

If you're talking about the thing where you can build 2x of the lower-mark spirecraft from an asteroid, I'm not thinking to remove that in general, just for the martyr.

[Hearteater]

Actually I was speaking of it in general, but I think removing it for the martyr in specific is a really good idea.