Viral shredders number limiting mechanic broke?

[Coppermantis]

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?

I think getting shredders as the bonus ship type is useful, since it can help with the first wave a lot. In one of my sevenish games, the shredders (I did capture them from an ARS earlier on) really saved me from some large attacks, especially with the regenerator golem. The golem was short-lived, but the shredders were just nomming. So if A Zenith Reserve isn't nearby, I think an ARS or Bonus ship is worth it, as I tend to lose ships that come from a reserve fairly quickly.

[keith.lamothe]

1 Martyr Per asteriod.
Could force you to use them more tactically, rather than just for every cpa, gate wave etc. and still have the other Spirecraft.
or..
Would you just use every asteriod on Martyrs and never consider the other Spirecraft avaliable. See below..

Yea, that's one danger, but the hope is that by increasing the cost of the unit, and perhaps increasing the usefulness of the alternate units, that decision will become less of a given and more interesting.

Oh, and to be clear about what I'm thinking, currently:

Reptite -> currently 2 MkI -> will be can't-build-martyrs
Pysite -> currently 4 MkIs or 2 MkIIs -> will be 1 MkI
Xampite -> currently 4 IIs or 2 IIIs -> will be 1 II
Ebonite -> currently 4 IIIs or 2 IVs -> will be 1 III
Adamantite -> currently 4 IVs or 2 Vs -> will be 1 IV

That pushes the V off the chart (I think someone already suggested this, as that sounds familiar), but that's not that big a deal if the MkIs are already so powerful.

Another thing we discussed during Fridays game
mk I do 1 million dmg 3100 range, Mk II 2 million 3600 range, mk III 3 million 4100 range..

Most mk I-IV ships are below 1 million health (A few exceptions most notably LoTS ships)
Making mk I martyrs the best choice, using any higher are not wasted asteriods, but a less efficent choice.
Halving the dmg of each rank would then not guarentee a full destruction of wave, and/or force you to use higher ranks.
The range effect is not noticable really.

Yea, this is another issue with the current balance: it appears there really isn't any big reason to use higher mark martyrs.  I dunno if I want to nerf the damage because its role is basically to be a "get out of jail free" card.  But the other stats don't really make for a big difference either: area-of-effect, movement speed, hp/armor, number of tractors, etc.

So it might come down to adjust the damage so that mkIs can (by virtue of damage, not some special insta-kill rules) kill any mkI or II fleet ship, mk IIs can kill any II or III fleet ship, etc.  And you can use them against the higher marks but it would take more martyrs to knock out a wave of high-hp ships.  Though of course this would vary widely by which cap scale was being used and I'd rather not scale the damage this thing does by that.

Anyway, I want to make sure that these stay unquestionably useful, I just want to make sure the costs are appropriate.  How much is a free get out of jail card really worth? Etc.

Spirecraft Scouts.
Kinda useless.. With their self attrition. The reduction in cost of Mk4 Scout Starships and basic scout drone numbers, we felt that we would never use them.

Interesting, I've actually had folks complain to me that these are so OP that they basically make the entire scouting game trivial.  Though perhaps what you're saying is that there are other cheaper (non-asteroid-using) ways to make the scouting game trivial.

Spirecraft Jumpship.
Tiny capacity 5-25 max, self attrition on higher mk planets. Could only see them start to be useful at mk III+ and then due to capacity, only seemed useful for raid type attacks (Destorying a long range Data Center as example)

Hmm, yea, I could see these being difficult to get your money's worth with.  I wonder what other folks think.  The tactical options these offer are pretty significant, in theory.

Spirecraft Ram
2000 range target seek, they seemed to hit some strange targets sometimes and often died before even hitting it.

Some folks _really_ like using these against the bigger AI forcefields, iirc, or avengers and the like, though it may be that implosion artillery kind of steals their thunder.

Spirecraft Imposion Artillery
Useful, most especially in larger numbers and against high health targets. Otherwise sometimes difficult to notice there affect.

Seems like they're about right, it's a specialized niche but an important one if you have any kind of exos going on.

Spirecraft Siege Towers
Like cheap mini Fortress that can use wormholes.

Yea, these seem to be the go-to for folks looking for a way to translate their asteroids into ships that blow stuff up without blowing themselves up.

Spirecraft Shield Bearer
Due to number of ships with 3 players, Shields on mk I & II, just didn't cut it and unfortunely by the time you can get mk III (Ebonite), other spirecraft were much more disirable.

We could buff the hp on these, or something like that; seems like they could do well as emergency defense shields and whatnot.

Spirecraft Attritioner
Defensive only. Incredibly hard to notice their affect due to dmg per sec.
They were normally an very late after thought on very heavily defended planets..

Yea, just not enough juice for the squeeze of using these, it seems.  I may be wrong, but generally it feels like I encounter two kinds of battles in AIW: battles that are over quickly, and battles I lose.  If it's over quickly, an attritioner isn't really what I'm looking for.  Not sure what to do with these, other than maybe add some secondary effects (armor rot?  Though really that might be even more only-effective-in-long-fights) and perhaps buff the damage.

Spirecraft Ion Blaster
There is a whole thread dedicated to these. http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,8948.0.html
Never used them. Not much use before mk III, huge cost, small cap. Kills 1 ship every 4 seconds, when often facing thousands..  Not worth it.

Right, I'm definitely wanting to revise ion weaponry.  These things should be fairly fearsome.

Spirecraft Penetrator
Useful for taking out high health targets. 30 min cd did mean a few times we forgot we had them or where we had hit them away.

Yea, I think these are in a decent place, though very micro-dependent as your experience indicates.  But it fills an important niche and gives you a tactical option you don't generally have otherwise.

[Gudamor]

What if martyrs were Mk-less? All levels produce what are currently "MkI" but in greater or lesser numbers.

Reptite -> currently 2 MkI -> will be can't-build-martyrs
Pysite -> currently 4 MkIs or 2 MkIIs -> will be 1 MkI
Xampite -> currently 4 IIs or 2 IIIs -> will be 2 MkI
Ebonite -> currently 4 IIIs or 2 IVs -> will be 4 MkI
Adamantite -> currently 4 IVs or 2 Vs -> will be 8 MkI

[keith.lamothe]

What if martyrs were Mk-less? All levels produce what are currently "MkI" but in greater or lesser numbers.

Reptite -> currently 2 MkI -> will be can't-build-martyrs
Pysite -> currently 4 MkIs or 2 MkIIs -> will be 1 MkI
Xampite -> currently 4 IIs or 2 IIIs -> will be 2 MkI
Ebonite -> currently 4 IIIs or 2 IVs -> will be 4 MkI
Adamantite -> currently 4 IVs or 2 Vs -> will be 8 MkI

That wouldn't do as much to reduce the number of martyrs people can field.  Right now a mkI is a "skip wave" button (and if played right, skip any of a number of threats), so I'm trying to drastically reduce the number of martyrs you get from a given pile of asteroids.  Your suggested approach would still reduce it from the current numbers (since Adamantite is much rarer than the other types), but not as much, and I don't think it would be enough.

[dotjd]

My opinions on the topics of the day:

Shredders: I'd like them more if they didn't drop my power like mad.  I think it would be pretty cool, actually, to make them only acquirable from reserves.  Why?  Because they're the only thing that stops zenith reserves from being a permanent aip cost for a one-time benefit.  Actually, I think I just don't like reserves.  Say what you will about 100 mark v ships, for 25 aip I'd rather have a planet, since I'd probably capture the planet anyways and lower AIP would keep the wave tech level down for longer.

Spirecraft Scouts: I don't really get them.  What are they supposed to be good at?  Spending an asteroid on a scout to plop down on a minor planet (because would anyone really spend an adamantite roid on a scout?) just doesn't make sense.  Being able to scout the whole map with them saves them from being terminally useless, but I don't understand why they exist in the first place.

Spirecraft Martyrs: broken good.  Others have elaborated on them more than enough.

Spirecraft Imposion Artillery: I've never had any good chances to use them... I imagine they could be useful in some places, but I'm always loathe to take them into regular combat against minor waves or planet captures.  From seeing the AI use them, they seem squishy, but I really doubt the AI uses them well.

Spirecraft Shield Bearer: drastically underpowered and/or useless.  This is in contrast to the forcefield bearer fleet ship, which is.... ok, just imagine 40 hybrids under 20 shields and you'll see why I hate them.  If I had to take a stab at the right power level for them, I'd say enough health to make them relevant for a fleet-based deep strike.

Spirecraft Attritioner: only useful on gravity drill planets.  Could see myself building one to aggro stuff on command, but to actually do damage requires maxing out the mark i-v caps while the ai tech level is still at i-ii.  Or a gravity drill.  Underpowered.  A couple patches ago when blade spawners were broken I tried using these to nuke the blades before they reached me, but that didn't work either.

Spirecraft Ion Blaster: everything about these is wrong.  The game gets so much right in general by making lower-mark ships still useful later on, and then these things go do the opposite.

[chemical_art]

Quick rundown of the spirecraft:

Scout: I'd much rather use a mk I scout to watch turf. Then again make a mk III unit and have it run around the galaxy before it dies and you can explore most of it with one.

Matyrs: Broken good. I feel cheesy using them so I don't.

Implosions: Handy for counter exo-waves, if you micro them. I would be tempted to say make them only target starships and above so that they don't waste shots on low health fleetships.

Siege tower: Your generic battleship. It goes in to the the fight with a hope it may come out...maybe.

Shield bear: So terrible I only built once. A unit meant to absorb damage that it can't repair? I might as well get a ram since at least it can kill another before it dies itself...(Can they at least have self repair? And that radius problem still hasn't been fixed ifrc...)

Ram: Handy for the micro although it is annoying to watch rams die to other rams...

Attritioner: Hard to notice. But then again if you keep them far from the fight AND remember to drag them around with your actions they can pay for themselves as they can reliably stay active for hours.


Ion Blaster: Just no.

Transport: If you are doing colony rebellions these things are GREAT as you can deep strike to save a colony then later just rebuild a station by dragging along the engineers in the craft. Otherwise very niche...but they do their niche well!

Penetrators: Handy for that one deepstrike you need...again it is a niche, but it fills it well.

[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!!!!! 

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?

A mix of both I suppose. 

I got lucky and had a mkIII z reserve one jump away from my homeworld and it contained 8 viral shredders with assorted other ships.

I now have the cap of 1500 to keep a watch over the direct line to my homeworld but it takes a ton of energy to keep them alive. Matter of fact had several brown outs as the growth rate far exceeded my early economies ability to keep up with them.

Now if you want to reign them in a bit I can understand but please don't take them away as getting them in a optimal place on game start as the first bonus ship or landing a lucky dice roll on an ars is fairly rare and they are simply awesome as a choke defence or quick killer of a growing blob of ai ships at a choke if you send them through.

Plus getting to a z reserve that isn't in a place that is easily reached can be a chore in itself.

Dunno just seems to me they are pretty well balanced atm but then again I suppose I am more of a casual ai wars player so I can't speak for the hardcore amoungst us. 

[keith.lamothe]

Cross-posting from the 5.015 in-progress notes:

* Due to widespread feedback that the martyr is very OP, we've drastically increased the asteroid "cost" of building them:
** Previously Reptite could be used to build 2 MkI Martyrs.  Now it cannot build martyrs at all.
** Previously Pysite could be used to build 4 MkI Martyrs or 2 MkII Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkII (can't build MkIs).
** Previously Xampite could be used to build 4 MkII Martyrs or 2 MkIII Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkIII (can't build MkIIs).
** Previously Ebonite could be used to build 4 MkIII Martyrs or 2 MkIV Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkIV (can't build MkIIIs).
** Previously Adamantite could be used to build 4 MkIV Martyrs or 2 MkV Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkV (can't build MkIVs).
** Note that the units themselves are just as incredibly powerful as before (we really want them to be highly useful), but hopefully this change puts their real cost more in line with their utility and also puts a saner limit on the total number the players can have in a game.  More changes may follow if necessary.
** For reference, previously the total number of martyrs that could be produced from all asteroids in an average 80-planet galaxy was about 2200 on average (so someone holding 15% of the galaxy might reasonably field 220 over the course of the game, if they didn't use many other spirecraft).  Now that total-possible number average about 480 (so that same martyr-happy player would probably only have about 48 to use, unless they take more planets).
** Thanks to the many players who've weighed in on this subject.

* Zenith Viral Shredders:
** Simplified the scaling of replication costs (how much damage a shredder has to do to replicate) and made it better at preventing game-breaking swarms of shredders.  Now instead of it using a linear multiplier based on the owner's number of shredders on that specific planet, it quadruples the replication cost for every full cap of that mark of shredder owned by that player anywhere in the galaxy (but if they own less than or equal to a full cap, there is no extra cost).
*** So if the mkI cap is 98 (normal cap scale) and you have between 99 and 195 (inclusive) mkI shredders they will have to do 4x as much damage to replicate as normal.  If you have between 196 and 293 (inclusive) mkI shredders they will have to do 16x as much damage to replicate as normal.  And so on (maximum multiplier is 1024 to avoid arithmetic overflow; at that point a mkIV on low caps would need to do over 376 million damage to replicate).
** Base Energy Use from 100 => 50 (note: all mkI types use half normal energy).
** Replication-created shredders now copy the FRD, Attack Move, and any unit commands (movement waypoints and whatnot) of their "parent".  Note that they already copy the control groups and "am I currently selected" status of their parent.
** The end result of all this should be that if you play your shredders well you'll be able to maintain maybe 2 or 3 caps worth of them (a pretty significant advantage over other bonus ship types) but it's going to be difficult to get into the really absurd numbers.  On the other hand, maintaining that swarm won't cost as much energy as it used to and it should require less micro due to the commmand copying.
** Thanks to the players who've told us about their massive abuse of absurdly large shredder swarms.

See what you made me do?

I think we'll leave the Z-reserve thing alone for now, it's definitely not a trivial task to raise a swarm from "scratch" that way, and it's not free, so I think we'll just say that if you can pull that off then good for you

[keith.lamothe]

* Due to widespread feedback that the martyr is very OP, we've drastically increased the asteroid "cost" of building them:
** Previously Reptite could be used to build 2 MkI Martyrs.  Now it cannot build martyrs at all.
** Previously Pysite could be used to build 4 MkI Martyrs or 2 MkII Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkII (can't build MkIs).
** Previously Xampite could be used to build 4 MkII Martyrs or 2 MkIII Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkIII (can't build MkIIs).
** Previously Ebonite could be used to build 4 MkIII Martyrs or 2 MkIV Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkIV (can't build MkIIIs).
** Previously Adamantite could be used to build 4 MkIV Martyrs or 2 MkV Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkV (can't build MkIVs).

Is that an error, or did you change your mind and get rid of mk I Martyrs instead of mk V ?

Oh, and to be clear about what I'm thinking, currently:

Reptite -> currently 2 MkI -> will be can't-build-martyrs
Pysite -> currently 4 MkIs or 2 MkIIs -> will be 1 MkI
Xampite -> currently 4 IIs or 2 IIIs -> will be 1 II
Ebonite -> currently 4 IIIs or 2 IVs -> will be 1 III
Adamantite -> currently 4 IVs or 2 Vs -> will be 1 IV

Oh, sorry, I meant to clarify that I decided to go with mks II through V instead of I through IV.  If things wind up staying this way I'll probably shift it around so it's actually I-IV but this was the simplest way to do it right now

[Commiesalami]

MkV will be built by titanite correct?  (Just clarifying because it isn't in the notes)

[keith.lamothe]

MkV will be built by titanite correct?  (Just clarifying because it isn't in the notes)

No, Titanite has never built martyrs and doesn't now.  Adamantite has and will build the mkV variant.

FYI, the average 80 planet galaxy seems to have between 0 (yes, zero) and 5 titanite asteroids, so it doesn't make a huge difference

[BobTheJanitor]

Well it'll be interesting to see how this turns out, at any rate.

On the side topic of the other spire ships, a few thoughts.

Spire Scouts: I always thought these were pretty terrible, but I finally forced myself to use them and found that they're really quite good. I think my confusion was partially caused by the tooltip. I think it's trying to be helpful, but it only confuses the matter further. A cursory reading of it seems to imply that these will die extremely quickly on higher mark planets, and that they should just sit on low mark planets. In fact, I found that even a Mk I, when given a waypoint at the far side of the galaxy, can scout about 15 hops or so before it expires. They actually last a fairly long time. Of course you can't leave them on a planet to get permanent scout data, but when you want to know where all the DCs, ARS's, and factories are, they're perfect. This tooltip confusion may be why some people say they're worthless, and some people say they're overpowered.

Spire Jumpships: These are what you use when you want to get permanent scouts on every planet. It requires liberal use of the pause key, but aside from that it's very simple. Jump to hostile planet, jump to outer edge, drop a scout, repeat on the next planet. Admittedly, I haven't found any other use for them, because I don't know of any ship strong enough that 15 of them make a difference, while also being small enough to fit in the transport. And even if they exist, the deep strike rules make that a moot point. Might as well just put a fleet in transports and hop over planets the old fashioned way.

Spire Attritioners: Agreed on them being pretty worthless. The only use I've found for them is pissing off an entire planet. If you jump one in and then jump it out, the attrition pulse seems to basically free every ship on the planet. So if you want a lot of threat hugging a wormhole (so you can, for example, send in a martyr) then they're kind of OK. I'd like to say that some kind of cloaking could make them useful otherwise, but I can't see a way that wouldn't also be overpowered.

Martyrs: Can I enter a hopeful plea to make these repairable now? Since they're getting such a heavy nerf in numbers, and since they can only explode once, allowing repairs would make their tractor platform utility more viable. Otherwise they suffer from the widow golem problem, as soon as they scoop up some units, they get creamed.

Shredders: Good nerf. Now I won't feel like I'm playing Shedder War instead of AI War.

[Commiesalami]

Spire Jumpships: These are what you use when you want to get permanent scouts on every planet. It requires liberal use of the pause key, but aside from that it's very simple. Jump to hostile planet, jump to outer edge, drop a scout, repeat on the next planet. Admittedly, I haven't found any other use for them, because I don't know of any ship strong enough that 15 of them make a difference, while also being small enough to fit in the transport. And even if they exist, the deep strike rules make that a moot point. Might as well just put a fleet in transports and hop over planets the old fashioned way.

I tend to run a starship heavy game.   A pair of spire starships + Mk3 Engineers and a cloaker (total of 2 mk1 Jumpships) are enough to handle a (non-Mk4) system when deep striking.  I don't like using normal transports in this way because of all the threat that they create on the way there.

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, the pre-announced nerf hammer has come down.  Go forth, test, and complain!