Viral Swarmers are leet

[Rustayne]

Wow.  Started a new game today with the new update, decided to try out these viral swarmer AI type.  Ummm, easy isn't exactly what I'd call them heh.  I blew the cluster up and 4500 ships came out, and seriously destroyed my fleet.  Afterwards, they managed to multiply to around 8000 or so and went for my homeword.  This is all within 10 mins of starting.  I managed to stave them off, but barely.  They seemed more interested in my fleet and the extra stuff that was added then my station thankfully, but it could of easily been over then.  Are they intended to be this brutal?   They seem to reproduce very fast, and even with a fort taking out 60 at a time, it was still incredibly fast on the reproduction of them.  My fortress couldn't even keep up.

[x4000]

They are definitely not balanced quiiiite right at the moment, from the sound of things. I'll let Keith comment further, but I think they need to be toned down some. The goal is that they be an easier type because the easier section could really use something that varied and interesting. Getting he balance right can be tough, though. Thanks for the feedback on it!

[keith.lamothe]

Did you happen to get the mark number on that freight train?  4500?  Even a mark IV viral cluster can only hold 1500 and it takes half an hour to build that many.  If you have a save from slightly before you engaged the cluster, that would let me try to reproduce it in your particular situation.

Congratulations on staving off 8000 of them, though

[x4000]

Perhaps for the viral clusters, anything higher than mark I or II should be limited to only planets that are at least 3 hops from the player homeworlds, unless there are not enough slots -- that's something we do with the ARSes, so you could just use the logic from that.  But that would put less variance into the seeding in terms of having abnormally-hard starts, etc.  Things like a Mark IV planet or even a Mark IV ion cannon being seeded near to the human start is perfectly fine because it's self-contained, but these viral swarmers are definitely NOT self-contained.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, I could move the minimum distance from 2 to 3, but the highest mark that could start 2 hops away (unless on a seriously micro-small map) is a mark IV, with a max 900 capacity.  900 viral swarmers are not friendly, but fairly easily dealt with via moderate defenses.  The problem in what was reported here is that a single cluster was spitting out 4500 ships, which is rather outside what it's supposed to do

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, actually when looking at the stats, those are just the common bases, a mark V viral cluster can actually only hold 375, and while it only takes about 10 minutes to fill that should definitely not make a 4500-alpha-strike possible.  When I finish with my current stuff I'll check to see if it's doing something different with those numbers then I had intended.

[x4000]

Okay -- sounds like the seeding is all good, then, and it's just apparently a bug with the clusters themselves.

[Rustayne]

Kind of busy today keith, but as soon as I get home I'll see if the auto save was before it.  Out the door getting a car switched to my name.

[keith.lamothe]

No rush

I suggest getting a fast car, those viral swarmers are rather fleet of foot.

[Rustayne]

I'm testing a new one, on another arm in this system.  I'll save before, and if it does what it did again, i'll modify and link the save for you.  Sorry about the delay on it.  Why I didn't make a save, is beyond me.  Got family in from out of state, must be distracted  And on the car note, not a fast car at all, it is an 1990 van.  Old, rusty, and works.  All I need right now.


Edit:

K, it still does what it did to me last time.  The save is got 4 transports with 800 ships in them, to take out the IV Viral Cluster.  It gets really nasty, really fast.  Hope this helps you sort out the logic for it.

[superking]

viral swarmers are fun 

[keith.lamothe]

DF style fun

[Rustayne]

Yea, very fun, but man are they brutal. 

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, they're not supposed to be brutal (the nests do that), I'll try to figure out what's going on there.

[Rustayne]

No problem.   Glad i went ahead and tested it then.