What is the eye mechanic?

[HitmanN]

The AI's in my current game are Entrenched Homeworlder and Grav Driller, if I recall correctly. I guess both of those count as defensive.

Even so, it makes the progress really dull and repetitive to have an Eye on every planet. There should be some sort of limit to them, to keep 'em unique and refreshing on the occasion.

[x4000]

Those particularly have a lot of them.  Otherwise it's normally supposed to be around 30% of the map covered.

Having to bum-rush the Eyes was not really the goal of the original design, but I hedged and left that in there.  So let me ask you guys a question, now that you've seen the Eyes in practice.  How much rage would I stir up by making the Eyes invincible (or practically so, along the lines of the wormhole guard posts rather than the dyson sphere), but with them dying immediately when the command station is dead.

The idea of these was to make people play without blobs on those planets, not to have a tedious chore to do before they pull out the blob as usual.  I REALLY hate blobs, which is why they are so prevalent; this was also intended to encourage better mobile defenses, and more of a guerrilla feel to the game.

Thoughts?

[HitmanN]

Sounds more like something for a unique AI profile, IMO. "Cyclops", maybe? ;p

If not, and the Eye would be 'invincible', it should definitely be a rare find, not something that forces same limitations on every planet. Maybe have several marks of Eyes even? There's room to play with different player/AI ship ratios per mark, or HP, or whatever.

Overall, the Eye isn't necessarily a really good solution to counter blobs. If anything it makes me want to keep my ships closer together even more tightly, so they can support each other. Whether it's a good tactic or not isn't the point. It's what my initial reaction is; creating a blob from what I can use. The Eye just limits the max size of a blob you can safely use, but doesn't prevent using one.

That is, if I know what blob means in this case. I'm just assuming it means moving all ships as a tight ball and steamrolling over targets.

[x4000]

Well, the purpose would be for this to be a general (and widespread) game mechanic.  And by blob, I don't really mean the tactics of just having a bunch of stuff all in one place, I mean just stuffing your ENTIRE fleet cap into one big group and then steamrolling it around.  Having a subset of your entire fleet is the goal.

[twistedreasoning]

in that case, how about making the eyes invincible, but raising the amout of ships it takes before it goes into effect?

[HitmanN]

Well, to answer the original question, I wouldn't mind invincible Eyes, as long as they're rare enough to not become repetitive. I think it's fair to support and encourage all playstyles, but not allow one to be dominant. Steamrollin', blobbin', guerrilla raiding... there should be planets for all of those, without forcing guerrilla play as primarily style. If someone likes that though, I still wholly support adding a unique AI type that makes all, or almost all planets Eye'd. That way if I don't like being Eye'd constantly, I can just choose one of the regular AI types for a less 'stalked' experience.

I support choices!

[x4000]

Well, as noted, it's only 30% of planets in general -- with defensive AI types, it's a lot more of them.  If someone likes to go a-steamrolling, they can always play against mad bombers or similar, by the same token.

I support choices also, and I don't think that having 30% of the planets be blob-immune is a reduction of choice by as severe a degree as you make out.

By the same token, increasing the amount of ships it takes before going into effect pretty much makes it pointless: if you have more than a 2:1 ship ratio against the AI, boy do you overwhelm them.  Especially since you can choose to engage their guard posts peacemeal, that means you'd often outnumber them 10:1 or even more in each sub-battle.

On the other hand, if you want to just steamroll the AI and you have THAT many ships, there's one always-around standby: just send in a raiding party to cap their command station early, then go nuts against them with the full battle that ensues (since the AI Eye would die when you cap the command station, whereas it does not at present).

[HitmanN]

I do worry about one thing with making Eyes invincible and common though. It'll lessen the value of high ship cap ships, swarmers and such. You could rarely use them effectively at all if entire planets had to be dealt with small numbers of ships. Especially early in the game when the AI planets have only a small amount of ships.

[x4000]

That is true, although the ship caps of the swarmers have generally been reduced at the moment, anyway.

[twistedreasoning]

I suppose my only worry about invincible Eyes, is if in the early going you are blocked by Mark IV planet with an invincible eye, and you only have mark I or II ships?

[HitmanN]

That is true, although the ship caps of the swarmers have generally been reduced at the moment, anyway.

In this scenario, I doubt I'd unlock a lot of high ship cap ships if there's a choice to choose something else that can do more damage in total, and yet still allow me to tag along even more ships. There would definitely need to be some added incentive to choose high ship cap ships when they can't even be fully utilized at all times.

[Magus-k]

Couple of ideas for eye reworks. 

1)  Have eye's trigger waves from OTHER planets on alert.  The idea is that if the main fleet is attacking on planet A, the home planets are probably less defended.  I like this idea best. 

2)  Have eye's trigger a release chance for systems surrounding an eye if overpowered by an even larger amount, say 4:1.  This way, you can end up with massive counter CPA.  Especially if the eye system is surrounded by a core planet.  A bit nastier but, if deflected, could allow for a rapid expansion....

3)  Not sure about the logic systems of your AI but, have Eyes actually tailor the defenses of surrounding systems.  Let the surrounding systems get a better counter mix for the assault force as an immediate action, off the timer for the regular reinforcements.  Consider it as an Urgent request for Immediate reinforcements.  This way the eye system might fall but, the surrounding systems just got tougher....

4)  For a nastier fight, have the eye trigger AI progress if the blob is too big.

5)  Final suggestion:  Have the eye nuke the system if the system stays in contention too long.  Heck, have it say "nuke it....  It's the only way to be sure."  The stations and core stuff will survive but, the invading forces....  That should force a bit more of a tactical question about the eyes.

[Winter Born]

I realy havent been affected by the Eye yet. My play style is to ninja any counter strike GP, then the Spire Shield GP, then the comm station. I can often do that with 9 Raid starships, 5 Siege, a Light Starship for the attack boost, Cloaker starship, a few engies, and some cannon fodder (bombers for non FF protected attacks and a FF ignoring unit for dealing with FF protected targets)
Killing the Eye later is just part of mop up.


That said, if planets with eyes were limited to a max of 50% and a more common 25% I think the grind would be less while still blocking superblob as a tactic that works all the time.

You could consider making them an AI plot.

[Winter Born]

Magus-k
Welcome and very worthwile 1st post -- very cool ideas

[orzelek]

I understand that you want to deblob - but can you give any other tactics that would allow conquering of Mk III/IV planets with mostly Mk II ships then blobbing?

If you will make Eye more permanent then we all would need to use something similar to Winter's tactics or simply be forced to fight with the blob of AI ships that comes from the Eye (or disable them somehow). AI guardians have no counters and they are designed to need a fleet to have any fighting chance against it (or a bit OP'ed sieges) but you want to prevent us from bringing that fleet at the same time?