Knowledge raiding has become tedious and trivial. Change it.

[keith.lamothe]

We'll send the ninja-updating ships after you

[Sarnian]

I must admit to being a little confused by the abolition of knowledge raiding. Does this mean that the only way to get knowledge to unlock decent units is to capture loads of planets with a massive AI progress cost or have I missed something?

Since speed limits were introduced to stop knowledge gathering far out of range of the AI, raiding became more of a challenge and picking planets to capture based on the number of "in supply" links was part of the fun of strategising my way across the galaxy.

It seems as if you've reduced the tactical choices associated with both picking planets to raid and choosing ways to spend the knowledge, which was a significant part of the enjoyment of the game. 

I realize that you put a lot of time and effort into constantly re-balancing the game and don't want to sound negative -you guys are great and the constant improvement and active forums are a key part of the success of this amazing game, but this seems like a step backward in my (very) humble opinion.

[x4000]

I must admit to being a little confused by the abolition of knowledge raiding. Does this mean that the only way to get knowledge to unlock decent units is to capture loads of planets with a massive AI progress cost or have I missed something?

Knowledge raiding is alive and well, I think you missed something.  There is a new mark III science lab that is what you must use in order to do knowledge raids, though.  Knowledge raiding is now a lot harder to do, so it's something that really should only be a last resort anyway, though -- in other words, not something you routinely do in every game.

Actually, I'm really starting to repeat myself from further up in the thread.  People were using knowledge raiding all the time, rather than as a last resort, which was the original intent.   Short answer is: yes, you're supposed to incur AI Progress cost to get knowledge.  You should be capturing 20-30 planets in an 80 planet map, and if you do so you'll have plenty of knowledge.  If you get stuck and really need extra knowledge, or if you really don't want to capture a bunch of planets, then go nuts with the mark III science lab.

Hope that helps!

[keith.lamothe]

Knowledge raiding was never intended to be a normal means of gaining more knowledge, and it has not been abolished, simply made such that you generally won't resort to it unless you're otherwise stuck (and in that case it can be very helpful).

Knowledge per planet has since been increased from 2000 to 2500, and much more recently from 2500 to 3000, which more than counteracts the loss in effective available knowledge from any really reasonable use of k-raiding.  Of course, there were some folks who would capture a few planets with lots of connections and k-raid every single one they could... we found it unbalanced, and they found it tedious, so that had to go

(edit: ninja'd again )

[Dragon]

I feel the need to point out that the T3 science lab doesn't actually chance Sarnian's point, as to create it, you still need to be in supply, so thus you would only be able to "raid" planets near you, and not planets farther away.  To get supply to those planets then, you have to capture loads of planets.  To get the normal science labs to work on them, you need to blow them up.  Either way, to get knowledge from a lot of planets, you need to blow up a lot of planets, and even more if you don't capture most of the ones you blow up.

This also changes depending on which map you play of course.....  But as an example, if you are playing a Tree map, and there is nothing you want down one tree, you can't just leave it up, and raid all 5-8 planets for their knowledge, and then move on, leaving a chokepoint behind.  If you want the knowledge from the chain, you have to capture at least every third planet in the chain.  If you are doing that, you might as well capture the whole chain.  So, thus, even with the T3 lab, it's not really letting you get very much extra knowledge.  In my experience, just a planet here and a planet there.  Thus, I almost never use them.

Which I guess goes with the "never use it unless you are stuck" comment, but that seems a little.... restricting....

Maybe the T3 lab could be made mobile?  Make it so that it has to "deploy" before it can get knowledge, and takes a while to "pack up" so that it can be moved again.  And during the deployment and packing up, it would be making the AI mad, and also not getting any knowledge.  And, it would use full power the whole time, either mode.  Think of Siege Tanks from Starcraft, now imagine no gun while in the mobile mode.  Now apply to T3 science labs.  :-)

[superking]

on the 'simple' map type, knowlege raiding in supply (assuming you play like me and capture approx 8 planets in 80 planet game) can increase your max knowlege by about 300%

[Ozymandiaz]

Imo, knowledge raiding is good as its now. The T3 lab is time consuming and need to be defended while you operate. Its also not really needed to win the game.

You can ofc play as superking with what seems like a minimal AIP kind of game where knowledge raiding can be more important .

It simply not a "given" as it was before and thats good. I rememebr the old times where I just loaded a transport full of labs and sent them far far away for free knowledge. It was kind of too simple

[keith.lamothe]

Which I guess goes with the "never use it unless you are stuck" comment, but that seems a little.... restricting....

It is, but that is the design decision we found necessary for the sake of the game's fun.  It's a tradeoff, to be sure, but this is by far the preferable way.

[Diazo]

This also changes depending on which map you play of course.....  But as an example, if you are playing a Tree map, and there is nothing you want down one tree, you can't just leave it up, and raid all 5-8 planets for their knowledge, and then move on, leaving a chokepoint behind.  If you want the knowledge from the chain, you have to capture at least every third planet in the chain.  If you are doing that, you might as well capture the whole chain.  So, thus, even with the T3 lab, it's not really letting you get very much extra knowledge.  In my experience, just a planet here and a planet there.  Thus, I almost never use them.

I would counter with the fact that because you are playing a tree map you require fewer units for defense and therefore you shouldn't need as much knowledge. So this is one of the trade offs for getting the easier defensive position.

I realize this is an opinion thing, but you are not supposed to have all the knowledge you want, you are intended to only unlock some units, not all units by the end of the game. (As I understand how knowledge is implemented at the moment.)

I haven't actually played a full game in a while, been experimenting with all the new units, but I'm starting a full game tonight and I'll be watching my knowledge input/output for sure.

D.

[Vinraith]

It's definitely good the way it is. K raiding should be hard and limited, because research should (like everything in this game) be about making hard choices. Letting the player acquire too much knowledge too easily undermines the whole choice/consequence emphasis that's so unique to this game.

[Sarnian]

I definitely appreciate the point that "old style" knowledge raiding where you'd load a transport with labs and watch the K roll in was too easy (though I never had enough to unlock more than 50% of the technologies I'd have liked to -perhaps I'm not too good at this game  ).

Hopefully someone will come up with a good alternative which nets a reasonable amount of knowledge against an investment of a reasonable amount of time (during which the AI is constantly reinforcing). I'll play with the MK III lab, but it sounds like a lot of effort for 3K of knowledge.

It felt good to be doing something other than just capturing and holding planets too -again, some reason for launching hit and run raids against AI planets for some kind of reward (or to lessen a threat or provide a tactical advantage) would make the game even more fascinating.

Given the interest of the AI War community, I'm sure something good can be cooked up sooner or later (hopefully sooner, to ease my depression  .

[x4000]

Just to be clear, I'm not particularly looking for new ways to manage the knowledge raiding.  We had a huuuuuge amount of discussion about this a few months back, and I'm not eager to go through that again.  As far as I'm concerned, the knowledge raiding is working perfectly right now: it's a pain in the rear, and something only to do when you have no other options.  That's the goal.  The only reason I'd consider a change is if it wasn't meeting that goal properly or something.

Discussion is healthy to a point, but this is the sort of topic that can really distract us developers and which has already beaten to death multiple times, anyway.  Thanks for understanding.

[RCIX]

Maybe lock the thread then?

[x4000]

Then people are tempted to start a new thread.  But... true.  Locked.