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AI Progress Reducers

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Tridus:
In AIWC, there are a number of ways to do AI Progress Reducton. Some are always there. Some are lobby options. Some are interesting, and some are less so. Lets talk about the different things in play on these.

Should they exist at all?

My opinion on this is absolutely yes, in some form. These create high priority targets for players, which creates things for players to want to do, which creates interesting situations (sometimes). If we had an objective/tutorial type system, these are targets that it could point to and say "see that? You want to blow that up. It's extremely good if you blow that up."

Those are all good things. Doubly so when the last co-processor is a mile away from where you want to be and you either have to choose to ignore all of them, change your plans, or go learn how to deepstrike raid (and take the consequences of that).

How many should there be?

Fundamentally a balance/tweaking question, and I don't care a lot. I think the sentiment is that in AIWC right now, there are too many worlds with things on them to capture/hack/whatever, because it's gradually expanded over time. So this is a chance to scale that back some while keeping the better ones. (Design Backup Servers are a candidate to vanish entirely because with a new game, the same mechanic could exist within the hacking interface itself and not require a planetary target.)

Which types of reducers are good, and why?

I think this is where it gets tricky. My favorite one is the SuperTerminal while my least favorite are Data Centers, and Toranth already explained why in the other thread:


--- Quote from: Toranth on September 15, 2016, 11:40:45 am ---
--- Quote from: Tridus on September 15, 2016, 08:39:11 am ---I prefer the SuperTerminal over them in terms of implementation because Data Centers are so easy to hit, but the SuperTerminal can get very out of hand if you get careless with it. It's got a higher risk/reward ratio.

--- End quote ---
SuperTerminal, I like - It's fairly limited in effect, but it is a lot of fun (and !!FUN!!) to use.
The Data Centers, though... So few HP that even a single shot from a Raid Starship can kill them, and Raids shoot through Forcefields, so not even that can protect them.  There are games I don't touch the SuperTerminal.  I don't think there been a game that I didn't get all the Data Centers, though.

--- End quote ---

Fundamentally, the SuperTerminal is an interesting choice. There's one of them (at most, it's not always on a map at all), and it does something you want. But it's not easy to use, and carries the risk of going very wrong if you lean on it too hard. That risk of pushing it just a little bit more adds a lot of fun to using it, and when it goes wrong, it leads to spectacular stories.

Data Centers are dull, comparatively. They're extremely easy to raid, the AI has very few ways to stop you from raiding them (because Raid Starships), and there's never a reason to *not* get them. If I were going to chop one, it'd be these.

Co-processors are more interesting because you don't get any benefit until you can get the fourth one, and sometimes that can be a problem. They also interfere with supply, which means if one is in the way, you have to make a decision about how to proceed: take out the one that's in the way and eat the AIP until you can clear the rest of them, go out of your way to clear them all to get that one out of the way with no penalty, or alter your plans to work around the one that's in the way. That can force the player to have to react to the hand they're dealt, which creates some interesting choices.

On the lobby options side, you have Spire Civilian Leaders, which conceptually I like, but in practice could use a rework. They have to be protected for a VERY long time to pay off, they have virtually no limit on how much AIP they can reduce (which contributes to fiddly complications like the AIP floor), and some games the hand you get dealt with them is extremely advantageous for you (if you can capture 4 within 2 hours because they happened to spawn in the right places, you have 6 AIP reduction every hour for the entire rest of the game, even if you never see another one). In a "conquer the galaxy" style of game, they're absurdly overpowered and become a "well if I go slower, the AI HW assault will get easier" mechanic. That isn't something we want to encourage, so a rework is in order before I'd ever consider bringing them back.


For me, the overall goal of reducers is to create interesting things in the game, and give you a way to reduce AIP some. Both the SuperTerminal and the Co-Processors give us those things, and just having those makes the reduction a smaller amount (unless you really push the SuperTerminal), so IMO I think that's adding the most to the game, while significantly cutting down on the number of planets with special things on them.

Thoughts? :)

PokerChen:
I'd chop the civilian leaders first, easily before data's centres. Unlimited +unconditional reductions here is a no-go, especially as it encourages longer game time.

Overall, I'm not all that keen on having AIP reducers, but will roll with it. Each seems like a "must-do" checklist, and there's little penalty to them. Three Mark-I raid starships in Classic was generally sufficient to deep strike a few hops in, which is not much effort.
Suggestions:

* Give Data Centres set pieces to protect them., And buff their HP somewhat.
* Give players reasons to NOT kill every data centre they see. For example, they are needed to gain access to AI database (it's a freaking data centre, after all...).
* For LoLs, let each living data centre increase the vulnerability of AI to your hacking, then make hacking somewhat uniquely useful against AI homeworlds.
* Have two sets of co-processors, of 3 each, target than one of 4.

Tridus:

--- Quote from: zharmad on September 15, 2016, 01:38:53 pm ---I'd chop the civilian leaders first, easily before data's centres. Unlimited +unconditional reductions here is a no-go, especially as it encourages longer game time.
--- End quote ---

Agreed. They need a rework at the least, and given time constraints for 1.0, doesn't seem worth doing initially. Maybe a "one day in the future" thing.


--- Quote ---Overall, I'm not all that keen on having AIP reducers, but will roll with it. Each seems like a "must-do" checklist, and there's little penalty to them.
--- End quote ---

Do you think that applies to the SuperTerminal, though? Especially the current incarnation that costs hacking to activate?


--- Quote ---Suggestions:

* Give Data Centres set pieces to protect them., And buff their HP somewhat.
* Give players reasons to NOT kill every data centre they see. For example, they are needed to gain access to AI database (it's a freaking data centre, after all...).
* For LoLs, let each living data centre increase the vulnerability of AI to your hacking, then make hacking somewhat uniquely useful against AI homeworlds.
* Have two sets of co-processors, of 3 each, target than one of 4.
--- End quote ---

Neat ideas. The Co-Processor one is pretty interesting, since each AI could have one. I wonder if you could integrate the hacking idea into Co-Processors though, instead of data centers (it is doing processing, after all!). Then you could leave them up for hacking opportunity, or take them out for the AIP reduction, and just chop the data centers entirely as well.

Draco18s:
I would remodel the Civilian Leaders before removing them.

Data Centers I think should stay in some form, as the "quick and easy" popcorn variant.  But I'm thinking more like "two per galaxy" than however many there are now.  It's the one that even new players go "oh that's easy" and have a goal that doesn't require too much planning.

Re Leaders:
Fast change method (i.e. I didn't think about this very hard):
[*]+10 AIP on game start
[*]+10 AIP when world first goes on alert [once only]
[*]-30 AIP when [controlled by AI and destroyed by player] or world flips to player control
[*]+30 AIP when [destroyed any other way] or world flips to AI control[/list]

The "on flip" handles the new AI recapturing territory.  The initial AIP on game start handles the previous count-up mechanic, plus 10 more if the planet goes on alert.  So deep-striking it would be a valid tactical decision.  Note: there is currently missing the "long term" benefit of protecting these (resources? new ships?).  The plus 30 when "destroyed at other times" makes sure that the player doesn't take the world, then murder the civilians to prevent recapture.

Toranth:
As I said before, I like the SuperTerminal.  I've had huge amounts of fun over the years with that thing - setting up a massive beachhead, killing tens of thousands of ships during the hack, sometimes failing and watching the galaxy be wiped by an AI fleet of hundreds of thousands...  Basically, as AIP reduction, it's mixed and dangerous, and involves the player doing stuff (often, a LOT of stuff) to use.

Co-Processors I don't think much of either way.  As a want-to-win player, all AIP reduction is good, and a for-fun player, they do require a little complication (mostly just exploration and planning) before being used.  On the other hand, they're basically datacenters that need to be killed all four at once, and raise the AIP Floor a bit when doing so.

But data centers are just "Of course".  In most games, I've found and destroyed all the data centers before I conquer my first planet.  Certainly before I take the second one.  Considering how essential it is, how brainless the decision is, and how easy it is... I think something could be done.  The ideal choice, I think, would be to make it a opportunity cost sort of situation.

Perhaps, you could be required to hack the AI to find out which data center holds the AI's "human threat history" database, so that destroying it would cause the AI to think you less dangerous.  This would effectively turn HaP into AIP reduction, although I'm sure it should be at a not-very-good ratio.
Perhaps the choice should be between the data center being destroyed for AIP reduction - or captured for an upgrade, or resources, or some such.
Also, fewer of them.  Maybe they should also only be generated as the game goes on (like Backup Design servers are) so that you can't ride the AIP Floor with -100 AIP early in the game.

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