Red Button Experiments

[Captain Jack]

Now I'm tempted to give you ideas here and see what happens.   Possibly the apocalypse is the result, who knows?

This isn't the place for that.  Those red button experiments can be conducted elsewhere.

Challenge... accepted.

This is a months premature thread dedicated to the most sadistic gameplay concepts we can come up with for the AI War sequel. This is NOT a general suggestion thread, there will be many of those. This is for pure evil.

My initial suggestions:

AI Type: M.A.D.
This AI has gotten its hands on a pair of Mk. III nuclear devices and incorporated them into both AI Command Centers. Upon destroying an Command Center, the nuclear device will arm and begin to count down. Destroying the other AI command center is the only way to stop the countdown. The length of time you have to do this is inversely proportional to overall AI difficulty; IE on level 1 you have 10 minutes before galactic annihilation, on level 10 you have 1.

As a side effect, a M.A.D. AI will aggressively target warheads and self-destructing vessels even when doing so is detrimental to its overall strategy.

AI Plot: Frankenstein
The husks and raw materials that litter the galaxy are potentially useful to the AI's extragalactic war effort. The AI will periodically awaken Golems or create new Spirecraft from asteroids and test them on the nearest available target (you!). The AI does this instead of developing a new threat wave or exo wave. Any Golem rebuilt by the AI is equal to the player-controlled version, while every Spirecraft force built this way is led by a unique Prime Spire. On the upside, destroying a Golem or the Prime Spirecraft leaves a wreck that can be reclaimed by a Remains Rebuilder for much less than the cost of building the unit yourself.

AI Plot: Classic Trains
Remember these? Yeah. Choo choo!

[Cinth]

I did ask for this, didn't I?

 

[Captain Jack]

I did ask for this, didn't I?

 

Now contribute.

[Cinth]

AI MAD: We have a nuclear command ai already.  Scorched earth strategy engaged.
AI Frankenstein:  AI already throws these back at you if you have them enabled and active (exo pain waves).

How exactly are these different enough to warrant inclusion?

AI Xombie:  This AI turns all ships killed in ai space into Zombie versions.  These zombies act like regular zombies except friendly to the AI.

[Draco18s]

AI MAD: We have a nuclear command ai already.  Scorched earth strategy engaged.

Those are mark 1 nukes in every regular command station. M.A.D. is two Mark III nukes in each AI Homeworld.
I think 10 minutes is a little short, you can't really be expected to launch a double-offensive like that.

AI Frankenstein:  AI already throws these back at you if you have them enabled and active (exo pain waves).

This one is a little different, if you have this and exo-golems, you'll get double the fun.

[chemical_art]

AI Xombie:  This AI turns all ships killed in ai space into Zombie versions.  These zombies act like regular zombies except friendly to the AI.

Too tame.

AI SF from time to time get Zombie Golems.

[Cinth]

AI Xombie:  This AI turns all ships killed in ai space into Zombie versions.  These zombies act like regular zombies except friendly to the AI.

Too tame.

AI SF from time to time get Zombie Golems.

But this is every ship you and the AI lose in AI space.  No exceptions. 

AI MAD: We have a nuclear command ai already.  Scorched earth strategy engaged.

Those are mark 1 nukes in every regular command station. M.A.D. is two Mark III nukes in each AI Homeworld.
I think 10 minutes is a little short, you can't really be expected to launch a double-offensive like that.

So you have to stage your HW attacks to take both down within minutes of each other.  Not that hard to clean each HW off before you commit half of your force to each to kill it in the allotted time. 

AI Frankenstein:  AI already throws these back at you if you have them enabled and active (exo pain waves).

This one is a little different, if you have this and exo-golems, you'll get double the fun.

Again, not that hard.  If you are building to counter the Exos, you should have enough to counter whatever else the AI throws at you from that set.

[Captain Jack]

Good questions Cinth!

AI MAD: We have a nuclear command ai already.  Scorched earth strategy engaged.

The nuclear command AI is all about resource denial. Your sources of metal are much more limited, you get your extractors and your caches and salvage. The M.A.D. AI is about speeding up the endgame. No luxurious long rebuild, you have to commit your forces to the next attack immediately and hope you didn't overcommit to the first--as you noted.

AI Frankenstein:  AI already throws these back at you if you have them enabled and active (exo pain waves).

The Frankenstein *is* about resource denial. It's taking a Golem or Spirecraft Asteroid field that you could have acquired for itself. Yes you get something if you stop the attack, but it's not what you might have used. Franken-Golems and Prime Spirecraft would be their own thing divorced from the usual Golem-and-Spirecraft types, so sucks to be you if you wanted that Botnet or a certain Spirecraft.

Maybe if the unit(s) take a planet they proceed to the exo-galactic wormhole and leave the game. That'd reinforce the resource denial aspect.

[Cinth]

AI Frankenstein:  AI already throws these back at you if you have them enabled and active (exo pain waves).

The Frankenstein *is* about resource denial. It's taking a Golem or Spirecraft Asteroid field that you could have acquired for itself. Yes you get something if you stop the attack, but it's not what you might have used. Franken-Golems and Prime Spirecraft would be their own thing divorced from the usual Golem-and-Spirecraft types, so sucks to be you if you wanted that Botnet or a certain Spirecraft.

Maybe if the unit(s) take a planet they proceed to the exo-galactic wormhole and leave the game. That'd reinforce the resource denial aspect.
[/quote]

If I want those things taken away then I wouldn't enable them in the setup.  Other than the odd ship wandering in via take over, it wouldn't change much outside of the vanilla experience.  Or it forces you to rush to the assets you want, supposing you can find them, protect and activate from there.

I just don't see it as having much impact.  IIRC exos only start after you activate a golem or spirecraft so nothing really is really lost if you don't get it in time anyway.

[Captain Jack]

If I want those things taken away then I wouldn't enable them in the setup.  Other than the odd ship wandering in via take over, it wouldn't change much outside of the vanilla experience.  Or it forces you to rush to the assets you want, supposing you can find them, protect and activate from there.

I just don't see it as having much impact.  IIRC exos only start after you activate a golem or spirecraft so nothing really is really lost if you don't get it in time anyway.

It's an AI plot. The entire point is to tweak the AI's behavior to encourage the player to play differently, and I think you underestimate how much people hate losing toys they want. The big question is how many people will enable it in the first place if they risk losing the shiny fun things, to which I have no answer. That's the big consideration to all of the red button issues though: how likely is it that people will use options designed to tilt the game yet further against them?

[chemical_art]

That's the big consideration to all of the red button issues though: how likely is it that people will use options designed to tilt the game yet further against them?

This is something I think is lacking Red Button Experiment: The bait to get a player to at least try the idea:

For example I remember the backdoor AI at least got rid of warp gates, so there was less AIP cost to expand. I think serious work needs to be done so the *vast* majority of those kind of ideas have bait, so a player at least an incentive try the red button.

The dark side needs to be seductive...otherwise none would dare try it...to borrow from another IP.

[Steelpoint]

You could try also adding a brief text description with the plot detailing more usefully the benefits of the plot, if any.

In some cases the few 'breaks' you get from a plot or not described or well explained.

[Kahuna]

Is this a good time and place to bring up the Pancake Golem again?

[Draco18s]

Is this a good time and place to bring up the Pancake Golem again?

A perfect time.

[Mánagarmr]

I remember doing this way back. I had like 20 Omegas and they all poofed. The universe was suddenly very angry.