Slight Tweaks for Coherency SakeAs we're not supposed to make "bags of ideas", I'll split these up but with a common tag. My goal with these ideas is simple: more coherency at the smallest cost. (The final objective being a smoother learning curve thanks to a more coherent experience.)
There are families clearly shared between AI and Human players: Fleetships and Starships, for a very basic example. Then there are families reserved to one or the other: Turrets and Warheads for Humans, Guard Posts and Guardians for AI, etc. However, there are bleeding cases in the Starship family, and I propose to address them.
There are Human reserved Starships (Cloaker, Scout, Neinzul Enclave, Neinzul CC and Protector) and AI Reserved Starships (Core, Beam, Warbird and Hunter/Killer... yes, its category is highly unclear and I intend to include it in the discussion). The Beam and Warbird starships are accessible to Human players through experimental starship constructors (this is an exception and a blending of experimental constructors and starship constructors: highly confusing and incoherent).
Proposal is:
* Clearly tag "AI never uses them" for Cloaker, Scout and the two Neinzuls. That's all. We could say AI
could use them but have no interest in.
* Move Experimental
* Possibly move Beam, Warbird and Core starships as regular unlockable starships (all, none or part of them) ...
* ... OR make a new category (like the Sentinels) for more clarity and coherence: they would be no more starships but (let's find a new name) "Punishers" or something (and with the "Big"
size, they clearly remains mechanically similar to the regular starships). The Punishers would be reserved to AI (like guardians), are MkV by default (the Experimental units already are) and have with their own spawning rules (not part of Waves but eligible for reinforcement, or spawned if X and Y). The renamed/re-art'ed AI version of the Raid Starship would clearly fit there. However, Human players would lose the possibility to capture MkV versions of them (no more experimental starships), this is essentially why they might be moved into the regular, unlockable starships category.
However, that naming convention doesn't please me. I'll just do a little digression (little, promise).
My main concern with that naming convention: will I be able to live in a world where the most feared AI unit is called "Hunter/Killer Punisher"? So let's give them all a name in the "XXX/YYY" theme. (I'll do that for every eligible AI reserved Starship but they might be moved into regular, unlockable starship as well.) I'll try to make them from [verb] & [verb] tropes.
* Core Starship -> Divider/Conqueror
* Beam Starship -> Slicer/Dicer
* AI Raid Starship -> Searcher/Destroyer
* Warbird -> Hitter/Runner
(I'm not satisfied by this one. "Interceptor/Something" might fit, but...)
