Arcen Games

General Category => AI War II => AI War II - Gameplay Ideas => : x4000 September 13, 2016, 01:04:43 PM

: The return of space tugs: repairable golems and salvageable AI husks
: x4000 September 13, 2016, 01:04:43 PM
This is a cool one, I think: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdzU90psGas_3UFe23BLvsGQ8fclec49NmnbHfwkZ8w/edit#heading=h.2qxiu8a6iavu
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: Dominus Arbitrationis September 13, 2016, 01:14:28 PM
I love the idea, but I see a problem with it from a lore standpoint: You're telling me that planet crackers are a thing and that nukes that destroy entire galaxies are a thing, but no one is able to destroy a puny starship?
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: PokerChen September 13, 2016, 01:20:57 PM
Also, does the existence of player starship & golem-husks confirm the existence of AI golem-husks? Can we amass a curation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIGnw1BjEOk) of acquired starships/golems, or is there some sort of auto-destruct function built into AI ships?

You're telling me that planet crackers are a thing and that nukes that destroy entire galaxies are a thing, but no one is able to destroy a puny starship
Yep, have questions on that.
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: Tridus September 13, 2016, 01:24:41 PM
Well, that will certainly make a fleet wipe more punishing. Your Starships are just gone until you raid to get them back. Interesting. That speeds up the refleet on its own because you have fewer ships to rebuild (requiring less metal and build time), and you get a new objective to do in order to fully recover.

Lore wise, maybe the AI wants to repurpose them or analyze their computers for information about what the player is doing, and that's why they disable instead of destroy them.
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: kasnavada September 13, 2016, 01:26:52 PM
That has a very high risk of stalemating the game, and increasing refleeting time. Also, micro managing starship is mandatory if that's in.

I like that it forces the player to leave his territory though.
How about tugs would bring "something" back from the AI territory, like the core of a guard post, or just a blob of metal that would act as salvage, to make refleet go faster ? (I think chemical art suggested that in another thread).

It'd fit with "guerrilla" style of AI war, blow stuff, take stuff, go back home, repeat.
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: NickAragua September 13, 2016, 01:33:20 PM
I like this idea. It gives you the ability to get your expensive golem back (I assume you'd pay the same resource cost you initially paid to repair it) if it gets cored by some AI cheap shot or if you uh, forget about it and leave it on some random planet. Uh, not that that's ever happened to me or anything.
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: Salamander September 13, 2016, 01:33:56 PM
Unkillable ships do pose a problem from many angles, mostly the lore angle as previously posted, but if they have a good mechanical reason to exist, I don't think it's a serious issue.

Perhaps tugs could only grab large ships like riot control ships, golems, and the like since only they would be worthy of a tug's time due to that unit's particular AI? They would attempt to save the larger more valuable ships when they reach a certain threshold or they could instead be used to drag normally immobile installations like turrets and advanced structures we capture from the AI to new destinations?
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: Dominus Arbitrationis September 13, 2016, 01:37:47 PM
Lore wise, maybe the AI wants to repurpose them or analyze their computers for information about what the player is doing, and that's why they disable instead of destroy them.

But isn't the AI able to crush us like we crush ants? The only reason why we don't die instantly is because there is something much worse out there that the AI is focused on. Why would the AI want to reuse our crappy ships when they can build Mk V ships at their whim? And why wouldn't the starship commanders purge all data if they were about to be destroyed? That's the first thing I'd do if I knew I was going to die. Might as well make it harder on the enemy.

I'm not against the idea of immortal starships. I do love the idea. I'm just unsure of the lore behind them.
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: Draco18s September 13, 2016, 01:43:17 PM
For stuff like golems, absolutely this is a fantastic idea: we can't build golems from scratch, we can only rebuild wrecks.  Having dead golems turn into those wrecked hulks all over again is perfect.

For other things...not so much.
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: Captain Jack September 13, 2016, 01:47:57 PM
I love the idea, but I see a problem with it from a lore standpoint: You're telling me that planet crackers are a thing and that nukes that destroy entire galaxies are a thing, but no one is able to destroy a puny starship?

Yep, have questions on that.

I'm not against the idea of immortal starships. I do love the idea. I'm just unsure of the lore behind them.
Let me put it this way: the Broken Golems left corpses. Nothing else did.

For what it's worth, I LIKE this idea! For Golems. Not so much other starships, unless they're Zenith/AI Mothership/Exodian Blade scale.

How about tugs would bring "something" back from the AI territory, like the core of a guard post, or just a blob of metal that would act as salvage, to make refleet go faster ? (I think chemical art suggested that in another thread).

It'd fit with "guerrilla" style of AI war, blow stuff, take stuff, go back home, repeat.
I like this even better though. Makes a lot more sense than strapping rockets to a [redacted].

I like this idea. It gives you the ability to get your expensive golem back (I assume you'd pay the same resource cost you initially paid to repair it) if it gets cored by some AI cheap shot or if you uh, forget about it and leave it on some random planet. Uh, not that that's ever happened to me or anything.
Is it storytime? I think it's story time.
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: Wingflier September 13, 2016, 01:51:23 PM
Honestly something like this could work, but it falls into the same category as the refleeting problem. Repairing Golems is expensive and so it takes a lot of time.

Even if you pull it with the tug all the way back into supply, it's probably going to take quite awhile to repair it to full again, especially if you've *also* lost most of your fleet!

Well anyway, I'm fine with this, I'd just hope we'd have a way to prevent games from stalemating over and over again with huge pauses to allow fleet build-ups between battles.
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: PokerChen September 13, 2016, 01:54:54 PM
Let me put it this way: the Broken Golems left corpses. Nothing else did.
Yep, and one of the things that would be both fun and OP is if you can get the AI to keep donating you golem wrecks, after you've acquired an artillery golem. So, an in-principle support at the golem level. It's one of those facets that will delay stalemating on Hard versions of Golem minor factions, as the exos will keep coming whether or not you have them. ...still have to deal with the refleeting time, but could be done?
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: Orelius September 13, 2016, 01:57:05 PM
Repairable golems sounds like an absolutely fantastic idea.  We'd just need to make sure that the initial resource sink to fix it back up is more expensive than just maintaining its health.
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: kasnavada September 13, 2016, 02:00:22 PM
That has a very high risk of stalemating the game, and increasing refleeting time. Also, micro managing starship is mandatory if that's in.

I like that it forces the player to leave his territory though.
How about tugs would bring "something" back from the AI territory, like the core of a guard post, or just a blob of metal that would act as salvage, to make refleet go faster ? (I think chemical art suggested that in another thread).

It'd fit with "guerrilla" style of AI war, blow stuff, take stuff, go back home, repeat.

Auto-quote, because linked to what I put above, In addition, and possibly more thematic, rather than rebuilding a lost golem... the player could gets notifications like "The AI started to build a golem at (place), capture it before it's gone !". With fuel to limit the number of units, it could not become too crazy anyway.

: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: PokerChen September 13, 2016, 02:44:13 PM
With fuel to limit the number of units, it could not become too crazy anyway.
On issues of crazy, I remember replacing the bulk of my fleet in Homeworld Cataclysm with a trio of repulsor-armed dreadnaughts. Each repulsor trigger (almost) kills fighters, shoves frigates a long way away, and lightly damages anything bigger than that.

 The ping-pong action was sublime. The dreads didn't even need to fire anything against the small-fry.
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: x4000 September 13, 2016, 04:58:39 PM
Okay, major rewrite to that section: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdzU90psGas_3UFe23BLvsGQ8fclec49NmnbHfwkZ8w/edit#heading=h.2qxiu8a6iavu

4.d. The Return of Space Tugs

Should be more palatable now?
: Re: The return of space tugs: repairable golems and salvageable AI husks
: kasnavada September 13, 2016, 05:01:31 PM
:)
: Re: The return of space tugs: repairable golems and salvageable AI husks
: Draco18s September 13, 2016, 05:22:37 PM
Perfect.
(Purr-fect!?)
Also
Don't Panic![/url]
I want there to be a "mostly harmless" hidden in the doc somewhere.
: Re: The return of space tugs: “Immortal” Player Starships and Golems
: Captain Jack September 13, 2016, 06:30:14 PM
Okay, major rewrite to that section: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdzU90psGas_3UFe23BLvsGQ8fclec49NmnbHfwkZ8w/edit#heading=h.2qxiu8a6iavu

4.d. The Return of Space Tugs

Should be more palatable now?
Hang on, doesn't this belong in "Notable returning mechanics"?  :P
: Re: The return of space tugs: repairable golems and salvageable AI husks
: Tridus September 13, 2016, 06:40:09 PM
This sounds pretty cool. :)
: Re: The return of space tugs: repairable golems and salvageable AI husks
: Wingflier September 13, 2016, 06:47:56 PM
If you go to an AI planet, lose your fleet, but complete an important objective that results in a lot of husks of large AI objectives, then hooray you scored yourself a metal bonus to make the refleeting faster.  That in turn makes for some more nuanced decisions of what you target first on AI planets: the little guys shooting you, or the big things that will score you metal if you get them.  Depends on if you’re taking multiple runs at the planet, kinda.
I think this is great because it encourages a continuous progression through the game. Basically, the kind of targets which grant you a boost of metal are like the same kind of targets which will increase your AIP significantly.

So while the game becomes harder, the player is compensated with the ability to refleet quickly, and progress to the next objective where, if successful, will be rewarded again. In this fashion, the pace of the game can be handled at a much greater rate.

However, I'm concerned that this mechanic still does not prevent stalemates. If the player loses their fleet, but does not complete an important objective, nothing is stopping them from rebuilding their fleet the long way. If the AI had no incentive to take advantage of this glaring weakness in the player's defense, and the AIP was not rising during the time the player was rebuilding, there would essentially be no punishment for losing your fleet except being bored to death for the time it takes to rebuild it.

In other words, with the current system I do like the rewards, but perhaps we still need to work out a way that the AI can be smart about taking advantage of a player's mistakes.
: Re: The return of space tugs: repairable golems and salvageable AI husks
: Salamander September 14, 2016, 08:38:09 AM
As the unofficial lobbyist for space tugs and autocannon minipods, I really like this idea for the tugs and it adds more variety to the game play which increases interest in the game and replayability.

It requires planning and thought to pull this off and golems are worth that risk. Would it apply to any other expensive/large ships besides the golems? I know the golems would be job#1 but perhaps it could be used for other valuable assets.