What is "salvage?" Or more aptly, what do you want out of it?

[kasnavada]

Opinion: don't keep salvage. Maybe keep reprisal.

A better salvage-like game mechanics would be the ability to rebuild something out of the Armor Golem wreck that the AI has sent to your home.

Yay for both !

[Kahuna]

it sees a threat, and sends back-up from another dimension.

Except it doesn't, because all of the player's attacking ships were destroyed so the AI is actually winning in that case. So why would it shift even more resources against the player when it's already winning? (The AI is "winning" because the AI only sends reprisals when a massive amounts of player's ships get destroyed on an AI planet) Originally the lore/idea/whatever behind this was that the AI would take the wreckage left behind your ships and "throw it back at you". Just like how salvage allows the player to refleet.

[kasnavada]

It's petty and does not like intrusions ? 

To be a warning against future invations ?

It thinks that since you lost ships, it's a good opportunity to strike back ?

(The AI negotiated a counter attack with the clean-up crew, to prevent the clean-up crew from rebelling ?)

[Kahuna]

Then the AI could as well just send everything (including the kitchen sink) at the player as soon as the game starts.

Reprisal waves could be changed to trigger when a large enough player fleet stays on AI's territory long enough.
EDIT: Perhaps this could be integrated into the deep strike response.

[PokerChen]

If I may interrupt, I don't think it's worth the time right now to look at current mechanics from a lore or internal logic perspective.

We're going to have a new engine! So I want reprisals in it in some form, but not the one right now. Deep strike response is an option, especially if the AI tried to warp in getting a different angle, or cut off your retreat.

[Kahuna]

If the game's illogical it decreases it's enjoyability.

[PokerChen]

Yes and no. Sometimes illogic is bad design, other times it's the players being too inflexible about perceived AI decisions.

[Draco18s]

Don't forget that the AI has blue-orange morality, as well.

[Elestan]

I'm okay with Salvage, but I don't like the varying collection levels; as others have noted, this creates a really odd incentive to have fights on your homeworld.

Collecting Salvage could be a new raison d'être for the Cleanup Drone.  Maybe having cleanup drones in the area when ships (of any sort) are being destroyed generates some amount of extra metal (and prevents reprisal from it, if reprisal is used).

I'm not fond of Reprisal.  For one thing, it kicks the player when they're down, and I don't find that fun (though some others here seem to be more masochistic).  For another, it doesn't make sense in the game world; the AI's production facilities are off in another galaxy, and they're already effectively limitless, so some destroyed human ships in this galaxy shouldn't make a difference. 

At a minimum, I would make these mechanics optional and separable.

[Sestren]

Frankly, I don't like reprisal. I feel it *strongly* pushes me towards using starships that I can pull out of danger right before they die and generate reprisal over a fleetball that's going to be generating a retaliatory wave no matter what I do with it. (Though I also do that because repairing a starship is much faster than refleeting, possibly cheaper too since I think repairing is discounted?)

Honestly what does metal even do in this game? It just time gates things. Energy is the hard cap resource that you always want more of because more energy means more turrets + ships (well that and ship caps).

(To give you a reference for where I'm coming from, I've only won 3 or 4 games, hardest difficulty 8/8, and I lean pretty heavily on golems when I play. I feel like a lot of decisions in this game inadvertently make playing with a focus on fleetships frustrating.)

[Draco18s]

(To give you a reference for where I'm coming from, I've only won 3 or 4 games, hardest difficulty 8/8, and I lean pretty heavily on golems when I play. I feel like a lot of decisions in this game inadvertently make playing with a focus on fleetships frustrating.)

This is a terrifyingly true point....
I mean, I still fleetball and throw wave after wave of my own men at the problem until the killbots reach max_kills and shut down...
But still....
You've got a valid point there.

[Timerlane]

Plus Eyes and Ion Cannons. For that matter, basic(non-Assault) transports technically favor Starships, as they simply unload 10ships/sec in hostile territory with no regard for 'size'.

Yeah, I have to admit I'm a Starship-heavy player who mostly breaks out the fleetships for their bonus dps against particular heavy/difficult targets, and it pretty much works.

[Pumpkin]

Honestly what does metal even do in this game? It just time gates things.

You gave the answer. More than metal, it's time, the central resource of AI War. Because the AI consumes only time to pay for its units. If Humans pay no metal, they pay no time, and can get much more ships than the AI.

[Nuc_Temeron]

Salvage and Reprisal are exactly the same thing. You could call it Player Salvage and AI Salvage really. The player and the AI just buy ships differently, but the way they salvage is the same (isn't it? Perhaps I'm mistaken here but that's how it feels like to me).

I think you should keep it. If there's no salvage/reprisal, why wouldn't I just dump Neinzul through a warpgate all day? It gives an incentive to retreat and improves tactical richness. Black Hole Machines are useful. There's incentive to barricade warp gates to force enemies to perish in your territory. There's incentive to upgrade your command stations.

Here's a related idea I had: Mining Outposts

How about giving us a building that is immobile, somewhat like a Neinzul Regen Chamber, but it spawns mining drones which are very slow and defenseless. When ships are destroyed, have them leave actual visible debris, which those mining drones will go mine (cut useful bits off of) and take back to the Command Station. This is your salvage. The AI can also build this structure, and those drones give it their reprisal bits. I could use science to upgrade this building to improve my salvage percentage, or their speed, or their numbers, or whatever. I think this would give planets a more "alive" feeling, having these little automated drones flying about doing useful things.

Players could wait for a battle to end, then build the Mining Outpost to get the salvage.

Bonus idea: The mining drones would also be the units that mine resources from the planet (see some other thread about planets) for the player and AI. Maybe they could also be the units that load the trains (see some other thread about trains).

[Orelius]

Salvage and Reprisal are exactly the same thing. You could call it Player Salvage and AI Salvage really. The player and the AI just buy ships differently, but the way they salvage is the same (isn't it? Perhaps I'm mistaken here but that's how it feels like to me).

I think you should keep it. If there's no salvage/reprisal, why wouldn't I just dump Neinzul through a warpgate all day? It gives an incentive to retreat and improves tactical richness. Black Hole Machines are useful. There's incentive to barricade warp gates to force enemies to perish in your territory. There's incentive to upgrade your command stations.

Here's a related idea I had: Mining Outposts

How about giving us a building that is immobile, somewhat like a Neinzul Regen Chamber, but it spawns mining drones which are very slow and defenseless. When ships are destroyed, have them leave actual visible debris, which those mining drones will go mine (cut useful bits off of) and take back to the Command Station. This is your salvage. The AI can also build this structure, and those drones give it their reprisal bits. I could use science to upgrade this building to improve my salvage percentage, or their speed, or their numbers, or whatever. I think this would give planets a more "alive" feeling, having these little automated drones flying about doing useful things.

Players could wait for a battle to end, then build the Mining Outpost to get the salvage.

Bonus idea: The mining drones would also be the units that mine resources from the planet (see some other thread about planets) for the player and AI. Maybe they could also be the units that load the trains (see some other thread about trains).

Sounds like a bit of a roundabout way of doing it.  Why not just make mining/salvage drones a buildable unit?  Though to be honest,  I'm not really sure how much needing to build drones to collect salvage actually adds to the game instead of just making more work for the player.