Author Topic: Scouting, and the tedium involved  (Read 15403 times)

Offline tadrinth

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #15 on: September 13, 2016, 11:53:21 am »
The fact that there's three different auto behaviors around scouting doesn't really bode well for it as a mechanic as currently implemented. 

I should probably just play with complete visibility enabled, but that feels too much like cheating.  Then again, I frequently wind up using the 'full map vis' cheat to figure out where the heck I need to expand to, and then reloading to actually play (so I still have to set up scout pickets).  Maybe the critically important capturables should just always be visible on the map by default?

Offline x4000

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #16 on: September 13, 2016, 12:07:35 pm »
Lots of changes to the techs stuff, to make them player-side only.  With certain things built in on the AI side now that are always there.  These being the notes from the graveyard section about the AI getting tech unlocks:

AI Ship Tech Upgrades On Planet Capture
- Basically, Misery and Pumpkin had a good reminder that one of the tenets of the first game was to avoid invisible upgrades so that players can look at things and know what they are.

- That is an extremely good point, and flies in the face of the new tech upgrades system in general.

- THAT said, the difficulty in remembering things is when a player is looking at the AI side, because you don’t know when they’ve upgraded things, so would feel the need to constantly check.

-- Aka, the AI ships need to be consistent between games, and during a game, in terms of “what it means to be a fighter mark II” or what have you.

- Speaking for the player’s own side, which is where the focus of the new tech upgrades were always, anyway, players tend to easily remember what they upgraded on ships, and can quickly check if they don’t.

-- Most importantly, things never change in an unfavorable way, or without them knowing, so there’s not a need to go back and see “is this different? Is this bad?” like there would be if the AI were using invisible tech upgrades as well.

- In the end, this just makes for one more type of asymmetry in the game, which is great.
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Offline tadrinth

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #17 on: September 13, 2016, 12:16:14 pm »
That sounds really good; I was expecting candy techs to be human-only when I first read about them anyway.  The AI does *not* need to accidentally recreate Eye Bots halfway through a game.

The AI can have Guardians and Dire Guardians instead. 

Offline Cinth

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #18 on: September 13, 2016, 12:18:12 pm »
The AI does *not* need to accidentally recreate Eye Bots halfway through a game.

Nope, they just get to start with them.  *evil maniacal laughter*
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Opened your save. My computer wept. Switched to the ST planet and ship icons filled my screen, so I zoomed out. Game told me that it _was_ totally zoomed out. You could seriously walk from one end of the inner grav well to the other without getting your feet cold.

Offline x4000

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #19 on: September 13, 2016, 12:23:16 pm »
The AI does *not* need to accidentally recreate Eye Bots halfway through a game.

Nope, they just get to start with them.  *evil maniacal laughter*

That, too. :D
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Offline Draco18s

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #20 on: September 13, 2016, 12:29:09 pm »
Why do I feel the need for a second seed?
That is, one seed is the galaxy, the other seed is the AI's upgrade path.

That way the player can change up what the AI does, if they want to face new challenges, but is not required to (and by default would be a fixed value--e.g. the game ships with the value as 0--until the player clicks the button that says "surprise me").

Offline kasnavada

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #21 on: September 13, 2016, 12:33:54 pm »
Why do I feel the need for a second seed?
That is, one seed is the galaxy, the other seed is the AI's upgrade path.

That way the player can change up what the AI does, if they want to face new challenges, but is not required to (and by default would be a fixed value--e.g. the game ships with the value as 0--until the player clicks the button that says "surprise me").

And / or, moddable.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #22 on: September 13, 2016, 02:06:58 pm »
Lots of changes to the techs stuff, to make them player-side only.  With certain things built in on the AI side now that are always there.  These being the notes from the graveyard section about the AI getting tech unlocks:

AI Ship Tech Upgrades On Planet Capture
- Basically, Misery and Pumpkin had a good reminder that one of the tenets of the first game was to avoid invisible upgrades so that players can look at things and know what they are.

- That is an extremely good point, and flies in the face of the new tech upgrades system in general.

- THAT said, the difficulty in remembering things is when a player is looking at the AI side, because you don’t know when they’ve upgraded things, so would feel the need to constantly check.

-- Aka, the AI ships need to be consistent between games, and during a game, in terms of “what it means to be a fighter mark II” or what have you.

- Speaking for the player’s own side, which is where the focus of the new tech upgrades were always, anyway, players tend to easily remember what they upgraded on ships, and can quickly check if they don’t.

-- Most importantly, things never change in an unfavorable way, or without them knowing, so there’s not a need to go back and see “is this different? Is this bad?” like there would be if the AI were using invisible tech upgrades as well.

- In the end, this just makes for one more type of asymmetry in the game, which is great.
So, no upgrades for the AI? Great.
But then, how will it have cloaked raptors and eye bots etc? I'm afraid the AI would become less "rich", but as long as it has guardians and dire guardians and hunter/killer-like... Okay.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline Cinth

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #23 on: September 13, 2016, 02:08:26 pm »
So, no upgrades for the AI? Great.
But then, how will it have cloaked raptors and eye bots etc? I'm afraid the AI would become less "rich", but as long as it has guardians and dire guardians and hunter/killer-like... Okay.

The AI catalogue won't be worse off for this.
Quote from: keith.lamothe
Opened your save. My computer wept. Switched to the ST planet and ship icons filled my screen, so I zoomed out. Game told me that it _was_ totally zoomed out. You could seriously walk from one end of the inner grav well to the other without getting your feet cold.

Offline Captain Jack

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #24 on: September 13, 2016, 02:09:55 pm »
Lots of changes to the techs stuff, to make them player-side only.  With certain things built in on the AI side now that are always there.  These being the notes from the graveyard section about the AI getting tech unlocks:

AI Ship Tech Upgrades On Planet Capture
- Basically, Misery and Pumpkin had a good reminder that one of the tenets of the first game was to avoid invisible upgrades so that players can look at things and know what they are.

- That is an extremely good point, and flies in the face of the new tech upgrades system in general.

- THAT said, the difficulty in remembering things is when a player is looking at the AI side, because you don’t know when they’ve upgraded things, so would feel the need to constantly check.

-- Aka, the AI ships need to be consistent between games, and during a game, in terms of “what it means to be a fighter mark II” or what have you.

- Speaking for the player’s own side, which is where the focus of the new tech upgrades were always, anyway, players tend to easily remember what they upgraded on ships, and can quickly check if they don’t.

-- Most importantly, things never change in an unfavorable way, or without them knowing, so there’s not a need to go back and see “is this different? Is this bad?” like there would be if the AI were using invisible tech upgrades as well.

- In the end, this just makes for one more type of asymmetry in the game, which is great.
So, no upgrades for the AI? Great.
But then, how will it have cloaked raptors and eye bots etc? I'm afraid the AI would become less "rich", but as long as it has guardians and dire guardians and hunter/killer-like... Okay.
They'll just have them. For example, every raptor it makes might have the tractor ability, every bomber be armored. Tie it in to the mark system (IE higher mark ships always have more abilities. Candy can't rot processors after all!)

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #25 on: September 13, 2016, 02:14:34 pm »
They'll just have them. For example, every raptor it makes might have the tractor ability, every bomber be armored. Tie it in to the mark system (IE higher mark ships always have more abilities. Candy can't rot processors after all!)
Eh, but I thought the upgrades were common to all marks of a ship type?

However, I think I'm okay with the AI having a chance to grant a mechanic upgrade to every new ship type it unlocks (only upgrades like cloaking, tractor, FField-immune, etc, and not speed x2, armor++, life-up, etc).

EDIT
Gha, this is not the place to talk about that! Chris, please, make a new topic when you drop that kind of announce.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline Captain Jack

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #26 on: September 13, 2016, 02:15:49 pm »
Eh, but I thought the upgrades were common to all marks of a ship type?
For the player. The AI doesn't need to play by the same rules.

Offline kasnavada

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #27 on: September 13, 2016, 02:17:14 pm »
Eh, but I thought the upgrades were common to all marks of a ship type?
For the player. The AI doesn't need to play by the same rules.

I don't understand. A few post above, the AI gets no upgrade. Now it gets random upgrades ?

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #28 on: September 13, 2016, 02:18:33 pm »
Guyz... You post faster than I can copy-past your posts...

That's hilarious!
 :D

link
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Offline Captain Jack

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Re: Scouting, and the tedium involved
« Reply #29 on: September 13, 2016, 02:19:58 pm »
Eh, but I thought the upgrades were common to all marks of a ship type?
For the player. The AI doesn't need to play by the same rules.

I don't understand. A few post above, the AI gets no upgrade. Now it gets random upgrades ?
I'm making a suggestion. Rather than the AI getting none of the upgrades that the player can optionally give to a class of ships, I suggest the AI always have the SAME upgrades applied to a ship of a given class and mark.

 

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