Scouting, and the tedium involved

[skrutsch]

Please excuse me for mentioning something that's actually related to scouting.   

One of the quirks of mapgen is that when the galaxy layout is known, one just counts hops to discover the location of AI Homeworlds (1st one furthest possible from player, 2nd one furthest from both player and 1st)

What about making these locations less predictable?  Maybe mapgen places each homeworld randomly within one or two hops from "furthest away"?

[Captain Jack]

Please excuse me for mentioning something that's actually related to scouting.   

One of the quirks of mapgen is that when the galaxy layout is known, one just counts hops to discover the location of AI Homeworlds (1st one furthest possible from player, 2nd one furthest from both player and 1st)

What about making these locations less predictable?  Maybe mapgen places each homeworld randomly within one or two hops from "furthest away"?

Good thinking. The addition of solar systems to the game should also mix things up a bit, since an AI homeworld could be anywhere in the system.

Or hell, if we want to be evil, the command stations could be between planets in the solar system and you can't get there without secret info from... somewhere.

[Pumpkin]

+1 for less predictable AI homeworld.
(Chris said he was okay with +1 )

Or hell, if we want to be evil, the command stations could be between planets in the solar system and you can't get there without secret info from... somewhere.

I try to not react emotionally (it would have been "yuck!"). Let's say "Interesting as an option. In the vein of CGS: task before showdown. Why not".

[Captain Jack]

+1 for less predictable AI homeworld.
(Chris said he was okay with +1 )

Or hell, if we want to be evil, the command stations could be between planets in the solar system and you can't get there without secret info from... somewhere.

I try to not react emotionally (it would have been "yuck!"). Let's say "Interesting as an option. In the vein of CGS: task before showdown. Why not".

Hah, glad you're not wholly opposed.

I like the idea of the AI having a few different tricks to keep the pesky humans from zapping them too easily. Hiding the base of operations is the obvious one.

[Pumpkin]

I can imagine an option for making the AI home-things mobile too. While I would hate it (maybe), if it's an option I don't see a reason for not allowing that. The new hacking/scouting stuff would allow to do something for gaining "last known AI home-things positions".

Overall, more optional things to guide the players to victory is interesting, IMO. CSG were a good example (and they're optional).

[Sestren]

If you make the AI home mobile, then in order to retain the homeworld assault feel, you'd have to make all of the defenses travel with it. I'm not super keen on such a large collection of powerful objects being able to move at will. It would be strange to fight. Might be worth fiddling with at some point post-EA just for novelties sake if nothing else, but I certainly wouldn't expect it to become standard behavior.

[kasnavada]

If you make the AI home mobile, then in order to retain the homeworld assault feel, you'd have to make all of the defenses travel with it. I'm not super keen on such a large collection of powerful objects being able to move at will. It would be strange to fight. Might be worth fiddling with at some point post-EA just for novelties sake if nothing else, but I certainly wouldn't expect it to become standard behavior.

About that part... I think that the game flow for that part will change a lot. First of all, energy being per planet will probably limit (a lot) the quantity of defenses at a single location. Which has a number of implications on how defenses will be done in AI War 2...

I think the goal ain't to have one "choke" point, but to litterally have whole planets / systems act as in-depth defensive buffers.

Which means that the "homeworld defense feel" will probably be your flagship fleeing via strongholds until the AI assault force is made into scrap.

[Pumpkin]

If you make the AI home mobile, then in order to retain the homeworld assault feel, you'd have to make all of the defenses travel with it. I'm not super keen on such a large collection of powerful objects being able to move at will. It would be strange to fight. Might be worth fiddling with at some point post-EA just for novelties sake if nothing else, but I certainly wouldn't expect it to become standard behavior.

That wouldn't an idea I would support myself. However I can imagine a game mode (or MF, or option, or something) with no AI Homeworlds, Core Worlds and Core Guard Posts, but instead a MkV fleet with Dire Guardians and Hunter/Killer(s) around a mobile AI Home Command Ship.

I imagine a sort of new class or twist of the Dire Guardians providing invulnerability to their leading Home Command Ship, similar to what the Core Guard Posts did, with interesting powers just like them (Teuthida reclamation, Wrath-Lance-like weapon, Shredder Drone Spawner, etc).

As I said, not an idea I would personally support. Maybe I would play it once to try, but that wouldn't be my default playstyle, I guess.

(I imagine a MkV fleet of that sort would be used by the AI in early game to "blitzkrieg" the Human background factions.)

What was the topic? Scouting? Oh...

[Misery]

What was the topic? Scouting? Oh...

This is the Arcen forums.  There are no "topics" here.... just groupings of random conversation shifts.

[Elestan]

The issue I have with scouting is very simple:  It can get old, fast.  [...]  Part of it is the tachyon Sentinels.  Maybe I'm going about them the wrong way, but often, the method of scouting I do involves having to drill through a lot of the bloody things.

IMHO, the problem there is that the TachSents are on Both.Sides.Of.Every.Single.Wormhole.  The AI should need to be a bit more parsimonious, and only put Sentinels at strategically significant points, instead of just saturating space with them.

Not to mention that I also honestly find the cloak-enhancement mechanic a little confusing.  Never know just how many scouts I need to send out to get them through enough sentinels to do their job.

IIRC, the lower-mark scouts are always trying to cloak the higher-mark scouts.  That isn't always what you want, though; sometimes you want your higher-mark scouts to cloak the lower ones, to try to get the maximum number through.

[Draco18s]

The issue I have with scouting is very simple:  It can get old, fast.  [...]  Part of it is the tachyon Sentinels.  Maybe I'm going about them the wrong way, but often, the method of scouting I do involves having to drill through a lot of the bloody things.

IMHO, the problem there is that the TachSents are on Both.Sides.Of.Every.Single.Wormhole.  The AI should need to be a bit more parsimonious, and only put Sentinels at strategically significant points, instead of just saturating space with them.

I've been saying this for years.  Actually, pretty much ever since they were introduced.

[Toranth]

The issue I have with scouting is very simple:  It can get old, fast.  [...]  Part of it is the tachyon Sentinels.  Maybe I'm going about them the wrong way, but often, the method of scouting I do involves having to drill through a lot of the bloody things.

IMHO, the problem there is that the TachSents are on Both.Sides.Of.Every.Single.Wormhole.  The AI should need to be a bit more parsimonious, and only put Sentinels at strategically significant points, instead of just saturating space with them.

I've been saying this for years.  Actually, pretty much ever since they were introduced.

There was a discussion a while back about revamping scouting / cloaking, and one of the ideas was that the AI would have only a few wormhole guards, but would have a bunch of patrolling Tachyon-emitting decloaker guardians.  Unfortunately, nothing ever came of that.

Which I think is too bad.  I think scouting is an important part of the game, and exploring the first 75%-90% of the galaxy is fun and exciting.  That last little bit, though, where you need to raid dozens of systems, unlock all the scouts, and then send them all in a mob and hope some get through... or worse, encounter a Tachyon Command Station and be completely blocked down that line forever... that's the "No Fun" zone.

[tadrinth]

If you unlock MkIII scouts and have an advanced factory, building a MkIV scout and telling it to auto-explore will give you the rest of the map.  Even a Tachyon Command station can't stop the MkIV scout, due to its tachyon beam immunity.

That said, Tachyon Command Stations don't need to provide permanent tachyon coverage; pulsing tachyon periodically when there are military ships present would be better.  Still disrupts cloaking combat strategies while not hosing your scouting.