AI War 2 v0.764 Released! "Mercenary Surge"

[BadgerBadger]

I'm not sure I'm keen on a cap of space docks per planet at 2 without spending science. I always used to cluster a number of space docks with a bunch of engineers on one planet, and then heavily defend that planet. I worry that this will make it hard to coordinate what units I'm building; I like having lots of space docks, but I don't want to have to click between a bunch of planets to figure out what's going on. If we had a centralized build menu that would be fine, but I don't want to have to click on 4 different planets to see if I remembered to start building the fleetship from the ARS I just captured.

Edit: I like have space docks be something I can spend Science on though. If the default cap went 3 --> 7 --> 9 or something that would probably be okay. It's also a bit of a n00b trap, because if I spend all my science on upgrading my space docks I might not be able to survive the early game. I kinda think things like that should be gated behind Destruction Points, to make it harder for someone to shoot themself in the foot

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

Of note is people who have docks dedicated to one unit, and has those units added automatically to a control group. Such a low cap makes that a bit awkward early on.

Having to go look at multiple planets to see isn't very good either, as above. Paying science for a quality of life thing is ow.

Still liking Freelancer for the names of the groups.

[x4000]

Works for me!

* Mark 1 space dock cap increased from 2 to 4.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

I'd like to note that you can just buy Mobile Space Docks, and get 20 mobile versions of those that are much more durable and have repair en masse. I'm...not sure why I would upgrade normal docks. The MSDs are half the knowledge cost, cost less than 25% than even a MK1 Space Dock.

This actually touches on an issue I've been concerned with but not sure what to do - Gryn, the Void Home and the Orchid Arks. What they give seems to be fairly easily obtainable elsewhere. From what I've heard of...well, the one person who gives any feedback on Arks, Hegira and Thanatos are the only two who do anything unique - the rest are semi redundant.

I know from our discussion Chris that...that's probably now my domain, though again I've no idea what to do with those two.

[x4000]

I guess that we should probably massively reduce the cost of the space docks, then -- maybe to half the cost of the mobile variant.  Maybe they also need to become more tanky.  The metal cost of the mobile space docks probably then needs to be shifted to be double that of the stationary ones (I know that's hugely expensive, but it was hugely inexpensive, before).

On the Arks, as we start getting more special abilities in there I want to make use of more of those.  For Ark One, I want to make that one use the knockback like a military command station when I get a chance to add that in.  For Gyrn... maybe in addition to its space dock abilities, it should have the Norris Effect (pushes forcefields of the enemy).  In fact... yeah, I just added that in there, that should be good.

No worries on having anything you're uncertain on, I am happy to talk about things when that comes up.  I'm not sure what to do with Orchid yet; let's wait on that until we get more abilities in.

[Malkiel]

I understand the concern with MSDs being preferable to standard spacedocks, but I had to throw in one gripe regarding MSDs:
Back in ancient times, when Romans were building their first chariot-starships, MSD was actually MRU- Mobile Repair Unit. (I  might be remembering my acronym wrong but this was years upon years ago)
In game 1, they repair multiple units at once. in AI war 2, they repair 1 unit at a time, or 3 if you're splitting engine/shield/hull repairs).
Claiming they have repair en masse as puffin did is frankly misleading.

On to the Orchid (the one Ark I've tried thus far, I never played with champions much either...) Perhaps it could steal the Multi-repair role? I know that I want my MRUs back but honestly, I don't think I'm going to get them back (totally modding it in myself aside). I even used MSDs for strictly non ship building in the first game, just for multi repair. This would give the Orchid it's own "thing" that nobody could do without it, and the shield pushing you recently gave Gyrn would serve as it's unique.

The .765 Gyrn "Norris Effect" ability would've been handy in my Orchid game.. 2 shields overlapping eachother = no hull damage from bombers on them until I beat one down below 60% strength to end the overlap. It took like 20 minutes with my whole fleet shooting the darn thing and killed my early game momentum. (this led to my defeat)

What would we call Multi repair? "Full bloom"? "Nanite Pollen"? "Hyper Synthesis"? I'm not that good at naming, as the cats will attest.

[x4000]

In terms of multi-repair... what if this added a low-level regen effect to ships that are nearby?  That wouldn't be as fast as a true multi-repair (in terms of how fast it repairs), but it would also be metal-free.  I wonder if that would encourage bad behavior, though (waiting a long amount of clock time, not having fun, to play "optimally.").

[TheVampire100]

Passive Regeneration could work in battles if it is noticeable (meaning, strong enough that ships survive another shot).
Outside of battle I don't know. You could simply just retreat the fleet to your planet and heal them up, I guess that would be faster?

[Malkiel]

If you're concerned about "waiting a long amount of clock time" for the passive regen, I came up with an alternate idea.
The aura repairs only shields. Out of combat, shields regenerate rather quickly. In combat, shields don't normally regenerate. This aura could bypass that rule and allow some amount of shield recovery during a firefight. Example:
A shield repairing pulse that goes out every 3 seconds restoring 100 (per rank) shields to all friendly things within (range determined by rank, similar to it's repair range).
The pulse would repair shields EVEN IF ACTIVELY TAKING FIRE.
An ability like that wouldn't be true multi repair but it would make this the "my fleet lives longer" ark without a doubt.
We'd having to make sure bugs didn't occur with things like armor ships (0 shield cap getting shields = possible problems) and so forth. I don't want it % based because it'd break golems, I think a number similar to my suggestion above is probably fair.

Another option would be to have the Ark generate "points" over time that amount to free repairs for nearby things, up to a cap determined by rank of ark. It would then expend those points repairing the things. This would leave the "optimal playstyle" issue in effect...
But what if the Ark experience points (or w/e they are called that you use for upgrading arks along with research) ARE the free area repair points? It might make ranking up the orchid harder, but since I tend towards having a fair number of points sitting around I doubt it would be a large negative impact... just have to hang back with the Ark away from the fleet combat to get the points to rank up with is all.

The least interesting option would be +(rank*X) armor aura. Not exploitable long term, notable survival buff, non game breaking, plays alongside theme. Not going to lie, I think it's good but not "flashy" enough. Arks are a centerpeice, they need to be flashy in some way.

Of the ideas I listed, I like the first as an alternative to multi repair best, personally. The third has the potential to be the most powerful, used cleverly.

One other point: those who wait long times to be optimal must be careful, for we fail to realize we're at the metal cap and could be adding engineers.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

Claiming they have repair en masse as puffin did is frankly misleading.

I have a feeling I said that because it was a group of 20 units that could all repair. This was said before the caps were increased, so 20 repair ships really was a lot at the time. Though...yeah, probably was in error. Always looked like they had multiple beams when I used them.

Anyway. I'd like to point out MSDs in Classic could only repair when stationary for a while, and I...somewhat like the odd idea of those "aura pulses" actually helping remove debuffs from units, i.e speeding up recovery around it from slows, paralysis, things like that. Maybe as a later Mark thing?

[x4000]

Let's start with this and see how that feels in 0.766:

* The Orchid Ark now has lost the ability to assist construction on other ships, but it's repair speed has gone up by 10x.  This isn't a multi-repair ability, but it's such a superfast repair process that it should act very similarly to what is imagined.  Let's see how that feels, anyhow.

Thanks!

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

What about some form of vampirism, like a parasitic rose? It feels weird that the Healer Ark cannot heal itself.

[x4000]

Sure, that seems neat to me.   Feel free to modify it if you like.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

Done! Gave it a rename on the weapon to Parasitic Cannon to suit. Maybe I can find an example of an actual rose parasite...put that in later.

[BadgerBadger]

I don't recommend parasite-related weapon names, since people who played AIWC will expect the orchid to be like AIWC parasites.