Instigators

[I-KP]

What exactly, in mechanical terms, are they doing?

Are the resultant wave strength modifiers permanent? My understanding is that they're not, i.e., kill it and the wave strength returns to 'normal'.

I have had a game where I failed to notice one tucked away somewhere for ages and the wave strength became utterly overwhelming inside of one hour of game play.

I have had other games where I've hunted down and killed the Instigator within 30 minutes only to see no reduction in future wave strengths. Perhaps there was another one hiding away somewhere.

I do believe that the game could provide a lot more information on what is contributing to the strength of a wave. It may help demystify what's going on a little bit.

[BadgerBadger]

The description for instigator bases says "Destroying this base will end the effect". So once you kill the base it stops doing anything.

While an instigator base is alive then every "So often" it does "Something", generally giving the AI bonus income to one of its budgets.

I will 100% not be giving out in depth details of how the AI works internally as part of the tooltips. That ruins immersion and will just confuse most of the players.

[I-KP]

Cool your jets, I'm not asking you to post source code.

The reason I ask is because I've played the same game (diff:7) six times now, to test how random things can be. My final conclusion being: wildly stochastic.

Some games are easy, with loads of fleets and applicable ship lines and tech grabs available, and other factions contribute effectively to the effort. Other games end (quickly) with 150 strength waves after only 50 minutes of game time, no near fleets and the available ship lines are all weak / stealth in nature. With identical game settings you get wildly different game experiences, ranging from the very easy to the outright impossible.

One of the reasons this game seems so hilariously random is, to some extent, the player not understanding why they got smushed. Most of that is solved through experience, wiki's, forums, etc.; however, being able to see what is contributing to a wave might allow the player to understand some more of what's going on. You don't have to reveal your bank sort code and account number to do this, just some sort of indication to let the player know why the next wave is 150 strong when all previous waves were only 15 strong.

Mystery is all well and good but the art of mystery is found in the method of delivery, the 'just enough' information to pique curiosity. Multiplying the next wave strength by 10, for example, without any indication why isn't 'mysterious'; it doesn't make the player think, 'wow, this AI really is clever'; it more likely makes them think, 'WTF?!'. You don't need to spill the beans; just drop a clue in the form of a pointer that lets the player know that there is a reason for this and that it's not just RNJesus dumping on them from on high.

EDIT: Is something wrong with this forum? It's getting very slow. It's always been slow, often taking 30 seconds to respond, but over the last few days it's started timing out with an error from the host.

[Kraiz]

I noticed something similar in one of my games.  I was under 120 AI Progress with some instigator bases nearby.   Out of nowhere I get a 90 strength wave on one of my newly colonized planets.  I (barely) fought it off, only to have the next wave and successive waves be 10-15 strength.

That said, I don't think it was the instigator bases nearby.  I had neutered all planets adjacent to my territory while I tried to expand into a new section of the map and set up ye olde "whipping boy" planet. It took longer than expected so i didn't get any waves for quite some time.  It seems like the waves just stacked and stacked and stacked into a 90 strength wave once a valid target (my freshly colonized planet) was available.  After that they returned to normal.    I knew neutering all adjacent planets was ill-advised, though I wasn't sure of the mechanism the AI would use to punish me for it.  Turns out stacking the waves repeatedly until I put a planet within striking distance of a warp gate was its solution.

Perhaps this is the case in your game(s)?  I don't think the instigator bases are the culprit.  I experienced the same phenomenon under the above circumstances, hence why I ask.


P.S.  Yeah, the forums have been doggedly slow.  Cloudflare kept screaming that the host was unreachable.  But, things are snappy now, so kudos to the Arcen guys for getting it up and running again.

[BadgerBadger]

If there are no planets an AI has a reasonably chance of doing damage to with a wave then the AI will hoard its wave budget until it's strong enough.

[I-KP]

Kraiz,

There's every chance it was a combination of those things: not seeing any action for a prolonged period of time _and_ having a mystery Instigator pumping up the power without challenge. (And of the two games where I saw massive waves within 50 minutes of play the AIP was well below 100 and a Threat value of less than 20.)

Either way, this isn't 'mysterious' in the evocative sense. It's opaque mechanics that can generate hugely varied results in seemingly improbable time frames.

EDIT: The forum is behaving marvellously today. Bravo to whomever gave it a kick!

[Kraiz]

I can understand the opaque mechanics.  In my case, there's no in-game way of cluing me in that something is amiss until i get the wave warning timer.  That said, I'm also in agreement with Badger that exposing the underbelly of some game features and AI tricks kind of breaks immersion and the feel of the game.

So, is there a way to clue the player in that things are silently getting out of hand behind the scenes without snapping them out of the experience?  Going from small waves to a colossal wave in that timespan is game-ending in most circumstances, and I think the player should be given a few hints before something like this takes place.

As for what that looks like, i honestly don't know.  A wave charge-up timer is far from elegant, and most things I can think of are some variation on that.

[donblas]

In my current game, I had one instigator that fired 19 times without me noticing it was there, and one that fired like 50 times.

Maybe a line of spam every time ones fires?

[BadgerBadger]

The next release will give you a permanent Notification (like a wave notification) for every instigator base on the map.

[Asteroid]

If there are no planets an AI has a reasonably chance of doing damage to with a wave then the AI will hoard its wave budget until it's strong enough.

I didn't even suspect this was a mechanic, I thought that regular waves were the one thing you could rely on to be predictable.

Judging by the repeated posts about this on the Steam forums this is confusing a sizeable people and making some of them angry. A lot of them seem to experience it as "hey, you lose the game out of nowhere, sucks to be you!" even on lower difficulties.

How about adding this behavior as a new AIP milestone that's only present on difficulty 5+ or 6+? The player knowing this can happen and having some time in the early game to prepare for the eventuality would make a world of difference with the perception I think.

There might also be a thing going whereby players kill all adjacent warp gates (a natural reaction) and are then surprised much later down the line with a massive Threat attack or get a massive wave once they get another planet that is connected a gate, or whatever the AI does with its budget in this circumstance. The game needs to tell players they did something really wrong, probably with a notification like the one you added for Instigator Bases.

Same idea when players kill a gate that already has a wave in progress, the game doesn't tell you in any way that you just made your life much worse for the next wave by doing the natural thing to protect yourself.

[BadgerBadger]

The wave hoarding behaviour only gets interesting at intensity 7 or above (and on intensity 7 the AI just says "Sit on wave income until the wave is about as strong as the target planet". This shouldn't be too hard for people.

Until I get convincing evidence otherwise, I believe that the "OMG Giant Wave" problem is either a known issue with exogalactic wormholes where they can be stronger than desired if you don't have valid targets, or just Counterattack Waves that people aren't dealing with well. It's quite easy to lose the game off an early fleetwipe followed by a Counterattack, which is Desirable in my book.

There is a tip that explains about not killing all the adjacent wormholes. It probably would be worth making sure the wave cancellation mechanic is explained in a Tip as well.