Author Topic: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements  (Read 27742 times)

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
New update to the design document that I figured I'd go ahead and note for feedback: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IdzU90psGas_3UFe23BLvsGQ8fclec49NmnbHfwkZ8w/edit#heading=h.m9mw58u2a4gu

Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline kasnavada

  • Hero Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 986
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2016, 10:44:13 am »
Ship bays: perfect.

AI reinforcement is basically "how to transform the old reinforcement mechanics into the ship bays".

Offline chemical_art

  • Core Member Mark IV
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,952
  • Fabulous
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2016, 10:47:02 am »
All of it is perfect. I have the new tactical options that ship bays offer and love how reinforcements in practice function the same but are much cleaner in terms of performance.
Life is short. Have fun.

Offline Tridus

  • Master Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,305
  • I'm going to do what I do best: lecture her!
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2016, 10:50:50 am »
Quote
The destruction of certain kinds of buildings on the AI side, like perhaps supply trains or whatever else, could cause immediate drops of X amount of currency.

Hello Astro Trains! :D (Even more interesting if successfully completing a run gives the destination system a bonus or uses some of the currency there, making it very advantageous to reroute and sabtoage cargo cars on trains, rather than just ignoring them.)

ATM, this sounds awesome to me. It replaces a fiddly thing (Barracks) with something cleaner, provides a performance boost by effectively not having to acknowledge all those idle ships exist outside of an Int32, and it'll probably look really cool when you wake the planet up and ships start pouring out of the bays, Hollywood alien mothership style.

Bonus points if the AI wakes up a whole whack of them at once to pool into a CPA.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #4 on: September 06, 2016, 10:51:45 am »
Awesome!  Glad to hear that one went down easier. :)

This was the intended design from a while back on these, but I was going to tuck this in with the space platforms (ship bays would have been a module on those, but work exactly the same).  Space platforms obviously didn't go over so well, heh, so this had to be modified slightly to add shipyards.  But beyond that it was all planned already, and I'm glad to see that I was in line with what you guys like already with that one, heh.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #5 on: September 06, 2016, 10:54:39 am »
Quote
The destruction of certain kinds of buildings on the AI side, like perhaps supply trains or whatever else, could cause immediate drops of X amount of currency.

Hello Astro Trains! :D (Even more interesting if successfully completing a run gives the destination system a bonus or uses some of the currency there, making it very advantageous to reroute and sabtoage cargo cars on trains, rather than just ignoring them.)

That would be an awesome suggestion to note down in the astro trains section, actually!  The astro trains discussion last week was one of the things that helped spark the idea about reinforcement currency being more granular like this, too.  There were several discussions that people had about that, more ways to damage the AI in specific fashions, etc, that really led into this.

ATM, this sounds awesome to me. It replaces a fiddly thing (Barracks) with something cleaner, provides a performance boost by effectively not having to acknowledge all those idle ships exist outside of an Int32, and it'll probably look really cool when you wake the planet up and ships start pouring out of the bays, Hollywood alien mothership style.

Bonus points if the AI wakes up a whole whack of them at once to pool into a CPA.

I imagine that for CPAs we will do something along the lines of these, or have some sort of motherships or something that are used with ship bays on them so that they show up and it's attacking your planets rather than your framerate quite so much. ;)  I think we can make these visually look really cool, too, even just when they're parked there.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline chemical_art

  • Core Member Mark IV
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,952
  • Fabulous
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2016, 10:54:50 am »

Bonus points if the AI wakes up a whole whack of them at once to pool into a CPA.

That is another cool tactical consideration. CPA's could summon ships from several worlds, and one could attempt to blunt a CPA by spawn camping one or more of the planets to get down on the forces before they rally together. It was already sort of possible in the past but this way provides a much cleaner and more visually pleasing manner.

This would also make the special reinforcements that core AI worlds get make a lot more sense visually. They don't just appear from the ether but rather come from the bays.
Life is short. Have fun.

Offline kasnavada

  • Hero Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 986
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #7 on: September 06, 2016, 10:56:14 am »
it'll probably look really cool when you wake the planet up and ships start pouring out of the bays, Hollywood alien mothership style.
This is definitely adding to cool factor of the idea, and yes it's very feeling very close to the AI war solution. It's a clear upgrade to barracks / spawn mechanics. It could also replace / help with the "neinzul regen chamber" issues.

Actually, I'd add that some "grapes" could even become the old carriers. I feel like calling those grapes for some reason. There is possibly a ton of mechanics that could be spawned from it in the future.

Offline chemical_art

  • Core Member Mark IV
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,952
  • Fabulous
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #8 on: September 06, 2016, 11:00:05 am »

Actually, I'd add that some "grapes" could even become the old carriers. I feel like calling those grapes for some reason. There is possibly a ton of mechanics that could be spawned from it in the future.

I can imagine it being a grape in that when it is ripe (full) it falls off the vine and into the player's lap.
So with that idea, if a player pops the grape before it is ripe then all the ships get destroyed.
Life is short. Have fun.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #9 on: September 06, 2016, 11:16:57 am »
Please note, regarding the reinforcements section I have made a number of changes there to be more accurate as to what is new versus what was in AI War Classic.  Turns out that some of what I was proposing (a lot of it actually) was already in AI War Classic thanks to a lot of work by Keith after I stepped away from the game, so that was easier. ;)
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline kasnavada

  • Hero Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 986
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #10 on: September 06, 2016, 11:20:01 am »

Actually, I'd add that some "grapes" could even become the old carriers. I feel like calling those grapes for some reason. There is possibly a ton of mechanics that could be spawned from it in the future.

I can imagine it being a grape in that when it is ripe (full) it falls off the vine and into the player's lap.
So with that idea, if a player pops the grape before it is ripe then all the ships get destroyed.

I could imagine wave-like mechanics spawning like this. Or golems. Or the raid engine popping waves after waves every 4 minutes exactly with this mechanic. Which would leave the player with the choice of "do I go beat that (and the entire planet with it) before it spawns ?", or "do I let it hit fall on my defenses ?"

Not sure it belongs in the base design though.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #11 on: September 06, 2016, 11:22:56 am »

Actually, I'd add that some "grapes" could even become the old carriers. I feel like calling those grapes for some reason. There is possibly a ton of mechanics that could be spawned from it in the future.

I can imagine it being a grape in that when it is ripe (full) it falls off the vine and into the player's lap.
So with that idea, if a player pops the grape before it is ripe then all the ships get destroyed.

I could imagine wave-like mechanics spawning like this. Or golems. Or the raid engine popping waves after waves every 4 minutes exactly with this mechanic. Which would leave the player with the choice of "do I go beat that (and the entire planet with it) before it spawns ?", or "do I let it hit fall on my defenses ?"

Not sure it belongs in the base design though.

I think that this is worth a separate topic for discussion in the ideas forum, because it's both a very good idea and a simple one.  Seems like a good one for potential inclusion to me, unless there's some major problem with it that people think up.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline kasnavada

  • Hero Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 986
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #12 on: September 06, 2016, 11:43:30 am »
Thanks =)
And, done here:

https://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,19047.0.html

@chemical_art.
Thanks for trying to open the topic too. Yes, I saw you. ;D
« Last Edit: September 06, 2016, 11:45:29 am by kasnavada »

Offline Draco18s

  • Resident Velociraptor
  • Core Member Mark V
  • *****
  • Posts: 4,251
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #13 on: September 06, 2016, 12:00:36 pm »
Awesome stuff.

Offline Elestan

  • Full Member Mark II
  • ***
  • Posts: 158
Re: AI War II: Design Document Updates Round 3: Ship Bays and AI Reinforcements
« Reply #14 on: September 06, 2016, 12:24:16 pm »
I like it, but I'm awaiting word on how surprise attacks work.  In AIW1, the AI could basically see everything everywhere, and the only limitation was that it wouldn't go on alert until you went over 50 units/2 starships.  I'd love for the AI's knowledge to be more realistically limited in AIW2.