Shark Plots

[BadgerBadger]

So in AIWC there were two Shark Plots. One said "If the AI takes out one of your command stations, they get a permanent AIP increase". The other said "If the AI takes out one of your command stations, they get a minor Exogalactic Attack aimed at you".

How much did people like them? Would people want those in AIW2? And are there any other fun things people want along those lines?

For example, there could be a "Hyper-Expansionist Shark Plot" that says "Whenever the AI takes out one of your command stations, they will queue a Reconquest Wave against that planet", so unless you counterattack swiftly the AI will just recapture that planet. Though that might more sense as its own AI type....

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

For what it's worth, I've never used either. Didn't give much thought to them. In my experience it was fairly rare to actually lose a Command Station to trigger a Shark event, because I'd never settle for anything other than "near instant AI wave annihilation", even on the hardest game I won (8.6 Mad Bomber, 8.6 Vicious Raider, 2x Waves, Showdown as only "faction", for reference).

In principle they sound good, much like a human'd exploit a temporary advantage this'd let the AI do that too, but as above it has to be overwhelmingly strong enough to kill the CS in the first place. Thinking it through, if the attack fleet is depleted after that, Shark lets the AI keep up pressure...if it's not depleted, it'll gain more power, take out another planet, gain more, etc...might lead to near instant death?

I'm not sure. I'd consider my opinion of low worth due to the lack of experience with it, but I think if they're...not incredibly hard to do, which I don't imagine, I'd go for it. I think they'd let the AI be more proactive against you/factions, rather than entirely reactive to what you do.

I could do a Classic game with them on, if there are other settings you'd like as well. Gives you more data.

EDIT: Checked in-game, and the Shark type that has the Exogalactic Attack says it also adds to the next Cross Planet Attack.

[BadgerBadger]

The goal of the Shark Plots is basically to say "Blood in the Water!" and let the AI finish you more quickly. It makes the game harder because recovering from setbacks is now much more challenging.

They aren't huge game changing abilities, but they give you yet another means to have a challenge.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

Yeah that's what they say in game, roughly. Occurred to me that a defeat through shark plots is probably more interesting than a slow "death by a thousand cuts", where you keep going but it doesn't really seem worth it.

Guess I'd be in support now, knowing that.

[Toranth]

The goal of the Shark Plots is basically to say "Blood in the Water!" and let the AI finish you more quickly. It makes the game harder because recovering from setbacks is now much more challenging.

They aren't huge game changing abilities, but they give you yet another means to have a challenge.

I dislike the shark plots, both of them.
The extra mini-exo Plot isn't too bad; the idea is sound.  If you are close to the edge, then that extra little push could topple your entire empire.  However, if you were solid, then it didn't mean anything - just a little extra rebuilding.
The extra AIP Plot, though, I truly hate and detest.  It has little immediate effect, but the AIP gain is permanent... and adds up later.

Once the game switched to distributed defenses (per-system turrets), it became a lot more practical to have a few widely distributed planets.  Perhaps with capturables, perhaps to prevent deep-strike, whatever reason.  But these outflung systems could easily be overrun by the massed Threatfleet or Exowaves.  Without Shark, just rebuild later - sometimes 2 or 3 times an hour, in fact.  With Shark, it's another punishment for not hiding everything behind an impenetrable chokepoint.  It hurts the desired style of gameplay that so many other mechanics push for... and just isn't much fun to me.

[BadgerBadger]

I personally liked Shark B. I never really used Shark A. I don't really see a downside to including them? If noone likes Shark A then we could just leave Shark B as the only shark plot.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

Don't think there is a downside, unless you're somehow really low on UI space. From what I know of the games workings, Shark-A might be fairly easy to put in, optional as before though.

Can't think of any other Shark types - even the factions generally do this already, in taking the planet for themselves.