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Even on a lower difficulty like 7.6, I end up getting counterwaves of 500-1500 ships full of bombers, tanks and other such game-ending goodies. Since these are the level of the sending planet, these tend to be far far far more dangerous than the regular AI waves. I'm not sure if it's intended to be this way or not. It is less of a big deal for me since I usually play with several HWs, but if it's this bad with a single HW, I wouldn't touch them ever if they were on mk 3 or 4 worlds. |
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I assume missiles, autobombs, or new spirecraft to be the solution, but I don't disagree with the fact that there is no real solution to this problem beyond large AoE damage. |
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Added a screenshot comparing a single warp counterattack wave to the AI's regular waves on 7.6 difficulty with 4 HWs. It did end up having about a thousand mk 4 bombers that I couldn't kill anywhere near in time before everything exploded. I was trying to do a no deepstriking game for a change of pace, but that's too much when there's a lot of these posts around. |
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seems like normal numbers to me. you should see the topic where there are like 70K ships. |
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3000 mk 4 bombers is not a normal number for 116 ai progress at 7.6 difficulty... 70k is just a bigger crazy number. It's bigger than 10 waves stuck together, and it can go anywhere on top of that. The fact that it takes 15 minutes to arrive instead of 2 or 3 doesn't help at all if you can't actually muster the force to take it down. |
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I definitely agree that this is a balance problem. A 2000-3000 ship wave from a planet bordering the home system is far out of proportion from the threat other guard posts pose |
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Warp counterattack posts aren't limited to systems bordering home systems. They work from any AI system to any player system, including homeworlds. |
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I think i'd much prefer it so that: Wave timer reduced back to 2 mins. Wave arrives at the planet the counterpost was destroyed at. Wave Size = Current Wave Size * Mark of post. Wave MK level same as AIP level. That would fit more the idea of a rapid counterattack. |
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AIP has nothing to do with counterattack posts. If it's early in the game and you can't handle a large wave of mark IV ships, don't blow up a mark IV attack post or destroy the command post on a mark IV world that has a counterattack post. These attacks are fundamentally self-inflicted, it's up to you to determine when you can handle them, and avoid triggering them until that time. 3000 ships is not unreasonable, especially given the prep time involved and the optional nature of the attacks. Obviously, of course, the 20k and 70k attacks are a bug, though. |
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3000 ships are absolutely unreasonable in my opinion anywhere but end-game; there's simply nothing in this game that is worth all the losses you're going to suffer against that, because you can simply not counter it even if all your ships are on cap, and you build all turrets and fortresses and forcefields there. In my current game with a friend, we had 4400 ships (mk3) as counterattack, managed to destroy them by "only" losing 3 planets, a black widow golem, and about 2500 ships and about 400 turrets. That for an advanced research station. (Note that we've only played it through to see how we would survive, it is completely nonsense to go on with this decision.) What I also loved is that the AI also sent in 2000 additional ships as normal waves right after the counterattack wave has arrived. It is very clear that counterattack waves desperately need some balancing, and they definately should be calculated based on the AIP. I also believe that it should take into account the post's mark and valuable targets on the planet. |
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3000 ships is a pretty standard mid-game CPA on normal caps, I'm not sure why you feel it's unreasonable (are you playing on low caps? I can see how it'd be unreasonable there). Once again, though, if you can't handle it don't pop the counterattack post. High mark worlds are supposed to be difficult obstacles, more tempting to go around than through. High mark counterattack posts should be costly, and most of the time you should want to avoid them. |
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No, I'm playing on normal caps. I see your point: don't attack a counterattack post unless you can handle 3-70K ships in any of your planets. But then, when would you attack a counterattack post? Unless it has 2 golems, an advanced research station, and 3 fabricators on it, I can hardly imagine anything that would make it worth it. |
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@ShdNx Let me clarify, first, that while I think 3-4k can be reasonable, something like 70k (or even 10k) really clearly isn't, and is certainly a bug. What I would say is that counterattacks give you an amount of time equivalent to a CPA, so them giving you a number of ships equivalent to a CPA (at mid-game) isn't unreasonable IMO. I'd also say that number should scale down for higher marks, in the same way that wave sizes normally do, so if that's not happening now (and it doesn't sound like it is) that should be fixed. That said, I would obviously avoid attacking them early game, and avoid attacking a high mark one for the entire game if possible. However, if the target was valuable enough (an ARS, the only logical place to launch an assault on a homeworld, etc) I'd certainly go for it, yeah. |
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I'm currently digging through these related reports looking for a save from before generating the offending wave (generally via antagonizing a counter-attack post), if you have your save for this, please post it :) |
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What is it you're looking for? If you're just looking for a counterwave post making a wave that is equivalent to 10-20 regular waves in just numbers, I can go manufacture a save real quick, since blowing up almost any counterwave guard post at 10-100 AIP will generate 2-5k ship waves, which is far more than the waves of 100-300 ships you would normally get at that AIP level. Added a manufactured counterwave >> regular wave pair of saves at 10 AIP. Loading the before save should be about 10-15 seconds before blowing up the post with kill order already input. This actually looks like the weaker end of the counterwaves, proportionally. After save has a regular wave up as well as the counterwave for comparison. This also does not seem like it scales up nor down based on HW count, so multiplayer games and people who pick multiple homeworlds would find the counterposts far less difficult. |
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@Suzera Keith's looking, I suspect, for examples in the 10k and up range. 2k-5k is normal, and AIP has nothing to do with counterattack waves. Since you determine when and if you get counterattacks, early in the game you want to avoid them, obviously. They do need to scale down more appropriately for increased mark level, 3000 mark IV bombers or the like is clearly excessive. Failing to scale for multiple homeworlds needs to be addressed, too. |
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Are you sure AIP has nothing to do without counterattack waves? From a from-scratch 10 AIP game do nothing but blow up the counterwave post they appear to be, in .041, 700-900, I consistently get about 2000-4000 at about 100-140 and I get 6-8k at around 200-220 the few times I have gotten that high and tried one. Quantity does appear to have mk and ship-type multipliers like a schizo wave should, but that's going to be 3000 mk 4 bombers or 5000ish mk 1s if the counter waves work the same. |
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@Suzera It would appear that you're right and I'm wrong. From the wiki: ----- When this guard post or it's systems command station is destroyed it launches a 4x normal sized counter attack against a random human controlled system not protected by a warp-jammer command station. ----- Sorry about that, I apparently misunderstood something. |
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Running 10 runs each from that before save (7.6 difficulty, fortress baron, and thus smaller than average waves [guessing about half to 3/4]) the waves at 10 AIP ranged from 700-900. At 110 AIP using get angry on the above save, they are 1200-1600. At 210 AIP, they are 2400-2600. You reposted as I got this. :) |
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Just tested with 12 homeworlds, the counterattack wave isn't any bigger, so multiplayer or multi-HW games will find counterwave posts to be less of a problem. Still pretty crushing regardless though due to having no turrets... |
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This should be fixed for 4.042; it may still be too high but won't be nearly as susceptible to a "runaway" situation like it is in 4.041. |
- Anonymous
