View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0001637 | AI War 1 / Classic | Suggestion - Game Mechanics - Endgame Mechanics | Nov 27, 2010 2:29 am | Dec 15, 2010 6:37 pm | |
| Reporter | Vinraith | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Status | resolved | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Product Version | 4.041 | ||||
| Fixed in Version | 4.051 | ||||
| Summary | 0001637: AI Home Stations too vulnerable to raid starships (and other FF-ignoring units) | ||||
| Description | AI Home stations are covered by two core force fields, which makes them a very tough nut to crack with normal ships. However, they have very low health (800k) rendering them incredibly vulnerable to raid starships, infiltrators, warheads and the like. Is this intentional? It seems a bit anticlimactic for a cap of mark 1 raid starships (now a starting unlock) to swat the AI Home Command Center in a matter of seconds. That this can happen in what is otherwise the middle of an epic battle is all the more oddly disappointing. I would suggest either a health bump for the core command stations, or possible a mechanic to make destroying one with force field penetrating ships more difficult. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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perhaps the AI Home stations should have combat abilities. or spawning abilities. or maybe just a health boost would be fine. |
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It's also possible that modifying the core forcefields to make them harder for FF-ignoring ships to penetrate would do the trick, as Lancefighter suggested in the forum thread. There are a lot of options here, I'd just like to see that last command post go down a bit harder. |
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im not sure it makes a difference, since once all the guard posts are gone the hmoe stations are done anyway. all the core FFs do is slow down the kill. |
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The home station isn't done if, say, 2000 hostile ships are still in the system (as in the case that prompted this idea in the first place). Sure, many times killing the home station is a formality because you've already basically won. But that's not guaranteed, and being able to cheaply and quickly kill the command station turns some situations that should be a loss (or at least should require a lot more care and planning) into an unsatisfying win. |
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If you manage to take out all the core guard posts and then the home station without being chewed up and spit out by those 2k ships then you've deserved your victory as a successful user of guerilla tactics. |
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This was actually the first thing I tried post-patch with 4 homeworlds. All of the raider starships (4x a single homeworld cap mind you) blew up before they took out two guard posts, and then there were quite a few core ships and guardians incoming. The core AI guardians can do well over 90k damage, and the cruisers can also overcome raid starship armor too. I do think raid starships need a nerf in their effectiveness against players though with respect to their command grade damage bonus and firing through force fields, and that would tie into this as well. |
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@KDR We set of an Eye and got swarmed with a couple thousand ships, that's not guerilla tactics! :) We had a couple thousand ships, they had a couple thousand ships. Literally all we did was keep moving blowing up posts indiscriminately. We didn't have much left at the end, and certainly would have never made it through those forcefields, but a couple of raids only need a few seconds to kill the most valuable unit the AI has regardless of its defenses. After a game that was razor close for better than 20 hours, it just felt like a cheap way for the AI to go out. @Suzera Raids can't kill normal core posts, their health is too high. Either being them in after your fleet has cleared up the other core posts, or bring them with your fleet so they aren't a priority target (which is what we did). |
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That was kind of my point. Blowing up the posts is by far the hardest part. If you can get that done, the core is trivial either way, and likely you've killed almost everything around it already anyway. |
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Well, not really no. The hardest part, in principle, would be surviving the unbelievable, horrible retribution that things like a core CPA post will wreak on your worlds, or the core raid engine waves, or what have you. With the core command station so easy to kill, however, it's trivial to end the game before you have to deal with these things. It's not a matter of the command station itself being a challenge, per se, it's a matter of it being enough of a delay before victory that you have to meaningfully deal with the consequences of some of the nastier core system posts that you've destroyed. |
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Well i think you've touched on an important aspect that the game is currently lacking. A decisive ending. It's not that raid starships can easily get victory at that point, it's just anti-climatic to say "you win" don't worry about the impending counter attack. There should be something along the lines of, for example, a 15 minute countdown before all AI ships cease to function. But before the last Homeworld was destroyed they were given a final command... Rush to the Human homeworld and obliterate it. You've then got to defend against an onslaught before victory is assured. |
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That would be cool, Varone. In addition to giving the CPA Core posts real teeth, it would also make the Avenger much more frightening. It might be best to make it an optional setting, but I think you're on to something there. You should make a formal Mantis suggestion of that, or if you don't want to I will. |
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...core CPA posts and core raid engines are posts you have to destroy before the command station. Those are way way harder than the command station which raid starships would blow up under force field were they not protected by the posts. That was my point. I'm not sure why you're disagreeing with me since you're saying the exact same thing. Human raid starships aren't good against AI command grade stuff like AI raid starships are good against human command grade stuff. |
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Core CPA posts have to be blown up before the core command station, but their impact is not felt until several minutes later. If it's possible to blow up the core command post within those couple of minutes, their impact is never felt at all. There are several AI core post mechanics that never get a chance to manifest in a threatening way if you can simply end the game 30 seconds after downing the last core guard post. It would be more interesting ot have to deal with the consequences of setting off a massive core post induced CPA, rather than just blowing up the command station so quickly that you never see it. |
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To some extent it's intended that taking down the last AI home command station lets you win without facing the full consequences of things provoked in that very last push. Remember the final battle in Ender's Game? That was one of Chris's big inspirations on the endgame stuff. |
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Fair enough, but it'd be nice if it was cut a little closer. Without force field ignoring ships there's that moment of massive tension while you try to knock down the core shields and take out the command station before the hordes reach you. With shield ignoring ships it seems like you lose that tension, since the command station dies so quickly. That loss of tension (and the consequent anti-climax) is what prompted me to post this in the first place. |
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Personally I'd like to buff the AI home command station health by about 10x but I wasn't sure if they were intended to be pretty low in that regard (much as the human home command stations are). Also, I was under the impression that raid starships were dying like flies to any kind of stiff AI resistance thanks to artillery guardians and whatnot. Is that no longer the case? |
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Them dying in a blink to the AI but not to humans is part of the problem. :) Also, the health of the AI command station is really irrelevant since you can fish just about anything that isn't a sniper out from under the FF so you have just a bunch of resistanceless HP to chew through. |
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If raids are dying much easier since 4.041 then maybe the issue is at least partially resolved, I couldn't tell you since I rarely use them outside the endgame and I haven't seen an endgame since the one listed above. A 10x health bump would achieve the desired effect from my perspective, which is simply to create a slightly longer delay between "all core posts dead" and "command station dead." |
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Ok Vinraith i posted the idea in a seperate Mantis, feel free to add anything :) |
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A delay for no real reason other than to have a delay isn't any more challenging than just not having the delay. After everything is entirely dead and you're just sitting there for two minutes knocking down defensless core FFs, that's not hard at all. |
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Suzera, you're still not following me here, I can only assume you've never been in the situation I'm trying to address. If you set off a core CPA post, killing the post [i]does not stop the CPA[/i]. That means your systems are under intense attack as you're trying to finish off the AI. A delay in killing the AI command station, then, makes the situation MUCH more interesting. It's not about the threat to your ships on the AI homeworld, it's about the frantic defense going on back in your own systems while you desperately try to finish off the AI. If the AI command station goes down too quickly, the CPA doesn't even have the chance to arrive, and as a result the whole thing is a giant anticlimax. |
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So? I never have the Command Station core shields anywhere near down before all the posts are dead either usually, and those are also a pretty big delay. With a CPA post you just kill everything except the post, including the CS core FFs so the entire system is barren before popping both at the same time (or just pop both AI HWs at the same time if you're really concerned since you're obliterating them all anyway). It's not like there's a mad dash being harried by forces back to your own HW regardless of how long the command station takes to die. Even if the command station took 15 minutes to die you just ignore it and them come back after the CPA to trivial resistance then go read forums until you win. |
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If the command station had taken 15 minutes to die in the game I'm talking about above, I'd have lost. That's the whole point here, really. The CPA post doesn't trigger when you kill it, it triggers when you enter the system, and launches waves instantly and then every 15 minutes. You can't do the "wipe everything out and simulpop" trick here, because you're under real time pressure. It's a great post for exactly that reason, but it's largely rendered meaningless if the command station goes down in a few seconds. |
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So just blow up the CPA post, then go back to defend, then go back to win? I don't see CPA posts on the AI HW that often. Hinging the game difficulty on a rare occurance doesn't strike me as useful. If every AI HW always has at least one CPA post though...maybe. |
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As you said yourself, in situations with no time pressure this would have absolutely no impact on game difficulty. As to blowing up the CPA post, defending, then going back to win, that's lovely if you've got the forces to do it. Both times this has come up, however, it's been "throw everything you have at the AI system and hope to destroy the command station before the CPA crushes you" or "attack the CPA post, then withdraw and pray that you still have enough ships left to mount any kind of defense." The latter definitely constituted the lower odds of victory in each case. |
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I don't know how you're running out of almost all your fleet to blow up one post. |
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Thanks! * The AI home command station has had it's health increased 20x. It was previously actually 10x lower than expected, but it could have used a boost even above that in light of all the recent changes to the game. |
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Well, the player home received a nice health buff, so its only fair that the AI home receives one too. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 27, 2010 2:29 am | Vinraith | New Issue | |
| Nov 27, 2010 2:40 am | Giegue | Note Added: 0004567 | |
| Nov 27, 2010 3:11 am | Vinraith | Note Added: 0004568 | |
| Nov 27, 2010 4:24 am | TheDeadlyShoe | Note Added: 0004569 | |
| Nov 27, 2010 4:32 am | Vinraith | Note Added: 0004570 | |
| Nov 27, 2010 4:32 am | Vinraith | Note Edited: 0004570 | |
| Nov 27, 2010 5:21 am | KDR_11k | Note Added: 0004571 | |
| Nov 27, 2010 11:20 am | Suzera | Note Added: 0004575 | |
| Nov 27, 2010 1:34 pm | Vinraith | Note Added: 0004578 | |
| Nov 27, 2010 1:34 pm | Vinraith | Note Edited: 0004578 | |
| Nov 27, 2010 2:57 pm | Vinraith | Summary | AI Home Stations too vulnerable to raid starships => AI Home Stations too vulnerable to raid starships (and other FF-ignoring units) |
| Nov 27, 2010 6:25 pm | Suzera | Note Added: 0004581 | |
| Dec 13, 2010 10:04 pm | Vinraith | Note Added: 0006144 | |
| Dec 13, 2010 10:05 pm | Vinraith | Note Edited: 0006144 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 12:54 pm | Varone | Note Added: 0006158 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 12:56 pm | Vinraith | Note Added: 0006159 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 12:57 pm | Vinraith | Note Edited: 0006159 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:13 pm | Suzera | Note Added: 0006161 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:35 pm | Vinraith | Note Added: 0006170 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:35 pm | Vinraith | Note Edited: 0006170 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:36 pm | Vinraith | Note Edited: 0006170 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:37 pm | Vinraith | Note Edited: 0006170 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:37 pm | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0006171 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:38 pm | Vinraith | Note Edited: 0006170 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:39 pm | Vinraith | Note Added: 0006172 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:40 pm | Vinraith | Note Edited: 0006172 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:42 pm | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0006174 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:44 pm | Suzera | Note Added: 0006175 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:44 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0006175 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:47 pm | Vinraith | Note Added: 0006176 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:51 pm | Varone | Note Added: 0006177 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 1:54 pm | Suzera | Note Added: 0006178 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 2:37 pm | Vinraith | Note Added: 0006184 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 3:34 pm | Suzera | Note Added: 0006191 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 3:53 pm | Vinraith | Note Added: 0006197 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 3:56 pm | Vinraith | Note Edited: 0006197 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 4:21 pm | Suzera | Note Added: 0006198 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 6:21 pm | Vinraith | Note Added: 0006200 | |
| Dec 14, 2010 8:23 pm | Suzera | Note Added: 0006201 | |
| Dec 15, 2010 6:36 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0006263 | |
| Dec 15, 2010 6:36 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => resolved |
| Dec 15, 2010 6:36 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Fixed in Version | => 4.051 |
| Dec 15, 2010 6:36 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Resolution | open => fixed |
| Dec 15, 2010 6:36 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Dec 15, 2010 6:37 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0006264 |
