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I'll try and math something out when I get home. Although an easier way to test the viability of the numbers would be extremely valuable. It would be nice to say "spawn 400 [ships]" and see how it goes. "Spawn a wave" (existing cheat) doesn't help much, as its dependent on the current AIP, not to mention it can vary in size 30%. |
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I'm going to give you guys an alternate take on what could be done. How about instead of just a jump in tech level of the waves at 200AIP (estimate) the AI will spawn (75% of Ai progress MK1) + (25% of AI progress MK2) These values will then change as the AIP goes up so that just before tech level 3 at around 800AIP (estimate) the AI will spawn (25% of Ai progress MK1) + (75% of AI progress MK2). The pattern will continue as the tech levels are reached so that for tech level 3 the AI will spawn (25% of Ai progress MK1) + (50% of AI progress MK2)+ (25% of AI progress MK3). Mark 1 ships will then be phased out as AI progress increases, replacing them with MK3 ships. This way the difficulty jump is lowered between tech levels and the overall difficulty is that little bit less but will still increase over time until the AIP is too high to cope. |
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That can be factored in separately, first though, I plan on dealing with overall numbers. Replacing X Mk1s with Y Mk2s is a separate calculation that would be applied after the total wave size is calculated. Also, it makes the total wave size easier to calculate if you can assume that they're all Mk1 or Mk1 equivalents. |
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Correct, this is about base wave size, which assumes Mk. I fleet ships of a standard ship cap and no special ship specific scaling. All the other adjustments for mk level, specific ship multipliers, ship type, ship specific caps, non-standard ship cap, and AI type specific multipliers come later in the algorithm. Also, if you are giving ship count numbers, please specify which ship cap level (low, medium, high) those are in reference too. I think that the game uses high ship caps internally, but I am not sure. |
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I'd have to check the waveCalculationLog to check, but I think it does as well. All of my calcs will be in low caps, as I am more familiar with how many units I can deal with. |
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Alright: Here's the question: What AIP is going to be the "cutoff" i.e. the level that the AI "just kills you"? What AIP should be the standard operation, i.e. "mid game is here"? How many ships should we be expecting at the Early game? Its very difficult to find a sub-linear relationship between AIP and numShips that doesn't: a) throw nothing at the player early game (40 ships at AIP 25) and then increase like crazy (160 ships at AIP 125) b) taper off long before the late game (+40 ships for 400 AIP over 300 AIP) Or doesn't actually help (near-linear increases). What's the benchmark here? |
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You know, I don't think anyone, [i]including the devs[/i], have sat down and thought about quantitatively the general pacing of the game as is it currently is or how it should be in light of what has changed since 3.0. Especially not the pacing of the late-mid game to end game. This might explain a lot of the balance oversights that are currently plaguing the game. *rolls-eyes* EDIT: Upon rereading this post later, I realized I was a bit condescending. I apologize for that. I also made the implication you put a lot less thought into the game than I know you have, and I am sorry for that too. |
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You said it, not me. That aside, I've decided that 600 AIP is the point at which beyond "Thall Shall Not Go" and that any AIP under that needs to be easier, but at 600 and beyond the number of ships needs to increase in a super-linear fashion, so a pure sub-linear isn't the way to go. But a polynomial equation ax^3 + bx^2 + cx + d has promise. We can define a middle-point (say, 275 AIP) around which 20 AIP up or down results in roughly the same wave size, and then a bottom point (say, 25 AIP) that is the sheer lower end of how small waves get (math says this is 21 on Low Caps). A lot of complex math later.... =0.00001068*AIP^3 -0.00835*AIP^2 +2.305*AIP -37.9 Our 275 AIP results in waves of about 275 ships (per AI, low caps). This may be on the low end, but generally speaking these waves are pretty crushing and what is currently turning up at about 175 AIP. Uploading image. Poorly labled graph (FUCK YOU, Office 2007!): Red line is Current Math Blue Line is the function above X axis is AIP Y axis is "expected wave size" (does not account for the random elements) Just as a random note: the function should probably also take into account the galaxy size. 120 planet maps kind of assume that the player will be murdering more planets. |
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aip_ships.png (33,709 bytes) |
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I can't remember, does this come before or after AI difficulty level is factored in? Either way, what does this chart look like for difficulties 6, 7, and 8? Also, I don't think this equation should vary based off of map size. It has been a precedent in the past the AI treats you the same regardless of map size. I don't see why that should change. EDIT: If you are wondering what map size you should balance against, use 80. That seems to be what they balanced against in the past, and is the "standard" map size. EDIT2: What was the equation you used for the current relation? |
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The hard math before difficulty, however I am including the *3 multiplier for difficulty >7 in that chart, as it's easier to go "wave size: 100, got it" rather than "workingShips 100 is....?". I'll upload a new chart with 6, 7, 7.6, and 8 in a minute. The rational for variance based on map size would simply be where the "middle" of that function is, or where it starts ramping up significantly. Anyway, it was just an idea. |
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aip_ships_many.PNG (67,872 bytes) |
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Graph uploaded. It's pretty much the same for each difficulty level, just more ships per AIP. |
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Looks good. My only question is given the current state of the game, it is feasible to be close to winning the game by the time you hit 600 AIP. For me, I start reaching the beginning of the mid game (or what I consider to be the mid game) around 200 AIP. (I consider the start of the mid game to be when you have captured enough planets (and therefore, enough of an economy) adjacent to your "cluster" of planets to start shifting to deep strikes and "hopping" towards the homes) |
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That's kind of what I'm basing my figures on. I have gotten to almost 200 AIP, the point at which I'd start considering the move towards the mid-game when I've lost recently. And based on comments from Keith and X about where AIP starts getting beyond what the player "should" be able to deal with is somewhere around 800. I did the chart to about 600, but I'm certainly open to suggestions. 600 is still pretty high. In any case, if this kind of formula is used, we'll have to rebalance the nukes somewhat. 5000 AIP would be unplayable (roughly 1,137,857 unit waves; 13,000 AIP which is what using a Mk3 nuke actually roughly GETS you puts you at 22,083,565 units per wave, on [i]low caps[/i]). |
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And that is one of the reasons that Mk3 nukes are a joke option. ;) Anyways, I'm not sure I am comfortable with super-linear growth past some point. It seems rather brittle to future shifts in AIP pacing. |
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True, Mk3 nukes are a joke option. What's a Mk2's AIP? Also, I see your point, I'm just not sure there's a sub-linear formula that will fit where we're trying to stick it. Mainly because we don't know what the "cutoff" is in terms of how many ships a player can realistically handle. |
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Maybe one formula will not work. Maybe the old linear formula up to the point where the sub-linear and the linear formulas are equal. Then switch to the sub-linear one. Again, it would be interesting to compare the actual difficulty increase of 600 to 800 ships compared to increase from 400 to 600. Also, it would be nice to see how much more difficult 1000 vs 2000 (or even 2000 vs 4000) ship waves are. It may be a super-linear increase in difficulty, but if it not that much over linear until you get to absurd ranges (ranges where you would lose either way), then the linear relation is fine (maybe tweaking the slope constant some though). EDIT: Oh, and a Mk. II Nuke's AIP is 500. Still crazy, but not quite so winnably so. (Still a crazy jump in difficulty though) |
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500 + (20 * 5 systems killed) = about 600? With my function above that puts you at around 700-800, making it possible to use effectively without killing yourself. Anyway, yes. We need to find a game where we can compare what waves at sizes feel like and at what point "yes that's too much." |
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Yea, this relationship is much harder to "guestimate" balance than the one tweaked in the related issue. It is also harder to test. We will need some real numbers from the actual game to get much further than we are now. |
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Try =4*SQRT(AIP)*SQRT(SQRT(AIP))-30 (Essentially POWER(AIP, 0.75) ) Lines up until about 175 AIP, then diverges fairly slowly peaking at 970 units compared to 1400 at AIP 975. Edit: "Peaking" meaning the top end of my graph. |
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That is more of the type of relationship I was talking about. Still, hard to test without some "test waves" to fight. |
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Exactly. KEITH! Can we get? :D Basically I'm thinking a....test compile that prompts the user for a workingShips number, rather than calculating it from AIP (and makes a save just prior so we can go "not enough, reload" and be at the exact game-time spot the wave occurs at). |
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Or better yet, just create a variant of "warp in the clowns" that takes the base wave size as a parameter, not whatever it is using now. (What is the "scaling parameter" that "warp in the clowns" sets?) EDIT: If you are feeling generous, maybe a similar variant for "send in the clowns"? |
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Oh, and if you don't mind Draco18s, can you post a chart with the old, the polynomial, and the rational suggested replacement formulas? (with the values of the various of parameters you used for the first graph, just one AI difficulty is fine) |
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Sure. |
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aip_compare.PNG (40,840 bytes) |
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Uploaded. |
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Thanks. That helps me understand it some. :) |
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No problem. I keep fooling around with numbers but I can't find anything I like, namely the mid-AIP (150-250) is too hard, but later AIPs aren't so much due to the available forces at 150 AIP (not that much KP, only one ARS, no Mk4 factory) compared to higher AIPs (2 or more ARS, Mk4 factory, a fabricator or two, an additional 9000 KP...) |
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Remember, we can always use that hybrid approach. (Say, decrease the exponent, but make it such that the old linear is used up to AIP of N, and then for AIP > N, basewavesize(AIP) = (AIP - N)^(K) + basewavesize(N)), or something. That can let the later game scale down some more without making the early game too easy. (the values of N and K to be determined of course) EDIT: I just realized that (AIP-N)^(K) would give too little increase at first once you hit N. Maybe (AIP-(N/A))^(K) would give better results, but of course this is a new variable to find a good value for. |
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Just did a little math, and with the proposed rational relationship, doubling the AIP leads to a roughly (2^.75~=1.68) times the wave size (the -30 bit makes this a little more complicated). This seems much more reasonable. |
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Derp. I just realized I have been calling the square root relationship a rational relationship, the proper term (I think) is a radical relationship. I know this is somewhat pedantic, but I do appreciate it when the right terminology is used. |
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I would not know. |
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With the much better balance already in place, is this new relationship still desired, or are people happy with the current, linear relationship? If we do want to continue pursuing this route, the old proposed formula of doubling AIP increasing base wave size by ~=1.68x would probably be to slow of a growth now. Maybe doubling AIP giving somewhere between 1.8x to 1.9x base wave size? |
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I haven't played since 5.002 I think. |
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Aww, most (but most certainly not all) of the game breaking nonsense that was present even in that version has now been fixed. So if that is what was keeping you off from playing, you might want to try 5.010 when it comes out. If you just needed a break from AI war in general, I understand that too. Sometimes taking time off can help you enjoy it much more when you finally get back to it. |
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FYI: 4.0 annoyed me. So... |
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I'm pretty sure 4.0 annoyed everyone. ;) The overall balance was, say, awkward in 4.0, to put it nicely. :P |
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To explain further: I've been disgruntled [i]since 4.0[/i], and while there have been changes I like, there have been other changes I don't like. |
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Yea, the 4.0 to 5.0 was a ROUGH journey all right, and there STILL are a disturbingly high number of potentially balance breaking bugs floating around. That, and I still don't get the feeling they have quite figured out how to balance the game to get to the pacing of the game they are looking for. It's FAR better than it was, but there are still some odd design decisions floating around that seem counter-productive to the target balance and pacing of the game. I'm hoping for a much smoother post 5.0 beta cycle, like the devs promised it would be. Whether you have the patience to hold such hope or not is not up to me. ;) Of course, we are getting WAY off topic. This conversation should probably moved to the forums if we want to keep it going or get others to weigh in on the topic. EDIT: If the devs don't live up to their promise of a smoother beta cycle, or if they take the pacing of the game to an absurd extreme, or if they try to "fill in" the sandbox too much (aka. more than is needed to ensure that people can't "cheese" through the game via "cheap and easy" tactics) then I'll join you on the disgruntled train and stop trying to stand up for them. :P |
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They've already filled it in too far, IMO. It's turning into one of those strategy games with only One True Strategy (I'm sure you've seen them. If you don't pick your upgrades in the order the developer intended, you can't win). It's not to that extreme, but it [i]feels[/i] like it. |
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Well, sorry to hear that. It sounds like you will want to wait until they figure out how to implement a good balance between a clear pacing, difficulty, and openness. They have strong framework that makes it possible to nail that down (unlike 4.0), but it will take them many versions until they can get it really good. Maybe I'll PM you or something once I think they have gotten the overall pacing and openness in a very polished state, in addition to the good ship vs. ship balance that they currently have. |
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I'd be glad if you did that. |
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Will do. And to Chris and Kieth, you heard the man. :D You've got a "new" big picture goal, which will raise some interesting design decisions you're going to have to work through. But then again, that's one of the things you like doing, right? |
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While waves are an issue, I think they're less of an issue than you actually think they are, in that balancing waves in isolation is not going to achieve the desired results. Among other things, the number of wormholes from planet to planet is going to dramatically change the difficulty (see below about border aggression, etc. for an explanation of why). Though when it comes to actual problems with waves, I've recently come around to thinking the automatic 2x multiplier on Neinzul ships in waves is too much given that neinzul ships are already significantly more powerful than other similar ships. Back in 2.0/3.0/whenever the stalking mechanic was introduced, waves were the only real major attack the AI had going for it, so you'd gate raid a bunch of planets, get your defenses set up on one planet, and then just go about your business. If you were going to hit a super defended planet, you could rely on all the AI forces to simply trickly back to your planet, and border aggression wasn't as problematic. Now, you can't just stack one planet with defenses because of exogalactic strike forces, hybrids, more potent border aggression, and the stalking mechanic for released AI ships, and counterattack wave posts. Waves are, in my opinion, a nuisance that may lose me one or two worlds, but they're nowhere near an issue at difficulty 7 until they become combined with the above AI behaviors, and only then in a specific way. The devs have also frequently said they want 5.0 to be much more punishing than 3.0 was, and they've definitely hit that, but they might have hit that too well. They did have a solid idea for game balance and progression, but they might have gone too far in its implementation. Removing the data centers that were always clustered around the AI homeworlds, for example; those are no longer the easy targets they used to be because of the massive threat the AI spawns if you make a 5 planet deep strike, and give players much less flexibility in controlling their AIP. Guardians, in general, are another big one, especially with the inclusion of Light of the Spire, as are AI fortresses and forcefields (though there are pretty simple ways around these they require very specific choices, are difficult to perform in practice, or require minor factions). Edit: Also, the problem with attempting to re-establish the game in the manner you and Draco would like (not saying it would be a bad thing, just that there's a problem) is that it would probably involve another period of rapid testing and changes to get fixes implemented fast enough to keep the upset players happy about consistent progress towards their goal of what the game should be. For now, we've got a slow period in AI war, so compile thoughts, do a lot of testing and have solid evidence and data to back it up for when the devs do get back around to AI War. To be honest, I kind of liked the rapid 4.0 testing process, there was always so much new stuff to fiddle around with and I liked that since it was progress towards a better balance (back in 2.0, 3.0, and early 4.0 a lot of the ships were just terrible; frequent offenders were the tachyon microfighters, minipods, acid sprayers, and electric bombers and sentinel frigates, among others. It was a good half the ships that were unusable) |
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x2 Multiplier on Neinzul probably does need to go. # of wormholes is a determinant in difficulty, sure. Primarily my tactics have been to reduce the number of border planets to "as close to 1 as possible." The newer behaviors do mean you can't cluster defenses as much, although I've been finding that by the midgame my fleet is tied up flying around doing cleanup and never free to go on the aggressive. There's always something either slipping past my front lines, killing my front lines, attacking from exospace (either a CA wave, or the exogalactic strike forces), or otherwise being a nuisance. There's a point at which a planet absolutely positively MUST be able to defend itself with static emplacements (turrets, forts) such that the actual fleet can attack farther. But as the game is currently structured (not counting zombies and other defenders that would endlessly patrol and rack up thousands of units--that is a bug as far as I am concerned) this isn't possible. I'm ok with needing the fleet to fly around in the early game as there are many border worlds, few resources, etc. But the midgame is crucial that the fleet being purely offensive, or it is impossible to advance to the endgame (where the AI can be allowed to over-run a planet or two as the final strike on an AI homeworld occurs and I can fight off the offending AI units with my own as I rebuild them). Currently we have the AI at the endgame level in the midgame, stagnating progress (as the player can infinitely fend off the AI at that AIP, but the player is unable to use their fleet for anything BUT defense). |
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"Currently we have the AI at the endgame level in the midgame, stagnating progress (as the player can infinitely fend off the AI at that AIP, but the player is unable to use their fleet for anything BUT defense)." I think I would have to agree with this. |
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Draco18s: "Currently we have the AI at the endgame level in the midgame, stagnating progress (as the player can infinitely fend off the AI at that AIP, but the player is unable to use their fleet for anything BUT defense)." That is a bit of an overstatement, but the fact the rate that the AI grows its forces relative to AIP is a bit steep for the mid game. This is no easy issue, but I can think of three things to help with this. One, make the Spirecraft and Golem hard minor faction exo waves grow less steeply with AI progress. Right now, although they aren't all that scary in the early game, they are a nightmare once you get a good way through the mid game. I know they are supposed to be scary, but they reach that point too early to be reasonable. (Recharge time for these waves is fine) Two, make the Fallen Spire exo waves recharge slower. Right now, they charge WAY too fast. By the time you deal with the previous exo-wave, rebuild your fleet and defenses, and deal with the waves the AI sent during your rebuilding, I have frequently found that they are already 60% to 70% to the next FS exo-wave. This REALLY contributes to the "I can't afford to attack because they will attack with a big force soon" stall that can plague the mid game. (The size of the FS exo-waves are fine) Three, this one is a bit more controversial, but maybe instead of scaling down how the AI grows with AIP, maybe we can scale down average AI growth rate. Things like, make a AI command station deal +20 AIP on death, instead of the current +25 AIP. This may not seem like much, but it would make enough of an impact to make the "stall" of the mid game come noticeably later. Again, there are no easy answers. There are many things that contribute to this current "stagnant" mid-game pacing. |
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Updated title to reflect that we are also discussing pacing overall, not just pacing of the growth with waves. |
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AI Command Station is 15 AIP on death, with the warp gate being another 5. 20 total. I think AI Exogalactic waves in general probably charge too fast at high AIPs, especially now that the Golems: Hard has a significant chance of sending an 80+ million HP ship at the player. Perhaps exogalactic strike forces could be completely disconnected from AIP, and instead be based on how many cities/golems/spirecraft you're using? They'll still HAPPEN, but they'll only happen faster (though the strength of them will continue increasing) if you use more of whatever's causing the exogalactic waves in the first place. Make Golem exogalactics come every 2 and a half hours generally, Spirecraft exogalactics come at a slightly shorter interval with slightly less power due to spirecraft being less dangerous (2 hours 10 minutes - the point would be to make these two not coincide exactly in the early game to make life super miserable), throw in some variance to the timing such that the actual time spent putting the strike force together can vary by up to half an hour after the first wave (only by up to 10 minutes for the first one to make it more reasonable). For measuring how much faster the strike forces come, count # of golems repaired (drop exogalactic strike force spawning time by something like 10 minutes for every golem), and count mark levels on total spirecraft used, so for every 20 or 30 mark levels of spirecraft you're currently using you'll get 10 minutes taken off the Spirecraft timer. All these values would scale in some manner for the various difficulties; probably double the usage penalty for spirecraft and golems on difficulty 10 (so each golem decreases strike force spawning time by 20 minutes instead of 10), down to no usage penalty on difficulty 1. Edit: My thought on the 20 or 30 mark levels worth of spirecraft for a 10 minute reduction (so, if it were 20 mark levels, then each mark 1 ship used would reduce spawn time by 30 seconds) reduction comes from the rough calculation that a mk5 siege tower is roughly 1/4 as powerful as a Black Widow Golem, which is generally considered the weakest golem. I go to 30 mark levels as the upper bound for the 10 minute reduction because while a mk5 siege tower isn't 1/6th as powerful as an armored golem, it has different utility and capabilities with its Radar Dampening and also because the Spirecraft strike forces would be maybe 80% as strong as the Golem strike forces to start with (but would increase in strength faster due to showing up more often). |
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Oh, that's an idea. I like that. The exogalaxy waves being based on the special units [i]you're using[/i]. |
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That would make more sense, as it would give a connection between the units that are enabled and how the AI reacts to them, instead of being mostly disconnected like they are now. However, I think there should be some AIP connection, so even if you avoid the Golems and Spirecraft, you will be facing tougher exo-waves. However, the relation should be made MUCH less steep, and rely MUCH more on how many Spirecraft of Golems (respectively) you have. Also, there should be a minimum. Even if you have no Spirecraft, Golems, and are at 1 AIP, the waves should come, but just be pathetically weak. As for the AIP growth rate thing, +20 total on planet death (15 for the command center, 5 for the warp gate) seems reasonable. Instead, I guess the data center spawn rate should go up a bit. Maybe enough of a rate boost to spawn 2 or 4 more of them per game? EDIT: Oh wait, are we talking about exo-wave rate or exo-wave size? |
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Rate. Size seems largely OK. |
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On the matter of AIP, currently AIP is being used for the following things: Normal Wave size Reinforcement (and by extension border aggression and carrier deployment) Cross Planet Attacks Counterattack Posts Raid Engines Exogalactic Strike Forces (all kinds) Hybrid Hives/Advanced Hybrids Roaming Enclaves (I believe it was mentioned that 1 spawns every 50 AIP or so? Does not apply to Preservation Wardens, which apparently spawn based on resource points used) Remind me if I've missed any. This means that turning on a ton of options ends up being a really bad idea, because any increase in AIP is going to turn into a super punishing onslaught from a variety of factors that never existed in previous iterations of the game. While wave sizes may scale linearly with AIP, difficulty increase from AIP scales super-linearly, with that scaling being much faster depending on certain factions being turned on. And yes, those factions are supposed to make things more difficult, but there are other ways to do it than linking it to AIP. The exogalactic strike forces have already been given an example above (to bring them more in line with Minor Faction territory, like how Mining Golems and Rebel Colonies spawn at certain intervals in the game irrelevant of AIP, and the effects of most of the other minor factions are disconnected from being caused by AIP). I'll address Hybrid Hives next (don't shoot me). This next discussion is based on the premise that Hybrid Hives work under a different command structure than normal AI ships. I don't entirely know how Hybrid Hives work, or how they scale based on AIP. Some scaling based on AIP will probably be necessary, but I also had the thought that there are a lot of instances where in the mid game there are 50+ hives sitting on planets doing nothing on defense. If the percent chance for Hives to be put on offense were affected by the percentage of hive spawners active/destroyed, this issue would end up with defensive hybrids giving way to increasingly aggressive hybrids (and less defensive hybrids, to lessen the number of impenetrable planets) as more spawners are destroyed. |
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"Also, there should be a minimum. Even if you have no Spirecraft, Golems, and are at 1 AIP, the waves should come, but just be pathetically weak. As for the AIP growth rate thing, +20 total on planet death (15 for the command center, 5 for the warp gate) seems reasonable. Instead, I guess the data center spawn rate should go up a bit. Maybe enough of a rate boost to spawn 2 or 4 more of them per game?" I addressed both of these points. Data Centers: "They did have a solid idea for game balance and progression, but they might have gone too far in its implementation. [b]Removing the data centers that were always clustered around the AI homeworlds, for example[/b]; those are no longer the easy targets they used to be because of the massive threat the AI spawns if you make a 5 planet deep strike, and give players much less flexibility in controlling their AIP." I probably should've more explicitly stated that some of these should be put back in. Regarding the strike forces: "They'll still HAPPEN, but they'll only happen faster (though the strength of them will continue increasing) if you use more of whatever's causing the exogalactic waves in the first place." Exogalactic Strike Force strength has always been independent of AIP, the rate is the only thing that had AIP in its function. |
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> Exogalactic Strike Force strength has always been independent of AIP, the rate is the only thing that had AIP in its function. I even question that. I would have to check, but under the assumption that you have 100 AIP for a constant duration the waves should come at longer and longer intervals. Currently however, that doesn't appear to be the case. I.E. the "build points" value of when the wave occurs isn't increasing with each wave. |
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I don't think wave construction is based on build points, I think it's just based on percentage constructed. So while the second exogalactic wave may be 25% stronger, it'll also build 25% faster assuming constant AIP to make sure the wave will always hit at the same-ish time given an increasing quantity of build points. So there's a counter for construction, and once the construction is completed it looks at how many build points there should be and distributes them accordingly. |
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I of course can't find the info now, but I was sure these strike forces were supposed to spawn at increasing intervals (assuming THE SAME AIP) by 25% each time (to some cap). The strength is irrelevant here, I'm talking the interval. |
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I'm talking the interval as well. I guess we'll just need Dev Confirm :) |
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Except you said "25% faster" and it's not. It's "25% slower." |
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If the first exogalactic wave hits at 2 and a half hours assuming an average of 100 AIP, and the next exogalactic wave is 25% larger but still hits in another 2 and a half hours, then it must require that the second wave builds ships 25% faster. I'm talking constant build rate for the entire force regardless of how many build points are in the force (variable build rate per build point), and you're talking constant build rate per build point (variable time to construct entire force). |
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The math (that I saw and can't find) is that each exogalactic wave has some sum total of "points" it needs to work up to. Starts at needing something like 10,000, and the current AI is added to the running total every minute. The [i]second[/i] wave needs 12,500 of these "points" (i.e. 25% more). But the rate of accumulation is the same: current AIP every minute. Therefor each wave should take 25% longer than the last one to appear. Yet they do not. |
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@Draco18s You might want to make a forum post asking about their intended spawn requirements, to get Kieth's attention. If your understanding is correct, and you can demonstrate a lack of this behavior with more consistency than could be reasonably explained by randomness, then you might want to make a separate mantis post. Exo-waves are supposed to be hard but infrequent. If their infrequency is not as infrequent as it should be, then yea, that is a pretty big problem. |
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I'll try and whip up a game where the AI is otherwise passive and just let it run and see what happens. |
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Use cheats to set the AIP at a high level from the beginning so you have constant AIP throughout and also don't have to wait too long. Also, I don't know if using the speed increase mechanism in the game is a good idea, because it doesn't exactly translate well time-wise some of the time and it'll be harder to measure any difference in time between exogalactic waves if they're coming frequently. You could try it both ways if you're not getting good results with the fast way first, I guess. |
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Oh, good point. I didn't think about cheats. Anyway, I'm going to see where this gets me and if it doesn't work, I'll try again from scratch. Did just get my first two exogalaxy waves. Both the spire and the golem wave happened at precisely the same moment (which I didn't think was possible). |
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That's how it's set up, it used to be that the golem wave happened 25% later than the spire wave, but they were linked recently. Edit: What I mean is that they will always happen at the same time, which is problematic because those get huuuuuge. |
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Yes, it took me four tries to hold off the first one here. |
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just cheat yourself a pile of money and knowledge, a superfortress, and a pile of forcefields or something. Should be a piece of cake so long as there aren't an excessive number of bombers. |
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Yes, that's what I've been doing. Rough estimates (minutes in): 8.5, 17, 28.5, 41, 57.5, 77.5 Like its the same interval twice, then it increases by about 25% |
- Anonymous
