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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0001572AI War 1 / ClassicBalance IssueDec 2, 2010 9:37 pm
ReporterYmihere Assigned ToChris_McElligottPark  
Status resolvedResolutionfixed 
Product Version4.040 
Fixed in Version4.043 
Summary0001572: AI Carriers are too difficult to kill (and other issues with raid engines)
DescriptionMy friend and I were about 3-4 hours into the game with an AIP of about 300-350 (diff 8) and we were doing pretty well. The AI had sent a few large waves against us on the order of 8k-10k ships but we handled it pretty easily. Even the carriers went down in a reasonable time.

This is what was frustrating though. We had just researched the Warp Jammers and installed it on some planets so we could focus on a single front. Soon after my warp jammer was up another AI wave came in. It was 42k ships on "planet ???". Turned out it was my warp jammer planet that the wave came in on, which I'm not sure how this happened. Anyway, the carriers/ships came in and started killing all of our planets and another wave of about 20k showed up. After a long standoff in just about every planet we had, there were 8 carriers attacking my home station and our fleets were trying to kill them. It took us quite a while to realize that the carriers weren't dying at all, but my home station was barely taking any damage, too. Nothing does any bonus to "Scout" armor type, but that wouldn't explain why we could kill them easily before.

I guess I have a few questions about this along with the carriers not dying.

I couldn't figure out why the incoming waves were so large. We have found a raid engine in the galaxy but it was at least 5 hops from our closest command station so I know we never had any of our own ships near it. However, right before we gave up fighting I noticed there were some zombies (from my botnet golem) that somehow got all the way down to the raid engine. Does the raid engine send in waves with the warning and can it do so to planets that aren't adjacent? Would zombies cause a Raid Engine to start? (If they do then I don't think they should) Does having a golem active mean that wave sizes are increased x3 all over the galaxy or just on the one planet that the golem is on? Because I know that the golem wasn't anywhere near where the waves came in when they started.

I know it's a lot of questions but a lot of unexplained things happened in this game that I was very curious about and maybe some of these things could be looked at.
TagsNo tags attached.
Internal Weight

Activities

Ymihere

Nov 24, 2010 4:34 am

reporter  

Autosave.sav (544,747 bytes)

Ymihere

Nov 24, 2010 4:41 am

reporter   ~0004373

Last edited: Nov 24, 2010 4:42 am

EDIT: Added the save file
Regiofen has the Raid Engine
Desifi is where my botnet golem is and where I had the warp jammer (I'm yellow)
Bupuvi is my home station with the 8 seemingly unkillable carriers that aren't doing anything

Cleaning up Desifi with the botnet golem showed that the zombies did in fact travel deep into enemy space and activated the Raid engine upon arriving at that planet. I highly doubt that is intended and it hardly seems fair since the zombies can't be controlled. Soon after the zombies all die and the Raid Engine starts two more wave warnings start for 25k and 12k.

I'm not sure how waves of those sizes and frequencies are possible with the AIP so low.

keith.lamothe

Nov 24, 2010 9:19 am

administrator   ~0004377

Chris, in general it seems we should avoid using the "scout" hull type for AI stuff, as mostly it's just been used to balance AI damage against human scouts. That's not to say we couldn't just sprinkle some appropriate bonus-vs-scout values across the available-to-human ships, but I'm figuring it'd be cleaner to just move the carrier to another hull type :)

Though it seems that siege and bomber starships would be shredding up the carriers just like anything else, since they're no-modifiers anyway.

For reference:

The ships currently having the scout hulltype are:
Carrier
Scout
Scout_Starship
SpireColonyShip
ColonyShip
Transport

The only ships currently possessing >1 modifier against the scout hulltype are infiltrator, eyebot, and the neinzul melee guard post (both have a modifier of 2).

Chris_McElligottPark

Nov 24, 2010 9:23 am

administrator   ~0004378

I think the scout hull type is fine. The health may need tweaking, but I'm not sure. It may be that the ships of Ymihere weren't actually firing on the carriers, because I believe they are direct-only targeting.

To the larger question about why the massive waves were coming to the wrong place: it really does sound like some form of bug. Ymihere, do you have a reproducible case? I suspect not, as it sounds like ships that move between planets aren't being removed properly from the AI rollups, or something along those lines, which would make it not persist into saves.

Ymihere

Nov 24, 2010 2:16 pm

reporter   ~0004406

As far as the carriers are concerned, I'm sure that our ships were firing on them and that they were the only thing in the area. I even remember trying to click on them to make my ships attack.

As far as the reproducible case, that is the only save file that I have on my computer. I can see if I can get a save file from earlier in our game from my friend's computer. Otherwise the only way I could think to reproduce it is to use warp jammers and hope it happens.

Chris_McElligottPark

Dec 2, 2010 9:30 pm

administrator   ~0004960

* Raid Engines are no longer triggered by zombie ships.

Thanks!

As far as the carriers go, I haven't seen a problem with them yet in practice, they seem balanced okay to me.

keith.lamothe

Dec 2, 2010 9:32 pm

administrator   ~0004963

I thought I'd already changed raid engines to not be triggered by zombies :)

Chris_McElligottPark

Dec 2, 2010 9:34 pm

administrator   ~0004964

Actually, not quite. The collection you referenced still included zombies, though it was logical to assume it wouldn't. I changed that collection to exclude zombies. :)

keith.lamothe

Dec 2, 2010 9:37 pm

administrator   ~0004965

Oh, I thought I was actually checking the action status flag, ah well :)

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Nov 24, 2010 4:15 am Ymihere New Issue
Nov 24, 2010 4:34 am Ymihere File Added: Autosave.sav
Nov 24, 2010 4:41 am Ymihere Note Added: 0004373
Nov 24, 2010 4:41 am Ymihere Description Updated
Nov 24, 2010 4:42 am Ymihere Note Edited: 0004373
Nov 24, 2010 9:19 am keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004377
Nov 24, 2010 9:23 am Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0004378
Nov 24, 2010 9:23 am Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
Nov 24, 2010 9:23 am Chris_McElligottPark Status new => feedback
Nov 24, 2010 2:16 pm Ymihere Note Added: 0004406
Nov 24, 2010 2:16 pm Ymihere Status feedback => assigned
Dec 2, 2010 9:30 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0004960
Dec 2, 2010 9:30 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status assigned => resolved
Dec 2, 2010 9:30 pm Chris_McElligottPark Fixed in Version => 4.043
Dec 2, 2010 9:30 pm Chris_McElligottPark Resolution open => fixed
Dec 2, 2010 9:32 pm keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004963
Dec 2, 2010 9:34 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0004964
Dec 2, 2010 9:37 pm keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004965
Apr 14, 2014 9:29 am Chris_McElligottPark Category Gameplay - Balance Issue => Balance Issue