View Issue Details

IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0021319AI War 2Gameplay IdeaJul 12, 2019 11:26 am
ReporterChris_McElligottPark Assigned ToChris_McElligottPark  
Severityminor 
Status resolvedResolutionfixed 
Product Version0.871 More Control, Part 1 
Fixed in Version0.875 Counterattacks You Can Taste 
Summary0021319: New Hackable AI Ship: Wave Mainframe (Plus Wave Adjustment)
DescriptionFor each strikecraft type that the AI has available for its waves (which will be a subset randomized into the galaxy now), there will be a new "wave mainframe" somewhere in the galaxy. This will be something that can't be destroyed by direct combat, but it can be hacked.

If you hack it, for some moderate number of hacking points, then the AIs will all lose the ability to include any more of that type of ship in waves in the future.

There will be a core trio of ship types that the AI can always send in any wave, and they won't have mainframes related to them.

As far as the actual waves themselves go, they will also be getting a change: only the core trio of ship types, plus any ship types that you have discovered the mainframe for via scouting, will be valid for waves. So early in the game you'll have very predictable and small waves, and later on you'll have many more types that are showing up. If the default is the varied waves now, then that will be switched to homogeneous, as a related note.

The goal is for players to have something more to hack to deny things to the AI, as well as a mechanism to prevent the "AI ship mishmash" that otherwise happens.

Thanks to RocketAssistedPuffin and MaxAstro for inspiring this change.
TagsNo tags attached.

Relationships

related to 0021378 resolvedChris_McElligottPark Need the ability to see reprisal wave strengths as they build up. 
child of 0021310 resolvedChris_McElligottPark Fleets Phase 3 - Parent 

Activities

Chris_McElligottPark

Jul 12, 2019 11:26 am

administrator   ~0052195

Went a very different direction, but same core goal:

* Individual planets now store specific AI ship groups for the waves that will come out of them, same as the planet factions do for reinforcements and whatnot.
** This isn't actually applied to waves yet, but it is applied to counterattacks and make them thematically sensible things that you can deal with rather than just a mishmash of everything.

* When you load existing savegames (or quick starts), it now is able to do some AI "defense placer" logic to assign any data that might be missing.
** At the moment this is useful for assigning the wave types to each AI planet in old savegames.

* When waves are created, they now have a specific planet that they use from which to launch their wave.
** That can be overridden or changed depending on context, but regardless a planet is chosen eventually.
** Since each planet has ships that are valid for waves defined in it now (same as they have ships valid for reinforcements), this now determines what sort of ships are able to be in that wave.

* The "Wave Composition" lobby option has been removed (it was Homogeneous/Varied as an option), since now waves are based on planets and are instead tight groups of ship types rather than what they were before.

* For wormhole invasions, it picks a planet completely at random in order to use it for the waves that will be sent. This keeps you on your toes with those, for sure.
** Additionally, for anti-minor-faction waves it does the same, for the same reason.

* The purpose of all these changes with waves is to make it so that they are more varied in different parts of the galaxy, BUT so that they are more predictable at specific planets, and thus something you can plan for.
** In general it also keeps them more consistent and not just "a big blob of a whole bunch of different things."
** This needs a lot of testing to see how it feels, as we may need further tuning, but it should hopefully give players a greater sense of agency and ability to plan, without it making the entire galaxy feel stale and repetitive.
** For a while we had an idea about Wave Mainframes and some other things to accomplish similar stuff, but that would have added more complexity for players and would have been less-contextual in terms of the parts of the galaxy feeling different. This approach as-implemented should get at the same goal, unless there are bugs or oversights, but it should do so in a manner that doesn't require extra thought on the player side (chasing around yet one more thing on the galaxy map), and without the problem of so darn much stagnation around the whole map in terms of what waves are like.
** It's entirely possible that we may need to do yet more in order to make waves something that are the correct balance of predictable (so you can plan) and varied-across-the-map (so that different parts of the map feel different and the entire game isn't repetitive), but this should be a good start at the very least (bugs notwithstanding).

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Jun 25, 2019 12:57 pm Chris_McElligottPark New Issue
Jun 25, 2019 12:57 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status new => assigned
Jun 25, 2019 12:57 pm Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
Jun 25, 2019 12:58 pm Chris_McElligottPark Relationship added child of 0021317
Jun 25, 2019 12:58 pm Chris_McElligottPark Relationship deleted child of 0021317
Jun 25, 2019 12:58 pm Chris_McElligottPark Relationship added child of 0021310
Jul 10, 2019 3:32 pm Chris_McElligottPark Relationship added related to 0021378
Jul 12, 2019 11:26 am Chris_McElligottPark Status assigned => resolved
Jul 12, 2019 11:26 am Chris_McElligottPark Resolution open => fixed
Jul 12, 2019 11:26 am Chris_McElligottPark Fixed in Version => 0.875 Counterattacks You Can Taste
Jul 12, 2019 11:26 am Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0052195