View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0023604 | AI War 2 | Gameplay Idea | Aug 28, 2020 11:36 am | Jul 1, 2022 12:49 pm | |
| Reporter | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Severity | minor | ||||
| Status | closed | Resolution | won't fix | ||
| Product Version | 2.128 Don't Lie About Distant Future Waves, AI | ||||
| Summary | 0023604: Seeking ideas for "batteries" that reward you for defending planets for DLC2 or DLC3. | ||||
| Description | You know how you could have waves crash against you a ton and you could then grind up EXP in older versions of the game before we made (first) command stations no longer get EXP and (later) got rid of EXP altogether? Well, some folks really like that sort of mechanic, and I certainly can see why. It would be ideal to have something that is in there that is available for anyone without it invalidating "pure" games (by making things unreasonably easier), so those would need to have some pros and cons to using them if that was the case. Otherwise these would be some sort of thing that is just a new option that you can enable if you want it, and it makes things easier. Different styles of batteries would be interesting: - Ones that mark up the planet, like EXP used to, perhaps. - Ones that generate drones or some other sort of defenders that come out under special conditions, perhaps. - And who knows what else, that's just off the top of my head. I was mainly getting this down to get it out of my private notes for later. There are so so many possible ideas, and it seems like it could be fun for a lot of people if done right. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| related to | 0023512 | closed | Chris_McElligottPark | Seeking ideas for "infrastructure" for DLC2. |
| related to | 0023587 | closed | Chris_McElligottPark | Thoughts for later: alternative win conditions via hostile base game factions. |
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How are these batteries to be acquired? Are they something built and/or captured? |
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That depends on the concept. Arguably, they could be something that you get "one battery slot" on each planet, like you have one command station slot, and you choose which kind (or if any at all) to deploy. More types could be unlocked via gameplay of some sort (probably capturing a thing in the galaxy for AIP is the most obvious), but then again that doesn't even have to happen. Just having something like a selection of 2-3 battery types that each have different benefits and risks would make it so that the zero to one battery you choose on each planet makes sense in some way. |
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Could a battery type be added that would somehow aid a minor faction? Not even being limited to friendly ones - eg a battery that acts like a vengeance generator except that it reroutes the dark energy to some VG. There is probably at least one, if not more, appropriate ways to buff a minor faction for some agenda. |
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Potentially, although I'd be worried about how to generalize that. Two of the modders were working on a way to generalize the concept of some resources between factions. Giving "a moderate amount of a resource" to all adjacent friendly factions might be interesting, and that could work if the generalized approach is there. |
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Personally I think that Batteries should be a narrow in use side grade to planets. Idea 1: superweapons (your doing them right...) each superweapon gets a battery associated with them (if their seeded into the game). pay energy to charge batter (idk 500K while charging?). upon compleation you may fire the superweapon (you can do that right...). rest is obvious. upon death if there's charge within it it will create a paralyzing explosion and leave remains. Idea 2: Minor Factions Idea 2.1: DS redirector. as you destroy ships you can redirect that energy to any planet with a vengence generator and it instantly activates. ('fun' isn't it?) Idea 2.2: Macrophage Redirector: similer but drops metal in a system and the macrophge will check it out Idea 2.3: Zenith Miner Redirector: drop alot of metal to entice the Zenith Miner to attack a specific planet Idea 3: the Drone Defences Stuff Idea 3.1: Scrap Drone Factory: collects scrap from nearby systems (after fights) and when it hits a high enough storage capacity launches a swarm of scrap drones against a random AI planet (told to you upon launch). Idea 3.2: Hive: makes disallows metal collection from the planet but the mines become spawning points for the hive. costs some amount of science (e.g. 6k). spawns ships which use the 'swallow' Mechanic from AIWC to do varous things such as run away and heal from the enemies within it's hold to boosting weapons power while overloading their reactors and destroying the enemy ship to spawning drones using the metal from the enemy ships within it's hold. will protecy whole empire but upon death will launch a suicidal attack on all enemy planets causing damage and getting wiped out. Idea 4: Wormhole generators. after you create the wormhole stabalizers you can feed them 300k power. when two are fed 300k power they create a link and a countdown (let's say 20min) starts. after this time a new wormhole pair is made between these two planets but the connection has to be maintained. if you run out of power to support them or you choose to cut power a countdown will start to shut down the connection (1min). after this if their power has not been restored the wormholes disappear. upon death if maintaining an average wormhole it will suck all ships towards it then explode dealing massive damage to both friendlies and enemies alike. my ideas come under the assumption that a: that only one battery per planet can be created and b: It's permenant and so you have to make one choice and your stuck with that batter on that planet for the rest of the game All batteries should die to remains. |
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Will the homeworld also get batteries? If so, I feel like they should be unique somehow. Either stronger versions of the kind you'd already get ingame, or maybe completely unique, I'm not sure. Either way, they would likely be chosen during setup along with your starting fleet and defenses. I'm having trouble coming up with ideas for this one, but I do have one. What if there was a battery that acted as a lure to tempt the AI into attacking the planet? This would be good for luring ships away from their stations and maybe breaking away stalemates. Obviously it would have a limited radius. Let's say about two or three hops. |
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A "battery" that charges up to give a bonus like Command Stations on adjacent **AI** planets could be quite interesting- I.e. the logistical or military auras, but offensively. A reward essentially for establishing a difficult strategic foothold. For this, it's important it's AI planets because it does something command stations *don't* do, and doesn't actually make hard synergy between the batteries that keep you alive when you should be dead, but instead encourage de-turtling at an opportune time. This would be most powerful with battery "slots", but with number tweaking or placement logic could still be quite helpful while being less of a balance concern if they were seeded on game start. Other ideas for aura batteries that may not function like above: a "Gravity Battery" (this may use the Eye idea below) - that slows all ships on a planet probably like an unfocused Gravity Generator(or at the previous lower gX count), but also potentially just puts a hard cap on maximum speed, planetside. Batteries that work like Eyes/Alarm posts - Other ideas in this thread that maybe are too finicky or are coming dangerously close to needing to be micromanaged for their activations have their conditions changed to 2x or 3x your strength on the planet as their activation condition. This would pave the way for a battery that makes an Allied HRF response, or another faction. If batteries are seeded, maybe this makes things nebulously better, if you build your defenses away from the battery... Hostile to All Nanocaust ships, anyone? (Or anti-everything zombies, if the nanocaust isn't active..?) Batteries that manipulate factions have already been widely mentioned - I'm just tossing in the point that such things should probably use a limited resource to either build, or get the schematics for, if you go for a slot-on-every-planet. Maybe start them in the hands of the AI as Infrastructure? Probably qualifies as a nice little thing, if they AI uses them to drain the power of factions, and you have to build them yourself to get a "boost", per se. It's also worth noting everyone giving ideas here will have different expectations of implementation- i.e, it'll make a big difference if batteries can't be placed adjacent to one another, if they have a global cap, if they can't be manually built at all, or if they can't be placed on ex-MKVI/VII planets. |
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I haven't decided on anything permanent with these, as yet. So all questions about how they will work are kind of a "maybe" from me right now, because I'm not really set on one way of them working. It is worth noting that, for the base game, I still need to implement some form of interplanetary weapons for free because it was a kickstarter stretch goal. I have had trouble with those as a concept, because while it would be really trivial to just do a half-assed version that is just another weapon but happens to shoot to the planet next door, I'd really like to FEEL the interplanetary weapons in a good way. I'd like to have them be something that lets me protect my neighborhood in new and interesting ways, or which lets me set up an unusual offensive perimeter in other ways. I guess that idea of potentially tying interplanetary weapons to batteries, as concepts, has some appeal. In that case these would be things that you could put on any planet you own, home planet included, but the goal would be what group of planets are adjacent to that planet they are on (plus the planet they are on), since that would be the area they would be protecting, etc. So you might well find yourself putting something on a planet next to your home planet, because it gives better coverage, and skipping your actual home planet since it's then already covered and perhaps we don't allow overlap for some reason or something. Or overlap is allowed, but you have limited capacity for them and you need one offensively as well as for your home cluster of planets, so you don't (for a while at least) set them up that way. Being able to think about planets based on proximity, either physically or by wormhole link, is interesting. |
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Subversive Revenge battery, cloaked and triggers on death of linked command station. Applies a strong chunk of damage to enemies within range and zombies them. Something of a trap choice since you have to lose the system to have it trigger... but it should in theory wipe out a good chunk of threat in the process. Useful as a second string attack at a choke system you don't want to particularly lose for long if ever. Could have multiple charge levels based on how long you held out before it got triggered. Drone Portal battery, amasses a large amount of moderately powerful drones. Once charged can be deployed like Outguard on a planet of your choosing. Has both offensive/defense uses. But as its a drone deployment they will self attrition within a few minutes. Telescopic Array battery, every time it is charged you can use it on a selected planet to gain permanent vision of a chosen planet. Useful to gain vision without hack points or a nearby station. But will have a different associated cost of some sort. Might attract extra AI ire since its effectively spying at a distance. Call to Arms battery, available if you have HRF as an ally and essentially every time it is charged gives you an Outguard deployment of HRF when and where you want them at double usual power. But just like usual HRF leaves once the battle is over. Scrapyard Reserves battery, destroyed ships on that planet contribute to a scrap pile that will auto-trigger when your metal reserves dips below 25% of maximum. Great choice for a bait or choke system to generate extra metal to keep your economy rolling. How much it can actually "give" the player probably shouldn't exceed one million metal at most. Tethuida Core battery, once charged gives host planet a post that maintains a parasitic drone swarm. Single trigger, but post once acquired dies to remains. Special condition of needing to actually kill a Dire Tethuida to get the option to build in the first place. (Heck you could probably come up with a couple more batteries base around recovered Dire Guardian tech fragments.) |
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Regarding batteries in general and interplanetary weapons in particular, I think it'd be more interesting and fit better with the overall spirit of the game to have them be seeded on the map rather than something you can just build wherever. It makes for more interesting decisions when deciding which world to capture and defend, with the added puzzle piece that now you have to also draw large attacks to that world to charge the weapon (or other type of battery), and survive the attacks. It's also much less abusable and easier to balance if we can tweak the map generation to avoid overpowered combos with those batteries. But overall, interplanetary weapons being batteries sounds like a good mechanic. I'd suggest that they also need a large cooldown (like the Outguard) so you can't abuse the weapon to death if you happen to have found a large source of renewable suicide ships happy to charge at your defenses (angry Dyson sphere and the like). Besides interplanetary weapons you could also have very powerful, manually fired planetary weapons, basically large turrets that charge like batteries and can pretty much one-shot a Dire Guardian. Why not mobile batteries too? Might be interesting to have a military flagship such as an Ark that must feed off carnage before it can fire its ridiculously powerful main weapon. Or there's always the classical mobile Death Star that can slowly move around the map and blow up planets. It could be charged in the same way. Batteries that generate resources would also be fairly interesting. After all, if they're capturables on the map they're basically a much weaker version of the Zenith energy and matter generators, since they would not give you anything by default. So these could be seeded on lower-level worlds. It should be satisfying to set up the "production" chain to ensure enough enemy units trickly in to keep your generator running. |
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Cut, although modders could do something with it. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 28, 2020 11:36 am | Chris_McElligottPark | New Issue | |
| Aug 28, 2020 11:36 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => assigned |
| Aug 28, 2020 11:36 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Aug 28, 2020 11:36 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | assigned => feedback |
| Aug 28, 2020 11:36 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Relationship added | related to 0023512 |
| Aug 28, 2020 11:37 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Relationship added | related to 0023587 |
| Aug 28, 2020 11:37 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Relationship added | duplicate of 0023600 |
| Aug 28, 2020 11:37 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Relationship deleted | 0023600 |
| Aug 28, 2020 12:17 pm | crawlers | Note Added: 0058224 | |
| Aug 28, 2020 1:04 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0058230 | |
| Aug 28, 2020 5:57 pm | crawlers | Note Added: 0058242 | |
| Aug 28, 2020 7:34 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0058247 | |
| Aug 28, 2020 10:18 pm | CRZgatecrusher | Note Added: 0058249 | |
| Aug 28, 2020 11:11 pm | Isiel | Note Added: 0058250 | |
| Aug 29, 2020 9:20 am | ParadoxSong | Note Added: 0058251 | |
| Aug 29, 2020 3:55 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0058258 | |
| Sep 3, 2020 9:13 pm | CRCGamer | Note Added: 0058343 | |
| Oct 27, 2020 1:14 am | Asteroid | Note Added: 0059393 | |
| Dec 14, 2021 9:34 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | feedback => closed |
| Dec 14, 2021 9:34 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Resolution | open => won't fix |
| Dec 14, 2021 9:34 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0063460 |
