Difference between revisions of "User talk:WinterBorn"

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In short, it's not really supposed to be any easier or harder to win by following the Fallen-Spire progression than by not doing so.  But it tends towards a more intense (and more difficult) experience over a shorter time.
 
In short, it's not really supposed to be any easier or harder to win by following the Fallen-Spire progression than by not doing so.  But it tends towards a more intense (and more difficult) experience over a shorter time.
 +
 +
== overview of changes==
 +
•Brace yourself: but the entire combat, repair, economic, and construction models have been almost completely rewritten. To the novice player these changes are subtle enough that it feels like basically the same game. To the more experienced player, these changes are a dream come true, shaving off rough edges left and right and leaving something simpler and more elegant in its place. We had a corps of 95 community members giving us feedback, after all, so there's been a lot of vetting of this from both newer and experienced players. The main benefits of these particular changes are simplicity, transparency-to-the-player, and internal accuracy in outlier situations.
 +
•As part of the new combat model, the old concept of "shields" (as distinct from "force fields") has been removed, and the random-hit-chance and range-related components of the hit chance calculations are gone. In place of this is a new, simpler, and far better "armor" system that affects damage output instead of hit chance.
 +
•One key simplification in this new version is the removal of all the internal ship-specific damage multipliers. In their place, we now have a small number of new "hull types," and ships get visible bonuses against them. This also removes the "Strong Vs and Weak Vs" display in favor of both the raw hull attack multipliers display and a new Reference tab when really detailed data is needed (presumably not often).
 +
•Following on with those massive changes, every last ship in the game has been rebalanced to a heavy degree, sometimes pretty much completely
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
==Armor==
 +
 +
 +
http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7348.msg59925.html#msg59925
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 +
Quote from: RCIX on October 19, 2010, 11:17:51 PM
 +
AFAIK, the complete calculation is:
 +
 +
((damage * hull multiplier) - (armor - armor piercing)) * speed scale multiplier
 +
 +
Armor piercing is how much armor piercing the unit says it has (its in the misc properties). Hull multiplier is how much multiplier the ship has against ships with the targets hull. Armor is how much armor the target has. Speed scale multiplier, Lancefighter explained.
 +
 +
 +
Yep.  With the added note that the (armor - armor piercing) can't result in anything less than 0.  If you have over-piercing, it just removes the armor effect entirely without causing any extra damage
 +
 +
----------------------------------------
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theres a 5% minimum...
 +
 +
MAX(((damage * hull multiplier) - (armor - armor piercing)), damage*hull multiplier*.05) * speed scale multiplier
 +
 +
----------------------------------------
 +
Which reminds me, is munitions boosting happening after or before armor calculations?
 +
 +
It's applied before, to the attack power itself.
 +
 +
----------------------------------------
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And when is the armor applied when ship has "bonus" like zenith mirrors that increases damage against this ship?
 +
 +
 +
At the very start, also.
 +
---------------------------------------
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 +
http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7483.msg61659.html#msg61659
 +
 +
Well, we can basically either start on the "I'm dying here!" side and work up or start on the "I'm steamrolling these guys!" side and work down.  Since the latter is generally better for player morale, I've changed it so that the effective-armor-against-non-scaled-stuff is about 1.5x what it used to be on high caps.  At least, if I understood what I was doing properly  Who knows, it might actually be 1.5x of what it's been on normal, which would be rather demoralizing for the guardians.
 +
 +
Anyway, we'll see how it goes, but I doubt you'll be dying overly fast even on low caps.
 +
 +
-------------------------------------

Revision as of 01:16, 18 November 2010

test area

Wiki Design Overview

link to templates list

  • templates use {{}}

link to categories list

  • Categories use [[]] and the word category:

A category is created by creating a page in the Category: namespace.

A category page can be created the same way as other wiki pages (see Help:Starting a new page); just add "Category:" before the page title

To create a link to a category, use a leading colon before the category name (without this colon, the current page would be added to the category):

  • [:Category:Help] → Category:Help (one set braces removed)

To change the link text, write the text inside the link tag after a pipe:

  • [:Category:Help|Help category] → Help category (one set braces removed)


Link to my practice area

Link to wiki Redux

Link to wiki Prep area

Link to proposed categories

Link to proposed templates

Link to a standard page lay out sutable for cut and paste


AI War - Guardians


manual patch

Meanwhile, if you want the raw zip files, you can get a list of them here: http://www.arcengames.com/dl/AIWarBetaUpdates2.xml

Simply unzipping them into your game folder in order would give the desired result if you want the betas that way. Hope that helps


Hybrids Section

AI_War_-_Hybrid_Hives


Various quotes on Hybrid development follow

CoN exp Added "Advanced Hybrids" AI Plot; if the base Hybrids plot is enabled and the Advanced one is not, then the highest tier of Hybrid classes will be disabled (including stuff like the re-colonizer, which is not quite implemented yet). Also slightly influences the tech level of equipment available to the lower classes, for instance the first Attacker type will only be able to get a mkI forcefield (instead of mkII) if Advanced Hybrids is off. If you select Advanced Hybrids and not the base Hybrids plot for an AI player, once you start the game it will act as if you had checked both.

Added 2 galaxy map display overlays: detected hybrids and detected hybrid facilities. Only displays info on planets that you current have visibility.

The following modules now use a new shot-movement mechanic to fire their multiple-shot bursts in a brief sequence rather than all at once, to give more of the desired visual effect (gameplay impact should be minimal) : Riot machine gun modules now fire 12 shots per salvo with a reload time of 4 seconds, instead of 3-shot salvos with a 1-second reload. Riot laser modules now fire 8 shots per salvo per 8 seconds instead of 4 shots per salvo per 4 seconds. Hybrid machine gun modules (I-IV) changed from firing 2/3/4/5 shots per 1-second reload to 10/15/20/25 shots per 5-second reload. Hybrid laser cannon modules (I-IV) changed from firing 1/2/2/3 shots per 4-second reload to 2/3/4/5 shots per 8-second reload.

Hybrid Hive (hull, not ff-module) armor from 500 to 1000, health from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000. Hybrid Hive forcefield generator hull type from (default) to Structural, the same as normal ff-generators (they used to be intentionally different, but with the simplification of damage bonuses there isn't room for that). Health from 500,000 per mark level to 600,000 per mark level.


Hybrid plot Difficulty scaling: the initial number of hybrid facilities (including hive spawners) and the maximum-hybrids-alive-at-once calculations (which is based on planet count and spawner count) are now scaled by the total number of human-players/human-homeworlds and the highest AI difficulty (facility count only scales by the former). A single player with one homeworld playing on difficulty 7 has a factor of 1.0; on difficulty 10, 3.0; two players on diff 7 have 2.0, etc. The maximum-hybrids-alive-at-once number is now capped at numberOfPlanets * difficultyFactor, which is 4 times the number of hybrids supported by just the planet count. This allows the number of spawners (each of which support an additional 2 hybrids, which is down from 4) to have a significant impact on hybrid population without it exploding into the 500s or crazy stuff like that (unless you're playing with a lot of players or homeworlds or high difficulty).


another section

 Re: Returning to AI war, having a problem securing some planets 

« Reply #18 on: Today at 06:31:39 AM » Quote


Quote from: TheSilverHammer on Yesterday at 04:11:27 PM I thought border aggression needed a few 1000 ships to do that. And the announced attack into the sector that was 3 hops from a red planet was caused by attacking a guard post?

Then a lot has changed since I played. To bad the tutorial doesn't cover any of this. Are there any rules for cross planet attacks that have changed? It used to be, that they would only attack sectors where there were warp gates. Now it seems they will attack planets bordering even neutered planets.


Border Aggression & Cross Planet Attacks aren't the same thing.

First you need to understand that there's 3 "modes" for AI ships to be in. Guarding, Special Forces or "Free". Guarding ships sit in a system & wait for you to attack. Once you attack they switch to "Free". If you retreat out of the system they can & will counter-attack (which can be used to your advantage). Special Forces travel between Special Forces Guard Posts. If that puts them into one of your systems or you attack the system they are in they will switch to "Free".

Border Agression is the AI's releasing a build up of ships in a system to attack you by basically taking some ships that were on Guard duty & freeing them. It's mainly to stop you being complacent about defending your systems once you've gate raided and/or neutered a system. You can see how many "Free" ships there are at any time in the summary. Any "Free" ships on AI planets are shown under 'Threat', any on your planets are shown under 'Attack'. These ships can be of any level depending on the system they were freed from hence having a mark III or IV system bordering your core worlds & freeing ships periodically is likely not going to end well if you don't have adequate defences.

Cross Planet Attacks (CPAs) are announced like waves & you usually have between 5 & 15 minutes depending on the difficulty before they start. When a CPA is announced the AI's pick a number of ships from all of its planets & changes them from Guard to "Free". The AI's will only pick the same level of ships as the current waves would send (numeral in brackets under the AI Progress on the summary). These ships will group up to attack you & the AI's aren't dumb about where to attack, they will go for your most weakly defended systems where possible. It's not uncommon to have a few systems each being attacked by a few hundred ships simultaneously depending on how many ingress points the AI has to your systems.

All of this stuff is covered in the Wiki & the only change to any of the above between v3 & v4 is the lowering of the border agression cap to discourage blobbing by both players & the AI's.

Re: What attracts preservation wardens? 

« Reply #2 on: Today at 07:43:59 AM » Quote


Actually, do we know that they are attracted to nukes?

I wrote the favor text originally but that doesn't mean they were implemented exactly as I described them.

Report to moderator    Logged  


==preservation wardens==

keith.lamothe Arcen Games Staff Administrator Zenith Council Member Mark II

Offline

Posts: 6,190


   Re: What attracts preservation wardens? 

« Reply #3 on: Today at 10:05:20 AM » Quote


They don't actually respond to nukes at all but it was my intent to have them do so. It's generally a rare enough case that it doesn't matter

Anyway, the spawn rate of wardens and each warden's internal spawn rate of drones is directly related to the number of metal and crystal harvesters in the galaxy. Also, one of the triggers for releasing their drones is being on or adjacent to a planet with a harvester.

new page idea area

AI War - Condensed AI Unit List

AI War - AI Unit - Raid Engine

AI Wave Size Calculations

Why Can't I Unload My Transport?

Fallen Spire

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7638.msg63889.html#msg63889

At the one-city and earlier phases it's supposed to be roughly break-even difficulty wise in that you get hit with extra attacks but you've got a no-other-strings-attached golem-esque ship to use as you please, 2 mini-golem-esque, ships, and 8 fairly long range continuous-photon-cannon-of-minor-doom ships. If you keep adding cities after that, the difficulty shouldn't go up very much on paper (as you continue to get more and more of said ships) but in practice the AI attacks will get pretty intense so it will probably at least feel like the game is harder (and, probably it is).

The big thing in this is that you're basically pulling endgame difficulty into the midgame. Many of you in the past have expressed a desire for a different kind of endgame challenge because the standard one felt grindy. Of course, a lot of that has changed with other changes Chris has made, but this progression will provide another way of accomplishing that.

In short, it's not really supposed to be any easier or harder to win by following the Fallen-Spire progression than by not doing so. But it tends towards a more intense (and more difficult) experience over a shorter time.

overview of changes

•Brace yourself: but the entire combat, repair, economic, and construction models have been almost completely rewritten. To the novice player these changes are subtle enough that it feels like basically the same game. To the more experienced player, these changes are a dream come true, shaving off rough edges left and right and leaving something simpler and more elegant in its place. We had a corps of 95 community members giving us feedback, after all, so there's been a lot of vetting of this from both newer and experienced players. The main benefits of these particular changes are simplicity, transparency-to-the-player, and internal accuracy in outlier situations. •As part of the new combat model, the old concept of "shields" (as distinct from "force fields") has been removed, and the random-hit-chance and range-related components of the hit chance calculations are gone. In place of this is a new, simpler, and far better "armor" system that affects damage output instead of hit chance. •One key simplification in this new version is the removal of all the internal ship-specific damage multipliers. In their place, we now have a small number of new "hull types," and ships get visible bonuses against them. This also removes the "Strong Vs and Weak Vs" display in favor of both the raw hull attack multipliers display and a new Reference tab when really detailed data is needed (presumably not often). •Following on with those massive changes, every last ship in the game has been rebalanced to a heavy degree, sometimes pretty much completely




Armor

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7348.msg59925.html#msg59925

Quote from: RCIX on October 19, 2010, 11:17:51 PM AFAIK, the complete calculation is:

((damage * hull multiplier) - (armor - armor piercing)) * speed scale multiplier

Armor piercing is how much armor piercing the unit says it has (its in the misc properties). Hull multiplier is how much multiplier the ship has against ships with the targets hull. Armor is how much armor the target has. Speed scale multiplier, Lancefighter explained.


Yep. With the added note that the (armor - armor piercing) can't result in anything less than 0. If you have over-piercing, it just removes the armor effect entirely without causing any extra damage


theres a 5% minimum...

MAX(((damage * hull multiplier) - (armor - armor piercing)), damage*hull multiplier*.05) * speed scale multiplier


Which reminds me, is munitions boosting happening after or before armor calculations? 

It's applied before, to the attack power itself.


And when is the armor applied when ship has "bonus" like zenith mirrors that increases damage against this ship?


At the very start, also.


http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7483.msg61659.html#msg61659

Well, we can basically either start on the "I'm dying here!" side and work up or start on the "I'm steamrolling these guys!" side and work down. Since the latter is generally better for player morale, I've changed it so that the effective-armor-against-non-scaled-stuff is about 1.5x what it used to be on high caps. At least, if I understood what I was doing properly Who knows, it might actually be 1.5x of what it's been on normal, which would be rather demoralizing for the guardians.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes, but I doubt you'll be dying overly fast even on low caps.