List and Observations in BETA testing MK II

[Lavo]

I see the AI is able to get multiple supercaps at times. Awesome. And yes, the AI is now capable if it can feed it's endless hunger for resources; this is the result of the capital conversion project.

[01lude]

the fleet sizes required to win are so big that its too hard to keep track of all your cap ships. when they level up you can't find them in the sidebar because you have like 40 of them to click thru to find out which one leveled up so that you can upgrade an ability. its hard to find the 1 with the upgrades because they all appear identical. maybe there is a way to make them more easily visible on the sidebar? i mean to distinguish the upgradeable caps from the non-upgradeable ones.

 

does the AI have a damage/armor bonus or something as well? they feel a little bit hax to me. ive gone into battles expecting to win after analyzing the enemy fleet, and all of a sudden my cap ships start dropping like flies and the AI swarms all my planets at the same time shortly after that.

 

this is vs 2 normal AI on medium or medium-large maps.

 

I also noticed that the AI frequently ignores the pirates and sends planet bombers to your planets as soon as they are scouted. I tried picking medium-large maps instead of medium thinking that it would give me more time to take over some planets, but it doesn't seem to deter the AI. usually by the time ive taken over my third planet, the AI is already sending planet bombers out. its almost impossible to defend this and take over new planets at the same time because you cannot have golans up that early, and they just fly around missile defense platforms/hangars to avoid them so they are basically useless. NR likes to spam Defender cruisers to bomb planets, and they are really fast so its hard to defend against.

[Lavo]

the fleet sizes required to win are so big that its too hard to keep track of all your cap ships. when they level up you can't find them in the sidebar because you have like 40 of them to click thru to find out which one leveled up so that you can upgrade an ability. its hard to find the 1 with the upgrades because they all appear identical. maybe there is a way to make them more easily visible on the sidebar? i mean to distinguish the upgradeable caps from the non-upgradeable ones.

They have different icons and unit names; nothing else other than that can be done, due to engine limitations. I'd love for their to be a second capital ship entity, one that stacks like regular frigates, but that unfortunately doesn't exist.

 

does the AI have a damage/armor bonus or something as well? they feel a little bit hax to me. ive gone into battles expecting to win after analyzing the enemy fleet, and all of a sudden my cap ships start dropping like flies and the AI swarms all my planets at the same time shortly after that.

Nope, the AI has no additional bonus, however research costs nothing for the AI, so early/mid game they tend to out research humans.

 

I also noticed that the AI frequently ignores the pirates and sends planet bombers to your planets as soon as they are scouted. I tried picking medium-large maps instead of medium thinking that it would give me more time to take over some planets, but it doesn't seem to deter the AI.

Unfortunately this part of the AI's behavior cannot be changed, as it's hardcoded. It's very typical of the AI to send planet bombers if close by; if you want more space between you and the AI, I suggest trying out the Enlarged random maps.

[Bad_Haggis]

Just something I've noticed, Durham plating or whatever it's called, has a huge number in one of the stats, i'm talking around 10000000000.

 

Dunno if this is working as designed or not.

[Lavo]

It is by design; that value, if I understand it right, determines the maximum amount of health an armor point can give. I basically made it so that armor will give the maximum health bonus it can, which makes it more useful.

[01lude]

when the NR Majestic class levels up, the siege turbolaser seems to level up because it becomes click-able but I'm not really sure that anything is happening. Do we need to click on it to level up?

[Lavo]

Nope, it levels up via research. Next revision will see that ability removed and the Majestic completely retooled however.

[01lude]

The Imp I cluster warhead thing doesn't auto level. You have to click it manually. Late game when you have like 100 Imp I and Imp II SD's, it is impossible to find your Imp I's on the list, and it is impossible to click them all. I think there are a couple of other ships that make you do this as well? I can't recall them right off the top of my head though.

 

So basically I just stop buying ships that require a lot of micro management so that I can spend time on actually playing the game.

 

I spend so much time looking for ships on the list on the left hand side because they ALL have the little "+" symbol next to them, then half the time I try and click on them and I mis-click because the list itself is jumping around, and then by the time I actually start clicking on upgrades I start hearing things like "your capital ship has been destroyed! your capital ship has been destroyed!" and now I'm all in panic mode because I have no idea which planet is under attack and which of my fleets is being killed by an enemy supercap.

 

I'm not really sure if there's anything that can (or should) be done though. Just giving my honest feedback here.

 

I also feel like the AI is overpowered in the early game. You almost HAVE to get starbases up ASAP because they will find you and bring at least 5 capital ships, all level 3 at least. And those pesky planet bombers with the speed boost, the AI has a field day with those. They will pump out 8-9 of them and they WILL find an undefended planet because they can speed boost in and out of your systems faster than you can build defences.

 

Finally I have noticed that the AI doesn't like to upgrade their weapons and armor. I have not tested manually setting to "AI researcher" though. Late game all their ships still have low armor and damage.

 

again not ranting, just honest feedback. cheers.

[Lavo]

The Broadside cruiser's cluster warheads upgrade is actually a downgrade; it increases the time between volleys but decreases AM usage. It's primarily there for the AI to better micro-manage itself. When I get the time I'll make a couple of dummy abilities that people can sink points into, mainly for the formally-cruisers-now-capitals that can't upgrade their abilities to begin with, but this won't be for awhile.

 

Nothing can be done to get capital ships to stack or stop giving out that "X was destroyed!" message. It's an unfortunate aspect of Sins' hardcoding. I totally agree that it's extremely annoying, and I'd change it in a heartbeat if I could.

 

The AI's capital ships are all built at level 3. This is done for two reasons, one is that the AI will change it's build order and thus build more capitals and two, it makes up for the AI's severe tactical ineptitude; it will lose capital ships very often without any regard for said ship's capabilities and leveling.

 

As for the speed boost siege frigates; this is also primarily an issue with Sins' hardcoding. The AI adores it's siege frigates, and will always amass them as quickly as possible. A planet bombing damage rescaling is in the works; once the current ability troubles and tech bits are ironed out that's my next project.

 

The AI not researching much is a bug with Sins itself; we've tried doing what we can to mitigate this, though there's truthfully not much more that can be done in this regard. Setting the AI to researcher won't change anything, in truth.

[01lude]

are advanced fighters always better than normal fighters?

[Lavo]

In the case of bombers, yes. In the case of fighters, not always. There are two exceptions. The A-Wing is faster and more maneuverable than the X-Wing, but the latter has more health and is more durable. The CIS' Nantex is better in every way than the Vulture Droid, except that it lacks missiles, making it lack the "first strike" volleys missiles and pull off and making it useless for Buzz Droid equipped ships.

[01lude]

In the case of bombers, yes. In the case of fighters, not always. There are two exceptions. The A-Wing is faster and more maneuverable than the X-Wing, but the latter has more health and is more durable. The CIS' Nantex is better in every way than the Vulture Droid, except that it lacks missiles, making it lack the "first strike" volleys missiles and pull off and making it useless for Buzz Droid equipped ships.

 

^^ awesome thanks. this is the kind of info that should be in the wiki page. it would be nice if the ship descriptions included a little bit about each ship's strengths and weaknesses in this way. then people who download the mod have a place where they can look up this kind of stuff, and you guys won't have to answer the same questions over and over on the forums.

[Lavo]

Well, that is what the wiki is for, but I personally just have no time to add to it. As it is, I'm struggling to get this patch out, and that's with the mod still lacking tons of UI stuff.

[01lude]

there are some minor typo errors with resource cost when doing planet upgrades (all types). some of them are missing a couple zeros on the end and some have a couple zeros too many. i cant remember the specific planet types though. i think it was the metal cost i noticed one time that said 75 and probably should have read 7500 to upgrade something, and one planet type had a crystal cost to upgrade logistics that had two extra zeros on the end, anyway it was blatantly obvious (possibly a high forest something planet). and i think searching the planet level 2 cost was less than the level 1 cost on a certain planet too, where it cost 450 instead of 4500 i think. Edited April 14, 2013 by 01lude

[Lavo]

I'd need specific names... Some planets are supposed to have odd upgrade costs. Remember, most of the planets that require Urban research cost much less to upgrade (save for population), and those that require the Type II (volcanic icon) research have expensive planet upgrade costs. You may very well be right, but I can't comb through all of these.

[01lude]

ok just ran across this on "carbon moon" planet. level 2 planet exploration costs less than level 1.

[Lavo]

Fairly sure that's intentional. Explanation being that it's a backwater planet that has virtually nobody there, by doing the first level you are in effect setting up some sort of recon/scouting mission that previously was nowhere near that system, and by doing the second you are simply building off of the already existing resources, rather than starting anew. Though, in reality, I'm speaking out of my rear end as I have no idea how Nova set up the planets, but this is a plausible explanation if it is intentional. I will increase the costs however.

[01lude]

another one just now.

 

barren shipyard planet, 4th logistics upgrade costs 3400 credits, 850 metal, and 17000 crystal. pretty sure that was probably meant to be 1700 crystal instead.

[Lavo]

Good find, fixed!

[01lude]

Old Republic feels weak to me. Even with the culture upgrades giving armor boosts my ships still drop like flies for some reason vs AI with half the armor rating. Even lost a Mandator (level 1) in less than a minute before the rest of my fleet could get there to help out. Tried to fight the AI fleet anyway because they didn't have a supercap either, but once my cap ships started dying and it seemed pointless to try and retreat at that point because hyperspace jump would probably be disabled anyway. Lost everything in less than a minute. Actually was able to build a second Mandator by the time the AI got to my homeworld but it didn't matter because their fleet was huge by that point. Could not even build Golans fast enough, tried to spam them but got overwhelmed before they could even be completed. This was vs 2 AI, forget if it was normal or hard though.

 

Played Alliance last night vs 2 normal Empire AI on random medium (enlarged) map. built 2 MC80Bs and 2 Independence. pretty cool ran into an Executor toward the end but it didn't even fight, it was just doing somersaults at the edge of the gravity well.

 

I figured out it's pretty easy to kill a normal AI in the early game. just build like decent 4 cap ships, not the super expensive ones but not the cheap ones either (maybe something like the Imp I SD or the regular MC80 or regular Nebula SD), and usually you can kill everything the AI builds in the early game.

[Lavo]

Normal AI was nerfed in 1.5 for some reason. The Mandator is a fleet support ship; it will fall quickly against other supercaps on it's own. Against non-supercap fleets, it's Baradium Charges can slaughter tons of stuff instantly. It is not done yet however; I have plans to replace Siege Torpedoes with a more useful fleet-oriented ability, what exactly is to be determined. Could you possibly give more details about what you were fighting, and what fleet you had? It's certainly possible that a few Republic ships are underpowered, they suffered badly from this in the past. Noted the weak culture bonuses; I'll look into them and likely change them up or boost them.

[01lude]

Normal AI was nerfed in 1.5 for some reason. The Mandator is a fleet support ship; it will fall quickly against other supercaps on it's own. Against non-supercap fleets, it's Baradium Charges can slaughter tons of stuff instantly. It is not done yet however; I have plans to replace Siege Torpedoes with a more useful fleet-oriented ability, what exactly is to be determined. Could you possibly give more details about what you were fighting, and what fleet you had? It's certainly possible that a few Republic ships are underpowered, they suffered badly from this in the past. Noted the weak culture bonuses; I'll look into them and likely change them up or boost them.

 

AI fleet was mainly Lucrehulk BB's with some Providence cruisers, but mainly spam Lucrehulk BB's.

 

I had a bunch of Venators and some Rothana DD's with 1 or 2 Procurators. I guess i should have brought at least 30 flak frigates too but i just feel like im wasting money buying regular ships because they don't level up like cap ships do. maybe i just need to go for more quantity and less quality ships.

[Lavo]

Oh wow, yeah, when you're up against Lucrehulks and TradeFed AFCs, you need to maintain fighter cover or bring some flak, as otherwise Buzz Droids will disable your ships and rip you apart. With the Lucrehulk BB however, if they are any level 5s, you basically need to have some flak frigs or else they will use Full Squadrons to wreak your fighter cover. You don't necessarily need 30, but as the Centax is fairly cheap, you can easily afford 10 or so. Also, I believe that having less capitals means that the ones that you do have will level up faster. The Rothana DD also isn't a bad ship at all; it's pretty powerful and is the Republic's best ship after the Venator/VSD/Procurator.

 

If you can confirm whether the CIS had air superiority, that is easily the difference between life and death.

[arisk01]

Seems like a few of my supercaps are broken, they just sit there sort of spinning out of control?

[Lavo]

Could you go into some more detail, or say which specific ones are being weird?