Scattered Asteroid Hull—too cheap and powerful

[Sloth]

Another important thing, especially with the recently toned down strength of the shield parts, is reducing the shield bonus of the Scattered Asteroid Hull. It's currently 5, and I suggest reducing that to 3. And we need to consider if we just apply this bonus to the ship itself, instead of granting this bonus to every own ship in the system. If we want to keep the latter, I think we at least need to nerf the bonus even more, maybe down to 2?

I think as a flagship it should grant a shield bonus to other ships too. Reducing the bonus to 2 sounds fine though.

[MatGB]

Agreed, definitely needs to keep its flagship ability, and I like that one as a nice cool flavourful thing. But reducing it down is good.

OK, increase the research cost, increase the build cost, reduce the build time, see how it goes.

I'm also going to play with ideas for the Aggregate Asteroid hull, having it an identikit without the flagship ability is daft, but it's a shame to waste a bit of artwork and there's definitely a slot in the research queue for that sort of interesting thing.

Re build times, I want to reduce all the flagship hull buildtimes down to no more than 10, playing with Logistics Facilitators in my last few games has been depressing—oh look, they've launched finally, with their nice plasma weapons, to lead fleets equipped with Death Rays, and by the time the Solar Hull (build time 20, ouch) is launched the auto-refuel trick is completely pointless as everything's in supply anyway. Anyone see a problem with that?

[Vezzra]

Re build times, I want to reduce all the flagship hull buildtimes down to no more than 10 ... Anyone see a problem with that?

Not at all. Please go ahead, I've been in favor of cutting down build times to 10 turns max for a long time

[MatGB]

49e28df Done, tweaked a few other minor points, made Static Multicellular slightly easier to research as well in the hope that poor thing might find a use. Reduced all the asteroid 'warship' hulls fuel capacities, and adjusted a few costs, in some cases substantially (Sentient is doubled) and reduced all the flagship hulls, mostly to 8 but Solar to 10 as that was 20.

[Vezzra]

You left the shield bonus unchanged, we've now got some feedback that indicates the +5 bonus is perceived as very (too?) powerful. As we agreed on at least reducing the bonus to account for the overall reduction of shield strength, is there any reason for not doing this?

Otherwise I'd suggest to reduce it to 2 or 3, whatever you think fits better.

[MatGB]

3 is probably about right, Mass Driver 1, to be honest I'd forgotten that suggestion.

Regarding makign the research for it more expensive, all the other flagship hulls require you complete researching the rest of the line, if we do that for Asteroids as well then Monomolecular Laticing becomes a prerequisite, and that's hideously expensive (probably too much for what it gives, to be honest).

So I'll do both of those before I do the fleet repair thing.

[Vezzra]

Regarding makign the research for it more expensive, all the other flagship hulls require you complete researching the rest of the line, if we do that for Asteroids as well then Monomolecular Laticing becomes a prerequisite, and that's hideously expensive (probably too much for what it gives, to be honest).

For that specific bit check back with Dilvish - restructuring the research paths might require AI adjustmenst.

[MatGB]

I think, based on my basic ability to read Python, that they don't currently research it, it's only in techlist.py in the reference list of all techs, whereas heavy asteroid appears several times in different priority lists.

[marcOSX]

I think, based on my basic ability to read Python, that they don't currently research it, it's only in techlist.py in the reference list of all techs, whereas heavy asteroid appears several times in different priority lists.

If the AI can research flagships it would be really interesting for late game. I love the way AI empires raise defense now and start getting real good ships. The last changes in balance and AI are really raising the challenge to another level. I love the comments noting that now we can learn good tactics from the AI. Let them get scattered asteroid hulls, so we would have real need of the solar one

Would it be really complicated to implement the possibility for the AI to build all flagships as an option in the startup panel?

I also have a doubt : Can the IA research singularity of transcendance? And would we be informed when they start to do so? Would we receive a Sitrep if they discover it, so that we lost the game? I ask, because in some of my games I had to fight very strong research empires, and they had their research going up, until at some point it went down, whereas production or colonies did not... It seemed they had researched all they could...

I am not sure the sitrep is the correct place for this information. Maybe a new panel, victory conditions may pop up when you destroy your first enemy empire, or when someone starts researching Singularity, indicating the state of advancement towards victory.

[MatGB]

At the moment, the AI can research Solar Hulls and Sentient Hulls (I've seen them using the latter, never the former) but not the top end Robotic or Asteroid lines, I only ever give feedback on observed AI behaviour, I don't make the choices for it in the code

There is, in theory, a Victory condition in the backend code that does give you a "you lost" message and kick you out of the game, but to mu knowledge it's not actually implemented in the scripts yet (I only discovered it theoretically existed recently and haven't tried to use it yet), at some point we'll need to migrate to using it but it's not been a priority, the AI doesn't try to transcend unless I'm horribly wrong on how the code for their techs works (basically, in the AI folder, look at TechListsAI.py in a decent text editor and you can see what they do and don't do, if you can read basic code you can probably figure it out as well as I can).

And yeah, I've changed quite a few designs since the new system came in, but that's partially as my old designs were good against the old AI designs, the new designs need a different approach, not sure either is 'better' as such.

[Dilvish]

Right, the only flagship that the AI currently supports completely is the Sentient Hull; last time I checked the other ones all have tremendously expensive specialized shipyard requirements which I don't have the AI set up yet to make construction decisions for. They do wind up eventually researching the relevant techs (if not explicitly listed in the AI research lists then they will come last), and so if they capture the right shipyard from you then they could start using those ships right away. We are working on a new framework for prioritizing various aspects of AI construction and when that's done I think it will be much easier to support the additional flagship types. In the meantime, see below.

I think, based on my basic ability to read Python, that they don't currently research it, it's only in techlist.py in the reference list of all techs, whereas heavy asteroid appears several times in different priority lists.

If the AI can research flagships it would be really interesting for late game. Let them get scattered asteroid hulls, so we would have real need of the solar one

I'll try to keep in mind the possibility of adding the right techs and construction facilities for some more of the flagships, even in advance of reworking the AI production framework.

Would it be really complicated to implement the possibility for the AI to build all flagships as an option in the startup panel?

The issue is coding up the decision making; I wouldn't bother having it gated by a startup option (though some might be gated by aggression).

I also have a doubt : Can the IA research singularity of transcendance? And would we be informed when they start to do so? Would we receive a Sitrep if they discover it, so that we lost the game?

The AI doesn't prioritize it, because it's not really yet a well structured win scenario and I think people would hate losing to the AI that way. The AI is not barred from it though, so will eventually get to it. You would not get a sitrep when they start, nor, looking at it now, get one when they finish it. Those are both things that need to occur as part of a restructuring for that tech and the associated victory.

I ask, because in some of my games I had to fight very strong research empires, and they had their research going up, until at some point it went down, whereas production or colonies did not... It seemed they had researched all they could...

As the AI nears the completion of all techs, it starts ramping down on Research, yes.

or when someone starts researching Singularity, indicating the state of advancement towards victory.

Yes, I think both Transcendence (and also I think there is a somewhat similar Construction type victory path) should be made multi-stage, kind of like the race to Alpha Centauri in one of the Civ games, so that other empires get a warning and better chance to intervene.

[wheals]

There is, in theory, a Victory condition in the backend code that does give you a "you lost" message and kick you out of the game, but to mu knowledge it's not actually implemented in the scripts yet (I only discovered it theoretically existed recently and haven't tried to use it yet), at some point we'll need to migrate to using it but it's not been a priority

The code actually exists, as does the parsing for the Victory condition, but it's been commented out for quite some time.

[Dilvish]

I'll try to keep in mind the possibility of adding the right techs and construction facilities for some more of the flagships, even in advance of reworking the AI production framework.

AI use of Solar Containment Hulls should be working now.

[MatGB]

Take cover! They'll be collapsing every red star they find now won't they?

Slightly more seriously, can I strongly recommend the Nanorobotic hull and the gravitic lines as definitely worth giving them when you've the chance? Both just require a building that can be put anywhere and are really rather good, I need to tone down the self repair of the robotics (shouldn't work fully in combat situation) but they're all nice big and beefy—I can understand getting the Logistics Facilitator going is a pain with three separate buildings needed, but the prereq hulls are good on their own, and AI built titans with the new adaptive designs will be scary