AI Campaign => For a Challenging AI opponent

[PsychoTechFreak]

Originally posted by JLS:

PTF, what are your thoughts about us miniaturizing the hardened life support level to 5kt in both tonnage and structure, or just put it to 9kt in structure?
While leaving the structure of basic LS at 11, and LS at 10 as is, for AIC v2.03.

With a comparison tool I have seen a lot of extreme changes, I need some time to get into this.
What's the reason for the unusual values (11,9, etc.)?

I agree if you intend to restructure everything, this will be a big task. If you lower the structure kT it will be harder to hit, but if it gets a hit then the component will be more vulnerable plus the overall armor effect of the ship will be lowered. The intention of hardened life support is to increase protection of the ship, like a kind of armor component. I mean, the higher the structure tonnage the easier to hit (like armor)... Wait a minute, now I recall why I (probably instinctively) never used hardened LS so far:
LS is an important component which needs to be protected by ARMOR, but it should not get the same ability to work like armor, because this would change it to an easy to hit component. This evaluation should be done with every other component, probably at the end we could come to the conclusion that hardened LS better should be removed, the structure tonnage of the important componants to be lowered if they are armor-like too high etc.

[Desdinova]

Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:

quote:

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Space Yard Tech: Early Tech cost lowered: ~Thanks LAN,PTF.

Errr, planet yards need to be improved, that's what I was complaining about, not Spacestation yards. The first facility on a planet has to be a yard, because you have downgraded the population modifiers extremely against proportions modifiers. But it still takes about 45 turns until you get the first small production rate bonus from the planet yard.
Another observation: Race setup has repair ability of 80%, 2 orbital SYs over the homeplanet (planet yard with "can repair 1 component per turn", usually works with 80% also...). I upgraded both orbital SYs in the same turn, but they get no repairs in the following turns -> scrrrrraaaaappppp !

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i agree with you about the length of time it takes for a colony to build anything, takes forever. once colony is created it takes 10 YEARS to build a spaceyard on the planet. i have noticed that the reason for this is the construction penalty the planet recieves for having such a small population. when you start off with 1 million people you only get 5% of your actual construction rate. even once you get to 100 million you still only get 40% and that takes several years of moving population back and forth. for these newly created colonies i have created mobile spacedocks (shipbased shipyard) and send them to the colony to build bases while my planet is building the shipyard (once i have researched the required techs which still takes several years itself). plus i have dedicated starliners going from my homeworld to each colony set to just move people to the colonies.

edit: regarding the repair of bases. yeah it also takes forever to repair the upgraded facilities. at least it sounds like you did it over a planet so the planets yard will eventually repair the bases upgrades. i made the mistake up upgrading all my bases over a wormhole and my mobile space docks (MSD's) were all in the middle of constructing bases at other locations so i had to wait about 2 years to have one completed before i could send it to repair the bases upgrades. fortunately it was a wormhole well within my territory.

[ April 11, 2003, 20:01: Message edited by: desdinova ]

[JLS]

Originally posted by desdinova:
regarding the increased size making it more likely to be hit. i have noticed that with the armored structure components in the mod that the armored structures tend to get hit more often once armor has been breached since they tend to be 100+kt in structure while only taking up 10 kt in space. the exception is with the shipyards, as they tend to be the largest components on bases and ships. plus with the armored structures ability to shrug off x amount of damage (based on level) they have become an integral part of all my ship and base designs. they are well worth the minerals necessary to build them in my opinion. edit: which makes sense as the ships/bases structure should take most of the damage before components do. but once that structure is damaged/destroyed then it doesnt take long for the rest to be destroyed.

Agreed

What of below examples:
Base se4; Robo – Miners at structure 100
Not to mention large non combatant SM Component structures 100-400 as well as the 2000 structure of Grav Plates and Cables, etc.
What kind of affect do they have on combat.

[ April 11, 2003, 19:57: Message edited by: JLS ]

[JLS]

Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:

“What's the reason for the unusual values (11,9, etc.)?”

Assuming the Basic Life support at structure 11kt would be more vulnerable over crew Qtrs, sensors etc.
9kt refers to not hanging the Lvl 3 Life Support out to be shot at.

I was throwing the option on the table for Level 3 LS to be a miniaturized Version at 5 kt tonnage and structure.
~

LS is an important component which needs to be protected by ARMOR, but it should not get the same ability to work like armor, because this would change it to an easy to hit component. This evaluation should be done with every other component, probably at the end we could come to the conclusion that hardened LS better should be removed, the structure tonnage of the important componants to be lowered if they are armor-like too high etc.

Agreed

Level 3 Life Support to be miniaturized to 5 kt both in tonnage and structure may be the way to replace and discontinue Hardened Life Support. What would you say?

[ April 11, 2003, 20:19: Message edited by: JLS ]

[Desdinova]

starting to look at the files you sent me. one question about the spaceyards. for ships the size is 460kt but for bases it is only 400kt.

plus i noticed you reduced the structure on the base spaceyard and increased it on the ship spaceyard. this i take it is to help balance the size vs frequency of hits.

as far as the mtc cost of spaceyard bases they are manageable so far. but i have only built 1 base and 1 ship so far. havent tried combat yet to see how the penalty is going to affect things though. not sure if the penalty to hit is really a good idea since bases would seem to be very stable platforms to fire from. plus with the penalty for starbases to be hit already due to their size the additional penalty may be overkill. but then again shipyards should be protected by other ships, fighters, bases, etc as they are a valuable resource so we'll see.

edit: plus i see you use space station hulls where i use starbase hulls so that would also make a difference. so will have to try with a few of those as well.

[ April 11, 2003, 20:26: Message edited by: desdinova ]

[PsychoTechFreak]

Originally posted by JLS:

What of below examples:
Base se4; Robo ? Miners at structure 100
Not to mention large non combatant SM Component structures 100-400 as well as the 2000 structure of Grav Plates and Cables, etc.
What kind of affect do they have on combat.

Like plain armor. I think it is all right for robo miners, grav plates etc., they should resist proportional to size. In most cases they are the only component in a hull. If a 2000kT structure should be protected, the structure tonnage should be increased, additional armor components below 2000kT would not help. Heavy components which can be protected by armor should not get too much reduced in structure tonnage, because this would be a malus on smaller ship hulls with lower protection by armor (because of no space available for protection).

[JLS]

Originally posted by desdinova:

starting to look at the files you sent me. one question about the spaceyards. for ships the size is 460kt but for bases it is only 400kt

I increased the size to 460 for the Ships (Yard Component) so it would fit snuggly on a medium transport with one supply. This was done to limit some creative Human Exploitation of the SYS, where the AI or an unfamiliar Human multiplayer opponent would not be at a great disadvantage.
Other wise I would of taken cargo abilities off the SYS component to prevent this, alltogeather.
~

plus i noticed you reduced the structure on the base spaceyard and increased it on the ship spaceyard. this i take it is to help balance the size vs frequency of hits.

This is just a start, we will tweak the Structure sizes on all Components for the next release.
~

not sure if the penalty to hit is really a good idea since bases would seem to be very stable platforms to fire from. plus with the penalty for starbases to be hit already due to their size the additional penalty may be overkill.

The Combat minus modifiers have not been changed on the Base vehicle hulls, but just on the Base Shipyard and Repair Component.
Other wise one may put this on a Defense Base design; just for the Maintenance Modifier.
However, I just thru those numbers on for the example I sent you, play testing will determine the best result. What would you say a good starting figure would be?
~

plus i see you use space station hulls where i use starbase hulls so that would also make a difference. so will have to try with a few of those as well.

This may be best solution I have at this time for the Base Repair Bay (Maintenance Modifier) not to stack, and preserve a long Frontier build time with out the extreme maintenance cost.
We can go back to the faster build; SE IV default Repair Component or even add an additional individual one with no MTC to Complament the new Repair Station.

It seems to play well, but lets see if it works for you, with some large base hull designs, notice you have a low level Repair Base Station just from Ship Construction 2 tech, now.

[ April 12, 2003, 01:04: Message edited by: JLS ]

[JLS]

Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:
Like plain armor. I think it is all right for robo miners, grav plates etc., they should resist proportional to size. In most cases they are the only component in a hull. If a 2000kT structure should be protected, the structure tonnage should be increased, additional armor components below 2000kT would not help. Heavy components which can be protected by armor should not get too much reduced in structure tonnage, because this would be a malus on smaller ship hulls with lower protection by armor (because of no space available for protection).

Makes sence.

What do you think of Level 3 Life Support to be miniaturized to 5 kt both in tonnage and structure may be the way to replace and just discontinue Hardened Life Support.

[ April 11, 2003, 21:19: Message edited by: JLS ]

[PsychoTechFreak]

Originally posted by JLS:


Level 3 Life Support to be miniaturized to 5 kt both in tonnage and structure may be the way to replace and discontinue Hardened Life Support. What would you say?

Yes, there is not much of a difference to regular LS anymore. Mmh, probably on very small scout ships without much available place for armor a HLS would be good, I am curious about the initial intention about this component (PvK?). Probably much more than 150kT, so that you need 4-5 hits before destruction? This would still make it the first component to be destroyed, but protection would be improved.

Can you increase hull structure in case of HLS component is used, like channel more plain armor to hull in case of HLS? I guess this is not possible without implementing additional hulls...

[JLS]

Originally posted by PsychoTechFreak:
Yes, there is not much of a difference to regular LS anymore. Mmh, probably on very small scout ships without much available place for armor a HLS would be

A 10kt Armor structure fits well on a scout and I don't know if I would invest in High end Components for most scouting tasks.

[ April 11, 2003, 21:26: Message edited by: JLS ]