Ascendancy Mod

There are 8 difficulty levels I created once: The Delyxe Easy/Middle/Heavy/Brutal with ALL weapons and specials active, no deleted, and the AI industry gets 0 / 30 / 60 / 90 boost, while the Heavy Delyxe Easy/Middle/Heavy/Brutal gets some dozen specials deleted, and the AI industry the same boost
So far I have been playing Heavy Delyxe, Middle difficulty. Too scared to go above Middle, yet.

Any recommendations? Self Destruct is nerfed already to 10, range perhaps down, dont know. Particular Burst will be Brutal Burst now, I LOVE that weapon already. AI industry boosts too high? What you recognized perhaps is, that the AI ONLY tec gives both, AI industry for planets with a drastic boost, plus AI energy engine for ships with a drastic boost. Too far? Too much? Kind of necessary, still.
With the Self Destruct, my recommendation would be to keep it at 10 damage, but move it to a high place on the tech tree. Doom Mechanization (as in the original) makes thematic sense.

A few other, very small changes I would suggest for the tech tree:
  • Strong Force Weakening is a dead end on the techtree and all it gives you (in 1.6) is a very weak shield. I would move the Ion Zero shield to Momentum Deconservation (which you will research anyway because it is on the main path) and move Tractor Beam (a really nice tool) to Strong Force Weakening. Both of these come comparably early.
  • If you do move the Self Destructotron higher up, I would recommend moving the CI disruptor (very nice special) to Thought Analysis. Thought Analysis is quite expensive, so it deserves some nice reward. And I would move the Quantum Singularity Launcher to Mass Phasing, switching those two weapons between those two techs.
  • I would move the Disraptor X weapon from Advanced Planetary Armaments (which already gives you other, highly desirable items) to Repulsion Beam Tech.
The AI boosts seem about right, as far as I can tell.
 
Ohhhhh, dont overestimate my blondness. I have to hack through my old thoughts and a total overhaul of near all values, grrrrrrrr.

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Thats hilarious and overextends my pity dumbbrain anyway. :) my pwity dwumbbwain. :) (lmao)

You are whole into the matter, I barely remember. Perhaps, if I could finalize that, I could switch tec slots.

One of the things you perhaps didnt recognize is, that I changed many names of weapons and gimmicks, the reason for me is, that Ascendancy had so over the top names that I ALWAYS forgot what they actually are for. So, I used recognizable names plus a good description. CI Disraptor is the Colonizer/Invader module killer weapon, yes, I did that on purpose - like all stuff. :) I will see what I can do, cause I think you are deep into the game and matter and know how to switch tec positions - I dont, yet.

One problem for me is, that Self Destruct is no "ability" or "technology", it is just a simple cheap boooom. Any ship could provide that spontaneous advantage in space. lol. So, I would rather give it soon, but reduce the impact, in this case I did

Self^DestructoTron
5 0 40 10 0 600 10 0 45 6 255

positions are:
Category PowerUsed Range PowerDestructive NumUses Cost Special1 Special2 TecTreePos ArtofTarget EndofLine

you played with that:

Self^DestructoTron
5 0 30 20 0 100 20 0 45 6 255

so, more range, halfed destructive power, cost to build 6 times higher, for example. Perhaps I would go with that:

Self^DestructoTron
5 0 40 6 0 200 6 0 45 6 255

range 40, destructive power 6, in the end that is just wreckage, no aggressive laser weapon, cheap 200. No. Perhaps I will let it super cheap 100. It is just a boooom, a cheap booom, without hard impact, but good range.
 
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That sounds fine too, for the Self Destruct. I'm currently trying to play without this device, to see how well I can still do.

I can't really help you with the decoding names, of course. :D

I know that you don't care much about race balance, but I still feel the need to share this. I was completely wrong about the Govorom. Their ability to turn a planet into a Cornucopia planet is hard-coded, and it turns it into an 'old-style' Cornucopia planet. Which is completely awesome. The Govorom are a really good race in Heavy Delyxe.
 
Woaaaa! That is indeed nice informations about Baliflid Peacemakers and Govorom Cornucopiamakers. But yes, I know. All the abilities of all the races have to be a hardcode included in .exe, cause I didnt find these in .cob, so, they are all still active and working. The values I chose for Self Destruct:

Self^DestructoTron
5 0 30 6 0 300 6 0 45 6 255

range 30, (for example planetary weapons have 45 short range), 6 damage, 300 costly, comes relative soon. That shall not be some OP cheese weaponry.

Currently I have to let roll and roll, I tweak the Ascend00.COB and start the vanilla 5 races Minion game and let play the AI factions, get extinct, let play along to see how they develop planets. My new planet square rosters are much better, that I remembered already, the tec tree is hilarious heavy, and I currently tweak many building values on planets so that I FKed up the balanced building, plus I tweaked the weapons to insane.

Currently I have to decide how to tweak the AI industry boost building, if I shall allow dozens of them, or just ONE per planet, so that any AI planet would build 1 tractor beam, 1 observation center, 1 surface cloak, 1 AI industry, and then some surface shields and industry complexes and MANY laboratories. I think I wouldnt like 20 AI industries or 20 surface shields, so, probably that is my answer already.

I didnt know how far I tweaked my 2013 Ascendelyxe 1.6 version, but that is a pain in the axe. One of the coolest things is, that I found out, that I took the Invader as a weapon with that red fire rain, thats cool! When AI huge ships have onboard some Invader Moduls, as weapons too, some CI DisRaptors, plus a Brutal Burst and a Tractor Beam (also hurting!). Really brute.

I am looking forward to provide for you a new Ascend00.cob to testplay the brandnew values. The building values will be great tomorrow, the tec tree is an axehole already, lol, the planetary squares are much better already, and the weapons, hm, I have some problems there.

Once I had the basic vanilla laser weapons on range 30 and the hard special weapons on range 40 so that these fire FIRST, problem: Too brute. So I changed the vanilla weapons to range 40 and the hard weapons to range 30, so that they fire the easy guns first, BUT - I overthrew the vanilla weapons by higher hard weapon values so that it is more likely that the AI ships just include the hard (and VERY expensive) weapons, while the Human Player could use the far cheaper vanilla laser weapons with an advantage in range. That principle still fights in my brain.

But to be honest - it was PAIN for me as a child to play my beloved Ascendancy vs braindead AI not even using all of these fancy badass hard special weapons, finally some decade later I found the Antagonizer as a new hope, just to find out that its planetary upgrades are great, but still no hard weapons, still no complete colonizing of all planets, and war just limited to Human Player only so that the AI wouldnt ever grow big - but NOW, I dont see the point to waste my time with vanilla laser weapons in AI ships - why should they build these cheap weapons, while they could have a dozen badass stuff - I want the REAL FKers. :)

Shall the Human Player build the cheap weapons in despair. :)

It happens while I let roll the game Cheat watching all races, that after 2000 years there is just ONE race left, GOOD! :) Nimbuloids with 30 huge badass ships --- GOOD!!!!! :)
 
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Out of curiosity, what do you mean with a hilariously heavy tech tree? Do you mean that the later technologies are more expensive now? That does sound like a good idea.

I would stick with 1 AI-boost building per planet, yeah.

Is the "brutal burst" a new weapon that you added after 1.6? Can't comment yet on the weapon range issues before I've seen your newest mod version. If you would like some feedback on any issue in particular when I get to playtesting, let me know.
 
As I told somewhere above. That gimmick of "Positron Bouncer" which pushes a ship away, I think, I called it "Particular Burst", first, but 66 it out of Heavy Delyxe cause it is just another fancy gimmick the AI used to wank around silly - now I wanted to rescue some more specials into usability, and called it "Brutal Burst", it is a WEAPON now pushing ships back plus hitting them. I saw Huge Shiphulls with inside 3 Invader weapons, 3 CI DisRaptor weapons, 1 Brutal Burst and 1 Tractor Beam, and ALL OF THAT, are heavy weapons ripping you apart. Nice.

The Tec Tree got SOME nicer names, sounds better now, got some tweaks, and yes, got hilariously expensive late tecs. I always hated that you get Huge Shiphull and right after Giant Shiphull, that you get telescope so late, plus, that all tecs are so cheap you are actually done with tec tree after turn 1600 if you play giant map. I ran into the problem that all tecs have a maximum turn stop, so, you cant exceed that infinite, when I ran into that may 2020, I quit my overhaul. Sometimes just ONE simple struggle kills my mood off.

But I checked my new Tec Tree now and it is maximum biased. :)

Yes, I agree. In the first 1600 turns the AI tends to build ONE surface cloak, surface shield, observation, tractor beam, and AI industry. Sometimes some more of these surface shields which I would prefer, but the problem is, either just ONE, or it floods the whole planet instead of laboratories, then you got 20 surface shields on ANY AI planet which is hilarious. I saw that later in-game the AI would begin to spam AI industry to hilarious 600 industry doom planets - what I found a kind of ----- fun. Early, ONE, late, doom. It got still ONE surface cloak, surface shield, mega shield, observation, tractor beam, hyper plant, internet, then many high end labs, mega industries, and AI industries, so, I think, the building balance is done already.

I will try hard to get my mod done TODAY, so that I can provide you the newest Ascend00.COB, you could playtest, and provide me with any criticism you wish. I dont know how good or bad that Tec Tree works now, how good or bad these new weapon stats really are - from what I saw, the planets build badass, the ships too, and the races really are brute forces, but in detail I dont know nothing Jon Snow. :)

One thing I absolutely adore is, that I gave all orbital stuff industry, so, I tend to build up planets manually, found colony, 3 industries, 2 Shipyards, 3 rocket launchers, 3 shields, that provides the planet with a core industry and defense, after that I let automatize and FK off. I am glad that I kicked too much micro management into oblivion. :)
 
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Good. The folder "Ascend Delyxe" contains DEasy, DMiddle, DHeavy, DBrutal, that are the four Delyxe Difficulties with ALL specials included, no deleted ones, with 0 / 30 / 60 / 90 industry boost for AI industry. HDEasy, HDMiddle, HDHeavy, HDBrutal, four Heavy Delyxe Difficulties with 6 deleted specials, with 0 / 30 / 60 / 90 industry boost.

My target once was to reduce the deleted specials. Once I deleted 14 (!). I HATED as a child that the freakin AI just pranced around - it was not capable of using the hard special weapons, no no no, ran out of energy quick, but was fully capable of prancing through the system and fooling around, like a freakin idiot clown. I HATED that. I wanted to pimp the AI ships hard as possible with no jokes included. BUT. YOU told me that. Sometimes the Human Player is hard threatened, and the Human Player could need some tricks. The AI ships are brute force enough now, so if ONE SLOT is wasted for Bull S, so what.

The 6 things I still deleted are: Lane Blocker - useless. ReCaller - annoying. StarMagnetron - not usefull enough. HyperSwapper - annoying. Self and Target Repulsors, pushing ships away - dont want them. All the rest is still onboard. My target once was to make Molecular Tie Down, Tractor Beam and Positron Bouncer (now Brutal Burst) to actual weapons to not waste these nice beasts. The 5 other dudes still onboard are now... em... Engine Burst, Cannibalizer, Gravitron Catapult, Magnetron, Energetron, these are actual usefull tricksters.

You have to rename your chosen Difficulty to Ascend00.cob and copy it into your Ascendancy main folder.
Ohhh, and delete the RESUME.GAM, that contains a loaded tec tree, to load a new one, you need to delete that.
 
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hmm something seems wrong. The tech tree looks weird, I can't delete transport tubes and I can build on black squares.

Are you sure I don't need a new ascend01.cob as well?

Also my first feedback on techs: the plasmatron now seems to be strictly worse than the hypersphere driver. Equal range, same power, but only one shot..
 
Hahaha FK. I remember why I quit to overhaul it.

I gave transport tubes a 1 people so that the AI wont kill itself by planetary buildings - it sometimes uses the last possible worker to build something and is stuck with no option to build on, so, I tried to increase population options. For example the Govorom tended to build with their last possible worker the HyperPlant, YEAH, then stuck, so, I had to give the HyperPlant more people. But that means, you cant abandon buildings with people inside while you dont have empty population slots - you cant abandon living people, just empty people slots, for tubes I have to undo it again, right.

No, Ascend01.cob is fine. I made many buildings buildable on black squares, yes. Many of these buildings are dirty industry complexes anyway - there is no need for a tractor beam to be on good land, like many others too, that I like actually. I de-complicated and de-micromanaged plenty of stuff, that is just a waste of clics. Currently I tried to make tecs more expensive in time, but 1000 is the maximum value, for one laboratory the first tecs need 25 years and all others 32500 years for 1000 value, I cant exceed that. For a 10000 value I got a game crash. :)

So, tec tree I cant exceed any further. Buildings on black squares are actually nice - if you clic SHIFT, on ANY building or weapon building screen, you get a "Help" and description for ANY usage, I wrote that, so that you can see how much you get exactly. Plasmatron and all these common laser weapons I treated badly. I have to re-do these. The problem is, since you get SO MANY GREAT weapons now, there is simply not much use for simple laser weapons anymore. Any hard weapon with special abilities would be preferable - I wanted to use the simple laser weapons for cheap alternatives for the Human Player to perhaps outsmart the AI by cheaper weapons with better range, before the AI brute ships strike back and kick axes. :)

Transport tubes will be empty tubes again. Research rate I have to cranc down down down again by reducing research values in buildings - cause I played my first regular game after years again, play on Middle Size Map the Minions and HDMiddle, year 1684, 44 planets, and all tecs need just 170 years - but my planets are just basic, and you can have MUCH MORE planets, like 200, great built, on Giant Size Map, so, I want tec to be something precious. Weapons I have to re-do a little.
 
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I still like using simple laser weapons, because they are better in ship vs planet fights. Most fights in my games are between ships and planets (offensively or defensively). In Delyxe version 1.6 I thought the weapon balance worked really well: you could only outrange planets with normal weapons if you had an accutron and you could only outrange the big guns with a plasmatron.

Do you use the normal shields? I never do, to be honest. Only invulnerablizer. Other shields drain energy so fast and they offer so little protection that I never found a use for them. For example, a nanoshield uses as much energy for 2 rounds of combat as an invulnerablizer does for an entire battle.
 
Hahaha you seem to me like me in my childhood! I always let the time pass until I got ALL THE TECS, then built up the greatest giant ships - otherwise that invulnerablizer wouldnt be available.

Yes! I need to use ship shields A LOT. Cause I made sure you have a chance as defending planet, plus you have a tough fight as attacking fleet IN RANGE. So, I play Minions currently, I choose the ship with the currently best shields, activate shield, and near under fire, until the planet is spent. My poor attacking ship goes back to the dockyard, while my other duuuuds capture the beast. These shields are not for excessive use, but for selective use. I use ONE to get fired at, the others fire back.

If you use the shift help order you see EXACTLY how much power use, how costly, how effective any buildings, weapons, stuff are. So, the most hard weapons outclass the normal laser weapons anyway, laser weapons have damage 3 6 9 12, while the hard weapons 6 13 16 19, that is my whole point! ALL I do is to get the AI in shape, planetary buildings have to rescue its stupidity, and weapons have to be in best use - so, hard weapons with special abilities HAVE TO outclass normal laser weapons, so that the AI USES THEM AT ALL. I need to lure the AI into smartness by better values, and so I design it for growth and brutality.

I tried to create the normal laser weapons as slightly better ranged and MUCH cheaper weapons for the Human Player only - I want the AI ships to use the really hard weapons only. Therefor I would have to replace the weapons in tec tree now. :)

Invulnerablizer
5 60 0 0 1 1800 0 0 55 6 255

Nano^Shell
1 30 0 6 0 900 0 0 55 5 255

Oh! Yes. I shall that beast make much more expensive in energy use. I think tec tree time is done, planetary squares are done, planetary buildings are done, now just the ship stuff to tweak, I want that done today. :)
 
Yeah I know shift-click is help, I use it all the time.

Well, actually what I mean is that I just attack things without bothering with shields, unless I´m so far into the endgame and Invulnerablizer is available. Usually you can let ships take turns taking hull damage instead or something. Repairing hull damage is cheap once you have a dock.
Still, I see the point about activating a shield to exhaust planet fire, but then I still think the shield values and energy use may need some tweaking.

In my opinion, the most important property of a shield is the energy to protection ratio. And the supposedly best shields are quite bad in that regard:

- Ion shield: prot 2 for 12 energy (ratio 1:6)
- Positron Shield: prot 3 for 15 energy (ratio 1:5)
- Graviton Shield: prot 3 for 12 energy (ratio 1:4)
- Deactotron: prot 4 for 21 energy (ratio worse than 1:5)
- Hyperwave nullifier: prot 5 for 24 energy (ratio better than 1:5)
- Nanoshell: prot 6 for 30 energy (ratio 1:5)

So late game, instead of one nanoshell, you're better off installing 2 graviton shields, giving you 6 protection for 24 energy instead of 30 energy.
 
Problem is, that the AI gets infinite energy :). AI could load all shields and would be bullet proof. If I would "balance" the shield to a "more usable" style, that would be ping pong on a whole new Bull S level were you dont hit nothing.

I used the shields just for a slight advantage. Perhaps I could A BIT do for a tweak, but not much.

Wufffz. Currently thought that it was too easy on Heavy Delyxe Middle with 30 industry boost for AI, but the Swaparamans do a great job on me. While I need about 250 years for one Huge ship, they need 150 years - what I like MOST on my Mod is, that in Ascendancy Vanilla you could just spam ships, they were basically worthless. You can spam build up your planets in no time. You can spam build up your fleets, and you dont bother to just abandon Middle Class ships for Huge Class ships, you just dont care. You can send them in dock super easy, cause all planets can do the trick, and you can repair and upgrade them with ease. Pffff.

Now I send all of my damaged Middle Classers back to the dockyards to just repair and slightly improve and send them back immediately, I have actually to CARE and to THINK, while the Huge Classers step by step pimp the frontline. Sad thing, that the Swaparamans also get Huge Classers now, so they probably will rip me apart. :)

The shift-click was one of my most important Mod things to do - ALL tweaks I do I want in my descriptions so that a Player could see all values by shift-click. In Vanilla you had the problem of never knowing nothing, to just see what you got afterwards. One part of my Mod is the correct descriptions of all stuff. For example you can see that really many buildings got black square buildable, on purpose, there is no need for a white or even color square for surface cloak or shield or stuff - these are just dirty work horses with no population. Plus, later on it is an advantage for advanced buildings that you could build them wherever (a kind of a trick, I have to admit, to trick the Human Player if he is smart enough to nevertheless better use a color square for the bonusses).

Yes, my last work is to finalize the ship stuff tweaks and description, if you have stuff to tweak, tell it now! :) For example the Molecular Tie Down is OP, too good range, too hard hitting, on the other hand that kicks.
 
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Problem is, that the AI gets infinite energy :). AI could load all shields and would be bullet proof. If I would "balance" the shield to a "more usable" style, that would be ping pong on a whole new Bull S level were you dont hit nothing.

I used the shields just for a slight advantage. Perhaps I could A BIT do for a tweak, but not much.

Yes, my last work is to finalize the ship stuff tweaks and description, if you have stuff to tweak, tell it now! :) For example the Molecular Tie Down is OP, too good range, too hard hitting, on the other hand that kicks.
I liked the values for shields you assigned in Delyxe version 1.6:

- Ion shield: prot 1 for 6 energy (ratio 1:6)
- Positron Shield: prot 2 for 9 energy (ratio 1:4.5)
- Graviton Shield: prot 2 for 6 energy (ratio 1:3)
- Deactotron: prot 3 for 9 energy (ratio 1:3)
- Hyperwave nullifier: prot 4 for 12 energy (ratio 1:3)
- Nanoshell: prot 4 for 9 energy (ratio 1:2.25)

This is the kind of curve that I´d suggest.

As for other tweaks, I need would more playing time before I could tell you..
 
That is a worthy support. I certainly had my in depth thoughts about that, but I forgot near all of it over the years. One thing is, that the AI use of shields is more important than the Human Player use of shields. AI is stupid, has a hardcode amount of shields in ships and has huge amounts of energy, necessary, or it would be too stupid to fight.

I grew a little tired in my brain to solve all of that complicated stuff. If you play on, you could provide some worthy tweaks! Just my point of view is an ending intelligence. :) The best thing you provided is the ratio, that is a point I can work/think with. Ratio gnaaa! :) Yes. You forgot a little that the ship slots are precious too, so that ONE SLOT has its benefit over a two slot with better ratio just cause the one slot, but that ratio point is a good point thnx!

I... think, that my 1.6 shield values just were designed to comfort the Human Player, to have fun with. Problem is, that the AI uses definitely hardcode amounts of shields, too low protection would mean, that the AI would have near nothing, so I stepped the protection up slightly, while "malefitting" or punishing the Human Player for the sudden advantage by the disadvantage of energy consume - cause AI has huge amounts of energy, but few shield slots, the Human Player has shield slots how many he ever wishes, but a shortage of energy, I think that was my point. I shall re-establish a worthy ratio and that thing should be nice.

Lets see. Lets play with your supported ratio and preferences:

2 12 1:6
3 16 1:5
3 12 1:4
4 16 1:4
5 20 1:4
6 24 1:4

that could be a hard nailed thing. Your opinion?

Just feel free to play along. I will try to finish up my newest version and will provide it today or tomorrow, so that you just can play with newest version and suggest tweaks. Since you got my Mod running/working, it is easy going for you to implement the newest cobfile! :)
 
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Lets see. Lets play with your supported ratio and preferences:

2 12 1:6
3 16 1:5
3 12 1:4
4 16 1:4
5 20 1:4
6 24 1:4

that could be a hard nailed thing. Your opinion?
That looks much better, but I would prefer that the nanoshell does just a little bit more than take up ever so slightly less ship space.. personally I would put the nanoshell at something like 20 or maybe 22 energy?

Please take your time with the next version. It took you years to build version 1.6 and I have great respect for it, version 1.6 is really polished. Building an even better version is a long-term project, greatness takes time. :thumbsup:

As the next thing to improve, could you maybe have a look at the visual representation of the tech tree? It seems to be a little weird in some places, for example Xenobiology is much further down the screen than the other two starting technologies now.
 
Oh! I really hoped I would be finished today. :) My Delyxe or Heavy Delyxe versions, the only difference now are the Lane Blocker and the ReCaller kicked out. I find both of them useless or highly annoying, the rest just stays. That was not so much years - I found out how to tweak it Notepad++ and uploaded it, then the German Franky contacted me and we experimented, and he found out how to get the specials to shoot finally. Then we both tweaked different versions - he went with the Antagonizer and did just slight changes to prevent that dammet .exe from crashing, I did an overhaul and went with the Ascend.exe from 1996. Then an upload, and yes, I found that polished too. We ll see! :)

Oh, yes, god bless that I dont have influence in the visual presentation of the Tec Tree! If I would have to tweak out X and Y coordinates I would go crazy. No, I just do prerequisites, and it moves by itself. Xenobiology went down, cause I changed prerequisites - as long as everything works smooth, I dont care. But we ll see.
 
Okay, I have another suggestion for a tweak. As it stands, you get four weapons in the very early game:

1. Mass Barrage Gun (power 3 / energy 3 / 2 shots)
2. Star Missile (power 6 / energy 9 / 1 shot)
3. Invasion Module (power 6 / energy 6 / 1 shot)
4. Colonizer Module (power 6 / energy 6 / 1 shot)

But the two "non-weapons" provide an attack that is strictly better than the two "real" weapons! They consume less energy than the Star Missile for the same damage, and they are more upfront than the mass barrage gun.
Attaching a weak attack to invasion/colony modules was a fun idea, but they should never be as good as weapon modules that have no other purpose than shooting. Let alone better.
So, I would suggest to nerf the attack on invasion / colonizer modules to just 1 or 2 power, or remove the attack altogether. They are the essential modules of the game, they shouldn't have a good attack on top of it.
 
Hi! Thnx. Highly appreciate your input, it is better to get four eyes two brains! :) Or, in my case, one and a half (my) brains. :) I always wanted to finish up Ascend Delyxe to get that matter of heart done finally, you lured me into, thnx.

One thing you should ALWAYS keep in mind. All my thinking doesnt comfort the Human Player, but the AI in the first place. What is the AI capable of (near nothing), and how should I develop the values to lure the AI into capable action. The shield values 1.6, like I told, did just comfort the Human Player, but I need to take care of the AI. The buildings, the shields, the weapons, all is basically designed to comfort the AI FIRST, THEN the Human Player, but he will have fun anyway, cause it just works now. Ascendancy had always fun, the ships, the moduls, but the lack of a totally uncapable AI - so, to increase the AI, increases the potent game itself, the other stuff is smooth anyway.

So, perhaps the Colonizer should lose again its capability to shoot, yes. But I never will take that super huge fun of Invader moduls shooting away! The thing is, that the AI has often Invader moduls onboard, sometimes no weapons at all. That would be a sitting duck. If you remember the Ascendancy Vanilla - that was basically just a freakin dumb sitting duck all the time, capable of nearly nothing, therefor ALL of my thinking is: Prevent the AI sitting duck. If the Invader modul is capable of shooting, that would prevent ANY AI sitting duck ships. Plus, I ADORE the combo of Invader moduls shooting and CI DisRaptor. I LOVE the Invader modul shooting, how it does it, and then when the AI shoots with CI DisRaptor and empties a ships shooting capability, that is awesome! That just works amazingly good.

That is really really super fun to me, Ascendancy owes me much of that. MUUUUCH of that! :)

My thinking is, that the AI gets industry boost, the Human Player NOT. The advantage of Star Missiles is the price. If you want to keep up with the Middle Class ship building of the AI, or any further ship building, you have to decide which modules you put into your ships - and if it would be better to spare Invader moduls caused by the risk of CI DisRaptor, and if you would use the best possible energy or shields or drive, or weapons, instead of cheaper alternatives getting the ship built faster. Star Missiles advantage is clearly the price, plus, you wont lose them versus CI DisRaptor, all I gave on purpose. The plus of Invader moduls shooting is, that AI ships are equipped with Invader moduls and CI DisRaptors in the early game, and that is really hard - on purpose! :)

For example. Ascendancy Vanilla, you were able to spam build all of your planets in no time, to spam build ships and fleets. You were always able to build FAST, the BEST STUFF, in no time at all. Once you got Huge Hulls, you just disbanded the Middle Hulls, bam bam bam - and five turns later you got the Giant Hulls. I wanted to make SURE, that ships and moduls are precious, and you dont waste time nor equipment, and it is no cheap spamming.

In my current testgame I dont build the best available energy moduls - at least, every time my shot down ships come back to the docks, plural, docks, a planet with four shipyards and two docks, a powerhouse MADE to do that, I have to decide which better moduls they probably get, PROBABLY, if perhaps needed, or if they just get basic repair and FK off to the front again, fast as possible. That is exactly what I want. If you want to keep up with the AI pace of ship building, you need to THINK how you could build up FAST, how to repair and equip fast. You dont have the Ascendancy Vanilla luxury to spam build whatever you want, any time, any planet, any ship, no matter. That I dont want. :)

In my testgame I have 16 Middle Classers and 16 Huge Classers, they all have to serve. And only when a Middle Classer actually gets destroyed he might be replaced with a Huge Classer, they all have to fight. My Middle Classers are NOT ALL top of the tec, even my Huge Classers not, cause energy moduls are expensive, weapons too. So, I cant do what I did Ascendancy Vanilla to just spam build always the best and trash the rest. Even we humans today have tanks 50 years in service - or more. And we overhaul war ships or battle tanks on a regular basis to not waste equipment and money - what would we do with actual space ships? That is my point. :)

Oh, yes! Another point: The common laser weapons are cheaper, and higher range! That is the cheese for the Human Player! Both, Invader modul, and CI DisRaptor, have a 30 range, all common laser weapons have a 40, at least. So, you can equip your Human Player ships cheaper, and can shoot at the AI FIRST - until the AI comes in range to devastate you by low range super guns. Plus, AI will probably use the Tractor Beam, or, the Molecular Tie Down. :) That is the reason I let the most special stuff in the Heavy Delyxe like Repulsors or Magnetrons or Catapult or even Swapper - cause the Human Player could use higher range laser plus smart outmaneuvring by smart specials. :)

The problem with the 1.6 was, that the common laser weapons had a range 30 and the super guns a 40 - so the common guns had no actual use, and the initial AI attack was without any possible match. Why should the AI use these common guns anyway, while I WANT IT to use the brutal stuff first and only. So, I designed the common guns as cheap high range option for the Human Player, a niche the AI wont use - but could rescue the Human Player. Cheaper, higher range, the Star Missile! Plus, you wont lose it versus CI DisRaptor, while the usage of Invader modul is smooth and great - but high cost, low range, high risk. :)
 
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