[MoO] ICEMOD: mod design, race design, strategies

[neilkaz]

@ Rocco re:AI races for IceX

I just took a long look at them and no wonder Darlok IMP3 does so well. They seem to have clearly more advantages than any other race. Please take a look at this and recheck your math as I feel that they are too strong. How much of a neg are you counting Repulsive to be for the AI's?

Re:Cre my current opinion is that about +12 would be right for IceX.

 

[thomas_kabo]

Markus, the torpedo question has always bothered me a lot. They should shoot at least every turn, as far as I am concerned. Or be much more powerful. It actually would make sense to have a torpedo be more powerful than a rocket, but then have the deficit of a shot every second turn.

 

[Rocco.40]

Re: Torpedoes
Rocco, I like the firing every other turn aspect, it makes them different. Perhaps make them more space-efficient, so you can have more total damage per ship? (Not more damage per torpedo, as that would negate late game shields too much). Then the instant Proton Torpedoes might even be a viable mid/late-game alternative to beams, with all their 2-turn worth of punch concentrated in a first strike... never quite as powerful as beams because you don't get many different special systems to enhance them, but still could be good.

Like it!

edit

They should shoot at least every turn,

and like this too in a way..!

perhaps a combo can be made;
A-M torps stay every other turn but become somewhat more space efficient
The other two could be shooting every turn
In this way it creates a distinction between 'basic' and 'advanced' torpedoes

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Then make it so!

Neil: yeah, +12 would be great. Could combine Demo with either Aqu or Sub, and add LRA, squeezing in L thanks to the 2 more points. That actually makes a difference both at the start (less loss to pollution) and later on during the stage where your HW is the only full planet. Would love that. Or the variant without Aqu/Sub but with +F +S, that's nice too. (I still personally valuate Cre at no more than 10, maybe even less, but in Markus world the diplomatic value of tech showering is reduced. )

By the way am I usuing an outdated version? My large HW is 2 picks; rich is 4 picks. @Markus said something different (3 ?).

No, no, it's the same for me. Sorry if I was unclear. I meant after the previous picks listed, I had 3 left over. So I put 2 into Large because there's nothing useful to do with 3 unspent picks otherwise.

Re: Antarans - no, they strike at AI too. It's random. I am not 100% sure but I think they just pick a random system, so if you have a large empire, they will more likely hit you.

 

[neilkaz]

Markus, the torpedo question has always bothered me a lot. They should shoot at least every turn, as far as I am concerned. Or be much more powerful. It actually would make sense to have a torpedo be more powerful than a rocket, but then have the deficit of a shot every second turn.

Re: Torps, while I do feel that they are still a bit underpowered, it is important to note that they cannot be shot down by enemy beams nor destroyed by drive explosions. The only defense vs them is jamming. Maybe torps should still be just a bit more powerful or take up a bit less space on the ship? If planning to have them fire every turn, I'd recommend that their strength be no more than slightly less than "default vanilla" values.

@ Rocco and Thomas

Is IceX Hard tougher than Ice Hard or do the IceX stronger AI races only kick in if playing Imp? I ask this to see if there's a middle ground between Ice Hard and Imp?

 

[Markus Ramikin]

perhaps a combo can be made;
A-M torps stay every other turn but become somewhat more space efficient
The other two could be shooting every turn
In this way it creates a distinction between 'basic' and 'advanced' torpedoes

Hm, not that bad an idea technically, although I feel that the every-other-turn thing is such a part of the Moo2 torpedoes that I'd hate to see it gone. But perhaps instant hit Protons with 2 turns worth of punch might be too strong? Though I'd rather try it and find out first, to be honest. They do compete with HEF, after all!

 

[Rocco.40]

Design of races on Hard is the same in icemod and ice-x.
Thus the only difference is map generation: icemodx generates maps with more planets and slightly less wormholes than regular icemod.

perhaps in the future i can plant the 'icemod impossible races designs' in the 'icemod-x hard race designs' that could create more middle ground as the a.i. will have less bonusses on hard, making icemodx Hard more difficult than icemod Hard but easier than icemod imp.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Don't give yourself too much of a balancing headache, Rocco.

I found Hard -> Impossible -> Icemod Impossible -> IcemodX Impossible to be a perfectly viable learning curve. Maybe adding another option might be of some small benefit to some people but that sort of a thing becomes drainingly hard to juggle and keep track of...

 

[neilkaz]

Yeah, I also think that Torps should stick with the way this game has been and fire every other turn. I'd consider making them very slightly stronger and taking up slightly less space onboard.

I believe Antarans pick a system at random but don't or usually don't attack Lucky AI's and players. I am sure that they attack the stronger players in the game more often. Perhaps they choose whom to attack based on strength and then pick a random system.

Re: what to use for weapons after MIRV nukes become ineffective. Always a problem for me as well since my normal research doesn't go for any low end weapons that basically don't come to you automatically. Sometime, I've been able to get something decent stolen by ground troops or rarely in IceX spies. Assault shuttles play a role at times, but lots of techs are needed to use them well in the early-mid game as AI ships often just run away from them. However, that can be good enough for defense.

Neutron Blasters are good for a while and combined with Transporters can wreck havoc capturing now defenseless ships. They also can be good for killing all enemy SB marines. However, Neutron Scanner is a needed tech if you are still using missiles.

Grav beams are a great weapon due to extra structural damage, but forgoing Grav Generator can be a quite bad. The AI's seem to like Grav Gen and N.Blaster so sometimes you can steal those and research the other needed tech.

Re: Capturing ships. Assault shuttles ignore shields, but to use transformers, the shield facing the attacking ship must be knocked down.

So sometimes, I don't have any medium quality weapons until Phasors. Which I follow up with 1 level on min. since I usually want Plasma rifles (my style is very GC oriented). Of course, there's the possibility of Gauss Cannons as used by Markus and as I used in the walkthrough game. Or maybe I stole a better missile.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Re: Torps, while I do feel that they are still a bit underpowered, it is important to note that they cannot be shot down by enemy beams nor destroyed by drive explosions. [...] Yeah, I also think that Torps should stick with the way this game has been and fire every other turn. I'd consider making them very slightly stronger and taking up slightly less space onboard.

While they can't be shot down, they also don't get MIRV or EMG, which are big, big things with missiles. So I recommend a considerable upgrade. Enough that people would actually use them. And remember, they are a late game tech (no, not mid, because you also need 2 more levels for ECCM. Is there a way to lower Torpedo ECCM req to 1 level of refinement without touching missiles?). They need to be good enough to compete with beams, at least until you can enhance beams with HEF and Hyper-X.

But don't touch the damage, because again, balance vs shields. Only make them take up less space.

How do torpedoes interact with Barrier Shields btw? The damage isn't halved, is it?

____________________________________

Quick look at Heavy Fighters vs Bombers. I can fit 3x4x2 bombs vs 4x4x1 bombs in the same Battleship. 24 vs 16.

As they are a relatively late game tech as well, one that competes with Titans and Planet Construction, I am not sure HFs are a sufficient improvement over Bombers. Especially since they have to live long enough to drop the second bomb, and (correct me if I'm wrong) Lightning Fields and stuff kill them at the same rate, right? Not saying anything definitive yet, but I'll be using them and might report back again.

 

[Dukinson]

Not yet I haven't. What's on your mind? +offense I imagine would mean using an early Beam ship gambit? Since it doesn't affect missiles. Mass Drivers?

My point is that even though the ship defense and offense picks have been reduced, no one picks them. I have yet to see one player of icemod state a race that employs ship combat picks. They are reduced, but they may require yet another reduction before I or anyone else would use them. I've tried hard to make races that use combative picks and unless I modify warlord to it's 10m incarnation, there are no other combative picks I can spare my precious starting picks on.

 

[Rocco.40]

Am not really a fan of reducing SD/SA further.
Ship Design is already one of the weak points of the a.i.
Even if I have made some improvements to the generic designs, ships just won't be as good as a human design.

Having said that, in current state BD and BA bonuses cost the same, which makes BA the superior pick.
In theory BD should be slightly cheaper than BA.
In classic mode BD is more expensive.
When the Initiative rule was introduced in version 1.31, the BD should have been reduced in cost.

Only their combat bonuses look dangerous, but the defensive one won't work against missles

While we are on the topic, Ship Defense does add to Missile Defense; SD+25 = BD+25 & ME+25.

and:

How do torpedoes interact with Barrier Shields btw? The damage isn't halved, is it?

The damage is first halved for reasons of 'Atmospheric Interference'.
Then damage is reduced by shields present.
Planetary Shields are enhanced by ship shields, so Barrier & Class V block 25 damage.
In other words, basic ice Proton Torpedoes (50 dmg) are exactly useless in that case.

 

[Rocco.40]

Continuing om the SD/SA train;

These can be useful if you are playing a rush game.
It is not the same as blitz, where you basically start with actual war at T0.
But it is an aggresive 'shoot first, ask questions later' approach, where obvisouly you are of the Repulsive kind.
Strategy is to quickly build some production capacity, getting a few good war techs and then go for it.

I imagine a fun War Race could look something like:
Dictatorship
Pop+100
Food+1
Prod+1
SA+50
Aqua
Rich
Made for quick wars with a bit more than basic techs,
Beams can play an early role (Mass Drivers).
You will have initiative for a long time.

or perhaps:
Dictatorship
Pop+50
F+1
P+1
SA+25
Aqua
Rich
Cybernetic
Warlord
Sacrificing some pop growth and only a little bit SA, to get the Cyber/Warlord combo.
Warlord gives a stripe of beam defense and missile evasion, cyber repairs the damage.
Should have slightly more focus on getting a decent armor, can initiate attack with weaker weapons.
Thinking modded Hv Lasers.
(tachyon level at least: laser-fusion rifle-tachyon scanner)
(or 1 extra level: laser-fusion rifle-tachyon comm-neutron scanner)
Ships have Cl 1 shield.
Marines get fusion rifle, combined with their +1 experience from warlord you can raid star bases.

To get some practice with these races, suggest to play 8 races in a medium or perhaps large galaxy instead of a huge at first.

 

[Dukinson]

I do agree that ship initiative is important but there is one simple expression I go by when explaining the gap between SA and SD valuation.

"You can have enough ship attack to hit every time, but you can never have enough ship defense."

You can even have so much ship attack it gets wasted. The more ship defense you have, the closer to invincibility you get! Will it matter if they go first at that point? Hahah... Sure, it matters who's fighting whom. In the example of the Mrrshan fighting the Alkari, both bonuses are cancelled out, except the Mrrshan keep the initiative bonus. However, most races aren't the Mrrshan and the Alkari are going to perform better in battle than the Mrrshan against the other races. Btw, I don't think it should be as crazy as the difference in picks the original creators made them. Maybe just a point or so in defenses favor with Icemod.

I'll try those races you posted. Should be interesting. What negatives do you tend to favor? I tend to go with Lowg and repulsive (for challenge). If I wanted the game to be extremely easy, I would not pick repulsive.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Ah, I thought that was only beams and missiles that suffered from atmosphere. Good to know. And wow, so Barrier + X = 30?

Please tell me bombs aren't affected by atmosphere too.

______________

How does this work? The selected ship takes 5 turns to Orion, as shown. The fleet at the system right next to it takes 7.

Spoiler :

______________

War report continued!

So we're on turn 180, I've eliminated the Alkari. I am keeping this save game in case my plans don't pan out and I wanna test alternatives.

I have 21 planets, and room to colonise more. My population is 1st place, though Trilarians are very close behind. My fleet rating is 25% or so higher than anyone else's (I Have 6 Battleships, 2 DDs, 4 transports and I am paying 200 credits every turn. Gonna lose the DDs and transports for sure.)

I am behind in tech, though, and if Trilarians walk in with a fleet of higher tech ships, I'm not 100% confident my ability to spam ships with production will prevail. Hopefully I can translate that population advantage into other advantages sooner rather than later.

Since I expect Class V shields will make Nukes obsolete, and I have no other missile, I am going to try a crazy idea and equip ships with bombers, and research Anti-Matter Bombs. Later I'll swap to Heavy Fighters. I think the Icemod change to them was a really good one. I'll also use Heavy Fighters to capture Orion, if the Guardian lives that long with the powerful Trilarians ahead of me in tech.

To reiterate: I am going to be using Heavy Fighters this game. Not even going beams.

Let us continue, then.

Turn 184:
Mrrshans die, Sakkra contact. Apparently I am not first in population or fleet! Trilarians still beat them in tech and buildings, though.

189: Discovered Orion. 10 parsecs away. *curses* Guess I'll have to research Uridium. Was hoping for armor... Wow, Extended Cells are 120/300 space. Brutal.

195: Antarans raided a colony in Pavone. Bombers with Nuclear Bombs aren't quite powerful enough for this, and I didn't get to research Anti-Matter yet. Let's not even talk about the Star Base, which had nukes and lasers... Colony survived but mostly destroyed.

200: Oh come on, Antarans again, 5 turns later? Fortunately only heading for one those near useless dead rocks.

Researched Autolabs this turn. As I'm only doing 548 PP right now, I've been looking forward to this.

I'm moving all Alkari to Rial III, as soon as they assimilate and let me move them. I'm going to think of that planet as a... well, zoo. Yes, I'm a bad person.

219: Finally broke 1k research. Also I have the most pop, by a small margin. Fell behind even further in tech, though.

In restrospect, it took me waaaaay too long to prepare that first war. After this game I will see if that time can be shortened.

221: Got Heavy Fighters. Man, they are bulky! My drive and computer techs blow, so I'm going to just forgo initiative to squeeze in as much as I can. With my production race, I can take losses at Orion more than I can take delays for teching purposes.

237: Orion killed!
9 BBs with Heavy Fighters and Anti-Matter bomb. Lost only 3 BBs due to my indomitable generalship keeping distance. Got:
* Death Ray
* Sub-Space Teleporter
* Reflection Field
* Quantum Detonator
Man, Xentronium would have been nice. Rocco, you were right earlier, it was my techy/creative bias speaking.

Bulrathi are blocking one of my systems. I am getting close to Doom Stars, and Bulrathi themselves are behind in economy, fleet and tech, so I could conquer them maybe. But if I get into a war with them, then Trilarians will probably sense opportunity and then I have no hope. I can see how fast Trilarian ships zip across the galaxy. (Doom Stars will not make me faster, but they will make me less of a likely target, and perhaps able to hold key systems at least.)

Rash-Ilki joined this turn. +15 Command Points and Instructor +7, I love her already and so do my as yet unborn Doom Stars. I also hadn't noticed that Khunagg wanted a job too. Even more production and CPs.

I still have no frikkin' ship leaders! This is my first Repulsive game where I got to Orion without even a single one.

Antarans destroyed another colony a few turns ago. Again in Rukubi. They have it out for this system.

239: Oh, I'm actually at war with the Bulrathi. How the hell does this work? Never got a message. Is this a bug?

Well. Bombin' time.

240: Psilons attacked me too! Bombed some unimportant rock. Again, I had no notice of war. What gives? Well, now there's a biiig fleet coming my way.

Psilons have the biggest fleet and their tech graph is about 5 times the height of mine. Is this the end?! Stay tuned.

I think all this got triggered simply by my fleet being away at Orion. I should have taken the negative CP hit and built a home fleet.

243: Lost some 6 colonies since this started. Fighter Garrisons are getting some kills, but not enough.

Researched Jump Gate this turn. Hopefully I can start destroying the enemy fleets.

248: Finally a confrontation between my main fleet and Psilon main fleet. They had a 10:7 numerical advantage, but I had Fighter Garrison too.

They had initiative, so most of my fleet was gone immediately, except 2 of my BBs and Loknar. The AI puts a few Ion Pulse Cannons even on high level ships? Wow. And they can be autofire? Wow. Does that mean Heavy Armor is useless, then? Or for that matter, Armor as such...

Then my fighters destroyed a couple (mostly the ground based fighters) and Loknar destroyed a couple, until he got... captured. Meh.

In the last few turns both my shipyards got bombed, despite defenses and what little defensive fleet I could muster. Now that my main fleet is gone too, I think it's time to end this game.

I am considering replaying from the starting save instead of a new map, to see what I can learn. (I don't think the lesson is "go beams as usual" - I didn't have the necessary computer tech or other techs, and I wouldn't have gotten them in time even if I had beelined right after Alkari.)

If you feel an urge to offer useful comments, by all means do.
__________

Some uncertain thoughts:

I wasn't impressed with the space-efficiency of ship-based Bombers and Heavy Fighters. (Can't comment on normal Fighters as I didn't research them.)

Also tested bombers in a pre-war savegame, to see how they'd do against the Alkari. Even with Anti-Matter Bomb they did much, much worse than MIRV Nukes. You can't blame this on the anti-missile techs such as PD beams and lightning field, because the Nukes were being faced with the same! (HFs were good against Guardian, but Guardian doesn't have Lightning Shield. Another candidate to replace the autorepair. Hm, but this would make missiles even harder to use against it... would that be okay because missiles are a low level tech?)

This may be an issue, or maybe not. The bombs do a lot more damage per hit and so overcome shields, so I suppose they're less space efficient as a balance tradeoff? I am not sure they need to be THAT much less space-efficient, though. And yes, I know it was even worse in vanilla.

I would say making them miniaturise would be an interesting idea, but with them being this low in the tech tree, Bomber Bays might become op then... not to mention if it would affect Fighter Garrisons. So perhaps a straight up reduction in space cost (+reducing Garrison space to keep it unchanged in power).

Last thing: ship-based Bomber Bays and Heavy Fighter Bays could use to be a little less bulky in any case. 50 and 75 are BIG chunks of a BBs 300 space, and putting in a special system can leave you with 3 instead of 4 HF Bays and lots of wasted space. I'd change them to 25 and 35 - and halve their fighters per unit if you want to keep overall power the same.

 

[Rocco.40]

I just took a long look at them and no wonder Darlok IMP3 does so well. They seem to have clearly more advantages than any other race. Please take a look at this and recheck your math as I feel that they are too strong. How much of a neg are you counting Repulsive to be for the AI's?

Almost missed this one
Yes, this race variant should be one of the strongest in the game, if not the strongest.
It's got the powerful Tol/P+2 combo (Bulrathi IMP 1 got that too), and then they have the horrific Stealth, Trans-Di, Telepathic combo. These guys can be scary!
For ICE-X I have a target strength of UniTol,P+1,LHW (46eco) and these Darloks are listed at 48eco, but the synergy of P+2 with Tol easily puts them above 50eco.
What I tried to achieve was a certain variability between the race variants, so every game has a different strength of opposition. And one variant has to take the crown here. While a couple of uberraces are just above 50eco mark, there are others who are clearly below the benchmark, around 42eco. As Dukinson guessed earlier, the Silicoid fall in the lower ranks here.

 

[Rocco.40]

some random comments ..

the Mrrshan fighting the Alkari, both bonuses are cancelled out, except the Mrrshan keep the initiative bonus.

Only the beam part is cancelled out; Mrsshan keep initiative and Alkari keep their missile evasion.

Please tell me bombs aren't affected by atmosphere too.

only 'energy weapons' are.

How does this work? The selected ship takes 5 turns to Orion, as shown. The fleet at the system right next to it takes 7.

NAVIGATOR?

Oh, I'm actually at war with the Bulrathi. How the hell does this work? Never got a message. Is this a bug?

Yeah well, if not a bug then it is still extremely annoying when this happens!


*GG btw Markus, like how you are trying out different strategy/tech routes.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

No Navigator, I had no ship officers.

Just gonna add to my earlier thoughts (check out the addendum in last post please) that I AM uncertain about them , and I am planning a game with a race I'm actually good at (techy) to check bombers/HFs again.

Do you have much experience with them, Rocco?

 

[Rocco.40]

No Navigator, I had no ship officers.

but you do mean both fleets depart from Sol?
and no navi?
in that case would really like to see savegame

 

[Markus Ramikin]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20846822/temp/SAVE6.zip

Will delete later.