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

[Rocco.40]

About carrier vessels:

When blitzing in classic the fighter was the weapon of choice, cheap vessels and combined with fusion, a guaranteed win. So when modding they quickly went to the 400 RP field at first.
Bombers in classic were opposite story; at 2000 RP it is way too late in the game for them to have a practical use. (can only pick them for pure fun reasons)

In ice the Launch Bay field is kinda like the Androids tech field; three of a kind in one field.
Of the three the Shuttles are #1 coz you can capture ships, while Fighters and Bombers are merely an alternative for other weapons. In their current state, both are underpowered compared to other weapons, but fun to play with.
Ok, I won't stress too much how Bombers have already improved compared to classic
Biggest problem with Bomber is that to make them stronger, you have to forego a drive tech (unless you are Creative) which is a non-optimal choice. Advantage is for Fighters here, as Fusion Beam, Mass Driver, Phasor, Gauss improve Fighters but obviously your ships too.

halve their fighters per unit if you want to keep overall power the same

-that is not possible atm

 

[Markus Ramikin]

More math in-the-head speculations:

3 HF Bays vs 4 Bomber Bays (all I can fit in a Battleship with 1 special system*) vs Lightning field
12 HFs vs 16 Bs
24 bombs vs 16...
...or is it!

Lightning field kills: 6 HFs or 8 BS
Bombs dropped: 6 vs 8
Lightning field kills: 3 HFs (Bombers are done and are flying away)
Total bombs dropped: 9, vs 8
Survivors: 3 vs 8

9 over 2 rounds vs 8 in 1 with fewer survivors is not a big improvement!

(Yes you also get beams. if you have the tech for them. Do they do a comparable amount of damage without truly late game tech? I honestly don't know.)

* EDIT: Ahaha, actually a Battleship with heavy armor and bpods fits in 3 HF bays or 5 Bomber, even worse for the HFs.

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Heavy Fighters have no bombardment value? I just sent a conquest fleet armed only in them, and I have zero bombings available. That don't make sense. They carry bombs...

 

[Dukinson]

I sure see the difference in wet worlds, they're everywhere. Both the races you listed were aquatic as well. Are you worried you made aquatic too good?

I'm trying your warlord aquatic race, I do wonder if initiative even works in strategic. Would you happen to know if it does or does not Rocco?

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Yeah, Aquatic is great. Too powerful? I honestly don't know. What I like is the consistency, there's almost always a couple decent planets to colonise - it didn't used to be that way. This benefits me in nonaquatic builds too.

I'd be happy with fewer unguarded wet planets if we got more Monsters instead *licks mouth and smiles*.
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Mini-War Report!

I had a fun attempt to re-test Bombers and Heavy Fighters, like I said I would, trying it with a race I'm good at (DemAquChar+1R,RLA,FT).

Sadly, as if to compensate me for my loss, I got everything handed on a platter: 2 wet planets in system, Abundant Large Terra in the next one, and so on. I had an explosive start and steamrolled the enemies. I did get 3 (three!) Repulsive neighbours. That was fun.

I did however retain the impression that even after researching Heavy Fighters and Anti-Matter Bomb, my damage output is nothing special, and I need to bring more ships than I would with MIRV Nukes. This is, again, possibly OK, since Nukes are more plentiful due to being low level and very much affected by good shields, while bombs aren't really affected and can kill even the Guardian. However, it also took more combat rounds to kill things with carriers than missile ships, exposing me to more fire. Will continue pondering the balance issues.

Now I'm replaying from that Unification starting savegame from the last two war reports. It's going soooo much better now, when I'm paying closer attention to NOT MAKING WASTED MOTIONS. No detailed notes, but it went roughly the same, except
- I have more colonies, for faster growth with more housing colonies. No wasting valuable teching time on Cloning Plants this time. Once I colonized the Gaia, it was full within some 10 turns, and churning out ships not that long after.
- As a result of tighter play, I ended the war with Alkari earlier this time than last time I started it. (This time started on turn 147 and ended on 157, last time 161 and 180.)
- As I have more full planets earlier, I am getting more star bases more quickly and will be able to maintain a bigger fleet to not look like a target. I also remembered to research Tachyon Comms earlier, so I didn't waste nearly as much money during the war and war-prep stage.
- As I am still at the stage of the game where MIRV Nukes are in no danger of obsolescence, I will beeline to Autolabs first to regain teching momentum. This seems like the strongest play I could make right now.

Wish me luck.

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Update: Autolabs on turn 167 instead of 200. Have I mentioned this game is going better?

I have a large advantage in pop and buildings. Fleet looks decent but not top. Catching up in tech, on the other hand, is going slower than I'm used to from my Demo games.

193 Trilarians attacked me, probably because I got greedy and spammed colony ships without inreasing my fleet sufficiently.

Spoiler :

Suffice it to say, this early in the game Fighter Garrisons armed with Anti-Matter Bombs are very effective, and I was able to take the battle to the Trilarans, invading Trilar itself in 204 (although Trilar was actually close and I still have like 80% of their empire to deal with.) Most of my ships doing this are still MIRV Nukes. Although I'm refitting for Heavy Fighters as soon as I have the breathing space, because I am now in range for Orion

 

[Dukinson]

I was crushed by the first race I encountered, hahah. It's much harder to win these battles in strategic and far fewer races will fly in strategic compared to tactical. You did a good job making it more challenging.

I have another question for ya Rocco. Have you tried many games on strategic in a huge galaxy where your strengthened races can stretch their wings and match your ships by design? I know you've tried it a bit but I know you and most others prefer tactical combat. Even on smaller galaxies blitz tactics will be much less likely to work in strategic. A cruiser will be crushed by a starbase everytime. Blitzing on a huge strategic is virtually impossible in Icex. You will need to make considerations for empire development and technology. You can't just build a cruiser and throw it at somebody there. Your neighbors will be ready and quite belligerent. In vanilla I took down neighbors all the time with destroyer fleets, I haven't been able to do it even once in Ice huge strategic.

A side note: When blitz tactics do work to win the entire game, I must say it's a very unsatisfying experience. Beating down a computer that had no time to do anything. That's just me though. However, don't we all want the epic battles between developed empires? It is fun to defeat one neighbor early but if I'm steamrolling a small galaxy with missile ships, I really wouldn't rate that game anywhere near my most exciting games where I'm taking losses and furiously building replacements while carefully deploying forces I know can be wiped out in an instant. It's why I never play small or even large galaxies. It's just less space for the computer to expand and it will absolutely be an easier game.

There sure is a lot of consideration to blitz tactics in your prose, like the whole targeting computer rebalancing. Perhaps it's a bigger deal to everyone than I'm realizing. Lastly, I would ask you this, why do you keep dodging my statements about missiles? You'll change any number of other dynamics and risk weakening other areas like advanced targetting computers, ship offense and defense picks, warlord, crew training levels, all because of the silly boring cheap missile ship. Why can't you address the problem directly, missiles themselves? Is it some kind of hardcoded deal where you can't change the properties of missiles like size, damage, cost? That would a good start rather than handing out battlescanners to everyone. I would note that on strategic every ship automatically has battlescanners at no cost, so I can count on my enemies having them on all their ships as well. +50 ship attack all around, free. I know your focus is primarily on tactical and I completely understand, but this is a heavy hit to the balance of strategic.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

My point is that even though the ship defense and offense picks have been reduced, no one picks them.

I'm not an example, then; there are LOT of things I haven't tried yet. Would definitely like to see how early game beams with bonus work some time.

 

[thomas_kabo]

Hello back,

I don't want to break the interesting discussion, but I have a problem here. I'm in a battle and shoot with plasma cannons on a planet that has some sort of shield, flux or barrier and a fighter garrison. But the shots dont make any damage. When I hit auto the CPU just shifts through all ships and only shoots the fighters but not at the planet...

Whats wrong here? Is this a known issue?

Thanks!

 

[thomas_kabo]

It's quite possible that there is a barrier shield. I shoot with plasma cannons Hv, max damage is 42. So these should inflict more than 20 damage at points on average. The barrier should only block up to 20, but it seems all damage is blocked. Can somebody please explain to me what is going on?

 

[Rocco.40]

-ok so Plasma Hv is 42 damage.
Attacking a planet that damage is halved due to 'atmosperic interference'
21 damage
Barrier blocks 20, A ship Shield adds up: class1 > 21 blocked, class 3 > 23 blocked etc.
Thus if opponent has any ship shield the base plasma hv is nullified.
Scan the planet and you can see the details.

 

[Rocco.40]

Have you tried many games on strategic in a huge galaxy where your strengthened races can stretch their wings and match your ships by design?

'many games'? In the time before you came along and launch of moo2 i hadn't played more than 3 games in strategic Almost all mechanics I have figured out over the last two months or so.

A cruiser will be crushed by a starbase everytime.

Yeah, but we know this already, i posted on orion nebula some minimum fleet configs to take out a star base. Blitzing is different than in tactical because you cannot use the lone missile cruiser to go around. A larger fleet is needed and you will suffer casualties, causing need to do costly re-builds of ships. You can still use sabotage though, to take down star bases. So a blitz is still possible in strategic.

why do you keep dodging my statements about missiles?

Funny play of words - dodging ... missiles
Nuke has already been weakened quite a bit- 3 instead of 4 hitpoints, mods are available later.
Not sure that they need to be weakened more?

but this is a heavy hit to the balance of strategic.

I dont really get why this would be a bad thing for strategic?
If all players get a tech, laser cannon, nuclear missile and now B.scanner, then there is a level playing field, should not give a particular advantage to anyone?

 

[Rocco.40]

Btw, just posted some new stuff in strategic thread on Orion Nebula, might be interesting read for you.

 

[Dukinson]

'many games'? In the time before you came along and launch of moo2 i hadn't played more than 3 games in strategic Almost all mechanics I have figured out over the last two months or so.

You! That's so few it's no wonder you can't feel my pain! Did you win any of those 3 games? Hahah. Did you play impossible huge Icex?

Funny play of words - dodging ... missiles
Nuke has already been weakened quite a bit- 3 instead of 4 hitpoints, mods are available later.
Not sure that they need to be weakened more?

You can't dodge these arguments, they're Rocco seekers! Weakening the hit points of missiles seems like a good start to me. However, if missiles are balanced now, why would you need to hand out battlescanner or free ship attack? Whatever nurfing you feel it takes to stop these ship attack giveaways is best, and I'll explain why next.

I dont really get why this would be a bad thing for strategic?
If all players get a tech, laser cannon, nuclear missile and now B.scanner, then there is a level playing field, should not give a particular advantage to anyone?

Sure enough as you say, everyone has them so everyone is equal right? Not necessarily. One phrase can sum up why, "watering down". The ship attack I receive from warlord, space academies, ship attack and even defense picks, all watered down in value. Everyone hits everyone and if you have ship defense you've only managed to cancel out the advantage by spending picks the other guy didn't have to spend.

It's similar to what countries do when they print currency out of thin air, like my country does! When you make more of something that's already out there, you devalue it. What you've done is devalue the supply and demand of ship attack. It's less precious. All to stop missiles. It's not the way to go my sweet Rocco! Address the source of the problem and avoid rocking the boat in other categories unnecessarily. Whatever you do to missiles will not even influence their power in strategic much, which is good because they aren't a problem there.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

Some questions:

Is the chance to capture a tech in a planet invasion proportional to how much population you capture? So that if you have to bomb down a planet to 1 first, you're more likely to get nothing?

In your experience, does an AI who is losing a war badly ever accept peace treaties?

Point Defense + Enveloping, does it make sense for missile/fighter defense? Does Enveloping work then? Would basically mean 2x damage per space, since missiles/fighters don't have shields.

(Aaahaha, I can bombard with Point Defense beams but not with Heavy Fighters. What does that even look like, like Independence Day, go down into the atmosphere and fire point blank?
Rocco, is there any chance you can enable bombardment with HFs and Bombers?)

 

[Rocco.40]

It's not the way to go my sweet Rocco!

This kind of phrasing reminds me of an ex-girlfirend of mine...

 

[Rocco.40]

Is the chance to capture a tech in a planet invasion proportional to how much population you capture?

Perhaps, it could also be proportional to how 'intact' the colony is. Not sure exactly, but in any case a bombed down planet with only 1 pop left gives less chance to get tech.

In your experience, does an AI who is losing a war badly ever accept peace treaties?

A.I. status with you can go to 'Dishonored' in which case all diplo is pretty much down the drain. Otherwise, it is possible, sometimes they even request peace themselves.

(Aaahaha, I can bombard with Point Defense beams but not with Heavy Fighters. What does that even look like, like Independence Day, go down into the atmosphere and fire point blank? Rocco, is there any chance you can enable bombardment with HFs and Bombers?)

no sure if I get what you mean here. Few things: The beams in fighters/HF are not Pd beams, they are a special regular beam. It means that, with the exception of Mass Driver/Gauss the damage a beam can do is "regular max damage+1". Thus a Laser on a Fighter can do max 5 damage and a Fusion beam 7. Better computers or BA bonus increase fighters' effectiveness. When attacking planets, normal rules apply for beam weapons strength and get divided by 2 (& rounded down). Bombers and HF can already bomb a planet, not sure why it doesn't work in your game or perhaps i misunderstood?

 

[Markus Ramikin]

I don't mean attacking planets in combat screen. I mean when I've won the battle and I'm in the bombardment/invasion screen, if I have only fighters or bombers, I can't bombard. If I also have PD weapons, I can bombard. Which is kinda absurd, as Bombers and HFs carry bombs, so they should be useful in bombardment.

 

[Rocco.40]

yeah that one is weird, afraid i cant fix it.

 

[Markus Ramikin]

I would just like to remark that I researched Megafluxers, Neutronium Bombs and Phasors and I no longer have any objections whatsoever to the combat power vs space efficiency of Heavy Fighters. *cough*

(I do still wish I could fit the goddamn things into a Battleship without wasting large amounts of empty space)

Granted, this time nobody seems to have Lightning Fields, even Psilons who just opened up on me after I destroyed Trilarians and was kinda idly pondering killing Bulrathi (who are at war with me too but they are so useless that they might as well not be). But I suppose the Field is supposed to be a counter.

As Orion had Dimensional Portal for me, gonna try to kill Antares with Heavy Fighters. I have a feeling I am going to fail almost no matter the size of my fleet, due to explosions clearing the fighters and me not being able to launch more. But I'm gonna try anyway!

EDIT: Graph-related epiphany.
I do feel stupid. It only just hit me that just because Psilons are showing up as completely dominating in tech, doesn't mean they actually are higher than me. It means their numeric count of techs is greater than mine due to all the lower level techs gotten from Creative.

Only came to realize this now that I noticed that while they are firing beams backed by HEF and Hyper-X at me, they are still sporting Zortium Armor, and I don't see any Lightning Fields either...
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Hm. Aren't Ion Cannons supposed to be ineffective against Damper Fields? Yet ships equipped with one still get their engines blown apart... is it some other piece of equipment on Antaran ships that does it, or are Antarans just magically hardcoded like that and this immunity is completely unavailable to human players?

 

[Rocco.40]

Hm. Aren't Ion Cannons supposed to be ineffective against Damper Fields .. or are Antarans just magically hardcoded like that and this immunity is completely unavailable to human players?

Must be the latter, that Antarans have this magical immunity and monsters too if I remember correctly.

 

[Rocco.40]

I do still wish I could fit the goddamn things into a Battleship without wasting large amounts of empty space

On empty BB fits exactly 4; or 5 with Battle Pods or Megafluxers; or 6 with both.

So idea: if we make the HF cost 65 space instead of 75, then on a BB you have 40 space left, which can fit a L1 miniaturized shield. Or another special system that uses 40 space. Most specials are 40 space at L1 minia (as they start at 50 space). Think that could be an interesting improvement. What do you guys think?