Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => Spoilers => Topic started by: Cosinus on December 21, 2020, 07:21:11 AM
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So this thread is about invaders, which some people consider Spoilers. You have been warned. TLDR: Don't enable invaders.
So I wanted to play a fresh game of the newest Aurora version. Looking at the new features added in 1.11 and 1.12, one of the new features are Rifts. "Great" I think, this gives me an excuse to play with invaders turned on. So I setup a game, planning a long campaign with the intent of testing a lot of stuff.
Enter the year 57 of my campaign: Mysterious aliens are sighted... in Sol. The researchers initially classify them as "Sol aliens" and try to establish communications, but their faces turn to horror as they refuse communication and start slaughtering freighters around Jupiter.
(https://i.imgur.com/QpiPB85.png)
So yeah, this is the situation. Invaders turned up... in Sol. I play on 20% research speed, which means I am just researching Magneto Plasma Engines, while the invaders run around at 11km/s. You might think "This is clearly broken" and you would be right. I tried to fix the game with SM mode, but apparently you can't delete enemy fleets in SM mode.
So just for fun I spawn in 50 heavy cruisers, which fire 10 volleys of 1000 Anti ship missiles each on the invader fleet. Unfortunately, despite my 29km/s missiles having a 34% hit chance against 10km/s ships they have a 0% chance to hit against the 11km/s invaders. Maybe they have ECM, but 0% chance seems a bit harsh. Out of 10000 missiles, 0 are intercepted by point defense, 0 hit their target. With this, I consider the savefile bricked beyond repair, which is unfortunate, because I would have liked to continue it. Some of you will probably say "Losing is fun", but this is not really true, if there is nothing you can do about it. Well I guess I could have stayed in Sol until I researched Antimatter Engines, but this seems even less fun and also good luck with that on 20% research speed...
Here are my suggestions:
- Invaders can't stay in their current implementation, or no one will enable them. To show how ridiculous they are, think of an option in Civ, where after 100 turns the Barbarians get 10 Main Battle Tanks somewhere. No matter what kind of tech level you have achieved, whether it's knights or musketeers, you will be completely wiped out by that and the only chance to survive it is to hope they spawn far away from you. I hope you can see that such an option would be terrible and no one would enable it if they knew what it meant.
- In my view, Invaders are supposed to be an endgame challenge, like the endgame crises in Stellaris: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Crisis (https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Crisis)
This is evident by their high tech level, which you need to match in order to fight them. - In order to work as an endgame threat, they should obviously only appear in the endgame and not while people are still in the Ion Engine age. The appearance of invaders or rifts could be set to a year (which changes depending on research speed settings), number of ancient constructs awakened or simply the amount of research generated. E.g. as soon as >50% of empires generate X Million Research points, Invaders can spawn.
- Another factor is the distance, in which the invaders spawn. Just as you can set a minimum distance for NPRs in the game settings, initial invader spawn locations should have a minimum distance to Sol by default. They can obviously invade Sol later, just like any other system.
I hope I could convince you, that invaders are broken in their current state and that they need some changes. I'm open for discussions.
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That sounds like fun and reminds me of my first game in the VB6 version. I had the pleasure to find a stable wormhole in the first system I explored and after a decade they decided to end me. They brought a few doses of instant sunshine right to earth. Tough smeg...
If their ECM capabilities are close to what they were in VB6 your results are not surprising. They had something like ECM 8.
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I'm not sure I understand. They spawned in Sol ?
Probably they should be precluded from spawning x LY from your HW, as a game parameter.
Also ... not using missiles seems mandatory. Theoretically, could you have fielded beam ships moving at 12 kkm/S?
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I don't exactly know where they came from. I first considered them in Sol. There is a small rift 2 systems from Sol, so they probably started there. But ultimately it does not matter where they initially spawned, the point of the post is that there is no method of defending against them at this tech level. Good luck building viable beam ships going that fast at Ion Tech. They should not spawn until certain conditions are met.
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invaders aren't one of the beginning-only decisions. you can leave them off until the condition of your choice is met.
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I mean you are 56 years in; the 20% research speed probably has a lot to do with why you don't have good tech.
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Title is a bit misleading honestly, of course invaders arent balanced for a low research rate start, because its impossible to "balance" for every single setting any player can possibly have, your best bet if doing a low research start is to turn them off until your finally established as an empire.
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The invaders are not intended for a game where you are still on Ion engines after 56 years. If you want to play low research games, I suggest disabling Invaders.
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Here are my suggestions:
- Invaders can't stay in their current implementation, or no one will enable them. To show how ridiculous they are, think of an option in Civ, where after 100 turns the Barbarians get 10 Main Battle Tanks somewhere. No matter what kind of tech level you have achieved, whether it's knights or musketeers, you will be completely wiped out by that and the only chance to survive it is to hope they spawn far away from you. I hope you can see that such an option would be terrible and no one would enable it if they knew what it meant.
- In my view, Invaders are supposed to be an endgame challenge, like the endgame crises in Stellaris: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Crisis (https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Crisis)
This is evident by their high tech level, which you need to match in order to fight them. - In order to work as an endgame threat, they should obviously only appear in the endgame and not while people are still in the Ion Engine age. The appearance of invaders or rifts could be set to a year (which changes depending on research speed settings), number of ancient constructs awakened or simply the amount of research generated. E.g. as soon as >50% of empires generate X Million Research points, Invaders can spawn.
- Another factor is the distance, in which the invaders spawn. Just as you can set a minimum distance for NPRs in the game settings, initial invader spawn locations should have a minimum distance to Sol by default. They can obviously invade Sol later, just like any other system.
I hope I could convince you, that invaders are broken in their current state and that they need some changes. I'm open for discussions.
In my low-research games I usually plan to turn on Invaders manually once I've located an Ancient Construct since these stay in the game even with Invaders turned off. This is generally a decent benchmark both in terms of player tech (i.e. if you can beat a decent Precursor fleet and take their planets) and relevant lore, since the Constructs are needed to hold off the Invaders. This seems like a reasonable condition to be added to the current Invader generation code so they will not spawn in until the player has reached a certain capability, rather than just arbitrarily early before anyone can handle them.
I also do think the Rifts should occur in a system where the player has been and is aware of this happening, which allows the player to make preparations and account for the Invaders in their planning instead of being blindsided by a fleet of overteched ships suddenly materializing in Saturn orbit. If the player knows a rift is forming that can be a cue to be less aggressive towards NPRs knowing that they need a sizable fleet detachment able to deal with Invaders. Maybe a bit less realistic than getting blindsided but probably more fun for most players I would bet.
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I don't feel the need to make the invaders easier.
In fact, I'd argue that they need to be made harder. Attack with larger amount of ships etc, at least after many years have passed.
A good solution for low research rate is indeed to simply activate them once you have reached a certain level.
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I can understand Steve position, still I believe that the Invaders should have a part of their strength dynamically tied to something. He rejects that this could be tied to the player strength, and I'm ok with that, it's a design which equals another. But perhaps their strength can have a part based on:
- age of the universe (meaning since when the game started)
- since how many years they spawned
so strength would be X + Y, Y being the variable part, with a base power (X) ?
Also, are they more and more numerous as rifts are opening? That would be good. Or are rifts just an entry point for a pre-determined strength? If the former, I imagine active NPR opening rifts (by exploration) would be a nice "Doomsday clock".
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I can understand Steve position, still I believe that the Invaders should have a part of their strength dynamically tied to something. He rejects that this could be tied to the player strength, and I'm ok with that, it's a design which equals another. But perhaps their strength can have a part based on:
- age of the universe (meaning since when the game started)
- since how many years they spawned
so strength would be X + Y, Y being the variable part, with a base power (X) ?
Also, are they more and more numerous as rifts are opening? That would be good. Or are rifts just an entry point for a pre-determined strength? If the former, I imagine active NPR opening rifts (by exploration) would be a nice "Doomsday clock".
Look away now if you don't want spoilers...
The chance of a rift forming is already tied to the length of the game (more years in game = more chance of rift).
The size of the invader forces is tied to the size of the largest rift (larger rift = larger forces), which indirectly means larger forces will appear as the game progresses. However, those forces may distributed between multiple rifts if they exist.
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I looked into the Abyss.
Then the Abyss looked back! ;D
Thanks Steve. I did not mind being spoiled on an 'overall' mechanic, it gives me the certainty it can be a race against the clock and that's what I like, to feel tension and a kind of Damocles Sword above my head. Only with that can I maintain my interest in a game.
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I can understand Steve position, still I believe that the Invaders should have a part of their strength dynamically tied to something. He rejects that this could be tied to the player strength, and I'm ok with that, it's a design which equals another. But perhaps their strength can have a part based on:
- age of the universe (meaning since when the game started)
- since how many years they spawned
so strength would be X + Y, Y being the variable part, with a base power (X) ?
Also, are they more and more numerous as rifts are opening? That would be good. Or are rifts just an entry point for a pre-determined strength? If the former, I imagine active NPR opening rifts (by exploration) would be a nice "Doomsday clock".
Look away now if you don't want spoilers...
The chance of a rift forming is already tied to the length of the game (more years in game = more chance of rift).
The size of the invader forces is tied to the size of the largest rift (larger rift = larger forces), which indirectly means larger forces will appear as the game progresses. However, those forces may distributed between multiple rifts if they exist.
Thanks for the replies. Would it be too much effort to factor in research speed somewhere in this formula? Or prevent rifts from spawning until a condition like one I mentioned in the OP is fulfilled?
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the effects of research modifiers on actual tech development are a good bit more complicated than one might reasonably suppose. in a game with pure exponential overall growth over time, a multiplier to research rate would have the effect of adding or subtracting time [wrt RP rate, not accumulated RP]. is aurora's growth exponential? man, idk. pop growth never was and is now even slower and more complicated. at least in the early game industrial capacity grows faster than exponential, so the natural rate of deploying new research facilities is highly circumstantial and complicated.
if the invader appearance roll is a pure save-or-die event, it's not good for your game whether it's .1% or 10% per annum. i really think balancing all possible options configurations even roughly for invader appearance is a point mass. you can put whatever you want into it, you ain't gettin nothing back.
edit: possibly making sure the invader rate is coupled to the time *since invaders were turned on* and not since campaign inception would be good. if it takes you 300 years to get to magneto's plasma, you say, "ok let's stick in my toes in the deep end", you're prolly not really ready or wanting the incidence rate you're going to actually get.
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Invaders are meant to be scary and deadly, and a game with reduced research rate is generally more challenging. So mixing the two is probably not going to help you when facing them.
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I like Invaders. They probably are responsible for most of my lost campaigns but i really like the idea of incredibly dangerous aliens that can solo your entire Empire navy.
Even if they are a death sentence on low research speed runs which are my favourite.
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Ha do I need to be worried? I am currently on year 113 also with a low % research (I think 20% or 10% do not have the game file here to check). With a conventional start only on Ion Tech by now with invaders turned on. No signs of invaders yet but currently in contact with 3 different NPRs. 1 seems peaceful, 1 not so much (had minor skirmishes with which he got the better of) and the other I have only seen one scout of. If the invaders come I am okay with losing. If i lose i lose ;D
Just to double check would an ion tech design have any chance against an invader fleet? Is it just the ECM tech that is preventing hits for the anti missile spam mentioned in the first post. I am presuming beams could do okay at point blank range? My fleet is 100% laser beam and with decent speed for an ion tech fleet (over 300k tonnage of combat beam ships in tonnage roughly 20k each). Currently R&D efforts are aiming for carriers and fighters for beam fighters to try to utilise a speed advantage. My laser beam tech is my most superior tech after finding a planet early in the game with a beam tech bonus which i stuck 40 labs on.
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Wow, i literally envy you.
I have being trying to get invaders in Sol forever, way from before C# release and i only managed it once. . .
Kingdom for a Spawn Invader/Precursor option. . . .
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Ha do I need to be worried? I am currently on year 113 also with a low % research (I think 20% or 10% do not have the game file here to check). With a conventional start only on Ion Tech by now with invaders turned on. No signs of invaders yet but currently in contact with 3 different NPRs. 1 seems peaceful, 1 not so much (had minor skirmishes with which he got the better of) and the other I have only seen one scout of. If the invaders come I am okay with losing. If i lose i lose ;D
Just to double check would an ion tech design have any chance against an invader fleet? Is it just the ECM tech that is preventing hits for the anti missile spam mentioned in the first post. I am presuming beams could do okay at point blank range? My fleet is 100% laser beam and with decent speed for an ion tech fleet (over 300k tonnage of combat beam ships in tonnage roughly 20k each). Currently R&D efforts are aiming for carriers and fighters for beam fighters to try to utilise a speed advantage. My laser beam tech is my most superior tech after finding a planet early in the game with a beam tech bonus which i stuck 40 labs on.
Haven't fought invaders, but judging by the fact you have ion tech you probably only have eccm 1 or 2, which means the invaders (with ECM 8 presumably) would be a nightmare. ECM reduces hit chance for missiles and beam weapons by (target ECM - attacker ECCM linked to fire control or built into missile) X 10 = amount that %hit chance is reduced by
So even at point blank, your fighters won't have more than 15%-20% hit chance, assuming you can't fit ECCM into them.
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Ha do I need to be worried? I am currently on year 113 also with a low % research (I think 20% or 10% do not have the game file here to check). With a conventional start only on Ion Tech by now with invaders turned on. No signs of invaders yet but currently in contact with 3 different NPRs. 1 seems peaceful, 1 not so much (had minor skirmishes with which he got the better of) and the other I have only seen one scout of. If the invaders come I am okay with losing. If i lose i lose ;D
Just to double check would an ion tech design have any chance against an invader fleet? Is it just the ECM tech that is preventing hits for the anti missile spam mentioned in the first post. I am presuming beams could do okay at point blank range? My fleet is 100% laser beam and with decent speed for an ion tech fleet (over 300k tonnage of combat beam ships in tonnage roughly 20k each). Currently R&D efforts are aiming for carriers and fighters for beam fighters to try to utilise a speed advantage. My laser beam tech is my most superior tech after finding a planet early in the game with a beam tech bonus which i stuck 40 labs on.
Haven't fought invaders, but judging by the fact you have ion tech you probably only have eccm 1 or 2, which means the invaders (with ECM 8 presumably) would be a nightmare. ECM reduces hit chance for missiles and beam weapons by (target ECM - attacker ECCM linked to fire control or built into missile) X 10 = amount that %hit chance is reduced by
So even at point blank, your fighters won't have more than 15%-20% hit chance, assuming you can't fit ECCM into them.
The invaders I encountered at 160% difficulty 40 years in had ECM 3. Somewhat disappointing.
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If the invaders only have ECM 3, then fighters would probably do okay, although I imagine fighter losses would be pretty large, so you would need a lot of fighter factories and quite a few academies so that you have enough of your lowest ranked military officers
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You can fight them once you get magneto-plasma engines. I do it way more often than I should. But you will need good ECCM andrange on your guns and BFCs. You can get viable warships on the 30kt-40kt range, going at 10.000-12.000km/s, but you will need large quantities of galicite, and you will need to make the engines on factories if you want the ships anytime soon. If you can be slightly faster than them, and have a decent chance of hitting them from 300.000 km, then any reasonable particle beam should give you the dps to come out on top with a 50%. You have tostart racing towards that from day one, expand your economy as fast as possible, have good military academies and tactical bonuses for your ships. But you will need a little luck with minerals. With 2 billion people, you sorta kinda can in the time frame you had, if all your starting tech is research speed, and the economy does good. Its a fun hell.
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A level 20 necromancer
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Or a time ship, that would fix it!
Circular time is supposed to be part of BSG lore, though they never did tackle quite what that meant, before getting somewhat surreal, in the latest version. (My previous time travel suggestion for Aurora btw - http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10464.0 )
Has anyone suggested applying the research multiplier to the invader timers? Just a thought.
If you keep backups OP and everyone, you can just revert and switch off the invaders until you are ready.
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In my humble opinion, next to impossible challenges are what makes a good player and create a shrewd mind. Weak challenges create confusion and inflates one's ego and when a worthy challenge appears, then it comes disbelief and erosion.
Now that applies to both life and games.
Its just a few lines of codes following a determined path, you are a sentient being, you can beat them if you want. You just need time, patience and enough thought devoted to that. And it would suggest for you to ignore the players telling you how to beat them and figure out your own way to do it, its the only way to become better.
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In my humble opinion, next to impossible challenges are what makes a good player and create a shrewd mind. Weak challenges create confusion and inflates one's ego and when a worthy challenge appears, then it comes disbelief and erosion.
Now that applies to both life and games.
Its just a few lines of codes following a determined path, you are a sentient being, you can beat them if you want. You just need time, patience and enough thought devoted to that. And it would suggest for you to ignore the players telling you how to beat them and figure out your own way to do it, its the only way to become better.
Strikes me invaders are the sort of thing you can take on if you feel you have mastered the mechanics (which I personally haven't) and would like to face a greater challenge than the other spoilers (which for the moment I wouldn't). I am sure there are many optimisations one can discover or invent which would make it possible to achieve what to a noob (which I am) might seem impossible. Not least adjusting research % to the max which, if research rate does not influence invader difficulty, would definitely give a player an edge, if they know what to do with it (which I don't)!
What I did get from reading around though was that invaders are a next level challenge, which is a good thing as its nice to have somewhere to go.
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Invaders are definitely the hardest to deal with, as even the less advanced versions are disproportionately nasty, and they can be really very advanced. They are also quite proactive, so the challenge is not only having the capability to deal with them, but also having that capability in the right place at the right time
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If you can outrange them with anything beam related, you can fortify your planets very well too, and that can give you bastions to manoeuvre around