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Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: June 10, 2024, 05:39:00 PM »

At the moment, the practical difficulty of the raiders is, really, tied to the number of NPRs in your game (assuming you set it so that NPRs encounter them too, which I imagine most do).

I do not, and since it is not the default setting I assume most don't either, though I know Steve does sometimes. Personally I avoid enabling NPR-spoiler encounters as it ends up being another way to slow down the game in a hail of short increments.

Maybe one solution would be to have a number box in the game start settings for a number of raider factions to spawn in. If there are, say, 3 Raider factions instead of 1, Raiders are 3x as likely to spawn, and having them in several factions would mean each set of Raiders has different weapons and ship designs, adding a bit of unpredictability.

That said, this is properly something to post in the Suggestions Thread rather than resurrecting a 2-year-old development thread.  :)
Posted by: Collin Thomas
« on: June 10, 2024, 05:25:21 PM »

Hey so I've never said anything on this forum yet, but I wanted to say something about the raiders here. 

First I wanted to thank Mr Walmsey for making this game, which scratches a very particular itch of mine, I love it so much. 

That said, I do agree the raiders are a little broken. 

At the moment, the practical difficulty of the raiders is, really, tied to the number of NPRs in your game (assuming you set it so that NPRs encounter them too, which I imagine most do).   The more NPRs, the more places for them to spawn (which aren't in your home system), and the less likely you'll encounter them. 

I'm not exactly aware of how difficult this would be, but would it honestly be that hard to just include a difficulty setting during game parameters to control the % chance of a raider spawning?

In a game which already has severe problems with accessibility to new players, I'd imagine something like this would be very important
Posted by: boolybooly
« on: September 05, 2022, 05:07:45 PM »

Something else about spawn rates which might be worth mentioning is the idea of modifying them by the research multiplier, which also applies to the invader timers which I remember being dicussed elsewhere.

Sometimes people like to play with longer research eras but if they do that then if the scaling spoilers occur at a fixed level of ferocity then they may find they are squashed like a bug.

If the raider spawn rate is X*(1+years/20) then you could also add a term for the research % i.e. X*1+(years/20*research%term)

So if the research rate is 20% then that would mean 0.2 times as ferocious a build up. Likewise with the invader timer, it could be divided by the research multiplier so it takes 5x longer.

The only problem with that is you can change the research multiplier on the fly, if you did that after 200 years you might get a nasty surprise! But it would give players a way of regulating the spoiler, with a balancing research penalty built in.
Posted by: Destragon
« on: September 05, 2022, 05:01:05 PM »

I was also pretty surprised by the raiders in that I thought they would just be a couple pirate ships that show up rarely, but then people started talking about how their whole homeworld was destroyed by hundreds of raider ships. They really are a lot more like the invaders than just simple pirates. Not that that's a bad thing, since that's also cool to have in game, but it's different.

We'll see how much different they feel now in 2.1.1.
Posted by: KriegsMeister
« on: September 05, 2022, 03:39:50 PM »

I think the biggest thing with Raiders is that they are just randomized Invaders. The way the build up and interact with the player and npr races are near identical except Raiders are more likely to run if they are outnumbered and can spawn anywhere and everywhere rather than be limited to Aether Rifts. They are just as capable of wiping out the player as the Invaders, Swarm, or a game start NPR. The Raiders imo should be closer in capabilities and function as Precursors and Rahkas, more of a road block rather than an existential threat.

I would suggest that they don't build up over time at all, but rather every build cycle have a % chance of spawning a ship, few ships, fleet, or multiple fleets. These ships would focus on destroying or capturing (they really should have boarding craft imo) civilian shipping or attacking undefended colonies to steal population or mineral stockpiles. They should avoid contact with warships unless they feel they are significantly stronger than the player's ship(s) or planetary defenses (they really need a speed bump to run more effectively). But most importantly I think that once their ships run out of fuel they move to their initial jump point and get out, closing the door behind them. Whatever they steal in BP value could then be added to their next incursion.

This I think would better represent them as pirates and raiders and keep them in that roadblock level of difficulty as Precursors and Rahkas
Posted by: Paul M
« on: September 05, 2022, 12:32:38 PM »

It took 4 tries for the raiders to not show up and exterminate my population before I even got TN technology though admittedly on the 3rd try I managed to build some defences, but then got hit with a raider fleet which dropped 2000 elite infantry on me.  None of my weapons could penetrate their armour so that was a painful experience.  The first ship showing up blew up my space yard, then a second raider visit destroyed my ground combat facility even though I managed to destroy it with STO fire.  But against that fleet even 26 15 cm plasma carronades wasn't anywhere near sufficient.  I killed 2 more raider light ships but the heavier ones were too tough to affect before their firepower destroyed the STOs.  The 3rd attempt I had just got TN tech but had not really gotten anywhere with it.

My suggestion is that the raiders actually behave like raiders.  They land steal wealth, minerals and population (if so inclined) but leave the bulk of the colony intact so they can come back for more.  If they encounter say a lone refinery ship or mining ship they make it refuel them or else abscond with the minerals.  They pirate civilian ships or take them as prizes etc.  As it is now they are exterminating the goose that lays the eggs.  This would make them less of a game over event to slower/conventional starts.

My fourth attempt I set them to 20 systems as opposed to 10 as I have frankly nearly explored 10 and am still barely space capable (starting: population 250 m/4 research/1 shipyard/256 CI).  At least my new land forces could engage the raider infantry with some chance of success. 
Posted by: db48x
« on: September 05, 2022, 12:32:13 PM »

 :o

Did you just… announce a release date‽

surprised pikachu!!!!!1
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: September 05, 2022, 12:03:10 PM »

For v2.1.1, I've changed the raiders to only start generating additional ships after the player reaches the trigger for the number of systems.

The time multiple will still be from game start for now as that would require a DB change. I could tackle that in the next DB update.

I've reduced the disproportionate escort group for salvage ships, but that will not take effect until the next DB update.

As suggested I have also changed default starting population to one billion for players.

Since you've got inbound DB changes maybe it would be a good idea to release 2.1.1 on account the number of fixes and especially the raider teleport fix which I would argue is a pretty big deal.

Yes, I am trying to get through the bug list now. Should be out by tomorrow.
Posted by: Droll
« on: September 05, 2022, 12:00:00 PM »

For v2.1.1, I've changed the raiders to only start generating additional ships after the player reaches the trigger for the number of systems.

The time multiple will still be from game start for now as that would require a DB change. I could tackle that in the next DB update.

I've reduced the disproportionate escort group for salvage ships, but that will not take effect until the next DB update.

As suggested I have also changed default starting population to one billion for players.

Since you've got inbound DB changes maybe it would be a good idea to release 2.1.1 on account the number of fixes and especially the raider teleport fix which I would argue is a pretty big deal.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: September 05, 2022, 11:34:11 AM »

For v2.1.1, I've changed the raiders to only start generating additional ships after the player reaches the trigger for the number of systems.

The time multiple will still be from game start for now as that would require a DB change. I could tackle that in the next DB update.

I've reduced the disproportionate escort group for salvage ships, but that will not take effect until the next DB update.

As suggested I have also changed default starting population to one billion for players.
Posted by: shadowpho
« on: September 05, 2022, 11:04:08 AM »

Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=13075. msg161935#msg161935 date=1662366140

Opening this thread up to comments regarding the spawn rate and how it could be improved - or is it fine now?


I want to say that the raiders raiding is EXTREMELY FUN.  They are a great addition to the game.  It's like adding sieges to the dwarf fortress.  With them the game feels more lively and the universe more alive.

However, the random nature of the spawn means that the player will lose colonies if the dice rolls so.  For example in my game let's say I had enough ships to defend Sol.  However I can't defend every colony against 400k of raiders.  That makes it frustrating as there's no tools to predict their size and where they'll be.   

It also makes the game unpredictable -- many people feel the raiders are fine because they got a much smaller raider spawn.  So for example I checked reddit/discord and saw maybe 10 people who got obliterated (or a colony) early on (<20 yrs) by large fleets.  However, most people don't have that experience on their first gameplay (50+ ppl). 


I think the problem is not the average difficulty of the raiders, but rather the outliers.  Having too few or too many raiders is not as fun as having average number of raiders.  Maybe spawn once a year to reduce variance?

The other thing that would be really cool is objective based spawn.  Did they kill a juice freighter? Spawn a bit more.   Did they lose their entire group? Spawn less.   That would give direct control\destiny to the player.

Another option would be to have them attack\harass with medium strength.  Currently they harass with 1-2 ships and then BOOM here's giant army.  If they instead harassed 3 years earlier with smaller numbers on some colony that would give a nice transition of what to expect. 
Posted by: Ultimoos
« on: September 05, 2022, 11:02:29 AM »

I also second the idea of raiders starting to build up from the moment they are triggered, not from game start.  This is a good quick fix.
Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: September 05, 2022, 10:48:27 AM »

I generally agree with the people suggesting that the raiders should begin scaling up once the number-of-systems threshold is crossed, rather than from game start.

The main reason for this is user experience - basically, the setting is not behaving in the way that players are expecting it to, so there is a strong argument that it should be changed to function as players expect it to. I would note, for any other spoilers it works in this way, albeit accidentally (Swarm and Invaders do not 'develop' or grow prior to being discovered as they generate on discovery, and Precursors remain completely static AFAIK), so perhaps some of the confusion is that Raiders behave very differently from other spoilers with respect to the similar game setting.

Right now, the way to get this "expected" behavior is to turn the Raiders off at game start and turn them on in the game settings at a desired point in time. This is a bit unintuitive, and I thought was the reason why the number-of-systems trigger was added was to avoid having to do this, e.g. for Invaders to prevent discovering an Aether Rift one jump from Sol and dying in five years.

The one thing I think is left uncertain is how to preserve the current behavior, i.e., the Raiders grow from game start but will not appear until the player has expanded a bit. However, I think it is an open question if this behavior is the one many players want to use, I think most players want the "expected" behavior described above (for slow/conventional starts) or they want 100% risk from the start of the game (for traditional/high-pop TN starts), not so many seem to want the in-between?


Changing the game settings might also be a good idea. He could start with 4× population, like Steve did in his most recent AAR. That would give him more forces at the start of the game, and more exploration ships to survey those first 10 systems more quickly. I don’t know if he had any NPRs enabled at game start, that might have helped as punchkid surmises. He could have set the raiders to attack after the 5th system is explored instead of the 10th; they would have had half the forces and he would have had half as many colonies to protect.

I really do think, on a side note, that the default population for game setup should be 1b. When I started playing I quickly found 500m to be very slow and limiting, and with the new spoilers I think this is even more of the case. Of course the player can and usually will set it to whatever they want, but I think it is good to have a more reasonable default to set the expectation for new players.
Posted by: gpt3
« on: September 05, 2022, 10:39:27 AM »

When a new group is formed, the raiders choose the next from a list of operational group types. When the list expires, they start it again.

Lone Raider
Salvage Group (Salvage, 2-4 raiders, 1-3 escorts)
Slave Transport Group (Transport, 1 escort)
Raider Squadron (2-3 raiders, 1 escort)
Troop Transport Group (Troop Transport, 1 raider, 1 escort)
Lone Raider
Salvage Group
Slave Transport Group
Lone Raider
Troop Transport Group
Raider Squadron
Lone Raider
Slave Transport Group
Raiding Fleet (1-2 large raiders, 2-4 raiders, 1-2 escorts)
I wonder if the unhappiness over raider hordes could be alleviated by tying the size of the raider operational groups to raider wealth (similar to civilian shipping lines). This would create a feedback loop: reward players for destroying raids and punish them for letting raids succeed.
  • The raiders maintain a pool of ships.
  • Instead of a fixed number of ships, raider squadrons/fleets and salvage/slave/troop groups take 20% of the ships available in the pool (alternatively, each ship has a 20% chance of being selected to join the expedition). If there are no ships available, then the expedition is downsized or cancelled.
  • If a raid succeeds, then the loot is spent building new ships and adding them to the pool. If the raid was particularly profitable, then the raiders build a battleship to protect their larger fleets.
  • The raiders periodically get "free money" (at a rate depending on game time). This prevents players from completely crippling the raiders.
  • Each ship in the pool has a 5% chance of retirement each year (an expected service life of 20 years). This prevents excessive raider snowballing.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: September 05, 2022, 09:34:35 AM »

Another variable to this might be how the raiders interact with NPRs.
Does the ships built up get divide among all systems with active NPRs/players?
If it does, having more NPRs in the game will make the raiders considerably easier to deal with.

In my current game I started with 5 NPRs, and in 25 years (130 systems explored) have only seen smaller raider forces in a few systems.

Another question a bit off topic, will swarm, invaders and raiders fight each other?

The raiders will pick any system and don't differentiate between players and NPRs (assuming that starting option is selected), so more NPRs will generally make raiders less of a threat in general. The main issue is slow starts with minimal NPRs.