Video Games

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon May 16, 2016 9:54 am

*sigh*
ok, now the game is really testing my patience . . .
i am at peace with all other nations out in the void.
and then, all of a sudden: AI UPRISING!
I have, at this point, a maintainable 1-2k fleet.
And a robot 6K fleet just roffle stomps it to debris.
And then proceeds to wipe stations and colonies.
One system after the other. And nothing i can do.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon May 16, 2016 1:00 pm

Should have given AI their rights when you had the chance, meatbag ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon May 16, 2016 1:57 pm

So the AI uprising is a Galactic Crisis. Trigger condition: someone must have researched Synthetics. It and the tech leading up to it are highlighted in red on the tech tree to warn you this might end very badly. Whenever anyone researches it, it starts an invisible timer that eventually sends a triggering event to one of their planets. This then has a chance of triggering a revolt. Possibly even if you did give them full rights, but the odds are lower. They autospawn a ton of stuff in that system, and then start sending messages to everyone that can make all of their robotic pops revolt, and go on the warpath to bring about the end of flesh. I'm shocked you've met the trigger conditions; I've researched synthetics in one game, but that was when I could support ~25K strength.

Anyways, your best bet is that they're at war with the entire galaxy and your arch-nemises may come to your rescue. Or they may also be crumbling as their robots rise in revolt and planet after planet joins the AI war machine and their organic populations are slaughtered or forcibly cyberized. The event is intended to be a massive war to spice up the late game when your empire looks like Longes. Alternate possibilities are monsters from another dimension or off-brand Tyranids. This is supposed to be the biggest challenge in the entire game; good luck.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon May 16, 2016 2:01 pm

There is another event you can get, where the robots make a petition to give them human rights. If you agree, you'll never be able to reduce the AI rights below "full citizen", but they'll never rebel against you.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon May 16, 2016 2:03 pm

I've checked the files; when you get the trigger event and have full citizenship there's a 95% chance you get that event and a 5% chance they revolt instead.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon May 16, 2016 9:45 pm

wasn't me as far as i can tell!
they rebelled in my neighbours territory i think.
pretty sure i haven't actually researched the synths tech.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon May 16, 2016 10:56 pm

Once they rebel in someone's territory, they'll try to convince robots in other people's territories to join in even if those empires don't have the synths tech. The sub-revolts aren't quite as spectacular but are still pretty nasty.

Anyways, it sounds like you've probably fallen drastically behind on tech; while the system is a weighted draw it drifts towards higher-tier tech over time and synths are hella late-game. There are prereqs for techs even entering the rotation, and getting synths takes several. By this point, a 1-2K strength fleet should probably translate to a single battleship with no escorts. Unless the AI was extremely lucky and actively gunning for synths every time the techs came up in the draw, you're probably like three decades behind on research. Have you been spamming research stations on every viable planetoid in your territory and actively targeting research-rich systems for expansion? The pulsars and black holes often yield quite a bit of physics/tech research if you can beat the void clouds.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue May 17, 2016 12:31 am

hell, i had problems actually getting the colony ships research . . took me more than an hour before it first popped up in rotation for me for some reason x.x

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue May 17, 2016 1:44 am

From my games so far, I think it's automatically in your first draw but goes into the general deck if you research something else from your first set.

Basically all the techs are in a big-ass table and have weights and the ones with higher weights are more likely to be drawn, and you get 3, plus one from a physics(computer) tech and plus one from the basic form of one of the materialist ethos gov types or plus two from the advanced form, and also you can get any number of specific additional techs in every draw until you research them via other methods; most commonly scanning debris but you get Living Metal if you survey a wrecked ringworld. The base weights are then modified by factors; mainly the scientist traits of the assigned researcher. Usually the main factor is their specalization, but there's also some low-odds batshittery that get way more likely if the scientist has Manical. That's a x5 multiplier to the weight of the first psy tech, unless you have the materialist ethos, which is a x0 multiplier unless the overseeing scientist has the psy specialization.

Generally if you want something specific assign a scientist with the relevant specialty to that slot during the period where you finish the prior tech and it is considerably more likely to be in your next draws. If a given draw looks shitty and you don't have useful salvage (crystaline entities give good energy weapons and some other useful stuff, so I recommend salvaging them and researching that when you get a bad physics draw) just pick the cheapest tech in there to expedite the next draw. Usually physics and engineering give me something useful but sociology often gets crammed with colonization-related techs I don't really need. But it does have the psy techs, including Psi Jumpdrives if you want the best FTL and aren't worried about tearing a hole in the universe. Which you aren't at the moment; the AI revolt is your Galactic Crisis for the game.

If you want to get more precise info, the question mark in the lower left of the screen opens the wiki and its tech page has the big-ass tables.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue May 17, 2016 2:02 am

i don't remember ever seeing ANY PSI Tech at all in all the games i tried so far O.o

Also, i pretty much resigned to feeling stupid with this game . .
Another buddy of mine does way better, but he also says the AI is doing some bullshit stuff with its fleets . . his 6k vs 6k ai fleet, his fleet basically destroys anything but the BB in the enemy fleet and can't really hurt them because the only thing left left on his side are some DDs. Runs to repair and rearm and a few minutes later he gets attacked by an 8k fleet with appearantly the one surviving BB from the first ai fleet before he can even get his fleet back up to 5k again . .

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue May 17, 2016 2:12 am

The entry Psi tech's base weight is like .5 compared to an apparent average of like 20 and is outright blocked by the research-booster ethos unless you get very lucky in your scientist candidates; I played maybe five games pretty far and saw one psi tech once in one of them before I looked around on the wiki and launched a PSIONICS FUCK YEAH! game where I deliberately stacked as many bonuses to the weight as possible.

Meanwhile, I suspect your buddy is actually just wrong, at least on normal. The AI likes to have two main battlefleets and probably merges them if they take enough losses. Certainly I'm not having extraordinary difficulty winning naval wars via bringing more firepower. Or come to think of it maybe not more total firepower but I use one doomfleet and can manage defeat in detail by obliterating one battlefleet and then the other. Even works on Fallen Empires to an extent. Also, I suspect that the optimal strategy is to go all-in on your largest ship type; I base this on the fact that I do it and the AI doesn't and I tend to kick its ass.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue May 17, 2016 2:33 am

That might be a reason why i suck . .
I tend to have really diverse fleets . .
Also, i do not understand how the fucking combat system works.
I design my own ships, i put in the maximum ammount of the strongest weapons i have and enough reactors to give them power and then armor to make sure it holds together . . and the automatic ones still do have more raw dmg output than mine do for some reason and are still cheaper than mine as well . . and i can not upgrade my old ships either, when i have researched a new weapon or armor tech or something . .

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue May 17, 2016 2:52 am

Uh, put up some screenshots and I'll take a look. I have only the faintest idea about the combat system myself but piling on as many energy weapons as will physically fit, putting in shields and reactors, and filling out any slots where the power math means I can't add shields with my best armor apparently works well enough. My fleets are pretty much one ship of each size weighted towards heavier as my production capacity allows until I hit battleships and want to mix the specials to get the FTL dampner, shield drain, and hull regen auras in my fleet.

As for not upgrading them, the system is deeply stupid. Go and edit the existing designs and save them with the same name. Then there's an upgrade button on the fleet display thingy when you have it selected that sends the fleet to the nearest starport to refit and upgrade to the currently saved design with the same name as the ship. If you delete the current design the button will instead upgrade them to a different design but I don't know how it picks which and do not trust it. The process costs minerals and takes quite a bit of time based on the number of ships, so I usually modernize my entire fleet in peacetime at once every few tech upgrades.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue May 17, 2016 6:27 am

Elevator Souls 3:

'Elevator patrol', hide on top of the elevator and use AoE spells
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_b7dekpA7E

NPC's can use elevators too:
https://gfycat.com/BestThreadbareCub

Massive death:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTCg_RX ... e=youtu.be

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue May 17, 2016 8:05 am

name_here wrote:The entry Psi tech's base weight is like .5 compared to an apparent average of like 20 and is outright blocked by the research-booster ethos unless you get very lucky in your scientist candidates; I played maybe five games pretty far and saw one psi tech once in one of them before I looked around on the wiki and launched a PSIONICS FUCK YEAH! game where I deliberately stacked as many bonuses to the weight as possible.

Meanwhile, I suspect your buddy is actually just wrong, at least on normal. The AI likes to have two main battlefleets and probably merges them if they take enough losses. Certainly I'm not having extraordinary difficulty winning naval wars via bringing more firepower. Or come to think of it maybe not more total firepower but I use one doomfleet and can manage defeat in detail by obliterating one battlefleet and then the other. Even works on Fallen Empires to an extent. Also, I suspect that the optimal strategy is to go all-in on your largest ship type; I base this on the fact that I do it and the AI doesn't and I tend to kick its ass.

The optimal strategy is the corvette evasion spam. You build corvettes with crystaline armor (for hull points), upgraded defense computer and lasers. With an evasion commander you can get the evasion up to about 70%. When a large ship hits your corvette, it blows up, but thanks to high evasion and size difference modifiers that doesn't happen very often, which allows your corvette swarm to mulch over any other army of equal strength with minimal losses.
In terms of weapons lasers are just the best. They have slightly lower damage than kinetic weapons, but unlike the kinetic weapons they have 100% armor penetration, which ultimately makes lasers come out on top. Rockets are good in theory, but are easily countered by cheap point defense, so that knocks them out of competition.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue May 17, 2016 8:42 am

My experience is that arc emitters fuck up high-evasion corvette swarms just like the description says.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue May 17, 2016 9:24 am

name_here wrote:My experience is that arc emitters fuck up high-evasion corvette swarms just like the description says.

Arc weapons don't actually bounce despite what the text says, so it performs just as well as any other weapon.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue May 17, 2016 8:24 pm

Yes, but they also have 100% accuracy and thus hit high-evasion targets with decent frequency and make corvettes explode.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue May 17, 2016 8:28 pm

name_here wrote:Yes, but they also have 100% accuracy and thus hit high-evasion targets with decent frequency and make corvettes explode.

Which doesn't matter. Currently the fleet AI targets a single ship with all weaponry except for swarm missiles, so each turn the entire fleet blows up one corvette. Which doesn't matter when there's a hundred of them.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed May 18, 2016 12:18 am

for the first time, i am the one attacking with overwhelming force . .
a sweet 20k fleet that makes short business of most anything it encounters.
so, now what? how do i actually GET the systems i cleansed?
i have armies on the ground, i have the fleet in orbit, i even built a pretty boss 1k str fortress station in reach of the planet . . but i still can not claim the planet or system for me? O.o

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed May 18, 2016 1:11 am

Click on the war emblem at the bottom of the screen, then on the Demands tab. You'll see what you can ask for and how willing they are to settle.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed May 18, 2016 1:39 am

i tried that . . but despite me having wiped out their fleets in several systems, the bar is red and they just won't accept . . even if i cleanse every inhabited system of all life, down to the last indestructable pop, they still won't give me anything.
they sent me a peace offering once, which i accepted, thinking they were surrendering . . but no, it told me that i lost because i did not gain anything from the war at all . .

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed May 18, 2016 4:00 am

At 100 warscore, the loser is forced to accept the winner's terms.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed May 18, 2016 11:10 am

anywhere a formula for how that is calculated?
after scouring their systems like that, why is the bar at the top completely red for me as if my war score is 0 asnd thiers is 100?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed May 18, 2016 11:14 am

Stahlseele wrote:anywhere a formula for how that is calculated?
after scouring their systems like that, why is the bar at the top completely red for me as if my war score is 0 asnd thiers is 100?

You get warscore for successful fleet battles and successful invasions. Mostly for invasions. Just running around blowing up space stations gives practically nothing.