sketch for revamp of monsters

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Ophiuchus
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sketch for revamp of monsters

#1 Post by Ophiuchus »

what happened since the last revamp of monsters: fighter changes, bout-dependent targeting, blockade changes, and finer control of damage amount (so multi-shot more feasible)
  • make claws, etc mostly "close-range" weapons (bouts-3&4, i.e.starting damage from bout three).
  • more anti-fighter weapons, i.e. flak-like low-damage multi-shot
  • add monster type: predator swarms which follow krill swarms. those predators are also hidden (probably even better than krill) and only attack ships if they are hungry (if there are no/not enough krill available). implementation: ship with predator fighter hangar and launch bay)
  • predator–prey relationship, predators reduce the number of krill, not enough krill available reduces the number of predators. also number of krill grows if not at max. (implementation via hangar capacities)
  • snails: are hidden, "close-range" lunge attack in bout-3, maybe flak-like close-range bouts-3&4 tentacles
  • vacuum dragon: long-range attack plus "close-range" bouts-3&4 10-shot thrashing attack lots of low damage
  • snowflake:long-range attack, bigger ones get maybe bout-1 only weapons (single discharge)
  • alll juggernauts: heavy "close-range" damage (better take it out before), bout-2 pulse lots of small damage
  • kraken: has complex attack pattern, besides taking down fighters tentacle is "close-range" and is thrashing around (2-shot)
  • dyson tree: one classic weapon, add krill hangar, one additional Krill per turn
  • maintenance ship: arc disruptor (this could be a tool) instead of mass driver
  • badly injured monsters could flee, trying to get away from danger and heal up; vacuum dragon could split in two dragons lower-structure leaving in different directions
  • sentinels etc are mostly like ordinary ships with ordinary weapons, they get some anti-fighter measures
  • Black kraken: loose one 40-damage Spine, gain one 8-shot 5-damage tentacle
  • acirema guard: add a flak
(note i wrote this originally up from memory, which might be very sketchy in regard to current monster weapons)

Some i think i will not change: Cosmic Dragon, Psionic Snowflake, White Kraken, Krill

PR-3306
edit1: add kraken sketch
edit2: add more current infos
edit3: add url
Last edited by Ophiuchus on Tue Mar 09, 2021 6:48 am, edited 6 times in total.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: sketch for revamp of monsters

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Ophiuchus wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:59 pm
  • add monster type: predator swarms which follow krill swarms. those predators are also hidden (probably even better than krill) and only attack ships if they are hungry (if there are no/not enough krill available). implementation: ship with predator fighter hangar and launch bay)
  • predator–prey relationship, predators reduce the number of krill, not enough krill available reduces the number of predators. also number of krill grows if not at max. (implementation via hangar capacities)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFNxJVTJleE

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Oberlus
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Re: sketch for revamp of monsters

#3 Post by Oberlus »

I would play a bit with monster's weaponry and structure, to make them more versatile when protecting specials of different power, and more robust against fighters, and that's it.

No ecology systems.

Ophiuchus
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Re: sketch for revamp of monsters

#4 Post by Ophiuchus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 2:28 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:59 pm
  • add monster type: predator swarms which follow krill swarms. ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFNxJVTJleE
Good war story. On a serious note not really related.

The effects I would expect are
  • if left alone, the number of krill and predators would show some ebb and flow
  • if you kill off the krill you make the predators hungry and aggressive. so after the first wave of krill monsters in the next turn(s) there comes another wave of predators (which were staying hidden before).
The main idea is to provide some more interesting behavioral patterns to make the universe fell less mechanical.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

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Ophiuchus
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Re: sketch for revamp of monsters

#5 Post by Ophiuchus »

One implementation note on
* predator–prey relationship, predators reduce the number of krill, not enough krill available reduces the number of predators. also number of krill grows if not at max. (implementation via hangar capacities)

if we had some ShipUpgrade effect for maturing monsters (so not destroy and create a new one), one could put both types of monsters in the same fleet, so the predators would automatically follow the krill.
Also would work to re-create the matured monster in the original fleet. Not sure that is possible currently (but probably easy to implement).

edit: And working on the monster upgrades I found a bug: the juggernaut weapons did not damage-scale their growth (also krakens)

edit2: looking at the current krill implementation there is a lot of merging krill ships, so keeping a fleet intact would require some rewrite
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Ophiuchus
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Re: sketch for revamp of monsters

#6 Post by Ophiuchus »

Some notes on weapon design space:

target restrictions lead to a finer granularity for damage and options for alphaness, the pulse weapon i introduce here does 12 shots in a battle (same as an arc disruptor does), but all in a single combat round.

You can take a 1-shot 4-round weapon and make a 2-shot 2-round weapon out of it without changing anything related to damage, also against shields, only changing the timing.

Of course shooting first usually means you can destroy other ships before they did their damage maximum, but sometimes this may be waste as the targets are not yet visible or launched.

If the ships in a battle have high structure compared to the participating weapons, alphaness makes not much difference (until the ships do not have high structure anymore).
Oberlus wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 5:15 pmI would play a bit with monster's weaponry and structure, to make them more versatile when protecting specials of different power, and more robust against fighters, and that's it.

I do not have a plan for changing power of the monsters, but there were some unintended nerfs I "corrected", e.g. extra damage for flak (has no meaning since targeting was introduced), extra damage without damage scaling - which will increase damage done by monsters.

I mostly use flak, arc disruptors and a new 12-shot round-2 target-all weapon (GRAV_PULSE) to help monsters against fighters.
Most monster weapons will be slower than before, usually attacking starting in bout 3. Asteroid snail will be fun :)

If some monster is underpowered/you have some suggestions for structure please let me know.

Also i am not sure what to do about the experimentor creatures, i actually never fought the end fight.
I give the experiment zero a 60-shot GRAV_PULSE so you cant use your fighters at full power - the other option would be nerfing empire hangars.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Look, ma... four combat bouts!

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