Page 2 of 3

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 9:09 pm
by defaultuser
Were all of the ships the same species pilot? If not, were some non-organic metabolism?

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 10:41 pm
by EricF
Yup, all human in both cases. I never play with minor races.

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 5:47 am
by MatGB
"minor" races. By this do you mean natives, or you never play anything other than humans as starting? Either way I think you're missing out, the game's explicitly balanced to encourage mixed species empires and, um, the snowflake is one of those encouragements.

I've opened an Issue as a reminder to try to balance this further at some point (Psionic Snowflake needs balancing · Issue #1026 · freeorion/freeorion), the snowflake has two effects, the minor one can only affect organic crewed ships and will turn a maximum of 4 ships, the major one only affects organic, non-telepathic crews, and is negated if you've researched Psionic Domination. That can turn up to 12 ships.

These numbers both need balancing a bit but overall the principle is sound, you only get really messed up by them if you're really behind on research for that stage of the game.

To be honest, I think balancing them is less important than creating sitreps that tell you what's going on and telling you why you've been hit.

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 2:29 pm
by EricF
By minor races I mean I play with natives set to none.
Also haven't played any race other than Humans because...
Just haven't been interested? They don't seem that interesting?
I don't know.
I play other than Humans all the time when I play Sword of the Stars.

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 4:17 pm
by defaultuser
I would recommend trying other starting species. There is variation to the game when you're playing a research-based versus industry-based species. Different strategies and tactics needed when you have bad piloting and/or troops.

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 5:53 pm
by EricF
I thought about it and I know why. Maybe a little shallow but, whatever...
It's because every race uses the same ship designs.
I play Klingons in BotF because their ships are cool.
I play Moriggi in SotS because their ships are cool.
In GalCiv II I can design my ships to look however I like.
Etc...

I will have to consider the different strategies of other races in FO, however.
Just may give it a try.

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 7:29 pm
by defaultuser
I don't understand. You make the ship designs. You can, and arguably should, use different designs for different species. I play smaller setups, 150 systems. Lately I've been using simple ships for industry-forward empires. I can churn these in large numbers and use precious research points for non-ship purposes. Research-heavy setups will tend to head quickly to titanic hulls.

The differences in gameplay can be subtle or not so subtle. I would suggest that you at least try an Egassem or Gysache play.

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2016 7:43 pm
by EricF
I was just referring to the external cosmetic appearance of the ships.
Klingon ships *look* different than Fed ships, but a Titanic hull is a Titanic hull whoever builds it.
As I said, a shallow reason. Not a real reason :D

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 12:20 am
by defaultuser
Okay.

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 9:17 am
by Nexus
I think it's interesting how the Experimentors can shut down Starlane Bores that you build into your systems.

I think that's the only time I've ever seen a fleet in empty space, outside of a starlane.

Oh, what's that, Experimentors? Not ready to face my unstoppable warfleet? Too bad, I'll just keep spamming Bores so my dudes can inch their way over there regardless.

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 10:35 am
by MatGB
How slow is your fleet? ;-)

More seriously, at some point I want to do something with the bore/nexus combo, when Geoff introduced the bore it was my main balance concern, it's sorta OK in single player but in multiplayer I think that'd count as a massive cheat. Possibly have Experiment Zero do damage/affect all ships in neighbouring systems as well.

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 10:59 am
by Nexus
It's all titanic vessels, so sort of moderate speed, but it's a very long starlane and you crawl to a near-halt near the Experimentor homeworld anyway.

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 9:31 pm
by defaultuser
The bore has made it so that you don't have to wait around possibly 50 turns or more for the Experimenters to do their thing. I do think that perhaps if a sole survivor is achieved, the Experimenters ought to just come out immediately.

The other thing with it is when you play cluster, frequently clusters will be physically close but with no connection anywhere near. You can open a bore into a backwater area of the enemy, then "Hello Neighbor!"

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2016 3:52 am
by EricF
Is there a script or something that I could edit to delay the Experimentors?
Making it so that they don't show up before at least turn 300 would be nice if I can't turn them off.

Re: Experimenters

Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2016 4:26 am
by dbenage-cx
https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... T.focs.txt

Easiest is probably to either increase the value on line 249, or (to disable) replace line 252 with 0.