Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Headbear]

Been playing it for a while, very fun. Both as in genuine fun and Dwarf Fortress !!FUN!!

[SCC]

Ohhh, that's how. I guess that Askonian Revolutionary Council won in the end! And their expeditions are weak as well, so defending from them is very easy. Too bad Sindria's just bragging rights!

[The2nd]

Also, the whole affair had no impact on reputation with the hegemony, don't know if that should be the case. ("OK Gothars, you made a little mistake settling in our system, but don't worry, we will just wipe out your colony and kill all your settlers and then we will never talk about it again, allright? Don't get caught with your transmitter off, though;)")

Yep, a couple of changes already made to adjust this. One is of course no expeditions from commission factions. The other is changing how reputation hits work - no penalty at all for fighting the fleets, but a 10 point penalty when they arrive in-system.

So when you intercept them before then there is no rep loss at all? This would further incentive you to babysit your colonies, even if they could handle the expedition on their own.

[Megas]

So when you intercept them before then there is no rep loss at all? This would further incentive you to babysit your colonies, even if they could handle the expedition on their own.

That sounds like a case where the cure is worse than the disease.

P.S.  I like to participate in allied battlestation fights, but I do not do that because of the rep penalty.

With automatic -10 rep, I need to intercept the fleets before they arrive (and be able to chain battle up to five endgame fleets that break the fleet cap).  Also, -10 is a big penalty for repeated invasions.  Not only no battlestation fight, but also huge penalty for letting them reach my system.  More babysitting when there is already too much, if you colonize too early in the game.  At that point, just have them declare war at my faction and be done with it.

P.P.S.  If player is incentivized to kill invaders in hyperspace, then battlestation will be only useful for the stability bonus.  If not needed, then colony is better without it (or only orbital station) because the upkeep can be high.

[Gothars]

So when you intercept them before then there is no rep loss at all? This would further incentive you to babysit your colonies, even if they could handle the expedition on their own.

I'd guess you still lose rep for attacking the fleet, although probably not 10 points. If the frequency of expeditions drops dramatically it would be alright, though. Instead of babysitting it would become active colony protection. Why should't a more risky interception without station help be rewarded?

[Alex]

Hmm. I was thinking that you'd still want to use the station for support - since it'd be an extremely tough fight otherwise - and intercepting something in hyperspace could be pretty chancy anyway.

Let me split it into 5 points when the expedition intel is created, and 5 when it arrives in-system. Then there's some incentive to fight in hyper (which could be occasionally good), but it's also something you could pretty much counter by doing a bounty.

[Wyvern]

Hmm. I was thinking that you'd still want to use the station for support - since it'd be an extremely tough fight otherwise - and intercepting something in hyperspace could be pretty chancy anyway.

Let me split it into 5 points when the expedition intel is created, and 5 when it arrives in-system. Then there's some incentive to fight in hyper (which could be occasionally good), but it's also something you could pretty much counter by doing a bounty.

You'd still get that first 5 rep back if you bribe them, right?  Or is the intel in question the 'an expedition has been launched' rather than the 'an expedition is in planning'?

[Alex]

You would not get it back, no. The rep cost to avert is reduced by the same amount, though.

[solardawning]

So just having a colony will gradually make all factions (except a commission faction, if you've taken one) hate you?
It sounds like the gameplay would be a treadmill of doing reputation-earning content in order to maintain friendly relations with each faction, as the default is to lose ground.

[Wyvern]

You would not get it back, no. The rep cost to avert is reduced by the same amount, though.

That is a significant change, then.  Right now, in 0.9, I can (assuming sufficient income), bribe off the expeditions and just go do my own thing; this change forces me to work to repair constantly-degrading faction relationships.  Yes, it's relatively easy... to offset -one- expedition, but at least in 0.9, there's a constant stream of them.

Still, maybe if expeditions are going to be less hair-trigger "Oh you built tech-mining on a size three colony, now Sindria thinks you're making too much fuel", and if there are additional stages of response before the factions start bringing out the big sticks.  (I do like the notion of faction-sponsored pirate raids.  Or even "pirate" raids - maybe one of those "deserter" fleets got an offer of amnesty if they just do this one thing...)

So... not going to go so far as "Don't do this!" - it's possible there's context around this change that I'm missing.  But don't do it without actually considering how it changes the gameplay.

[Alex]

Here's the full set of expedition changes in-dev:

Punitive expeditions:
      Fixed issue with wrong reason being displayed sometimes
      More variety in which colonies are targeted
      Will no longer be sent out by the faction the player is commissioned by, if any
      Will result in a 5-point reputation penalty when the expedition starts
         And a 5-point penalty when it arrives in system
         No reputation penalty for fighting the expedition's fleets
         Reputation cost to avert reduced to 20 points
      Takes roughly twice as long for factions to build up towards sending an expedition
      After 2-3 expeditions are sent (total, by all factions), no expeditions will be sent for 6 to 12 months

[Wyvern]

So once you've got a decently productive colony, you're looking at needing to gain anywhere from 10 to 60 reputation with random factions, per in-game year, to break even.  That seems doable, but also more than a bit annoying to deal with.  (Especially the random factions part - which factions I can reasonably gain reputation with is -also- random, based on who has bounties out and where they are and how strong they are.  While that may balance out in the long run, it's fairly easy for there to just not be any good options for reputation gain with a given faction for a year or two.)

      After 2-3 expeditions are sent (total, by all factions), no expeditions will be sent for 6 to 12 months

While this does help with the 'constant stream of expeditions' effect, I actually do -not- like this; it results in the backwards logic of "Oh, I'm at the expedition cap, so I might as well go ahead and toggle on free port and use all these AI cores, because nothing I do can make my situation worse."

[Alex]

Hmm, you know, it might make sense to just move the entire reputation penalty to "when the expedition fails". That way you can avoid the penalty with bribes, and if the expedition succeeds, at least there's a slight silver lining.

While this does help with the 'constant stream of expeditions' effect, I actually do -not- like this; it results in the backwards logic of "Oh, I'm at the expedition cap, so I might as well go ahead and toggle on free port and use all these AI cores, because nothing I do can make my situation worse."

This doesn't apply to Hegemony inspections, just punitive expeditions. You're also not going to know what the exact timeframe is, and probably won't be sure whether this interval has been triggered or not. Plus, free port isn't something you usually want to keep toggling just due to how it works.

[Wyvern]

This doesn't apply to Hegemony inspections, just punitive expeditions. You're also not going to know what the exact timeframe is, and probably won't be sure whether this interval has been triggered or not. Plus, free port isn't something you usually want to keep toggling just due to how it works.

Good to know that about the AI inspections.

And no, you wouldn't be dynamically toggling free port on and off; it'd be more "Well, we're getting punitive expeditions at the max rate just for fuel/supplies/smuggled-drugs... might as well turn free port on and leave it on; over time that'll give us more profit without actually making more expeditions happen, just different ones."  It's not dependent on exact time frame, just on the knowledge that there is a cap and that you're probably at it even with free port off.

[Alex]

Ah, I see what you mean, thank you for elaborating! I don't think that's exactly how it plays out, though - with free port, "anger" will get built up more quickly, so while the "quiet" period will not be affected, you'll get the 2-3 expeditions more quickly, which will mean a higher rate of expeditions over time.

So if say the quiet period is 6 months and it normally takes 6 months for 3 expeditions to play out, but free port cuts that down to 3 months (all numbers 100% made up), then that's 3 expeditions per 9 months instead of per 12, etc.

Ultimately what this means is there's some diminishing returns on on things that build up anger, but they should always have some effect. And since the anger-buildup is halved, the time it takes for those expeditions is longer than in the current version, so there's more impact.