This post will be updating during the evening tonight.

Looking forward to it. Love the new texture for the ship and the planet

Oh, nice. I'm liking some of the AI updates that the screenshots are showing off, like the Korath taunting the player. I hope you've got more stuff like that in the works, that's awesome.

Glad to know that the AI is going to become much more lethal in the final version. The current versions are a reliable challenge, but they tend to squander many of their advantages. Especially the Thalans... I'm looking forward to being able to have those guys in my game without them just being an easy target for everyone to roll over.

Burning the midnight oil?

hehe, keep up the good work!!

This doesn't really belong here, but since we're talking about the ai..

Is it possible to add variations to what the AI says? Such as
EnemyMad1 - "Oh shit am I mad"
EnemyMad2 - "You're going to get it now"

The Ai sometimes lacks in these areas and gets repetitive. :/

Have Wyndstar's concerns regarding the expensive Thalan tech tree been addressed?
Thoughts and analysis on TA as of beta 4



Some suggestions for improving the AI:

(1) Don't Waste the Start of Game Money/Capital
The biggest mistake the AI makes is it spends its start of game money/capital as fast as it can rather than saving most of it for funding its early empire that will be running with a deficit. I set spending at 100% but set my taxes low to keep morale at 100% on all or most of my planets to grow my population at twice the rate. I won't buy colony ships but will buy a factory or lab on a 300% or greater bonus square but the rest is saved for funding my early empires spending. As my morale bonus increases from morale techs and starbases mining morale resources, I raise taxes. When I run out of money then I raise taxes and with my large population (by this point I'm passing even the Super Breeder on level Suicide), my economy shoots past the AIs.
Detailed Suicide Medium Map DA AAR!
Population Graph

(2) Design Cheap Colony, Constructors, and Space Miners
In the original DL and in DA, I use small hulls for my colony, constructors, and space miners, until I reach miniaturization 25%, at which point I use tiny hulls. In ToA I'm forced to use cargo hulls until I unlock small hulls.

(3) No Armed 1HP Cargo Hull Planetary Defenders
In ToA I see the AI building armed 1HP cargo hull constructors and space miners. 1HP cargo hull based planetary defenders are more expensive and more fragile than small or tiny hull based combat ships.

(4) No Planetary Defenders with Defenses but No Weapons
I've also seen planetary defenders loaded with lots of defenses but no weapons. Without weapons the planetary defender can't defeat an armed ship. Adding the defenses just increases the cost of the ship but it still will only block non-armed ships. A cheaper non-armed blocked would be an empty tiny hull ship.



I was invited by Scott "Boogiebac" Tykoski in an e-mail on the 16th to participate in the gamma testing which I of course responsed, YES! I'm still waiting for word from Scott or Cari, on how to access the gamma release!

Paul D. (aka Mascrinthus)

Does anyone have that same kinda feeling you got waiting on Christmas Eve as a kid? LOL

I take it the create custom opponents button won't be grayed out anymore in the final relese.

Oh and I posted thsi before so I hope it got some attention by stardock about how custom planets won't lord into a custom map outside those of the usual custom planets XML for the orignal races. Meaning, when creating a custom map, if you were to give a planet and star the same names as a player made custom planet and star it wouldn't load into the custom game, instead it would just crush. However, that isn't the case if you give a planet in a custom map the name earth, for example it would still load into the game, however if you give a custom races planet name, say my custom race's homeworld, Dragonor, the game wouldn't load, but instead crush.

Now the game does seen to have a problem loading into randomly generated maps, but it does for whatever reason have a problem with loading into custom maps and that bothers me. I sent word of this stardock and I hope they'll addrass.

ooo you get to play gamma version ?
We want in !!!

Hasn't been for some time now, actually. The latest beta versions allow custom races using any of the tech trees.

Hey, Frogboy, are you going to update this? I really want to see how it panned out!

I died. Badly.

Can you give us details about how exactly you died?

Oh, and I'm curious about Wyndstar's Thalan concerns as well.

Eeeeeexcellent. Looking forward to playing the final AIs when the final release rolls around.

Out of curiosity, how much post release support is planned for TA? I understand you're busy with god knows how many projects at once, but I have to wonder if the AI is going to get even BETTER sometime post release...

Now, **I** want to get the juicy details of that impressive conclusion, also!

If the actual main designer of this game gets his ass kicked by his own brainy by-products it tells me only one thing; Twilight has in fact got beyond its miscellaneous algorithm tricks in a sort_of_magical (almost mythical) way.

When i was coding Psyclon back in the mid 80's (don't try, nobody has ever heard of this junk!) and seriously went on to try fixing a few dysfunctional calls, it suddenly started to breath up on its own. No matter what i've kicked into the spaghetti code, it always looped off to the wacko drips straight at the heap. I even triggered soooo much preventive measures to monitor the issue, it simply crashed once, twice, again. This is exactly when i realized, design is NOT a concern but rather a source of inspiration to build upon.

Now, i'm not nearly at any programming level you have certainly reached but i'm sure you will agree with me that whatever can cause THE machine to crush around that much above a human intelligence is, indeed, some key demonstration of a truth -- emotion doesn't cut it when reason has the edge. Even during any game while IT develops.

AIs are such a wonderful device. Once we think the thing is under control, it definitely slaps right back to our face. Swiftly.