Difficulty levels

^^^^ What she said. Feels the AI has been nerfed a lot over the last 6 months or so. The main issue I notice is the AI not taking shots when it probably should.

"She".

Apologies  

No harm done.

I did make the suggestion of different types of hazards with configuration options for it, if implemented either in the base game or via mods that could help

Just think of the strategies you could come up with if you tossed in some wormholes and collapsed it while the enemy is in it or fire through it to give em a broadside

It's a tricky balance, because it wouldn't be hard at all to (accidentally or not) make an essentially unbeatable AI, given that the computer would always know exactly when to fire, how to move to avoid your shots, etc.

This is regarding to the ai in fleet battles? Here I struggle with 'idiot' level ai. You folks are fleet battle admirals if playing on higher difficulties... /bows... 

I have tried every level of difficulty, and I find it very difficult to lose.

I suppose it's possible that I've just built some truly amazing ships, but...I don't think so.

Well, no, that is quite possible (your ship designs are awesome, btw).

How do you go when you're playing the stock ships?

I kinda...don't. I don't much care for 'em, to be honest.

And thanks.

Oooo I build amazing ships in GCIII.

Can you (masanw)  give me some tips on what weapons to incorporate and why (for Fleet Battles) It never occurred to me I suck because of the stock options kinda are sub par but I figured I should learn with what is going to be in the campaign. 

I get the impression they haven't gotten a lot of focus lately.

I got the impression from a video that I watched that even the ships in the campaign can be modified.

I might be wrong, it was just something they said in passing, but it sure sounded like it.

Yeah nothing was more frustrating back in sc2 than flying in with a vux intruder and then your opponent would send a slylandro probe, you could fight for an eternity with the ai just steering well clear of you.

hoping the AI is aggressive enough to not just simply try and avoid players

Heh. Most of my ships were designed with precisely that in mind, at least for the player.

I have one ship--small but super-fast--with Boarding Party and Heal; it sends wave after wave after wave of troops at the enemy and just replenishes its crew, all the while staying well out of range of any weapon.

NASTY little ship, and it's very difficult to lose using it.

Yea, right now the focus is finishing the Assault/Defend mode which requires a great deal of AI work.  Then once all the 1.0 weapons are completed, the focus will return on AI for the Super-Melee mode of Fleet Battles.

I haven't dipped my toes in the ship designer for ages (because I suck at that kind of creative stuff, making adventures is what I like to do) but are weapons modifiable in the UI yet?

i.e. can I add a scryve laser but say that it only does 1 crew per second damage instead of the default, or add XYZ gun and change it's firing rate and damage to make it feel different from the ship it was originally for, etc?

What about spiffy add-on effects, like the Pkunk random respawn on death, or the Orz rotatable turret gun, etc?

Gosh, I'd love it if we could modify weapon stats. Speed, damage, energy used, rate of fire, range, etc.

Goodness knows that I've been feeling a bit limited in what I want to put on my ships; having moddable weapons would be eight completely different flavors of awesome.

I mean, I'm told we'll occasionally be getting new weapons from the team--and we still need weapons that fire in a specific direction and not just forward--but it'd be great to make our own, too, even if it's just a modification of the ones that come with the game.

In the final version will assault defend be in?