@tigga I think strongholds don't shoot power creeps is just a bug.

Actually I've just played this game for < a week and I'm only RCL5 and GCL1, so I still have to keep watching over my base to see if there is any bugs in my code. My position is at Shard3, room E14N37. The only difference between me and other newbies is that I've read a lot of posts by high GCL players.

I think most high GCL attacks are focused on bugs in the defense code, since direct attacks will be degraded into a war of attrition. Finding bugs would cost a lot of time, and fixing those artificially created edge-case can be very time and CPU intensive, and will take up a lot of code size. And some old players are already using up their code size limit.

@tigga said in Encouraging more combat at high GCL:

If you've automated you don't have to watch over your base...

I think I still have to watch over my base on high GCL, but I shouldn't have to do that very often. At least my base should be able to defend against a constant attack for 7 days at RCL8, and even longer on high GCL. Maybe like Factorio, in late game I'd need to spend more time offline developing more advanced algorithms and strategies than actually playing the game.

@tigga said in Encouraging more combat at high GCL:

A player can claim and fortify all rooms next to the a power-enabled room

Now that's a good point. A passive defender with a power enabled room may lose out here, though if he can block of your room before it hits RCL 6 then maybe not. Attacking by claiming is certainly an option against power rooms as the 40% safe mode uptime isn't enough to counteract the fact you can't spawn creeps. I think power battles are relatively unexplored terriatory.

Good point, but I think you might have misunderstood my post. Perhaps I used the word 'However' incorrectly, but originally I meant that a player can claim and fortify all rooms next to his own power-enabled room (My plan is to claim and fortify all rooms next to my power-enabled room at late game, when my GPL allows me to do that), making it completely irrelevant whether its power is enabled or not. The attacker can't break the defense of the power-disabled room around it, thus protecting the target room from any attack but nukes. Nukes alone will probably attrition the attacker more than the defender.

The concept of using the advantage of defense to attack sounds cool though.

I wonder if changing the game balance towards attackers will make people favor connected rooms over spreading out, as connected rooms can be invulnerable even with power enabled. Pro: Have better defense and can be far more difficult or even impossible to siege without turning the siege into a war of attrition. If the enemy tries to nuke u, then u can focus many rooms' nukes on his room to disrupt production and go counterattack. Con: Less spread out, develop slower and can lose more easily in a war of attrition.

Oh shit, I better let all my creeps in the SK room suicide as soon as they see an invader.

I think it is good as it is. If attacking is easier than defense, I'd have to keep watching over my base to have it not destroyed. This game is about automation, and having to keep watching over my base is against this. Perfect defense should be possible, and even if it is extremely difficult to set up, practically unbreakable defense should be feasible. Power is good in that the defender can choose to not use it if he doesn't want the risk. However, there is a problem: A player can claim and fortify all rooms next to the a power-enabled room(which is my plan). There are quite many rooms on the map with only 2 or even 1 exit. Another thing: defense will be much easier if the defender has a room next to the attacked room. Disrupt terminal can be worked around by transporting directly, and the defender will have double spawning capability.

@tigga Thx for the code. Seems that their movement is quite braindead: just move towards source. They ignore infrastructures and also ignore creeps out of RangedAttack range. They won't try to move towards my ranged creeps and away from melee creeps.

My base is on Shard3, Room E14N37. I'm currently at RCL4. Due to a poorly made decision, I'm now in a situation of not having enough sources to harvest. I'm now harvesting 2 sources at near full effciency. This means a steady income of 20E/t minus maintainence costs. However I can't find any more sources that are close enough to harvest. I don't consider attacking other players an option since I fear I may be roflstomped. I'm currently planning to harvest SK sources for more income. This is an interesting challenge only for a newb, since at RCL7+ it's easy to roflstomp those SKs. My questions are:

1. How do these SKs behave? I've heard that for server performance, SKs are very brainless (rushing to close combat creeps instead of trying to kite them) and they will ignore any creep 5 tiles away. Is that true?
2. What's the combat mechanic? I've seen that close combat creeps counterattack on every close combat hit. How does that work?
3. Do they attack infrastructures?

My current plan:

1. If they are stupid and there's no counterattack, then I'll coordinate 2 x (24T 8M 8A) creeps. 2 should be enough in this case.
2. If they are stupid but they counterattack every time they are attacked, then I have to wait till RCL5 and use a (26T 10M 13A) creep to defeat it. I'll have a healer supporting my creep in this case.
3. If the SK has intelligent AI then I'll simply give up since I can't find any solution without costing too much CPU.

Edit: I'm at RCL5 now, and I haven't began yet due to a NPC stronghold blocking in the way. It turned out to be case 2. Since the SK respawn every 300 ticks, I'll add another healer to fix the damage.

It is more difficult than I originally thought, since I have to deal with invaders and strongholds. I'll not consider defending against other players for now, since harvesting SK is difficult enough, and there is enough SK for everyone. I doubt if anyone harvests SK in shard3.