The Deliverance Engine..An Idea

Gee...I really liked my idea... naturally.

It does sound interesting. The key maybe in the targeting parameters. Not sure if you can individually target Cultural Centers maybe the biggest hang up.

Yeah.  That's the catch.  From a modding angle I think you could make it capture "planet modules" but that would be pretty devastating in some cases (your titan factory for example).

Wish there was a way to set it off.  I think it would make culture actually combat-strategy useful.

Interesting idea..  I actually quite like it.

It's really not hard.  I've been thinking about this for a while now and by using a method like what the Rankulas uses for it's ultimate, doing this would be easy.

You see, you could add a passive to each object in the game in it's last slot and would be passive.  For the culture centers, it would just be AbilityIsCultureCenter which would apply BuffIsCultureCenter to itself.  Then, by using the new buff checking and a target filter for planet modules, you could apply it solely to culture centers.

Of course, it would still be nicer if we could do entity checking, but that's not happening any time soon, so this'll have to do.

Hmmm...I bet if you made it and then uploaded it for us it would make a lot of sense.

I'll make you cookies.

I am also thinking of modder's here too--some ships/structures in some mods won't have a free slot for a passive.  Can it be done just to the culture center?

Oh yeah.  Easily done to just culture centers.  I can go ahead and create it though.  It's really not too bad.

I didn't bother to change the strings, but it works:

http://www.mediafire.com/?5b697da20j5xy4s

I've got an idea.

You know how capitol ships repel enemy culture?

What if the DE spawned ships in the gravwell fired at that repelled enemy culture?  Don't know if this is possible since I've never looked at the files governing culture repulsion and spawning ships, but it would be like a dark fleet that does no damage and repels enemy culture by quite a lot while it survives.  You could give the ships some sort of defense against enemy strikecraft and they could have disabled jump drives so they are limited to the target planet.  

It would only really be useful for planets at or near the border (since it can't create it's own culture) but isn't that the case at the moment anyway?

I never cease to be amazed at how effortless this is to you, Volt.  Nice work.

I haven't checked it yet but this should be interesting.

If you don't mind, I'd love to put this on my Yggdrasil mothership (it has a mobile deliverance engine on it).  Credit will be given of course.

@AseOfSpadez

Spawning things on impact is something I'd brought up awhile back--like mines through the gravity well.  You could actually (I think) put a culture buff on them.  Nice idea too.

If you want to do that, you'll probably want to do this version instead:

http://www.mediafire.com/?w5fd8pox8nvajbe

This version contains the string as well, though I didn't bother to create the images to go along with it.

Thanks for the compliment though.    The buff chain basically works by causing the deliverance signal upon impact to apply buffs to all planet modules as would have been done before by ApplyBuffToTargetsAtOrbitBody.  Then, this buff conditionally applies a new buff to each of those modules.  The last buff effectively does the same thing as Domination and the condition under which it is applied is if it has the buff BuffIsCultureCenter which is applied by a passive ability that I stuck on all culture centers.

Yeah, but what if the planet has no culture centers?

Advent superweapons have always been hit and miss.  I think it needs to be more assured of working well.

How 'bout you make them take over the resource asteroids too?  That'll make it more effective regardless, since the enemy will automatically destroy the culture centers anyway (which destroys their effectiveness, since until the culture spread completely leaves the phase lane closest to your forces, it will still be giving the enemy a 10%boost.)

I ran it today and last night and it seems to work flawlessly so far. No bugs, hang ups or glitches.

It forces the AI to rebuild new centers in the well, send reinforcements to destroy them or build them at other worlds to counter them.

The deliverance boost even makes them more effective.  

Friendly or hostile planets can be targeted and it works if they are unoccupied on impact too.

The normal deliverance engine effects still apply.

I hit three AI worlds repeatedly so it built a huge cluster at a nearby desert world--7 culture centers--which I promptly popped too.

Greatjob sir.

Thanks 

I too tried it in a game against a single hard AI on Centrifuge and it really helped to break the turtle.

Honestly though, once you learn where the enemy has their culture centers just target that planet and what their entire empire fall.  Given that it was a small map, the AI only built them on two planets to counteract my culture (I was AL, it was TR), so I fired at those two and given that it was such a small map, it really made the difference.  I haven't played a larger game with them like this yet, but I've got to say, on small maps at least, the this version of the DE is deadly.

YW--compliment well deserved.

In a larger, multi-star map, I had a scenario where an AI was turtled far away in it's comfort zone.  It had only built one or two culture centers.

By taking that planet with a DE hit, I forced the AI to deploy it's capital ship there to eliminate it, and then rebuild it.  It also ended up building an additional culture center nearby at a planet threatened by the sudden culture surge.

So I managed with one DE shot to:

• Force destruction of a planet module with no recovered income.
• Force re-construction of the module .
• Force construction of a new module taking up a logistics slot previously available at another world.
• Temporarily decrease a couple of planet's allegiance levels and income.

It's great because the AI is schooled in what a culture attack and immediately started responding with countermeasures.  I also noted that after I launched a DE or two, the AI responded by building the maximum allowed novaliths and firing back.

So this isn't a "stupid AI trick" that capitalizes on a change the game can't cope with.  Great ability.  I think it should be standard with the DE in-game as it certainly gives it a lot more value without supercharging it and making it absurd.

P.S. Thanks for the updated file too!

The second one actually includes a "bug" fix.  You see, for testing purposes, I made it deal damage to see which componenets were working correctly because at first it wouldn't capture them.  The first version I gave you still had the damage in there because I forgot to yank it out.  The second version doesn't have that.

LOL--yes...I did notice the exploding things and looked in your files and and saw that.   Thanks for putting it back to where it should be (I just edited it out later).

On the first use I hit it with 4 DE's simultaneously and noticed the culture centers exploding.

lol yeah..  

I've been enjoying playing with this version of the DE.  Great idea.    If this doesn't get in the game itself, I'm sticking this in the Rebellion version of Rebalanced Races when I get around to making it.

I thought it was a good idea and your ability-buffs are perfect.  I PMed asking them to consider it in Rebellion as well.  

This is a pretty minor change compared to all the other things going on in Rebellion and is the first practical DE alternative that "fits" that I have ever seen.

It could be pretty upsetting being on the receiving end of this I bet.

The solution to negate the old DE was just put a culture center down--now that can actually be leveraged against you.

I haven't tried it, but it looks pretty good from looking at your files. On BuffCannonShellPsiApplyOnCultureCenters I would just make it an instant action, I don't think its worth while to keep checking for them to build new culture centers to apply the buff to. They should only be taken over with the initial blast IMO, plus its more efficient.

This sounds great, shame I don't have Rebellion in order to play around with it, because its something the DE has been needed for a long time.

This is the dawn of the Deliverance Engine.

That would be fine by me.  I'll see about updating it after bit.

Its just my two cents, if you want it to constantly take over culture centers (even though no intelligent player will probably build them in that case, so you'd just be hurting the AI) go ahead. Nothing wrong with it if that's indeed what you want.

I hadn't looked at the new Rebellion stuff to carefully, but those conditions will really change the modding scene. We can basically make our own constraints with them now, as you did here, which by itself opens up a huge number of possibilities.

I knew that's what it does.  I don't care either way, but since the thing was already using a periodic action, I decided to be lazy and copy it and just replace a couple values.

Definitely don't want it as a permanent effect--just the initial hit.  As I played it, that's what it did. So I'm a bit confused here as to what is or isn't working?  For me, it seems to be functioning as an instant action--is it actually checking periodically after?  If so, it isn't producing any effect.

I'll take that update.

Yeah--feel your pain there. Rebellion does provide a lot more modding possibilities.