I was thinking about ubers and how they (usually) do most of the dps in a level... hence the Juggernaut was born.

Now make it launch EFDN (fighters that launch fighters), 5 random tier 1 fighters every second, 6 tier 2 every 10 seconds and 10 tier 3 every minute.

Basically just an overwhelming wave of fighters + some huge AP missiles.

We can throw it somewhere and staple on the appropriate tech level/content.

Now go! Fighter based uber.

I assume you have already met and soloed Arby with your FC?

Arby can be soloed by a sniper or MC'd fairly easily... it's hardly an epic uber.

"Solo with 1 single FC" does not mean get your sniper or get a shm.

What about EF Jug that launches EFDN fighters which launch EFBS fighters which launch EFBC fighters which launch EFC fighters which launch EFD fighters which launch EFF fighters which in turn launch chicuawa fighters!!! There should be so many capships on screen star sonata goes into shock and you die from the lag!

We've had bosses spawning adds for a while now, however, the ability to add scripts to them (essentially making them bosses, not just dumb AI) was only recently added.

HAL is still working through a few issues with these sub-bosses:

• aggro code: AI literally spawn without shared aggro atm, meaning we have to employ some fairly crude hacks / cheats to get boss spawned adds to attack you. This becomes a real issue in Wild / non-instanced ubers, where the potential is there that the hacks can spread the aggro to random strangers, their bases and newbies in zebucarts.
• decay times / despawn so we don't get people deliberately spawning thousands to crash the server. At the moment, if the parent AI dies, the adds decay within 3 seconds. This removes tactics and/or chained fights.
• boss scripts decoupling (a la Hives): the problem here is that if a roaming / wild boss loses it's script, it can either start rampaging, or turn into a toothless vegetable, allowing uber drops to be farmed etc. There's very good reasons why Hives are so random & show such odd behaviour: we can't trust them not to decouple, and start wiping out the entire of Perilous AI.

However, once the code parts are cracked, the content side can do a lot of interesting things. But the code changes are still being written; once this code goes in, we'll probably re-write a few scripts anyhow, to remove all the cheesy hacks that will no longer be necessary.

The new T21 stuff Col Legno did uses some of these techniques, as does Blue's Easter surprise (let's just say - "bunnies have lots of babies").

I've been slowly cracking away at the EF Capitals, and the current versions on test theoretically should be launching multiple missile types, fighters and attacking all at the same time. It's actually very handy if people go and poke them, as technical stuff like "AI uncoupled from boss script; lost skills so over-hulled cannot use missiles / fighters" or "will only use missiles, refuses to use fighters" or "addicted to #1 weapon type, refuses to use lasers" are all very handy feedback loops to allow us to see why they're not working as intended. All of these I think I've solved ~ I'm hoping post-patch the EF will be a bit more exciting / dangerous.


Oh, and once that code is done... well, we'll see. Fun times.