Topics

1

Tidalis / Quick Save, or something similar? Brainteaser annoyance

« on: August 06, 2010, 10:55:32 AM »

I've been giving the Tidalis demo (1.000) a try. I was enjoying the brainteasers, but as they increased in complexity (at 5-3 now) I found it more and more irritating that it wasn't possible to tweak my previous solution, and would have to start from scratch each time.

Currently the best I can do is screenshot the solution before hitting the button, but that still means I have to painstakingly set everything back up again using that picture as a reference, before then making whatever tweak I want to try. After the 2nd or 3rd time this is no longer fun, and I'm now quite likely to just abandon it. It takes too long to try each idea.

I thought a quick save system would solve the problem, so you could save just before hitting the button, then reload if it didn't go as planned, but if there are other solutions I haven't considered then please let me know.

Thanks,

Alex

2

AI War Strategy Discussion / Forcefields and sniper turrets

« on: June 08, 2010, 08:55:33 AM »

I'm not quite clear on how the forcefield shot power reducing thing works. The wiki seems to have a completely different idea, as it doesn't mention that, but does say that shots damage the forcefield if fired through it, which I guess must be out of date?

When a unit says that it fires straight through forcefields, like a sniper turret, does that mean it's unaffected by the shot power reducing? What's the best way of telling if a given unit is affected or not?

In players' experience, is it worthwhile having defensive turrets under a forcefield anyway, on the grounds that even though they do 1/4 damage, they last more than 4x as long?

3

After Action Reports / Teleport Raiders

« on: June 04, 2010, 02:08:21 AM »

"Admiral, may I present to you the new wing seconded to us from General Andersson: 32nd Crack Suicide Squad - The Jumpers!"

"Very good, Number Two. So, you're the boys with those fancy new toys that popped up outside my flagship then?"

"SIR, YES SIR!"

"Excellent. Well, it can't have escaped your notice that we're separated from our destination by a large killing field covered by snipers and long-range turrets. With your ships you can jump straight over, take out the guns and jump back before they know what's hit them."

"SIR, NO SIR!"

"No?"

"NO SIR! IT'S OUR GUNS, SIR! CAN'T TOUCH THEM, SIR!"

"So you developed a ship that can strike deep within enemy lines, bypassing entrenched defenses, able to attack with utter surprise then leave before they can mobilse against you, and the weapons you mounted on it are?..."

"MINOR ELECTRIC AMMO, SIR!"

"I see. Which is good against?"

"BOMBERS, SIR!"

"Bombers? As in, ships which travel very slowley towards targets at known locations within our own territory, giving us ample time to deploy defensive formations against them?"

"SIR, YES SIR! CAN'T BE TOO CAREFUL, SIR!"

"Indeed. One more thing - 'Suicide Squad'? Surely with the capabilities of your ship, you can jump back to a repair station whenever damaged before immediately rejoining the fray, making your losses minimal?"

"OH NO, SIR, WE CAN'T DO THAT!"

"Dare I ask why not?"

"NO ARMOUR TO SPEAK OF, SIR!"

"I see..."

"ONE SHOT, ONE KILL. SIR!"

"I'm not sure that's exactly what that-"

"NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER!"

"Quite. Look, just form up with the rest of the fleet and await orders. Dismissed."

"SIR!"

"We'll just have to do this the old-fashioned way. Number Two, open a channel to the fleet... Alright everyone, listen up. I've sent details of an enemy fortification to your targetting computers; bunch up and travel at group speed towards them, ready to attack as soon as we're in range. I know not all of us will be coming home today, but just-"

"LEEEEEEROY!"
SNAP!, SNAP SNAP SNAP!, SNAP!

"What the hell was that? Number Two?"

"It's The Jumpers, sir. They've, er, jumped. Straight to the enemy fortification."

"I see. Losses?"

"Total, sir. They were wiped out."

"Of course. And the enemy?"

"Lost one bomber, sir."

"Number Two, inform General Andersson I wish to speak with him at his earliest convencience, please."

4

AI War Strategy Discussion / Nuclear Disarmament

« on: May 16, 2010, 05:14:32 AM »

Is there any way to safely dispose of an unwanted nuclear warhead? I've got a couple stored on a planet that isn't going to need them, which means I can't build new ones where I do want them. Apparently they don't fit inside a transport ship, and trying to move them under their own power has resulted in the AI suicidally blowing them up.

5

AI War Strategy Discussion / What's the counter to an AI starship swarm?

« on: April 19, 2010, 03:28:46 AM »

Can anyone tell me what the best way to deal with large numbers of defending AI starships is?

I'm at the end of a 14 hour campaign (AI level 5, 50 planet map), I'm at the last AI's homeworld, and the rest of my empire is reasonably well defended - at hour 10ish I fought off at 2k ship cross planet attack and rebuilt the damaged areas.

I've destroyed all of the core guard posts, and used leech starships to steal a whole bunch of core ships, and destroyed the others. I sent a couple of raid starships to ping the command station and tempt all the core ships defending that to attack me on my planet and I can reclaim or destroy all those. Now it only gets Mark IV reinforcement ships there (for reasons that aren't clear to me), so the occasional nuke takes care of them.

However, the AI seems to have got wise to these strategies, and the planet is now defended by 6 spire and 11 zenith starships that can't be nuked or tempted to follow me individually.

So, what kills starships in bulk? I've got a captured anti-starship arachnid fab, but the full cap of those, plus a whole bunch of assorted ships up to mark IV, plus the captured core ships (mostly drones) still get wiped out by the starship swarm all reinforcing each other.

6

AI War Strategy Discussion / Is this completely impossible, or am I missing something?

« on: April 10, 2010, 12:16:51 PM »

I'm new to this game, so after playing through all the tutorials, I thought I'd start with a simple 10 planet map and an easy AI level. Either I'm completely useless, or missing something, as I can't seem to do anything to progress here.

There are two clusters of five planets. From my starting planet, I could see one heavily defended Mark III planet to the west, and one more promising target to the north. I captured the one to the north, then the next one immediately adjacent to that which was slightly better defended, but had an advanced factory on it.

The next planet on the path was another Mark III, so I turned my attention back to the first one, bordering my home planet. That one is the gateway to the second cluster, so I must either pass through it, or defeat it. Passing through never got me very far - on one occasion I managed to briefly get a couple of ships through to the next planet, which turned out to be an AI homeworld.

So, as I see it, the only option is to attack the Mark III. It had one special forces guard post, and I think three other guard posts, along with an astro-train station. I killed the special forces post, and two of the other guard posts, but the third has a force field on it. Almost every ship was Mark V.

I've built up the largest fleet I can manage (300 bombers, 275 fighters of mark I and II, and 300 microfighters of II and III), along with a flagship. They are all sitting inside the hostile system, at a turreted beachead that I can defend.

I still can't send the fleet to take down the force field before the fleet is wiped out. I can't take out the defences around the wormhole to the AI homeworld without being wiped out. If I free the AI by dinging the command post, they overwhelm my defences and I'm wiped out. (I tried also building all turrets allowed by the cap at the beachead, still got wiped out).

Nuking doesn't work as there are about 2000 Mark V ships which survive the nuke, then wipe me out.

I'm just about completely out of ideas here. Is this map now unwinnable? Did I do something wrong to start with? This was supposed to be an easy starter campaign!