Topics

1

AI War / Too many ship types?

« on: November 23, 2010, 04:36:58 PM »

With the new additions of guardians as AI unique ships, and the new ships added in light of the spire, I've noticed that the AI has an extraordinary number of ships.

One game last night I was playing with Draco18s, and we were about two hours in or so, at 130 AI progress, and I took a look at one of the AIs. He had 13 unique ships (not counting fighter/bomber/missile frigates), in addition to 10 different kinds of guardians present at a system. This isn't just hard to keep track of,  it is literally impossible. You just have to build a fleet that can kill anything regardless of bonuses/penalties. And that is just for one AI, the other one had another 12-13 ships of its own unlocked


There is no way a player can be reasonably expected to keep track of 30 different kinds of mobile ships that the AI fields. I thought the idea was that the AI unlocks 2 at the start each, and slowly gets a few more as the game goes on? What happened to that? Now they just field whatever they like at all times? And because of this, the fleet blob is the only viable tactic, just build a fleet with equal bonuses to every ship type since the AI is always going to be fielding armies of every ship type.

I miss the old AI war, where we actually could build around what the AI had unlocked, and try to actually focus research and tactical maneuvers based on that, rather than just building the same boring blob of ships and throwing them at the enemy...

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AI War / Rock Paper Shotgun

« on: October 27, 2010, 11:32:45 AM »

Rock Paper Shotgun, the blog that did a few articles on AIWar before (and in fact a fairly long writeup of their experiences playing it), has posted a big article about the new version of AIWar
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/10/27/the-a-i-war-update-to-end-all-updates/

Just a small little unknown blog, its only the largest PC games blog on the net 

3

Off Topic / Rogue AIs

« on: October 13, 2010, 12:31:52 PM »

So, playing AI war has gotten me thinking, which AIs in literature/gaming/ect would actually have the potential to turn into the sort of AI seen in this game. I'd like to hear other people's sugguestions to add to the list

So far my list consists of the following:
Allied Mastercomputer, I have no mouth and I must scream
-Hates all of humanity, plays with humans out of spite/hate, very similar in taunting methods to how the in-game voice taunts.

Deus, Shadowrun
-Sees humanity as tools to modify to serve him, aggressively tries to expand power.

Shodan (System Shock)
-Sees self as deity, and humans as impure creations to wipe out

Berserkers, Berserkers series
-Programmed to kill all non-machine life

Inhibitors, Revelation space
-Bent on restricting civlizations from expanding in this galaxy, not necessarily homicidal

Neuromancer/Wintermute combined construct, Neuromancer
-Willing to manipulate humans for its own gain. Largely uninterested in humans once it has gained full sentience. Possible explanation for the AI being so uninterested in actually finishing off humanity.



The following are notably NOT the AIWar AI:
Hal 9000, 2001 a Space Odyssey
-Cold and logical, only wipes out humanity since human-failure hinders the mission. Would leave non-interfering humans alone. IE: Human colonies and enclaves would be ignored if they stayed introverted, which is not the case.

Borg, Star Trek
-Collective AI, would assimilate captured human colonies rather than keep them functioning. And does not act with a singular centralized purpose as AIWar AIs do.

Cylons, Battlestar Galactica
-Non-collective AI, servants of another species (old series), or simply too individualistic to be the impartial AI seen in AIWar

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Dealing with a botnet-golem golemite AI

« on: August 24, 2010, 09:05:33 AM »

So, I'm in a game with two AI8s, one is a golemite, but it has an active botnet golem on a chokepoint world I "have" to take, and I'm wondering what the best way to take it out would be. The only ship I have unlocked is Z beam frigates, and the new siege starships.

My initial idea is to build a few spacedocks and flood the warp-gate with a ton of fighters so the botnet golem (very slowly) kills itself reclaiming fighters from me, but does anyone else have a good suggestion on the best way to handle it?

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AI War / Teleport Raiders vs Neinzul expansion

« on: August 18, 2010, 09:04:28 AM »

I've been using Teleport Raiders in a recent savegame of mine, and I noticed that they absolutely tear through every single unit added in the Neinzul expansion. Is this just me, or do they seem to be the best counter to all of the stuff added there?

6

AI War / Bomber Mark3s

« on: August 27, 2009, 02:51:01 PM »

So, I've had the "pleasure" of fighting bomber mark 3s, and I noticed something. Their shield values are huge. Nothing I can field even hits them. Everything that isn't missile based has a 5% chance or worse of hitting them (even T3 fighters only have a 30% chance). Even raid starships, which are supposed to be good against them (as per the +98% tooltip) can't touch them at T3, though they slice through T1 and 2 like they're made of soft butter.

Are they supposed to go from "well, they're good solid ships" at tier2, to "unkillable machines of base-destruction" at tier3?