Messages

1

AI War / Oh no! This exo-wave's got an artillery golem!

« on: May 31, 2012, 10:20:16 AM »

It's going to take out a hard-won botnet or armoured golems! I'd better do someth-... Oh, it just overkilled an MLRS turrent instead. And then another one. And another. Then I killed it.

What's the target selection algorithm for these? I'm playing an all-out head-to-head LoTS slugfest at the moment, and artillery golems in exo waves are basically a big fat yawn, because (a) they shoot turrets first if any are around, and (b) if not, they'll shoot at Spirecraft, but at a different one every time. It takes out the shield module, but that's all, so I don't care.

These *ought* to be scary, especially given how effective they are in player's hands. It would be nice to have a special target priority list for them: kill the most expensive ship you have. Every shot should be >250K resources down the drain, to give the desired "KILL IT! KILL IT NOW!" response.

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AI War / Reclamation gone mad

« on: May 04, 2012, 03:24:17 AM »

Is it just me, or has the reclamation gone slightly weird in the last couple of betas? In a game I had recently, nearish the start of the game, I faced a wave of 600 raiders with my fleet comprised of the triangle ships, vampire claws, and a smattering of starships including 3 leech I starships. At the end of the battle I had ~250 raider mk Is in my fleet, which seems a trifle unlikely. Are leech starships now doing reclamation splash damage or something?

3

AI War / Re: Thoughts on Spirecraft

« on: March 23, 2012, 04:56:16 AM »

The thing you have to remember with Rams is the 0.001 hull type multiplier vs command-grade. I had a large exo-wave spawn with a HK mk V in the middle of it, but decided it wasn't a problem as I'd just send 10 or so assorted Rams at it and then mop up. They didn't even dent it.

After that, I've kept a cap of Penetrators in reserve - I know they're supposed to be offensive "first strike" ships, but they're absolutely fabulous on exo-wave defence instead. Goodbye HK!

4

AI War / Re: Liking the new plasma starship

« on: March 23, 2012, 04:39:18 AM »

Just to confuse the issue more, may I just point out that I *like* the alien starships and unlock them early on every game. Damage boosts, good DPS, survivability, and immunity to gravity effects - what's not to like?

5

AI War / Advanced hybrids and hidden maps - not a good combo

« on: February 19, 2012, 05:23:39 PM »

I recently started a new game - 90 planets, 8/8 "random harder" AIs, LotS, advanced hybrids, no spirecraft/golems, and my usual "map is hidden" settings.

This was a mistake.

The super hybrid spawned. I'd found the dyson world (but only just), but only had ~50% of the galaxy scouted. By the time it had built the antagoniser, I had ~75% of the galaxy scouted. I only had 6 or 7 planets at this stage - not enough to fend off the gatlings and the hybrids for long. I threw my entire resource base into frantically scouting for the &$£%^"& hybrid, and finally found it (4 hops away from any friendly planet, all of those mkIII or mkIV) just before the gatlings overwhelmed my defenses.

Argh.

Memo to self: with lots of planets and advanced hybrids on, scouting just became *really* important. I'd been trying a game without spirecraft to avoid the cheats option of building a pair of spire scouts and covering the entire galaxy with them . Well, I was right: it *is* more difficult!

6

AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: AI War - A Guide to Golems

« on: January 31, 2012, 01:03:20 PM »

I have to confess, I'l slightly puzzled by the Artillery-Golem hate. OK, I'd rather have a Cursed Golem given the choice, but the ability to take down AI fortresses and eyes quickly (less time for reinforcement buildup) and without any losses whatsoever is a godsend. They're also great for dispatching Mining Golems: power down the AG, take it through the wormhole, target it on the MG, power it up, take it back out. Repeat 30 seconds later and you're done.

With a shot every 8 seconds, they're verging on the overpowered.

The other comment I'd make is on the Botnet Golem. These things would be overpowered even without the zombies - they make nearly all waves trivial with only a touch of micro. 600 bomber IIIs? Dead in less than a minute, with no damage taken in return.

7

AI War / Re: OK, so how does reclamation work, then?

« on: December 16, 2011, 06:47:41 PM »

Ah, that makes much more sense. Thanks for the explanations! I'd been wondering why my cap of mk I and II parasites were quite so useless on mk III and IV worlds.

Could the parasite (and spire teleporting leech etc) description be updated to give more of this info? At least the fact that reclamation damage scales strongly with mark difference should be mentioned.

8

AI War / OK, so how does reclamation work, then?

« on: December 09, 2011, 06:47:18 AM »

I have to confess that I'm somewhat puzzled by the reclamation mechanic. The description for Parasites, for example, says that they fire shots that do reclamation damage. Once the reclamation damage exceeds the health of the target, the target is reclaimed. Going by that description, if a parasite whittles away 99% of the health of a target, which is then finished off by something else, the target should not be reclaimed (as the reclamation damage was only 99% of its health). That's not what actually happens, as far as I can tell, which is just as well, as otherwise parasites would be completely useless.

So, what's the actual mechanism?

9

AI War / Re: Details about fallen-spire endgame mechanics

« on: November 27, 2011, 05:59:33 PM »

Rams are useless against HKs: they have a multiplier of 0.001 against command-grade armour.

I second the advice on camping an incoming wormhole - even HKs go down fairly fast when faced with 40-50 frigates. If otherwise overwhelmed, though, I have managed to whittle them down with a smaller fleet with lots of manual kiting. Just keep your fleet out of range and chip away at it over 4-5 planets.

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AI War / Re: Cross planet attacks and mid-late game expansion

« on: November 23, 2011, 03:56:37 AM »

A couple of other things I'd note:

1) Knowledge is power! You should have a scout on every hostile world with a wormhole to your space. As soon as the CPA is announced, go to the galaxy map and show "Detected Threat" - it will soon show you from which direction(s) you're facing attack.

2) You're (IMO) spreading your forces too thin. You shouldn't have 200 ships on each of 8 planets. Cover the incoming wormholes with tractor and gravity turrets to slow down any incoming forces, distribute a decent sprinkling of other turrets to handle low-level aggression, and have a single large rapid reponse fleet. When the CPA forces come in, you need to be meeting them with numerical superiority. If you're trying to fend off a 2000-ship fleet one planet at a time with 200-ship fleets then you're going to be slaughtered. Logistics command stations and the Zenith speed boost thingies help immeasurably here.

If you've got 3000 ships plus a few golems, then a 2000-ship mark-II wave really shouldn't be lasting longer than a few minutes. Let them have a planet if necessary while you get your fleet in order, then hit them with the whole lot at once.