Messages

1

AI War / Re: Poll: Buff Spirecraft Health?

« on: April 13, 2013, 02:13:18 PM »

I voted yes for the combat spirecraft (Implosion Artillery and Siege Towers). Siege are fairly effective at countering lots of smaller ships but wildly underpowered against anything bigger. They're outranged by a lot of dangerous things, too.

I will say this for them, though: a full cap of Mk1-III towers has significant firepower and makes a fleetball pretty dangerous.

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AI War / Re: thoughts on marauders, resistance fighters, and roaming enclaves

« on: April 06, 2013, 02:45:07 PM »

I only play realistic maps, so I can't really speak to Vyndicu's comments. I like the fact that they stick together as a fleet, though. It's somehow appropriate to me. They may be allied to you, but they are an alien race. They probably don't trust you, and figure there is safety in numbers.

Wingflier, I think you've hit on a couple of important points. The Enclaves are extremely useful on attack. They don't always show up when you want them to, but when they do they hit hard. I can see that becoming a problem in some scenarios (attacking a nuclear eye, for example), but otherwise they're almost always a net positive.

I'm having a hard time thinking of what could seriously threaten my homeworld now that over 30 Enclave Starships are parked there. A cap on how many of them show up (maybe related to how many planets you hold?) could reduce their effectiveness. I also think they should be drawn to attack the hostile enclaves over most if not all other priorities. That would make them a little more interesting and unpredictable. What if the fleet was helping you attack a difficult world, then deserted you to chase after two hostile enclaves, alerting other planets and drawing even more AI forces into the battle?

It would also be interesting to see the hostile enclaves coordinate better with the AI. I don't know how easy that would be to program, but if they took into account CPA, wave, and exo-wave timing and massed their forces to take advantage of that...it would make for some hectic scenarios.

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AI War / thoughts on marauders, resistance fighters, and roaming enclaves

« on: April 06, 2013, 11:31:19 AM »

I've spent about twenty hours this week playing games with all these three factions on. I wanted to see how they work together, and whether they combined to make the game fun or frustrating. I've played with them all at intensities of 6 and 8, in different games. What follows are my observations and suggestions about them. I played at 7.6 difficulty for each AI, and AIP in mid to late games was 100-150. I'm not sure how each faction is affected by those factors, but I include them nonetheless.

The short answer is: these are very fun to mix together. You should try it.

I think Marauders are in a very good spot right now. At intensity 6, they show up every half hour or so, or when I'm being overwhelmed by, or overwhelming, the AI. They are truly equal-opportunity bandits: they'll happily wipe out AI forces as long as I don't engage them, and just as happily turn on me once they're done. They never allowed me to rest for long, and forced me to have at least a light defense on all of my planets.

At intensity 8, it seems like the only thing that changed was the frequency of attacks. I had to deal with them on average every 15-20 minutes. They still came in small groups of 40 or less, and caused the same kind of havoc that they would have, had I set them to 4 or 6. The only change I would suggest is that they come in larger groups on higher intensities, although this may make it frustrating rather than fun.

Resistance Fighters are hard to evaluate at the different intensities, because I could not figure out what made them decide to show up. In one game at intensity 8, I think I saw about 15 total, while in another at intensity 6, at least 50 over the same amount of game time. They seem to be the most random of the three factions I tried out. I would really like to know more about how they decide to help you: is it completely random, or do they come when you are suffering heavy losses? Are they more likely to come when you are further away from your own territory?

The Roaming Enclaves I tried mostly at intensity 6, and don't have much experience with them at 8. These are a lot of fun to have in my games. The hostile ones came about as often as the Marauders, and sometimes both would show up within moments of each other. In the early game, I needed to keep a small fleet in reserve to defend against these, but near mid-game I had sufficient defenses on each planet to hold most attacks at bay.

The Friendly Enclaves are a great help offensively and defensively. By default, they tend to cluster on your homeworld and not do much unless something attacks it. By the time they respond to a threat on a bordering world, I've usually dealt with it already. If you use the chat commands to disallow that, they become much more effective at defense. In fact, the chat commands allow a great degree of flexibility in how you use that fleet. I would like to see those implemented into other friendly factions like Resistance Fighters.

The fleet can get impressively large, too. After 9 hours in one game, I had 36 Friendly Enclaves ready to defend my planets, assist my attacks, or act independently. I would like to see something similar happen with the Hostile Enclaves in order to balance this. I rarely saw more than one of them attack my planets, and never more than two. If they could be made to cluster into fleets like the Friendly Enclaves do, that would make for more interesting, and frightening, scenarios.

I'm continually impressed with how much depth there is to this game, and how much effort goes into supporting it.

4

AI War / Re: Bonus Ship Types

« on: April 03, 2013, 04:38:22 PM »

I would suggest that perhaps the other units have roles you haven't considered, much like the eye bot.

I haven't used too many on your list, but the ones that jump out to me are the Sentinel Frigates, Infiltrators, and Bulletproof fighters. Sentinel Frigates are great at attrition while your fleet is around doing the bulk of the fighting. Because they tend to flee any engagements they stay alive pumping out damage for a much longer time than other ships. Infiltrators have force field immunity and cloaking if I remember correctly, and fulfill many of the same special roles an eye bot would. Bulletproof fighters are immune to 1/3 of the basic triangle along with all other shell-based ammo.

I'm not saying some fleet ships aren't underwhelming. I'm definitely not saying I don't have favorites. I am saying that there is more to most of the fleet ships than is apparent at first glance.

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AI War / Re: Bonus Ship Types

« on: April 03, 2013, 04:23:05 PM »

Eye bots end up doing a lot of things for me, and I'm always glad to see them in one of my games. Unless the AI has them.
They're immune to missiles, force fields, and insta-kill. They're cloaked and have a decent amount of damage. I use them to assassinate things under force fields that would take whole caps worth of ships to defeat otherwise. They also shut down MLRS and Missile Guard posts completely. They're incredibly useful.

If you're looking at everything from a min/max perspective, then it's hard to see what utility a ship might have that' s not related to its raw stats. I'm happy with the wide variety of ships and while some of them may need to be tweaked I don't see the need for a major overhaul of ship types.

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Marauders, Resistance Fighters, and Colony Rebellions

« on: April 02, 2013, 10:08:11 PM »

The Shield Bearers have kept my losses to a minimum on offense and defense, so that may be why I'm not seeing the Resistance Fighters as much. I suppose that means they'll really be there for me when I need them? 

Regarding the Colony Rebellions, I got the first notice at 7 hours in, which is about 1 hour earlier than I usually get them. I've used the ships extensively in this game and they are superb, even with the buffs to guard posts. Properly micromanaged, they can clear even high-mark worlds with few losses. The Frigate, with its speed and superior range, is particularly effective at kiting enemy ships around while the fighter/bombers engage guard posts.

I did not know that the colonies were susceptible to EMP. That makes the strategic choice to keep them even more interesting. In this game the AI seems to like EMP Guardians so I had better keep my eyes open.

Next game, I think I'm setting all the intensities at 8 to see how it changes things. I'm having a lot of fun with them enabled and may make them part of my permanent setup.

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Marauders, Resistance Fighters, and Colony Rebellions

« on: April 01, 2013, 10:48:28 PM »

The RNG might have just hated you in that game. I remember being surprised one game at how many small (5-20) groups of Resistance fighters kept springing up. What intensity were you playing at in that game?

I played another hour and a half and got a ship I rarely play with, the Eye Bot. With its cloaking and immunity to missiles and insta-kill, it's made the perfect MLRS and Missile guard post assassin. If you combine them with Shield Bearers, they can stand up to almost any combination of Guard post defenders. I only wish they were a bit faster, but then they might be too lethal in AI hands.

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Marauders, Resistance Fighters, and Colony Rebellions

« on: April 01, 2013, 03:41:47 PM »

In the end, I decided to put them all at 6 and start the game. I'm about three and a half hours in now.

You're not kidding about the Marauders. It seems like they come in force just about every time a large wave hits. They have helped me once, when I was in the process of neutering a Mark IV world. 40 of them came in and drew off a significant part of the AI forces while I went to work. They even took out two of the guard posts! I'm inclined to use them again in future games, as it has been quite enjoyable so far.

I haven't seen the Resistance fighters yet, which surprises me somewhat. Maybe they're just waiting for the right moment to show up? They have the same stats as the Colony Rebellion fighters, I think. It's too bad they don't spawn on the AI homeworlds, but I'm not sure I would want to either.

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Marauders, Resistance Fighters, and Colony Rebellions

« on: April 01, 2013, 09:08:49 AM »

I'm thinking of starting a game with these three option enabled, and setting their intensity from 6-8 each. I'm interested in other players' experiences with them.

I usually use, and quite like, the Colony Rebellions at an intensity of 4. Their fighter/bombers and frigates are some of my favorite units to use in the late game: they're fast, tough, and lethal. I assume that the higher intensity will mean that there are more rebellions, and that they will start earlier. I'm also assuming that the ship caps don't rise with the number of colonies you free. I'm looking forward to a fairly hectic mid-to-late game, as I struggle to split my time between making progress against the AI and managing the rebellions.

I can't remember using Marauders much at all. I do remember that their ships were durable and had a significant range advantage over most of my ships. They can show up anywhere, and probably will at inopportune times. I can imagine them causing a significant amount of frustration for the AI as well as me.

Resistance fighters should help to mitigate the Marauders slightly. I've rarely used this option so I don't know what to expect from it. I can't expect it will make the game any harder, though.

Has anyone else had experience with these settings and options?

10

AI War / Re: Deflector Drones

« on: March 31, 2013, 08:26:48 AM »

I haven't used them in a while, but don't they have some ridiculous range, like 11,000? I remember using them quite effectively, combined with Riot Starships, to thin out AI forces from a distance. They're also very useful at keeping your fleet alive against Laser Guardians, which tend to chew up bombers and Heavy Bomber Starships.

I'm not saying that they don't need a buff (I like raising the cap and the radius they can protect), but I wouldn't consider them as useless as many here do. That does make me the odd one out, but I'm used to that.

11

AI War / Re: My first victory!

« on: March 26, 2013, 04:45:30 PM »

Keith, I must admit I never thought about using my high-cap disposables to assault a homeworld, but I like the idea. The chaos it would have caused would have been delightful. I have a save a few minutes before I started the first assault, so I suppose I could go back and see how it works. With the way that the strategic reserve works, I'm not sure I even need to worry about an Eye on a homeworld. 500+ reinforcements allow me to bring in a pretty big hammer without worrying about activating the Eye.

Diazo, thanks for the thoughts about Plasma Sieges. I think you are correct: it's better to think of them as fleet support rather than pure DPS. Their utility against force fields alone makes them worth taking along with a fleet ball. I admit that there were plenty of times I used them for that purpose and was glad to have them.

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AI War / Re: My first victory!

« on: March 26, 2013, 12:07:59 AM »

The Mark V are in their own league, of course. I did get to play with Mk I-IV of each ship and can give you my impressions of each one.

The Spire and Zenith definitely feel tougher than the others, but mostly because their hull types aren't as vulnerable to guard posts as the others. You have to pay a little knowledge to unlock them, so I don't think they're overpowered. I think the Mk I would be a bargain at 1000k each.

The Zenith is just a beast of a Starship, hard to kill and lethal against anything not immune to missiles. When the AI has them at higher marks, you should target them first.

The Spire Starship is a different beast. It's tough and its weapon puts out a lot of damage in a short time. I used these a lot against missile posts and other things I wanted dead quickly.

Heavy Bomber Starships don't get a lot of love from some, but I like them a lot. Giving them the ability to hit fleet ships is nice, and they survive well against anything that doesn't have a bonus against their armor. Missile Guard posts counter them pretty directly, as I learned the hard way. They're pretty quick, and in this game I used them to chase down bombards and Blade Spawners, or anything else that was quick and deadly. They were also my number one guard post killer, with the obvious exception.

I'm not completely sold on Plasma Siege Starships. Their area damage under forcefields is nice, but they're so slow that they take a lot of damage from long-range guard posts and AI defenders. Their rate of fire is pretty low, too. Riot Starships do better at damaging engines, and at a longer range. This is the one starship I would say needs some sort of boost, but I don't know what exactly.

Raid Starships are, well, Raids. Lethal, quick, and fragile.

The Flagship line is pretty solid. They aren't as rugged as the others, but they have respectable damage. Their utility is in how they make your fleet better, though.

Leech starships are one of my favorites, especially at higher marks. They are extremely fragile, but worth sending into battle to get what you want from the AI.

13

AI War / My first victory!

« on: March 25, 2013, 10:33:35 PM »

I've been playing for over two years, and today I had my first victory! I can't believe how good it feels to be able to say that, finally.

I played a fairly simple game, 80 planets realistic, 7/7 vanilla AI, with only Zenith Traders and Human Colony Rebellions enabled. I usually play with Golems on medium but I wanted to see how I did without them. Because I like starships a lot, I decided to play a game where I didn't spend any knowledge on fleet ships. I let the RNG pick my bonus ship and ended up with laser gatlings. They became the primary escort for my starship fleet for most of the game.

I spent the first couple of hours scouting and building up my starship fleet. There were two ARS three hops away from my homeworld, which I quickly took. I received vorticular cutlasses and Stealth Battleships from them. I had never used cutlasses before today, but I may choose them again in another game. I used caps of them, along with the Laser Gatlings, to clear out border worlds and cheaply defend against waves. They were useful right until the endgame.

I found and captured a few Fabricators: Gravity Rippers V, Electric Shuttles V, Heavy Bomber Starship V, and my personal favorite, the Spire Starship V. The Mk V Spire Starship: for when you want it dead, real dead. The Gravity Rippers were underwhelming, combining slow movement with short range. They were moderately useful on defense, not so much on offense. I enjoyed using the electric shuttles a lot. They were particularly useful at clearing out threatballs and trapped waves.

The planet with the Mk V spire starship fabricator also had an experimental engineers fabricators. They were amazing. That is all.

I got Blade Spawners, autobombs, and Neinzul nanoswarms to round out my fleet. By the time I was ready to assault the AI Homeworlds, I had unlocked Mk III of every starship and captured a Starship IV factory. I had also built up a substantial mercenary fleet. One of the side benefits of using primarily starships for offense is a lot of extra resources that build up quickly. I felt confident but had a few problems.

The first AI Homeworld had a core raid engine, while the second had a core CPA post. I decided to go for the one with the raid engine first, since I thought it might be easier to deal with. It was, to a certain point. There was an Ion Eye on the Homeworld. I couldn't get close to the Raid Engine it with Raid Starships the first two times I tried, so in the end I took the entire starship fleet in and destroyed it. In the process, I destroyed most of the other guard posts and about 300 Mk V ships while losing about a fourth of the fleet. After spending some time rebuilding, I went back and finished destroying all the guard posts, before moving my fleet into position to assault the other homeworld. This one didn't have an Eye so I just brought in the entire fleet.

I destroyed the first AI command station with about 6 minutes left on the CPA timer and packed what remained of the fleet into transports. I had to get to the other homeworld quickly, to finish the job. As you can see from the screenshot, I made it just in time.

Whew. I think I need something strong to celebrate.

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AI War / Back to AI War after a long hiatus

« on: March 18, 2013, 10:01:54 PM »

I'm coming back, as the title suggests, after a while. There's been an expansion and a whole lot of balance changes since my last serious game, and a lot of the recent changes intrigued me, so I started up a new game. I play 7/7 Vanilla AI, with Medium Golems, Zenith Traders, and Human Colony Rebellions enabled. Usually I pick a bonus ship, but this time I let the RNG pick for me.

I get Neinzul Scapegoats, something I've never used before. Not only that, I'm not sure how to use them very well. They're more expensive than anything I can build at the beginning, so they're not very cost-effective to use. However, I do like to use mercenary fighters in the mid- to late-game and Scapegoats fit well into that strategy. It's been pretty effective, but I wonder if I would pick them if I had the choice. They're underwhelming considering the ships I got from the ARS': Autobombs, Etherjet Tractors, Armor Ships, and Neinzul Fireflies. I also captured  Spire Railcluster V fabricator. I'm glad I did.

The combination of Autobombs and Fireflies makes two jobs very easy: clearing the enemy side of a wormhole, and defending against incoming waves. Once upon a time there was a threat fleet of 700 camped on a wormhole, and in 45 seconds or so, there wasn't any more.

I usually play very starship-heavy games, so I wasn't sure about how the recent changes would affect my strategy. I've been using them for about 10 hours, and captured a Starship IV Fabricator about four hours in. I like just about every change that's been made to them. The combination of lowered K cost and caps, plus the ability to manufacture Mark IV in the same way you do with fleetships, makes for a lot of interesting strategic choice. That Mark IV Zenith Starship is a beast, by the way. You're going to want it on your side.

I like most of the changes to guard posts. They affect the game in more important ways than they used to, and interact more interestingly with guardians as well. I've had a quite a few difficult battles as a direct result of this. Try getting close to an MLRS guard post when two Laser Guardians and a Gravity Guardian are hanging around it, for example. Oh, and don't buzz an MLRS post with your Raid Starships unless you like rebuilding them.

I've just captured a Spire Corvette V factory and am looking forward to putting it through its paces. The idea of having more modular starships like the Riot intrigues me and I've got some knowledge saved up. I think I'll get as many modules as I can and experiment. I would love to hear how other people have used them.

I'd love to play some Shattered Haven, but AI war is taking up a lot of my time right now. Maybe I'll get to it in April...

15

AI War / Re: Poll: Aim the Nerfbat of Damocles: AI-side (III)

« on: March 16, 2013, 10:20:32 AM »

Core Raid Engine, Missile Guard Post, and Inter-Planetary Munitions booster.

I'm not sure what to do with Core Raids, except get rid of them but I know that's not an option.

Missile Guard posts could use either a reduction in range or power. They are positively lethal to starships that they get a bonus against.

I'd like the munitions booster to be captureable, or reduce the AIP it incurs.