It's Quiet...Too Quiet

[Faulty Logic]

Just to comment, Special Forces being manual target only is abusable sadly.  They count as Reinforcement Gates, so you could effectively bleed off one (or more) reinforcement waves permanently.  Currently it is nearly impossible to micro that so it isn't a problem.

I'd personally like to see the AIP increment just removed from them.  You get +50 AIP over the course of a game from SF posts alone, and have no significant control of if they're destroyed or not, particularly with allied factions.  No free bleed, fine, but can we get rid of the AIP cost?

Taking AIP off them would make sense, yes, but where else is the AI going to get that 50 AIP?

Maybe just remove a Data Center or two from the initial map generation?

Just to comment, Special Forces being manual target only is abusable sadly.  They count as Reinforcement Gates, so you could effectively bleed off one (or more) reinforcement waves permanently.  Currently it is nearly impossible to micro that so it isn't a problem.

It could die with the command center.

 I just don't want to have to use turn-based mode on my long-range units to prevent them from increasing AIP, nor do I want minor factions to cause AIP to go up beyond my control. While the minor faction thing is unavoidable (intentional?), I would get the same result with significantly less agravating micro in other (ie most) situations.

[rabican]

Abusable how? Do you mean that if you left it alive in your system you would reduce the reinforcments ai gets?

Them not being autotargetable and dying with command station would imo be ideal.  Like faulty logic said currently it is just annoying micro  when moving from to satellite worlds etc.

Taking AIP off them would be pretty bad, you could just go around killing all of them and bye bye special forces.

[Hearteater]

Imagine if you didn't auto-target Special Forces Guard Posts (SFGPs).  They are Reinforcement Gates and if you've cleared the system the AI will be reinforcing that planet every pulse because it will be at the top of the AI's threat list.  Stick 25ish turrets near the SFGP and every time they spawn, the turrets wipe them out.  Now do this in every system you take.  Keep in mind the AI can't reinforce more than 15 planets (more on higher difficulties).  So you could take 15 planets with SFGPs, turret them up, and completely remove AI reinforcement from the game.

[rabican]

Ah okay. I shall try that

But anyway, if they did die on destruction of command center it wouldn't matter.

[Wanderer]

Taking AIP off them would make sense, yes, but where else is the AI going to get that 50 AIP?

Sideways thinking, but it's just an idea germ but it's one I've been chewing on for a bit.

I'll post this elsewhere if it takes flight so we don't leave the conversation hiding in an AAR, but here's, basically, Spec Forces to me in a nutshell:

1) Spec Forces are wandering drifters that can chew on lightly defended planets traveling between their systems.  They're similar to trains that way.  And that's all they do.
2) To remove this traffic, you have to hunt down Spec Force outposts.  Because you're getting a minor benefit from this (little to no drifter traffic), you pay a minor price in AIP.
3) During any reinforcement, they are considered a reinforcement gate so they can continue to get ships when a planet is reinforced to add to the Special Forces troops in existance.

This is the core of the Special Forces as they currently operate, and the reasons they exist as they are.  However, I see an alternative way of approaching special forces.

Firstly, to raid out Spec Forces posts, particularly deep ones, you pay in time to be able to even get your raiding force near one.  SF drifters themselves are basically ignorable, too, once you've cleared out the original heavy spawn of them in the galaxy, which usually occurs shortly after you've setup your whipping boy and started your initial entrenchment.  If you haven't, then they're so spread out they're meaningless anyway.

Secondly, there's no reason they need to be a reinforcement gate, except to annoy players who don't want +1 AIP when they neuter a world, and that can be nearly unavoidable if you run anything with long range (snipers, Zenith Bombards, Zenith Sentinels, Blade Spawners, you name it...) even though they spawn at system edges.  Remove that and you remove the reinforcement eating cheese.

Lastly, SF aren't special, unless we're counting them as special ed.  They're just reinforcements actually taking AWAY from the defensive reinforcements because they spawn up and run off towards another SF post somewhere 'out there', because anything that's behind me is either turreted and they'll die or they don't have an SF post to go towards anymore.  They're morons.

I think SF needs to be re-evaluated.

• Make SF a separate reinforcement that is spawned by the AI from the exo gate that is based on AIP, difficulty, and number of reinforcements in the current map.
• Make SF 'group up' and travel as a pack, so little 4-5 ship drifters stop suiciding on a single HBC.
• Make SF stop being morons.  Allow packs to respond to neighboring planet alerts and to be 'aware' of waves, altering courses even towards non SF-Post paths to support (or perhaps soften the way) for announced waves.

I believe you'll get your 50 AIP equivalent from a bit of redesign instead of having them affect things that aren't involved in them.  Heck, de-autotarget them and remove reinforcement gates from them and I'll stop bemoaning the +1 AIP if you simply make them nastier in response to the modification.  Let's make them special like the SEALs, instead of Special like Little Bobby in those olympics.

[rabican]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but don't special forces affect CPA's a lot? From what i remember most of the CPA's i got at 9/9 were entirely made of special forces(Mk II units, afaik they don't really spawn from anywhere else, might remember errenously).

I agree with separating SF from  basic reinforcmenet logic and making SF's smarter, responding to player attacks(easy things like sending stuff from nearby planets when under significant attack, if it would make difference) and such.

But i don't agree with removing the AIP.  Removing structures that give AI advantage on galactic scale should have AIP penalty. Sure the effect is currently usually fairly minor, but i would rather buff SF's in general than making destryoing SF guardposts in surrounding planets a no brainer strategy.
 
Derailing thread further :&

[Faulty Logic]

You cannot derail a train that stopped. I do not mind.

I mostly agree with Wanderer;

My ideal version of special forces posts:
manually targetable, +1AIP.

Special forces should be special in that they:
have a mark level of one more than the AI tech level,
travel mostly as a big group between the posts,
attack when they think it will cause the most damage,
and be able to free a number of inactive AI ships (like 10 per planet, but no mkVs) on planets the fleet visits, adding them to the fleet.

(If someone tells me how, I could change the title of the thread to reflect the new discussion.)

[keith.lamothe]

I agree with the idea of making SF posts no longer do normal reinforcements and thus not be cheeseable, but have them spawn their reinforcements separately.  And making them manually targeted then.

[TechSY730]

About the special forces stuff, some variety in their behavior would be nice. I like the ideas of making them obey "don't send them into a planet if I am massively overpowered" rules that normal threat ships do. In fact, they should probably share their "firepower acculmulation" count with freed threat ships (and visa versa). Also, fun things like having them Aid defensive efforts by the AI would be cool.

For the exo-waves being too weak, that is very much dependant on map layout, especially the number of in-points. In this example, spokes is one of the more trivially "chokepointable" map types, making it easy to "wall up" and eat exo-waves. I think something similar for waves should happen for exo-waves, but rather than varying time, vary "centralization chance" instead. The less in-points it can find, the more likely it will choose a centralized exo-wave "loadout" (aka, more likely to choose a smaller number of tougher ships). Of course, finding the number of in-points may be tricky, as exo-waves can spawn from any warp-gate, not just ones adjacent to human planets.
Also, adding a bit of exponential nature to their relation to AIP on difficulty 8+ might help out some. (The AIP adjusts how long between each exo-wave for spirecraft and golem exos, right?)

Golems, hmm, not sure if they are too strong overall, but I do think the botnet could use a bit of nerfing *dodges thrown rotten fruits*. Instead, let zombie reclaimation damage follow the Mk. based reclaimation damage multiplier rules, and then give zombie reclaimers sane amounts of damage (this would also make zombie guardians saner, so it's not all bad for the humans. ) (Yes, I know I have suggested this several times, but this is for a good reason, I really like the idea)