A few Noob questions:

[JfpOne23]

Greets gents, finally finished the tutorial and now onto my first game.  AI Wars is going to be a keeper for sure.

I have a few questions though:

1)  How should one deploy Tachyon Drones etc., in order to catch stealth intrusions?

2)  How should one deploy the Warp Sensors?  Are these to be used "per wormhole"? or only one needed centrally per system to work properly?

3)  In this first game of mine, I have found something called a "Guard Station" (or similar) and it looks like an Asteroid with 400k Health and an attack of 6k every 1 second.  Fairly nasty thing really.  It says something about "AI units traveling between 2 of them" but I only have one in this particular system.  a)  Can anyone elaborate on how this thing works and if it's necessary to eliminate it from the system, and b)  Is there a reason why when I attack it with Bombers (whose range should keep them out of harms way), they rush right to point blank at the thing every time (and thusly get puree'd).  Didn't see this thing in the Tutorial, and the in-game description (normal quite good) doesn't elaborate much.

4)  Is there any comprehensive document out there that has all the ships/objects and their stats (in Excel for instance, or a Google doc)?

Thanks a lot for any help,

Cheers

[Revenantus]

1)  How should one deploy Tachyon Drones etc., in order to catch stealth intrusions?

Near wormholes, along with your other defenses, as this will allow your turrets to get some shots on incoming cloaked ships. In general, position them so that the part of the tachyon field covering the wormhole is towards the edge, as this will improve the tachyon emitter's chances of survival.

2)  How should one deploy the Warp Sensors?  Are these to be used "per wormhole"? or only one needed centrally per system to work properly?

One per planet. If you have an advanced warp sensor on a planet, then the wormhole that the AI wave is about to come through will turn orange, so you know where to position your defensive forces. This is very useful if you're defending a planet which has links to multiple AI planets that have warp gates present.

3)  In this first game of mine, I have found something called a "Guard Station" (or similar) and it looks like an Asteroid with 400k Health and an attack of 6k every 1 second.  Fairly nasty thing really.  It says something about "AI units traveling between 2 of them" but I only have one in this particular system.  a)  Can anyone elaborate on how this thing works and if it's necessary to eliminate it from the system, and b)  Is there a reason why when I attack it with Bombers (whose range should keep them out of harms way), they rush right to point blank at the thing every time (and thusly get puree'd).  Didn't see this thing in the Tutorial, and the in-game description (normal quite good) doesn't elaborate much.

Ah, that's a Special Forces Guard Post. They're extremely brutal in close-range combat, so they're best destroyed with long range ships such as cruisers which can remain out of the post's range.

AI reinforcements that spawn on an SF post are considered to be 'special forces' ships. Special forces ships will wander the map, routing between the various SF posts on the map. These routes can often take them through your own planets.

4)  Is there any comprehensive document out there that has all the ships/objects and their stats (in Excel for instance, or a Google doc)?

Yes, there is, I've attached it to this post. It can be exported from the game by entering debug mode (F3) and pressing ctrl-shift+F8. The version I've attached is from game version 2.0, so it doesn't include many of the new ships in prereleases.

There's also a comprehensive list on the community wiki. http://arcengames.com/communitywiki/index.php?title=Unit_Types_and_Tactics

Hope this helps!

[x4000]

Is there a reason why when I attack it with Bombers (whose range should keep them out of harms way), they rush right to point blank at the thing every time (and thusly get puree'd). 

Normally they will stay at range, but in this case the special forces guard post's shields are making them have to get closer in order to actually have a reasonable hit chance.  As Rev said, longer-range ships like cruisers are best against this specific foe -- for more information about shields and how those work:  http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Do_Shots_Miss

[JfpOne23]

Gents, your attentions to the community are outstanding, and to be applauded.  Thanks much for the your fast and elaborate answers -- they will keep this happy gamer moving along with sound tactics tomorrow from Dawn Till Dusk :-)

[x4000]

Our pleasure!

[JfpOne23]

Ok this is bound to be a day full of questions, and here is the first:

I can't seem to keep my Engineer II's from staying in attack mode so as to auto repair my ships.  I will set them to attack mode literally next to a damaged ship and 50% of the time they will not begin repairing.  They also seem to drop the mode on a random basis.  Any hints as to what I'm doing wrong here?

[Revenantus]

A unit's mode (e.g. attack-move) is assigned when the unit is given an order. Is there any chance you're accidentally giving the engineer IIs standard move orders, causing them to revert to the default mode?

As for the engineers not repairing - had the ship you wanted them to repair been damaged within the last 3 seconds? Units cannot be repaired during the 3 seconds following them having taken damage. Do you have sufficient resources to enact repairs? Does the unit state 'Can't be repaired' in its tooltip? Some simply can't, such as fortresses.

If you want them to repair a specific ship, I recommend ordering them to repair that ship explicitly. If placed in attack-move mode, they may teleport away to focus on repairing another ship first.

[JfpOne23]

Yes those instructions should get me sorted out.

And regarding last night's question of why the bombers were rushing the SF Station, I realized that they have a slightly shorter range so it now makes sense.  Sorry for the confusion.

[JfpOne23]

Another couple of questions (this is going to be along day):

1)  Is it possible to scrap turrets or really anything else?

2)  I have found a fairly lightly defended planet with an Adv Research station, of course I want the station, but do I need to kill the AI Command AND build my own to take it?  This is a fairly worthless system with only 2 metal, 1 crystal, and from what I've learned in the tutorial and reading, I should probably bypass this system and mosey on further.  But is there a way to bypass this system and still take the ARS?

3)  Related:  If I wish to bypass a system but make sure it's not producing for the AI, do I simply make sure that both the Warp Gate(s) and Command are destroyed surgically or should I be leaving the Command station intact so as to prevent AI progress?

[x4000]

To answer the latest batch:

1. Yes, just hit Delete or backspace, and it will bring up a confirmation dialog.  Only a very few structures cannot be deleted (your home command station, and a few of the specialized capturables).

2. You are correct on what you have to do in order to take that ARS.  Because of the ARS, it's a highly valuable system for capture, even if it is otherwise worthless.  The need to kill and then capture the planet is the cost of capturing the ARS (you may notice it doesn't come with any AI Progress or any other costs of its own).

3. If you destroy a command station and the warp gate on a planet, then you've not really bypassed that planet, you've just cleared it out but decided not to take it.  For warp gates, you don't really need to clear those unless they are on a planet that is adjacent to one of your planets, and you wish not to have waves against your planet from that particular AI planet.  Here is some more info on how AI reinforcements work in general, if you have not seen this:  http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_AI_Reinforcements

Generally speaking, if you are going to "bypass" a planet, you'd just sneak ships through and not really mess with it all.  If you want to "neuter" a planet (in the community parlance), you'd might kill the guard posts and (probably) special forces guard post, and very possibly the warp gate, but you'd leave the command station intact.  Thus limiting the size the planet can grow to, but also avoiding a large bump in AI Progress.  Or, if you want to create a neutral buffer between your planets and enemy planets, you can just wipe out the AI on the planet but not take it for yourself.  That comes at more AI Progress cost, so isn't done as much, but can very occasionally be quite useful.

[Revenantus]

Ah, Chris beat me to it.

I'll just add that if the ARS is destroyed after you've captured it you won't lose the new ship type you've unlocked, so no worries there.

[JfpOne23]

Big thanks for these fast answers in advance for the rest of the day :-)

So if I take this ARS planet (about to enter the void now), and build a command station, then scrap it, I'll still have given an irretrievable bump to the AI progress?

[Revenantus]

Big thanks for these fast answers in advance for the rest of the day :-)

So if I take this ARS planet (about to enter the void now), and build a command station, then scrap it, I'll still have given an irretrievable bump to the AI progress?

Yes, but the value of the new unlocked ship type (which effectively bolsters your max fleet strength as unit caps are per ship type) should far outweigh the cost of the AI progress increase.

You can hunt down data centers to try and reduce the AI progress level. Destroying each will reduce the AI's progress level by 10.

[JfpOne23]

Yes the Data Centers is a great touch really.

Can surviving AI engineers be captured as well in a conquered system?

[Revenantus]

Can surviving AI engineers be captured as well in a conquered system?

No, only units that have the 'Captured On Planet Ownership Change' attribute in their tooltips can be captured in that manner. There are very few units with that attribute; it's mostly limited to immobile units such as reactors and constructors. Engineers can still be captured by parasites or a leech starship though.