Hybrids in general used to be a major threat because they were smarted than the rest of the AI. They'd concentrate and swarm you when you attacked, or hunt down and find weak spots in your defenses, then attack only there. Unfortunately, the general strengthening of the AI, especially the Threatfleet and repurposed Special Forces, made those intelligent behaviors a standard part of the game. So right now, Hybrids are more of a "More Units!" thing.
I didn't play AIW before the current TFleet and SForces. I understand what were hybrids back in the days. A shame they didn't get an interesting revamp when TFleet and SForces turned to be what they are now. I guess that will be piled up for AIW2.
I love this idea of the Hybrids, and really hope they'll get some dev-love soon.
I love them too. I'll try to come up with some more ideas.
Meanwhile, any comment on the "rebuild only" idea? What would you think of a revamp of that plot that would make hybrids very different, removing a big part (maybe not all) of the threat and roaming defense (that are TFleet and SForces now), and that would vastly improve their focus on rebuilding AI territory, like heavily invading neutered or neutral planets and respawning OCStations (with no AIP-on-death, maybe) and GPosts on metal spots... ?
(this sentence started as a question) That would force players to actively hold neutered ground and capture planets fast while defending them with a big fleet. SForces sometimes invade planets that just get captured, but that hybrid plot would be much more automatic and aggressive, like spawning en mass at every adjacent warp gates and contesting the neutral ground.
Another thing: I rather like the hybrid facility hunting. While I dislike cleaning additional and gratuitous threat (I hate preemption just as much), I like scouting the galaxy, spotting hybrid facilities (thanks to the dedicated filter) and send my MkIII-IV raid starships after them, just like data centers or co-processors. The hybrid plot then just becomes to me a sort of Spire Civilian Leaders MF where you can raid at things before it's too late, but where it's morally bad to raid civilians, it's morally "good" to kill hybrid factories. And the "before it's too late" is TFleet for hybrids versus AIP for civilians.
I feel that's two different "side quests" around hybrids, so maybe two different plots: "raid factories before threat-death" for one, and "actively hold neutered ground" for the other. Maybe these two could be mechanically separated, like it's okay to play only with "hybrid rebuilders; neutral ground defense" or only with "threatening hybrids with raid-able factories", and the two being thematically (lore-wise) tied, being different roles for the same AI experimentation on Neinzul.
Any thoughts? Comments?
I need to try Dyson vs Hybrids.
Also, what happen when "Advanced Hybrid" is at 10 when "Hybrid Hives" is at 0?
