AI Eye grind

[BobTheJanitor]

So in a game I'm playing, which is pre-patch (diff 7, 80 planet, all expansions and fallen spire on), so maybe I should just re-roll it (not even 2 hours in yet) I've got a planet I need to take (ARS and the next step on the Fallen Spire which I'm really curious about) but it has an eye (I overuse parenthetical statements). I've wiped out the other guardians, but it still has a Special Forces guard post. Ugh. This guard post is under a Mark II force field. Double ugh. And also under that force field is a Fortress. I need to employ a word stronger than ugh, but I won't for the sake of decency.  Is there some strategy to this that I'm not seeing? There's nothing to lure out, and since everything on the planet kept coming after me, the enemy population is down to about 20 now. So I can't send in a big force without the Eye spewing zombies all over me. There aren't any more quick methods to kill forcefields or things under them that are left in the game now, at least that I know of. So my only recourse seems to be slowly trickling in small groups of bombers and letting the Spec Forces GP keep wiping them out and then sending in more. Or just sending ships to beat on the eye directly. They won't get wiped out, but that's an extra 200 million hp I have to grind down. Any of the better players around have any suggestions outside of this? I've been at it for 15 minutes or so and the force field is down to an amazing 85% HP. I'll be here all night at this rate...

On a more meta level, if any of the classy and sharply-dressed members of the dev team would like to comment, is this the gameplay you were going for with those changes? True this is pre-patch seeding, but that doesn't mean this situation couldn't conceivably happen again. It's awfully grindy. If I'm missing some clever solution that would make this fun, disregard, but at the moment the only solution appears to be 'apply face to sandpaper, repeat'.

[Professor Paul1290]

I've been having this problem as well since the latest patch.

I can't seem to take planets with AI Eyes and and Shield Sphere Guardposts very effectively, or within any reasonable amount of time for that matter. My new game was slowed down to a near halt by a couple of these within the first half-hour. I've been trying to avoid planets like these entirely, but I keep running into them.

[BobTheJanitor]

I guess raid starships are left as a unit that can shoot through forcefields, but with that fortress sitting right there, I'd be lucky to fire off one shot before getting plowed. I could send in a bomber meat shield to aborb all the fire... but that many ships would set off the Eye.  I've decided to just start a new game for now and pray for no unlucky Eye-Forcefield combinations in it. Maybe some rebalancing will come about later and I can pick up that other game.

[fiorenzospa]

Same for me here... I don't know how but all my planets had an Eye before the patch. And before the patch was an easy job to take it down. Now in many occasion it is almost impossible when there are many guard post under forcefield. At the point that the rule "leave just one enemy planet of those close to your empire with a warp gate in it ( in order to defend always 1 wave from the same point) it doesn't apply anymore for me...

I know there are some kind of EMP missile that stop the forcefield for a while but I think also your ships except markV ships...

[Castruccio]

I agree with everything said here and also have a question.  To destroy AI Eyes, do you have to kill all the Guard Posts AND all the Guardians?  Or just all the Guard Posts?

[Red Spot]

Just the posts, wormhole and tachion posts dont count nor do any units including FFs.

Concerning Eyes under FFs, just nuke the CC and the CC on adjacent planets. As soon as supply goes on the targetplanet FFs will lose their shield and Forts stop being a menace.

[BobTheJanitor]

That's sort of a viable solution, but it's not going to work all the time, especially if you have to take a planet with 4 or more wormholes coming out of it. Assuming you've already captured the wormhole you're entering from, that's still 80 AIP from destroying all those command stations, just to take down one shield and destroy one eye. It's highly unlikely all those adjacent planets are going to have things worth capturing either, so it's pretty much wasted AIP.

[Diegan]

Hi,

We had the following setup in the one system in our multi-player game.

--AI Eye - AI2
--Planetary Armor Booster
--AI Spire Shield Sphere Guard Post Mark II

We tried the supply choke method to get the AI Spire Shield Sphere Guard Post to turn off but although removing all supply turned off the standard force shield generator in the system it did not turn off the shield of the AI Spire Shield Sphere Guard Post.

Now the AI Eye descriptions says it will be destroyed automatically when all the guard posts are destroyed. The problem is with the AI Eye in the system we cannot send in a big enough fleet to dent the AI Spire Shield Sphere Guard Post shields without the fleet being destroyed or the AI Eye triggering reinforcements. The AI Spire shield has 336 000 000 hp and regenerates at a very high rate as well. The AI eye has nearly the same amount of HP but at least it does not regenerate.

We were basically forced to send in wave after wave to chew away at the AI eye health and destroy it that way.

Is there a better way to do this?

With the change to the AI eye should this guard post and the AI not be put in the same system. Is this not a bad combination with the new changes?

Regards

[fiorenzospa]

I really think this matter needs rebalancing...

[Dalden]

How about this combination:

2x Spire Shield Posts (with Ion cannon inside shield)
Gravity Drill
AI Eye

We also had to destroy the AI Eye instead of doing it the 'right' way by destroying the guard posts because the Spire Shield posts just has too much hitpoints. It took forever with the gravity drill and ion cannon also in the system.

[BobTheJanitor]

I don't think this would hurt so much were it not for the recent changes to the ships that could shoot past force fields. It's just that the loss of that ability combined with the Eye changes have made things messy.

[Dalden]

Ah, the new version (4.068) has a few changes related to AI Eyes and force fields that might make this combination easier, we'll give it a try in our next session:

• AI Eyes always now seed next to the command stations of the AI, rather than next to guard posts, to prevent them from being under spire shield spheres
• Wormhole guard posts and AI Eyes now have command-grade hulls instead of ultra heavy.
• There is now a "Guard Posts Keeping This Alive" count on AI eyes, to prevent confusion about what they are getting protection from, or if they should have died. In particular, sometimes if there is a cloaked guard post still at the planet, the player might not realize without seeing this.
• The AI Eyes now only produce ships that don't have a per-planet or per-guard post special cap (so not most of the spire ships, zenith bombers, sentinel frigates, etc).
• The health of all the AI forcefields are now only 3x that of the human counterparts, rather than 5x. This makes them not take so incredibly long to kill with bombers, etc.
• The health of the spire shield spheres (core and regular) have also been correspondingly reduced in the vague neighborhood of the same amount.
• All of the AI forcefields, and the AI spire shield spheres (except the core ones on the AI home planets) now automatically die if they are protecting no ships and not on an AI planet.

Source: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Current_Post-4.000_Beta#Prerelease_4.068

[Shelly]

Dear god those Eye are annoying.
Here's my situation. AI has about 100 ships on the planet. As soon as i sneeze the ship count goes down to 20-30. Where is a spire shield thing guard post (mk II). I have underdeveloped economy. Eye planet is my best choice. I send almost a cap of mk I starships but only taken 19 % of health before i had to run.
THAT IS THE POINT OF EYE IF THEY ONLY SLOW YOUR GAME DOWN TO A HOLT.
They down offer anything special only forces you to trey to kill something whit inadequate forces again and again and again.

[hullu]

I think the point is that not all planets should be equally good to take at certain points in your game.

It seems like your problem is tackling a planet that your firepower can't handle yet.

[BobTheJanitor]

I think the point is that not all planets should be equally good to take at certain points in your game.

It seems like your problem is tackling a planet that your firepower can't handle yet.

Exactly this. If you just can't take an Eye world, you may need to come back later with higher mark ships or more starships. Anything to concentrate more force into fewer numbers.