Author Topic: AI ship attack vectors to my planets  (Read 1887 times)

Offline boozer

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AI ship attack vectors to my planets
« on: April 28, 2015, 02:54:40 am »
    Just started playing. I'm used to the style of taking almost everything which is not good in this game :)  But 'skipping' a planet goes against everything I've played previously, but I like it :)  I've done hours and hours of searching/reading, however I dont understand it fully.  'Skipping' AI planets makes me feel unsecure... seems like I should take it all :)  How does one 'secure' themselves when leaving active enemy planets in the mix of the human planets?

    If there was an AI planet that I dont need to take and its a dead end (only one wormhole that connects to my planet)... what do I need to do to that AI Planet? 
    • How much of a threat can that single AI planet be?
    • Can AI ships come from that planet even though its not connected to the rest of the AI worlds? 
    • Will CPA's come from that planet?   
    • What effect would neutering it vs warp gate raiding have on its threat to my connected planet?
     
    Also, lets say I split the galaxy in half, human planets in the middle, and AI planets on either side.... for AI ships to get from one side of the galaxy to the other, they have to go through human planets. 
    • Will a CPA come from all planets on both sides of the galaxy? 
    • What if I destroy the warp gates for all planets on one side of the galaxy, will all AI attacks only come from the other side?

    I'm obviously still confused about AI ship pathing, where attacks can come from, how strong they will be, and what I need to do to secure my own planets if I have them dotted around the map.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: AI ship attack vectors to my planets
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2015, 05:25:23 am »
Hello, welcome to the forum and good luck for the long trip you begun!

This is my strategy to (1) decide to let the AI OCStation live or to take the planet and (2) hold an AI planet you didn't capture.

(1)
If the galaxy form a dead end of one or some planets isolated from AI territory by human territory, consider that this little "backwater" territory would hold:
- 3,000 Knowledge per planet
- 150,000 energy per planet
- some metal (20 x total-metal-deposit if harvesters are MkI)
- you would put economic stations that give energy and metal and eventually put advanced economic stations if you re-inject the Knowledge gathered here in them.

The AIP cost of such "economic territory" would be equal to 20 x number-of-planets.
Question is: would you pay that much AIP for that much economy? Are you short in energy? Are you hunger for more Knowledge? Are your rebuilds fast enough to handle AI reprisals? Is your economy beefy enough to afford the shiny new Starships you would unlock? And on the other hand, do you feel you have some headroom for taking some more AIP? If each wave is a pain and almost reach its goal each time, the answer may be "NO!" If the waves are a breeze and there is still datacenters out there, it's probably ok. Well, I won't teach you how to manage AIP here. (If you have trouble with AIP, tell us!)

On some situations, the answer to "would I take this planet" would be no. The planet is in the path of my territory expansion but it has 1 metal, I don't need K or energy, I'm short of AIP headroom, the the answer is "don't take this planet". Then how?

(2)
First of all: gateraid. The last thing you want is a wave warping in the middle of your territory.
Then, neuter: destroy all guards, all guard posts, deal with fortresses and Dire Guardian Lairs and other little nastinesses. You want the planet to contain ONLY the OCStation and the wormhole guardposts.
Well, if you let things as it, you'll still have some AI ships spawning in this planet. It won't cross terrifying thresholds, but still could be an annoyance if you regularly cross such planet. Often, I pay the 15 AIP to get either an economic boost (150,000 energy and 3,000 K) or to increase traveling speed with a logistic OCStation. But on very low AIP playstyle, it could be a strategy to just neuter path-planets.
Also know that you still can get 3,000K from such neutered planets with the hacker's covert knowledge extractor, at a little HaP expense, so the only things you don't get from this planet is the speed boost, the 150,000 energy and some metal. To save 15 AIP, it could be worth!

Then, there is the "Pumpkin" trick (Maybe one day I'll be as famous as Kahuna :P)
Over-neutering Beachhead!
You know how to make a beachhead? You get a mobile builder in a planet with supply (adjacent to captured planet) and start to build things like if you captured the planet.
The core of the beachhead is a forcefield with Engineers, RRebuilders, eventually lightning/flak turrets, and the mobile builder. Then around this core you have all the turrets you'll put on a regular defense (see that famous Kahuna's guide ;)). Or you can just put snipers and long range missile turrets (remember to put some basic (needler, for example) turrets because Leech Starships are immune to both snipers and missiles).

Now, each time the AI will want to reinforce this planet, ships will spawn near the OCStation and get instantly took down by your turrets. The planet would stay permanently empty (unless they manage to take down some engi; you have to come back sometimes to see if it's still ok).

Little bonus: take the half of your sniper turrets and order them to attack the wormhole guardposts. They'll take some times, but at the end you'll have nothing more than the 15AIP OCStation. Why half? Because you need the other half to take down the spawning ships!


Remember this is only my advise. Some other players would have different opinions.
I hope this helped. If you still have some questions, we (I, at least) will be happy to answer.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline kasnavada

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Re: AI ship attack vectors to my planets
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2015, 09:45:46 am »
Quote
Just started playing. I'm used to the style of taking almost everything which is not good in this game :)  But 'skipping' a planet goes against everything I've played previously, but I like it :)  I've done hours and hours of searching/reading, however I dont understand it fully.  'Skipping' AI planets makes me feel unsecure... seems like I should take it all :)  How does one 'secure' themselves when leaving active enemy planets in the mix of the human planets?

To skip planets, I use the command station which removes waves & presence, and "neuter" adjacent planets. By neuter I mean destroying everything in it but the command station and wormhole guard post. If you do that, the AI at these planet is not at "aware" status, and does spawn very little reinforcement, making it safe for travel. Using the same idea you can keep "reinforcing" planets on a defended side of your colonies (military stations) and keep a "unguarded" gateway to strike (with 1 of the stations that removes waves & presence). The whole universe is generally within a few "jumps".

Actually once it was possible to neuter every planet in the grid from a single planet and win the game that way, but it was corrected. Now if you try to do that too far there is a specific "anti-deep strike" mechanic =).

Alternatively, I remember some guy posting an AAR where he cleared all 119 planets before winning on a 8/8 or 9/9 diff. If you like a challenge =).


Offline Pumpkin

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Re: AI ship attack vectors to my planets
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2015, 12:32:56 pm »
I use the command station which removes waves & presence
This special OCStation is called "Warp Jammer" and cost 5,000 Knowledge. I think unlocking this for just neutering is a waste. I prefer using them to take Spire Archives that are adjacent to the dangerous core (MkIV) planets or on Nomad planets because of their special behavior.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline kasnavada

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Re: AI ship attack vectors to my planets
« Reply #4 on: April 28, 2015, 01:43:53 pm »
Forgot the name and did not have it at work =).

Quote
I think unlocking this for just neutering is a waste.
Errr, yes. Did I say that ? I think I said I used it to "skip" planets and to "travel safely", which is what the OP asked here:

Quote
How does one 'secure' themselves when leaving active enemy planets in the mix of the human planets?

Otherwise, yes, when skipping planets it's better to "land" where there are significant asset which can be captured =).

Offline boozer

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Re: AI ship attack vectors to my planets
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2015, 11:25:59 pm »
I read that CPA/border aggression can come from any planet?  Can a CPA wave come from a dead-end, neutered, AI planet I left in the back of my systems?

Oh, and thanks everyone for all the replies!

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: AI ship attack vectors to my planets
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2015, 04:02:06 am »
I read that CPA/border aggression can come from any planet?  Can a CPA wave come from a dead-end, neutered, AI planet I left in the back of my systems?
Oh, I got carried away by the neutering/beachhead stuff and I forgot this question.

Border aggression is a matter of threat quantity. If the AI think (read "weight, compute and deduce") the threat is strong enough to crush a player's defenses, it cross the frontier. Remember that it take your available fleet in the process, so if your fleet go attack some distant of heavy world, the threat may compute again, see the balance changed, and attack in a backstab style.
Also, I know Special Forces never cross frontier below difficulty 8. There is nothing else I'm aware of able to cross your territory to join the other side if you sliced the galaxy.
For CPA spawning, I'm sure of nothing. You'll have to wait the precision of some advanced players lurking this dark sector of our forum...
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

 

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