Ai super terminals

[soMe_RandoM]

 i never capture any because i don't play anything above 15 planets mostly. and can u turn them off as when you don't need there services, (stop AIP reduction). because eventually you lose the system because amount ships pouring out? i want to know if there easy way of stoping AIP reduction or ships spawning so i don't lose the system but still have it ready when i need AIP to go down eg low power when no need ~10 AIP. and when i use an warhead i activate for maybe 45 secs to keep it at ~10. so is there anyway of doing this without destroying the commands station or does it have to be done to stop AIP reduction frankly i hardly ever seen one.

[BigJake]

Just destroy it when you're done with it, it's not something you can pause.  You don't really want to use it too much anyway since it raises your AIP floor in a relatively undesirable way.

[soMe_RandoM]

Destroy it. so losing system doesn't cause it to stop? i want to keep it so i can reduce future AIP but not to over do it when i don't but i want to keep AIP at steady 10-100. could that be manage at all? also does destroying the servers -20 AIP dose that reduce floor?

[BigJake]

You know, I'm not sure what happens if you lose the system while it's still going.  My gut says that it just keeps on spawning but I can't remember ever doing it.

As far as data centers go, no, they don't affect the floor.  Your total AIP determines the floor; you can see this in the AIP tooltip.  IIRC, the floor goes up 1 for every 5 AIP points accrued.  So if you ride the terminal for a 100 AIP reduction you'll end up with a floor increase of 20 because your total goes up by 100 as well.

[Sunshine!]

The super terminal stops when you lose the system.

[BobTheJanitor]

also does destroying the servers -20 AIP dose that reduce floor?

From what I read somewhere on the wiki (assuming it's up to date) you can't reduce the floor ever, but you're still not going to lose out by destroying other AI Progress reducers. They will put the AI into a temporary progress 'debt' of sorts, so that even though their progress won't go below the floor, they still have to make up the progress you reduced them by before the number actually starts going up again. So if AIP is at, say 50, and your floor is also at 50, and you destroy a Data Center, the progress will still show 50, but the AI will have to gain 20 points of progress before it will again start going above 50.

[soMe_RandoM]

so thoese days where u can have -AIP is over? or do i just have to destroy data centers alot before getting AI super terminals? then eventually? will it go above -AIP

[BigJake]

I wasn't aware you could ever get negative AIP, but I don't think that's what you mean.

And as far as the numbers are concerned, it's doesn't matter in which order you get data centers, co-procs or terminals.  Your AIP will always be your (total AIP - AIP reduction) but will never drop below the floor.  If you have 100 total AIP, your floor is 20.  If you pop 4 data centers, your working AIP will be 20 (100 - 80.)  If you pop a 5th dc, your working AIP will not drop below 20 because that is the floor.  If you then take a planet, however, your working AIP will still be 20 (120-100.)

Now, start over.  100 AIP and you start milking a terminal.  Again, we'll ride it for an 80 AIP reduction.  What actually happens, though, is that your total AIP goes up 80 while you get a reduction of 160.  Because your total AIP went up, the floor went up as well.  So, your total AIP is now 180; your floor is now 36 and your reduction is 160.  Your working AIP ends up being 36 instead of 20.  Again, take a planet and your working AIP will be 40 (200-160.)

Co-incidentally, co-processors increase your AIP in the same fashion and both are very inefficient when compared to data centers.  I've always felt that it's a bad idea to go with the least efficient option in the early game but really, you're going to use every tool available to you in the game to reduce your AIP so the only real question is; how long are you going to leave it on for?

I hope I helped answer your question, I couldn't quite understand what it was.

[hullu]

Oh, also I think you should make the superterminal your _FIRST_ AIP reduction facility. Since the quality/difficulty of the 'waves' pouring out (according to the description, haven't tried) is dependant only on your 'AIP reduction' number. Which means they'll start with one ship of mark 1 when your AIP reduction is 0.

Had you destroyed 4 coprocessors and 4 data centers before ai superterminal (-200 aip) - even the first wave should (?) start from mark 4-5 ish. At least according to the description it should start from the same difficulty wave as it would after running the terminal for fifty minutes...

What comes to the earlier question, you must destroy either the terminal or your command station to pause the waves. Personally I almost always just destroy the command station, the terminal might be worth milking later when you have a stronger fleet again.

[BobTheJanitor]

Oh, also I think you should make the superterminal your _FIRST_ AIP reduction facility.

Wouldn't you want the AIP to be built up a bit so you have something to knock down? If it's already low, you'll quickly reach the point where you're at the floor and then you'll keep raising the floor even while reducing the progress. I'm not sure how productive that will be since your real AIP will keep going up, even though you're still putting them into debt for future gains. Actually that's kind of interesting. I wonder what the best way to do that is. When I came across a super terminal in my game, I just knocked it down until the AIP was equal to the floor and then blew it up. It's an interesting dynamic actually, I wonder what the most efficient break-even point is when you factor in the AIP debt that you can put it in to.

[soMe_RandoM]

i like low aip because u can handle 40 IV ships (low cap)

[hullu]

Oh, also I think you should make the superterminal your _FIRST_ AIP reduction facility.

Wouldn't you want the AIP to be built up a bit so you have something to knock down? If it's already low, you'll quickly reach the point where you're at the floor and then you'll keep raising the floor even while reducing the progress. I'm not sure how productive that will be since your real AIP will keep going up, even though you're still putting them into debt for future gains. Actually that's kind of interesting. I wonder what the best way to do that is. When I came across a super terminal in my game, I just knocked it down until the AIP was equal to the floor and then blew it up. It's an interesting dynamic actually, I wonder what the most efficient break-even point is when you factor in the AIP debt that you can put it in to.

There is no net loss going 'negative' AIP, as long as you don't get the floor MUCH higher than the AIP-reduction. I regularly (if I find the Terminal in the early game) get to around -100 AIP with floor around 50 (meaning AIP of around 250 and reduction 350). That means I have over 200 'free' AIP to waste away before the actual AIP starts rising above the floor. And once it does, I can pop all the data centers and coprocessors for anotehr -200 or so.

[soMe_RandoM]

ahh u can still go -AIP this saves me alot of target prioritizing