Autobombs: Defense Strategy

[Kraiz]

Autobombs... They seem pretty useless in most respects.  They're definitely useful, but havingg to keep a steady supply of them to the system being attacked.  Ever thought of them as a continuous stream of death to invaders?

Simply put, two Space Docks set to loop a production cue of nothing but Autobombs.  Set the Space Docks on aggressive, and whenever you get a wave of several hundred ships to the planet this defensive setup is being deployed on, it is quite a sight to behold and laugh hysterically at.  Obviously, there's only so much these can protect against, but a swarm of suicidal ships racing towards your enemies is enough to ward them off somewhat.

I just used this as a last-minute tactic in one of the phases of the "Fallen Spire" campaign.  One of my systems had about 500 AI ships entering it, and I had minimal defenses.  This combination of Mark I-III Autobombs saved the system singlehandedly.

[superking]

Autobombs: hands down the best bonus type

[keith.lamothe]

Autobombs... They seem pretty useless in most respects.

As you discovered, this is very much not so   In fact, before I limited the number of targets they could hit with one blast, they were quite probably the most overpowered unit in the game (this was before martyrs).

[Hearteater]

Every time I think of autobombs, this thread comes to mind.

[wyvern83]

That thread reminds me that I really should try that sometime.

[Nalgas]

That thread reminds me how awesome that was.  And how very, very silly it was, too.  I'd almost forgotten about it.  Heh.

[Sunshine!]

This is effective with Neinzul Weasels and Commandos as well, since they produce super fast and can clean up a lot of the things Autobombs have problems with quite well.  Heck, Weasels are quite effective against forcefields without having any bonuses against them.  With these you need to make sure to keep moving your factories up, and also make sure you don't have any of those Neinzul hangar thingies sitting around for your ships to retreat to.

[keith.lamothe]

This is effective with Neinzul Weasels and Commandos as well

And Tigers!  At least in my experience, assasinating guard posts is really really easy with tigers, even in situations where normal fleet attacks would range from phyrric to futile.

Been playing a game with Nanoswarms lately, and setting up the "ship cannon" on the friendly side of the wormhole from the target planet is becoming one of those things I could do in my sleep.

[Nalgas]

Been playing a game with Nanoswarms lately, and setting up the "ship cannon" on the friendly side of the wormhole from the target planet is becoming one of those things I could do in my sleep.

I picked those as my bonus ship in the first game our group started after you fixed the targeting bug I found in that other thread, and I had ship cannons for them set up scattered across the galaxy, both for offense and defense.  Everyone was happy to see them, and it was the first game we won in months.  They can't really clear things out on their own like autobombs or some of the other ships you can crank out like that, but unless there's an entire fleet of ships that's immune to them, they're going to ruin someone's day with the mess they cause.

[Coppermantis]

Does the AI get to use Nanoswarms? I've never seen them yet, it might just the random though.

[laughingman]

In my current game, I got autobombs from my first ARS. I don't worry about incoming waves any more. Ten seconds after a wave gets caught in the tractor beam network, it's annihilated. If it's not completely destroyed, the turrets take care of the rest. It's the first time I've used this particular ship and I think it's becoming one of my favorites.

I haven't used them on offense as much since they seem to love destroying themselves against forcefields, but the "ship cannon" strategy sounds effective. I'm going to have to try it out.

How do I set my space docks to "aggressive?"

[keith.lamothe]

How do I set my space docks to "aggressive?"

Not exactly sure what you mean but what I generally do is:
1) Build a couple of space docks on near the friendly end of the wormhole leading to the target AI planet.
2) Put maybe 10-20 engineers next to the docks.
3) Put a forcefield over the docks if I'm expecting backwash.
4) Select both docks.
5) Tab to the galaxy map.
6) V+right-click the target planet (this tells all the produced units to move to that planet in Free-Roaming-Defender mode, in this case it's more like Free-Roaming-Vandalism mode).
7) Set both docks to loop build all available marks of autobomb (or nanoswarm, if I'm using the doomshroom cannon instead).
Laugh.

[laughingman]

Thanks! I figured it was something like that. I'm looking forward to the fireworks.

[Nalgas]

Laugh.

That is the first time I've seen it actually be appropriate for it to turn that into an emoticon in a numbered list.

My approach is slightly different, but the general idea is the same.  I use one dock for each mark I have unlocked/want to have active in that situation, and way, way fewer engineers, because that's overkill, especially for low marks.  Even high marks don't take much engineering to crank out at max build speed.  Every time I ever see someone say "10-20 engineers" in the context of something like this, I wonder what's wrong with them.  There's a cap on how fast a dock can spit ships out, and with that many of them, you're attempting to build ships like three times faster and furiouser than is even possible.  What's the point?

[keith.lamothe]

That is the first time I've seen it actually be appropriate for it to turn that into an emoticon in a numbered list.

In this case it was a calculated move

Every time I ever see someone say "10-20 engineers" in the context of something like this, I wonder what's wrong with them.  There's a cap on how fast a dock can spit ships out, and with that many of them, you're attempting to build ships like three times faster and furiouser than is even possible.  What's the point?

Heh, yea, 10-20 was more of an off-the-top-of-my-head number.  I've never actually tested to see how many engineers are needed per space dock to ensure maximum production of these particular ships, so I just kind of go with a "1, 2, 3, 4, Hrair" approach.  I think the engineers are too busy laughing at the constant stream of destruction to notice.