Cryogenic Outpost - Counter-Sniper Turret?

[corfe83]

This weekend I was playing a game, and an AI raid on my homeworld (I play with schizophrenic waves enabled) included a bunch of sniper turrets in the mix. Unfortunately, the sniper turrets just sat at the wormhole, and took out several of my cryogenic pods before I got them.

Should the "cryogenic pod" outpost begin with 1 counter-sniper turret in the middle? After that experience, building one there is the first thing I do since they're so vulnerable to snipers, and any losses there are non-replaceable (it's a no-brainer in my mind), and so it seems like it should just be there from the start so I don't have to remember to build it every game.

[x4000]

Well, the same could be said of the vampires attacking these.  The idea of the cryo pods is to make it desirable to have it so that as soon as possible the AI raids won't be happening on your homeworld.  If that isn't possible, then adding secondary defenses like counter-sniper turrets would be the next good thing to consider.  Snipers are pretty rare as a unit in the hands of the AI, actually, so this wouldn't be something that would be a general problem in every game; the risk from melee ships is a lot higher, actually.

[corfe83]

That hasn't happened to me yet, but that's a good point.

Fair enough - maybe if I can't secure my borders right away, a counter-sniper turret and a few fighters down there should do the trick.

[superking]

the risk from melee ships is a lot higher

[x4000]

 

[corfe83]

Ha! That's a hilarious picture

[Sunshine!]

Epic Lose!  Awesome!  You and your problems with viral ships...

[Dragon]

While I'm sure this is the wrong place for this comment, it seems to me that viral ships are insanely powerful in the hands of the AI, due to not having a ship cap to stop them from replicating.  While in the hands of a player, you can make half the cap, and then they make the rest on your own..... sometimes...

But even if they work perfectly, you only ever get the cap, never more, while the AI can go from 500 viral ships to 1,000 viral ships if they attack and win.  Meaning that viral ships in the players hands, when at ship cap, don't actually use their viral-ness.  Or if they do, it's hugely lowered.  And that can be a problem too, because if you are over cap, and then a planet gets smashed, you can't just make more to bring it back up, you have to move them from somewhere else.

[Sunshine!]

Viral ships at ship cap can still replicate, but they do so much, much slower until you hit 1500 of a given mark level (at least I think 1500 is the absolute cap on anything).  The main problem here, perhaps, is that Neinzul Viral Swarmers do 500 damage (each point of damage converts to a build point, I'm assuming), required only 1500 build points to replicate, and had an attack speed of .5, so you end up with a new Swarmer every 1.5 seconds assuming full damage, 3 seconds assuming half damage.  Which gets really ridiculous for exponential growth purposes.  Even moreso because of their speed, which allows them to hit a target without taking much damage, many casualties or attrition, so they can replicate more before hitting minimum replication health.