Does killing one AI ship mean one AI ship is dead?

[mindloss]

For instance, say I see a threat world on my border with 500 ships. If I go in and knock out 400 of them, have I made a permanent 400-ship dent in the AI's overall galactic forces (barring its reaching fleet cap or whatever)? It sort of seems to me like the more I harass/take out a system, the more ships keep piling up, like the AI is just auto-inflating to the number it decides it should be at. Then again, from what I've read, that could also just be that the AI is choosing to reinforce those highly visible worlds and the advantage I'm not seeing is 400 ships I eventually *won't* have to deal with scattered among his core worlds.

So, the question: does killing an AI ship mean I've slightly depleted a finite resource of his, or does it reinforce in any way proportionally such that killing ships ends up not hurting him one full ship's worth?

[x4000]

1 ship dead is one ship dead. The ai can't cheat and get more just because you killed some of his ships. Special exceptions aside, like ai eyes, but those are very much the exception and are about deterring specific player behavior or getting an appropriate counter-cost to when the PLAYER is able to break the normal rules. See also mark III science labs and superterminals. Those ships "come out of nowhere" and cost the ai nothing.

But in the vast majority of cases, it's 1 ship killed is one dead. If you're just seeing this as regular reinforcements, that's meaning that each ship you kill is one fewer ships that would have been sent somewhere else.

[zebramatt]

So, the question: does killing an AI ship mean I've slightly depleted a finite resource of his...

Also of note is that the AIs have an infinite number of ships outside of the galaxy with which to reinforce their worlds, using their warp gate network.

So yes you are depleting a finite number of AI ships currently in-galaxy but if the AI is reinforcing them faster than you're destroying them (perhaps because you've royally upset it) then your net gain is negated.

[x4000]

Also true.  But if you can prevent the AI from reinforcing to places you are interested in, then the net cost to you is pretty marginal, too.


I guess the core question in this thread might have been: "Is it ever a good idea to kill AI ships just to kill them, or am I wasting my time doing that?"  To which my answer would be "unless it's a guard post, command station, special fixed defensive unit (AI eye, fortress, etc), it's going to 'grow back' sooner or later."  Starships and other really large ships that are mobile also grow back a lot more slowly, and so do guardians in the main.  But going around killing smaller fleet ships is like swatting mosquitoes in a swamp: you're never going to clear out the swamp via that method alone.

[mindloss]

I guess the core question in this thread might have been: "Is it ever a good idea to kill AI ships just to kill them, or am I wasting my time doing that?"

Thanks, that's exactly how I meant it.

You seem to be saying 'not worth it just for the sake of it', and fair enough, but what about in the case where you have a big buildup on one of your borders? If you know you can engage them before they engage you and have favorable odds, isn't that worth it, rather than deal with that bunch as part of a bigger mob later on?

[x4000]

but what about in the case where you have a big buildup on one of your borders? If you know you can engage them before they engage you and have favorable odds, isn't that worth it, rather than deal with that bunch as part of a bigger mob later on?

It depends on what you mean by "buildup."  If you're referring to AI ships that are free/threat, then yes absolutely.  It's always worthwhile to kill ships that are free/threat, because those are extremely finite for the AI.  And they will harass you later.

The AI gets a lot of ships, but all its reinforcements are guards, and the guards don't directly threaten you in the same sense as free/threat ships at all.  So if you mean "buildup" in the sense of a planet that has filled up with thousands of guards... well, I would say that is not worth it just to engage the little ships... unless you also destroy the guard posts.  If you destroy the guard posts AND the little ships, then you've not only killed some mosquitos, you've taken away their ability to breed, so to speak.

Killing the smaller ships is often valuable, but unless they are free/threat ships, it's rarely valuable to just kill them, if that makes sense.