High tech planets

[syndicatedragon]

Is it a good idea to make it a priority to capture high tech planets even though they may not be strategically important? High tech planets will get high tech reinforcements, right? I've read the section in the wiki on "neutering", but it seems like that would take forever with all the wormhole guard posts. I guess I'm worried that allowing these planets to "hang out" is going to cause a problem as they get reinforcements.

[x4000]

Generally it's not much of a problem, unless it's right next to a high-priority planet of yours.  Neutering involves killing all the guard posts except the wormhole ones, by the way -- so it's actually still faster than taking the planet, and is preferred if you're not wanting the AIP increase.

[BobTheJanitor]

Does the AI still get additional reinforcements with the wormhole guardposts still up, or no? I always thought they gave it extra spots to reinforce since the ships can appear there. But then I guess they would actually have the 'warp gate reinforce' ability in that case, wouldn't they? Or am I failing to understand this properly? If the WH guardposts don't do anything but stand there and fire piddling shots at me, what is the point of the AI building them in the first place?

[Panopticon]

I thought that the Wormhole Guardpost main purpose is to receive distributed reinforcements from the emplacements with the actual warpgate attribute. Otherwise large groups of AI ships could stack up in some places that would do the AI absolutely no good. This is more of an assumption on my part though, so I'd love to hear the details.

[x4000]

As long as there is anything on the planet with the Warp Gate - Reinforce, then ALL of the guard posts (including the wormhole ones) get reinforcements during each reinforcement event.  As does the command station.

So when you neuter the planet, the command station and wormhole guard posts are getting reinforcements, like normal.  However, the AI ship cap for the planet is based solely on non-wormhole guard posts, so they'll cap out a lot sooner.  They'll still be at the wormholes and the command stations, etc, but their numbers will be capped low enough that they aren't getting barracks or launching border aggression, etc.

By contrast, if you take the time to kill all those wormhole guard posts after killing all the rest, you gain... nothing.  Well, you've cleared out the wormholes from having ships sitting at them, but you haven't affected the ship cap on the planet for the AI.  All the same number of ships will be there, just concentrated all at the command station rather than mixed between there and the wormholes.

Hope that helps!

[BobTheJanitor]

That makes sense, thanks. So they exist to simply spread the ships around instead of having them all spawn on one spot and stay there. And to annoy me by constantly firing tiny baby shots at ships that I leave around a wormhole.

[x4000]

Right.

[syndicatedragon]

However, the AI ship cap for the planet is based solely on non-wormhole guard posts, so they'll cap out a lot sooner.  They'll still be at the wormholes and the command stations, etc, but their numbers will be capped low enough that they aren't getting barracks or launching border aggression, etc.

I was wondering about that. It seems like I've seen the opposite stated somewhere as well (i.e. the wormhole GPs DO contribute to the cap). Thanks for the info!