i am beyond horrible at this game

[Coppermantis]

-Turrets are about on par with regular ships, but it depends on what type you're using. Basic turrets, as their name might suggest, are pretty weak. Flak and Missile turrets have pretty high damage, so they generay perform better if you've got a good economy going. And of course, mark level is a critical factor in strength. A Mk. I turret against, say a Mk V bomber is no contest.

-When placing turrets, remember to place them in range. Missile turrets I believe are the longest-range non-sniper turret. They're pretty cheap and if you place it so their range (the circle you see when placing one) is just encompassing the wormhole they can shoot most ships without being in range.

-Grav turrets can be under shields and still slow hostiles. This will greatly increase their time alive, giving your snipers and other long-range stuff to work away at the enemy. Again, mines placed in a line from the wormhole to command station will reduce a lot of threat, since the AI ships usually just make  a beeline towards the command station.

-The AWS does tell you what wormhole to defend. It will appear red instead of the usual green after you build one. It only gives you this information on the planet it's built at, however.

[Hearteater]

When a wave is incoming (the warning is in the top left corner) pressing and holding T in that system will bring up the minimap and you'll be able to clearly see which warp point they will arrive through.  Since you have a little under 3 minutes, early game this should be enough time to ensure you set up the basics:

1) 5-20 Tractor turrets - Each Mark I Tractor Turret can hold 30 enemies, so against 250 you'd want 9 ideally but I'd probably just build 10 because I like round numbers
- OR -
1) 2-3 Gravity turrets - You can surround the warp point with a triangle of Gravity turrets if you are worried enemy ships might spread out in the system, otherwise either make a triangle with two turrets plus the warp point itself as the three corners or just string the gravity turrets into a chain leading to your CS.

2) 10 Mines - Cheap and fast to build with a high cap, I actually drop 10 of these at every warp point early game.  These are less effective when you are using mines, but if you manually place mines tightly around the warp point, some of them will still trigger.

3) 10+ of the ideal counter turret - Press F1 twice to see all the Mark I ships and find the ship type that in incoming in the wave and check out its weaknesses.  Pick the turret that hurts its armor type the most.  Also check for immunity to Tractor Beams and Gravity Turrets because that will determine which of the two you need to use.  Also be careful about Force Field immunity because those ships are extremely dangerous if they get past your defenses.  Tractor/Gravity are pretty much required to live through those ship types.

On a general note, try and get 5 sniper turrets up in most systems as soon as possible.  They are expensive to make, so be careful not to build too many at once.  Also don't build them close to anything.  They can hit anything in the system so you want them far away from anything else so enemy ships can't kill two birds with one stone.

[chemical_art]

Umph. I'd disagree with most of this advice.

Here's what works consistently on 8.0+

Get a shipyard to loop fighters I and II on FRD

place 3 forcefields next to the home command station

After these are built augment by...

Placing 10 basic turrets, missile turrets, and lasers so that they are in the range of the shields of the station but otherwise as far toward the wormholes as possible. If facing 4+ wormholes place them so that they are all able to defend possible attack directions (meaning they'll have to be close to the shields, but don't place them under it

This last step may or not be possible. If there is still time then place grav turrets starting close the to command station and expanding outward to the wormholes.

[Hearteater]

I don't think the advise in this thread is intended for the 8+ crowd .

[zoutzakje]

haha yeah. I consider myself an experienced AI war player, but dif 8 can give me some serious trouble. I can beat it, even the harder AI types, but it aint easy.
The most important thing I use in every game are the gravity turrets. Once I found out what they are capable of, I've been using them in every game. So... logistics command stations, grav turrets and tractor turrets... enemy ships will have a hard time getting anywhere. Also spamming low cost ships (with multiple docks if you have a high economy) can be a very useful tactic. Place at least one extra forcefield near your home command. build an Advanced warp sensor... a few turrets here and there..and then wait till wave warning(s) arrive so you can build ships that will counter them. works fine for me.

[Echo35]

I don't think the advise in this thread is intended for the 8+ crowd .

But 8+ is when the game starts to actually get fun!

[Lee]

I don't think the advise in this thread is intended for the 8+ crowd .

But 8+ is when the game starts to actually get fun!

We're talking Dwarf Fortress fun, right?

[x4000]

We're talking Dwarf Fortress fun, right?

What other kind of fun is there!

[bongotron2000]

With the economic unlocks, I tend to wait until I've got 5 economic command stations before unlocking the MkII economic station, and wait until I've a further 5 before locking the MkIII. This maximizes the resource income benefit from spending the knowledge. Then I shuffle things around so that the MkIII stations are on the closer in worlds and less likely to get destroyed. At this point I start to think about upgrading the harvesters, upgrading whichever resource has the lowest income, as by this point there should be a fair few harvesters built and again the benefit of spending the knowledge is maximized.

As mentioned before, grav and tractor turrets are great for buying time, as are riot starships (I usually stick to lasers on them for maximum range, keeps them out of trouble) for their engine damage abilities. I'll often mix light starships in with my missile frigates to give them the damage boost and provide some short-range defense in case anything gets through.

Not spending knowledge until you need to is also very good advice. I'll often wait for a difficult looking wave to be announced before unlocking a ship or turret (or both) to counter it.

We're talking Dwarf Fortress fun, right?

What other kind of fun is there!

Well, this may be controversial, but I sometimes find winning fun too

[x4000]

That's true, I really like winning also. Hence I always play difficulty 7 instead of 8. I still lose more than I win, but the games are exciting and the victories are sweet.

[Ktoff]

I still lose more than I win, but the games are exciting and the victories are sweet.

That's actually really encouraging :-)

[Hearteater]

AI Wars is probably the only game I can think of were I really enjoy each game, regardless of whether I win or lose.

[superking]

if you hold V while giving an order, your ships will automatically engage enemies and defend the system