Author Topic: Need Strategy Advice?  (Read 65142 times)

Offline x4000

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #15 on: July 30, 2009, 05:32:51 pm »
What is there against snipers and deflectors?

I'd use counter-sniper turrets to protect your ships from enemy snipers (if you just need to protect a small area), or I'd use sniper turrets to take out their snipers.  Neither requires a knowledge upgrade, and you can give explicit targets to your turrets (sniper or otherwise).

For deflectors, cruisers or other things like that should work fine.  Basically anything but lasers should do the trick, as long as it has a long range (like cruisers) or can get in there quickly (like fighers or other smaller crafts -- I don't remember off the top of my head exactly what deflectors are weak against, but the in-game game hover will tell you).

You might say they don't do a lot of damage, but i have seen snipers decimate my 500 ship fleet to 300 just while i was research raiding!

Yeah, they'll definitely whittle you down over time.  Sniper turrets are much stronger than most snipers, though, so using the sniper turrets can really put a stop to that.

The only way for me to even destroy my targets (spec ops posts/gates for now) is to send in massive amount of MK1 and MK2 tanks (god are those heavy hitters) and snipers seem to do little against them, usually at least my mk2 tanks come to the gate and spec ops.. but getting them *back* is impossible ;p

Bombers should also work -- they are faster, but have less health.  Or if you have some cloaked ships, sometimes you can sneak those in and take out a warp gate before they know what hit them.  Usually you want to take out specops posts with cruisers rather than bombers, though, or else the bombers will get smacked around by the specops posts.  You could probably also you a lightning missile on those if you are careful and lucky with them, but that increases the AI progress a bit so might not be best.

Ehm, help? What to best do against the Fortify type AI ? DIF 7

It really depends on the map, but you might also consider trying to hop over some planets with transports or just by flooding through with a lot of ships.  Usually there is a weaker selection of planets behind the harder "crust" right closest to you, but not always.

Also, does the handicap also change my damage values? Because i was playing at 50% recently and it all seemed to die much faster than now (the anti-blob function does the rest ! ~.~)

Nope, the damage values are not affected by handicaps.  The handicaps affect resource inflows only.  It's possible the ship mix just isn't as good now, or maybe you were playing on Fast & Dangerous before, and Normal mode now?  But yeah, without your blob tactic that exploitative strategy's lack might make things seem harder (like they normally should), too.

Also my first ADV Lab gave me.. Snipers.. i rolled on the floor - Now i can do a sniper battle but sadly that doesn't really help me much (they die like flies ;p) and they do nothing against spec ops posts ;p

Actually, that can be really helpful.  If you outnumber their snipers and target them individually, you can really decimate them.  Especially if you have higher-level snipers than them.  Also, you can hit stuff under force fields with snipers (or sniper turrets), so that can be a huge advantage against a fortified foe.

Just scrolled a bit up - That answered the rest of my questions already ;p

Always nice. :)
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Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #16 on: July 30, 2009, 05:43:11 pm »
You make it sound so simple... Now that blobbing is a thing of the past it really shows how effective that really was, i could literally instant wipe out anything with a good combo of ships now the far spacing makes every attack costly

I think for now i am just going to switch back to dif 6 to even get a grip of the entire game.... still many things i have not tried out/fully understood, especially how effective MK2 and MK3 turrets are against MK2 and MK3 ships (are they more effective against shields?)

You said spec ops patrol between random points, so basically 1 spec ops post spawns X amount of ships per minute(s) that will patrol through sectors and sometimes wander in my worlds? So that is unrelated to reinforcements and not stopped by killing the warp gate?
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Offline Revenantus

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #17 on: July 30, 2009, 05:44:13 pm »
- What is the best way to expand, is it better to secure "dead end planet loops" completely to get MASSIVE resource income first and then care about the progression problem with careful and aimed attacks on all datacenters you can find? Is it better to just pick a good (4/4 resources at least) planet and fortify it like a homeworld?

Yes, destroy all the Data Centres you can locate.

Remember that with every planet you capture you should be working towards the ultimate goal of defeating the AI. If you are in dire need of the resources to progress elsewhere, or taking those planets would greatly secure your position, then the answer could be yes - you need to weigh all your actions up against the corresponding AI Progress increase that they will incur.

It's definitely good to secure a good resource base early on, but don't blindly take planets purely for their economic value, make sure you consider all the other aspects of the map too.

I apologize for the slightly vague response, but there's no easy answer to this one.

EDIT: There's an article on the community wiki addressing a similar issue, it might be worth having a look to see if it's of use to you - http://arcengames.com/communitywiki/index.php?title=Factors_Affecting_The_Strategic_Value_of_Systems

- Should one target Gates prioritized (for deep raids) to prevent reinforcements gathering near you too much? And in which Order (Resource capping / Raiding for gates?)

Destroying the Warp Gates won't actually prevent the AI from reinforcing at a planet - only destroying the Command Station and Warp Gate will achieve that. It's only worth destroying Warp Gates in adjacent systems to prevent raids from entering through the associated wormholes.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2009, 05:59:37 pm by Revenantus »

Offline Revenantus

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #18 on: July 30, 2009, 05:46:51 pm »
You said spec ops patrol between random points, so basically 1 spec ops post spawns X amount of ships per minute(s) that will patrol through sectors and sometimes wander in my worlds? So that is unrelated to reinforcements and not stopped by killing the warp gate?

They patrol between all the other Spec Ops Posts on the map. Whenever a Spec Ops Post receives more reinforcements they will start patrolling the map, increasing the number of Spec Ops ships cruising around.

Yes, they're unrelated to ships spawned by Warp Gate raids.

Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #19 on: July 30, 2009, 05:49:11 pm »
can the Ai reinforce planets even without a warp gate existent? I mean, can the amount of ships continue to grow when you just kill the Warp Gate? The Tooltip is not clear about it ;/ It says stops reinforcing, but does that mean the reinforcements coming FROM the warpgate or generally ALL reinforcments at that planet?

I am just asking to be absolutely 100% sure - because it if only stops waves from a wormhole.. well.. thats pretty useless thing to incur a +10 progression for (apart from the homeworld connected gates i guess) ;p
« Last Edit: July 30, 2009, 05:53:37 pm by eRe4s3r »
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Offline Revenantus

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #20 on: July 30, 2009, 05:53:12 pm »
can the Ai reinforce planets even without a warp gate existent? I mean, can the amount of ships continue to grow when you just kill the Warp Gate? The Tooltip is not clear about it ;/ It says stops reinforcing, but does that mean the reinforcements coming FROM the warpgate or generally ALL reinforcments at that planet?

You need to destroy the Command Station AND the Warp Gate at a planet in order to prevent the Command Posts at the planet from receiving reinforcements.

If you've destroyed both, then you've already increased the AI progress by 20 and there's unlikely to be any reason for you to not conquer the planet entirely and utilize the resources.

Offline Revenantus

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #21 on: July 30, 2009, 05:54:53 pm »
Destroying the Command Posts at a planet won't increase the AI Progress, and will decrease rate at which the AI can reinforce that planet, but won't prevent it from reinforcing there entirely.

Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #22 on: July 30, 2009, 05:59:58 pm »
Ah, ugh.. man that just explains just about everything - why X sees the exploit potential in just killing of command posts for example, while you are right that it doesn't stop this reinforcement entirely it still wastes reinforcements of the ai, which are useless in such a neutered world to begin with (because even 500 ships is not really anything which hinders a large fleet in any form) It just drains the pool dry for the rest of the worlds.

I thought the Warpgate is the thing that allows reinforcements at the planet in general, but if a command station is actually the thing allowing reinforcements at the command posts then that means that there is not really any reason why i should even attack an ai planet if i don't plan on taking it, apart from the Spec Op post. Because i don't care about the waves - they are easy to defend against, what i care about is constant IV attacks without announcement ;p
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Offline Revenantus

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #23 on: July 30, 2009, 06:03:19 pm »
Ah, ugh.. man that just explains just about everything - why X sees the exploit potential in just killing of command posts for example, while you are right that it doesn't stop this reinforcement entirely it still wastes reinforcements of the ai, which are useless in such a neutered world to begin with (because even 500 ships is not really anything which hinders a large fleet in any form) It just drains the pool dry for the rest of the worlds.

I thought the Warpgate is the thing that allows reinforcements at the planet in general, but if a command station is actually the thing allowing reinforcements at the command posts then that means that there is not really any reason why i should even attack an ai planet if i don't plan on taking it, apart from the Spec Op post. Because i don't care about the waves - they are easy to defend against, what i care about is constant IV attacks without announcement ;p

A Command Station OR a Warp Gate will allow the AI to reinforce at that planet.

Destroying the warp gates to prevent the raids is actually a pretty good tactic - as your domain expands minimizing the number of locations in which you need to deploy sizable garrisons of ships and/or turrets will help greatly.

Destroying the Command Posts will also prevent, or at least delay, a Cross-Planet attack being launched from that system.


Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #24 on: July 30, 2009, 06:12:34 pm »
So does the progress influence the type of ships (class) that spawn from the spec ops positions and their number?

And more so, does 21 more progression (for wiping a world) cause any *noticeable* differences in the game?

How much a difference does 100 do? Does the AI get more reinforcements then?
I ask because i don't really understand what small increments of the progression can cause, by the time i am at 1500-1700 ships (usually progression 104~) the game is already molasses hard (at dif7)

Ok, thats the last batch of confusion i throw around ;)
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Offline Revenantus

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #25 on: July 30, 2009, 06:18:19 pm »
This page in the Official Manual should hopefully answer those questions.

http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_AI_Techs

As for how much difference each increase in AI Progress makes, we could ask X for some detailed figures, but you'll develop an intuitive, and more useful, understanding of how it affects the AI's strength as you play.

21 will cause a fairly minor increase in AI strength on difficulty 7, 100 is certainly noticeable.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2009, 06:21:07 pm by Revenantus »

Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #26 on: July 30, 2009, 06:49:21 pm »
Thanks for the help ;) I will test around in a "lower than Dif7" game for a while now ^^
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Offline Admiral

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #27 on: July 30, 2009, 11:43:40 pm »
Ok, i need strategy advice  :)

My advice: Don't play this game with physicists or mathematicians. :)

Offline x4000

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #28 on: July 31, 2009, 08:50:29 am »
Here are some charts about the AI Progress:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,545.0.html

Also, interestingly, two of my alpha testers are Phd Chemist/Physicist combos, and the other is an engineer/statistician.  All three have a marked armchair interest in astrophysics and sci-fi in general.  So that made for some interesting discussions during the development of this game, rather similar to some of the ones popping up here (minus the more hardcore math). :D
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Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Need Strategy Advice?
« Reply #29 on: July 31, 2009, 12:32:33 pm »
Question:

What kind of destruction can i expect from a Nuclear Missile?

I have a sector next to my homeworld with 3 ! MK3 ion cannons, i can't even get 1 second of a view with sending spaceships through, i see the only chance in nuking the entrance, how i would go about this best? What apart from core ships and spaceships survives nukes? What about core turrets?

So basically, what on a DIF 10 World (lots of Core and MKIV and MK3 tech) will survive a nuke that detonates right after emergence (i don't want to cap the planet, and i can live with +50 for getting rid of that huge door stopper in front of my homeworld)

(This is a DIF10 / DIF1 Game) yes 1 AI DIF 10 and 1 AI dif 1

Edit: The main point of that nuke is to get rid of 2 Specops posts and the 3 Ion Cannons, if these were gone i could clean up conventional
« Last Edit: July 31, 2009, 12:37:10 pm by eRe4s3r »
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