Rebalance of Raid Engine AI

[Spikey00]

Yesterday, me and Zuul were in contact and were playing a couple games together that we basically lost hilariously to the AI.  We already spoke of this on IRC with Revenantus about this issue briefly, but I suppose posting it on the forum wouldn't hurt.

Basically, the Raid Engine ( is absolutely brutal early game, as it sends a couple hundred waves of III ships even before 20 minutes!  This was noted on all five of our lost games that included the Raid Engine personality--Zuul claims that after attacking a planet with a Raid Starship, the AI went "ape@$#!" and began the massacre.  I personally believe that he activated a planet adjacent to the attacked that contained at least one Raid Engine (where it says "AI Alerted to Your Presence in Galaxy Map).  Hilariously, I can report the AI mysteriously attacked him only, and my attempts to save him were in vain in all five games (before quitting, the AI then starts sending all units to me after destroying his home Command Station).

I strongly suggest that the Raid Engine not use III ships so early on because there is simply no way to hold them when mixed fleets of Fighters, Bombers, Cruisers, and specialty ships come wave after wave. 


For now, I and Zuul are terrified of this AI personality, and will suicide our home Command Stations if we encounter another Raid Engine!

[x4000]

I'm not concerned about this type at all, it sounds like you guys kept triggering the alarms and you reap what you sow with that.

The alarm posts are pretty much harmless if you kill them on the planet you are attacking, and all adjacent planets to that planet, before you kill a command station.  If you rush in and attack a command station without checking that planet and adjacent planets for alarm posts first, then depending on the strength of the adjacent planets you could be in for some super nasty surprises.  The alarm posts make it so that more scouting is needed, and more raids against AI facilities in deeper territory.  If you just try to take planets like you normally would, it will go very, very poorly indeed.

[x4000]

I just noticed you said Raid Engine, not alarmist... it's been a long day.  Yeah, those are quite scary, you have to attack them carefully.  I'll flag them as a "technologist" type of AI, I think that will be appropriate.

[Spikey00]

Would it be possible to have a non-technologist Raid Engine (Easier/Moderate)?  I find this AI interesting to play with nevertheless, and it would be nice to have a lower-tech based Raid Engine personality.

[x4000]

The way that raid engines work is that their wave level is based on the level of the planet they are at. So if you are near a mk3 planet, you get mk3 waves, etc. This is exacerbated by having raid engines all over the place, but even with the current ai, if you raid carefully you can do well. Even without the raid engine ai being turned on, you'll still see at least one or two raid engine units on every map. Whether those are going to be much threat depends on the map.  So even without a lower-level ai type for them, you'll still run into them as you play.