Offensive Forcefields?

[Morbius]

Hi guys, recently bought the game to give it a try and am a few hours into my first campaign, i think its two AI4's as my opponents.
Anyway up til now there's not been a whole lot of strategy, just build all mk1/2 ships available and sweep the enemy planets, some planets require me to rebuild and send multiple forces, the next target in my sights however is a Mk4 with over 100 Mk4 Zenith bombard's with the usual mix of fighters/bombers/frigates, some of which are under FF's, oh and there is an Armor inhibitor (joy), so my fleets get shredded pretty quick.
Now i could send wave after wave of fleet ships to whittle them down but thought there would be more to it than that, i noticed that FF's are immune to the bombardments damage and figured that would be a great way to protect my fleet from the long range zenith ships.

First, from reading posts here and on the Wiki, at some point FF could travel through wormholes? well mine cant, guessing that was changed recently, no problems i'll send a mobile builder and some engi's through with some cover.

Second, the forcefield constructed fine and .. no shield? its at 100% and i can move it around but theres no shield protecting the nearby ships, was that changed aswell? or am i missing something? Kinda funny, at the moment this lone FF is sitting in the middle of an enemy system with nothing attacking it except a wormhole guard post.
What other options do i have in attacking this planet?

[x4000]

Most likely if your forcefield isn't putting up the actual forcefield, then you've got very negative energy, or the forcefield  is out of supply.

In terms of the forcefields in general not being able to be used offensively to the same degree (ie, being barely mobile and not able to go through wormholes), that was changed in 5.0 due to balance concerns that a number of players had found.

Welcome to the forums!

[BobTheJanitor]

Yeah check to see if the FF is flashing red then something on that planet is blocking supply. Or like Chris said, check if your energy is low, which should be very obvious because numbers start appearing over all your units.

Although now that I think of it, your mobile builder requires supply too, so you shouldn't have been able to build it in the first place if supply is blocked. Hmm... It could be a return of this bug, possibly. Did the FF take any damage while it was building? Have you got a save (located in your ai war \RuntimeData\Save folder) that shows the problem in action?

[Varone]

oh and there is an Armor inhibitor (joy)

There is your answer. Armor inhibitor disables all your forcefields on that planet. So no friendly FF i'm afraid.

[Morbius]

Welcome to the forums!

Thanks!

oh and there is an Armor inhibitor (joy)

There is your answer. Armor inhibitor disables all your forcefields on that planet. So no friendly FF i'm afraid.

Ack! And its sitting right next to the command station underneath a Mk3 FF 
Thanks for the replies guys, I'm thinking now my best bet would be to try and lure groups of bombards back through the wormhole and into my turrets, is taking a few potshots at a guard post enough or would i need to destroy it to release the nearby ships from guard duty?

[x4000]

Potshots should do it! Though they will probably stalk you instead of going through the wormhole if you're strong on the other side. You might try a raid starship onto their command station, if you're prepared to deal with the backlash.

[Sunshine!]

Even if they stalk you, it means they'll cluster around a wormhole, so you can ambush them with something faster than them once they're all sitting at the wormhole.

[TechSY730]

Even if they stalk you, it means they'll cluster around a wormhole, so you can ambush them with something faster than them once they're all sitting at the wormhole.

Something that Kieth has expressed a desire to "fix" at some point. 

[Morbius]

Thanks for the tips guys, this Mk4 wont last long now

Edit: Hah! Viral Shredders are cool, started with about 15 of them defending the wormhole, after attacking this command station and beating back the retaliation i now have 165 of them around the wormhole Mhuahaha!

[BobTheJanitor]

Shredders are pretty ridiculous. I cracked open a few caches with them inside several hours back in this game, and now I have several thousand of them across my galaxy. I like to send 2-300 in with my planet assaults and just put them on FRD and let them go crazy while my fleet takes out guard posts. I usually break even or end up with even more shredders than I started with.

[TechSY730]

Shredders are pretty ridiculous. I cracked open a few caches with them inside several hours back in this game, and now I have several thousand of them across my galaxy. I like to send 2-300 in with my planet assaults and just put them on FRD and let them go crazy while my fleet takes out guard posts. I usually break even or end up with even more shredders than I started with.

As I suggested elsewhere, I think that the increase in BP needed to get a new viral shredder should consider ALL viral shredders (of the same Mk) belonging to that player, not just the ones on the current planet. This should make things more reasonable.

Of course the growth of needed BP may need lowered a little if such a change is made.

[Sunshine!]

And the shredders will probably need a boost as a result, since their current stats are based on having a couple thousand of them laying around.

[Morbius]

Hmm just a couple anomalies i've noticed that i thought i should mention;

First, Sniper turrets dont seem able to penetrate spire shield spheres, which i guess is intended, however they will still try to shoot ships sitting under them (inflicting no damage at all), infact they quite often would choose to attack a ship under the shield instead of one that was FRD out in the open, though at the time the snipers were sitting under my own FF that i had set up as a beachhead, i dont know if that was causing the 0 damage attacks.

Second, Riot Control Starships are able to fire their shotguns while in low power mode and cloaking boosted, LOL. Have a few of them on the AI side of a wormhole destroying engines of incoming ships 

[BobTheJanitor]

Yikes. Those should definitely go up on the bug tracker. Feel free to toss them up there. Anyone is allowed to sign up and post bugs or ideas to try and improve the game.

[TechSY730]

Hmm just a couple anomalies i've noticed that i thought i should mention;

First, Sniper turrets dont seem able to penetrate spire shield spheres, which i guess is intended, however they will still try to shoot ships sitting under them (inflicting no damage at all), infact they quite often would choose to attack a ship under the shield instead of one that was FRD out in the open, though at the time the snipers were sitting under my own FF that i had set up as a beachhead, i dont know if that was causing the 0 damage attacks.

Hmm, it almost sounds like they still are using their old targeting preferences (aka, not caring if something is under a forcefield or not) even though they can no longer shoot through them. Of course that is just a wild guess.

Second, Riot Control Starships are able to fire their shotguns while in low power mode and cloaking boosted, LOL. Have a few of them on the AI side of a wormhole destroying engines of incoming ships  

Nice catch, though I think that maintaining sane behaviour of modules when their parent ships are in an altered state (such as low power mode) has been a frequent struggle over the many versions module based starships have been around.

I'll have to see this silliness for myself at least once before it gets fixed though.