Author Topic: Possible AI exploit: Teleport Raiders  (Read 5515 times)

Offline laxrulz777

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Possible AI exploit: Teleport Raiders
« on: November 03, 2009, 09:32:37 am »
Wasn't sure if this is where you wanted this kind of thing (I figured here since, if it's not an exploit then it's a "strategy" ;)

Playing on AI7 and using Teleport Raiders

You can warp the T-Raiders near a guard post (or other cluster) but not on top of it so that you don't trigger tractor beams. Then warp them away. The enemy will send it's units out to attack you. They'll move not as a group but at their normal flight speed so it's a very effective tactic for getting all of the mobile units to come to you and thus get nicely spread out.

Seems like the units should make a decision when the T-Raiders warp away to go BACK to their guard post and not abandon it. I know that this behavior is important in other places but it's usually when a fleet moves nearby and therefore STAYS nearby. With the T-Raiders it seems abusive.

Thoughts?

Offline laxrulz777

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Re: Possible AI exploit: Teleport Raiders
« Reply #1 on: November 05, 2009, 12:33:30 pm »
Didn't see a response to this and was curious

As I've moved up in AI level I have noticed that the AI will OCCASIONALLY (relatively rarely) retreat back to a guard post. Even in these cases it's easy enough to just teleport in short bursts and keep the AI chasing.

Offline Kjara

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Re: Possible AI exploit: Teleport Raiders
« Reply #2 on: November 05, 2009, 12:40:53 pm »
Honestly, I find the "run the ai around your home system with a teleporting engineer" to be more of an issue generally(at times the ai cutlasses have really been determined to kill that engineer). 

This seems rather micro intensive, and somewhat time intensive, so I don't see it being a huge deal, but I may be overlooking something.

Offline laxrulz777

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Re: Possible AI exploit: Teleport Raiders
« Reply #3 on: November 05, 2009, 01:55:14 pm »
This seems rather micro intensive, and somewhat time intensive, so I don't see it being a huge deal, but I may be overlooking something.

The way it's typically worked for me was this:

Warp the main fleet in (acquire agro at wormhole and, more importantly, suck up tractor beam slots at wormhole).
Wait 2-3 seconds, warp T-Raiders in.
Jump the T-Raiders to just outside of tractor range at each guard post and wormhole around the system. There's a slight (half a second or so) delay between teleports so this takes about 10-15 seconds.
Jump the T-Raiders back to the main fleet to help with beachhead cleanup.
By this time, most of the AI units are sitting out in the open (away from tractor beam support). So now I send my main fleet toward their first target (usually a spec ops but whatever else floats my boat).
Grab the T-Raiders and start picking off the groups of 5-20 bombers / Cruisers that are now defenseless in space.
200+ T-Raiders will generally instakill up to 20 bombers of similar level so this process takes from 10-30 seconds depending on the unit mix.
Finally, I park them on whatever cluster of Anti-Startship units are bearing down on my main fleet.

It's really very little microing since I'm doing it while my fleet is moving between targets.

Offline Kjara

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Re: Possible AI exploit: Teleport Raiders
« Reply #4 on: November 05, 2009, 02:11:50 pm »
Sounds like it works better than I was expecting.  I'll have to give it a try before commenting more :).

Offline laxrulz777

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Re: Possible AI exploit: Teleport Raiders
« Reply #5 on: November 05, 2009, 02:16:10 pm »
There's also a slight intangible benefit in knowing that no bombers will ever get close to my fleet. I can have slightly different build priorities as a result.