What are Autocannon Minipods useful for?

[RCIX]

I chose autocannon minipods in my latest game and they're horrible at destroying anything and everything. The use i found for them was to tie up attackers in my home system sometimes (since they die so slowly) but is there another use for them?

[Kjara]

They have high multipliers against at least a few ship types(both fighters and cruisers for example), and kill those extremly fast(and have great speed for chasing them down).

[Haagenti]

They are not very useful IMO.

Back when I played parasites I used to capture oodles of them, so I found a few uses for them:
- fly them slightly in front of your blob to take the hits of the enemy blob (note: this works well against raids where you have a cluster of electric shuttles. Place the shuttles on low power, and use the pods to take the hit from the massed raid ships. When the raid is in the middle of the cluster, turn on the power for the shuttles)
- use them to hunt down other minipods who are attacking your harvesters

But by far the best use is:
- disband them for 1/10th of the resources

[Spikey00]

Agreeing that they are pretty useless, along with Bulletproofs (and a few more), vaguely in comparison to other specialty ships. 

[RCIX]

Another idea i just had since they are so tough is that they might be good for using as fire absorbers for grenade launchers, then fly them into the enemy ships to deal maximum damage to the enemies (not unlike Haagenti's idea).

[Warnstaff]

I've found that having a large blob of them with my fleet that the main ships (fighters, bombers, cruiser and other frontline ships) tend to last a heck of a lot longer. Not dissimilar to Haagenti's idea, but they "blob" in the fleet, not in front. Really great staying power I might add.

[RCIX]

I think this thread has reached a verdict: High staying power but overall semi-low use because of lack of any significant weapon power. I'm voting for one of the following two:

Losing the weapon and adding a slight regen field (8 health at 200 range, perhaps lower if its unbalanced) which does not affect other Autocannons, or boosting it's weapon to 1.5-2x of what it is now

I'd personally prefer the former as it seems like the thing then has a more defined niche to fit into, but it's name would have to change (Regen minipod?).

[Haagenti II]

Another idea i just had since they are so tough is that they might be good for using as fire absorbers for grenade launchers, then fly them into the enemy ships to deal maximum damage to the enemies (not unlike Haagenti's idea).

This just gave me a nasty idea: what happens when an enemy blob with many grenade launchers would suddenly be confronted with a few autocannons decloaking in their midst? Friendly fire?

[RCIX]

Another idea i just had since they are so tough is that they might be good for using as fire absorbers for grenade launchers, then fly them into the enemy ships to deal maximum damage to the enemies (not unlike Haagenti's idea).

This just gave me a nasty idea: what happens when an enemy blob with many grenade launchers would suddenly be confronted with a few autocannons decloaking in their midst? Friendly fire?

That's actually much of the risk of using Grenade launchers: friendly fire!

Incidentally, what's the difference between you and Haagenti?

[Kjara]

Heh, read his signature .

I'm personally of the opinion that the autocannons arn't a top tier unit, but they do have significant boost against a few unit types(and do quite well against them),  The main problem they have is their low base damage against anything they aren't fixed to be good against--unlike most units they can't be used somewhat well against those types.

[RCIX]

Heh, read his signature .

I'm personally of the opinion that the autocannons arn't a top tier unit, but they do have significant boost against a few unit types(and do quite well against them),  The main problem they have is their low base damage against anything they aren't fixed to be good against--unlike most units they can't be used somewhat well against those types.

That explains it! he should use Keepass on a USB drive

I suppose but it really seems like all the units shoul be good choices in some way or another, and i just don't see that in the autocannon. A Changing (replacing?) it to a regen field unit seems best.

[Haagenti]

Incidentally, what's the difference between you and Haagenti?

Haagenti is too lazy to send his password to his home account.
Haagenti II cannot be bothered to send his password to his work account.

And by splitting my # of posts across two accounts, I can hide for myself how much time I spend on this board

That's actually much of the risk of using Grenade launchers: friendly fire!

True. But my point was inflicting this risk on the AI: decloak a few worthless Autocannons every 15 seconds or in the AI blob, thereby causing much friendly fire while losing only useless units.

[RCIX]

Haagenti is too lazy to send his password to his home account.
Haagenti II cannot be bothered to send his password to his work account.

And by splitting my # of posts across two accounts, I can hide for myself how much time I spend on this board

Referring to yourself in the third person? Maybe you should go see a doctor...

True. But my point was inflicting this risk on the AI: decloak a few worthless Autocannons every 15 seconds or in the AI blob, thereby causing much friendly fire while losing only useless units.

That's actually a much more efficient use of them then tossing them all in at once!

[Haagenti]

Referring to yourself in the third person? Maybe you should go see a doctor...

I tried, but due to Dutch medical privacy laws, he will see only one of us at a time, which is impractical for obvious reasons.

That's actually a much more efficient use of them then tossing them all in at once!

Perhaps I should have waited with revealing this tactic until X introduced more units with splash damage, but I feel that the AI will have a torrid time of it when he does.

[Kjara]

Well, on most high level planets, the grenade launchers will be near a detector.  Just need to increase the range on the detectors enough that you have to send alot of autocannons in to get one into range long enough for the grenades to cause ff.