What kind of command center to build?

[Entrenched Homperson]

Cool, I may use this at some front worlds, because it may confuse AI logic a little bit if it tries to get to protected worlds through it. I like units with abilities like these that affect how the AI behaves towards you.

It kinda makes me wish for stuff like it

[BobTheJanitor]

Jammer would be best for a world that you can't feasibly gate-raid for safety. Something with 4 or 5 wormholes coming off of it, where the AIP for gate raiding starts to get too high. Bear in mind also that you can't block every planet. The AI's going to send those waves somewhere, so in theory if you gate-raided or built warp jammers to the point where it couldn't send waves directly to any of your worlds, it will just send them to one of its own worlds and fly them over, but without you getting the warning ahead of time. That fiendish devil. 

[Red Spot]

Personally I find them only usefull (but very much so), in the following scenario:

A
B-C

Say I own planet A, it is extemelly reinforced. For some reason I didn't see earlier, I now want to take planet C, but dont want to drop using planet A as my "wave-planet"(always try to only have 1). Thats where the Jammer-CC is very usefull for me (but I generally see in time I want planet C and so dont really reinforce planet A, but later on for instance take planet B and reinforce that, or gate-raid it).

[chemical_art]

I used to love jammers for funneling waves to certain worlds. But exo-waves and CPA's ignore them, so I ended up abandoning them simply because they could not fullfill their purpose of keeping warps away. Why spend 5k knowledge and the ongoing cost if they will break from a more massive exo-group or CPA anyway?


EDIT: When were jammers made? and when was the last time they were touched? I wonder if exo-groups were created after warp jammers and warp gates have not been balanced accordingly. CPA's probably existed before they were last touched, but they came every few hours. Exo-groups come much frequently, and frankly seem to make jammers less effective overall.

[TechSY730]

I used to love jammers for funneling waves to certain worlds. But exo-waves and CPA's ignore them, so I ended up abandoning them simply because they could not fullfill their purpose of keeping warps away. Why spend 5k knowledge and the ongoing cost if they will break from a more massive exo-group or CPA anyway?

Their useful because they stop the by far most common way for the AI to attack your planet, a direct warp to a planet. CPA don't warp at all, and exo-waves are waves to an AI planet, which is out of your jurisdiction. Basically, even though the warp Janet stops the AIs normal way of attack, they don't stop the ordinary form of the coming in through the wormhole.

The are not a "prevent the AI from entering ever" tool, they were never meant to be, and there probably will never be such a tool.

Now that the AI has more types of attack that do not rely on warps to a player planet, the warp jammer command station may now seem less useful. As such, a knowledge and cost nerf may be in order. But nontheless, they still are very useful.

[chemical_art]

Now that the AI has more types of attack that do not rely on warps to a player planet, the warp jammer command station may now seem less useful. As such, a knowledge and cost nerf may be in order. But nontheless, they still are very useful.

Exactly what I was thinking. The jammers are not any less useful, it is just there are more options that go around their intention of lessening spawns directly hitting the planet.

There was time when a planet would be hit by three things: border aggression, waves, and CPA. With a jammer, you removed the waves. border aggression could mostly be removed via neutering, and CPA's are over long period of times. There are now many ai minor factions that add to this, and as a result normally there is at least one, frequently two more sources of aggression***. As a result the jammer is less effective in the grand scheme of things. Since the jammer cannot be buffed to prevent these other forms of aggression, perhaps their cost can be decreased to reflect their change in usefulness.

***These forms of aggression are frequently more destructive then the waves themselves, so if you try to defend against them on a jammer planet, you defeat the point of the jammer. Therein lies their problem for my personal use: They don't really defend a planet well enough to be worth sacrificing a potential military station, the 5k knowledge cost, ongoing resources, just to lose them after an hour or so.


Edit: It also may be just me, but it seems I rarely worry about waves, but fret over exo-groups due to their greater tech and lack of warning.

[BobTheJanitor]

I actually never have used jammer stations. The knowledge investment and resource cost seem to be way too much when I can just gate raid anyway. I guess if I played on maps with LOTS of connecting wormholes, I might find more use for them. If every planet had 5 wormholes off of it, for example. But then I am more likely to just beef up my defenses everywhere and weather the waves as they come, rather than trying to block off everywhere. I would say that jammers should probably be something that's unlocked from the start (or for a MUCH lower cost), or else produce resources like a normal econ station. Having both negatives is a bit too much for me to consider them a useful option.

[Entrenched Homperson]

I've never touched them either. I don't think they would help me as much as these days I'm playing with Cross Planet Waves on. BTW, what IS the interaction between CPW and our friend the Jammer?
If I put it at a gate planet will the AI send waves to systems behind it, or is wave logic the same for CPW, just the spawn at planets and attack undisclosed locations.

[Shrugging Khan]

I can't find jammers to be useful. The cost is acceptable, but is gate raiding really taht hard?

[Sunshine!]

When there are 17 incoming wormholes... yes.

[Shrugging Khan]

lulz, alright, point to you.

Personally, I'd just put a buttload of defences into the system and call it a day (since CPAs and the like will still come through), but I suppose it can be nice to block it entirely if you've got, say, a mad bomber AI, or one that uses beachheads.

[BobTheJanitor]

I think making a warp jammer its own buildable structure and giving it the same research cost, unit cap, and ongoing metal/crystal cost (or maybe even a bit more) would make it more useful. That keeps it the same but doesn't preclude the building of a different command station on the world.

[Sunshine!]

For 5000 knowledge and its costs, that seems like a bit of a bargain.  Consider, having a Warp Jammer and an Econ command station sharing a planet will give you net income from the command station.  Warp Jammer ongoing costs would have to be doubled or quadrupled, depending on how they want balance to work.

[Irxallis]

We got a Backdoor Hacker AI once and selected two worlds next to each other (one of mine, one of my partner's). Sadly, our defense system was inadequate and one of the home command stations fell (to three raid starships III which came with Exo-galactic Spirecraft wave - I put far too little gravity turrets on that planet).

As we really didn't want to have waves strike our former homeworld which lied in the deep safe pocket of the galaxy we put Warp Jammer on that planet. And all defenses were moved to the only remaining homeworld as a whipping boy - if Exo-waves can strike through that wormhole, we need to be able to protect against it and rare 4 simultaneous waves...).

So yes, there are rare occurences where a Warp Jammer is very useful as you cannot gate raid and you absolutely want to have the world secured ;-).



In case there was a Warp Jammer structure - an unlockable one, not the Command Station - wouldn't it kind of neuter Backdoor Hacker AI? Definitely it would completely change our strategy, as we'd block waves to our planets and made whipping boys of some front planets instead of accepting the losses of up to 3 planets from time to time (as most fortresses, both superfortresses, most turrets etc were located on the remaining homeworld).

Remembering some of those waves we had and some interesting problems we faced - without this Warp Jammer we might have not won that game. 5k knowledge well spent ;-).

[Martyn van Buren]

I'm surprised there's so little about logistics stations; I'm a big fan.  Even the Mk Is affect the whole planet, whereas military Mk Is need to have ships entering a pretty small range.  More importantly, they make turrets and fortresses more powerful by keeping ships in range longer, I find this adds a lot more firepower to a big battle than a military station.  But I haven't tried upgraded military CCs.

They're great on "bottleneck" worlds that have a few ways into your territory and you can't just slap an FF over the route home; they make it harder for AI ships to dash across into your core.  They're also good on new border worlds --- if you put them right at the edge of the map farthest from where attacks are coming in, you have tons of time to bring in reinforcements while the AI ships are flying out to find your command center.