2 birds 1 stone, or this game is great and scout starship weirdness

[lifenoodles]

Hi guys, first post here, although I've been reading quite a lot over the last little while. Just wanted to say first that I bought AI War quite a while ago and played on and off before. It's only really in the last month or so that it's really sunk in quite how well designed this game really is and I legitimately think that this is the best rts I've ever played, and I've played a lot of them. (Original War is up there as well but that's a completely different experience.) I also want to say that it's inspiring to see how in touch with your community you guys seem to be, and the community involvement in the design process is a wonderful thing. (Also, the music is awesome)

Now that that's out of the way, I have a few main questions. I own all the expansions but so far all the games I've played have been with the base game, so this might have an effect on things.

First, are there any options for mobile counter sniper ships in the base game other than scout starships? I'm dedicated to finishing this 8/8 game I'm playing but these snipers are wrecking me here. The main reason they're such a problem is that when I group move a bunch of ships on a planet I own, my scout starships crawl along as if they were engine damaged, so the rest of the defense blob leaves their range and gets shredded by snipers. This doesn't happen on hostile planets. Is this supposed to happen and/or is there something I can do about it?

Also relating to scout starships, they don't show up in the galaxy map when the filter is set to display my units. This makes it easy to forget if I have one sitting at an enemy world with another scout, since the planet just says I have 1 ship there. Or none if the scout starship is the only unit there. Is this a bug or am I missing something stupid here?

Thanks for any answers anyone can help me out with, any other general advice on dealing with mass enemy snipers would also be great.

[Ranakastrasz]

First sounds like the bug with group move and move speed modification immunity, the local command station gives your ships a speed boost while the starship is not

Second I think is a result of it not showing up due to not being a combat ship, but I am unsure.

[keith.lamothe]

Glad you're enjoying the game, welcome to the forums

First, are there any options for mobile counter sniper ships in the base game other than scout starships?

Cloaker Starships have counter-sniper too, I believe, but they're Zenith-Remnant-specific, I believe.

The main reason they're such a problem is that when I group move a bunch of ships on a planet I own, my scout starships crawl along as if they were engine damaged, so the rest of the defense blob leaves their range and gets shredded by snipers. This doesn't happen on hostile planets. Is this supposed to happen and/or is there something I can do about it?

That is odd.  Does sound like a bug.

Also relating to scout starships, they don't show up in the galaxy map when the filter is set to display my units. This makes it easy to forget if I have one sitting at an enemy world with another scout, since the planet just says I have 1 ship there. Or none if the scout starship is the only unit there. Is this a bug or am I missing something stupid here?

Not a bug, they're just not military units (don't have guns).  Nor do cloaker starships, for that matter.

As for dealing with massed sniper fire... honestly it's been a long time since I've had to do that, so I don't remember   Is this on every planet you attack, or just a few of them?  If just a few, an EMP works wonders for individually annoying planets.

[BobTheJanitor]

Not a bug, they're just not military units (don't have guns).  Nor do cloaker starships, for that matter.

That seems to catch everyone, eventually. I wonder if there is room for a 'treat as mobile military' flag in the game somewhere. So that you don't have to give pea-shooters to ships in order to get them selected with everything else (and leading to them trying to attack when you don't really want them to). Or give them fake guns with 0 damage and invisible shots. Or some such thing. You guys have probably thought of all of this and discarded it long ago. The real answer is probably for me to pay better attention, but I am terrible about leaving behind my scout starships, cloakers, spire shield bearers (or did they get guns back? I forget) and so on.

[lifenoodles]

Glad you're enjoying the game, welcome to the forums

The main reason they're such a problem is that when I group move a bunch of ships on a planet I own, my scout starships crawl along as if they were engine damaged, so the rest of the defense blob leaves their range and gets shredded by snipers. This doesn't happen on hostile planets. Is this supposed to happen and/or is there something I can do about it?

That is odd.  Does sound like a bug.

Having gone back to check, I think Ranakastrasz is correct and it probably has to do with scout ships being immune to speed boost. It also affects normal scout ships, I had just had no reason to group move them with my fleet before.

Also relating to scout starships, they don't show up in the galaxy map when the filter is set to display my units. This makes it easy to forget if I have one sitting at an enemy world with another scout, since the planet just says I have 1 ship there. Or none if the scout starship is the only unit there. Is this a bug or am I missing something stupid here?

Not a bug, they're just not military units (don't have guns).  Nor do cloaker starships, for that matter.

I don't think this is it, since normal scouts of all mark levels do show up in the galaxy screen total. I take advantage of this all the time to quickly see where I have a scout presence. 1 ship in an enemy sector tells me I don't need to send more there, or a clump of them tells me I need to send the rest somewhere else. Scout starships specifically don't factor in though. I'm not sure about higher mark levels of them yet.

As for dealing with massed sniper fire... honestly it's been a long time since I've had to do that, so I don't remember   Is this on every planet you attack, or just a few of them?  If just a few, an EMP works wonders for individually annoying planets.

The main problem is really more to do with CPA's filled with snipers. I think I need to get rid of my military stations since they end up just teleporting snipers all over the map and then my ships need to clump together with a scout starship to avoid being obliterated. Ideally I'd be able to G + move them around to clean up the CPA but it's really difficult with the scout ships moving slower than the rest, or overshooting if I micro them.

Cheers for the quick replies.

P.S. I think I literally just lost this campaign to a giant CPA anyway, so maybe all my sniper troubles will soon be over. 8/8 is hard. 

[lifenoodles]

Not a bug, they're just not military units (don't have guns).  Nor do cloaker starships, for that matter.

That seems to catch everyone, eventually. I wonder if there is room for a 'treat as mobile military' flag in the game somewhere. So that you don't have to give pea-shooters to ships in order to get them selected with everything else (and leading to them trying to attack when you don't really want them to). Or give them fake guns with 0 damage and invisible shots. Or some such thing. You guys have probably thought of all of this and discarded it long ago. The real answer is probably for me to pay better attention, but I am terrible about leaving behind my scout starships, cloakers, spire shield bearers (or did they get guns back? I forget) and so on.

Oh does this mean normal scouts have some kind of dummy gun to make them show up on the galaxy map?

[keith.lamothe]

The main problem is really more to do with CPA's filled with snipers.

Oh, in that case I commend to you the practice of pouncing on them as they exit a wormhole into your territory; grav turrets to slow them down, some lightning warheads to blow them up, etc.  And they can only take so much damage so finding a good combo of fleet ships and turrets that do lots of damage against their hull type could do the trick too.

P.S. I think I literally just lost this campaign to a giant CPA anyway, so maybe all my sniper troubles will soon be over. 8/8 is hard. 

Yea, at 7 the AI takes off the gloves, at 8 it picks up a brick.

Oh does this mean normal scouts have some kind of dummy gun to make them show up on the galaxy map?

Oh, a case where the scouts are counted but not the scout starships?  Yea, that's a bug.

[mindloss]

Just gonna chime in and say yeah, regular mk1-4 scouts are counted as 'military ships' on overview (which is the way I like it), and scout starships/spire scouts are not.

[Hearteater]

Just gonna chime in and say yeah, regular mk1-4 scouts are counted as 'military ships' on overview (which is the way I like it)

I actually DON'T like this.  If I want to see my scout placement I just hit O.  No reason to see all those 1s floating over systems I've stuck permanent scouts in when I'm looking at my military deployment.

[mindloss]

Okay, let me clarify: I'm used to that. I'd have no problem with it being changed, but seems like all types of scouts should be made to show consistently military or not.

[Hearteater]

I'm all for consistence.  So I'd agree it should be one way or the other.