AI Hunter/Killer

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, one more thing. Is the mothership still more powerfull than the hunter-killers? It seems to me that the mothership should be either the strongest or second strongest individual unit in the game, with only the super-dreadnought or possibly the Mk. V hunter-killer getting close or possibly out-powering it.

The mkV HK is classified as a Heavy Mauler (Battleship -> Dreadnought -> Mauler -> Planetoid), the Mothership is classified as a Light Planetoid.  So in theory they should be pretty close but the Mothership has a much better chance of standing successfully against a fleet of Spire capital ships.  The mkV HK could probably do about the same or more damage, though.

We'll see; I did a fair bit of balance testing to make sure that putting the HKs where I did wouldn't be too totally out there, but if you see anything over a MkII HK I strongly suggest doing _whatever_ is necessary to kill it before it gets in range of your fortifications.

And an SDN would almost certainly not win a one-on-one with a mothership, they're just in different leagues size-wise, but an SDN with a fleet can certainly do the trick, as can a DN.  It's often all about the initial range of engagement.

Could someone please explain what a Hunter-Killer is and does? I want to know how much I should be afraid of 5.017.

Previously a mkI did half a million points of damage per shot, and fired 50 shots per salvo.  Now it shoots 25 instead.

[TechSY730]

...Text...

OK good, the mothership can still keep its crown of the most powerful single ship in the game. It just seems it should be that way thematically.

Previously a mkI did half a million points of damage per shot, and fired 50 shots per salvo.  Now it shoots 25 instead.

[sarcasm]Oh, that makes me feel so much better[/sarcasm]

EDIT: This forum needs a better "roll eyes" smilie picture.

[x4000]

See, but here's the thing: having one of these versus 5 armored golems or whatever.  Assuming that the costs get balanced out properly, this isn't actually any harder than the current setup.  You're just packing the power into one H/K rather than a ton of other stuff that costs the same in the exo waves.  So it's not like this is a difficulty crank-up, or it's not really supposed to be, anyway.  It's just variety.

[TechSY730]

See, but here's the thing: having one of these versus 5 armored golems or whatever.  Assuming that the costs get balanced out properly, this isn't actually any harder than the current setup.  You're just packing the power into one H/K rather than a ton of other stuff that costs the same in the exo waves.  So it's not like this is a difficulty crank-up, or it's not really supposed to be, anyway.  It's just variety.

True. Disclaimer for the humor impaired, I knew that these things wouldn't spawn until the game gets late enough for you to handle them (or rather, you to provoke the AI enough to send them at you). I was exaggerating my fear intentionally. However, these things are so strong individually that they do inspire some fear into a player.

[keith.lamothe]

Disclaimer for the humor impaired

Hunter-Killers are very humor-impaired

[Philo]

Haven't seen the mothersip either? Where does that come in? Also Hunter/killer sounding pretty good.

[x4000]

True. Disclaimer for the humor impaired, I knew that these things wouldn't spawn until the game gets late enough for you to handle them (or rather, you to provoke the AI enough to send them at you). I was exaggerating my fear intentionally. However, these things are so strong individually that they do inspire some fear into a player.

Yeah, I figured you were kidding, but forum lurkers might not realize and might think that something more drastic was going on here than really was.

[Coppermantis]

Could someone please explain what a Hunter-Killer is and does? I want to know how much I should be afraid of 5.017.

Imagine something with the firepower that would make the avenger scream in fear, and the durability that even the armored golem envies...

*cries*

[TechSY730]

Haven't seen the mothersip either? Where does that come in?

Trust me, you don't want to know.

Let's just say that even hunter-killers, golems, and even the late game spire stuff fears the mothership...

[zebramatt]

See, but here's the thing: having one of these versus 5 armored golems or whatever.  Assuming that the costs get balanced out properly, this isn't actually any harder than the current setup.  You're just packing the power into one H/K rather than a ton of other stuff that costs the same in the exo waves.  So it's not like this is a difficulty crank-up, or it's not really supposed to be, anyway.  It's just variety.

Although, of course, taking out one unit which is the equivalent of five armored golems is inherently more troublesome since you can't reduce its effectiveness by destroying one, two, three or four of them. It's all or nothing!

But therein lies the variety, eh?

[zoutzakje]

so, will the HK's only appear in a late Fallen Spire game? Or is there any chance we'll come across them in a high difficulty/high AIP regular game (in a CPA, Raid engine wave, or spawn as a homeworld defence)?

[Fruden]

 Hummm just to put things into perspective for players that never met hunter-killers, a while ago a played a big challenge game, and hunter-killers started spawning when i was holding something like 30-35 planets. A single mk3 HK was enough to destroy my entire fleet of fleet ships and starships in a straight confrontation and come out with some health remaining. If i added my fleet of golems to the mix i'd win and have some survivors, but if i got more than 1 mk3 HK or a single mk5 HK, one of my chokepoints (filled with all the trader goodies + lots of turrets and fortresses) + my entire fleet of ships + all my starships + my golems would almost certainly lose in a straight fight. The only way to tip things in my favor was to use a pile of tricks like using a fleet of transports to eat the first volley so my ships would shoot at least 1 bullet and using stealth to guarantee my bombers 1 shot and hopefully 2-3 shots before disappearing.

 Still, only 1 thing ever managed to let me win against multiple HK or a single mk5 HK, and that was to use my golems to lure the couple 1000 of ships that were travelling with the HK away from the wormhole to my inner systems, let the HK destroy my base, jump my golems out for a second so the HK would take the wormhole to my inner systems but get my golems to come back before the fleet ships followed them and left my chokepoint.

 After that i would speed rebuild my chokepoint to take care of whatever (huge) number of ships would remain there, and in my inner systems i used a weakness of the ai to take down the HKs over a period of 20-30 minutes. It seems they liked to run after my leech starships more than my bombards, so i'd have my leeches running circles around them in a corner of a map while my bombards were slooooowwlly taking them out. Yep, their only exploitable weaknesses i could find were their relatively low range and the fact that bombards were not high enough on their kill list, otherwise i could find no way to stop a single mk5 hunter killer (even with the research and economy of a 30+ planet empire) or a couple lower marks.

 The big issues were that there were no spire ships back then to help take them out, being on my own planet didn't give a speed boost, trader toys had too little effect to make a difference, and also as someone else said, they kept their entire firepower until the very end, contrarily to say the avengers. Avengers were wimps compared to hunter killers.

 Have fun!

[x4000]

Yep, having the ships more concentrated makes things harder, but it's not like 200% harder or anything.  The balance of the H/Ks from the older games like Fruden mentions are something where now the golems and spirecraft and fallen spire are the only things to take these out.

In terms of when they appear, they come in any exo-waves.  So it's not just fallen spire, it's also hard golems and hard spirecraft at the moment, and I'm sure someday there will also be more sources of exo-waves.

[keith.lamothe]

In terms of when they appear, they come in any exo-waves.  So it's not just fallen spire, it's also hard golems and hard spirecraft at the moment, and I'm sure someday there will also be more sources of exo-waves.

Yes, they're just generally available to exos now (including homeworld-defense-exos, but that's FS-only), but in general golems-hard and spirecraft-hard would be hard pressed to generate a budget high enough for a mkI, and it gets much higher for each mk higher than that; a mkV is second only to the Mothership in cost.

Now if you were playing with 3 players (or 3 homeworlds) on a difficulty 8.3 game, then yea, there'd be a chance, late game.  I could be wrong about the math, but we'll work it out so you don't need to worry about these until you've had quite sufficient chance to build up the kind of absurd defenses necessary to challenge one.

At least it doesn't nuke the planet it dies on, like the Avenger

[KDR_11k]

The mkV HK is classified as a Heavy Mauler (Battleship -> Dreadnought -> Mauler -> Planetoid), the Mothership is classified as a Light Planetoid.

Where does the Devourer sit on that scale? "Planet with engines"?