AI War Beta 6.006 "The Pain Train" Released!

[KDR_11k]

Does the SR ignore gravity?

[Bognor]

An hour and a half to prepare for 2 golems and a H/K is more than enough if you're playing with Spirecraft. Rams protected by cloacker starships should be able to do the trick.

Might want to take a close look at H/K hull type and Ram hull bonuses first...

[Toranth]

An hour and a half to prepare for 2 golems and a H/K is more than enough if you're playing with Spirecraft. Rams protected by cloacker starships should be able to do the trick.

Might want to take a close look at H/K hull type and Ram hull bonuses first...

The Rams would be useful for taking out the Golems quickly, leaving enough bombers to kill the H/K.  If you unlock Mk II and Mk III bombers right away, it should be possible.

[Kahuna]

An hour and a half to prepare for 2 golems and a H/K is more than enough if you're playing with Spirecraft. Rams protected by cloacker starships should be able to do the trick.

Might want to take a close look at H/K hull type and Ram hull bonuses first...

The Rams would be useful for taking out the Golems quickly, leaving enough bombers to kill the H/K.  If you unlock Mk II and Mk III bombers right away, it should be possible.

If you unlock MarkIII ships and don't have AF you just wasted about 3000 Knowledge. And since Exo(s) is/are enabled you most likely wont be able to defend the AF. Also.. no one will ever have enough rams to destroy the Golems and the ~30 Starships.

[Fluffiest]

30 starships? Surely there are only 5 starships in a Cargo Train completion spawn, even at Astro Trains 10?

Wondering if cargo trains ought to be one of the types that has less health and thus is slightly killable.

[zoutzakje]

When you unlock mk III fleetships before you have an Advanced Factory, it's not a waste of knowledge. Sometimes you find AF's very late in the game or you simply need mk III of something to help kill stuff it's good against (mk III bombers help a LOT against an early wave of 400-500 Missile Frigs, just to give an example). The only time unlocking mk III fleetships is kind of a waste of knowledge is when you actually lose both the AF's in a galaxy

[Toranth]

An hour and a half to prepare for 2 golems and a H/K is more than enough if you're playing with Spirecraft. Rams protected by cloacker starships should be able to do the trick.

Might want to take a close look at H/K hull type and Ram hull bonuses first...

The Rams would be useful for taking out the Golems quickly, leaving enough bombers to kill the H/K.  If you unlock Mk II and Mk III bombers right away, it should be possible.

If you unlock MarkIII ships and don't have AF you just wasted about 3000 Knowledge. And since Exo(s) is/are enabled you most likely wont be able to defend the AF. Also.. no one will ever have enough rams to destroy the Golems and the ~30 Starships.

Only Bombers get a bonus against H/Ks.  It's been a while since I did the math, but Mks I-III of Bombers should come close to killing a Mk I H/K, but Mks I-II barely dent it.  So, even though you may not be able to get the AF for Mk IVs right away, it does not mean that Bomber Mk III is worthless.  In fact, when dealing with H/Ks, there is no other unlock that it better.

Spire Rams should be able to kill Golems at about 5-6 Mk I Rams per Golem without other assistance.  That's 3 asteroids per 2 Golems, basically.  Using Spirecraft Rams on starships is a waste - something you'd only do in a final "I don't wanna die!" emeergency situation, I hope.  Were you talking about Mini-Rams, perhaps?

When you unlock mk III fleetships before you have an Advanced Factory, it's not a waste of knowledge. Sometimes you find AF's very late in the game or you simply need mk III of something to help kill stuff it's good against (mk III bombers help a LOT against an early wave of 400-500 Missile Frigs, just to give an example). The only time unlocking mk III fleetships is kind of a waste of knowledge is when you actually lose both the AF's in a galaxy

Even if you lose the AFs, there's always the Neinzul Starship Mk IV (a mere 18,000 K away).

[KDR_11k]

Hm, is it intentional that bomber drones spawn in batches but interceptors and melee drones spawn one by one?

Also those bomber drones really seem to love Railclusters, they seem to prefer attacking those to attacking stuff like FF gens and of course Hybrids (but those seem to be on the bottom of every ship's targeting list). Since the die and spawn so much it's very tedious to keep them shooting at a FF when there's railclusters around.

[TechSY730]

Great work on the human-ally enclaves.

If the intellgent fleet behavior and "psuedo-chat control" prove successfull for these, are some of the other human-ally minor factions going to get some of it? Human resistance fighters and nebula "victory run out of the nebula and assume minor faction logic" units would be great for both types of new logic. Fleeting behavior for dyson gattlings may be appropriate, but I can see them disregarding the various cmd commands, as how they communicate with each other is supposed to be somewhat of a mystery, and as such we wouldn't really know how to give them "suggestions". (The ones from that nebula mission don't count, as those have been stated to have their communication circuits basically ripped out and replaced with ones that we humans know how to work with)

[Faulty Logic]

Human-Ally Roaming Enclaves Return

Woot!

Human resistance fighters and nebula "victory run out of the nebula and assume minor faction logic" units would be great for both types of new logic.

I worry that there would be a tendency to "farm" those units (both) if that were the case.

And a coherent, controlled dyson fleet would be absolutely OP.

[TechSY730]

Human-Ally Roaming Enclaves Return

Woot!

Human resistance fighters and nebula "victory run out of the nebula and assume minor faction logic" units would be great for both types of new logic.

I worry that there would be a tendency to "farm" those units (both) if that were the case.

And a coherent, controlled dyson fleet would be absolutely OP.

Good point about the nebula units.

However, this is why I suggested why the dyson fleet would ignore the human usable "control commands", as it would be OP if we had some strong, direct influence over them. Dyson gattlings should be allied to us, but just do their own thing on their own time using their own conditions. They are supposed to be powerful but odd in their behavior. Stuff we already have decent communication channels with (like human resistance) make sense to follow the "control commands".

[Bognor]

Only Bombers get a bonus against H/Ks.

I started a thread about that little quirk a while ago, and Keith pointed out that in fact Zenith Polarizers, Impulse Reaction Emitters, and Youngling Vultures also get bonuses agains H/Ks.

Using Spirecraft Rams on starships is a waste - something you'd only do in a final "I don't wanna die!" emeergency situation, I hope.

Reptite is abundant and Rams are dirt cheap.  I often use Rams against powerful Starships in exowaves, etc.

[Toranth]

Only Bombers get a bonus against H/Ks.

I started a thread about that little quirk a while ago, and Keith pointed out that in fact Zenith Polarizers, Impulse Reaction Emitters, and Youngling Vultures also get bonuses agains H/Ks.

Polarizers, IREs, and Vultures don't get a bonus, they just don't do poorly.
A single Mk I Bomber does about 4,900 DPS against an H/K.
A Mk I Vulture does 600-5,600 (% based) DPS.
A Mk I Polarizer does about 6,000 DPS.
A Mk I IRE is the best, doing 9,000 DPS.

Per Cap, they're all good (better than almost all other ship types) but so are Blade Spawners, for example (250,000+ cap DPS).

Acutally, the BEST unit is the Spirecraft Implosion Artillery: a single Mk I does a whopping 250,000 damage per second vs a Mk I H/K.
Always forget about that one.

Using Spirecraft Rams on starships is a waste - something you'd only do in a final "I don't wanna die!" emeergency situation, I hope.

Reptite is abundant and Rams are dirt cheap.  I often use Rams against powerful Starships in exowaves, etc.

Hmm.  I always reserve my Rams for Golems, since I always seem to find more stuff to build (or re-build) from even low level asteroids than there are asteroids available.  Do you skip Implosion Artillery, Siege Towers, and Shield Bearers?

[Lancefighter]

What about the miniram bonus ship..

[Bognor]

A single Mk I Bomber does about 4,900 DPS against an H/K.
A Mk I Vulture does 600-5,600 (% based) DPS.
A Mk I Polarizer does about 6,000 DPS.
A Mk I IRE is the best, doing 9,000 DPS.

Cool, thanks for the numbers.  Those four all have the same cap, so the numbers directly correspond to relative Cap DPS.

Hmm.  I always reserve my Rams for Golems, since I always seem to find more stuff to build (or re-build) from even low level asteroids than there are asteroids available.  Do you skip Implosion Artillery, Siege Towers, and Shield Bearers?

Nope, I max out the first two, at least.  I get so many asteroids by putting Warp Jammers on well-connected planets, neutering the adjacent planets, and mining out the asteroids while they're still held by the AI.  You don't need to own a planet to mine the asteroids, just have supply. edit: You don't even need supply!

What about the miniram bonus ship..

Based on the spreadsheet, a cap of Mark Is will do ~4 million damage.  A Mark I H/K has 100 million hp.  Full caps of marks I-IV Spire Mini Rams would do ~40 million damage in total.