Amateurs think strategy, Generals think logistics

[Haagenti II]

You can put the AI out of supply.

In my new game, my starting planet bordered on a dead-end planet. This dead-end planet (as luck would have it) was studded with forcefields. Fortunately, its orbital was not under a forcefield, so I decided to kill it. As soon as I killed the orbital, a few tractor turrets next to it started flashing red, and its forcefields went out. Apparently it is not in range of a friendly orbital anymore.

This is not in bugs, because I'm not sure if it is/should be a bug.

[x4000]

Yep, this was by design.  Most of the time it is pretty hard to put the AI out of supply, but I feel like there are some tactical benefits to doing so in cases like the one you mention.  Sometimes in past versions of the game you could wind up with a planet -- that you control -- in the middle of all of your planets, with some nasty force fields on it.  And it was a little bit odd that those cut-off force fields could be so dastardly to deal with even though they were so surrounded, etc.  I meant to mention this in the release notes, but forgot.

[Revenantus]

Very interesting!

I'm inclined to think that this is a perfectly valid tactic, of course, if you try to destroy the command center early on, then the remaining AI ships may well decide to launch an attack.

[x4000]

And bear in mind that it only works when there are no neighboring AI planets.  So it's not as simple as just going in and hitting the command station early...

[keith.lamothe]

But you could orbital-raid a group of AI planets to cut off a lot of the defenses on the outer ones.  Though it could release a lot of now-angry AI ships.

[x4000]

But you could orbital-raid a group of AI planets to cut off a lot of the defenses on the outer ones.  Though it could release a lot of now-angry AI ships.

Oh, quite so.  And you'd also pay for it in terms of AI Progress, too, so that seems acceptable to me.  It seems like an interesting strategy that might work well in some situations, but which comes with a suitably high cost to use.  So unless a way is demonstrated that makes this easy to abuse, I think we're not yet in nerfing territory, but rather just a new selection of potentially-cool strategies that can be used.

[Haagenti II]

Because I'm playing against Vicious Raider a lot, I select a map with a defensible cluster. I then kill all the orbitals before colonizing all of them, because I can't defend two planets against Vicious Raids in the first hour.

I have the feeling this will become somewhat easier now as Forcefields with Special Forces Posts) really hurt this strategy. But not abusively easier.

And I feel (just intuition) there must be some abuse for Armored Missiles hat strike Orbitals deep into enemy territory. On to the Drawing Board!

[x4000]

Because I'm playing against Vicious Raider a lot, I select a map with a defensible cluster. I then kill all the orbitals before colonizing all of them, because I can't defend two planets against Vicious Raids in the first hour.

I have the feeling this will become somewhat easier now as Forcefields with Special Forces Posts) really hurt this strategy. But not abusively easier.

Yeah, that all seems right to me.

And I feel (just intuition) there must be some abuse for Armored Missiles hat strike Orbitals deep into enemy territory. On to the Drawing Board!

Yeah, that could be the case.  Of course, with the AI Progress cost of the missiles plus the orbitals, plus all the freed ships, that makes me really wonder!

[Echo35]

I think I'm starting to like this supply thing more

[x4000]

I think I'm starting to like this supply thing more

Glad to hear it!

[darke]

And I feel (just intuition) there must be some abuse for Armored Missiles hat strike Orbitals deep into enemy territory. On to the Drawing Board!

Yeah, that could be the case.  Of course, with the AI Progress cost of the missiles plus the orbitals, plus all the freed ships, that makes me really wonder!

Given that my usual tactic has always been "take out command structures, deal with flood of ships", I haven't managed to work out any use so far for armoured missiles. The AI cost has always been far more expensive then any benefit I've managed to get out of them.

I have used a similar tactic though, deep raiding using some armoured missiles as cover to lead a bunch of normal lightning missiles deeper into enemy territory to take out command stations so I can defend at one point for a while, then more quickly charge through the "cleared" planets.

But again, even there the cost of the armoured missiles has precluded me from actually using them to attack with.

[Haagenti]

The AI cost of Armored Missile is way too high, making them utterly unusable.

It is way cheaper to take a bunch of regular lightning missiles
- either send in lightning missiles one by one, because the explosions will take out whatever is killing them at close range
- or, when the AI somehow can destroy them at range (with vast amounts of turrets and cruisers), send in 8 at once from different directions

+4 would be a better cost for them.

[darke]

+4 would be a better cost for them.

The problem is they're neigh indestructable, so when you locate a bunch of data centers with your tachyon scouts, you can just send in a couple of armoured missiles without a problem and get -20 AI per +4 AI you spend.

[Haagenti]

Surely that can be rebalanced some other way. (Data Centers should be immune to missiles?)
Now we have a missile that no-one uses.

And you have just given me an idea for a new strategy (which may well force the above correction):

The Daisy-Chain Suicide Bombers
- expand to the smallest set of planets that can support a missile silo and a few engineers and be defended (my guess would be 3 if you do it right).
- at start, the AI defenses are quite low, so speed is of the essence
- build 8 lightning missiles and send them out to scout (keeping them outside each others range)
- lightning missiles are *fairly* sturdy. If an enemy group manages to really damage one, blow them up so the next missile can get through
- blow up Data Centers to keep the AI low and build more missiles
- while doing this expand, keeping the AI at 50 or so, so it can't defend itself.

[eRe4s3r]

the OBVIOUS solution (imo) is to have missiles not work at all in non-supplied planets

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Ok, if this were a topic about missiles i'd even ask, what are missiles even good for? Who uses them? And what for, with what tactic?

I, personally, have never build anything but lightning missiles (to clean wormhole exits) - i do not use other missiles, and especially not timed effect missiles (the effect these do is paid with more blockaded wormholes and more enemies!) and with that i mean EMP and Tachyon (a scout ship finds cloaked stuff, and emp.. well most of the stuff you really want to get out of the picture is EMP immune ;p)

Nukes are a waste - nothing is worth +50 progression , once you get through the wormhole you can ALWAYS maintain a beachhead, and clean the sector without 50 progression cost (actually more). Which i would consider worth the losses of ships, progression is the enemy, not resources.

-

If this was a suggestion topic i'd suggest this (thats what i think would work best)

- Amored Missiles are removed
- Lightning Missiles come now in 3 strengths costing 2 - 4 and - 6 progression with only 50k hp but speed 80 (strengths so that missile type 3 can clean ships up to MKIV with 1 hit) etc.
- Missiles (including nukes and all other missiles) do not work outside supply (they shut-down and can not be detonated/controlled)
- EMP does no longer cost progression / is no longer planet wide
- Tachyon does no longer cost progression / is no longer planet wide

Comments ?
Edit: Yes, that is radical - Can't say i would put it down as a full blown suggestion even, just looking for comments about this ;P - What are people using missiles for? How many missiles are actually used in average games. Are they useful now? Could they be more useful? That kind of stuff...