Anti-starship arachnids

[bongotron2000]

In the last game I played, I captured an Anti-starship arachnid fab and build the full cap, but couldn't actually get them to attack anything. They never seem to fire on anything ever. I've tried manually targeting starships, leaving them without orders and free-roaming defender mode, but all to no avail. When manually targeting with them, it doesn't make the sound when something is targeted, so maybe something is stopping them from working.

Not sure if I'm missing something with these, it's been ages since I last used them. Anybody got any ideas?

[Hearteater]

They can basically attack ONLY starships.  In other words the units you can build from your Starship Constructor.  They have very little value really.  End game they are good for taking out the Zenith and Spire Starships that give huge attack bonuses.

[keith.lamothe]

Are these the ones with the silly-high attack power?  I'm trying to think if there's some reason I can't just give them the same targeting scope as the SiegeAntimatter starship.  Though I guess that's still not able to shoot at anything

[bongotron2000]

They can basically attack ONLY starships.  In other words the units you can build from your Starship Constructor.  They have very little value really.  End game they are good for taking out the Zenith and Spire Starships that give huge attack bonuses.

Is this literally only things that could come from a Starship Constructor? I.e. they wouldn't be able to attack Mk IV Bomber Starships or Core Starships as they don't come from the constructor? That could explain some of the problems then as it was quite late on and I was trying to use them to defend against fairly high-level exo-waves.

Are these the ones with the silly-high attack power?  I'm trying to think if there's some reason I can't just give them the same targeting scope as the SiegeAntimatter starship.  Though I guess that's still not able to shoot at anything

Yes, I think the attack is 100,000. This sounds like a really good idea, pretty much making them into mini antimatter starship. It shouldn't really unbalance anything, and would make more sense for them to be able to shoot at other big ships.

[Hearteater]

It isn't quite literally that...Bomber Starship IV are targetable.  Use the reference tab and select them as main ship and make everything available in the other list.  Then sort by the damage they deal and you'll see they have about 8 valid targets.

They are extremely cheap and have about 80% of the firepower of a starship.  I'd say if they could target Guardians too they'd be fine, but I'd say they would need a firepower decrease then.

[bongotron2000]

It isn't quite literally that...Bomber Starship IV are targetable.  Use the reference tab and select them as main ship and make everything available in the other list.  Then sort by the damage they deal and you'll see they have about 8 valid targets.

They are extremely cheap and have about 80% of the firepower of a starship.  I'd say if they could target Guardians too they'd be fine, but I'd say they would need a firepower decrease then.

Useful tip that, thanks! I didn't realise how useful the reference tab was until I tried that. I tried having a look at this in the reference tab and counted 56 ships with the scope filter set to 'No Filter' that the arachnids did damage to, which was every starship that I could think of (including non-constructor ones) and other big ships like the Spire/Neinzul ships, but I've still not been able to get them to attack any of these. There were only 9 ships targetable if the scope filter was set to 'Ships I Can Build'.

Spirecraft and Golems were not included in the list though which I suppose is fair enough, as they're not really starships.

I'd love to know if anyone else is having this trouble getting the arachnids to attack things that they're supposed to be able to attack, or if it's just me. I'm starting to feel paranoid now, like the arachnids are part of a conspiracy against me.

[Nalgas]

I'd love to know if anyone else is having this trouble getting the arachnids to attack things that they're supposed to be able to attack, or if it's just me. I'm starting to feel paranoid now, like the arachnids are part of a conspiracy against me.

I haven't gotten any in a while, so I can't say.  Maybe at some point the AI developed Anti-Anti-Starship Arachnids...

[Hearteater]

Also, the tooltip for them incorrectly states they deal engine damage if I recall.  There is mantis issue on this.

[Nethris]

Spirecraft and Golems were not included in the list though which I suppose is fair enough, as they're not really starships.

That doesn't make a ton of sense to have a ship that's anti-"sort of big but not too big stuff" though.  And they're kinda useless now, only time I'd take a planet because of that fabricator is if it was the best option for taking out that particular core shield type, so having the targeting restrictions of antimatter starships instead would be nice, yeah.

Sort of related to tooltip issues, they currently have 6x damage against close-combat and swarmer hull types - and the reference shows none of the ships they can damage having either of those types, so those should probably just get removed.

[bongotron2000]

That doesn't make a ton of sense to have a ship that's anti-"sort of big but not too big stuff" though.  And they're kinda useless now, only time I'd take a planet because of that fabricator is if it was the best option for taking out that particular core shield type, so having the targeting restrictions of antimatter starships instead would be nice, yeah.

Yeah, I agree. I was getting the way that what they can target fits their name, rather than makes much sense overall. I seem to remember that these are quite old units, so were probably around before golems and other new big things. If they do get changed to have the targeting scope of antimatter starships then they should probably have a new name to reflect this, like Antimatter Fighter or something.

[Nethris]

Yeah, I agree. I was getting the way that what they can target fits their name, rather than makes much sense overall. I seem to remember that these are quite old units, so were probably around before golems and other new big things. If they do get changed to have the targeting scope of antimatter starships then they should probably have a new name to reflect this, like Antimatter Fighter or something.

I would hope they'd just be getting the targeting restrictions and not the shot type, though I don't know how many of those overlap for antimatter starships - short range stuff has no reason to be unable to shoot forcefields for instance.

[TechSY730]

Yeah, I agree. I was getting the way that what they can target fits their name, rather than makes much sense overall. I seem to remember that these are quite old units, so were probably around before golems and other new big things. If they do get changed to have the targeting scope of antimatter starships then they should probably have a new name to reflect this, like Antimatter Fighter or something.

I would hope they'd just be getting the targeting restrictions and not the shot type, though I don't know how many of those overlap for antimatter starships - short range stuff has no reason to be unable to shoot forcefields for instance.

Agreed. Maybe make them like bomber starships. Bomber starships and anti-matter starships have the same targetting restrictions, but bomber starships don't have anti-matter ammo, so they can hit the large number of big targets immune to anti-matter ammo.

[Nice Save]

Yeah, I agree. I was getting the way that what they can target fits their name, rather than makes much sense overall. I seem to remember that these are quite old units, so were probably around before golems and other new big things. If they do get changed to have the targeting scope of antimatter starships then they should probably have a new name to reflect this, like Antimatter Fighter or something.

I would hope they'd just be getting the targeting restrictions and not the shot type, though I don't know how many of those overlap for antimatter starships - short range stuff has no reason to be unable to shoot forcefields for instance.

Agreed. Maybe make them like bomber starships. Bomber starships and anti-matter starships have the same targetting restrictions, but bomber starships don't have anti-matter ammo, so they can hit the large number of big targets immune to anti-matter ammo.

I approve. Just don't call them Bomber Fighters. That would be confusing.

[Hearteater]

Just remember, if they are like Bomber starships they bring 65% of the firepower of a Mark I Bomber starship at much greater range, a resource cost that is less than a Mark II Missile Frigate, a build time of 16 seconds (more than 41 times faster than a Mark I Bomber starship), and at normal caps you can have I believe 49.  That is like having almost 32 extra Mark I Bomber starships.

[chemical_art]

However, unlike bombers you can only get them from a limited facility that can easily be destroyed. You find them mid to late game. I'm sure they can be adjusted if needed, but they were deemed ok when they were first made and that was back before all sorts of cool toys were added to the game.