Fabricators disappearing?

[resistor]

In the campaign I've been playing, I've captured two Mk V Fabricators (Zenith Chameleons, and something else that I can't remember offhand).  In both cases, I set them to start producing units.  When I checked back at that system some time later, I found the Fabricator no longer present, having produced a nice set of units.

The first time, I just chocked it up to the Fabricator getting sniped in a wave, but the second I deliberately put a Mk III forcefield around the Fabricator, and it was still intact when I noticed that the Fabricator was gone.

Are Fabricators supposed to disappear for some reason?

[Wingflier]

Force Fields don't stop Sniper shots  

You're going to have to build an anti-sniper turret for that (if that's truly what's causing it).

Also things like Raider Starships and some other units can fire through forcefields, it is not a complete defense you have to know what you're up against.

[zebramatt]

Raid starships are particularly good at sneaking in unnoticed and shooting your stuff up.

In the latest beta versions, you can set a Planet-specific control (from the CTRLs menu) to tell you if x enemy ship(s) has entered the system. I set it to 1 for any planet with a high profile target. That way I get an alert in the top left before they have a chance to snipe anything!

[keith.lamothe]

If you'd like, you can also set up an alert on the planet with the fabricator, assuming you have scout intel there (a command station or scout drone; iirc there's no way to use the fabricator without a command station there, but I may be missing a case).

It's on the controls screen on the per-planet tab.  Just set it to 1 attacking unit (and perhaps also put the 1 threatening unit alert on) and it should let you know if anything hostile is there.  Trains don't tend to count under either category, though.  For them you may want to put a counter-dark-matter turret near the fab.

psuedo-edit: ninjamatt strikes

[resistor]

Force Fields don't stop Sniper shots  

You're going to have to build an anti-sniper turret for that (if that's truly what's causing it).

Also things like Raider Starships and some other units can fire through forcefields, it is not a complete defense you have to know what you're up against.

I didn't mean snipe literally, just that they somehow killed it while I wasn't looking.  And I haven't seen the AI use Raiders at all this game.  :-/

[Lancefighter]

not raider the fleet unit, raid starships.

Also, infiltrators, eyebots are a few more things that ignore ff...

[Vinraith]

Do fabricators have any blade resistances? If not the likes of cutlasses, shredders, and vampires could be the culprits too. The short version is that fabs die if the AI so much as breathes on them, so I'm never surprised (no matter how much I've protected them) to find I've lost one.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, the base health of 60k is just embarrassing at this stage, I'm changing it to 1 million in my working copy (which may or may not make it in for the next prerelease, working on some hefty stuff right now).

That way you should at least have a moment between "attacked" and "destroyed".

And it's not like the fabs are historically OP