Botnet Golem Zombie Ship AI + Mark IV question

[strangelight]

So I finally picked up this game a month or two ago, and I love it. It's the second best RTS I've ever played (behind the unstoppable juggernaut StarCraft). I'm on my second solo campaign right now, against two level 7 AI's. My first one didn't go so well, but I learned many of the ins and outs and am in a good spot to win this time around.

I'm trying to crack the first AI homeworld, and I brought my Botnet buddy along to help out. (Unfortunately I didn't notice Core ships are immune to reclamation, much like I didn't notice they're immune to nukes last game ) He still has plenty of Mark IV ships to convert though, and this is where my trouble lies. The planet is overly reinforced, so I've been luring the AI ships back to the planet I control. My Botnet then Zombifies the lot of them. I'd be able to break the planet with my zombie help - BUT - they refuse to go back to the AI planet they just came from, choosing instead to attack the next closest AI planet... 6 hops away. Why aren't my undead friends attacking the nearest AI target?


Also, the only Mark IV factories on the map are 15+ hops away from this AI homeworld, making reinforcement a total pain. Could you work in other sources of Mark IV ships into the game, or make the factory mobile, or something?

[x4000]

So I finally picked up this game a month or two ago, and I love it. It's the second best RTS I've ever played (behind the unstoppable juggernaut StarCraft). I'm on my second solo campaign right now, against two level 7 AI's. My first one didn't go so well, but I learned many of the ins and outs and am in a good spot to win this time around.

Very cool, and thanks for your support!  And, welcome to the forums.

I'm trying to crack the first AI homeworld, and I brought my Botnet buddy along to help out. (Unfortunately I didn't notice Core ships are immune to reclamation, much like I didn't notice they're immune to nukes last game ) He still has plenty of Mark IV ships to convert though, and this is where my trouble lies. The planet is overly reinforced, so I've been luring the AI ships back to the planet I control. My Botnet then Zombifies the lot of them. I'd be able to break the planet with my zombie help - BUT - they refuse to go back to the AI planet they just came from, choosing instead to attack the next closest AI planet... 6 hops away. Why aren't my undead friends attacking the nearest AI target?

Speaking from memory here, I believe that the zombiefied ships may not ever pathfind to the home planets of the AI; that might be a side effect from some stuff we were putting in to keep Dyson Gatlings from winning the game independently of you, heh.  But, you could probably get around this by attacking the planet directly with your botnet golem, and bringing along a mobile repair station + tugs to repair the stuff he captures.  That would probably be your best bet at the moment, they won't leave the planet if they are already there, but if it's a planet that is an AI home or adjacent to an AI home, your zombies might just not want to go there if given any other choice, heh.

Also, the only Mark IV factories on the map are 15+ hops away from this AI homeworld, making reinforcement a total pain. Could you work in other sources of Mark IV ships into the game, or make the factory mobile, or something?

That's actually a really rare situation, generally there would be either a core fabricator or an advanced factory somewhere closer.  This does happen on occasion, but it's pretty infrequent and something you can work around by favoring the fabricators or starships in games where this happens, etc.  The mark IV ships being a pain to rebuild is definitely a part of the game that has been discussed in the past, but part of the reason for that is to encourage use of other ship classes or capturables in situations where the mark IV factories are not convenient to where you're going to be directly constructing your stuff.

Having some sort of mobile more-expensive option is definitely something we might look at before too long, though; especially tied with the Neinzul expansion, since their ships all have to be built from mobile sources if they are to be of any use whatsoever.  It's definitely something on our list to look at very soon, at any rate.

[Fleet]

Transports may help you move your MkIV ships from the factories to the AI homeworlds. They move quite fast, can hold 200 ships, and cost no knowledge. May not be optimal, but if you built all your IV ships and keep them in one place, you could move them all with relative ease.

[x4000]

And having the Mobile Repair Station around to catch them and repair them quickly (since MkIVs have such high health, they don't die as fast usually) can also help with that.

[strangelight]

I'm using Mobile Repair Stations but there's problems there too. When I attack the AI planet, they get focused down and killed almost immediately, and when I lure the AI to my planet, the MRS's will bankrupt me repairing all the zombies, which then wander off.

I haven't been using transports though, instead just setting the factory to auto build + a rally point. Your way sounds faster.

[x4000]

With the MRS, if you put it in an out-of-the-way location on the enemy planet, or under a force field (those are mobile), then you'll have much better results, especially paired with tugs.  You could also use a cloaker starship instead of a force field if you want.

[strangelight]

oh I should specify that this planet I'm working on is the mark IV planet before the AI homeworld, which makes me wonder again why the zombies won't go there, when the Dyson Laser Gatlings actually are attacking that planet. (the Dyson sphere is ~5 hops away from my front lines)

[x4000]

The planets that are directly adjacent to the AI homeworlds aren't normal mark IV plants, actually -- they are sort of a hybrid mark IV/V planet, and are called "core" planets.  So there's some special logic surrounding them, same as with the home planets themselves.  You wouldn't have this problem with a regular mark IV planet that was not next to an AI homeworld.

But if the dyson gatlings are attacking that planet, then that's apparently not what is going on here.  It may actually be that the zombies always go to a specific other planet based on which planet they are currently on, in that case.  So if you had another adjacent planet that they were being captured on and then going to attack from, then that might be a different result.  That logic may need some work, for cases like this, if that's the case.  That might be worth filing a bug report about, if you don't mind, so that we remember to take a look at it.

[strangelight]

OK, I'll post something in the bug forum when I can upload my saved game.

[x4000]

Many thanks.

[strangelight]

I'm still at work so I can't post the bug yet, but some more things came to mind that I would probly mention in my report:

1. Is there any mention on the Dyson tooltips that they can't attack AI Core stuff? If not, there should be, as I made some tactical decisions assuming that the Dyson Sphere would back me up being so close to an AI Homeworld. Also, if you want Zombies to function a similar way, it should be mentioned somewhere.

2. I think 'Immune to Reclamation' needs to change from being immune to reclaiming shots to just not being revived when killed. It doesn't make that much of a difference when using Leech starships, as they deal almost no damage anyways, but my +100 AI Progress, 300k energy, 360 Million Health, 10 Million damage multishot Botnet Golem looks pretty stupid running away from a handful of core bombers, totally powerless. If you want it to stay this way, a tooltip change to 'Immune to Reclamation Shots' may be needed here as well, as I interpret 'Immune to Reclamation' the way I explained in the first line in this paragraph.