Crash of Mimic AI and neinzuls

[Draco18s]

Can a Mime mime warheads back at you?

YES.

OH GOD WHAT ABOUT NUKES

[Arc-3N-4B]

Can a Mime mime warheads back at you?

YES.

OH GOD WHAT ABOUT NUKES

Tested it. Either the nuke detonates upon death (thus no salvage, AI doesn't get anything), or a Warhead Interceptor gets it (thus no salvage, AI doesn't get anything).

So no.

[Draco18s]

Oh that's good.

[re4der]

I like Mimic as it stands, because of its awesome cruelity at reflecting player's attacks. However, it should not be marked as moderate AI in my opinion.

[orzelek]

From descriptions here - nice hard red label for it.

[Kahuna]

Either the nuke detonates upon death [...] or a Warhead Interceptor gets it [...]

Well that's what happens to Lightning Warheads too.

[Arc-3N-4B]

Either the nuke detonates upon death [...] or a Warhead Interceptor gets it [...]

Well that's what happens to Lightning Warheads too.

Yes, but the AI doesn't get salvage from nukes (from either the Warhead Interceptor, or no supply). See: Everything you removed from the quote.

[keith.lamothe]

I think there need to be some restrictions on what the Mimic will toss back at you

I agree that it shouldn't do mimicry that's just buggy, like re-emitting human-version warheads (+AIP on death and all, though I don't think the AI's normal threat logic works for warheads anyway).  But stuff like superweapons, even the Blade, should be fair game.

If that means it should be categorized as Hard I'm ok with that.  I don't think it's Red-Hard because you have a great deal of control over whether it pulls anything truly nasty out of the hat.

[Vacuity]

you have a great deal of control over whether it pulls anything truly nasty out of the hat.

This.

There's nothing forcing the player to use drones and blades, and it's a double reason to take care of your superweapons.  The fact it *can* toss superweapons, or thousands of drones at you doesn't mean it will do this if you choose your units and fights carefully.

This is all said with the caveat that the homeworld assault could end up being a whole different jar of marmite.  I haven't got anywhere close to the homeworld assualt with my new game with this AI.

[re4der]

That's point. Mimic turns most of those overused tactics like awesomebombs bombing or raiding into double-edged sword.

[Toranth]

you have a great deal of control over whether it pulls anything truly nasty out of the hat.

There's nothing forcing the player to use drones and blades, and it's a double reason to take care of your superweapons.  The fact it *can* toss superweapons, or thousands of drones at you doesn't mean it will do this if you choose your units and fights carefully.

You misunderstand - it's bad for the AI when it wastes strength on drones and (especially) Tackle Drones.  I had a level 2 reprisal wave that was about 2000 tackle drones and 100 fighters.  The battle was mostly over in about 6 seconds, without me firing a shot, as all the tackle drones attritioned to death.  A level 2 reprisal wave from the other AI would have been 300-400 triangle ships, that I would have had to fight to kill.

My objection to the Mimic throwing the Exodian Blade and the Nomad Beacon back at you is that a) these are items that you need to put at high risk in order to get any use out of to begin with, and b) these are supposed to be unqiue, but if you lose one, not only can the AI get it, the AI can actually get MORE THAN ONE.
At least the Boom features are disabled for AI-controlled versions, otherwise it would be 100% crazy.

[ZaneWolfe]

I think there need to be some restrictions on what the Mimic will toss back at you

I agree that it shouldn't do mimicry that's just buggy, like re-emitting human-version warheads (+AIP on death and all, though I don't think the AI's normal threat logic works for warheads anyway).  But stuff like superweapons, even the Blade, should be fair game.

If that means it should be categorized as Hard I'm ok with that.  I don't think it's Red-Hard because you have a great deal of control over whether it pulls anything truly nasty out of the hat.

I've not played with it yet, but I would agree that it should NOT send drones back at you, because they are much less effective than anything else. However perhaps it can be coded to send what spawned those drones back at you instead. Say, if you use a ton of SBSs or Enclaves, (like I do) rather than it throwing blades or drones at you, because those are what actually died, it would instead throw SBSs and Enclaves at you, IE what made the drones.

As far as warheads, is it possible to give the AI its own version of them to send back? Seems a waste to take that power entirely away from it. I want to see what Faulty will  do if his favorite tactic suddenly is thrown right back at him. "Whats that? If warheads don't work, use more? Ok, we will."

[re4der]

It depends on drones. While some can be useless in attack, like.. gravity drones I guess, other can be deadly in large swarms.

[Vacuity]

You misunderstand - it's bad for the AI when it wastes strength on drones and (especially) Tackle Drones.  I had a level 2 reprisal wave that was about 2000 tackle drones and 100 fighters.  The battle was mostly over in about 6 seconds, without me firing a shot, as all the tackle drones attritioned to death.  A level 2 reprisal wave from the other AI would have been 300-400 triangle ships, that I would have had to fight to kill.

I believe you've misunderstood my response, not the other way around.  The OP said:

The game ended in one hour...  Neinzuls cut through everything I had in 3 seconds. Exactly 3 seconds. And then decayed, and remaining 800 ships continued to advance toward my homeworld and eventually destroyed it.

Limiting access to supposedely unique ships, such as the blade, does make sense though.

[Draco18s]

4 minute neinzul units != 6 second tackle drones

The only thing on a defended homeworld that a tackle drone can even target are engineers.