Destroying Warpgates

[Wingflier]

I have a question about destroying Warp Gates.  I read in the wiki that if you destroy the Warp Gates, it will prevent any "warping in" onto adjacent allied planets.  However, I wanted to know if destroying Warp Gates slowed or prevented planet reinforcement/Border Aggression as well. 

Since v4.0, it seems like it has been much harder to prevent Border Aggression because of all the new Guard Posts, especially the ones that sit on wormholes that are nearly impossible to destroy (Wormhole Guard Posts).  I've started to wonder if its even worth "neutering" dangerous planets anymore to prevent Border Aggression.

What are your opinions?

[zebramatt]

I'll let someone else address the rest but I can tell you that Wormhole Guard Posts aren't new - they've been in the game since forever. They only difference is that you can now see them, and destroy them. Previously they were perma-cloaked and indestructible.

[Collic]

I believe destroying the warp gate will reduce the maximum amount of reinforcements that planet can accumulate, since it has the 'reinforce' value in its description (I'm not sure how much it reduces the planets ship cap compared to other structures, though).

It's still worth neutering I think, depending on where that planet is. It also makes that planet a prime target for knowledge raiding if you really need it later on. You're right that neutering isn't as effective as it once was, but I think this is a good thing. You can't funnel all ai attacks into just a few choke-points as effectively any more which feels a lot more natural to me.

Personally, I think neutering is most useful early on when you border few planets, meaning they can potentially reinforce very quickly. Depending on the map even if you can't take them just yet neutering means it isn't such a roadblock later on. I've started keeping scouts on AI border worlds as well. If you really want to control border aggression just go in and thin out their numbers when you notice a dangerous build up of ships accumulating.

[Malibu Stacey]

Personally I've never liked the mechanic that allows the AI to simply spawn units out of thin air in a system with no warp gates. The backstory goes that the AI's production facilities are primarily extra-galaxy & it uses the warp gate network to shuttle stuff into systems. Fair enough, makes sense even more now with things like the AI Eye but if I wipe a system clean of everything except the command station & wormhole guard posts, it shouldn't be able to simply cheat & spawn more units inside the system as & when it likes if I have to build mine & move mine through wormholes since I don't have my own fancy dan warp gate network.

Personally, I think neutering is most useful early on when you border few planets, meaning they can potentially reinforce very quickly. Depending on the map even if you can't take them just yet neutering means it isn't such a roadblock later on. I've started keeping scouts on AI border worlds as well. If you really want to control border aggression just go in and thin out their numbers when you notice a dangerous build up of ships accumulating.

Couldn't agree more with that although I think neutering planets is useful even through the mid-game as you'll see the benefit when the next CPA hits. I'd much rather have a 2.5k CPA than a 5k CPA especially when there's 5-10 systems the CPA units will be ingressing your territory via. In my current game I neutered a system with an Advanced Factory in it as I only have level 2 units unlocked & I wanted to secure the neighbouring worlds first to make sure it was doubly protected before I capture it.
Level 1 scouts aren't much use in general so stashing one on each border world at least makes them slightly more useful even if it is only so you can see the unit count on the galaxy map.
I find that a few turrets on your side of the wormhole takes care of border agression quite easily but I haven't played any harder than difficulty 6 AI's in v4 as yet (had to regenerate games a few times because of various issues in earlier releases).

[x4000]

As long as a single ship has warp gate - reinforce or warp gate - full on a planet, that's what is needed for the ai to be able to reinforce at that planet. Very simple. If they don't have either, they can't reinforce there. If they have warp gate - wave that just allows for waves, not reinforcements.

The warp gates themselves don't affect the amount or reinforcements or how frequently they come or anything of that sort. So killing the warp gate would prevent waves, but that's all.

Since th command station has warp gate - reinforce, of course, that means that reinforcements can happen as long as the ai controls the planet. I wouldn't call that "cheating" at all, Malibu Stacey, as you can do the same thing. You're able to plop down defenses and structures on a planet with nothing other than a command station. This is why killing the command station has value.

Regarding how reinforced a planet gets, that's entirely based on the number of guard posts plus the command station. The wormhole guard posts are indeed not new, they're just now visible. The levels of when the ai gets border aggression, etc, have been tweaked somewhat though.

To be clear, border aggression is just when some guys from the ai planet get up and decide to leave their guard posts and kill you. Thy come through your wormholes as normal, not warping into your planet or anything.

Hope that clears a few things up!

[zebramatt]

Personally I've never liked the mechanic that allows the AI to simply spawn units out of thin air in a system with no warp gates. The backstory goes that the AI's production facilities are primarily extra-galaxy & it uses the warp gate network to shuttle stuff into systems. Fair enough, makes sense even more now with things like the AI Eye but if I wipe a system clean of everything except the command station & wormhole guard posts, it shouldn't be able to simply cheat & spawn more units inside the system as & when it likes if I have to build mine & move mine through wormholes since I don't have my own fancy dan warp gate network.

To reiterate what Chris said, but from a thematic standpoint, the warp gate network doesn't exist solely in the Warp Gate ship type - it's built into the Comm Stations, Guard Posts and AI Eyes, and Lord knows what else in future! You should look at any ship which has the warp gate attribute as a potential ingress point into that planet, a neighbour or (in the case of Counterattack Guard Posts) pretty much anywhere! Evidently the AIs are incredibly adept at creating their own wormholes...

[Wingflier]

As long as a single ship has warp gate - reinforce or warp gate - full on a planet, that's what is needed for the ai to be able to reinforce at that planet. Very simple. If they don't have either, they can't reinforce there. If they have warp gate - wave that just allows for waves, not reinforcements.

The warp gates themselves don't affect the amount or reinforcements or how frequently they come or anything of that sort. So killing the warp gate would prevent waves, but that's all.

Since th command station has warp gate - reinforce, of course, that means that reinforcements can happen as long as the ai controls the planet. I wouldn't call that "cheating" at all, Malibu Stacey, as you can do the same thing. You're able to plop down defenses and structures on a planet with nothing other than a command station. This is why killing the command station has value.

Regarding how reinforced a planet gets, that's entirely based on the number of guard posts plus the command station. The wormhole guard posts are indeed not new, they're just now visible. The levels of when the ai gets border aggression, etc, have been tweaked somewhat though.

To be clear, border aggression is just when some guys from the ai planet get up and decide to leave their guard posts and kill you. Thy come through your wormholes as normal, not warping into your planet or anything.

Hope that clears a few things up!

So my question becomes, say I have a dangerous enemy planet near my homeworld (Tier IV or whatnot), will going through and destroying all the Guard Posts that I can reasonably destroy (Wormhole Guard Posts obviously don't count here), slow down the reinforcements on that planet significantly?  Or will it still be able to reinforce at the same speed/rate?  I'm trying to figure out whether its worth destroying Guard Posts to slow down border aggression on dangerous planets, or whether I should just make the decision to either ignore the planet or take it out altogether.

[o1knives]

So my question becomes, say I have a dangerous enemy planet near my homeworld (Tier IV or whatnot), will going through and destroying all the Guard Posts that I can reasonably destroy (Wormhole Guard Posts obviously don't count here), slow down the reinforcements on that planet significantly?  Or will it still be able to reinforce at the same speed/rate?  I'm trying to figure out whether its worth destroying Guard Posts to slow down border aggression on dangerous planets, or whether I should just make the decision to either ignore the planet or take it out altogether.

It will significantly slow down the accumulation of AI ships on that planet and, by my understanding, also lower the maximum number of ships the AI will keep at that world.

[x4000]

Reinforcements are added per guard post, so by killing even one guard post you do two things:

1. Reduce the ship cap on the planet by a certain amount (which varies by ship cap scale and some other internal factors -- but for argument's sake lets call it about 50 or potentially more).

2. Prevent the AI from putting guards at the physical position of the guard post, which can be tactically relevant, AND which means that if there were (say) 5 guards that would get added there per reinforcement point, the AI doesn't get those guards anymore.  So they reinforce fewer ships on the planet overall per reinforcement event, even though the total number of reinforcement events (and the interval between them, etc) is something you can't impact at all.

[Wingflier]

Eh it still doesn't seem worth it on those Mark IV planets though.  Even if I were to reduce the unit cap say by 100, and make them produce 100 less ships on each reinforcement, I'm not sure it would be worth the cost or the time investment to go into that planet and destroy all the guard posts + hundreds of Mark IV/Core units.  If I were going through all that trouble I might as well just kill the entire planet and get the knowledge and economic benefits as well.

Thank you for the advice!

[TheDeadlyShoe]

The problem with that is that it causes an AI progress hike. The point of neutering is to minimize the danger while also minimizing the AI progress hike - since inevitably, higher progress leads to more and better reinforcements.

Usually though you arn't neutring mk IV planets. There arn't a lot of them.and unless you have a botnet golem or something it can indeed get expensive.   Usually only do that to secure flanks when assaulting an ai homeworld or to defend a high value asset like a Mk IV Factory.