AI Guardians

[Kahuna]

After the change to AIs' Guardian unlocks I haven't seen even 1 Warp Gate Guardian or "suicide/self destruct/kamikaze" (or whatever) Guardians and very few Beam Guardians. It's ALWAYS Spider and Sniper Guardians. A couple of Laser and Flak Guardians.. very few Gravity Guardians. When I get hit by a CPA and I pop the carriers.. the ships ALWAYS combine into Sniper Guardians.

What's up with this?

[Chthon]

I've seen rally post guardians, heavy beam guardians, raider guardians, etc.  I think I've seen one warp gate guardian, but not the suicidal guardians.  I don't think I've ever seen those.

During CPA I usually get a mix of guardians, not just sniper.

[zoutzakje]

self destruct guardians only show up at difficulty 8 or higher. But I haven't seem them or the warp gate guardians for a while either. Disassembler, spider and artillery guardians are the main ones i find in my current game.
Maybe the AI only has a different set of guardians available in each game? Like with fleet ships. Unless you play against Everything AI, you don't see every single ship type around in a game. Maybe they did the same thing with the guardians? Since there are quite a few different guardian types out there nowadays. In a way it would make sense.

[Orelius]

Popping carriers when there are still a few thousand AI ships on the world makes the AI condense the firepower it has in the carrier into guardians, probably to reduce that amount of torture your computer has to handle  .  It is rather strange that warp gate guardians appear so infrequently now, but maybe they got changed so they only appear on higher difficulty levels.

[Kahuna]

I started 10 test games with complete visibility and checked which Guardians the AIs had. Every time with a new seed and a randomly selected planet. 10/10 difficulty.
Game 1
Snipers, Lasers, Flaks, Lightning, Tractors, Zombies
Game 2
Heavy Beams, MRLSs, Plasmas, Shields, Spire Implosions, Heavy Beams, MRLSs
Game 3
Heavy Beams, Flaks, Zombies, Spiders
Game 4
Missiles, Spiders, Tractors, Lasers, MRLSs, Heavy Beams
Game 5
Heavy Beams, Flaks, Tractors, Lasers, Snipers
Game 6
Spiders, Spire Implosions, Missiles, Plasmas, Special Forces, Flaks
Game 7
Flaks, Raiders, Heavy Beams, Gravitys, Tractors
Game 8
Vampires, Lightnings, Plasmas, Raiders, Special Forces, Munitions
Game 9
Lightnings, Missiles, Vampires, Flaks, Needlers, Snipers
Game 10
Lightnings, Snipers, MRLSs, Flaks, Needlers, Special Forces

Results
Flak: 7
Heavy Beam: 6
Snipers: 4
Lightning: 4
Tractor: 4
MRLS: 4
Spider: 3
Missile: 3
Plasma: 3
Special Forces: 3
Raider: 2
Zombie: 2
Vampire: 2
Spire Implosion: 2
Needler: 2
Munitions: 1
Shield: 1
Gravity: 1

[Vinraith]

I thought it was kind of odd I hadn't run across a warp gate or EMP guardian in any of my newer games. I was starting to wonder if they'd just been removed in the time since last I played.

[zoutzakje]

hmm yeah, it is odd that we haven't seen any EMP, warp gate or self destruct guardians.... wut happened? I kinda liked the EMP's

[Draco18s]

I think they got relegated to higher difficulties.

[Chthon]

As I said, I see warp gate guardians all the time, however usually it's when I have 2 or fewer warp gates adjoining my territory.  Makes an unexpected wave come out of nowhere messing you up IMO.

[Kahuna]

I think they got relegated to higher difficulties.

The 10 test games were on 10/10 difficulty (like all of my games)

EDIT: I loooove more Self-Destruct and Warp Gate Guardians! I want more of them! They need some love too even though they are mean killer robots.

[Chthon]

I think they got relegated to higher difficulties.

The 10 test games were on 10/10 difficulty (like all of my games)

EDIT: I loooove more Self-Destruct and Warp Gate Guardians! I want more of them! They need some love too even though they are mean killer robots.

Perhaps warp gate guardians are something that need specific conditions before the AI will use?  Like lack of warp gates near your worlds as I suggested.  That's usually when I see them after all.

[zoutzakje]

nah then i would have seen them by now. It's strange, it never even occurred to me that we're missing a few of the most important guardians until kahuna mentioned it. The self destructs weren't a big deal, unless you didn't see them coming in the chaos of battle (and then they would devastate), but the warp gate guardians would always cost me a lot of extra time, having to revisit neutered worlds over and over and the EMP's were always on top of my priority list when attacking.

Now i miss them. wut happened?
Nobody seems to be able to give us a report that they actually saw either of them recently.

[Kahuna]

LoL.. last night I saw a dream where I played AI War and saw a Warp Gate Guardian >_>
Too much AI War?

[Bognor]

LoL.. last night I saw a dream where I played AI War and saw a Warp Gate Guardian >_>
Too much AI War?

Heh, I've dreamed of Hybrids before 

[TechSY730]

Ugh, sounds like there is some sort of weird bug with the guardian type selection logic.

Yea, EMP and warp guardians should be rarer, but they should still spawn sometimes.