I cant play this game anymore without getting irrationally angry.

[Cyborg]

I must've leveled up too much in FFVI...I always crushed Kefka.  Exdeath, on the other hand..

The general rule of thumb is, if you pick up all of the optional characters in any Final Fantasy, you're ready to move on to the boss. They also have done a great job of gating all of the bosses with appropriate lieutenants; if you can take the lieutenant, you have shot at winning against the boss.


But back to this problem, because I don't want to derail from straightening out striking the AI homeworld, I think what would fix the wrath lance are one or more of the following:


1) distance from the Wrath lance should affect the damage; it doesn't matter whether far or close, just pick one so there is some tactical decision-making.
2) Wrath lance does decreasing damage to successive targets
3) Wrath lance is weak to one of the triangle ships, including its attack
4) fun idea: The Wrath Lance has orbiting drones that are targetable, allowing the destruction of one arm of the lance. Turning on auto-kiting would make this interesting.

[ZaneWolfe]

I've heard that some people could take it out with Teleporting Units or Transports.  However, the Gravity brutal pick would make Transports ineffective, and you are certainly not guaranteed a teleporting unlock.  I've only seen it once myself, though.

*points to signature*

And if all else fails, THE MIGHTY HUMAN/SPIRE ALLIANCE SHALL CRUSH THE AI!!!! Sure the Wraith Lance, and the rest of the nasty Core Guardpost, can and likely will take out an FS fleet, even a 5+ City fleet. However, an FS fleet CAN and will take out that Wraith Lance, and likely several other Core Guardposts, before they finally fall. Assuming your defenses can handle the resulting counter-exos, all you need to do is rebuild your FS fleet, and a second run will almost certainly finish the job.

[Draco18s]

My thoughts on the timer mechanic would be more as follows:

-When a guard post hits 50% (or whatever value) an exo spawns on that AI Homeworld immediately with the short term goal of pushing the player out of the system.
-If the exo is crushing the player's forces (kills, as opposed to retreats) then the exo takes on the long term goal of killing the player's command station
-If the player is retreating, kill what can be killed and then despawn back to the warpgrid

And...now that I typed this, I'm not sure about it either.

[Cyborg]

My thoughts on the timer mechanic would be more as follows:
-If the player is retreating, kill what can be killed and then despawn back to the warpgrid

So these would be Neinzul units?

[Draco18s]

My thoughts were more along the lines of the AI "dealing with this very active problem right now" in a way that if the player follows the desired goal (retreat) the AI doesn't pursue.  That is, so you don't have to actually fight off a continuous influx of exos, slowing down the grind through the homeworlds.

Not unless you were utterly unprepared and got wiped out, in which case the AI sees you as weak and vulnerable and goes for the throat.

[keith.lamothe]

-When a guard post hits 50% (or whatever value) an exo spawns on that AI Homeworld immediately with the short term goal of pushing the player out of the system.
(...)
-If the player is retreating, kill what can be killed and then despawn back to the warpgrid

Those two are pretty much exactly what the Strategic Reserve does.

-If the exo is crushing the player's forces (kills, as opposed to retreats) then the exo takes on the long term goal of killing the player's command station

I'd rather this be a separate thing so that:
1) It's not an additional brick in a potential stonewall-defense.  A delayed spawn (even if it happens on that HW) avoids it being just a "NOPE".
2) It can be super-focused on just one job: kill the player.  Or at least make it more likely that the player feels threatened, and thus that the assault is not just a formality.

[Faulty Logic]

-If the player is retreating, kill what can be killed and then despawn back to the warpgrid

That strikes me as a grade-A recipe for stalemate, which is the worst possible outcome: boring and frustrating.

I like Keith's idea because it should make stalemates almost impossible. The exos will kill you, or you will kill the AI to make them stop.

A couple questions, though:

Will the exos stop once you kill the first AI Homeworld, assuming the other isn't damaged?
Will the exos gradually (or quickly) become stronger?

I think they both should happen, the first to encourage actually taking the HWs one at a time in some cases, the second to *engage euphemism module* resolve stalemates conclusively.

[Draco18s]

-When a guard post hits 50% (or whatever value) an exo spawns on that AI Homeworld immediately with the short term goal of pushing the player out of the system.
(...)
-If the player is retreating, kill what can be killed and then despawn back to the warpgrid

Those two are pretty much exactly what the Strategic Reserve does.

Exactly.  I was just giving it a clearly defined "this will happen" trigger.  But yes, I was seeing it basically being like the strategic reserve, except that if it's crushing you, it doesn't just go away.

But like I said, after typing it out, I wasn't happy with what I had and couldn't figure out why.

[Toranth]

-If the player is retreating, kill what can be killed and then despawn back to the warpgrid

That strikes me as a grade-A recipe for stalemate, which is the worst possible outcome: boring and frustrating.

I like Keith's idea because it should make stalemates almost impossible. The exos will kill you, or you will kill the AI to make them stop.

A couple questions, though:

Will the exos stop once you kill the first AI Homeworld, assuming the other isn't damaged?
Will the exos gradually (or quickly) become stronger?

I think they both should happen, the first to encourage actually taking the HWs one at a time in some cases, the second to *engage euphemism module* resolve stalemates conclusively.

I present the reason the Grav Reactor Core Guardpost is not protected by CSGs - The Snake map.  A Snake Map, or any similar accidental layout where one AI HW blocks the path to the other and has a Grav Reactor, means an endless stream of Exowaves every 30 minutes for the entire second half of the game.  Not fun.

[Faulty Logic]

I present the reason the Grav Reactor Core Guardpost is not protected by CSGs - The Snake map.  A Snake Map, or any similar accidental layout where one AI HW blocks the path to the other and has a Grav Reactor, means an endless stream of Exowaves every 30 minutes for the entire second half of the game.  Not fun.

Yes, that would be a nightmare. So I'd assume that the grav reactor would be exempt from the exo-triggering rule.

And it's another reason the exos should stop when you actually kill their home.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I'd already thought of the grav reactor, it needs to not trigger the rule or the RNG would die laughing (right after ensuring that every single graph splitting AI HW got at least one grav reactor).

Will the exos stop once you kill the first AI Homeworld, assuming the other isn't damaged?

I hadn't thought of that, but it's probably best to do it that way to avoid making "kill one, rest, kill the other" too painful.

Will the exos gradually (or quickly) become stronger?

Yep   Must Terminate Hostilities, after all.

[Cyborg]

In exchange for this exo timer idea, what's coming out? And how do you stop the timer?

[Faulty Logic]

In exchange for this exo timer idea, what's coming out? And how do you stop the timer?

Those thorn-in-the-side exos triggered by the death of core guard posts.

I'm not sure if killing the AI home station stops the current timer (I don't think it should), though it will stop the timer from resetting.

[Lancefighter]

I have made a rather interesting breakthrough regarding plasma siege starships. It seems that they are not so much 'annoying' as they are 'impossible to kill'. I have a two city spire fleet, spirecraft siege towers, an armored golem, and a shadow battleship, and full sets of flagship, zenith cruiser, and plasma siege in a control group, and I am using this group as my general offensive fleet.

The plasma siege starships never die. Everything else gets replaced repeatedly, but these 10m hp artillery hulls? Never take damage.

[MaxAstro]

Something I have noticed about plasma siege is that they get autotargetted... poorly.  When you actually order an attack against them they pop reasonably quick if you have sufficient forces.  But your sufficient forces will almost always find other things to attack rather than the plasma siege unless you manually target it.

And I think the AI has this issue, too; I have definitely noticed that plasma siege ships in mixed fleets seem to never need to be replaced.