I cant play this game anymore without getting irrationally angry.

[orzelek]

Hmm idea of constant exo's after attacking AI H/w is curious. I never taken one b normal means tho - always had fallen spire fleet on hand for that task.
Wouldn't exo's like that make wrath lance unstoppable? You are pretty much forced to kill it in waves and if you kill any other post before it exo's will make sure you can't do that by threatening you. So it would be nice winning guard post for AI unless you have a way to kill it with one wave of ships and quickly rebuild and finish H/W.

[Faulty Logic]

constant exo's after attacking AI H/w is curious.

They wouldn't be constant. You'd get one within 10 minutes, then one every half hour.

Wouldn't exo's like that make wrath lance unstoppable?

No.

You are pretty much forced to kill it in waves and if you kill any other post before it exo's will make sure you can't do that by threatening you.

It's definitely possible to kill a wrath lance with one wave. And the exos wouldn't prevent attacking.

[Cyborg]

I am beginning to like this timed exo idea less and less; we are trading finite  waves for timed waves?

[MaxAstro]

If the homeworld assaults are balanced such that they take the amount of time they are supposed to (30 minutes - an hour) you are trading one wave per core guardpost for only 2-3 waves, which seems like a fair trade in exchange for the waves ramping up and crushing you if you foolishly attack the homeworld too early.

[keith.lamothe]

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.

Bear in mind that the graphics are representational: the Plasma Siege Starship is actually painted pink all over, and employs an SEP

[Vacuity]

There seem to be quite a few people who think the Wrath Lance is only beatable by grinding.  Would people care to share methods of knocking it out that do not involve fleetwiping?  For me, I always try to get at least one source of teleporting ships.  It's not so unusual to lose most or all of that cap once or twice (particularly any mark I or II ships), but it's not much of a grind and actually quite fun doing the micromanaging and judging whether to cut my losses and run now or hold off a few seconds more and maybe finish the lance off on this round.  Across a typical game, it's normal to be able to find at least one source of teleporting ships, sometimes requiring hacking an ARS though.  What other methods do people use?  Typically, I try to get a scout to each of the homeworlds to check what the brutal picks are as early as possible, so I can try my best to ensure I've got something suitable by the endgame.

[TechSY730]

Since the Wraith Lance only turns on when it can "see" a threat, cloaked ships will not trigger it. Abuse this. Get cloaking (cloaker starships may help) and stand down mode, and get in close where it is easier to micro out of the way as the "speed" of the beams is slower there (due to basic principles of rotation of straight objects)

Re: The plasma seige starship

A bit of a health nerf (not by a huge amount, just a bit) and making sure their "aggro value" is appropriately set seem like worthwhile things to try.

[Lancefighter]

Can we just swap the hull types of every single starship around? Lets make flagships and spire city fleets 'artillery', and make plasma siege 'heavy'. I think tha would solve the problem.

(the heavy hulltype has imo been in a really bad place in general for a long time)

[Winge]

Typically, I try to get a scout to each of the homeworlds to check what the brutal picks are as early as possible, so I can try my best to ensure I've got something suitable by the endgame.

I would love to do that.  However, on a 120 planet map, that is easier said than done...unless I want to either sink a ton of time or knowledge into scouting.

That said, in my current high-AIP game, I might unlock Scout SS IV for missile immunity...

[tadrinth]

Seems like there are very few ships with anti-artillery bonuses.  I'm not sure how the game figures out targetting priority; I think things usually attack whatever they'll kill the fastest, so I'm guessing bombers tend to shoot down missile frigates first.

Also, how do you use cloaking vs a Wrath Lance?  You'll only ever encounter those on an AI homeworld where the AI has global tachyon coverage from the AI Home Command Station.   Do cloaker starships supercloak things right through tachyon?  If not, your only recourse is a sensor hack.  On the other hand, you always have the option of a sensor hack if you have HaP available, regardless of your unlocks or expansions.  Assuming you can survive the response combined with an AI homeworlds defenses, and assuming you can keep the hacking device alive long enough for the hack to start...

[nitpik]

I'm generally fine with HW assaults at the moment.

However, I've never found an easy way to beat a Wrath Lance - generally I'll dump a bunch of ships as close to it as possible and hope it dies before they do. And it usually takes a lot down with it. Charging 18 empty transports followed by two transports full of bombers usually gets the bombers in range if there isn't stuff in the way. But even once my ships are close, microing them to rotate around it faster than the beams (while also not going too fast and running into the next beam) never seems to work, for me at least. Are other people doing this reliably?

It had never occurred to me to try microing teleporters though - do they really get though it's health in a reasonable time?

And isn't the cloaking to get close countered by the planetary tachyon coverage?

[Winge]

IIRC only core Eyes have Planetary Tachyon Coverage, not the AI Home Command Center.  Although that could have changed since I last encountered an AI homeworld.

As for the Wrath Lance, I did have one interesting idea:  what if it could not affect swarmer or small ships?  Conceptually, they would be small enough to get in between the gaps in the beams (while larger ships would be unable to).  There's already a ton of stuff that counters those on the AI's worlds; it would be kind of nice to see a change that actually favors them.

I'm not saying that is the best approach; I'm just pondering changes that might be beneficial.

[Faulty Logic]

Although that could have changed since I last encountered an AI homeworld.

It did. The home stations have the planetary tachyon now.

  Conceptually, they would be small enough to get in between the gaps in the beams (while larger ships would be unable to).  There's already a ton of stuff that counters those on the AI's worlds; it would be kind of nice to see a change that actually favors them.

That would be a good change, I agree.

[Kahuna]

On the other hand, you always have the option of a sensor hack if you have HaP available

Yeah because that wouldn't "wake up" the Wrath Lance.

[TechSY730]

IDK about changing hull types around. As long as artillery hull type is named artillery, then plasma seige, if any type if any starship, should have that hull type.

IMO, the hull type situation needs a big rebalance anyways. I honestly think that having hull type trying to conditionally model three things (ship size, hull material, ship role) just muddies the issue, and leads to such "clustering" of hull type assignments and hull type bonuses like we do now.

I think a reasonable short term fix will be to give a few things an artillery bonus that would make sense to have it. (And maybe a bit of a health nerf for the PSS too)

For tbe long term, I hope the hull type situation can be readjustsd some when the armor situation is addressed.