Ion Cannons

[Toranth]

4x hull bonus

Huh.  They are Ultra-Heavy.  I'd always assumed they were just Heavy.  Yeah, that's rather lightweight for an "Ultra-Heavy" fortified cannon.
Though, counting on the FF-immune and hull-multiplier to balance the HP doesn't seem quite right to me.

My biggest complain about the Ion Cannons is that they are presented as this ancient, ultra-tech, super-powerful weapon... and the AI gets 2-3 on every planet.  That's just too common.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, they could be made less common, and a lot nastier.

[TechSY730]

Yea, buffing the ion cannon, and reducing their spawn rate to be only a little more common than OMDs seems like the way to go.


I will see if I can post what I think a good set of stats for them to have later.

[Kahuna]

...

I'm with RCIX on this one. Saying "lol ad hominem" doesn't change the fact that is was, to the letter, just that.

The problem there was.. that he doesn't care if he loses his Raids and I do. Thus I'll try to keep them out of MRLS and Missile GPs' range. Often I don't want to sacrifice any of the Raid SSs for an Ion Cannon because it gets expensive in the long run. But if I have to I'll sacrifice a Raid or two.. depends.

So according to him.. not wanting to "waste" resources is "not using Raid SSs properly". He also said "I have never needed Mark II Raid Starships to--".. Guard Posts got a huge buff recently which he ignored completely. MRLS and Missile GPs Mark > I 1 shot Raids now. He just talked about what he has done in the past.. well cool story bro.. the game has changed. I never needed Higher Marks of Raids either.

Sure I could have said this instead of what I did but back then it seemed to me that I could have as well talked to a goat. Seems like he thinks everyone uses Raids the same way he does and if someone uses them differently that's wrong. Now I'm not saying that's a fact and that's what he thinks but that's what he made it sound like. So because of that.. I'd like to ask you to kindly take the ad hominem and shove it up your ass.. BUT.. I'm not going to ask you to do that.. oh wait..

I just read my posts on page 4 again and oh man.. I actually laughed.. sure the posts might have been a bit.. provocative.. although I think it was clear I wasn't being like "µber serious".

And Keith^^ yes I understand. Thank you for having the patience of a cow.

[KDR_11k]

The difficulty comes from that there are multiple levels of Ion cannons and the AI can have several. If a single Mk I Ion cannon is made enough of a threat to actually challenge you...what happens if the AI has three of them on the same planet?

I recall back when I started playing (3.0) ICs seemed to be pretty much limited to marks I and II. If MkIII+ was made extremely rare then even multiple ICs could be countered by simply bringing a higher mark fleet.

[keith.lamothe]

Guard Posts got a huge buff recently which he ignored completely. MRLS and Missile GPs Mark > I 1 shot Raids now. He just talked about what he has done in the past.. well cool story bro.. the game has changed. I never needed Higher Marks of Raids either.

He also has experience with them post-GP-buff: here.

And Keith^^ yes I understand. Thank you for having the patience of a cow.

What did you call me You're welcome.  I think

[Zeyurn]

Well, they could be made less common, and a lot nastier.

I'd be all for this.  Make them fortress level rare instead of on 10/10 the AI literally having an average of 3 ion cannons a planet (the most I saw was 5 but I wouldn't swear there wasn't one with 6) just to try to make them meaningful.

Ions seem mostly dangerous for people who play really low AIP without many planets / research or who don't research high level raids or really micro their raids or don't transport bombers over to them or w/e.

On high AIP games (or on _any_ game where you have snipers/sentinel frigates), unless you're unlucky enough to get an Ion IV under a Mk 3 force field very early on and you have no way to get to it, they're just not that bad.  I'm sorry you have trouble with them, Kahuna!  I know my playstyle is not like most peoples, keith probably has conniptions trying to keep things relatively balanced for all of us

[Kahuna]

I'm sorry you have trouble with them, Kahuna!

Oh np! Usually they're easy to destroy with Mark I Raid SSs. But something like Force Field + Mark IV Missile GP + Mark > I Ion Cannon + guards can be really painful and expensive. Then I'll just have to just free the guards and sacrifice some Raid Starships. I just don't like doing that because it gets very expensive in long run.

keith probably has conniptions trying to keep things relatively balanced for all of us

That might not even be entirely possible since there are so many ways to play this game.

[LordSloth]

Ion cannons under forcefield and under the attack radius of a missile post and fortress in an AI Eye system can be extremely tough to crack with the old raids, with the missile post terminating the raids, and the fortress locking out most of the fleetships and other starships. The new capabilities of Mk2/3 raids may make a difference to that.

[Kahuna]

Ion cannons under forcefield and under the attack radius of a missile post and fortress in an AI Eye system can be extremely tough to crack with the old raids, with the missile post terminating the raids, and the fortress locking out most of the fleetships and other starships. The new capabilities of Mk2/3 raids may make a difference to that.

Don't even need that for there and you got a PIYA. Guard Posts always have guards.. the guards sit in front of the Ion Cannon so Raid SSs will waste their reload time on the guards instead of the Ion Cannon. So while the Raid SSs are reloading the Missile Frigate kills all 3 of them. That's why Mark IIs are needed.

[keith.lamothe]

the guards sit in front of the Ion Cannon so Raid SSs will waste their reload time on the guards instead of the Ion Cannon.

It's a bit more micro but you could put the raids in stand-down mode to prevent them from firing until you know you're in range of the cannon, then pause, take them out of stand-down, give them the kill-cannon order, and unpause.

But yea, the higher mark raids will have an easier time.