Is AIP too inhibitive?

[Astilious]

*cross planet waves seem to spawn on average two planets away from their target, and are released as threat-ish things.

How Beachheads would work with this?

CP-waves and Beachheads work about how you'd expect: the beachheads move with the wave.  If I recall correctly.

They do? Beachheads have a speed of 0 as far as I know.

D.

The I played prior to my current AAR was an 8/8 with beachheads. They definitely moved and seemed to replace all starships in the wave. However they were still pretty irrelevant as they were insanely rare - in the entire game I only had two beachhead waves (3 beachheads in each, early on) which were easily handled by a black widow golem. I think the worst thing about beachheads (and the reason I won't be using them again for a while) is the lack of warning. If I knew which waves had beachheads I would be able to send the fleet back to defend against just those waves rather than leave a golem eternally on defense. If they were then made to spawn a bit more (maybe 1/4 to 1/8 waves) they could be an interesting addition to a game. Still they do offer an interesting tactical challenge as is.

As for the AIP issue I would agree that it would be nice if higher AIP play wasn't inferior to ultra low play (which is the case even on lower diffs, it's just not necessary (indeed doing so makes the game rather dull)) at least without FS. It would open up many strategic options and thereby allow a much larger variety of high diff play styles. That said it's hard to say how this could be achieved, though the time influence on CPAs helps. Come to think of it with the buffs to the benefit of fabricators and factory IVs (as a result of the cap change) perhaps a style in which you grabbed many of these could work.... Of course I have still never played 10/10 so I don't really have much concept of exactly how this ultra high level play works.

[Faulty Logic]

Likewise, on 10/10 at like 100/150 AIP will completely kill you

Barring golems, spirecraft, FS, or ridiculous numbers of turret unlocks at one chokepoint, yes.

[Cinth]

Likewise, on 10/10 at like 100/150 AIP will completely kill you

Barring golems, spirecraft, FS, or ridiculous numbers of turret unlocks at one chokepoint, yes.

Yep. Then it takes 1500 AIP to kill you.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Ha, you guys... I DID see Diazo's crazy game.
Okay, barring nonsense like that, you're doomed. With nonsense like that, the only thing 10/10 threatens is the game engine.

[Kahuna]

Likewise, on 10/10 at like 100/150 AIP will completely kill you, barring crazy nonsense with nukes and electric warheads, right?

Not actually. I can afk @ 137 AIP. The defenses will auto stop everything. Except CPAs and Exos. Most of those too.

[Lancefighter]

I have around 500 turrets, a spire city, and a modular fortresses for each defense at the moment. Complete with black hole machines.

And yet, 4 raid starships just blew up my home command station. Keith, can we murder these again? Is there maybe a 'no raid starships' game option?

Or maybe can we just remove the AI raid starship's immunity to black hole machines? Thatd be really nice, actually.

edit

Or even better yet - can we implement some sort of command station upgrades? Id pay a few million metal to stick another ~5m hp on my home station. And a lot of knowledge.

[LaughingThesaurus]

If that is indeed the case, it seems more like a playstyle difference then. Hugging as close to the floor as possible and only taking like 4 planets is just risk free but very much demands precise selection of planets. If you can indeed survive at those moderate-ish AIP numbers even on 10/10, then that was your chosen strategy for the advantage of having a few more planets and having extra awesome stuff to spare. I mean if people are actually drifting towards 150 AIP and surviving reasonably well on 10/10...
but 150 was a number I pulled out of the air either way.

[Cinth]

And yet, 4 raid starships just blew up my home command station. Keith, can we murder these again? Is there maybe a 'no raid starships' game option?

Or maybe can we just remove the AI raid starship's immunity to black hole machines? Thatd be really nice, actually.

Then you kill the Raid SS usefulness as a raider in the players hands.  Try "x" moving some (or all) your sniper turrets against those Ai Raids. Or doing the same with OMDs you can grab from your friendly Zenith Trader. If they still are a problem.... add in grav turrets. Missile Frigates also have a bonus against the Raid's hull type so there is something else you can add in

If that is indeed the case, it seems more like a playstyle difference then. Hugging as close to the floor as possible and only taking like 4 planets is just risk free but very much demands precise selection of planets. If you can indeed survive at those moderate-ish AIP numbers even on 10/10, then that was your chosen strategy for the advantage of having a few more planets and having extra awesome stuff to spare. I mean if people are actually drifting towards 150 AIP and surviving reasonably well on 10/10...
but 150 was a number I pulled out of the air either way.

I'm going to guess Kahuna knows pretty close to the max AIP a choke planet can hold. At that point you plan around what you can do up to that point and have fun with it.  I'd refrence my games for something like this but I play with a stupidly high amount of stuff. Where some finesse the AI, I want to take a sledgehammer to it 

[LaughingThesaurus]

Yeah like, the point I was trying to get at is, there is still the option of taking a sledgehammer to the AI. And, if it's a case where you aren't a quivering whimpering sheep to the AI who literally cannot win ever without a sub-50 or so AIP, then there's definitely an issue with it being too inhibitive. I mentioned Diablo 3 inferno mode, because I watched my brother play it a whole lot, and he did basically nothing but die in one shot using the most optimal build on the best character class. There was no getting off the ground, because enemies that looked at you funny would instantly kill you. That is too restrictive. That is a point where the enemy is so strong, the game has no point anymore. Blizzard even admitted to having not playtested those numbers. But, so long as you aren't getting one-shotted if you look the AI in the eye, then it at least seems comparatively fine to me.
Also, totally shooting down AI Eye jokes as a result of me mentioning looking the AI in the eye.

[Lancefighter]

And yet, 4 raid starships just blew up my home command station. Keith, can we murder these again? Is there maybe a 'no raid starships' game option?

Or maybe can we just remove the AI raid starship's immunity to black hole machines? Thatd be really nice, actually.

Then you kill the Raid SS usefulness as a raider in the players hands.  Try "x" moving some (or all) your sniper turrets against those Ai Raids. Or doing the same with OMDs you can grab from your friendly Zenith Trader. If they still are a problem.... add in grav turrets. Missile Frigates also have a bonus against the Raid's hull type so there is something else you can add in

AI and human raid starships are already radically different (last I checked). Removing the AI version's black hole immunity wouldnt need to hurt players at all.
Somewhat the problem is that I've never actually seen a raid starship in the ai's hands this game. Or if I did, they just died immediately.
I never really suspected they would be able to ignore my 500 turrets, spire city, modular fortress, black hole machine, and forcefields..

I mean I understand 'derp their point is to raid, ignoring defenses'.. But.. That just felt a little too cheesey by the ai.

[chemical_art]

Sniper turrets absolutely, positively, curb stomp raid starships.

They ignore the raid starships radar dampening, their armor, and get a 6x bonus in attacking them. Ten turrets on normal caps can kill a raid starship every two salvos I think.

[Lancefighter]

hm. I thought I had a lot of them up somewhere.

Problem just seems to be that I am running into the turret cap far too much. And its not enough. I have half caps of basic, laser, missile, mlrs, and missile turrets up.. Complete with a modular fortress, and spire city (5 'defensive' structures per). And they are barely holding waves.

[Cinth]

AI and human raid starships are already radically different (last I checked). Removing the AI version's black hole immunity wouldnt need to hurt players at all.
Somewhat the problem is that I've never actually seen a raid starship in the ai's hands this game. Or if I did, they just died immediately.
I never really suspected they would be able to ignore my 500 turrets, spire city, modular fortress, black hole machine, and forcefields..

I mean I understand 'derp their point is to raid, ignoring defenses'.. But.. That just felt a little too cheesey by the ai.

Only differences I could find in human/ai raids were that the AI variant has half the HP of the human variant.

Either way, if the AI variant can be modified separately then by all means champion that cause I'll stand by those other strategies for dealing with them. I specifically have snipers and OMDs targeting raids first, always.

[Lancefighter]

I think I am just expecting raid starships to have more immunities than they actually do. I'm pretty sure at one point they were immune to sniper shots, missiles, had radar dampening of like 5k units, and ignored gravity turrets. When did all of that change.. ?

[Cinth]

They still have dampening out to 8k but for the rest? I dunno. I'll leave that to to more knowledgeable among us