Love the game. Except 1 thing.

[Erathsmus]

Ai wars is a WONDERFUL game. The only content I am unsure about, are the missiles. I feel like they are useless unless you are prepared to commit suicide. I play this game ALOT, and as far as things I have actually used in game go, I have attempted to use these maybe 3 or 4 times, out of hundreds of hours of gameplay, and they never came across as satisfactory as far as damage/progress generated go.

[keith.lamothe]

You mean the nuke/emp/tachyon/lightning/armored warheads?  They aren't intended to be a normal part of your strategy, but rather a "bail out" when you come up against something really tough or just want to take a "shortcut".  A single mkI nuke can make most of a heavily fortified mkIV world a thing of the past.  An EMP mkI or mkII can stun a huge blob of stalking AI ships long enough for you to whittle it down with your fleet (rather than letting that blob grow bigger and/or come through with the next wave or major attack, possibly ending the game).  Stuff like that.

But using them very much is indeed self-defeating, that is one of the intentions behind them.  Sort of like candy: sweet, but eat too much and your teeth fall out.

[Vinraith]

Yup, warheads are an "in over your head" measure of last resort, if you're playing well and on a level of difficulty appropriate to your skill level you wouldn't be using them much, if at all.

When circumstances are dire, though, a well placed EMP, or even nuke, can be a real life-saver.

[Red Spot]

Yesterday I let a planet build up a bit ... 6k ships near the gate.
That by itself is no biggie, that 5k of them where in carriers is a biggie.

Warheads (and in this case, Martyrs) will be a huge asset at this stage. If I where to attack and lose a large portion of my fleet, the rest of the force would have felt ok to attack, which I cant stop with no fleet -> game over. Warheads are your equilibrium in this case.

[BobTheJanitor]

Martyrs are my missiles.  I don't think I've ever used a missile in a real situation, only in sort of 'I wonder what this does' scenarios. It was neat to see that all the planetary graphics actually change when you nuke them. But yeah, if you're playing with spirecraft on, you can use martyrs almost anywhere you'd use missiles. Even just jumping them in and out of a wormhole on 'fishing' trips and bringing back clumps of enemies to get chopped up by your turrets and fleet ships is fantastic.

[Zeyurn]

Mark 1 Lightning Missiles are the only things I ever use, and only when AIP is already 600+ so 1 more isn't going to make a difference, so I can clear out a beachhead before my troops go in.  But I play a lot different than most people accept is 'normal' so our multiplayer group is perfectly fine fielding waves when the AIP is 900 or more, even now.