Marauders

[Kjara]

This may or may not be a bug (hard to tell for sure what is intended).  But it seems that every time I've attacked a planet(for the past 4 planets), marauders have shown up.  I wonder if they are actually being spawned earlier, but not starting to move into the planet till I show up(due to cold storage)?

[x4000]

The way both marauders and resistance fighters work is this: they have an internal counter (each) that counts slowly up over time.  Every 40 seconds or so, they look at the engagements on planets where both you and the AI are, and then decide if they want to attack or not.  If you go through a long stretch where you engage the AI very little, you're more likely to then get a long run of marauders and/or resistance fighters showing up on the enemy planets.

[Kjara]

Hmm,  It still seems a bit odd.  I'm at war on at least 2 planets with the ai 100% of the time(since they still own the planets and I built turret balls there), and yet I haven't noticed marauders on those planets(I may have missed one or two), but every ai planet I have invaded/data raided has had marauders.

Does it look for player ships(aka if the ai is alerted if the ship counter is >50 or whatever) as what it considers a combat?  If so, that might explain it since those other planets only have turrets and a few support ships on them.

Edit: It would generally make sense though, since I have somewhat long buildup times with quick strikes between them, so most of the time my fleet is on one of my planets(and my home planets don't generally have any fleet--just turrets), so it wouldn't see any combats except when I'm invading, and rather spaced out.

[x4000]

Oh, that is one other thing, I guess -- they look for a differential in fleet sizes.  So if you are raiding, then the AI way outnumbers you, and the marauders are more likely.  If you roll in with way more ships than a little AI planet has, they are more likely there, too.

[Kjara]

That seems somewhat exploitable.  If I just run a bunch of raid starships through ai worlds to hit a few specific targets, I can be gone well before the Marauders arrive, and they are only really will be hurting the ai.  The same is true with my large armies doing neutering/scout enabling/knowledge raids, I can run around and do the damage I need to do, then warp out before the Marauders arrive.

Almost seems like they should be more likely in even battles?

[x4000]

Yeah, that is true.  Will definitely have to consider this over the next bit and see what the consensus is with players.

[raptor331]

I have an idea for marauders, why not be able to open up a menu to "bargain" with them? Pay them some resources and let them take the planet for themselves and you have safe passage. After all if you look back in history thats how Queen Elizabeth(please excuse the history lesson) took out spains navy: paying english pirates to take them out.

However, if you were to ever betray them, you will never be assisted by them again.

[raptor331]

Thought id add one more thing: the ai pays them too(this may not fit in the story) so you have to keep your price above theirs and as ai progress goes up, the price goes up as well

[Kjara]

Isn't that just basically copying the raider faction in sins?

[HellishFiend]

The idea of being able to pay/fund the marauders to "take" an AI planet is an interesting one. That could add another strategic element to the game. Perhaps it could work like the Mercenary Space dock, except instead of spitting out ships controlled by you, it spits out ships controlled by an allied marauder faction, or adds the ships to the ships available for use by marauders elsewhere in the galaxy.

I don't like the idea of carbon copying Sins' Pirate mechanic, though.

[RCIX]

I think modifying the Mercenary space dock to be able to buy Marauder and/or Resistance Fighter ships would be best!

[raptor331]

Isn't that just basically copying the raider faction in sins?

Maybe, I havent played the game, heard it was good though

[HellishFiend]

Isn't that just basically copying the raider faction in sins?

Maybe, I havent played the game, heard it was good though

It's not that it "was" good, it "is" good.    It has its second and final expansion coming out soon this year. If you havent played it, I recommend trying it. Its nowhere near as deep grand strategy-wise compared to AI war, but everything else about it is great.

[dumpsterKEEPER]

Isn't that just basically copying the raider faction in sins?

Maybe, I havent played the game, heard it was good though

It's not that it "was" good, it "is" good.    It has its second and final expansion coming out soon this year. If you havent played it, I recommend trying it. Its nowhere near as deep grand strategy-wise compared to AI war, but everything else about it is great.

I really enjoyed Sins and played quite a bit of the base game and the Entrenchment expansion.  My problem is that I can't seem to get back into it after playing AI War.  I pre-ordered the Diplomacy expansion, but haven't really played the beta much at all.  Every time I've started to play it, I start thinking about my current AI War game and switch over to that instead 

[snrub_guy]

Hi all! Finally got round to registering. Great game, and love the additions of ZR.

As far as marauders go, I seem to be having more trouble than I should with them. I have a few points about them that I wouldn't mind feedback on.
1) They show up on a planet, and then seem to produce a constant stream of ships at that planet, meaning I have a lot of ships tied up there to try to stop some of them... Am I missing something? Does the stream eventually stop?
2) They seem to spawn so very far from the populated area of a system, they take 15 minutes to get to you... Why is this? The speed the dagger frigates move at, I would have thought spawning closer would still give us plenty of warning...
3) The suicide ships can't seem to pass through the wormholes they try to go through. They just dart around it until the turrets finally kill them.
4) And perhaps most importantly, they keep hurting me. The  dagger frigates seem to be very very powerful, at least in the early game. They have massive range, are a little to fast for other frigates to keep up with, and seem to lay waste to most things I throw at them, turrets, ships, whatever. Could someone give me some tips for repelling them? So far I have figured out to put my Command stations a LONG way from the passages between wormholes...

I know this looks like a complaining post, but it's more a "help me, I'm rubbish" post. The game as a whole is excellent.

M