Nominations for new Core Guard Posts for new Vengeance expansion

[keith.lamothe]

For this expansion I'm hoping to add 3 new "brutal" core post types and 3 new "non-brutal" core post types. 

To clarify, "Core Guard Posts" are the ones that go on the AI Homeworlds and (in most cases) must be destroyed before you can kill the home command stations themselves.  The "brutal" ones are like the Core Raid Engine or Wrath Lance or Core Eyes where the AI gets a small number of them per homeworld (generally 1 each on diff 7, and 3 each on diff 10, etc).  The non-brutal ones are used for the remaining "slots" (8 minus the number of brutals) on each AI HW, and are still quite dangerous but not likely to completely wipe your fleet or directly cause you to lose the game.

Every nominated idea should have a mantis record and indeed that's a good place to find other suggestions for these though there's no specific category for them (iirc).  But this thread is a good place for an "all-together" discussion so we don't all have to keep up with the comment thread on every single linked mantis record, etc.

Anyway, I'll let this thread go for a few days before actually starting a poll.

Thanks for the feedback

[Kahuna]

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=11084

Brutal
-Interplanetary Blackhole Machine Guardpost
Is a Blackhole Machine on steroids + Attritioner. Makes it impossible to escape from the planet it is on and from all planets 2 hops away. The player can only move towards the IBM (IMB ) until it's destroyed. The powerful gravitation field generated by the IBM also slowly but surely tears apart all enemy ships (attrition). When viewing a planet with an Attritioner the screen is red. This could make the effected planets blueish/purpleish so the player knows there's something nasty.

Normal
-Attritioner Guardpost: Planet wide DPS on all enemy (human) ships.
-Sniper Guardpost: High damage, long reload, fires 5*Damage railguns.
-Tractor Beam Guardpost: Mobile, heavily armored and very tough. Is armed and has 150 Tractor Beams. Weapons have 3500 range and tractor beams 3000. Moves slowly.

EDIT/UPDATE:
2 new burtal picks.
-AI Nuclear Missile Silo
When any of the core planets of xAI is alerted Launches Mark I and/or II Nuclear Warheads every 10 minutes. Primarily aims sends the missile to destroy the attacking human ships. When/if there are no human military ships near by the warhead will target the player's planets.

-Hunter/Seeker Factory
Sends a swarm of Hunter/Seeker Drones every 30 minutes to find and destroy the player. The number of H/S Drones sent is AIPFloor*Difficulty. When the AI home planet becomes alerted the Guardposts sends a swarm immediatelly and keeps sending a swarm every 10 minutes.
H/S Drone stats
Is Mark V
Hull type: Swarmer
Health: 16000
Cap health at 85 AIP on Diff 7: 9520000
Cap health at At 85 AIP on Diff 10: 13600000
Engine Health: 1000
Armor: 2500
Speed: 84
Ammo type: Laser
Range: 4000
Damage: 3*412
Reaload: 3
DPS: 412
Cap DPS at 85 AIP on Diff 7: 245140
Cap DPS at At 85 AIP on Diff 10: 350200
Damage Multipliers: 1,8 Turret, 1,8 Structural
Abilities: Absorbs EMPs, Armor Piercing 1500
Immunities: Nuclear Explosion, EMPs
Energy cost: 290

[keith.lamothe]

Just having a brutal post called "The IBM" is worth it.

[Hearteater]

Hmm, originally designed as an alternate Fortress, it could be a Brutal Post, or just a varient of the Fortress(es) that spawn on homeworlds: The Nanoswarm Fortress

[Mánagarmr]

Just having a brutal post called "The IBM" is worth it.

Oh god, yes! THIS!

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, now we just need one called "Deep Thought"

[Mánagarmr]

Yea, now we just need one called "Deep Thought"

And Colossus! (Or possibly Forbin)

[keith.lamothe]

The Apple

[Mánagarmr]

The Apple

"Once scouted, this Guard Post will drain 90% of your available resources. It's a brand fee, you see."

[MaxAstro]

Originally I was going to name this the Flux Projector Guard Post, but I didn't know if anyone would get the reference...

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=11092

[LordSloth]

The ENIAC would take a few days to react, but the programming would catch up against Cinth eventually.

[Cinth]

The ENIAC would take a few days to react, but the programming would catch up against Cinth eventually.

If it didn't blow a vacuum tube first.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Sabotage Guard Post: When it or the Station that owns it is destroyed, places an indestructible, unscrappable, player-owned structure on all home planets. This structure does nothing, passively costs income, and costs quite a lot of energy to power. The structure cannot be destroyed until the raid engine waves it's sending at your home planet and other nearby planets are all repelled. It will then self-destruct. When under enemy control, it has a powerful, difficult to ignore effect. Could be attrition, or fortress-like flame wave shots.

You could probably really soften that up and make it a regular core guard post. It sounds really brutal as it is though.

[Bognor]

I'd support any brutal guard post that favours high-cap ships because, as I've argued previously, current brutal guard posts tend to favour low-cap ships: Eyes for the obvious reasons, Grav Reactors because the drones' area damage is less significant against fewer targets, and Teuthidas because low-cap ships are mostly immune to reclamation.

[Kahuna]

Updated my posts with AI Nuclear Missile Silo and Hunter/Seeker Factory