Using special forces guard posts in your favour

[Bognor]

One tactic I've been using is keeping alive special forces guard posts on worlds I've captured.  Apart from the small AI progress saving, the advantage is that it seems to cause the AIs to spend reinforcement points wastefully: when reinforcing a planet in which a special forces guard post is their only ship, all they get is a few dozen fleet ships.  I can rapidly obliterate those with 20-30 turrets built with the special forces guard post just outside their range, and/or with captured ion cannons. 

The problem with this tactic is that it's very easy to lose these "hostage" special forces guard posts to your own or allied ships.  Culprits so far include:

* Human resistance fighters
* Zombie fleet ships from my botnet golem
* Sniper turrets I forgot to put back on low-power
* A newly-repaired artillery golem, which fired the instant it came online (I couldn't see any way to prevent that)

Apparently dyson gatlings also destroy special forces guard posts (Mantis), and of course I can't use FRD on planets where I'm keeping a "hostage" post.

Two questions:

(1) Am I correct in believing the spawns I see around my "hostage" guard posts are costing the AIs reinforcement points?

     If not, that renders my tactic invalid and my second question redundant...

(2) Is there any way to globally prevent friendly ships auto-attacking special forces guard post?

     It's actually surprising to me that they do - it seems inconsistent with the way they treat all other AI progress-costing structures I've encountered so far.

My latest game is difficulty 9/9 against a Turtle and a Shield Ninny, so I'm sure you can appreciate I want to use any tactic to thwart AI reinforcements I can 

[BobTheJanitor]

I've always wondered why these were the only AIP raising structures that uncontrolled friendly ships will still auto-target. The AIP increase is so tiny that I never worried about it much, but it does seem inconsistent with the rest of the game.

[keith.lamothe]

I seem to recall it initially not being auto-targeted but people wanted it to be so we changed it.  Anyway, if you like "hostaging" a system for reinforcement drain you can just leave the command station alive and garrison its immediate surroundings.  Actually, I'm kind of surprised I don't hear about that tactic more often, given what it would do to effective reinforcement quantity, so probably there's some reason it's a bad idea   Ah, probably due to not wanting to spend 3 weeks killing all those wormhole guard posts.

[PokerChen]

I seem to recall it initially not being auto-targeted but people wanted it to be so we changed it.  Anyway, if you like "hostaging" a system for reinforcement drain you can just leave the command station alive and garrison its immediate surroundings.  Actually, I'm kind of surprised I don't hear about that tactic more often, given what it would do to effective reinforcement quantity, so probably there's some reason it's a bad idea   Ah, probably due to not wanting to spend 3 weeks killing all those wormhole guard posts.

I've tried hostaging systems with isolated command centres:
 (1) in general you have to spend a lot of turret resources to keep them down and unlock better turrets as the game progresses, detracting from the general defenses and offensive knowledge upgrades.
 (2) If the garrison is far enough, the ships spawning from the command centre remain passive and the sniper-style turrets don't attack. I'll then have to manually control them.
 (3) AI-unlocks like spire stealth battleships can get pretty nasty.

 Clearing wormhole guardians are not that much of a problem once you have a few caps of spire implosions and either a mark V capsule-fleet or an artillery golem. It'll still take some time, but worth the effort to ensure safer wormhole navigation. When you have enough of these neutered planets adjacent to your planets, it doesn't matter when they've been garrisoned or not - the AI reinforcement points get drained quite effectively.

 = = =
 Back to the topic - I don't think SP guard posts should be reinforced when it's on a human world. You can't have the cake of taking the resources and eat the AI reinforcement points too. In my experience they are one of the only AIP-raising items that can get reinforcements. Troop accelerators? No. Munitions Boosters?  No.  I've kept many of these enhancements, with only the malus that my m+c harvestors don't get auto-build when they're present (consider fixing).

[Bognor]

... if you like "hostaging" a system for reinforcement drain you can just leave the command station alive and garrison its immediate surroundings.

Not quite what I meant - I'm talking about systems I've fully captured, meaning I've built my own command station, so I've had to destroy the AI command station.  The AI still seems to reinforce such systems if there's a special forces guard post present, even while the system is under human control.  Note the wiki seems to imply this isn't possible ("So as long as the AI controls a planet, it can reinforce it ... )".

I think this time I'll use spire siege artillery rather than towers to kill the reinforcements.  That way I can just move them somewhere else after the hostage post meets its inevitable destruction.

[Hearteater]

You'll notice the Special Forces Guard Post is a Reinforcement Gate, which is why it can still receive reinforcements.  Since it costs AIP this is intended to prevent you from just never killing them, which is what players would otherwise do.

[Bognor]

Apologies if it's not kosher to promote my own idea like this, but I've just suggested a feature on Mantis, Add "Auto-target Special Forces Guard Posts" option to Controls Window.

[Mánagarmr]

Apologies if it's not kosher to promote my own idea like this, but I've just suggested a feature on Mantis, Add "Auto-target Special Forces Guard Posts" option to Controls Window.

It's a suggestion that will likely only catch the attention of avid "Mantisers" unless promoted. So I find it perfectly fine

[TechSY730]

Copied from my post on Mantis:

I believe that the special forces guard post is a reinforcement guard post. This means that even if you take out the AI command station and take the planet for yourself, you can still get some units "trickling" out of it.

That and its moderately powerful weapon are pretty much the only downsides to keeping it alive right now.

[Hearteater]

Oh yeah, well, copied from MY post on Mantis:

Actually, the SFGP getting reinforced is GOOD for the player. That's one less normal AI planet getting reinforced. And its weapon is not in the least powerful. First, recall there is only one Mark of SFGP and it is comparable to other Mark I posts. So Mark II+ posts totally outclass it. Then consider its range is very short, so claiming a system and leaving nothing in range for it to shoot at is often very easy.

[TechSY730]

The reason why a special forces guard post getting reinforces while on your planet might be annoying is that you cannot leave that planet without any defenses. Thus eating into your fleet ship or turret count.

And at higher AIPs, the reinforcements that come in will start getting quite noticeable.

Generally though, yea, its mostly an annoyance rather than a true deterrent.

[PokerChen]

In the other threads there are mentions of making downsides. Let's make an appropriate down side then. Since we have a *special forces* guard post, I'll suggest the following:
- If the post is on a neutral/player planet, gain chance to spawn for free at reinforcement cycle (!). The mark-level is the current AI mark level, alternatively add extra versions so that SFGPs can keep an appropriate mark of the planet it was on. If it shares a planet with an botnet, potentially cancel this behaviour.
- It's a valid spot for wild-roll spawns on the hacking (!).
- Its reinforcements receive an extra guardian regardless of difficulty. This increases the chances of rolling a warp-gate guardian or EMP guardian that's on the loose and potentially dangerous.

[Hearteater]

I like the free reinforcements, and they could even be zombie ships to avoid botnet abuse.  A similar option would be to spawn the ships as normal ships, but only at a SFGP in an enemy system, and either make the "captured" SFGP the next destination of the spawned ships, or just flat out make them freed.

[Wanderer]

I like adding them to the hacking options, but I don't know how much I want AI controlled ones across half the universe to get involved.

There's another option.  These ARE the Special Forces.  Let the AI gather up their Special Forces troops somewhere for Player Controlled SFGPs and head, enmasse, to free it.  The SF have always seemed really weak to me, except as 'free troops with a destination in mind'.  I'd like to see them have miniature hybrid behaviours.  Not as intense, of course, but something more then directed free threat.

[Martyn van Buren]

They're supposed to mass forces before entering player territory already, right? Maybe this behavior just needs to be changed so they mass a lot more.