Strange AI behavior?

[maritime]

I was playing vs teleporter turtle and backdoor assassin on 7.6 AI level... I found a map I liked and started a game. I made scouts as I usually do and sent a couple out in each direction. Soon thereafter enemy ships started streaming into my system, not in a wave, but from adjacent systems. These were from both the teleporter turtle and the assassin (but not coming through the backdoor wormhole).

They soon had 200 ships in my system about 7 minutes into the game and I was dead.

I played again on the same map with a different starting planet, same thing happened.

What is causing them to come after me? I thought TP turtle would not attack my systems? Is there some special ship that they are using? I did not initiate any attacks, just scouted ;-(

[x4000]

Can you post a save that demonstrates this?  Also, what version of the game is it?

[maritime]

I only made it about 15 mins in, not sure if it autosaved... ill check. It seems like some fluke of the map because it happened twice on the same map with 2 different starting sectors, but I started a new seed with the same AI and they are behaving "normally".

Off topic suggestion... would it make sense for tractor beams to be able to slow down starships? I am playing vs mad bomber now, he has those replicating spinning blades that are immune to tractors and force fields... So each raid he comes in with a bomber starship and a couple dozen of those blades, goes right into my main base thru all the tractors and force fields and destroys all of my power plants and starship plants. Yay!

My suggestion, you should be able to set a tractor beam to focus on starships, it wouldnt stop them, just slow them WAY down so that your turrets have a chance to do something to them. Maybe mk 1 would slow 1 ship, 2 2 ships, 3 3 ships. While in this mode they cannot tractor smaller ships until you toggle the back over.

I know there are some other things that really slow down ships, maybe I should play with those... but this seems like a good quick solution to starship raids. i tried playing with spiders and they really didn't do anything to the mad bomber ships. Annoying!

[Oewyn]

I think that's what gravity turrets are for, but they are ever so expensive to research, would love to see a 1-2k drop on the higher tiers.  :-)

[x4000]

Yep, that's the gravity turrets.  Given how powerful those are, though, I don't see dropping the knowledge cost.

[Oewyn]

true, they are powerful.. however, you have to invest at least 6k for them to be useful,  MK I's range is so small, you have to put it right on top of the wormhole for it to do any good(or build like 5 out of the low ship cap and high energy cost).  So getting MK II is a minimum before they become worth it imo.  I've never been able to force myself to spend the additional 6k for MK III, althrough I'm sure they would rock.


oh well, one can always wish.

[x4000]

Good point about the range, in particular.  From 2.300:

-The effective ranges of all the gravitation turrets have been increased by 2000 each.