Questions from an old player

[Vinraith]

You make the best screenshot/graphics Kahuna, what are you using the do the overlay work in those anyway? Regardless, thanks for the information and advice, we'll try to watch our backs!

Thanks! I use PhotoFiltre V6. Version 6 works just fine and is still Freeware unlike the newest version. PhotoFiltre Version 6 is quite old though.. maybe I should look for alternatives. I've heard a lot of good about GIMP but I never bothered to learn to use it. PhotoFiltre seemed simple and good enough.

GIMP is a fantastic and extremely powerful tool, but it does have a pretty steep learning curve. You're certainly getting very nice results with PhotoFiltre, which I must admit I'd never heard of.

[Bognor]

So rather than bump up difficulty, we opted to turn on Hybrid Hives for a little variety. Any advice on dealing with those?

You're going to need something that's good vs Heavy and Structural. Later in the game Structural is even more important because as you can see..

Alternatively, Eye Bots and Infiltrators both get a heavy bonus and shoot straight through Hybrids' shields.  Both are also excellent for taking out their nests, being cheap, cloaked, and force field immune.

[Vinraith]

So rather than bump up difficulty, we opted to turn on Hybrid Hives for a little variety. Any advice on dealing with those?

You're going to need something that's good vs Heavy and Structural. Later in the game Structural is even more important because as you can see..

Alternatively, Eye Bots and Infiltrators both get a heavy bonus and shoot straight through Hybrids' shields.  Both are also excellent for taking out their nests, being cheap, cloaked, and force field immune.

Interesting, I think of eye bots as one of those "great for the AI, lousy for the player" units, but I suppose this is a niche for them ?


Totally unrelated question: It looks like Special Forces posts no longer have reinforcement gates, but I still see ships spawning at them. What's up with that?

[Winge]

I just started playing AI War again too.  Love the game, but I never have enough time to set aside for it--haven't played since before VotM.  It feels very different.  Hopefully, the AI isn't too "happy" to see me 

[Vinraith]

What the heck is an "OS Raid Eng?" A few times in my current game, I've been hit by a wave by this descriptor with no evident cause. There's no obvious raid engine or raid eye at work, any clues?

[Histidine]

What the heck is an "OS Raid Eng?" A few times in my current game, I've been hit by a wave by this descriptor with no evident cause. There's no obvious raid engine or raid eye at work, any clues?

One-Shot Raid Engine*, a Trader item for the AI. Exactly what it says on the tin.

*though I keep reading the acronym as Open Source Raid Engine

[Vinraith]

What the heck is an "OS Raid Eng?" A few times in my current game, I've been hit by a wave by this descriptor with no evident cause. There's no obvious raid engine or raid eye at work, any clues?

One-Shot Raid Engine*, a Trader item for the AI. Exactly what it says on the tin.

*though I keep reading the acronym as Open Source Raid Engine

Ah, new and unpleasant tricks. Thanks for the explanation, that one had us scratching our heads. Anything else the AI buys from the trader these days? I know it used to occasionally purchase a shiny new warpgate...

[Bognor]

What the heck is an "OS Raid Eng?" A few times in my current game, I've been hit by a wave by this descriptor with no evident cause. There's no obvious raid engine or raid eye at work, any clues?

One-Shot Raid Engine*, a Trader item for the AI. Exactly what it says on the tin.

*though I keep reading the acronym as Open Source Raid Engine

Ah, new and unpleasant tricks. Thanks for the explanation, that one had us scratching our heads. Anything else the AI buys from the trader these days? I know it used to occasionally purchase a shiny new warpgate...

Superforts.  And they've been mega-buffed, too.  The good news is that destroying trader-bought toys (including warp gates) no longer increases AIP.

[Vinraith]

Superforts.  And they've been mega-buffed, too.  The good news is that destroying trader-bought toys (including warp gates) no longer increases AIP.

Ouch! So are the SF's and OS Raid Engine's both in addition to the old list? The wiki seems to be 3 full releases behind on this topic.

[Entrenched Homeperson]

Thank god for this thread. I recently have been looking at getting back into this wonderful game, but felt really lost. Despite loading the game up several times in the last month or so, I haven't actually started a game. It's nice to have an overview of changes. I also stopped playing somewhere in the early 5.x era, and there is just a lot of stuff to go through. Also, I couldn't find the password to my old forum account, and apparently this one exists that's attached to my main email.

Anyway, thanks for finally giving me the motivation to tackle the AIs again thread.

[Vinraith]

This thread has been incredibly helpful, and I'm very grateful to everyone who's made it so.

OK, having managed a 7.6/7.6 without much trouble we're moving up to an 8/8. Any general advice welcome.

Also, I see some discussion on the strategy forum about auto-kiting. This was... not working well when last I played, and I haven't used it since I've come back. Should I be doing so? If so, how does it work?

[keith.lamothe]

OK, having managed a 7.6/7.6 without much trouble

Congratulations!

(to the AI, for luring you into the ambush)

Also, I see some discussion on the strategy forum about auto-kiting. This was... not working well when last I played, and I haven't used it since I've come back. Should I be doing so? If so, how does it work?

You can now do that on a control-group level, so you can stuff all of a force's triangle ships into a control group, set the auto-kite for that control group, and then the types will stay at roughly their effective attack range from whatever they're trying to kill (which is good for keeping the fighters a lot closer to the grinder than the other two).

I'm not sure how important it is nowadays, but there you go.

[LordSloth]

I've used GIMP and Photoshop, but when I want minimal effort for simplistic editing, I go use Paint.NET. It has layers and everything absolutely essential, but not too much to trip over.

http://www.getpaint.net

If you're actually working with photographs or some other form of art, you may find it too limiting. Just about perfect for screenshots though.

[Vinraith]

OK, having managed a 7.6/7.6 without much trouble

Congratulations!

(to the AI, for luring you into the ambush)

Also, I see some discussion on the strategy forum about auto-kiting. This was... not working well when last I played, and I haven't used it since I've come back. Should I be doing so? If so, how does it work?

You can now do that on a control-group level, so you can stuff all of a force's triangle ships into a control group, set the auto-kite for that control group, and then the types will stay at roughly their effective attack range from whatever they're trying to kill (which is good for keeping the fighters a lot closer to the grinder than the other two).

I'm not sure how important it is nowadays, but there you go.

It's good to have you back, Keith, it felt wrong to not have anyone around here making worrying comments on behalf of the AI. 

Also thanks for the explanation. I'll have to do some experimenting. You've done some amazing work over the last couple of years, I've been playing for ~100 hours or so and still don't feel caught up!

[Entrenched Homeperson]

I just blew out my 7.6 game. I had 7 grav drills and was using it to pump out a ton of Merc Ships, and I had kept the AIP very low due to some lucky Data Centers. I had left No Wave Warnings on though and got hit by an Exogalactic Strike Force, a bunch of CPA stuff as well as 700 AI Ships that where just clustered on an emptied system. On the lowest ship cap game I got hit with a 3000+ wave of enemy ships that a blew me out. GG, it was fun.

Grav Drills got changed though, they used to be do so much more. They feel damn underwhelming now. I remember when they basically locked down an entire system to be completely immobile. Now they just seem to block teleporting.

Edit: I think one of the AIs had Vengeful as well, I was getting waves of MK V stuff every time I blew up Command Centers.