Radar damping on guard posts

[Lancefighter]

Why does it exist?

I bring my siege.. antimatter starships onto a planet.. And they do absolutely nothing. They cant shoot at their main target (guard posts.. ok, well, guardians, but thats another complaint) When a ship designed to siege things cant actually siege things, what is its purpose?

And its kinda annoying me.

[x4000]

Because sniping all the guard posts from vastly outside their range makes them an exercise in tedium, and they might as well not be there for combat purposes.  I'm less concerned with the antimatter ships (which are about defending against large mobile stuff moreso than seiging anything, hence the name change), and more concerned with the overall balance of the game.  If you can just pull up half a planet away and snipe the guard posts to death, that's not very good for the game.

[Lancefighter]

Look at it from the other side;

I pull up in a system, every single ship in the system engages my fleet as soon as they enter the system. All that is left is the empty guard posts...

Sure, shift-queueing up their death with a group of bomber starships is simple, but why cant i put my siege starships in a path where their range kills off all of the targets?

What I'm saying is, for me it would seem that *it doesnt matter* either way, because i have already fought off their guardians.

ill grant you its not really a matter of sniping them at all (and if it were, id just throw in a cloaker starship with the bomber starships, and shift-queue their death anyway...) with relative ease. Using snipers or siege starships to do the same ... I dont really see a difference here.

Honestly, I feel that they have radar damping makes them MORE tedious to clear out, not less.

[x4000]

Every single ship shouldn't be engaging you instantly unless you're firing on them or their guard posts, or playing against a specific AI type (tag teamer), or are firing on their command station.  It's meant to be multiple mini battlefields in the general case, and if it's not working as well as it should then that's the thing I'll focus on fixing, not on making it easier to treat the whole thing as one big battlefield.

[Lancefighter]

In my current game the last few planets have just all attacked me upon entering the planet. Neither of the ais were tag teamers or anything (vanillas for both of them), and I didn't engage the command center.. and I didn't fire upon the guard posts, because of the radar damping. Unless my siege starships were agressing the guardians everywhere.. (or would shooting the guardians at the command center make the entire planet mad?)

In any case; I'm not experiencing what you seem to say it should act like. If I can find an example of it definitively in my game ill post a mantis ticket with save.

[x4000]

Shooting any ship at a guard post actually would anger all the ships at that guard post.  Shooting any ship at the command station... that should alert all the ones at the command station, but it should NOT alert the entire planet.  Though, thinking about it, that might actually be what is happening presently.

[chemical_art]

I notice the ai response varies for me. If I send a very few ships at the ai the guardians are not all on alert...but if you bring enough to actually streamroll one post, the whole planet attacks.

I thought it was a result of 8.0 ai...

[Lancefighter]

True, i seem to recall some logic about swarming player ships if they are at a certain firepower relative to the planet, or running away if they are too high or something.

[x4000]

Ah yeah, that is true -- if sufficiently outnumbered, the AI will start to flee, which involves attacking past you as well as literally fleeing.

[Commiesalami]

Is there any method to not have your ships attack anything thats in low power?  When I enter a system with Bombards or snipers.  (Missile frigates too occasionally)  They automatically open fire at random ships alerting a couple of guard posts or sometimes the command station easily.  Though I don't know if this will work because guardians seem to be powered up.

[Lancefighter]

ships arent supposed to cause aggression from guard post currently sitting around, that was one of the earlier issues with the siege starships long range.

[Ranakastrasz]

You know, if all guard posts, or even half of them have radar dampening, then antimatter star-ships have false advertising, Since the tooltip claims they are good vs guard posts, but that is not the case, since even with the recent health buff, they are not really durable enough to be viable for any kind of attack on a guard post.

[BobTheJanitor]

I've always wondered what the threshold was for setting off all the ships on a planet. I rarely, if ever, see anything that seems to fit into the 'mini battlefield' description. Much more often, I tend to enter a world and immediately all the ships in the world come beelining towards my fleet. Now, admittedly, I do tend to bring big fleets when I come to take a world, because I'd much rather roll through it and be done rather than lose all my ships and have to come back. So maybe the problem is that I'm bringing too much and triggering some sort of 'free everything' response.

Now that I think of it, if the intended behavior is for the human team to bring 50 or so ships and fight out the battles one guard post at a time, the game isn't doing a very good job of conveying that idea. If you bring a fleet blob (which, really, who wouldn't bring it if you have it available) and you see that the AI's response is to send everything on the planet at your fleet, how could you be expected to come to the conclusion "ah, I should bring a fraction of the ships next time, that will work better"? The obvious assumption is that you bring fewer ships, and the AI still sends everything at you, and you die. So we'll keep blobbing and the 'mini battlefields' will keep falling apart because we're triggering the AI's 'OMG KILL IT' response.

I'm not sure what the solution to this problem is, but that's probably why I'm not developing games.

[Coppermantis]

I've always wondered what the threshold was for setting off all the ships on a planet. I rarely, if ever, see anything that seems to fit into the 'mini battlefield' description. Much more often, I tend to enter a world and immediately all the ships in the world come beelining towards my fleet. Now, admittedly, I do tend to bring big fleets when I come to take a world, because I'd much rather roll through it and be done rather than lose all my ships and have to come back. So maybe the problem is that I'm bringing too much and triggering some sort of 'free everything' response.

Now that I think of it, if the intended behavior is for the human team to bring 50 or so ships and fight out the battles one guard post at a time, the game isn't doing a very good job of conveying that idea. If you bring a fleet blob (which, really, who wouldn't bring it if you have it available) and you see that the AI's response is to send everything on the planet at your fleet, how could you be expected to come to the conclusion "ah, I should bring a fraction of the ships next time, that will work better"? The obvious assumption is that you bring fewer ships, and the AI still sends everything at you, and you die. So we'll keep blobbing and the 'mini battlefields' will keep falling apart because we're triggering the AI's 'OMG KILL IT' response.

I'm not sure what the solution to this problem is, but that's probably why I'm not developing games.

I think both methods you mentioned are viable tactics depending on what the planet has. The AI Eye is an obvious deterrent to blobs, which newer players do tend to use, and generally are effective. More experienced players may prefer the guerrila warefare, but again it would depend on the amount/type of units at the target. Sometimes I like to send bomber starships alone to take out guard posts.

Also, I noticed that guard posts tend to only be built on metal/crystal deposits. Is this true?

[zebramatt]

If you bring a fleet blob (which, really, who wouldn't bring it if you have it available)...

It's funny you should say that, as I hold an almost diametrically opposite view: why would I want to bring any more ships than absolutely necessary, if I can otherwise leave them available to be used elsewhere?

It sounds like this might be a firepower issue, for sure. I often have a series of smaller engagements at a planet but I like, as I say, to use the bare minimum ships to accomplish any task, since I don't play a very low AIP game and need every ship I can muster to be ready to scramble at a moment's notice!

Is there any method to not have your ships attack anything thats in low power?  When I enter a system with Bombards or snipers.  (Missile frigates too occasionally)  They automatically open fire at random ships alerting a couple of guard posts or sometimes the command station easily.  Though I don't know if this will work because guardians seem to be powered up.

Just sling your ships in low power!