Ion cannons - remove AI wave penalty

[Vinraith]

Since the Waves have now been buffed in 4.033 in general, I think this discussion gets additional meaning. Although I haven't tried, I could imagine high Mk Ion Cannons with the new high AIP waves being unbearable if multiplied. It's hardly even a choice anymore whether to use an ion cannon in a choke point or not.

Though I'm just guessing.

Aren't waves still capped at 2000? I'd think the base waves being larger actually makes this less of an issue, since most of that multiplier will never manifest as extra ships.

[Spikey00]

In my prospective, they're just useless.  A ship being destroyed every four seconds is largely insignificant for when you're receiving waves of 1001 ships; however, with that said, if you're already at the maximum cap for ship waves, it doesn't matter too much beyond losing much hair from a destroyed III+ ion cannon.

15 ships per minute?  That's 6.7 minutes for a small wave of 100, and 66.7 minutes for a wave of 1001 ships.  

I don't know about you lot, but more time spent on your planet isn't a good thing, and if you don't have forcefields covering the wormholes [and command station] on that planet, have fun watching them flood elsewhere.  I prefer to insta-kill (pun) AI ships before they do any sort of damage to infrastructure.

[Heavens]

In my prospective, they're just useless.  A ship being destroyed every four seconds is largely insignificant for when you're receiving waves of 1001 ships; however, with that said, if you're already at the maximum cap for ship waves, it doesn't matter too much beyond losing much hair from a destroyed III+ ion cannon.

15 ships per minute?  That's 6.7 minutes for a small wave of 100, and 66.7 minutes for a wave of 1001 ships.  

I don't know about you lot, but more time spent on your planet isn't a good thing, and if you don't have forcefields covering the wormholes [and command station] on that planet, have fun watching them flood elsewhere.  I prefer to insta-kill (pun) AI ships before they do any sort of damage to infrastructure.

I completely agree.

In my experience waves have to be crushed or you open yourself to some trouble.

For me, as others have said, Ion Cannons are no more than Turbo-Boosted Distribution Nodes with no drawback (when captured by the player of course, AI controlled Ion Cannons are a nice addition to their defenses).

[Lancefighter]

Random ion cannon rebalance - they become beam weapons, and instakill everything in a line. (or engine damage the line)

[Wingflier]

Okay, I just added an "issue" to Mantis.  If this is topic is important to you, I would strongly urge you to go and comment.  http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/

[Winter Born]

direct link

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1365

[Vinraith]

Maybe they just shouldn't be capturable (they originally weren't, as I recall). Then there's no need to find a way to make them "workable" in human hands but they're still an interesting AI obstacle.

[Ozymandiaz]

Since the Waves have now been buffed in 4.033 in general, I think this discussion gets additional meaning. Although I haven't tried, I could imagine high Mk Ion Cannons with the new high AIP waves being unbearable if multiplied. It's hardly even a choice anymore whether to use an ion cannon in a choke point or not.

Though I'm just guessing.

Wave penalties have gotten more harsh, thats for sure.