Should AI ships dodge the Devourer?

[keith.lamothe]

I... don't see us doing a devourer attractor, really.  But maybe Chris would like the idea more than I would

[x4000]

I don't really see it, either.  It's kind of like "hey, I can just order Unicron around by building this little thing!"

[zebramatt]

More appropriate might be some sort of capturable out there in the universe which the Devourer is naturally attracted to (because it looks tasty?) and which, upon you repairing it, gives some other sort of benefit - like gradually reducing AIP,  providing an energy spike or a good number of resources over time, or something - but over which you have no direct control; and it spends its time roaming about your worlds, itself perhaps attracted to large fleets...

[Hearteater]

It was really intended more as a silly/ridiculous ship idea .

[keith.lamothe]

It was really intended more as a silly/ridiculous ship idea .

I figured so, but you gotta be careful with those around here, or hamsters might show up

[Hearteater]

It was more amusing how much thought everyone put in towards balancing it into a legit ship.  Making it require supply was very clever.  It would server us right if you had the last laugh by making it an AI-only ship type added to waves .  Gravity Immune, Tractor Immune, FF Immune, Stealth, programmed to find large concentrations of human ships and shadow them.

[keith.lamothe]

Haha, yea.  The amusing thing is having this ludicrously unbalanceable unit just toddling around the galaxy while we try to balance everything.  The only way it works is to drastically reduce what it will shoot at, etc.

When I was adding the Avenger a while back I temporarily removed the Devourer's restrictions to see which one would win in a fight.  The Avenger only got off one salvo.  The Devourer only needed one.

[Coppermantis]

I thing mining golems are the most annoying Minor Faction. While the devourer is indestructible, the Miners show up in huge numbers on multiplayer games and can totally screw up your economy if they manage to blow up a planet with a lot of resources. Not to mention their guns wreak havoc with my defenses. It blew up my most crucial piece of defense, a gravity drill guarding the ONLY system that had acess to our home planets. With ion cannons, snipers and a superfortress, that was a virtually impenetrable wall, except that the miners destroyed it. SAD.


How long would it take the devourer to destroy, say, an armored golem? Assuming it could fire at one.

[keith.lamothe]

I thing mining golems are the most annoying Minor Faction. While the devourer is indestructible, the Miners show up in huge numbers on multiplayer games and can totally screw up your economy if they manage to blow up a planet with a lot of resources. Not to mention their guns wreak havoc with my defenses. It blew up my most crucial piece of defense, a gravity drill guarding the ONLY system that had acess to our home planets. With ion cannons, snipers and a superfortress, that was a virtually impenetrable wall, except that the miners destroyed it. SAD.

We like things that can counter ultra-chokepoints   Very few things can, and in a lot of games it sets up a situation where "well, we can't _lose_...".

How long would it take the devourer to destroy, say, an armored golem? Assuming it could fire at one.

Same as the Avenger: one shot.

[KDR_11k]

The devourer does something like 20 billion damage per shot, not even astro trains can survive that. I'd guess the botnet golem would be a close second in terms of lethality if it could shoot at everything with its damage output of a billion per second.