Some new observations

[Salamander]

Red Cossack and I just finished a new game last night and I thought I would share some of our findings to see what some of our fellow AI War folks thought of these.

This may not easily fixable, but one thing Cossack and I noticed in our game we just finished last night was that when units are swallowed by AI units, they lose their previous behavior when they are finally released. This is more of an annoyance than an outright problem, but many was the time a small AI raid hit a system while we were busy elsewhere and all the remains rebuilder and engineers in the system were just sitting around instead of rebuilding/repairing the destroyed defenses. This also disrupts attacks as some group members get stranded alone.

This might be intentional but is there any way we could get allied remains rebuilders to rebuild ally's buildings instead of just their own? We have to watch and warn each other in mutually defended systems under attack to make sure we both have the little guys built and active. I have only played multi-player games with him so far, but we tend to hold our own systems barring counter-attacks, hubs, critical border systems, and special production buildings where we will both build extra defenses. While you should of course pay attention to these all the time, the larger and more spread out you get, the harder it is to be as vigilant.

Teleport raiders and battle stations die a lot, but they make great fast reaction forces. We got both of these in our game last night from ARS and used them like mad since we had a lot of counter-attack posts.

AI melee ships make trying to defend even heavily fortified systems a nightmare and they love to dive through FFs and all the turrets we build and destroy our beloved fabricators. The one hub we held last night in our X map as we pounded through to the 2 homeworlds had a record number of defenses for us and these little buggers still got through and back a couple of systems while the bulk of our fleets were handling the homeworlds and sank the Anti-Starship Fabricator on one front and the Warbird Fabricator on our other front.   We did keep our advanced factory alive but it was not as heavily attacked.

Carriers that burst and flood you with Cutlasses, Raptors, Raiders, and Vampire Claws are pure evil! This is compounded by the fact that these were in addition to the 4+ Raid Starships and the horde'o'bombers that came in and already put the hurt on the system. I see now why so many people did the deep raiding (we tend to be more methodical) as it keeps the progress down and gets less of these raids. One of our opponents was a Vicious Raider so that didn't help.

We usually play with 50 systems but in our 70 system game with normal ship caps the lag got insane! I'm not used to seeing any and on this new and somewhat extravagant machine I didn't think I'd see lag in any game for some time. It was intense.

Spire Stealth Battleships and Spire Maws are pretty sweet to use but a pita to fight against.  

Love the game of course, now we just need more and more stuff to play with! *insert evil laugh here*

[keith.lamothe]

We usually play with 50 systems but in our 70 system game with normal ship caps the lag got insane! I'm not used to seeing any and on this new and somewhat extravagant machine I didn't think I'd see lag in any game for some time. It was intense.

If you can mantis the save where you're getting lag, that can be useful for later investigation

Love the game of course, now we just need more and more stuff to play with! *insert evil laugh here*

You mean you've seen all the bonus types?   Played a Fallen-Spire game? Played with Advanced Hybrids on both AIs?

[Wingflier]

The melee ships are extremely difficult to defend against since they are so quick and can just ignore forcefields altogether. It doesn't help that the AI can have an ungodly amount of them. In a recent game the AI happened to random two feeding parasites which in addition to crushing and converting any lower level ships (which I usually use to defend with), was extremly fond of using vampire claws in huge numbers to completely bypass my defense. I found the scenario virtually insurmountable as my entire fleet was almost always on defense or I was spending time rebuilding my base. Any tips on dealing with melee ships?

[Salamander]

You mean you've seen all the bonus types?   Played a Fallen-Spire game? Played with Advanced Hybrids on both AIs?

In one way or another I've seen all or most of them.  I try to use a different bonus ship every new game and used to capture a metric ton of various AI ships. We've done 2 fallen spire 2 player games and have used them quite a bit, but due the very nature of the AI, we have not completed the entire arc. Advanced Hybrids sound to be a pita and my irritation threshold is very low.

I'll open a Mantis ticket and upload the save game with all the lag that we had.

[Red Cossack]

     Our current defense plan is to usually use the advanced warp scanner to determine where huge waves are coming from, or if a counterattack wave plan for the SE buggering.  Then we will plant several separated arcs of mines along the projected path (i.e, between the warp point and command station, Factory IV, ect).  I will usually unlock EMP mines and alternate them and other mines in arcs.  Amongst the mines I see tractors, grav turrets, and close rang guns.  The warp point itself is usually given 8-16 lightning turrets, 8-12 flak turrets, and a ring of 8-12 MLRS turret.  Clumps of 4-6 missile turrets further back, and a liberal chunk of sniper and spider turrets also go in.  Then Salamander puts his defenses on top of that.  I will then usually leave a selection of defender ships to help out, and always 2-4 martyrs (I don't think I could survive the melee ships without them, even when they can't tractor, they can sit on a target and go boom). 

 

[ShadowOTE]

Wait... do advanced warp sensors give exact locations on where counterattacks come from? If so, that makes things much easier than just "south east"

[Red Cossack]

Wait... do advanced warp sensors give exact locations on where counterattacks come from? If so, that makes things much easier than just "south east"

No, they are used to let you know which warp point forces are going to show up.  Counterattack waves always show up in the SE corner.  I would prefer they were a little more random, but the way they currently are, if they were I doubt most stations could survive the attack, since most counter attack waves tend to be melee and bomber heavy and swamp defenses with speed and bubble breaking/ignoring. 

[zebramatt]

Wait... do advanced warp sensors give exact locations on where counterattacks come from? If so, that makes things much easier than just "south east"

No, they are used to let you know which warp point forces are going to show up.  Counterattack waves always show up in the SE corner.  I would prefer they were a little more random, but the way they currently are, if they were I doubt most stations could survive the attack, since most counter attack waves tend to be melee and bomber heavy and swamp defenses with speed and bubble breaking/ignoring.  

That was a bug - which has now been fixed! (Latest betas.)

[ShadowOTE]

Hmm, too bad. If they did give exact locations for counterattacks they'd be worthwhile.

[Red Spot]

You pretty much know where they will come from, changing between corners (or at a radius from the center of the planet?) just prevents you laying a path of minor defences that only succeed cause the AI isnt smart enough to avoid them.
Imo the warpsensors are usefull, however only in a limited way. Late game you generally dont need it but when you start out on a planet that has 7 or so bordering planets and you cant gateraid them all the warpsensors can be quite usefull. There are more situations where they are usefull, most depend on timing and preference, but in respect to their low cost to unlock/build I can hardly call them an overpriced investment.