Spirecraft units

[Ragnarok]

So, I'm wondering what good the Spirecraft asteroid units are. So far they seem extremly niche. Good are the scouts, and maybe the Siege Tower for the amount of projectiles it has.
Everything else seems kinda meh to me, except for the Ram, which seems to be very! amazing. Taking out high level guard posts and fortresses with ease.

Suggestions ?

[Draco18s]

Seige Towers are weak.  They have no range, no speed, and no health.  Unless they're sitting around other defenses they'll pop in about five seconds.

Scouts are terrible.  They have a fixed distance they can scout (Mk 1s can go an amazing two systems out and die a fiery death as soon as they exit the wormhole, Mk1 vanilla scouts could actually stick around on the system edge that far out, if you send them in globs).

Jumpships are borderline OP.

Rams are situational, due to their high damage you want to throw them at non-moving hardened targets....which are all immune to the Ram (except for a handful).

[Ragnarok]

mk1 is always shit, but mk4 and even mk3 scouts can scout the entire galaxy.

Rams are pretty good i would say. I used mk2 or mk3 ones to kill a mk4 worlds shielded fortress and several guardposts next to a homeworld. Depower, mk1 cloaker starship, go.

[orzelek]

I'm hoping that when next AI War update session comes Spirecraft units will get a bit of look.

[Draco18s]

mk1 is always shit, but mk4 and even mk3 scouts can scout the entire galaxy.

o..O
Mk4 spire scouts are still limited to...what 8 jumps?  Tops?

You obviously play on the smaller maps where everything is within 8 jumps of each other.

[Ragnarok]

By the time you have access to  the roids that construct mk3 or mk4 scouts you should have advanced far enough that 8 or maybe even 6 clicks should give you full coverage, yes.

edit i play on 80 systems maps.

[Toranth]

Seige Towers are weak.  They have no range, no speed, and no health.  Unless they're sitting around other defenses they'll pop in about five seconds.

Scouts are terrible.  They have a fixed distance they can scout (Mk 1s can go an amazing two systems out and die a fiery death as soon as they exit the wormhole, Mk1 vanilla scouts could actually stick around on the system edge that far out, if you send them in globs).

Jumpships are borderline OP.

Rams are situational, due to their high damage you want to throw them at non-moving hardened targets....which are all immune to the Ram (except for a handful).

Attritioners can add significant defensive strength to a chokepoint, but are nearly useless anywhere other than very large battles being performed by other units.

Ions can be cool at high marks, but are weak and low range, so will die quickly if not specially protected.  Usually, if you have enough high-mark asteroids to get high-mark Ions, you don't need them.  Fun, but generally not useful.

Shield Bearers are awesome throwaway units.  They are great for absorbing the alpha on entry to a heavily defended system (like a Homeworld), but are way too expensive to use anywhere else.  The No Repair/No Regen means every plink! from an AI Mk I Fighter is a permanent loss.

Old scouts were waaaaay OP, new ones are too weak.  One of these days we'll get the balance on these right...

[LintMan]

I used to think Siege Towers were great, but I've found I get little use from them since they are kind of slow (and speed boost immune), and short ranged.

I've found that for the lower marks, I get the most use from Implosion Artillery.  They aren't too robust, but they have a very nice range, so they augments the fleetball nicely and get in on the action far more often than the slowpoke short range Siege Towers do.  And while those .25%'s and .50%'s  for damge sound wimpy, a capful or two of them adds up and they can do significant damage to the bigger enemy stuff like golems, dire guardians, or wormhold guardposts.

No one mentioned Martyrs yet, either.  I don't build a lot of these, but I like to have a handful of Mk 2 and Mk 3 ones available.  They are really useful for "fishing": clearing out the clutter around wormholes the AI has camped out at with hundreds of ships.  I can push a few martyrs through the wormhole, slurp up scores of units, and pop back to my side for the fleet to clean them up.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

[Ragnarok]

Something differnet i like to use Rams for is kill fleet ships escorting warp attacks. Sometimes that Plasma Siege or Flagship is really the problem, and a single mk1 or mk2 Ram will take care of it nicely.

[Draco18s]

No one mentioned Martyrs yet, either.  I don't build a lot of these, but I like to have a handful of Mk 2 and Mk 3 ones available.  They are really useful for "fishing": clearing out the clutter around wormholes the AI has camped out at with hundreds of ships.  I can push a few martyrs through the wormhole, slurp up scores of units, and pop back to my side for the fleet to clean them up.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

The first, and last, time I used them was back before shield bearers were changed to be unrepairable.*  I used a Martyr instead of a tractor turret blob on the sole chokepoint we had, and protected the Martyr with the shield bearer (and half a dozen regular shields).

*Hell this game was back before transports got wormhole attrition.

[Zair]

Hilarity happened in a Fallen Spire game when I realized that Spire capital vessels can be transported.

Spire capships + jumpships = OH GOD WHERE DID ALL THOSE PHOTON LANCES COME FROM

[chemical_art]

For the lower marks, you can't do better then matyrs.

For higher marks it varies, but in general I find high range units more useful simply because they don't die, so can be reused.

[Kahuna]

Do Force Fields reduce Spirecraft Attritioners' dps?

[chemical_art]

Do Force Fields reduce Spirecraft Attritioners' dps?

I...don't know...no?

[Kahuna]

i don't know either