The early game

[Draco18s]

It also means I can't fund sniper turrets or riot starships.  Two other things that are "required to not-lose."

I generally get by fine without using either (I do build snipers, but generally don't rely on them for upfront defenses, and they're not key to my early defense strategy).  Which difficulty are we talking about again? You've mentioned both 8 and 7 lately, just wanted to be sure.

I have not mentioned difficulty 8.  I play on 7.
And the snipers are needed to kill the raid starships that like to eat me.

The riots I have been told to use to kill bombers because of their engine damage (which I don't do, but its one of those things of "oh yeah, just do X" when my problem is 1) bombers and 2) no crystal).

[Sunshine!]

Off the top of my head, Vampires, Tanks, Laser Gatlings, Acid Sprayers and N. Weasels have polycrystal bonuses, and I've found Vampires, Gatlings and Weasels to be effective (haven't used tanks or acid sprayers).

The thing about Shield Bearers is they don't really address your problem it seems, because they keep your fighters from dying, but the bombers aren't going to kill your fighters anyway.  If you placed your shieldbearers over your tractor turrets, and had enough to capture the entire bomber wave, that should leave you in the clear if you have good success with your shield bearers not dying.  Alternatively, just drop the shieldbearers over your command station and you'll have a decent set of extra forcefields.

I also never use riots (I don't think they're effective anymore with some recent changes, but haven't been sure how to quantify it) or raid starships, but I do drop snipers in.  Sometimes to deal with raid starships, mostly to just pick off random ships harassing my harvesters.

[Draco18s]

The thing about Shield Bearers is they don't really address your problem it seems, because they keep your fighters from dying, but the bombers aren't going to kill your fighters anyway.  If you placed your shieldbearers over your tractor turrets, and had enough to capture the entire bomber wave, that should leave you in the clear if you have good success with your shield bearers not dying.  Alternatively, just drop the shieldbearers over your command station and you'll have a decent set of extra forcefields.

Oh, I put them over other things too.  I lost that game to a raid starship that came as part of an exogalaxy wave, while I had my fleet chewing through Spire Minirams.  Another FF immune unit.

[Zeyurn]

Currently I would have to say that I haven't found too many problems with tractor turrets if I stick a mark-I forcefield over them. Of course, that may show that they are not cost-effective because they have their own cost and I have to pay the cost for a forcefield as well.

I've been sticking FFgens over them also, but again, it's a huge crystal cost to do early game, so I don't put down many tractors (4).  It also means I can't fund sniper turrets or riot starships.  Two other things that are "required to not-lose."

Going to echo Keith here and say I don't use sniper turrets until late or generally riot starships ever either and I don't lose.

Riots used to be a big staple for me but I am going to have to agree with Sunshine in that lately I have this feeling that's hard to quantify that they're weak.  Still pretty good at engine damaging lots of things early game to slow them down but not worth the nigh immediate mark 3 research I used to fund and very bad late game when thousands of units are in play.

[Sunshine!]

Yeah, Spire Minirams probably should not be immune to forcefields, since they're very much a brute-force kind of unit.

[keith.lamothe]

Yeah, Spire Minirams probably should not be immune to forcefields, since they're very much a brute-force kind of unit.

I went in to pull the ImmuneToForcefields flag off them and then stopped myself: are any melee units _not_ immune to forcefields?  I'm guessing that it would break their behavior when around ff'd targets, so I'll wait until I have time for more thorough testing on that.

[TechSY730]

Now that their suicide is actually suiciding now, is ff immunity on spire minirams still considered broken?

[keith.lamothe]

I just think it's much more satisfying if a "Ram" counters the "Wall" by bashing through it in a crunchy fashion, rather than passing through it as if it were not there.

But with melee mechanics it may be safer to leave as-is.  Not looking to break more stuff right now

[Sunshine!]

Could they be given an extremely short range (something like 250 or 500) to kind of sidestep the issue?  For all intents and purposes it would still look like they're ramming the target (or near enough), and since they're suicide they won't ever make a second pass.

[Draco18s]

Going to echo Keith here and say I don't use sniper turrets until late or generally riot starships ever either and I don't lose.

So, what then, am I doing wrong that gets me killed by the first raid starship that the game spawns?

Now that their suicide is actually suiciding now, is ff immunity on spire minirams still considered broken?

No.  Because I don't need to worry about 30 of them multi-pounding my command stations.

[chemical_art]

I also never use riots (I don't think they're effective anymore with some recent changes, but haven't been sure how to quantify it) or raid starships, but I do drop snipers in.  Sometimes to deal with raid starships, mostly to just pick off random ships harassing my harvesters.

My personal beef with Riot Ships was that as they tech up they cannot destroy the engines of ships over time more rapidly. With current game mechanics, Riot Ships as a player unit gets linearly stronger, while as the AI gets stronger it goes up exponentially. As a result, eventually the AI simply overpowers the Riot Ships.

Also, Riot Ships suffer terribly from the lowering unit cap of techs*** because they start with so few to begin with. When the ship cap goes from "5" to "4" it already loses 20% everything as a cap fleet. You need some really, really powerful increases to counteract this, which I feel the current riot ship line does not. It gets worse from "4" to "3".


***Assuming Riot Starships go down in number as their tech goes up. If it does not now, ignore the whole argument.

[Draco18s]

***Assuming Riot Starships go down in number as their tech goes up. If it does not now, ignore the whole argument.

It's 3, 3, 3.

[chemical_art]

***Assuming Riot Starships go down in number as their tech goes up. If it does not now, ignore the whole argument.

It's 3, 3, 3.

*sigh* so many things keep changing, I am losing track of any ships I do not use or see every game. I'll have to re-examine the stat's myself now and see why I dislike them.

[Zeyurn]

Going to echo Keith here and say I don't use sniper turrets until late or generally riot starships ever either and I don't lose.

So, what then, am I doing wrong that gets me killed by the first raid starship that the game spawns?

I seem to recall basic turrets (especially mark 2 or 3) being pretty good against Raid Starships.  Cheap to research and build too.  That may not be true anymore because they keep changing raid starships so much.  Gravity Turrets are definitely your friend against a raid starship though, holds them in place while you beat on them with really whatever you've got available.  Beyond that I just send my fleet at them, I always have something ready for when a wave hits to go for the priority targets.

I mean, I guess I occasionally lose planets to raid starships but I always take every planet around my home ASAP so there is no possible way (barring counter attack posts) that my Home can be directly attacked.

I uh.. shamefully don't have any idea which ships have armor piercing at the moment, but if you happen to have any of those they're a good bet.

[chemical_art]

***Assuming Riot Starships go down in number as their tech goes up. If it does not now, ignore the whole argument.

It's 3, 3, 3.

I just looked at my game, and its "4, 3 , 2." I have 5.0 Light of the Spire.

So, BY DEFAULT: The ships lose  25% and 33% of their previous power by lost caps. Unless my game data is wrong, this means that riot ships don't get much stronger as they tech up after you factor the advanced turret options don't cover that cap lost with much too spare. I had always thought that MK 3 units would be have turret options to reflect their overall power, but 10 mk III riot ships hardly equal the power of two starships of the tech III flagship line.