What bonus ship types make you not want to keep playing when the AI gets them?

[keith.lamothe]

Kahuna is our Stop-Having-!!FUN!!-guy.

Nah, he just doesn't appreciate certain flavors of !!FUN!! in his own games

[TechSY730]

I'll have to brainstorm any that make me rage quit.

So far each have their weaknesses that can be exploited.

And 100 TDLs' weakness is... ? The only "counter" (kind of) is a very good psychiatrist.
No the answer isn't "Ships immune to tractor beams herp a derp". Yes Snipers counter TDLs very well but.. first of all the player must choose Snipers and then unlock Mark IVs.

Starships are immune to tractor beams, and so are transports.
EDIT: And units under forcefields (like the ones riot's have, hint, hint )

[Kahuna]

Kahuna is our Stop-Having-!!FUN!!-guy.

I'm really not! I'm just... what's the politically correct term... different!

[keith.lamothe]

Kahuna is our Stop-Having-!!FUN!!-guy.

I'm really not! I'm just... what's the politically correct term... different!

"Tackle-Drone-Challenged"?

[Eternaly_Lost]

Not really anything right now.

Gravity ships used to annoy me, as my already slow Spire Fleet turned into a nap as I waited for them to kill things but now things are more or less fine.

[Kahuna]

Kahuna is our Stop-Having-!!FUN!!-guy.

I'm really not! I'm just... what's the politically correct term... different!

"Tackle-Drone-Challenged"?

Yes that will do.

[kasnavada]

I'm going at this the other way... the only ships I notice and pay specific attention to would be:

"Special attack" ships in sufficient numbers and all infinite range ships, which include:
- all ships with tractor beams (tend to increase a threat lot by snatching your ships were they were not supposed to go)
- maws
- all ships with infinite / very long range (sniper / sentinel / blade spawner / bombards...).
- I got to test the new guardians, before I looked at zombies and EMP

I care a bit about cloaking but 1k nullifies most threat from cloaking from the AI. It's the same about the AI though, if I tried to take advantage of cloaking there are some ships which just nullifies the point of having cloaks (especially the microfighter).

I cared about cutlass and vampires when they could kill stations.

The other ships should stand out more.

[Diazo]

For me, ZBombards would be the only one I can think of.

When I'm clearing systems, especially in the early game, my preferred tactic for dealing with them is to individually shift-right-click each bombard with my Raid Starships and let the raids do their thing while my fleet goes around killing guard posts and such.

With their high retreat range and decent speed, nothing else I have can catch them and kill them fast enough.

If I send fleet ships after them, they take forever to die as the fleet ships get in range, fire, stop, then have to move back into range again as the ZBombard has kept retreating the whole time. I find most units in the game has an effective DPS of about 30% due to the ZBombard always running away!

Having said that, I don't think I've ever faced TDLs in the AIs hands.....

D.

[Mánagarmr]

Kahuna is our Stop-Having-!!FUN!!-guy.

I'm really not! I'm just... what's the politically correct term... different!

"Tackle-Drone-Challenged"?

Yes that will do.

Kahuna reacts to TDL's the way I react to instadeath exploding barrels.

[TechSY730]

If I send fleet ships after them, they take forever to die as the fleet ships get in range, fire, stop, then have to move back into range again as the ZBombard has kept retreating the whole time. I find most units in the game has an effective DPS of about 30% due to the ZBombard always running away!

Imagine how scary the AI would be if they kited effectively with all of their ship types with noticeable range*. 

However, how fast is the Zombard? It should NOT be any faster than a missile frigate, if even that fast, to prevent them kiting from being OP.

*which starts somewhere between a bomber and a missile frigate's range

[keith.lamothe]

Kahuna reacts to TDL's the way I react to instadeath exploding barrels.

That should be in the bonus ship nomination thread!

[Faulty Logic]

No ship will make me stop playing, but these are significantly worse than other unlocks for the AI:

Tackle Drone Launchers. I've had to deal with mkIV systems with 280 of the things, and even with every counter in the book, they were tedious. Nerf their health.

Other low-cap ships to a lesser extent.

Eyebots/infiltrators/vampire claws: annoying.

Zombards.

[LordSloth]

I've had a lot less rage response since patrols had their purchasing logic fixed, and Heavy Bomber Starships became a fairly effective counter to zombards. There have been a few things I've kept up my sleeves outside of that, the main being Riot Starships and some cloaked and/or melee and/or teleporting ships. Riot Starships are especially nice dealing with Maws as regular system defenders, as well, in a sort of drag them to my space counter-abduction.

Even though it isn't at the raw rage levels any more, I'd love to see a source of Mobile Flak (as a Riot Starship module) that enables a fairly vulnerable forward screen capable of stopping drones (and not much else) in their tracks. I mean on a lower tier than the gravity module. The idea being that if I deployed these flak starships in a radius of about 3000-6000 outside my blob, they'd stop blades/drones/tackle drones dead. The position would leave them pretty exposed to counters, ideally. With higher mark riots and gravity modules, you'd be able to pull them further in. It'd have to have some sort of priority/restricted/high rof targeting to work however.

[TechSY730]

Tackle Drone Launchers. I've had to deal with mkIV systems with 280 of the things, and even with every counter in the book, they were tedious. Nerf their health.

The health of the drones, or of the launcher?

Also, someone mentioned a while back that the speed of the launcher for both the tackle drone launcher and the spire blade launcher was too high for what plays out to be a ultra-long range artillery unit.

Also, how did the AI get 280 of them? Did they really get like (96 / 2) * 280 = 13440 worth of "normal cap" of cumulative "points" for the various mechanics that can spawn ships?
Though, on AI 10, I could see that sort of absurd number of "effective ships" spawning...several times over in fact...

[TechSY730]

I've had a lot less rage response since patrols had their purchasing logic fixed, and Heavy Bomber Starships became a fairly effective counter to zombards. There have been a few things I've kept up my sleeves outside of that, the main being Riot Starships and some cloaked and/or melee and/or teleporting ships. Riot Starships are especially nice dealing with Maws as regular system defenders, as well, in a sort of drag them to my space counter-abduction.

Even though it isn't at the raw rage levels any more, I'd love to see a source of Mobile Flak (as a Riot Starship module) that enables a fairly vulnerable forward screen capable of stopping drones (and not much else) in their tracks. I mean on a lower tier than the gravity module. The idea being that if I deployed these flak starships in a radius of about 3000-6000 outside my blob, they'd stop blades/drones/tackle drones dead. The position would leave them pretty exposed to counters, ideally. With higher mark riots and gravity modules, you'd be able to pull them further in. It'd have to have some sort of priority/restricted/high rof targeting to work however.

Yea, I think a lot of the "rage" over the launcher type stuff is that players don't have many good, "kills really fast" counters for melee/rushing/drone style ships (OK, flak turrets maybe, but that isn't mobile; you can't take it out to attack effectively. And they are more of a "slow bleed many of them" type counter rather than "kill fast, a few at a time" type counter. Flak fleet ships aren't in every game). For most fleet ships of this style, that is fine. They tend to be weak enough and/or slow enough individually that we can deal with them anyways, though some will probably slip past.
Not so much for the tackle drones and blades. They both move so fast, that those "slow bleed" type counters can't work fast enough to take them out. And their health, while isn't magnificent, is high enough such that their high speed can easily, and greatly, overcome their somewhat fragile nature.