Those annoying things the AI does...

[Cinth]

Anything and everything that's annoying about what the AI does or doesn't do. 
And by AI, I mean that entity you fight against.  The annoying things it does.

Like camping wormholes. 

Anything here is fair game to discuss.



Edit: I probably should have mentioned that Chris asked for this thread.

[tadrinth]

When waves flee before ever getting to your flak turrets.  ...That might just be because I put too many grav turrets covering their approach, or because the friendly Roaming Enclave younglings rush in and distract them. 

[Draco18s]

• Pretty much every melee unit ever
• Forcefields on top of anti-bomber guard posts
• Etherjet tractors
• wormhole camping hit it with a lightning warhead
  
• Exowaves. The whole mechanic doesn't "work" for me outside Fallen Spire

[Cinth]

When waves flee before ever getting to your flak turrets.  ...That might just be because I put too many grav turrets covering their approach, or because the friendly Roaming Enclave younglings rush in and distract them. 

Hi Zenith Trader here and boy do I have just the thing for you!  It's a Black Hole Generator. 

Seriously though, yes.  Retreating is annoying as hell.

• Pretty much every melee unit ever
• Forcefields on top of anti-bomber guard posts
• Etherjet tractors
• wormhole camping hit it with a lightning warhead
  
• Exowaves. The whole mechanic doesn't "work" for me outside Fallen Spire

Sounds like annoying things in general :p

1) elaborate a bit on how the AI makes melee units annoying (AI as in that entity you fight against).
2) IIRC this is placement rules rather than AI action (unless shield bearers)
3) Just because the AI uses them better that you... I kid of course
4) I think throwing AIP at an annoying thing the AI does is even more annoying because it doesn't solve anything and is likely to make it worse down the road a bit.
5)That's a mechanics thing, maybe a thread about Exos and what makes them good or bad should be started

[PokerChen]

• Grav-drills and Mark I radar jammers (not mark-II) in inconvenient galactic locations. Strangely, not black-hole generators.
• Missile guardposts guarding AIP reducers, although it actually makes tactical sense (should be fixed already in the new balance).
• Killing a player command station with superior forces, but then proceed to do nothing (they forgot to teach follow-through or retreat in AI tactics school).
• Keeping its forces on other planets asleep while the player trashes things on very important worlds. (*deploys strategic reserves instead, consisting of light-refreshments and canapes*).
• Riot Control Starships randomly tagging a few ships all the time (trolls players by deploying engineers to paint stragglers bright-red).
• Not doing a very good job of defending its projects like super-hybrid plots ("I should kill it. Oh wait, it's already dead?!").

[Draco18s]

• Pretty much every melee unit ever
• Forcefields on top of anti-bomber guard posts
• Etherjet tractors
• wormhole camping hit it with a lightning warhead
  
• Exowaves. The whole mechanic doesn't "work" for me outside Fallen Spire

Sounds like annoying things in general :p

1) elaborate a bit on how the AI makes melee units annoying (AI as in that entity you fight against).
2) IIRC this is placement rules rather than AI action (unless shield bearers)
3) Just because the AI uses them better that you... I kid of course
4) I think throwing AIP at an annoying thing the AI does is even more annoying because it doesn't solve anything and is likely to make it worse down the road a bit.
5)That's a mechanics thing, maybe a thread about Exos and what makes them good or bad should be started

1) Melee units tend to just slip past every defense mechanism. They're immune to both tractors and forcefield blocking and dive straight for the command station/whatever.  Usually not a problem (as they can't hurt the station) except when they're vampires.
2) It's a problem with the placement rules, yes, but that's still an aspect of the AI   There are other combos too.
3) N/A
4) The other way to do it is to use tractor ships, and sometimes you can just bait them to come through. But I have used lightning warheads before (on particularly large swarms)
5) I think I've mentioned exos plenty already.

[Orelius]

EMP Guardians

Stacking paralysis sucks.

[Captain Jack]

Edit: I probably should have mentioned that Chris asked for this thread.

QUISLING!

Real talk, although it's probably working as designed, I hate that the AI builds threat and just.... holds it. I start getting real nervous when I see that threat number go past the next wave and I can't see where it's building up.

[tadrinth]

Hi Zenith Trader here and boy do I have just the thing for you!  It's a Black Hole Generator. 

Oh I am aware.  My last two games had BHMs built on my HWs as fast as I could spare the metal for them. 

But then you HAVE to play with Zenith Trader, and you're stuck with having only one whipping boy, and thus the 3x wave strength multiplier.  Both of my last two games got to the point where I had to bring my fleet home for regular waves at least some of the time, because the AIP went up faster than I could build trader goodies to compensate.  Makes me feel like distributed whipping boys aren't really viable.

The worst thing about the retreat logic is that it seems like they only retreat if you've overbuilt your defenses. 

[tadrinth]

I start getting real nervous when I see that threat number go past the next wave and I can't see where it's building up.

Hrm, usually threat hangs out next to your planets, at least for the first 30 mins. 

After the most recent threat logic changes, you should see threat ships attack more often if your fleet is far away or currently occupied or if you're already under heavy assault from something like an exo.  But, they'll frequently wait until one of those happens.

The best counter to accumulating threat is to play with Roaming Enclaves and tell your allied enclaves they can attack independently.  They'll go clear out small accumulations of threat for you, does a great job of keeping it from building up to dangerous levels.

[kasnavada]

AI doesn't attack "significantly" more often than every 3-4 hours.
AI stalemates you.
AI is too easily fooled by low AIP.
AI waves rushing straight for the command center. They could / should "turn" if safer for them.
AI units with immunities (all).
AI defenses with immunities (all).
AI failing to recognize that it's suiciding.
AI being baited by moving your fleet back and forth 3 "jumps" away.
AI core response (bunch of "core units" rushing out of nowhere).
EMP Guardians.
One way doormaster AI.

Sniper units (already taken care of but still).
Cameleons getting stuck and never getting out of cloak, counting as an enemy unit on your planet forever.

AI being immune to a lot of stuff in the "core worlds", like, the champion => immediate spawn of mothership. What's the point of raising a champion that can't attack the core world ? EMP bombs not working there, last time I checked. Hive golem not working either.

Tractor units, from etherjets to tractor platform.

[tadrinth]

champion => immediate spawn of mothership

Bwuh?  Never seen that.  Is that from a high-intensity Alt Champ Nemesis setting or something?

[Tridus]

Gravity Drills. Ugh. They make everything painfully slow.

The subcommander with the multiple warp counterattack guard posts. Such a grind to deal with that.

Generally, anything where it's not a challenge to deal with it, so much as it is simply long and slow to deal with it.

[Timerlane]

The best counter to accumulating threat is to play with Roaming Enclaves and tell your allied enclaves they can attack independently.  They'll go clear out small accumulations of threat for you, does a great job of keeping it from building up to dangerous levels.

Connecting your 'empire' to the Dyson Sphere's planet also works great, if it's located conveniently enough to do so; at least two of my last CPAs were simply nibbled away by a constant trickle of Gatlings going into the border planet where they were camping(and another CPA tried to go right through the DS planet).

[Cyborg]

Wrath lance.