Beam weapons effectiveness?

[carldong]

So I got the Fallen Spire campaign. I loved it since AIWC, so I immediately opened a new campaign to test it out. But... Spire capital ships doesn't seem to melt AI fleets anymore. Am I using them incorrectly? I find that it is quite hard to hit multiple ships with AIW2 beams.

They are excellent against static defenses, though.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

Just to recap how their Coilbeams function: They hit the primary target (like a Guardian) for the full listed damage, then do a second copy of damage, divided among everything else hit by the beam.

They fire every single second so should have little case of "wasted damage". Because the damage is divided, if there are AI units all sitting in the same place it might seem as if not much is going on, as they're not dying individually.

Since they split it evenly, they don't really need to actually hit many units to get their full damage. They could hit 5, 10, 20, so on, and it'd be the same damage total, unless the things hit don't have enough health to absorb the full power. Far as I know they are monsters in combat - we had to add a specific AI defense against being able to just rush to the AI Homeworld and assassinate it with the starting fleet, they were that strong.

I'd note unlike Classic, the Cities get larger over time and Mark up, the Flagship begins to upgrade (from Cruiser to Battleship to Dreadnought), bonus ships are added in for free, etc. So they might not seem as impressive at first, but they scale up to much higher values. Going from memory...it's possible to have a Dreadnought destroying 2 Dire Guardians every second, and Golems wouldn't last much longer. And you can get multiple Dreadnoughts. That's not considering Military Stations.

Here's some information on things:

https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:_Fallen_Spire

[carldong]

Well, I still don't know exactly how cities level up yet. It seems that I get some "slots" every time I retrieve a relic, and then I can build structures. They are monstrous metal consumers, and this is the occasion where I really miss Salvage mechanics.

the Cities get larger over time and Mark up,

Do they? Or do they level up as I build more? I had really hard time escorting relics, which basically required me to build a chain of Logistics stations on the way back or else the Exo kills it really quickly. Or perhaps again my fleet was too low on levels.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

It's all in that page.

https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:_Fallen_Spire#How_To_Level_Up_A_City

For the level up specifically.

[ArnaudB]

It's worth pointing out that the firepower of spire capital ship radically change when you get a Mark III city. You go from a cruiser with 26 Strength to a Battleship with 74 strength and a cruiser with 37 Strength. The firepower of all Spire ships being combined together nearly double with that Mark up.

In fact I have noticed it is better to go for economy early on and not build anything. Being able to repair the cruisers anywhere make a world of difference in using them, whereas if you build frigate you have to make them come back near a spire shipyard. Frigates don't have enough firepower to make a difference anyway (not compared to 3 or 4 slots of one million energy or 3000-4500metal/Second).

Once I get a Spire City mark three I build Reactor in my most recent spire city and swap those in my higher mark city for shipbuilding. Later I swap mining a bit that way, to get Mark II since they're very profitable.
You do need a shipyard at that point, because to rebuild the cruiser you get for "free" from a Mark III+ city you need a shipyard. I highly recommend destroyer despite their two slots rather than frigate. The triple damage versus 7+ tons enemy let them do Battleship-tier damage on those things. Highly useful.


I played the "You Belong to Us" community scenario and it's pretty much learning how to rush the Spire City to get Mark 3, so you can deal with the Nanocaust+Scourge+everything showing up.