Returning Player With Some Questions

[Kraiz]

AI War Classic is one of my favorite games of all-time.  I jumped on the first kickstarter campaign, but missed out on the second launch of the campaign.  Picked up AI War 2 in Early access, and it's been quietly sitting in my games library for a while now.  Until A few days ago, that is.

First, I'm really enjoying this.  It still has an AI War feel to it, but with some new mechanics that change things up in very fun, interesting ways.  The fleet mechanics, new technology approach, and XP are the most obvious ones in my short playtime so far, but the other things like hacking changes and AI behavior are also really interesting.  It's all new again, and I feel like I did when I first picked up AI War Classic way back.

I do, however, have some questions given I'm back in the saddle of a newbie in this iteration of the game.

1.  Fleet level-ups.  Based on some dev diaries and change notes, I see where fleets are supposed to get a perk point upon leveling up.  Has this interface been added yet?  I'm not able to really find it, though I'm still exploring some interface elements.  Just want to make sure I'm not overlooking it.

2.  Defenses.  I feel like defenses are significantly reduced in this game versus the original.  But, In the Build menu, i can usually only build <8 of any given turret type.  My homeworld starts with a battlestation and gets a few extra frigates, which is handy.  But, from everything I've seen, battlestations are supposed to add significant amounts of turrets.  Do I not build these from the build menu?  Are they rolled up into the battlestation itself?

3.  A suggestion:  Play a sound or a tone when a wave warning appears.  I have extreme tunnel vision and only about 25 degrees field-of-view.  So, unless I consistently re-look at the wave warning area, they sometimes creep up without me noticing.  Setting my own selfish request aside, I do feel like it'd be an easy thing to implement and a good quality of life improvement for those situations where you're distracted by other goings-on in the game.

4.  Adding slots to a centerpiece, namely flagships/transports.  When acquiring an ARS, the hacking fleet receives the bonus ship type.  Given you cannot directly transfer--but only swap--ship types between fleets, this means that capturing an ARS adds a slot for the capturing fleet.  Is it best to balance out across all of your fleets, ensuring your fleets have a roughly similar fleet size/power, or do people have one super-mega-duper fleet which they use to capture all/most ARS, receiving far more slots for fleet ships (Strike craft now?) than the rest, leaving other fleets with the base 2-4 slots for ships they start with when captured?  Are there other ways to add slots to a centerpiece other than capturing units?

Really enjoying the game, just trying to get up-to-speed on some of the new concepts.

P.S.  I picked up a second copy to give to my brother for his birthday, and plan on picking up some more copies for my gaming group.  I've had a blast just in the few hours I've played it over the past 2-3 days, and want to put it in front of as many people as I can.

Thanks!

[amblingalong]

I'm new to this to, but I can answer one part, which is that each turret/defense in AIW2 is roughly equal to 5 of the same turret for AIW1 (or earlier in the game's development). This was done to reduce the amount of click-spamming to set up defenses.

[Nuc_Temeron]

1: Fleet XP is more of a factor for planets than it is for fleets. Fleets, the flagship levels up which makes it more durable. Planets, you get more installations and the numbers go up. It's a little odd and I suspect it will be revamped at some point.

2. As Amblingalong said, each turret is worth 5 turrets compared to the original.

4. You can build spare empty flagships with 7 swappable EMPTY slots at any Command Station. It is wise to use this to consolidate your ships into themed fleets (melee, snipe, bomb, combat, etc)

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

Fleet XP does work for things like Golems though. I have a Mark 5 Artillery Golem right now and it's kind of monstrous.

[Kraiz]

The 5x turret thing makes sense, then.  I actually prefer the lack of clutter in that regard.

For the custom fleets... these seem far superior than the one I start with and the typical 2nd transport i find near my homeworld by virtue of the multiple ship lines right off the bat.  Understandably I'd want to use any special centerpiece ships for their bonuses.  But, when a captured centerpiece may only have 3-4 lines, and i can simply transfer those ships into an existing fleet without much fuss... when would i want to hang on to the captured, somewhat generic centerpieces?

IE: Start the game with transport flagship.  Capture a second transport flagship.  Now, I just merge all of those ships into one custom fleet and have two idle, empty flagships lying around.  Presumably I'd self-destruct them given they count as fleets against XP bonuses and AIP increases for overcrowding fleets.

Even if i have a pretty impressive flagship with some neat boosts or abilities, if it only starts with 2-4 fleet ship lines, a custom one with all slots filled will beat the superior centerpiece just on raw numbers alone.

Right?  Or am I missing something that makes captured flagships worth holding on to other than highly specialized (cloaking) or super over-the-top ones?