Howdy,

I would like to come out and state that the AA is for crap, I hope that this is just a beta bug but when a mixture of fighter/bomber squads numbering around forty from 7 carriers attacks that is a big thing. I was not detured since I had many front line warships to deal with said carriers and good anti-fighter defense... at least I thought I did. I had between 20 and 30 sentinals and at least a dozen fighter wings. I expected to lose a few but not the way I did, I didnt even phase the enemy.

The Ai needs major tweaking in my opinion. Yes this is beta but when part of the selling point of this game is that you dont have to manage you fleet, I dont like seeing my fleet get ripped up because my oppnent spams carriers. I cannot possibly micromanage the battle and have each sentinal attack a seperate wing of fighters or have each of my fighter wings pick out the bombers. I just cant do that and have my heavy cruisers ignore those blasted missle batteries and attack the bleeding carriers.

That being said a list of concerns with out heat.
I noticed over several engagments that the anit-fighter frigates for the vasari would run in a cluster back and forth attempting to ALL kill just one enemy fighter wing after which they would run clear across the grav well to target and attack one bomber wing. I wouldnt mind the ai so much if this would stop sure, in an ideal world the anti-fighter frigs would attack the fighters allowing my fighters to attack the enemy bombers, but this was not so.

secondly I noticed that there is a great disperagment between the sova carrier and the vasari carrier. the sova gets missle battries, in effect a missle frigate. heavy fghters and replacment fighers. THe Vasari carrier can have fighters hop around which doesnt really help, atleast I have not seen this helping. the get a siege battery which isnt really neccassary nice it can already siege and this ability forces the vaz carrier to move in near the planet (and its defenses) which are bad for carriers. and it can replicate ships to "bolster" my fleet which is poppycock since when given the option to replicate combat frigates or a colony ship it went for that all powerful colony ship.

Next up is a request for capital or even fleet formation/doctrine/tactics options. For example I usually spam frigates since I am not as fond of micromanaging a battle. As such since the beta ai in general is... less then adequate, this means that my caps are toast. So please ad in a doctrines option for cap ship heck just a few options would e nice like skirmish ( this ship stays at max range, in the case of a carrier that means at the gravwells edge since its armament is fighters), assault tries to stay at range out of enemy gun ranges, or engage at will, attacks anything itcan close up and personal.

anyhoo just a few things with many a spelling error. For what it is worth, I would have lost that game had I fought ot the bitter end, which I dont mind were it that I was out witted. If I lose becausei am beaten by my enemies ability that is one thing, but because the ships do not fulfill the function for which they are design is another. Now partly I lost because I didnt want to backstab, but that was my uh oh to make. I still had the game in the bag until I found out that if you mass carriers, the ai cant handle anti fighter tactics well, and the AA ships dont use AA the correct way.

I hope this stuff helps. I like this game and I dont wish to see it fail because of things like this, it is always hard for me to accept a loss, but when it is because of somethign like this, it just gets to me.

Take Care and God Bless,

Lharrs