Battleship AI and persistence

from Sins Forums
Hi everybody, I would like to post my opinion on this subject - battles (sorry for my bad english)

1. AI - its a big error that AI ships ignore human´s fleet in sector and continue to its target completely bypass human´s forces that r guarding the area... U know one day I left a capital ship and fleet to guard a forward sector and was managing my planets and so... and suddenly the enemy fleet showes up in my home sector in big advantage and decimate the area. It was very long cross line (phase), took a a more than a 1,5 minute to call the fleet back.
So U know it will be better to set AI to completely clear the sector before visit next one

2. Batlleship persistence - In one video some man from devs or who said that battles will be like in Babylon 5... i imagine fast blowin ships, laser beams everywhere and so...Well laser beams r there its cool, but when a small fleet including capital ship (10 ships?) shooting on a tiny vessel with all their shooting power and little tiny ship sustain an hour firing (metaphorically) - it sucks... will be better to double the firing power.

Edit : Oh and I think the defence turrets can be stronger both in fire and defence
strategy
10,593 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
I don't agree that the AI should clear the sector - from its point of view continuing on to your home world and decimating it is a perfectly sensible plan. However, I think it would be nice if there was some way to order your ships to follow the enemy fleet from planet to planet and keep on attacking it, rather than having to issue new orders every time the enemy phase jump to a new system. If this is an option that is already available and I just haven't found it could someone please let me know?
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Surely if the AI wins (and bypasses your main defensive line) it's a very good plan?

EDIT; perhaps the AI sizes up the advantage of each opportunity - i.e. where it can attack - and if it calculates it'll do more damage overall by hitting a planet than a fleet, it does that.
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Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

2. Batlleship persistence - In one video some man from devs or who said that battles will be like in Babylon 5... i imagine fast blowin ships, laser beams everywhere and so...Well laser beams r there its cool, but when a small fleet including capital ship (10 ships?) shooting on a tiny vessel with all their shooting power and little tiny ship sustain an hour firing (metaphorically) - it sucks... will be better to double the firing power.
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Yes, it takes a while to kill things, but thats true in both directions. Heck, even in B5 the ships took a lot of killing if you actually watch whats going on -- defenses would tend to intercept massive amounts of incoming firepower.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I would recommend having your guard/defense fleet follow the AI around once he jumps into your space. That way once he does arrive at the planet he intends to raid you will only be a jump or so behind him.

The other strategy that you could implement is stationing a large fleet at a choke point system. This strategy is more effective because you can often deter the AI from attacking you at all (guard fleet + defensive structures is not something that he wants to fight). This only works if there is only one or two ways he can get into your system though.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I'd say that's a smart AI. Rather than do a sucide run against enemy fleet, it's going after undefended targets. I know I would have done the same thing.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
About the sustain of ships - it looks weird that the smallest vessel sustain a heavy fire from capital ship for quite a long time, in babylon 5 if a major cap. ship hits a small cruiser with main beam weaps the cruiser will crash immmediately into pieces...you know i dont want it so extreme but it can be better with firepower of big guns/sustain of small ships at least with capitol ships (especialy those major for direct combat)...
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
it looks weird that the smallest vessel sustain a heavy fire from capital ship for quite a long time, in babylon 5 if a major cap. ship hits a small cruiser with main beam weaps the cruiser will crash immmediately into pieces
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Hm. This is a valid point. It does seem a mite strange that this gigantic battleship with huge frigging cannons on the front of it can't vaporize this little twit of a garbage scow in one shot. The energies involved are too great.



It seems to make sense to me that big ships should mostly duel with big ships, small ships should duel with small ships, and fightercraft get to attack everything.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Weird, never happened to me. The AI never moved past my choke-points and proceeded to attack my unguarded planets. Well, perhaps because I'm quite the turtler and it would be suicide for the enemy to ignore my massive defenses and simply move past them on the way to my unguarded planets.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
That strategy has always worked for me as well Gormoth. As long as my choke-point planets are well defended, the AI never tries to rush through them to get the my undefended backyard.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
actualy it wasnt planet with defence, it was in a star sector... I had only a fleet there
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
T

actualy it wasnt planet with defence, it was in a star sector... I had only a fleet there
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That's the trick, they'll go for your outermost planets, not your outermost fleets.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
yes but you know, if this game is divided to sectors (planets,asteroids etc.) it must be guardable like in any other game, otherwise dividing to sectors is useless. I HAD the fleet there for some reason....

Like when you playin chess and someone will go thru your figures like they werent there
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
It's more like a blockade...and someone decides to run it, darn the torpedoes. I would agree that each race needs a more reliable form of phase inhibition (that has a long delay time for ships trying to phase. But this is more of a patch/expansion thing). For right now you need to defend the world connected to the star. Really build up a defense there. There are few ship setups, at any stage of the game that can just outright destroy a fleet that's heck bent on jumping to a soft planet near the star. So your stand should be at the target.

Don't get me wrong...continue to station fleets at the star...it will make the attackers weaker so they'll break easier at your real defense around their target. Just don't expect to stop them cold. At least with the tools we have currently.