Do the regular Empires do Stellar Manipulation?

[Jason2]

In my current game: Large universe, Clusters, not all warp points connected, with the mod-pack included:

The Earth Alliance is opening up warp points and maintaining vast fleets. They beat me to it's creation (I was researching weapons etc. to make sure I was ready once I opened a warp point) and through scouts I have established that they have opened around 5 or 6 different warp points to other clusters... very aggressive, and getting very big!

So the AI definitely uses them and doesn't always bankrupt itself.

Jason2

[Str8_Gain]

quote:

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Originally posted by Jason2:
In my current game: Large universe, Clusters, not all warp points connected, with the mod-pack included:

The Earth Alliance is opening up warp points and maintaining vast fleets. They beat me to it's creation (I was researching weapons etc. to make sure I was ready once I opened a warp point) and through scouts I have established that they have opened around 5 or 6 different warp points to other clusters... very aggressive, and getting very big!

Jason2

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I recently concluded a game where I had all warp points connected. In that case, what I did was research weapons tech moderately (up to phased polaron beams/telekinetic projectors/etc.) to match everyone else in the early game, and then poured as much as I could to Stellar Manipulation.

Once I got the condenser at Stellar Manipulation level 3, I closed off all warp points leading to anyone else, to buy time to build a decent fleet with good weapons (your trade will definitely take a hit and you'll lose contact with other races, depending on what points you close, so be sure your economic house is in order). When I became sufficiently prepared, I took my Explorer Group (one frigate w/ resonator, one frigate w/ condenser, one destroyer w/ a repair bay, and a frigate w/ cloak, sensors, and long range scanners), teamed it with my attack fleet, and then jumped into the home system of whichever AI I wanted real estate from, and then closed the point behind me (and incidentally, bypassing all their minefields they have on their warp points). Once in, move to the other warp points in the system to close them (with proper minesweeping to protect your investment), and thus cut off reinforcement. Once the system became mine totally, then I'd open a point connecting it to my empire, and repeat the process.

The key is to get Stellar Manipulation first, or failing that, kill off any other empire that has it. Of course, I wouldn't suggest going straight for Stellar Manipulation level 7 and neglect weapons, shields, etc, but since Stellar Manipulation can be used as a great force multiplier, it may be worth it to research up to level 3, and then pour everything you got into weapons, shields, etc. Carefully take the measure of your enemies to determine what research paths to go on (which should be pretty elementary by now). With higher levels of Stellar Manipulation, you can keep your shipyards and staging areas further back from the front, and thus protect them better. Once you're ready, just warp them in to your area of operations.

[raynor]

Oh, the frustration of building worm holes.

I sent four Battle Cruisers and two Carriers loaded with 104 Heavy Fighters each (naively) through a warp point and ran right into a mine field.

Then, I opened a wormhole from another system hoping to bypass the mine field. Nope, it opened the warp point right on top of the other one. This fleet of six Battle Cruisers ran into the mine field and also perished!

(Later, I did build a wormhole from a sector that looked a bit safer and took great delight in destroying every one of his planets.)

I think one of the beta testers said he was pretty surprised when the new AI opened a wormhole to his home system and sent a fleet of dreadnaughts, etc through. I can't wait!

[Sinapus]

quote:

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Originally posted by raynor:
Oh, the frustration of building worm holes.

I sent four Battle Cruisers and two Carriers loaded with 104 Heavy Fighters each (naively) through a warp point and ran right into a mine field.

Then, I opened a wormhole from another system hoping to bypass the mine field. Nope, it opened the warp point right on top of the other one. This fleet of six Battle Cruisers ran into the mine field and also perished!

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*blink*

How did -that- happen? Did the wormhole you create open up on top of another wormhole that had already been mined?

(Stacked wormholes do appear, in cluster quadrants at least...)



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"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

[raynor]

quote:

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Originally posted by Sinapus:
*blink*

How did -that- happen? Did the wormhole you create open up on top of another wormhole that had already been mined?

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Exactly. The newly created wormhole opened up on top of an existing wormhole.

[raynor]

In another thread, someone thought you had to leave the computer alone for a while before it started using its stellar manipulation ships.

This makes sense.

In my Last game, I loaded up a savegame, switched all the players to human control and checked out what kind of ships they had. I saw one race, the EEE, who had Resonator V's on destroyers on turn 170. By turn 220. They had seven of these ships. But I could see no evidence that they had ever used them.

I may try loading that game up and hitting End Turn 20-50 times and see if they start using them.

It would be really great if there was some way to coax the AI into building and deploying these ships against you. Maybe wait 100 turns without doing anything?

[rdouglass]

For you folks that have seen the AI USE Stellar Manip... Are you using a Mod? and if so, which one(s). I am using some of the mods, not all. I have seen the AI BUILD ships with SM components, but they never seem to use them. Of course, the key word here is USE...