Planetary Battle issues

[Bormac]

So, I love Space Rangers, it is pretty darn enjoyable as a whole, I LOVE the text quests, and I love the combat in space, the music, the atmosphere, the story!
(Though the new pirate faction seems to be wrecking everyone.)

The only thing that really bothers me in this game are the planteray battles. I have played a few RTS games in my time but I find the controls very clunky in this, and I find the AI on your guys very lacking, that is not there at all.
The resource system is alright, I don't mind control points, what bothers me is that the AI seems to have unlimited resources while I have a very finite pool and if I don't beat them by the time I run out of the big lump sum I get at the start then I'm hosed.
Every time I think I'm gaining ground in comes the conga line of AI units to die endlessly and be rebuild, they even set off bombs amid their ow nguys and it doesn't seem to effect them at all, they are always at 100% unit strength and can just throw themselves against my defenses until they fall away. And its REALLY hard to gain ground when it takes an age for your guys to make it to their base while they can just spit out units forever.

I would enjoy going into the first person mode and fighting more if my units weren't completely braindead and just sat there while an enemy with slightly longer range slaughtered them, or if I set them to auto defend they see mto march in away from the enemy armies to defend the base that isn't under threat.
And don't even get me started on the "attack ai" more like the file in one at a time like lambs to the slaughter AI. So I feel like I have to babysit them constantly and can't effectively make use of the first person mode.
Do you guys have any tips on how to make planetary battles less painful and obnoxious? It's kind of the same reason I would click the "I NEVER want to see these missions" button, despite them being great experience and money, they just wind up being a complete slog every time and I'm not sure what I am doing wrong.
Help is appreciated.

[strigvir]

Manual Controls.
Missiles.
A Stop command.
Strategic placement.
Fullstack.
Microchips.
Missile Turret.

[narf03]

If u cant play it, skip it, its badly designed, human controled AI is an idiot, wont follow order, cant issue order during pause, and computer AI seems non stop cloning their suicide machines at you.

[Foxxhound]

I very much agree with all of you three of you. Good advice. I particularly dislike the inablity to give orders during pause. In every RTS I've ever played, I spend at least half of each match paused issuing orders, letting it play out briefly, then pause again to give new orders. I don't see how anyone can play an RTS without pausing it to give new orders and assess any developments in conflicts, movement, and construction. The most miserable part of my SR RTS experience exists because "Pause" shares a key with the "End," so I have to hold down an "FN" key and stretch halfway across the keyboard about a hundred times each battle. It's even worse than some of those best-of-bad-luck-based text quests. Fortunately, I don't like RTSs anyway (except ones based on the Age of Empires II engine) so I'm relieved that you can skip them and go for a less painful alternative.

[Bunyan]

Ok, as one who has received help, I'm glad to return the favor to someone else...here are some highpoints.

First, don't feel bad. I usually like these but there are definitely some maps that are harder than others...and you can usually find someone who thought that one was the easiest not the hardest.

1) manage your resources well. a 5-bot team can work wonders, 2-3 with missles and morter and 2 3-prong healers (do NOT add healing to fighting bots since they will NOT heal and attack at the same time)..this is a cheap but effective mix...eventually a full squad with 3 healers and 5 missle morters are very strong
2) only use the AI when you want to release an expendable team while you focus your efforts somewhere else...and that's usually only when you have resources coming in and not strapped for cash
3) See #1...attack, retreat, heal, repeat
4) if your bots are not in danger of being attacked by enemy bots, you can manually control a bot with a morter and take out any turret without them returning fire...it may take a while, but you will take no damage
5) keep your bots moving when fighting...in and out, close then far...that will give your healers time to work... If your bot and the enemy both have 100 heath (just for instance) but yours keeps getting healed..well, you'll find you will wear the enemy down pretty quick.
6) a group of 3 healers near towers can also change the course of battle. Put down 2 missles, keep your healers moving (and healing eachother and the towers) and watch the enemy get wasted

Hope that helps!

[narf03]

I found that the best setup for attacking robot is 3x plasma, 1x stunner, dynamo and mortar, its more expensive than just missiles, but they works better too, u can use them in mixture with missiles too, they are extremely good at taking out towers quickly, they stuns tower for few seconds and that time is enough to take out the tower, might take some hit, but wont get them killed unless there are like 3+ towers, and sometimes they works so well that enemy nuclear boom unable to get close, cause they are stunned.

Some maps are simple, some maps are crazy. If you want to complete the insane difficulty, you will have to play these, they offer good money, first battle grant you like 2k cash, the next gives you like 4k, then 7k then 10k, then 16k .... it goes up like 50-80% each time, i think the last 1 i did, i was paid like half a million, and i dont think there is a limit, basically at that stage money is no longer an issue, you no longer need to pick up things to sell for money. liberate 2-3 system then u can get 1 of these mission, badly designed minigame but pay really well.

[Bunyan]

Yep, jkwong01 is right...stunners work great. I like the plasmas, but they are often a bit too expensive. I DO need to change what I wrote before though--I did usually try to have a stunner on my missle guys, but had forgotten that...that also makes for better longevity.

[narf03]

Just fought another battle, almost spend 2 hours on the map, it is so difficult because of extremely low at starting resources. Could not make enough robots to capture and defend even 1 site, had to abandon all places except the factory. Enemy took over the entire map, and spam their suicide machines at me, i counted they had 18 while i had 7, they keep sending and i keep defending for almost an hour before i am confident enough with the resources i have then i start sending them out, ended up i killed close to a thousand of them.

A major problem is sometimes my robot will not fire at enemy until enemy start firing, that is extremely bad news for enemy robot with laser + nuclear bomb, so i couldnt walk away and come back an hour later, had to keep watching for these walking nuclear trap and control a robot to kill it before it came too near.

Didnt had fun at all.