AI should be strongly discouraged from spamming defence platforms.

[HyperKnight]

It is year 54 and I just breezed through 3 starports full of defence platforms, losing 2 corvettes in the process. Same value in corvettes and destroyers would have caused me more trouble I speculate.
AI I am bashing on is wardecced by it's neighbour and both sides can't do guff because of tiny fleets and lots of platforms, this is pure lol.

[Gilmore]

I think the real issue here is that starbases and defence platforms are so underpowered.

[Danny]

Originally posted by Gilmore:

I think the real issue here is that starbases and defence platforms are so underpowered.

Tell that to my 60+ defence platform Citadels that can solo hold back a 3x end game crisis with not too many repeatables!

[HyperKnight]

Okay I stand corrected, AI shouldn't spam them instead of fleet, early game.

[Maya-Neko]

The biggest problem of defense platforms is, that they can't evade. They should either add it to the platforms or try to balance it out by adding more survivability to the platform.

[HyperKnight]

Nope, the biggest problem is that they can't doomstack until later into the game.
Adding more damage sponge to them shall not solve this problem - stations have lots of hp and still melt quickly to a proper doomstack equipped with the Mining Lasers.

[Maya-Neko]

So you're saying, that stations shouldn't get buffed, because they're already underpowered? Where's the logic there?

[HyperKnight]

I say that adding more survivability shall solve nothing.
Adding more weapons and platform cap on the other hand just might.

[Maya-Neko]

I never said, that adding more health is the only viable option. Adding more weapons or plattforms is also part of getting a higher survivability. Shooting down more enemy ships will obviously raise the platforms chances of survival quite good as well.

But obviously the biggest flaw is just them being unable to evade, even when the whole battle system is build around it.

[HyperKnight]

Stationary platforms evading goes against the logic now doesn't it?

[Maya-Neko]

Well, not if you realize, that these things are actually build in space and that building a throwaway meatshield around your empire might not be the best thing to do.

But nonetheless that's not a matter of realism, but about gameplay. As for now there's not really a sufficient compensation for the lack of evasion on the platforms. And just demanding, that the AI should build them less won't change that in any form.

[HyperKnight]

Well ships can evade, and building more ships and less defence platforms shall improve AI's gameplay. Looks like a logic to me!

Thinly veiled insults aside, AI's strategy works well vs AI's strategy: it spams defensive platforms, and splits it's underfunded fleets into small groups that fail to take out platform stacks, thus proving their efficiency. Because doomstacks are bad, and nobody doomstacks anymore, right? Well I do.

[Danny]

I also had a recent (current patch) early game on non scaling grand admiral, where just a starfortress with just 10 or so defence stations was able to win me the war!
Only near the end of the war I needed to add a small fleet to win the last few engagements.

[Scyobi_Empire]

Solution: bring back the old classes that were removed and make Defence Platforms turn off like star bases do.

[Danny]

Originally posted by Scyobi_Empire:

Solution: bring back the old classes that were removed and make Defence Platforms turn off like star bases do.

I'd rather not they turn off, it makes it more difficult to take a back a system you lost...

[sharky952]

Originally posted by Danny:

Originally posted by Scyobi_Empire:

Solution: bring back the old classes that were removed and make Defence Platforms turn off like star bases do.

I'd rather not they turn off, it makes it more difficult to take a back a system you lost...

It's a trade off not having to spend resource to build defense back. A little annoying with destroyed defense platform is you need spend some time clicking what you need, there's no defense platform manager to one click replenish destroyed defense platform in the same way with fleets.