Botnet Golem seems... underwhelming?

[KDR_11k]

The BNG says it "inhales" enemy fleets. That description seems to come from AIW1's 2-billion-damage-per-shot BNG, not its 2000 damage per shot AIW2 incarnation. With the lower damage it takes a good amount of shooting to convert the tankier foes. Only the really high number of shots seem truly unique to the golem. It seems like a decent combatant with massive weaknesses like its inability to harm guardians and structures. I'm not seeing much use from the zombies either since they tend to be converted a few at a time and immediately gunned down by the other ships.

Considering it's 50 AIP in addition to the 20 for the planet and is a lone wolf (despite requiring support to deal with the many things it cannot damage at all) it just doesn't seem like a good choice compared to, say, the Hive Golem and its all-devouring swarm of attack drones.

[peterebbesen]

Which of the officer/golems/spire frigates AREN'T underwhelming in their current state when playing a normal low-AIP game?

Of those I've tried so far, only the Hive Golem and Black Widow Golem seem worth their AIP cost. Other non-loner Golems can be worth it if they come with really good fleets, but in general it is hard to pay that extra price for a slow transport/combatant.

Given that they move so slowly that they are worthless for the job of ferrying fleets around quickly from one front to another (to say nothing of deepstriking), their unique ability has to be truly great for it to be worth the extra AIP over a bog standard 2200 movement transport. Just being able to do individual high damage doesn't cut it when you compare the cost to flipping two planets with goodies rather than one unless you are playing a high-AIP game.

[KDR_11k]

I think the BNG is a decent fire support unit in a larger fleet action but definitely no lone wolf. I think a big downside is the automatic kiting behavior, by moving so its target is at the edge of its range it usually doesn't have very many enemies in range and doesn't utilize its only real strength, that stupidly high shot count. Stacking further complicates this. The default stacking threshold is like 30, the Golem has like 80x multishots which means unless you've got a huge mix of unit types you may not even have 80 targets in play in total.

Also it's hard to tell by eye but does zombification work properly on stacks? It should spawn a zombie every time the stack loses a unit but I can only spot zombies spawning when there's an actual explosion (ie an unstacked unit dying).

I believe the officers and lone wolves are balanced around EXP grinding so you get them up to mkV eventually and have some real firepower at no science cost. Going to the higher marks requires a LOT of fighting though...

[peterebbesen]

Lone wolves are definitely balanced around EXP grinding, and officers are probably intended to but not all successfully - at least before 1.008; haven't had any officers yet in the new build.

I've got to admit that when playing medium- or high-AIP, I do love the three spire frigate types and find them well worth their cost and with 1.008's balance changes buffing them further, I might even consider one for low AIP games.

...though I wonder why the hell that Alien Core research category exists. Given that mk. 7 is the highest, investing in that tech is science down the drain for a very temporary advantage (ends when level + tech mark >= 7), and you are paying an eye-watering 5k tech cost for the first mark out of four. Given how rapidly a spire frigate levels at 200%XP if one lets it munch on AI fleets alone or supported by fixed defenses, who would ever want to pay that?