Does anyone else think AM missiles are unbalanced?

I call them the great equalizers. Hopelessly outclassed by AI? Churn them out and have a turkey shoot. Tough avatar orbiting a system? Have it eat a missle and the road is clear.

The AI doesn't respond in kind. AI AMMs invariably get shot up by human ships while floating around the galaxy. I don't recall losing anything significant to date in all my games to AI AMMs.

The solutions are either to teach the AI to use them much more effectively or to make them less effective as suggested above.

I think AM missiles are great, but I also think the AI should be coded to know how to use them and how to deal with the player using them. If that can't be done, then they should be taken out of the game because I agree that they are too easy to use to devestate the poor computer players.

Is it just me or is the AMM really limited in attacking ships in orbit though? I know the defending ship has better stats while in orbit but the difference was just huge...

Buzu,

AMM's are not foolproof, and I have played games in which the AI effectively counters them with Corvettes, Phoenixes and even (AF-assisted) Scouts.

First, their low DF, combined with a minimal # of HP's & slow speed, renders them vulnerable to any attacker possessing a speed bonus. Mid-game, it is not uncommon for an AI to have a 1-2 MF advantage over them (esp. with Gravity Accelerators) and be able to position a far less expensive "throwaway" screen within range to either (a) take them out, or (b) force you to expend one or more of them against it.

In a longer-term game (on Large/Huge maps), you are effectively conceding an IU advantage of 10-50 points per vessel lost when exchanging an AMM for a Corvette, Phoenix or Scout. AMM's are only cost-effective if sent against capital ships (BC's or above). This presumes there is no screen that either does not attack first, or only has 1-2 MF with which to attack a cluster of AMM's (and so can only eliminate 1 or 2).

A favorite AI tactic under 1.03.057A is to send a light vessel adjacent to any planet and attack any AMM's it encounters in orbit. The AI is quite content to exchange these ships for AMM's whenever possible.

Secondly, AMM's by nature cannot gain experience - they are one-shot deals. This is important when one considers that each level of experience is equal to +1 AF/DF (a 2 pt. gain total).

Thirdly, even with a 100+ AF, AMM's can misfire and fail to kill their target. I have seen them leave even BC's with 2 or 3 HP's left. It is not common, but it happens enough to rule out making AMM's your only line of defense. You need capital ships, with multiple MF's, to "finish off" crippled targets (or expend a second AMM to kill something with only that # of HP's).

Lastly, it is common mid- to late-game for the AI to have built it's "ship-bonus" structures (Shipyards, SB modules, etc.), raising its ship values. This necessitates expending multiple AMM's to eliminate vessels, driving the IU ratio ("kill-cost") up even higher. At 600-900 IU's (2-3 AMM's), only Rangers, Avatars & Overlords are cost-effective targets.

Thus, they are a useful tool (and vital for mid-game survival), but not a panacea.

I too, however, have never seen the AI build them. The only time I have seen the AI use them is when they are given as a gift, in which case the AI sets them to auto-attack the nearest enemy ship, regardless of size. (Very dissapointing to watch an AMM you just gave your closest ally in trouble go directly after a scout...). This might be why they don't bother to build them.

~SDC~

Agreed, I don't see the point of building anything else when you have them .. I find them so much cheesy I don't build them anymore in fact, just to keep things interesting ! (I play with Intelligent AI, doesn't use them either)

As the game is now I'm not sure of how to balance them : making them costlier will render them useless, maybe reducing their Attack to 40-some...
Else a "counter-weapon", think of some Space AEGIS would be the right solution, but impossible to create ..

After reading Def Zeps comments, I realized that AMM's would be drastically less effective if I didn't have Gravity Acceleraters. Of course, I've never once played a gave where I didn't have them and I usually have 100% of the trade goods. . .

Also, AMM's are never at just 100 attack - by the time you build them I think you have to have at least 2 required techs that give 10% bonuse to attack, possibly more, and if you have starship bonuses on the planets you create them from then their attack is even larger. Then add in military resources, and watch out! I've seem AMM's out of orbit with attack values in the 300's. Not even overlords will survive that very often.

Lastly, the Altarians build them very regularly in the games I've played, and they use them pretty effectively against the other AI's. But I'd like to see the other races use them too, and for all the races to use them effectively against human players.

~SDC~

Why is it that building fighters left and right or building missiles is somehow cheesy and not worthy of play? I mean if you're able to do it in game, without a mod, then the tactic is fairgame and the fault lies with the AI for not recognizing the cheese tactic.

I dont care of a player from the metaverse used a cheese tactic or not. If the player does that and by extension the AI learns to do that, then the player would counter the cheese tactic and by extension the AI should also learn the counter as well...so I dont see why you let the AI learn things the player does and try to exploit it itself... It'd make for an interesting game.

PS-- Besides...lets face it.... I'm at war with the other 5 empires and I could give a rat's rear end if I employee cheesy or dirty tactics. My goal is the survival and expansion of the human species...and if I have to use a dirty cheesy tactic to bring it about, then that's fair game.

I mean lets face it, in the Revolutionary war, the British thought we were using cheese tactics by not marching up to them in a straight line, taking pots shots from hidden locations, and being out of uniform. They thought it bad form, but you know what? That bad form wins wars. If you don't like the bad form, learn to play dirty yourself or find a decent counter to the tactic. That's certainly a better solution than nerfing items because the computer doesn't use them effectively

The correct (though time consuming) solution is to improve the AI when it comes to dealing with them. AMM's always defend first in a stack, so relying on them to the exclusion of anything else for defense is suicide if the attacker has a clue (which right now the the AI doesn't): move a stack of starfighters to one square out of AMM range, next turn run up to the planet and nuke all the AMM's. Even if you don't get all of them, what is the opponent going to do, spend an AMM on a starfighter?

The AMM is actually a fairly weak unit in many ways, it's current strength is from a lack of AI ability to deal with it, so the missile itself isn't what is causing the inbalance.

The concept of the AMM is good and it does seem to have a niche role among light and heavy ships. However, the implementation needs to be improved for the AI.

Other useful things humans can do with AMMs:

a) Need the Dregs to bash up on your sworn enemies, the Torians? Gift wrap 2 AMMs (with the words "Die Torians" on them) for a declaration of war by the Dregs

Need to covertly cream an Altarian starbase or two? Point two AMMs at the starbase and send them to their enemies. Much better then gifting warships as AMMs will not return to haunt you.

I thought that AMs were great at first, also. HOWEVER, somewhere along the line, they seemed to become very inneffective in my current game. I have yet to figure out exactly why they became inneffective, but it was obvious to me (after losing one after the other) that they went from being a mainstay to being kind of worthless. So I do not feel that they actualy are overpowered -- they have their place, like any other ship you build. You just can't depend on them forever.
-Haldur





~SDC~

I like AMMs as they are. Yes they are powerful in attack (although I just had one with 400 AFs bounce off a Dreadnaught) but they are slow and completely vulnerable to light ships. Worst of all, they go away.

If you consider them unbalancing, lobby for an AI mod that makes it understand how to counter them.


~SDC~

Just for fun to mess with the stupid AI I sent in a convoy of transports with no escort at all save for a single scout taking point, and one AMM to take out the orbiting battleaxe. When the 'defenders' see the scout, they commit 100% of their forces in the area (usually a few battleships and dreadnoughts) to catching that scout, (which they never do). The scout just goes in circles leading them on a merry chase. Meanwhile the transports come in and take the defenseless planet.

The AI needs to stop falling for such obvious tricks.