Re: SEV early game battle strategy vs. SEIV
 

I agree completely that it is reasonable behavior. That's why I am surprised. The stock AI in SEIV rarely acted that realistically.

Re: SEV early game battle strategy vs. SEIV
 

LOL, true, very true!

Re: SEV early game battle strategy vs. SEIV
 

"Proabably" overpowered? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Unless you're going up against a dedicated PD ship (which I haven't seen the AI field yet), fighters will obliterate any ship. For example, my current battleship designs carry enough PDCs to effectively counter the missile barrages of enemy battleships, and take 5 turns to construct. I can build 25 fighters in 5 turns, and those 25 fighters have managed to destroy 3-4 battleships quite easily. So yeah, if you want to cause the AI serious pain, go with fighters.
Just not too many, since the demo crashes when a large group of fighters all fire at the same time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

As for the OP, I'd guess your problem probably comes from the missiles. What unfortunately seems to happen in SE5 is that the AI will unload all it's missiles at the first target to enter firing range. I've had cases where a planet capable of launching 100 missiles at a time has been attacked by frigates that die after one or two hits. But what ends up happening is the first frigate to enter range gets 100 missiles launched at it, and the others close to firing range while the missiles are reloading. End result is usually one dead ship and a glassed planet, which is kinda crap, given that the planet theoretically had the ability to wipe out the entire attacking force before it entered weapons range.

Re: SEV early game battle strategy vs. SEIV
 

Hmm, all this sounds rather buggy/unbalanced ... I would have expected better balance/more sensible combat in this 5th SE installment http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: SEV early game battle strategy vs. SEIV
 

You'd think so wouldn't you. But then, stock SE has never really been balanced. Such niggling details have been left up to our lovely modding community. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: SEV early game battle strategy vs. SEIV
 

Should planets actually get more defense penalty than, say, a space base or satelites? I mean, sure, you can hit a planet easily enough, but trying to hit a tiny installation on the planet is alot harder.

Re: SEV early game battle strategy vs. SEIV
 

I refer you back to said SE modding community. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Seriously though, the planetary defense penalty is good in the sense that I'm sure I'm not the only one who watched in horror as one of their ships closed in on an enemy planet, fired all it's weapons... and missed completely. Nor, I'm betting, am I the only one who cried "You missed a planet?! How can you miss a planet?!!" But I do think there should be some representation of the fact that while it is very easy to hit a planet, it's a fair bit trickier to hit a specific target on a planet. I can't think of how that might work though. Maybe planets should have a large amount of leaky armor, thus making it so that while you may be guaranteed hitting the planet, hitting a weapon's platform or population in general would become considerably harder.

Re: SEV early game battle strategy vs. SEIV
 

Well, the animation just needs to show the shots hitting the _planet_, but whether or not that does damage to anything meaningful, should be another matter.

Re: SEV early game battle strategy vs. SEIV
 

This can be partly compensated for with the new detailed damage types. You can set a specific percentage of its rated damage that a weapon does to armor, shields, and interior components. You can also set a specific percentage of its rated damage that it does to target types, like ships vs. units. So, Phased Polaron beams might be nasty weapons in ship vs. ship combat but they are probably wimpy against big concrete bunkers on the surface of a planet. Well, you can mod that now.

Re: SEV early game battle strategy vs. SEIV
 

Maybe it's just me, but why go for larger hull sizes when you can mput Heavy mounts on a level 7 frigate?