[Baron Munchausen]

Yes, the vulnerability of the "straight ahead" attack style of the AI to missile dancing has been noted both here and on the beta forums many times. So far, none of our suggestions for modifying the way missiles work or re-arranging the default techs of the game has been applied. You should realize, though, that ships which carry only capital ship missiles have vulnerabilities of their own. For example, their main armament is useless against satellites. If a huge fleet of these ships pops through a warp point and finds dozens of heavily armed satellites waiting for them they will be slaughtered since only their point-defense guns will work against the sats. The same problem occurs against a race that relies heavily on fighters. Missiles cannot target fighters either and the "Earth Alliance" mod race would probably wipe the floor with any of the default races that merely had the "missile dance" strategy. It's probably wise not to setup a race to use ONLY missiles. Too bad you cannot tell it what proportion of it's "attack" or "defense" ships should use a particular design so you could maintain a favored style.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 30 January 2001).]