I already knew they cheated in those ways, and would assume it's intentional, but damn that's a big difference.

has anyone beaten vicious yet.  I can take down a 8 person ffa of cruel.

Vicious isn't too hard in large FFA games.  The trick is to set up Diplomatic alliances and let them thrash each other for you.  1v1 on the other hand... nope.  I've done it against Cruel, but it took me 5 hours for that one game.  You have to quickly establish critical chokepoints and fortify them against massive invasion fleets. 

Vicious isnt impossible. 2-3 is my limit currently.

Like I said, I found it interesting if nothing else. It doesnt bother me that its this way...lol...its just I dont remember anything saying they got a boost research wise also.

I don't really see the point of an AI that cheats to that degree.  You're basically forced to abuse the AIs stupidity in dealing with chokepoints.  I'd rather play hard or unfair AIs and beat them without starbase or Marze abuse.

But Vasari starbase abuse against the AI is one of their greatest strengths against cheater AI, since their ships are far less efficient in terms of cost, fleet supply, and stats/damage. 

One possibility is to start a game with a Vicious AI, then save, quit, and load up the save to tone them down to Hard.  This gives the AI a leg up, without the player having to abuse AI weaknesses to keep pace and win.

Geez, that's a retardedly high advantage, lol. Personally I hate cheating AI's, I'd rather AI's just get smarter.

What I don't understand is why at Hard difficulty or above... the AI does not use:

1) Ultimate Ship/Starbase Abilities - I have never seen the AI use Missile Barrage on a lev 10 Marza or detonate a TEC Starbase right before it died to wipe out my fleet... this is HUGE! Frankly this crap should be enabled on Hard+. This would help SO much... I have literally fought a Hard AI fleet that had three level 10 Marzas... at the time I encountered them I didn't have a single Kortul/Marauder... I should have been 100% screwed if they had just activated Missile Barrage all at once. Instead my carriers just wiped the floor with them.

2) Super Weapons. Personally? I'd like to see this, although it'd be hard to make the AI use the P.S. aspects of the Kostura Cannon effectively... infact, it'd be hard for the AI to use that one effectively at all - it takes more finesse than just randomly firing it off like the other two... but it'd be better than nothing.

These two adjustments would be huge in making the game more difficult, honestly. I mean for the AI to not utilize any of the most powerful abilities they can obtain? That's just retarded. Fairly often in this game when I'm fighting several opponents on hard and they finally gang up on me - the only reason I win is because the AI doesn't use a single ultimate. And if I ever tech up a super weapon? It's game over... which sucks... imo the AI should tech up their SW and we should get to have a cataclysmic show down that leaves half the galaxy in ruin, damnit! It'd be nice to actually lose this game once and have it not involve an opponent that just gets 3x the speed/resources that I do (save you speech Sanchez, I'm aware of multiplayer ).

Instead we get AI's that are better at cheating and Super-Pirates that have been chasing the Vasari for 10,000 years. I really feel like IC dropped the ball on this expansion.

I have actually seen the AI use ultimate ship abiltiies with Diplomacy (not sure about Entrenchment). I saw an Akkan hit Armistice and went WTF. It was kinda cool.

They did change the super weapons to autocast by default for the AI but I have still not seen them build one yet.

I've also noticed Vasari has issues getting starbases constructed by the time TEC and Advent AI's have many starbases constructed.

You've seen the AI use an ultimate?

At what difficulty?????????????????????????????????????

Well I personaly dislike the AI using super weapons. Like other RTS I feel a rush to get the superweapons lame. I dont use superweapons so its not a disadvantage for the AI. I also dont usually build Marza's till end game when Im tired of building Dunvos and Akkans. Usually just 1 for Raze Planet. LOL.

And Ive seen the AI use lvl 6 abilites all the time. Even in Entrechment. Of course I play Distant Stars to much sometimes. And we fixed that awhile ago. Watching a lvl6 Marza use Missle Barrage against is actually fun to watch. Well the first wave at least...muhahahahaha....Ion Bolts and Magnetize.

Yeah, I think capital ships started using their Level 6 abilities by default in Diplomacy.  Oddly enough, the first time I saw it was against an Akkan as well.  It threw me for a loop.  I of course responded by using my own Akkan's Level 6 Armistice afterward.  I think they changed Armistice at some point to make ALL ships in the vacinity Invulernable too.  I'd want to double check, but I remember before that only the Akkan was Invulnerable.  At one point in previous versions of the core game strikecraft used to be able to continue their attack during an armistice as well-- making for an unfair advantage if you had enough bombers to take out a capital ship or two in 60 seconds. 

Yeah but what difficulty are you guys playing at? I normally play against Hard, occaisionally with an Unfair thrown in for giggles. I played SINS for three hours yesterday, fought several level 6-8 cap ships, and still haven't seen them use one ultimate .

Have you seen Starbases use their abilities yet? I still haven't seen an Advent SB use meteor swarm, or for that matter the disorient ability - or anything else! Same thing goes for the other Starbases... which is really a freaking shame... Starbases should be a PITA to fight. If they are afraid this would make the game too hard, at least give us a toggle .

As for the rush to build Super Weapons, I can see that. It'd be cool if maybe when you researched the tech, they researched theirs (provided they had enough labs) - that way it wouldn't be a race, but a carefully considered escalation into M.A.D., lol.

-Itharus

Once you hit the level 'unfair', I assume they cheat. I didn't know it was that big of a difference, but makes sense now that I think about the abuse they deal. I don't really mind an AI cheating because a human is typically smarter than an AI and can learn their triggers. It would be nicer to have smarter AIs rather than have them cheat, but that's a technological problem that hasn't been solved by people doing far more important work than what goes into a video game.I'm comfortable with it, but glad to know exactly what I'm up against now. Excuse me while I go turtle and cry.

Are there any dev team plans in a future patch or maybe even player mods that up the AI difficulty without cheating?  I've never enjoyed playing against an AI that cheats, I simply want them to be as smart as possible in playing the game.  I'd just really like a new difficulty level that doesn't cheat, but is smarter and harder than the highest non-cheating difficulty.  Also, any chance of getting an AI type that plays relatively balanced (i.e. One that is a combination of all the AI types)?

You're asking for too much if you want a non-cheating AI that can keep up with a human. Also, at this point it's highly unlikely that there will any major content patches - IE new AI difficulties or any other major revision to the game. After two years and two expansions(which have pretty much pushed the engine to the limit) there isn't much profit motive to add free content via a patch. Making any major changes to the AI is unfortunately also not possible by modders since it is hardcoded into the game.