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[Aklyon]

Golems make the best scouts.

Botnet Golem not scout. Botnet Golem not care for such things as 'stealth' or 'small forces'. Botnet Golem argue with dyson sphere on off days about how to go about flooding system with units.

[Neonivek]

How are Heros? I thought of playing one with others because it would allow me to experience the game without needing to do an excessive amount of micromanagement.

[lastverb]

Do botnet zombies have ship caps? I noticed that golem stops shooting at certain type/mark ships after a while, and I saw shots that didn't leave zombies afterwards.

[Aklyon]

How are Heros? I thought of playing one with others because it would allow me to experience the game without needing to do an excessive amount of micromanagement.

Champions are interesting, but if you have one the AI will also get one (though they don't scale all the way up with you unless you fight a Heroic AI)

[onyhow]

@Aklyon Unless the golem is hammered by needler/laser/anti-starship guard post or fortresses...the buffed guard posts are scary...

[Aklyon]

Well yes, its not invincible. Theres a good reason it got dumped into its own minor faction, though.

[Frumple]

Botnet needs lot more support than armored, I found. Armored just kinda' rolls over everything by its lonesome. Botnet got splatted by a mark III system. Took out all the ships, sure, but then the spire maws and the starships and the guard posts and the etc. and so forth and so on ate it. Should have been paying more attention, but after using an armored golem as a violent battering ram I was kinda' expecting it to be tougher.

Then said armored golem came in and wiped the system out (after they had actually gained mass due to reinforcements) at something like a 5% hp cost

And then, iirc, walked right into the mark IV system beside it and cleaned that out 'cept for the command whatsit, too. Maybe another 10-15% hp.

Botnet's apparently good against stuff that can be reclaimed, though! Which... I'm finding actually isn't all that much. Poor botnet. At least leech starships can still shoot things. Part of that might be playing with the neinzul expansion enabled (if no hybrids). All of those buggers seem to be reclamation immune. Gonna' get another shot at using one better fairly soon, though. Latest game has a system with a botnet and an artillery golem in the same system. Ion I & III, too, and a radar jammer. And a shield generator so I needed to take it anyway. That was a happy thing.

[Draco18s]

Botnet's apparently good against stuff that can be reclaimed, though! Which... I'm finding actually isn't all that much. Poor botnet. At least leech starships can still shoot things.

Reclamation became useless when the AI started using guardians as its primary unit class.

One of my favorite tactics was to reclaim everything (Force Field Bearers + Engineers + Leech on a wormhole).

I once made the joke that "I don't build armies, I reclaim them."  And because I paid next to nothing for them, I'd lose them just as quickly.

(Addendum:  You can probably thank me for both the reclamation nerf, as well as some of the later buffs--one buff I saw coming before the nerf even hit primetime.  Bug reported the coming nerf as making reclamation less than worthless*).

v4.046 released on December 7th.  The day after that report.

[Frumple]

Well, I really like leech starships so far (usually the first starship I sink knowledge into). They've been quite incredible as screens and firesoaks versus non-guardian forces, even when you can't reclaim stuff, and just chew right on through the non-starship stuff. Definitely they do more damage than when that report was issued, heh. They're currently at ~6.5k damage/second (~13k/every two seconds) per shot (and six shots, coming up to ~39k/mark total output) and quite readily chew through lots of chaff ships. Also fairly tough, alright range, etc., so forth, so on. Wish I could build more of them, and it's always nice to send a full wolfpack of them into a large fight and come out ahead. Multiplayer game we were playing this weekend, one fight I threw the six fleet into and came out with 390 or so new ships, iirc

I mean, the ships were blown up not too long after that but still! Also since then they've been patched so health is equal to reclaimation damage, not 1/2 of it. It's pretty easy to come out with full or mostly full health units, when you can recoup them at all.

Biggest problem with leech starships is that they're outranged and weak vs. missile frigates. But, well... that's what the spire blade spawners are for _{(protip: Spire blade spawners are for goddamn everything. Okay, barring stuff immune to blade attacks. Everything else, though!)}

The specific fairly major problem with the botnet golem is that it just doesn't attack unreclaimable targets at all. Leech ships, parasites, etc., can still fire and damage enemies even if it doesn't reclaim, but a botnet without something bot is relatively flimsy deadweight. I mean, I'll be paying better attention this time, but when it's matched up against the armored golem which you just v+rightclick into enemy systems and go deal with the other side of your empire or whatever, the botnet is high maintenance, in terms of player attention. Still holding out on if the payoff's worth it, though.

[lastverb]

I use botnet just to neutralize a system. When everything but command station and special forces (all the reclaimation immunities that aren't MASSacred by masses of zombies, short of mark V) are down i can just send a few bombers or easily expandable bomber/raid starships to finish them off. That doesn't work as well when you get some expansions AIs like spirelings I mentioned earlier - everything is just reclaimation-proof.

[Draco18s]

Well, I really like leech starships so far (usually the first starship I sink knowledge into). They've been quite incredible as screens and firesoaks versus non-guardian forces, even when you can't reclaim stuff, and just chew right on through the non-starship stuff. Definitely they do more damage than when that report was issued, heh. They're currently at ~6.5k damage/second (~13k/every two seconds) per shot (and six shots, coming up to ~39k/mark total output) and quite readily chew through lots of chaff ships. Also fairly tough, alright range, etc., so forth, so on. Wish I could build more of them, and it's always nice to send a full wolfpack of them into a large fight and come out ahead. Multiplayer game we were playing this weekend, one fight I threw the six fleet into and came out with 390 or so new ships, iirc

Well yeah, the damage numbers have changed several times since that particular report.

[Frumple]

Actually... I'm now wondering. Is there any immobile reclaimers in the game? Reclamation turrets or whatev'? Or a way to trick AI mobile reclaimers into staying still/not attacking?

I kinda' feel like playing fleetship ping pong.

[Draco18s]

Actually... I'm now wondering. Is there any immobile reclaimers in the game? Reclamation turrets or whatev'? Or a way to trick AI mobile reclaimers into staying still/not attacking?

I kinda' feel like playing fleetship ping pong.

Not that I know of.

[Frumple]

Curses.

... maybe I can just find an AI system with a good reclamation force and somehow convince them to attack me back with whatever I reclaim in their general direction.

[Neonivek]

Curses.

... maybe I can just find an AI system with a good reclamation force and somehow convince them to attack me back with whatever I reclaim in their general direction.

Won't that feed the AI? to my knowledge everytime the AI kills something of your their get better.