Hellfire torpeadoes AI bug: Lifesaving!

[d0om]

So the Psilons in this game are runaway, with too much gropo tech and computer tech for me to be able to get any tech off them. They have the Klackons as allies and I have the humans and darlocks, and as Silicoids with no-one with radiated bases I have a lot of systems, so I should be able to get a council vote win if I can hold them off till +120pop tech.

They built a new design which was massacring my fleets, a large with 2 hellfire torpedoes, 9 shield and repulsor beam. My best shields is 5 and so the hellfire missiles rip though my large ships while my small ships are worthless against the repulsor beam.

However, the AI THINKS that the hellfire missiles can penetrate my planetary shields, but they can't.

This means their ships simply fly next to my bases and keep firing for 50 turns slowly being wiped out (I only have damage 10 missiles vs 9 shield!)

Since the hellfire missiles do 25 damage to all 4 shields and do half damage as its against a planet they can only penetrate 12.5 shields, while I have X+V=15. The computer seems to think hellfire do 100 damage though!

Its a bit of an exploit, but I can't really not use it since you can't run missile bases away!

Has anyone else noticed this before?

[Zed-F]

Nope! My games are usually over by this point, tech-wise. It does occasionally happen that an AI gets way up the tech tree but I've never had one try to use hellfires on my bases that I can recall.

[d0om]

yes, normally games don't go on that long for me either, I think this is the first time I have seen the AI use hellfire torpedoes.

Oddly they stopped using them on me when I hit 27 shields at planets, but were happy to try at 15-17. Maybe they think that torpedoes don't do half damage to planets, like missiles? That seems a fairly likely AI bug to crop up.

[meatbalz]

that's something i meant to ask about out of curiosity - what does that mean, "all 4 shields"?

[jmas]

what does that mean, "all 4 shields"?

I believe it is just a flowery (in a science fiction way) way of saying that the weapon is considered to score four hits of equal intensity (whereas other weapons of comparable tech level score only one hit, though for somewhat higher damage) on the target. The developers may have envisioned ships having four shields surrounding them, but IMO did not explain this very well in the manual or anywhere else.

An image comes to mind: C3PO, er, the GNN droid saying, "One more hit on the back quarter and we're done for!"

[Maniac Marshall]

Its a bit of an exploit, but I can't really not use it since you can't run missile bases away!

Well, you COULD click done 50 times and not fire the missiles. You aren't forced to fire missiles from the bases, but then again, how often would you want to not do so, so the option probably never occured.

Personally, I'd have just clicked auto and toasted them like you probably did, but there was the option not to.

[d0om]

OK, I could have clicked done 50 times... but auto is so much quicker!

[vmxa]

that's something i meant to ask about out of curiosity - what does that mean, "all 4 shields"?

I think they are talking about the four sides. Front, back, and two sides. In Moo2 they are actually shown as they are damaged and you can turn to present an undamaged facing.


As to Hellfire, I am not sure, but I have seen some torps fired at planets and not do damage and they stay there. Not sure what torps or shields were involved, other than not Plasma torps. Those will have an effect.