Hive Needlejets :eek:

[MattyBoy]

I am playing my first SMAX game in perhaps a year.
I killed/submissived all but Yang, but am only marginally ahead of him on powergraph.

I had plenty of skimship supplies and sea formers supporting facility-rich bases, with most of the best SP's.

I have kept Yang in Pact until now and he has expanded like a rash.

Now here comes the crunch. A while ago he warned me that he has missile needlejets in production, but I was too busy to pay much attention. Now, I have declared war on him (without preparing adequately first, or taking advantage of infiltration to survey his bases) and I discover just how many needlejets and attack ships he has!!!!

No chance of surviving this battle with any reasonable infrastructure intact. I will be forced to switch back to peace and build again.

I had forgotten how punishing this game can be if you treat it too lightly.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Typically the AI places the airforce in a forawrd base. Using your infiltration you should be able to see which base that is.

Simply nerve gas the base into nothingness and then self destruct the appropriate amount of units to wipe out the Hiverian air armada.

I've been able to wipe out 30+ noodles in a single foray doing this. Cost me something like 4 units in total (4 chaos nerve gas chopper).

Its even better with higher reactors and higher weapons.

[Hydro]

A non-atrocity way of dealing with the air force is anti-aircraft choppers, which will eviscerate noodles (which are typically unarmored) even when in a city. They are dead meat if they are in the air.

Also, consider a few interceptors at your forward bases to protect your infrastructure from bombing runs.

Lastly, the AI is pretty hopeless in using its air power for anything except taking out your formers and crawlers. Keep these defended by armoring your crawlers (I like upgrading my old infantry (move 1) formers to fusion, plasma, super, clean; plasma armor fusion is a relatively cheap upgrade before super-clean). So, if you are playing for time to beef up your military, block and deceive by upgrading your forward defenses.

Oh, and don't forget the joys of probing Yang to death to steal tech and energy. It's cheap, but takes a little doing to get the vulnerable units into position. Crippling his economy can be fun since it punishes the Unenlightened One for his socialistic and economically backward proclivities.

[Curiosity]

Like Hobbes said: Interceptor choppers. Just use impact weapons, and they're dirt cheap.

If you don't have MMI then use SAM skimships - again, cheap weapons are perfectly fine. A few with decent weapons can handle the attack ships.

If one of your submissives is nearby, have them go to war with him, too. He'll probably start pounding them, and take the heat off you.

[MattyBoy]

Thankyou for the tips. Nerve gas and choppers are currently beyond me, but that gives me something to work towards.

[Flubber]

Has the AI built any SAM units or interceptors ?? If not, use your own planes as a barrier if the AI does its usual trick of putting all its planes in one base. Even the AI should catch on fairly quickly but I have used this to delay an AI attack until I am better prepared

I will also move crawlers/formers away from the axis of attack -- even armoured, units in the open are usually dead against airpower unless they have AA and i would prefer to spend my money on a counterattack. Often if the AI has no easy attacks, it will attack nothing. The AI does not seem to understand that losing 3 or 4 jets to kill one elite AA unit in an aerocomplex might be worthwhile if it can then kill a bunch of your jets/choppers or even take the base.

I have seen the HIve AI with 30 or 40 missile jets in a base and never attack-- I did have <4> garrisons with an AC and a sensor so the defense was over 3 times as strong as the attack value (20 vs 6 not counting morale effects). I just let them sit there for a little while until I got choppers, sacrificed a couple of jets against his defenders and then massacred the lot.

[Frankychan]

This happened to me w/Miriam.

Your a more honorable person than I......I usually say "screw it" and wait till my 'Buster is done.

[Vev]

That also works too.

[H0bbes]

Originally posted by Curiosity
Like Hobbes said: Interceptor choppers. Just use impact weapons, and they're dirt cheap.

I did? Cool!

[Curiosity]

Originally posted by H0bbes


I did? Cool!

Ooops, I mean Hydro! Lol, don't quite know everyone here yet. Too many new faces since last time.

[Hydro]

Curiosity - I was honored to be confused with HObbes!

Another trick is to put a plasma-fusion powered-AA defender with crawlers. Clean is good too, and relatively cheap. This will provide another block, especially if you have limited areas for mineral/energy/food extraction. The AI will attack the 'crawler' and die gloriously - teeheee.

[MattyBoy]

Has the AI built any SAM units or interceptors ?? If not, use your own planes as a barrier if the AI does its usual trick of putting all its planes in one base. Even the AI should catch on fairly quickly but I have used this to delay an AI attack until I am better prepared

Nothing built that fights against planes yet, so that will certainly work once I get enough planes in place (except that Hive is using multiple cities which makes it a little more of an effort.

I actually prefer to let the planes out then stop them from getting home on time, but those opportunities are less common.

[Lazerus]

As with everything Hiverian, where theres 1, just behind it you can be certain theres 50 more

[gwillybj]

Lazerus spoke truth:
As with everything Hiverian, where theres 1, just behind it you can be certain theres 50 more

Sometimes, my experience is slightly different:
As with everything Hiverian, where theres 1, just behind you theres 50 more