Actually, the only thing I hate about siege frigates is that they don't help the attack of ships. When there is a planet, they just ram themselves for the planet and start bombing even if there is a starbase or other defense structure preventing attack. So they die like nuts. Unlike the cap ships which fight off the other ships and structures before attacking the planet.

I'd say every point you made is true. Preaching to the choir. I DO like how annoying the AI makes the SF though by sending them to the gravity well you jumped from.

If you like watching the AI throw away its resources with seige frigate attacks, wait until you see it attack an upgraded starbase!  Can you say, "Goodbye AI fleet?"

There is...of course...a solution and an alternative way to play the game for people who desire challenging opponents that don't play with one hand tied around their backs and that don't suicide themselves on starbases and who don't throw gobs of credits and resources into seige frigates.  Have you considered playing the game in online multiplayer against live human opponents?  (It's that pesky "Ironclad Online" button.)  You'll discover more challenging opponents, more intense and suspenseful games, human teammates, camraderie, and more fulfilling victories.  You might even make some online friends.  You'll also get to enjoy having to deal with added strategic considerations related to playing a game with actual teammates against an opposing team.  You just need to be patient while you learn to hold your own online, but it's very worthwhile.

(I apologize if I've offended anyone, but recommending online multiplayer is the only way to properly respond to a complaint about the AI's tactical and strategic ability, and playing against other people is the only way to get around it.)

And with Diplomacy, maybe the rushing and feeding that overwhelms the new players will disappear... hopefully.

If it does, then mulitplayer just may get a few more players

Your posts don't offend.  However, in MP you open a whole new can of complaint.  You see, I don't see MP as being any less predictable than the AI.  Smarter?  In most cases, absolutely.  It's just, well, boring.  If you deviate from the current build order, you die!.  If you don't spam the favored unit of the current patch, you die!  If you pick the 'wrong' cap, you die!  Sounds rather monotonous to me.  (The AI is as well, just no where near as bad as a human, especially the highly competitive, win at all costs type.  They seem to be playing not for fun, but for ego stroking.)  The other annoyance I have with MP is that all games are played at MAX SPEED1!!11.  That alone take a huge amount of strategy out of your arsenal.  And I suppose I should also state that I did not intend to offend the MP crowd with this post.

/Edit - Forums go boom!  and wth is my post bolded?  I can't turn if off either!  

I was NOT trying to open a discussion about multiplayer. I was suggesting that if the devs simply fixed this issue, and of course the suicides on starbases and the random picks of capital ships, the AI would be much more competent. Meaning a significantly better SP experience. All I'm saying is I know the main issues with the AI right now.

I can't currently play multiplayer anyway. My PC is wireless only, being upstairs, and in my area, there is a TON of interference (I can see 30+ routers in range), meaning multiplayer is currently not an option.

I just thought of something

Do you all notice that if you build a turrent while a seige ship is bombing, it moves into a clear location away from danger?

WHY doesn't the AI fleet us that same mechanic to skirt pass your starbase?  Most human players would avoid it until they realize that it has endruing devotion, or some such thing and has to be destroyed to take the planet.  It seems quite simple to do, sense the code is already partialy there....

These are exactly my feelings about the AI and siege frigates.  I often like playing quick 1v1's against the AI, but when it decides to build siege frigates that's just the end.  It prioritizes replacing those siege frigates above all other unit types, so eventually its fleet just becomes 100% siege frigate, at which point there's no military fleet left to stop me from crushing it.  Even unfair AI's die out because the only thing keeping them alive was the fact that they were pumping units out as quickly as I could kill them!  If those units become siege frigates, it's over.

That said, some AI behavior types don't build siege frigates... unfortunately I'm pretty sure all those behavior types like to rush into trade ports, which has the same effect.  Their flow of frigates suddenly comes to a standstill because they spent all their cash on a few trade ports that are woefully inefficient that early in the game.

Also, the easiest way to counter siege frigates is with scouts.  You need about 2 scouts (a mere 4 command points, 6 for Vasari) to counter each siege frigate the enemy sends.

I agree this is a gaping whole with the siege frigates, ultimately crushing their empire. But my question remains: why don't the devs just fix it?

I suspect that the AI may still inhabit game versions before 1.05...  AI improvements might consume too much development time without having enough advertising impact.  What the AI might need is an instruction that siege frigates are to be used when its own ships have the grav well, rather than when it spots an empty hostile grav well- if siege frigates are useful at all.

However there is a solution, have the players design the AI.  There are at least two successful styles for existing RTS games.  One is scripted, where the AI is rewritten using a simplified code.  This would require the developers to implement the necessary code, however.  The other is to have the variables used by the AI set in a text file, so that they can be experimented with by players.  This might not require as much development work..?  With the first the script creator could set conditions for the AI to build and utilise siege frigates based on its own situation.  With the second, the player adjusts the frequency of the decisions taken randomly by the AI, so the frequency of siege frigate builds could be restricted.  I'm not sure that the second type has been used for tactical AI though. 

With either method, the script creator would get to name the AI, if this could be put in game to replace the randomly chosen name it might add to the fun.     

What I find is that the AI prioritizes replacing certain unit types.  If its siege frigates are dead, its top priority is to replace them, above replacing combat units.  This is stupid for obvious reason.  Similarly, among combat units it appears to value light frigates the highest.  If you killed some LRF and some LF, it will replace its LF first.  After about five minutes of fighting, its entire army will be LF because it prioritizes replacing these first.

The way it makes decisions needs to change so it's more context sensitive.  It makes no sense to replace your LF when you're dying to LRF spam, just as it makes no sense to replace SF when there are no defenseless enemy planets to attack and you're on the defensive.

While siege frigate production can be scripted to conditions or made less frequent by the variables method, the LRF spam problem is a flaw in the balance of the game.  LRF are too effective compared to LF- they should cost more supply (as a higher tech unit) so users need to up their supply early in the game, and be made dedicated LF killers, with a secondary role against turrets, being more heavily penalised against caps/cruisers (less effectiveness) and carriers (less speed).  As it is LRF have too many roles as LF killers/cap ship killers/turret killers, and are also useful against carriers and cruisers because of their longer range and the over-effective Repulsion.

Without a new balance scripts might just build a few LF early, variables might limit the frequency of LF when higher tech units are available.  Then the AI would also spam LRF.... this would just tune the AI to the existing balance issues though.

What either script or variable method can't achieve is to counter-spam units, they tend not to count their dead or 'see' the enemy.  The scripted method depends on terrain and the condition of the AI's own empire.  Adjusted variables just attempt to produce a proper balance of units, and between fleet, research and economic development.  The AI also needs to adjust its diplomacy to its strategy rather than the reverse, then you wouldn't get fleets moving completely across the system just to help an ally gain another planet.  This is simple to set up if the AI structure exists- it doesn't seem to currently, it might appear with the second expansion. 

Some of the most famous RTS games have the most easily adjustable AI.  If there was a host as observer-only option together with player-adjustable AI, we could have battles between competing AI.    

I was in a game last night where a guy minidumped.  At the end of the game I looked at the stats and saw that his AI had built a whopping 39 (or some ridiculous number) of Refineries!  The AI apparently had no understanding of how refineries work and they did little to increase its metal and crystal production.

The devs have stated that they are "fixing" siege frigates, see reply #19 in this thread at the Strategy forum, just about at the same time you opened your thread.

That doesn't fix AI behavior, which is sending unescourted siege frigates into an enemy gravity well.  Sure, it'll catch you off guard as a newbie, but experienced players know they can just leave 10 command in scouts behind and it will clean up whatever is sent before it even reaches the planet.  Sure, they'll be buffed, but not to the level at which they can be sent in unescourted.

I think there is still a bug in the game [Entrenchment] that will count mines as refineries.

I find it amusing that when you jump to the next planet the AI immediately sends 4-5 siege frigates to where you've just come from. Duh!

As I said, it catches a newbie by surprise, but the thing is it will only fool you once.  After that, you'll always leave a guard and the siege frigates will warp in to find someone shooting at them.

This leads to the (very humourous) scenario where the siege frigates run away back to where they came from, only to find a battle going on there and decide to attack the planet again, so they just keep phasing back and forth until they die... then as soon as they do die the AI prioritizes them for immediate replacement.

Darvin's got it exactly right. The AI needs a fix, not just the frigates themselves.

Thanks for the support! Should we email this thread to the devs or something?

They're watching.  Not always posting, but they're watching.

If you corner a cap it will do the same, to and fro until it's gone. And it will nearly always jump to the same point in the gravity well so you can have ships sitting there waiting.

Ive never had an AI truely throw their fleets against a starbase of mine. most of the ships they send would be more of a task force size. five or six or less ships of varying ships.  But theyve never threw Caps and more important ships at me like that. Usually they turn those ships around or jump to another planet i hold while the small task force distracts my Starbases.............kindof smart of them except ive learned on the smaller maps to just put Cap's at mid lvl in various gravity wells between Starbases and essential planets.

If you want more of a challenge, dip into the gameply.constants file, look under playerAIsharedDef and change BuildShip to something between 20-30. Set the Ai to Unfair agressor. The AI will go crackers building ships. I've seen it attack with 6 caps and 200+ frigates. I had to pull in all my fleets to save the planet.

Sadly the AI more often than not will just leave its cap to die in battle rather than running it away.  Really quite sad.

now that I am on it, I have to say something: I'd say the problem is not so much how they use siege frigs, but that they use them at all and to the extent they do, given their extremely high cost. said cost weakens the ai's combat fleet and that in the long run makes it a bad competitor.

but the way it uses them is often times pretty clever. it attacks barely defended worlds, sneaks past point defenses and gets out when the job is done. only, it not always pulls out when faced with opposition when it is clear that they won't be able to kill that planet off. but in general, the way the ai deploys them is nasty and irritating and as such they do in fact fulfill a purpose. yeah, they're not very hard to destroy, but it forces you to keep small mobile defenses scattered around or face the consequences.

and with the upcoming patch, they may not be such a horrible waste of resources. probably still not a very efficient use of them, but ... we'll see ...