"2" carriers and strategic AI issue in the campaign

[CaptainHaplo 1]

During the campaign, after fulcrum, one of my islands was attacked. I figured it was just one of those drive by kind of things, so I continued on my tasks. Still, after a while I ended up going by the island in question. Suprisingly, the enemy carrier was still there. Using a manta with heavy armor, lasers and missiles +ammo box - I was able to afterburn in close and take out the 3 of 4 flak guns. Once this was done, I launced a few missiles into the engines, at which point the Carrier pivoted and started to speed away. I had done some damage, and fired the last of my missiles into the carrier - getting a couple of more hits on the engines. I fled in a direction free of AA fire while ordering my carrier to try and intercept the enemy. Due to the damage I had caused earlier, I was faster than the enemy. With shells for offense, a few more well placed hits did the trick and the enemy stopped dead.

Needless to say, it was sunk shortly thereafter - though there was no cutscene. I felt rather satisified at the accomplishment.

As the campaign continued, no further attacks on my islands occured. Made sense, the enemy carrier was sunk.

Yet I am still on the hunt for this torpedo. Ok whatever, I mean I know I already sank the guy but there has to be some reason to finish this out with a sense of "urgency".

Final mission, I get the torpedo, and then I get to see the cutscene of the torpedo hitting the enemy and it sinking. WHAT?

So technically there had to have been two of them.

For the campaign, it might be best to script certain subsystems of the enemy cannot be damaged beyond a certain %. Otherwise some may experience what I did.

Also - after the fulcrum expansion, the enemy had 2 or 3 factory islands. I destroyed/captured those immediately. No other islands were changed to manufacturing, leaving the Enemy with what appeared to be no ability to restock/refuel. I suspect this is what led it to sit off my island and not react until attacked. The AI needs to recognize its lack of production ability and adjust.

With that said - I have not seen this issue in strategy mode, only during the campaign.

[Savant1974 1]

I noted with some amusement this evening that, when I too attacked the enemy carrier, it behaved just like the AI on the old Amiga version. It just bolts for the nearest controlled island and doesn't even bother to fight unless my units stray in front of its guns. Nostalgic, sure, but you can do better devs!

Also the carrier doesn't explode or anything, it just kinda vanishes.

[species1571 64]

Having finished the ending, I did wonder what would have happened had I killed the enemy carrier during the game. I had assumed it would be impossible as the ending no longer adds up.

[CaptainHaplo 1]

It definitely can be killed. Basically you just get to take your time at that point and mop up the remaining islands at will. Then when you get to the final island after taking down the power plants, its "OMG the enemy carrier is going to be here soon!" I admit - I was thinking how is that even possible? But it is easy to recognize that the "carrier" is the way they create the time crunch on the sink the carrier mission. I wonder - I may have to go back and just drive past all the other "checkpoints" and just go for the lab and get the torp. I wonder if that would let me not have to sweat the time constraints - ie will the mission script handle that?

[Scepticer 1]

Strange, I "destroyed" the enemy carrier quite a few times in the campaign. With destroyed I mean that I fired away on it for quite a while and the entire carrier was up in flames. What actually happened though is that it at that point just disappeared and there was a voice-over cut-scene where I (the captain) was saying something like "There you are and off you go". I interpreted this as that I in essence had killed it but for the story's sake instead it was able to escape.