AI War:Ships Slowing Down
Some Of My Ships Are Extra Slow, Or Won't Move At All. Why?
Q: I've got a group of Mark I Bombers, all identical, and some move quicker than others after a firefight. Then I've got one or two that won't move at all, and which are flashing red. What happened, and what do I do about it?
A: What you are seeing here is the result of damage to your ships' engines. Some ship types, most notably infiltrators and spiders, deal damage to the engines of ships they attack, as well as to their hull. With each engine-damaging shot that hits them, the target ships move slower and slower until ultimately they cannot move at all.
If you have infiltrators or spiders of your own, this is something you should really use to your advantage against your enemies -- mobility is an important aspect of tactics. Some ships have higher engine health than others (and a few have invulnerable engines), so watch out for that.
When your ships' engines are damaged (or shot out completely -- that's when the ships flash red and won't move), you need to bring in an engineer or Mobile Repair Station (MRS) to fix them. Engineers and the MRS automatically repair ship engines in exactly the same way that they repair ship hulls (in fact, they repair both simultaneously if a ship has both hull and engine damage). If you are fighting against a lot of spiders and/or infiltrators, it might be a good idea to bring a couple of engineers and/or a MRS with you when you go to enemy planets.
Be aware that any units that are immune to repair (good key: they have regeneration) that have non-infinite engines can be engine damaged and will remain so permanently. If fighting spiders or other engine damage unit, place your Fortresses with care.
Also: when human ships get too far outside the gravity well of the planet, they start slowing down a significantly, and eventually slow down to a complete crawl. AI units also slow down out this far (Warp Jumper waves spawn far enough out to be slowed to 16) but the Mining Golem does not (it is always speed 6) and spawns CRAZY far out (far far beyond the speed 2 range).
