AI War - Astro Trains
From ArcenWiki
What Do Astro Trains Do?
Q: What do astro trains do? Should I be worried about them? How do I kill them? There's a clump of them on one of my planets and I'm inclined to just let them chill there, since they have a ludicrous amount of health (1 billion? Really?) and they fight back.
A: This is a really good question. Astro Trains, for most intents and purposes, cannot be killed -- you could kill them given enough high-level bombers and enough time (hours for each one), but that would be a real waste of time. Rather than killing astro trains, the focus should be on diverting them by destroying their train stations. Astro trains automatically route between all train stations on the map, causing some trouble on each planet they pass through. The only reason they would all stop is if there are no more train stations left to route between (quite rare). On the lower difficulty levels, astro trains won't route through planets that you control, which could also lead to some becoming trapped, but on higher difficulties they will frequently come into your planets.
What sort of trouble do astro trains cause? Well, they slightly damage most ships that they pass, and they damage turrets, heavy defenses, and constructors more heavily. The cumulative effect of this, on the higher difficulties, can be to make it much harder to maintain proper wormhole defenses on certain wormholes that are frequented by astro trains. That might make finding and killing the nearby train stations a priority, whereas normally that is not too much an issue. Astro trains also tend to disrupt minefields pretty heavily when they pass through, and they emit tachyon beams and so cause some difficulties for Mark III scouts that pass through an astro train's route.
Defending Against
How Do I Defend Against Astro Trains?
Q: It seems like I am unable to build any turrets when astro trains are around. How am I supposed to defend myself without turrets?
A: If playing against a train master, the best suggestion is counter-dark-matter turrets, which provide protection for your turrets (and everything else) from the astro trains in a limited range. If you have to play without turrets, that's a huge blow to your ability to defend yourself, so you must do something in order to survive.
But, counter-dark-matter turrets are not the only solution, and may not even be the best one unless you are simply overrun with trains (Train Master AI type). Usually the best solution is simply to destroy all the astro train stations that you can, especially those that create paths through your territory. Since astro trains route only along the direct paths between astro train stations, they will only pass through your territory to get from one train station to another. If you destroy train stations so that all of the remaining train stations are on one side of your territory, then the trains won't pass through any more!
