What an awesome little scrap to boost the adrenaline a bit! And now I know what to aim for to protect my installations in my own game. Or at least it gives me a ballpark idea of what i can do. I understand that enemies in one game can be radically different from the next.
Out of curiosity, do AI races generally field the same sort of weaponry or can they come at you with literally anything? And do they adapt to what you are using or is the AI not that sophisticated?
And what would we do if we ran across someone who uses a ton of super long range missiles? Switch to try to outrange them with our own missiles? Or just trust in our anti-missile tech/amm/pd to keep us alive until we close into gun range?
I find all of this quite intriguing! Though I still get pretty overwhelmed in my own games, haha.
I design my ground units based on mass. Seriously.
One hold on a Troop Transport can carry 5,000 tons worth of Ground Units (whether STO defensive turrets like these, or Garrison Troops, or Space Marines, or Tanks). So I design my Ground Units to each mass 5,000 tons or slightly less. Because the different types of turrets (Laser anti-ship, Laser PD, Gauss PD, unturreted Spinal Mounts) all have different masses, the 5,000-ton Ground Units that they compose contain different numbers of turrets... fewer of the heavier ones, or more of the lighter ones. So anti-ship Laser STO is two turrets, Laser PD is four, Gauss PD is three, and unturreted Spinal Mounts are eight to the 5,000-ton unit.
An additional complication where Infantry are concerned is that HQs can only command four subordinate units, so I tend to design both my HQ units and all of their subordinate units to the same 5,000-ton standard. That way, a Headquarters plus its subordinate units mass 5x 5,000 tons in total, or 25,000 tons.
... so my Troop Transport ships are designed to carry 25,000 tons of units in a single lift. That's a HQ + four subordinates, or up to five units of STO.
As Randakar mentions, the Spoiler Races (Rakhas, Aether Raiders, Precursors, Swarm, Invaders) each have a specific load-out that they almost always use.
Rakhas: Energy weapons. Rakhas have no ships.
Aether Raiders: Energy Weapons and lots of Stealth.
Precursors: Anything. Expect lots of deadly long-range missiles.
Swarm: Meson cannon. The Motherships have simply insane shields.
Invaders: Everything. These are the endgame Boss.
NPRs (Non-Player Races that are not one of the five Spoilers Races listed above) might have anything and everything. It's procedurally generated.
I don't know how flexible the AI is. Aurora is a one-man project, remember. Steve Walmsley does all the coding.
Against missiles? Gauss PD used to be almost invulnerable... half a dozen Gauss PD Frigates stacked together should be able to shoot down something approaching 98% of incoming missiles.
