The Chmmr Avatar

[The Troglodyte]

You are seriously underestimating the AI's capacity for messing up if you even think this is a possibility.

You’re right, I’ve already seen several examples of computer-controlled Chmmr blunders. Like Quasi already mentioned, the Avatar is relatively maneuverable for its size, but you wouldn’t know it by how sheepishly the AI flies it. Of all the ships, this is one that should be making a bee-line for its target, but the Avatar in an AI’s hands seemed rather reluctant at times to force an engagement. Peculiar. It is also greatly affected by the planet’s gravity well, but instead of using this to their advantage, the cyborg Avatar reacts strangely whenever it approaches a planet; it rotates weirdly and would sometimes remain in far orbit, steering itself in large circles around it, reacting to the diminished gravitational pull, but completely ignoring the enemy while it attempts to keep its bearings. Again, rather puzzling. Some of these observations I discovered in our next match-up, which I omitted from my overall analysis to avoid redundancy.
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“I still have nightmares about those spiders, taking me prisoner -- using me as one of their sick sacrifices to Dogar and Kazon, their twin gods of destruction and torment. Those guys were almost as scary as the Androsynth to those of us in deep-space patrol. Their Avenger ships could appear out of nowhere and melt a Cruiser down to slag in seconds. Luckily for us, the bulk of the Ilwrath fleet was thrown against the Chenjesu and the Mmrnmhrm.” - Commander Hayes

14 Chmmr Avatars (14 x 30 = 420 pts.)
VS.
14 Ilwrath Avengers (14 x 10 = 140 pts.)

RESULTS: Chmmr wins with 12 remaining Avatars!
Approximate battle time: 4 minutes

ANALYSIS: The Avatar vessel has a decisive advantage over the weaker Avenger ships, but it can still expect to take some damage from the flamethrower during each encounter, but they ignored the danger and it payed off as they sliced away at the Avengers with impunity. Without anything to directly target, the Avatar’s Tractor Beam is virtually useless, but that didn’t stop the Chmmr from activating it each and every time a new Avenger would enter the field, and then it was the same routine throughout the rest of this short-lived battle.
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[Mormont]

AI is bad even at just using the Chmmr's tractor beam. It'll constantly hold it down even when fuel is empty, when it usually works better in smaller bursts. Also its tendency to always directly chase with heavy ships is bad.

Chmmr actually takes some skill to use well, but playing either side of the AI matchup it comes across as a pretty brainless ship.

[The Troglodyte]

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(at Beta Luyten I - the VUX Homeworld)
“Welcome to the end of your life, courtesy of VUX technology. Our infinite supply of Intruder vessels are even now locking their vaporizers onto your position, and we shall end your painful, grotesque existence for you as soon as possible. In the meantime, here is a little music…” – VUX

14 Chmmr Avatars (14 x 30 = 420 pts.)
VS.
14 VUX Intruders (14 x 12 = 168 pts.)

RESULTS: Chmmr wins with 8 remaining Avatars!
Approximate Battle Time: 2 minutes.

ANALYSIS: The VUX actually won pointwise by 18, since the Chmmr lost a total of 6 Avatars. The battle had intrigue! The battle had drama! The battle was intense! The battle was an absolute blood bath of laser destruction! Head-to-head the Avatar can cut right through an Intruder in seconds, but the VUX can dish out considerable damage in the exchange, although limpets were rendered completely useless by the ZapSats. However, since this is SuperMelee, the VUX would often regain the advantage when their new ship would warp-in, using its special ability to arrive in TrueSpace adjacent to the opponent, sometimes from one of the Avatar’s sides or even directly behind it, which gave the Intruder an advantage on offense as it could carve up the Avatar while it slowly turned to face its aggressor. The Avatars ultimately finished off all of the VUX vessels, and a few of those VUX ships were destroyed by the ZapSats orbiting a burning Avatar during its own demise.
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[krulle]

The Avatars ultimately finished off all of the VUX vessels, and a few of those VUX ships were destroyed by the ZapSats orbiting a burning Avatar during its own demise.

Oh I hated how often I lost a ship due to the ZapSats orbiting a dead husk, or me ramming the invisible planet during the victory ditty....

The ZapSats are also annoying when playing as Syreen. These ZapSats zap your future (or mutineering) crew. You cannot (re-)collect them...

[The Troglodyte]

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The ZapSats are also annoying when playing as Syreen. These ZapSats zap your future (or mutineering) crew. You cannot (re-)collect them...

Ok, since you brought them up, let’s put it to the test!:

14 Chmmr Avatars (14 x 30 = 420 pts.)
VS.
14 Syreen Penetrators (14 x 13 = 182 pts.)

RESULTS: Chmmr wins with 13 remaining Avatars!
Approximate battle time: 4 minutes

ANALYSIS: Their song was their only fleeting chance, and they knew it! And right they were, but ‘fleeting’ may have been an understatement! No sooner than the first few notes of the mesmerizing hypnotic song were beckoning the little crystal guys into escape pods then there was a large space scalpel dissecting their Penetrator ship into something… well, less penetrating. Those Syreen ships were getting ripped apart right and left! The battle was so lop-sided that even when they finally sung the Chmmr down to only their psionic-resistant captain, they still had to shoot past the ZapSats, and with only their Particle Stiletto Beam, that was a difficult proposition. In fact, only after going through a couple more Syreen ships that one ship finally managed to charge past the ZapSats (mostly due to a nearby planet) and needle their way through the rotating barrier, firing their weapon at point-blank range! However, I noticed as I closely monitored the entire battle, the ZapSats never fired on the deserting crew, the opportunity for recollection was definitely there, but since the escape pods’ thrusters are so slow, the ZapSats would often times collide with the hypnotized crystal abandonees before they could make it back to the mother ship, but they never zapped them to death the same way a cruiser will if you activate the PDL with its own escape pods nearby. Were you just testing me again, krulle? Hmm… perhaps whenever encountering a Syreen vessel, the captain should order all escape pods to be sealed in their compartments, or better yet, jettisoned into space so the crew can’t escape!
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[Draxas]

Hmm… perhaps whenever encountering a Syreen vessel, the captain should order all escape pods to be sealed in their compartments, or better yet, jettisoned into space so the crew can’t escape!

Pretty sure that this is just the crew throwing on suits and jumping out the nearest airlock. At the very least, Dreadnoughts don't have any of the aforementioned safety features, but the crew abandons ship just the same.

[The Troglodyte]

Pretty sure that this is just the crew throwing on suits and jumping out the nearest airlock. At the very least, Dreadnoughts don't have any of the aforementioned safety features, but the crew abandons ship just the same.

Makes sense… but I wonder, in the case of the cruiser, does the boy or the girl abandon ship? If it’s the boy, who’s flying the ship? If it’s the girl, who pushes the giant torpedo button?

[krulle]

No, I was not testing you.
I definitely remember the crew being shot down by the ZapSats.
Maybe that was a bug like the missing Slylandro Probes in the star systems, which got corrected in the transfer to UQM code basis?

Or my memory is testing/failing me again.

[Death 999]

The crew would last a lot longer if they bothered to throw suits on.

[krulle]

And had a chance of actually reaching the Syreen/Sirens if they would use a jetpack to build a bit more speed.
Or a kind of tractor beam for the Syreen to pull in the hapless new crew, without actually having to fly across them.

But Odysseus' Sirens also had no ropes hanging into the water so that crew could pull themselves in.
And the ship jumpers had quite a current to beat, according to the story.

A slight ship modification in this regard would've been nice between SC1 and SC2.

The Syreen are seriously underpowered this way (IMHO). And their stiletto heel is really week. (At school we loved imagining a line of Syreens standing at the bow and breaking of the heels of their new stilettos and feeding the heels to the gun. Or the reverse: stealing the munition to attach to their navy-issued flat shoes to make stilettos. Who came up with the name for that gun???)
An auto-fire for that button would've been nice (or using the main fire button to the autofire toggle off/on).
In SC1/2 I often jammed my keyboard because I kept the fire button pressed when playing the Syreen Penetrator (dynamo is faster than energy depletion from firing).