The AI and difficulty

Eco, research, and ship production are the things boosted at the higher levels. I do see a bit better ship composition but they still suicide at starbases.

Fair enough, but the ship stats remain the same? They don't have increased damage and or amour?

Nope. Well there is the fact that they get free experience for the capitals but that is all I could ever find.

Cheers, thanks for the info

The AI doesn't get any smarter after "hard" difficulty.  The additional cash at higher difficulties does let them balance their expenditures better (always easier to avoid hard spending decisions when you've got more cash than you can use to begin with), but they're really no more intelligent. 

Personally, I do speed runs against the unfair AI.  Because of the "speed run" aspect, you need to be aggressive against a numerically superior foe, and cannot afford to sit back. 

If I remember correctly, the harder AIs are able to research things even while their research stations are still being built and get free capital ship experience. They also get an income multiplier on credits and resources. I think the figures were

0.5x - easy

1x - normal

1.5x - hard

2x - unfair

4x - cruel

6x - vicious

But their actual ships have the same amount of hull/armor/weapons that they've researched upgrades for: they don't get a bonus on top of quick research.

If you're looking for a challenge, try beating the harder AIs without building any starbases or static defenses yourself. That way it requires a lot more strategy other than "build SB at choke point asap. upgrade. wait. win" - it helps you learn what ship counters what.

You don't need to arrange games in advance, so there's really nothing to commit to other than being able to play for two hours.  Unfortunately, if you want real opponents there's just no substitute for human players.  I suggest getting your friends together when you all have some free time and setting up a game of your friends v. open spots.  (If you have 4 friends, set up a 4v4 game and let the general public join the other 4 slots.)

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated. I agree their is no substitute for a human player. I do play a lot of RTS games online and 100% agree, but unfortunately my friends are lame and scared of losing so won't play against other human players . 

I've noticed that only the advent are able to deal somewhat with Starbases as they have this thing with spamming adjudicators.  

I thought TEC's torpedo cruisers cost less and are more efficient at killing starbases. Isn't the Adjudicator's "average damage" rating spread over like 5 targets? If there's only a single target like a starbase, it's not going to be that effective, unfortunately. From what I've heard, very few compeditive people use Adjudicators due to that.

The easiest way to kill a starbase would probably to be Vasari, have upgraded phase missiles, and to spam bombers. Spamming Adjudicators is just asking to have an enemy scout mob disintegrate them and for the rest of your (small) fleet to be run over by the more military-centered enemy fleet.

Check your PMs.

They are. Adjudicators really don't do well against starbases, only concentrated static defenses. Massed torpedo cruisers are far more effective than an equivalent number of Adjudicators.

Yes but usually SB's are never alone structure wise. The hidden beauty of the Adjudicators is that its hammering the SB while hitting those damn repair bays around it.

With the Advent, they have the best capacity to 'tank' the SB. By tying up all the weapon banks with your fleet it allows they Adjudicators to shoot the SB + support structures around it for it full DPS.

Im not gonna say it better or on par with the Torpedo Cruisers, but I think it fits with their battle ball theme.

That would work well... if the repair platforms are close to the SB.

It's also probably quite efficient if you're taking down enemy trade ports clumped together, but if you're on to targeting them, the "efficiency" probably doesn't matter all that much.

Yeah, but usually you want to take out a starbase quickly so you won't be at a disadvantage if an enemy fleet shows up or if you have to make a retreat. The other defensive structures do not limit your options like a starbase does, save perhaps PJIs. Also if you set up your defenses right it becomes very difficult for the Adjudicators to hit your repair bays without coming into range of the starbase or other defenses. I know you are just trying to make clear what this unit is supposed to be good at, but the conventional wisdom is that the adjudicator is far too specialized to really be worth the resources and fleet supply.

Adjudicators are far more devastating than ogrovs against highly fortified planets...the actual disadvantage lies in their cost and fleet supply...

For a human player, ogrovs are clearly superior...but in the hands of a high level AI (where cost and to a certain extent, fleet supply are pretty much irrelevant) the adjudicators are far more problematic because they will quickly destroy all your support structures...

If given enough time to prepare, usually you can amass enough scouts + fighters to take out all enemy ogrovs before they kill your SB...adjudicators however will likely destroy most if not all of your other defense structures...in either case, the SB survives long enough for you to destroy all the anti-module ships, but with the adjudicators you've lost all your other structures while with the ogrovs that is not always the case...clearly the ogrovs will have done more damage to the SB before being destroyed than the adjudicators ever would have, but against ogrovs you have much better odds of maintaining other structures like factories, point defenses, and repair bays that may aid in the survival of the SB...

For worlds with SBs and few other defense structures, ogrovs are the best choice...but against planets with many defense structures, adjudicators are much more useful tactically...for human Advent players though the shear cost and fleet supply of adjudicators does not justify their existence, which is why a cost or fleet supply reduction for the adjudicator would be preferable to an increase in resiliency or damage output...

I should have made my last post a little clearer. I meant only the AI actually builds Adjudicators which they spam at an alarming rate sometimes and since they spread damage out they can wipe out defences in a matter of 60 secs. Problem is though the AI flies them in range of the starbase which usually kills them before it takes serious damage. 

The starbase will be fine at first...but without support structures even the strongest SB can be defeated by a fleet just by brute force...the problem is that many humans must rely on SBs in order to defeat higher level AIs...this type of strategy often leads the human to support as little fleet as possible, relying on SBs at key choke points to keep the AI at bay...so, without the support structures it is not uncommon for an SB in this situation to have no support at all, not even from fleet...

I believe you have highlighted the issue perfectly...adjudicators are only an issue when in the hands of the AI, because only the AI can afford to build so many...even if they are destroyed quickly, they often will have succeeded in destroying many structures...

To be fair, if the AI builds that many adjudicators it's crippled its fleet to do so.  If you're playing against cruel or vicious, the this is the challenge you're asking for.  If you're playing against unfair or below, you should be able to smack them down easily at this point because they've completely sacrificed their frigate-based fleet.

Unfair can be tricky if you get double or triple teamed at the wrong moment, in which case fleet supply favors them even if they make bad choices...I generally don't build SBs on unfair so I honestly have no idea if that level of AI actually does this...I just know that cruel and vicious AIs will easily have fleets larger than yours even if you try to fleet up, the adjudicators/ogrovs are just icing on a cake...a very big cake that already is bigger than yours...

Its when they have like 20 of those damn things plus a fleet larger than yours that it gets to be a real pain even if you have scouts + fighters...

An interesting observation I've noticed is that if you don't build SBs on cruel, the AI does not seem to come at you with a larger frigate fleet (than it would if it needed ogrovs/adjudicators)...it simply won't come at you with many (if any) anti-module ships...maybe this is just a fluke or really bad perception but it's what I've noticed...