Precursor Ranger Event

I agree for the most part. I just lost a game as the Terrans where the Arceans wiped me out in 2232. As I was on the way out, I got 4 ranger ships in the last year or so. They still couldn't overcome the Arceans. I was on a huge galaxy with intelligent AI for all and the Arceans controlled over 50% of the galaxy. Maybe the Rangers show up for those in need?

I've seen it happen in my first game and it actually happened three times (me getting all three). Needless to say it happened so early my opponents had nothing to counter it and I went on for an easy victory. I was playing on a beginner difficulty level since it was my first game.

I am about 9/10 through a gigantic map with all races. In all honesty I have an absolutely ridiculous amount of these rangers! I had 3 in a row on consecutive turns. I didn't count last night when I went to bed, but my guess is that I have around 15 of them! Two fleets with 4 of them in (their logistic requirement needs to be increased!). A number of other races all have them too! At first I assumed it was because my military rating was low so the game was helping me out.... but later in the game, with the Yor having a military score of 280! I was in second place militarily and still finding them!

I think they need to tweak this down considerably in the next patch.

*goes to find next patch tweak list*

I haven't played anything larger than medium and have yet to see ONE.

I was playing on tiny, and the game was fairly even for 2 years... tech was up to 1 for all weapons and defenses (except missiles, at 2), and nobody had medium hulls...

Then, boom! In 5 turns I got 2 lucky rangers - increasing my military strength from 4 (small) ships to 6 - and destroyed my closest neighbor (whose military had been over 5x as strong as mine) without losing a battle. In fact, I never took any damage except when hitting their most highly upgraded economy starbase. In the course of doing so, my 10-HP escorts went to 30 and 39 HP (for fleet Alpha and Beta, each having one ranger and two manufactured ships that played no real role in the battles). Then I quit that game because it would be silly from there forward.

It's fun to read about that in books, but not to play it out in a strategy game.

I've only seen the AI get one of these ship in about 8 games I've played thus far.

I got eight of them in under a year in my last game. Granted, I have the Lucky trait, but still.

I tend to think however that the Rangers are somewhat mitigated in their effectiveness on a Gigantic map with Rare inhabitable planets: there wasn't a single enemy planet within their range in my game. I had to build floater starbases in the middle of nowhere to get them anyplace useful. And they're slow.

I started another game on Gigantic/Rare and I've had somewhere around 10 to 15 rangers. I have 4 protecting the homeworld and about 5 or 6 out spreading the word. The rest were blown up. I went from one planet on the edge of death to setting up for a possible victory. I'm playing with very slow tech advances and every race.

I'm some 5 or 6 years in and I haven't built any ships beyond a simple 2 beam attack and 2 beam defense fighter. Just fleet them with the rangers and I could take on anything the AI had. Oh, I also got some 50 precursor corvettes in one event too.

The Rangers definitely are a bit much and need to be scaled back.

How many of us who've gotten a glut (I got 5 in a 2 hour game) of Rangers have the Luck skill?

I've got it, so I wasn't surprised.

but if you're pulling 2 rangers/turn for 3 years straight w/o luck, well, yeah, something is wonky

That said, I think the idea of a Ranger is great. . . like, for purposes of making little plots in the game I am playing. . . until a second one comes

Yeah, it's true Armando..... in the game I was referring to (since then I have had another 3-4 Rangers!!) I have chosen the Luck +25% ability! Pretty overpowered for such a small amount of point if this is what it does!

I didn't have Luck, and I got 2 of them in 5 turns.

In my game, they seem to get Corvettes instead of Rangers.

I rarely see rangers, but last night, and I kid you not on numbers, the Yor found approx 30ish corvettes over 3-4 turns and went from 3rd in military (out of 5) to first...Just when I was invading. Granted, they have low HP but they pack a punch. The yor managed to use them to wipe out the Drengin and the Terrans, and it took me about 60ish turns to wipe them out (even with good fleets of 40beam/40shields).

I've got something like ten of them. The AI has none. However, they did get lots and lots of corvettes. Still, this means that my most important planets are for all intents and purposes invulnerable, since I use the Rangers for planetary defence. It's a bit silly, really.

I've never had any Rangers, so maybe your just a lucky git.The A.I has got Corvettes a few times.

I've only found 2 Corvettes in my latest game (the second one on Large map) but never saw any Ranger in any race's army... And I'm glad. Sounds like it should be a *rare* event.

Nine Rangers in one game, woot! It's a shame there's nobody to war with this go 'round.

Since the last patch...im getting 4-5 ranger per game on medium lvl

I suspect Ranger finds are more common on large and gigantic maps. Most likely because there are many, many more colonies involved.

I just found this thread because all of a sudden, the AI has a ship I cannot even scratch... is this for real? These ridiculously overpowered ships just "show up"? I love this game, but this is a really poor design decision. Please scale this back some.

Yeah me too. I received 3 Lucky Rangers within a short time period. Heck the Snathi called on me for help so I gave them one of my lucky rangers. They used it, fought off the immediate threat, then began a reign of terror on my allies so of course I had to then fight the snathi or risk losing my allies... So lesson learned. Never help those E-V-I-L Snathi or reap the rewards of your kindness......lol

I see those rangers a lot, too.
Tiny universe; Luck skill.

After colonising my first world after my homeplanet, I found a Ranger. I felt lucky.
Later in the game, after colonising another five worlds, I got three rangers with a
turn of nothing special between each!

Clearly, the Luck skill is either overpowered, or there are too few special events
for enough variation

I've played 2 games so far. 1 as a Terran (without luck) and in that game i got 0 Rangers. Whereas in my 2nd game I'm playing a custom race that has the luck attribute and I kind of get drowned in Rangers , and also I seem to be the only one getting them.

I finally beat my first Gigantic map playing as Terrans.... I had a lot of colonies.... a lot! Final total count of Rangers was 27.... I clearly remember losing 2 of them which means I definitely found 29 in 1 game! They were all Mass Driver attack and defense which was nice considering I was using missiles with a smattering of beam weapons. The AI didn't have a chance against them - the only 2 I lost was to a random spawn of pirates in a massive fleet. Seems a bit overpowered to me, especially as other games I have played I have seen AI pick these up and totally rampage through everyone's lands. I haven't actually seen a single corvette yet - perhaps they're all just spawning as Rangers!