Author Topic: All Creatures Great and Small  (Read 16780 times)

Offline Coppermantis

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #30 on: May 08, 2014, 02:24:11 am »
That is...unfortunate. Have fun.
I can already tell this is going to be a roller coaster ride of disappointment.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #31 on: May 08, 2014, 01:04:07 pm »
Save attached. After examining this behaviour it seems like the very instant a lightning warhead enters a planet with a human command station it stops moving. If you destroy the command station, it starts moving again.

Take a look at Deramic in particular, near the centre of the map. That has 9 missiles stacked up on two wormholes.
Ok, thanks, will take a look when I get the chance.



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This is ... somewhat absurd.
Nothing a half dozen lightning warheads can't solve :)  Though you'd probably need to throw in a distraction of 1000 ships or so to make sure they didn't get prematurely detonated.

Iirc the Spire Archive, along with anything that is not normally autotargeted, will be safe from the warhead aoe unless you actually target a warhead at the archive.


Anyway, the bit where it was bypassing the 1-per-galaxy cap on the super hybrids should be fixed now, so once those ones are dead it won't replace them all (just the one, if you get them all).

MkIII Debugging Warhead.
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Offline RockyBst

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #32 on: May 11, 2014, 07:17:28 am »
15.01: Rams managed to avoid a couple of starships long enough for the power to come back on. They're now making their way to the attack.

Beachhead waves hit Poan and Sezon. Jumpships rapidly move spire frigates around to take them out before the defences are overwhelmed. Those things can also really melt a wave if positioned right.

15.06: After far too many tacyhon astro-train shenanigans, rams finally reach their target. Which, as previously pointed out, is surrounded by 38 super-hybrids. Anyway, converter dies. As does the Mk II fort, the Mk III fort and the superfort.

15.07: Oh come on. A new dyson antagoniser is up already ... without even any build time. Guess each of the 37 super hybrids keeps their own internal build clock. Luckily it seems to have gone up on Eliuan again, so should be easy enough to take out when I cap the planet. But later, I think.

Shoulda sent an armored warhead after the bleeders while I could.

15.13: Oh hey, dire guardian spawning on Boatark in 5 minutes. Guess that's what happens when you leave an unprotected rebel colony next to a dire guardian lair.

And I think I must have annoyed the gods of salvage, because a 2,500 missile frigate wave to Deramaic. Oh hey, about those 13 free lightning missiles sitting on the wormholes...

15.13: Oh wait, missile frigates. Immune to lightning missiles. Welp.

15.16: Amazingly Deramaic survived that. The new within-carrier killing works a real treat, even if it doesn't allow the military command station to knock the ships back like it did to all the loose ones.

Anyway, pretty much refleeted and a three golem battering ram is forging its way to Geoasi killing hybrids and gatlings along the way. From there I'm going to have to move through four planets to get to Quzi.

15.22: Golems fully repaired, all ships other than the absurdly expensive spire Mk III/IV starships are up. Time to go hunting. I'm not even going to bother with transports, seeing as the slowest ship I have is the armored golem. The AI shall feel the wrath of three golems and 2000+ ships proceeding in a stately group-move fashion to Quzi.

15.24: The exception to that rule is one assault transport with four bomber starships in it, which is put on lightning warhead watch. Luckily, as it turns out, as one almost turns the fleet into paste. Their brave sacrifice is not in vain, as they shoot it down just out of range of the main fleet. Strangely the assault transport is completely untouched - didn't know they were immune.

15.25: Oh dear, hunters are here. But this time I have a secret weapon ... six protector starships, packed to the gills with anti-missile tech. Will it be enough to defeat the 50+ Mk V missile guardians who can make mincemeat of my golems?

15.25.30: Amazingly all 9 H/Ks passed directly over the fleet with minimal causalities to me. And plentiful dead starships / guardians for them. Good job protector starships! Heck, we even did a massive amount of damage to the H/Ks while they were in range ... I think I could've taken the hunters out.



15.25.45: Oh. Oh dear. Actually, the missile guardians are just slow. 90 Mk V guardians are waiting on the next planet ... if they get off a single volley at the golems, they'll all die. Back through the wormhole everyone, then golems as far away from the exit as possible and under the protector starships while the fleet deals with this.

15.27: Well, that was fairly successful. I think about 30 escaped that little pogrom, so when the hunter fleet returns (which it inevitably will when I set foot onto the ARS world) I should be able to take it in a stand-up fight.

Two beachhead waves have hit, Deramaic and Geoasi. Deramaic is certainly going down. Sadly the devourer golem passing through the place decided not to eat the beachhead.

15.29: Battering ram is on Quzi. Despite an EMP train blowing just as a I arrive, the counter-attack post explodes, command station explodes, then a jumpship delivers a colony ship and 9 engineers. It's all over bar the cleanup.

ARS unlock is spiders, and it only cost me about 500 ships / reprisal level one. A class shield network is down.

15.29: Victory is short lived. Astro trains steal 900 of the fleet ships, Sezon goes down to hybrids and the reprisal wave, and Deramaic is still down. Sigh.

15.32: Y'know what, blow it. The Dyson is a paranoid sub-commander, and I can't be bothered to deal with that when the super-hybrids are just going to instantly rebuild the antagoniser anyway. All golems, reverse course.

Anyway, now all those dyson gatlings are dying on Quzi. Which has a vengeance generator. Should spice the dark spire up a touch.

15.32: As the golems are retreating they run head-first into the hunters coming to Quzi. With no fleet to back them up, and no protector starships.

They, uh, steer around them.

15.33: An EMPed Jakidic goes down to 2,400 missile frigates. That makes three lost planets now. AI is tearing it up.

15.41: Quzi goes down to a supply interdictor and 1,800 bombers. 4 planets down. At least I took out the counter-attack to my homeworld alright.

Ships are getting to Deramaic using the warp gates and slowly chewing away at the beachhead. That at least should be up fairly soon.

15.46: Deramaic and Sezon back up, 500 ship rescue fleet going to rebuild Rolikkill. Mining golems on Quzi, Dislaju, Dorvil, Isiforo, Yesharp, Maswoor and Xuta. All of those last four planets I think I'll just let die.

15.50: A new rebel colony on Michdintooth. A world I haven't even scouted yet, seven hops from any of my territory. Well, maybe this'll all be over in two hours.

Rolikill is back up, so all forces are concentrating back towards Deramaic for the push on Eliuan.

15.56: Aosrinmar, one of my under-defended rear worlds, just held off a 3,500 ship attack. Gotta love core turrets and these new carrier changes.

16.00: Right, 2400 fleet ships on Deramaic. I'll push the golems over there too once they get back from their little miner killing expedition on Dorvil. Just reset the rebel timer on Melshuafr, so let's go get that spire archive.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2014, 07:35:16 am by RockyBst »

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #33 on: May 11, 2014, 09:46:40 am »
15.16: Amazingly Deramaic survived that. The new within-carrier killing works a real treat, even if it doesn't allow the military command station to knock the ships back like it did to all the loose ones.
There should have been a decent amount of loose ships too.  Though I guess if they didn't die (by virtue of being knocked clean out to not-in-Kansas-anymore) there wouldn't be more deployment from the carrier.


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Two beachhead waves have hit, Deramaic and Geoasi. Deramaic is certainly going down. Sadly the devourer golem passing through the place decided not to eat the beachhead.
It's learned from experience.  Loss Of Supply in the hindgut is a bad thing.


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Astro trains steal 900 of the fleet ships
All aboard!


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They, uh, steer around them.
Advance in retrograde!


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15.56: Aosrinmar, one of my under-defended rear worlds, just held off a 3,500 ship attack. Gotta love core turrets and these new carrier changes.
AI Fleet Commander: "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling patches!"

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Offline RockyBst

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #34 on: May 12, 2014, 07:24:49 pm »
16.05: Quzi is back up, and building some rams to take care of that mining golem problem. Meanwhile, a dire sniper guardian and his friends are attacking Rolikkill. As I have no mobile ships over there, I might have to rely on the dark spire to kill it off.

16.12: Oh dear, the antagoniser has been upgraded to a disruptor. Time for everyone's favourite then, the 3 golem 2,500 ship battering ram.

16.17: Well, the idea was to start the assault with dual Mk III lightning warheads, take out the 38 super hybrids. However my ships have been floating outside that world for the last four minutes waiting for a succession of tachyon astro trains to pass by. Eh, let's throw the golems at the dire guardian lair while we're waiting. Dire tractor, laser and MRLS. All dead within 20 seconds.

16.20: Lightning warheads explode, 38 super hybrids die. Was that worth 6 AIP? Probably not, but it was enjoyable.

16.22: Boomed. Four counter-attack post waves hitting in 10 minutes, but the command station is down. Reprisal 2. Golems make a dash for the wormhole exit, switched off and under cover of the cloakers that escorted the lightning missiles in.

16.23: Hunters are here. But they can't see me. This plan is flawless. Unless a Tachyon astro train happens to pass by.

16.23.10: 10 H/Ks, 100+ Mk V missile guardians and ... a tachyon astro train. Typical. Ah well, golems got out in time and assault transports are skirting the edge of the grav well enough to escape. Dropping a few ships to distract the hunters help, too.

16.24: 2,200 youngling tiger reprisal to Jubuvi, the world with my brand spanking new advanced starship constructor. Luckily I have the time, money, asteroids and inclination to build Martyrs.



Oh, and there's also this little trick. Yup, that's a spirecraft translocator herding those lovely immobile Neinzul rocketry corps lightning warheads into position.

16.24.14: Exhibit B



16.24.16: Exhibit C.



Unfortunately I didn't notice the 1,000 loose younglings going up to kill my engineers.

16.24.45: Problem solved. Turns out I didn't need the Martyrs after all.



Oh, and a 1,800 ship CPA. Which is ... well, nothing.

16.24.55: Of course, in retaliation the AI does this ...



Why yes, that is 1,200 ships caught in an unholy morass of Tractor/Widow astro-trains. Right after their transports exploded, moments after escaping the hunter fleet. Which they are promptly getting dragged back towards. The ship's struggles end when I realise all 1,200 of them are about to be dragged onto the core world. Right next to the Core Raid Engine. An instant 1 million scrap value, indicating that those were actually worth about 10 million metal.

On the plus side, I destroyed them on Eliuan. The planet where I just wiped the AI command station. So no salvage for you AI!

16.31: Command station goes back up, then down again, on Boatark. Another two hours on that shield.

2,000 ships on my homeworld ready to fend off the 3k Mk IV ships in the counter-attack. My one regret is that the new salvage cap means I'll get at most about 5 million metal from this.

16.33: A slight moment of worry there as they attacked from three different directions and with a rather large number of raid starships. But at the end of the day, nothing much can stand up to 97 enclaves and their 2,000 drones. Definitely worth their constant probing attacks.

I do like the more restrained salvage pace. No more 200,000m/s firehoses that I need to work out how to direct. That said, telling 10 engineers to repair my Mk IV ion cannon was a bad idea, as 2 million metal is sucked out of the economy in about 10 seconds.

16.37: CPA? Oh, you mean that practically unnoticeable bump in my threat level. I know that I'm used to diff 9 rather than 7, but CPAs do seem rather ... weedy nowadays. The only ones that have ever really challenged me are on diff 10, when I remember a year ago having to work hard to take them on at ~8.3. Maybe, after the addition of core turrets and everything else, CPAs need buffing too?

16.42: Command station is up on Eliuan, and spire archive merrily ticking away. D class shield network down, that means that the home planets are now available.

Of course, the very first thing I do is slap four spire frigates into a jumpship and wipe out the Core Raid Engine on the closest homeworld. And the OMD which is handily sitting right next to it. The core raid is an utterly paltry 352 ships. I mean really, I know it's diff 7, but that's all I get at 314 AIP?

16.42.30: Total wave: 3,700. Just standard waves. Half of which is hitting Aosrinamr ... where the cookie monster is sitting. Thanks, friend!

16.43: Oh dear, beachhead waves. Rebel frigates come to the aid of Jubuvi and manage to bring the shields back online when the advanced starship constructor has just 96,000 health remaining. Aosrinmar is not so lucky, devourer golem notwithstanding. For reference, he still doesn't eat ships in carriers or beachhead ships. Still, he at least cleaned up all 1,500 ships for me after the command station went down.

16.47: Anyway, what was I doing. Oh, right, throwing 2,400 ships and 3 golems at a core world.

16.53: First 30% of the strategic reserve chewed through, most meaningful guardposts removed. Way to the first homeworld is now clear. Inevitably, however, I did lose 900 ships to tractor astro-trains.

Time for a spot of refleeting and contemplation I think ... spire archive is about halfway done. Let's have Mk III and IV protector starships (heck yes), and that leaves me with 8,500 knowledge on the way. Flagship IIs, Missile Frigates II, III and IV, I think.

16.55: Reprisal coming in, 3,400 youngling tigers to Jubuvi. For the first time in my entire AI war career, I unlock advanced warp sensors. Why? Well, it helps to know which wormhole to shepherd these lightning missiles on to...

16.57: Worked like a charm. Two Mk. III lightning warheads take out 3,000 tigers. At no AIP cost to myself. This has to be one of my favourite new cheeses.

Right then, looks like the entire H/Ks fleet is sitting on Eliudonu. Of course, as soon as I enter the planet they decide there's nothing worth fighting and make a tactical retreat. Of course. Eh, they'll be back for the ultimate showdown soon enough.

17.00: Can I finish up this game in the next hour, before the colony rebellion? We'll see. But I'm in a position to start wiping the first AI homeworld now. And the long overdue hunter fleet royal rumble is definitely on the cards.

State of the union:



Huh, I should probably rebuild Quzi and Geoasi.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #35 on: May 12, 2014, 07:46:32 pm »
16.23: Hunters are here. But they can't see me. This plan is flawless. Unless a Tachyon astro train happens to pass by.
And of course that never happens.


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Why yes, that is 1,200 ships caught in an unholy morass of Tractor/Widow astro-trains.
I may as well change the plot name to "Astro Trolls".


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On the plus side, I destroyed them on Eliuan. The planet where I just wiped the AI command station. So no salvage for you AI!
Of course, the trolling is far from unidirectional.


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I do like the more restrained salvage pace. No more 200,000m/s firehoses that I need to work out how to direct. That said, telling 10 engineers to repair my Mk IV ion cannon was a bad idea, as 2 million metal is sucked out of the economy in about 10 seconds.
Glad the salvage change seems to be in the right ballpark (so far).

And yea, Ion Cannons are where Economies go to die.

That one on your side probably just did more to hamper you than any of the ones on the AI side have done this game.


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16.37: CPA? Oh, you mean that practically unnoticeable bump in my threat level. I know that I'm used to diff 9 rather than 7, but CPAs do seem rather ... weedy nowadays. The only ones that have ever really challenged me are on diff 10, when I remember a year ago having to work hard to take them on at ~8.3. Maybe, after the addition of core turrets and everything else, CPAs need buffing too?
One step towards that, for high-AIP cases, is already in for 7.026.  I hope to rework them to use strength instead of unit-count in the near future, as currently you can still have situations where the AI's bonus picks can make a huge difference in how dangerous a CPA actually is.  If it's got a bonus roster of solid 5-cap types then that piddling 2000 ship CPA could be mostly tackle drone launchers or whatever.  But in another game it might be 2000 laser gatlings.  Soon to change, I hope.

But the overall scale of Diff 7 CPAs, I'm not sure should go up, given the concern I'm getting from other quarters that 7 can already be too hard on new players.  I'm not sure if CPAs are really part of that problem or not, yet.

Of course, a separate question is whether the presence of superweapons should increase CPA (and wave, etc) size, but that's at a more hypothetical stage.


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16.57: Worked like a charm. Two Mk. III lightning warheads take out 3,000 tigers. At no AIP cost to myself. This has to be one of my favourite new cheeses.
A well-aged Neinzul Roquefort.

Yea, I kinda do need to fix that, don't I ;)  Ran low on time for 7.025.


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And the long overdue hunter fleet royal rumblewarheading is definitely on the cards.
Fixed that for you.
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Offline Mal

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #36 on: May 22, 2014, 07:30:29 pm »
C'mon Rocky! I have been waiting over a week for you to finish this amazing amazing action report! :)

Offline RockyBst

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #37 on: August 18, 2014, 04:31:39 pm »
Oh, hi!

So, what happened? The usual, unfortunately. I burnt out on the game.

This happens with every single game I ever play, and it's a testament to AI War that it's one of the very, very few I end up coming back to. So, I got about another hour and a half into the game and in the face of probably an 80% certainty of winning just couldn't bring myself to put in another 4-8 hours of grinding. Not after the 10/10/10 game at least.

However, now a few months have passed and an interesting AI War expansion is out for me to play with. So, while I may not AAR them (boy does writing this stuff up take a while - I really shouldn't go into so much details), rest assured that I'm out there trying to find the perfect way to cook the AI's goose.

(Hint: It normally involves Limburger brûlée. Applied with a nuclear blowtorch)

p.p.s: I take great pride in getting 33 patch note mentions in 2 months - Not sure quite what my favourite was. Using neinzul rocketry lightning warheads as defensive weapons? The charismatic golem? The 'move along, please' threat logic? The null pointing nuclear train? The instant infinite knowledge extractors? All I know is I look forward to breaking the new toys just as much :D

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #38 on: August 18, 2014, 04:38:07 pm »
Welcome back :)

I very much understand on the burnout; honestly I wonder how folks can log hundreds or thousands of hours in this game and keep at it.  Nothing against the game in specific, just... well, any game wears on a person after a while.  That's one of the big motivations for me for making other games, so you have multiple options for your self-immolation needs ;)
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Offline Alex Heartnet

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #39 on: August 20, 2014, 03:20:57 pm »
Can I have the save file?   :)

Offline RockyBst

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #40 on: August 20, 2014, 03:53:02 pm »
Sure, why not. The attached file is the one I saved at 17 hours, so you can continue the AAR in the comfort of your own home :p

Offline Zair

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #41 on: August 20, 2014, 08:32:21 pm »
I haven't smiled this much at a forum thread anywhere in a long time. Simple yet effective storytelling and it gets all the pertinent info across.

I admit a game on this scale would have me cowering behind a planetoid in the next galaxy over, you are a brave person indeed to play a round this insane. :p

Offline Alex Heartnet

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Re: All Creatures Great and Small
« Reply #42 on: August 21, 2014, 08:31:48 pm »
so you can continue the AAR in the comfort of your own home :p

Good grief.  No, just no, sorry can't continue this AAR.   :(  No wonder you burnt out

 

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