Author Topic: Dark Spire Pain  (Read 9223 times)

Offline Jefferson

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Dark Spire Pain
« on: September 22, 2012, 07:37:43 pm »
Here I have decided to document my latest battle with the AI, since I've been meaning to document one of my battles for a while.  I decided to write this after discovering 5 Dark Spire Vengeance Generators within the territory I planned to take for my Fallen Spire Campaign. 

80 Planet Map - Clusters Microcosm
8 / 8 Random Moderate / Easier (The Tank / Bully)
All Ship Types except Core Shield Generators and Swallowers
Champion on
Human Resistance Fighters 10 / 10
Human Colony Rebellions 4 / 10
Zenith Traders
Zenith Dyson Sphers 10 / 10
Broken Golems Easy
Botnet Golem Easy
Neinzul Rocketry Corp 4 / 10
Neinzul Preservation Wardens 4 / 10
Neinzul Roaming Enclaves 4 / 10
Fallen Spire 4 / 10
Spirecraft Easy
Dark Spire 4 / 10
0 AIP Increase
Reveal Random AI Types



Map key:
P0 is planets that I absolutly will be taking (usually a chokepoint or dyson)
P1 is a planet with a capturable on it
P3 is a AIP reducer
P4 is a Distribution Node or a Zenith Cache
P8 is a danger zone (an Eye, Raid Engine or Black Hole Generator, Neinzul Rocket Corp)
P9 is for Core Worlds and Homeworlds

Day 1: Part 1

This first part will be a little more of a recap since I am currently 2 and a half hours into the game.

Since this is my first Difficult 8 game, I'm expecting things to be a bit more hectic than usual.

I pick the new Spire Corvette as my bonus ship to give it a go.  My plan is to take Shareholder's Fortune and Duke's Vision to act as whipping boys against the Exo Galactic Strike Forces.  I spend the next 2 hours setting up some defences, expanding up to Antigone Memorial and Teladi Gain, as well as completing my first nebula which was Epsilon Eridani. 

I have managed to scout out my entire section of the galaxy finding a Heavy Bomber MK 4 Fabricator on Kingdom End, a Regenerator Golem on Tkr's Deprivation, the Botnet Golem on Spaceweed Grove, a Black Widow Golem on Sanctity of Corruption, a Cursed Golem and Armor Ship MK 5 Fabricator on Shareholder's Fortune, and an Advanced Research Station on Two Grand containing Chameleon (Primary), Teleport Battle Staion, or Impulse Reaction Emitter.  Since my Fallen Spire plan calls for the capture of every system behind my whipping boys (fun to be had), I have all those nice items to look forward to (as well as the included AIP increases they will bring along).

What I did not account for was the 5 Dark Spire Vengeance Generators (4 of which are already active) on my side of the whipping boys, including 1 on my whipping boy of Shareholder's Fortune.  The placement of the wormholes on Argon Sector M148 puts the wormhole to Shareholder's Fortune in the middle of the 3 other wormhole, which spreads my defenses quite thin, so I will stick with the original plan and not move that whipping boy.  I'm expecting that to cause me some pain.

Current Tech Unlocks:
MK 3 Harvesters
Mobile Repair Station
Gravitation Turret
Tachyon Beam Turret
MK 2 Fighters / Bombers

The AI has unlocked:
Armor Ships
Space Tanks
Eyebots (ow my champion!)
Mirrors
Laser Gattlings

Day 1: Part 2

After fending off a wave of 600 Neinzul Tigers, I send my fleet to Blue Profit to recover the first shard.  The Roaming Enclave choose this moment to show its face, which is promptly blown to bits.  The survey ship finishes counting down, and I immediatly fall in love with the new speed of the shard.  The return of the shard goes on with little fan fare, although I manage to build up 1k threat in the process, and I proceed to build the Subspace Receiver.  I manage to drop the amount of threat loose down to just under 300 (thanks to them running headlong into my defences, along with the 80+ Resistance ships that are patroling my systems), but the remaining ships have scattered around the nearby area.  Will need to go hunting for the remaining threat.

Correction: The threat is making a run for it into the far reaches of space.  At the very least they aren't hanging around to attack me.

Just over the 3 hour mark, Shareholder's Fortune is ripe for the taking, so I send my fleet out to clear the planet so I can set up the first whipping boy.  I pop the ai command center and begin construction of my own, rushed by 10 engineers, I place it next to the Armor Ship Fabricator with 3 shields keeping them both alive.  Remember that Cursed Golem that I mentioned was on the planet earlier?  I didn't, so I scrambled my fleet over to intercept 2 rogue guardians from a forcefield guard post that decided to attack it.  At least the golem is still alive but my forgetfulness will be the end of me (and the entire human race).  I bring my turrets online to bolster my defenses, I will have to move more over once I manage to secure my flanks better.

Taking Shareholder's Fortune has the added benefit of increasing my non deepstriking range, bring 2 nebulas into range.  Unlock Heavy Beam Cannons and place 6 of them on Shareholder's Fortune to bolster my defences there.  Cursed Golem finishes rebuilding shortly afterwords.  Cue wave of 867 Space Tanks and a 2 leech starships to Shareholder's Fortune, this gave me a taste of what the later game will bring to the table in respect to the dark spire spawns.  Let me tell you, it doesn't taste good, I estimate around 20 dark spire spawned during that wave, so with 4 additional planets containing vengeance generators thats many ships spawning in my lines. Ouch.  The fact that I am already seeing some dark spire ships bleed through to my homeworld is not encouraging. Now to retire for the night and mull over the possibilities.

Time: 4:00
Current AIP: 117
4 Planets Taken
3k Unspent Knowledge
New Tech: Heavy Beam Cannon

Question: Does anyone happen to know the formula for how many vengeance generators gets seeded per difficulty level?  I noticed on 1 / 10 that it seeded 2 generators and at 4 / 10 there seems to be quite alot more. 5 on 20 planets in my area, and I have found a 6th one and I havent even scouted out half the galaxy yet.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2012, 01:45:13 pm by Jefferson »

Offline Jefferson

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Re: Dark Spire Pain
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2012, 01:50:14 pm »
Day 2

My naming of this AAR may have been premature, after spending a few minutes this morning going over my notes and staring at the galaxy map, I noticed an interesting situation.



In red are the Vengeance Generators, while in yellow are the places I had originaly planned on placing my Spire City Hubs (I planned it before I started the game). 
Perdition's End is the only Vengeance Generator that will not have any sort of defence to take care of it but theres nothing of importance on it or Hollow Infinity anyway.

That should (hopefully) keep the dark spire from running around killing my defenceless Command Stations.

Back to buisness, A mark 3 counter attack wave is launched on my homeworld of Light Water, it goes down without any hassle. A CPA with 942 ships (349 MK 1, 584 MK 2) is released, unfortionatly I sent my scouts on a scouting run so I was completely blind as to where it was comming from. 
Most of the CPA attacks Shareholder's fortune as well as a wave of over 1k fighters from a wave (I don't remember seeing the wave counter for it, I need to pay more attention). 
They both die but they takes most of my defences on Shareholder's Fortune with it, and I still have 661 threat hanging around out there but my scouts (now back on picket duty) cannot seem to find 400 of it.

I unlock MK 2 scout drones to scout out more of the galaxy and have more pickets.

Send my champion to the second nebula and get Neinzul Mourners.  I get the Destroyer, Acid Jet Module, and Neinzul Modular Fortress for my trouble.

I really need to get my second whipping boy on Duke's Vision up to cut down on the amount of ships in the waves since the only warp gate next to my territory is on Argon Sector M148. 
Apparently Duke's Vision had a threat build, my Resistance allies has wiped out the entire sector except the barracks.  I pop that and clean out the sector to set up my Command Center.

Defences are up on Duke's Vision and all is going well, until I accidently destroy the command center while moving around turrets, Oops (shift click is your enemy when you don't pay attention).  I was moving the command center on Shareholder's Fortune at the same time when a dark spire ship killed it so both my whipping boys are without supply for a few minutes, Double Oops.  Thankfully I didn't suffer any attacks during that short period of time, so I am up and running again.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2012, 01:57:08 pm by Jefferson »

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Dark Spire Pain
« Reply #2 on: September 23, 2012, 01:56:03 pm »
I'll be interested to see if the Dark Spire are at least sane now :)

Question: Does anyone happen to know the formula for how many vengeance generators gets seeded per difficulty level?  I noticed on 1 / 10 that it seeded 2 generators and at 4 / 10 there seems to be quite alot more. 5 on 20 planets in my area, and I have found a 6th one and I havent even scouted out half the galaxy yet.
It's just intensity*2, so 8 in your galaxy (seeding is random, so statistical clustering can happen).  At least, it's been that way for several versions, and I'm assuming you're on the current beta or nearly so.
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Offline Jefferson

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Re: Dark Spire Pain
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2012, 02:04:42 pm »
I'll be interested to see if the Dark Spire are at least sane now :)

Question: Does anyone happen to know the formula for how many vengeance generators gets seeded per difficulty level?  I noticed on 1 / 10 that it seeded 2 generators and at 4 / 10 there seems to be quite alot more. 5 on 20 planets in my area, and I have found a 6th one and I havent even scouted out half the galaxy yet.
It's just intensity*2, so 8 in your galaxy (seeding is random, so statistical clustering can happen).  At least, it's been that way for several versions, and I'm assuming you're on the current beta or nearly so.

Ah ok, having 5 in my corner of the galaxy threw me off.  The RNG is just messing with me for having 10 / 10 dyson and resistance I suppose.  :)

Cue a wave of 536 Cloaked Ships (MK 2) and 2 Starships, expecting them to be eyebots.  Yup eyebots just as expected, my Leech Starships and 40 merc parasites were quite appreciative of the AIs donation to my cause,  48 new mk 1 and 47 mk 2 eyebots for me.

A little bit after the wave a few Dark Spire wandered onto my homeworld, which no longer has any turrets to defend it except a line of gravity turrets.  It was here that I noticed that the Dark Spire did not have any speed reduction from the grav turrets. It was a nice trick on their part, but it didn't save them from my reclaimed fleet on defence or my resistance.

I have now located the dyson sphere, its located 2 hops away from Duke's Vison on Family Whi along with another Cursed Golem.  And a Raid Engine.  The planet Grand Exchange has 2 trader black hole machines, so I will have to destroy them but at least my aip wont increase from it.

Neinzul Modular Fortress is online on Shareholder's Fortune, I'm glad to have the extra firepower since I will be starting the next phase of shard recovery.  I have completly destroyed the warp gates on my side of the whipping boys, that has taken my AIP up to 188.

A wave of 2,792 Laser Gattlings and 2 Starships to Shareholder's Fortune puts a delay on the recovery. I manage to fend them off, at the cost of half of my turrets, along with the ensuing swarm of Dark Spire ships.  My economy is none to pleased with this, but it will get over it.

Recovery of the Alien Refugees proceeds as planned, just need my economy to rebound so I can build the outpost, the Zenith Traders also passed through Shareholder's Fortune, so I picked up a Black Hole Generator, an Armor Inhibitor, an Armor Booster, an Orbital Mass Driver, and a Radar Jammer Mk 2.  Those will contribute nicely once they get around to being built.

Unlock the Missile Frigate Mk 2 and build a cap of them.  Still got 3,500 Knowledge left over for emergancies.

The AI sends a wave of 3,128 Infiltrators to Duke's Vision, I guess my defences there will be tested.  For good measure I unlock and build decloakers since the AI now uses 2 types of cloaked ships.
I manage to steal a full cap of Mk 1 and 83 Mk 2 Infiltrators, at the cost of my 4 Leech Starships.  I should have looked at the attack multipliers, that would have saved them from destruction.

And only now do I realize that Infiltrators are not cloaked, well the decloakers will help with the eyebots.

I manage to triger a Raid Engine on a Mk 4 world, which proceeds to cause much pain to Duke's Vision, although I manage to defeat the raid wave.  The wave of over 1k bombers that hit right after I didn't handle as well (or really at all).  Lose the command center but manage to clean up the wave afterwards.

In the meantime, I manage to get a scout onto the dyson world, so it will start cleaning out the area for me.  A side effect of losing Duke's Vision is that the special forces has started moving forces back into my section.  A small trickle but every ship is one more annoyance.

The special forces have parked themselves on Tkr's Deprivation, which is where I need to go to collect my first city shard.  1300 ships vs my rag tag fleet of 552, I am going to have to get creative to come of of that fight without significant losses.

Looks like the dyson sphere has finished cleansing the area, the gattling have made their way onto my world.  Time to pull the scout so I can actually send ships to free it.

Right, so I totally forgot about the Raid Engine, so I just got hit by a 1000 ship wave of Mk 4 ships.  Duke's Vision is lost again so another rebuilding phase is in progress.

I'm not sure about this, but I think I have been slowly feeding the Dark Spire with my Neinzul Enclave Starships constant production of Laser Drones.  I have moved them to a border world to intercept any attacking Dark Spire ships just in case.

Duke's Vision is finally up and running again, I have also unlocked MRLS Mk 2.  I finally get around to the third nebula and I get the Zenith Shattered Pillar 3-for-all.  During the late stages of this nebula I noticed my zenith allies would occasionally have 2 ships peel off and exit through the wormhole.  I noticed this once before when I was kiting the Malfunctioning Dysons in the Grey Spire nebula, but wasen't able to document it at that time.  It was always the Monolith, which has 24 ships currently on planet.

I unlock the Zenith Shadow Destroyer, the Zenith Modular Fortress, and the Flak Module from this nebula.  On a side note, running circles around the Dark Spires Starbase is fun.

I've established the location of the first AI Homeworld, its located in Senator's Badlands.  I havent actually scouted the Homeworld itself yet, but I found the core world of Family Rhy, and since Bala Gi's Joy and Ceo's Sprite are both Mk 3 worlds, that tells me the homeworld is on Senator's Badlands.

I've recovered my first city shard, but the cost was high.  Duke's Vision was wiped out (again), Shareholder's Fortune lost all of its turrets but my fleet managed to halt their attack.  I had 2 Spire Corvettes, 7 Mk 2 bombers and 2 Mk 1 bombers, 2 Mk 2 Frigates, and 4 Riot Starships left once the battle had settled.  The amount of dark spire that were created during this battle also moved in and took down Antigone Memorial, Teladi Gain, Rhonkar's Fire (taken recently), and LooManckStrat's Legacy (also taken recently).  Those dark spire really due bring the hurt to the game, even if their not as god like as they used to be.  There is 1400 threat that has retreated into the winds that I will have to track down.  I havent even finished removing the attacking Dark Spire ships from my homeworld when a 2k CPA is announced.  Thats gonna hurt considering my economy is tanked.

To add injury to injury, the AI decides to launch an wave of almost 4k Laser Gattlings.

... They wont stop spawning.  The shear numbers of Dark Spire that exo released has overwhelmed the AIs forces on every world that contains a generator, this has the side effect of making it very difficult to rebuild my defences on the whipping boys since the Dark Spire keep destroying stuff.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2012, 06:53:31 pm by Jefferson »

Offline Jefferson

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Re: Dark Spire Pain
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2012, 07:08:12 pm »
Shareholder's Fortune has fallen.  2,013 Mk 2 Ships have been released from the CPA.  My fleet is made up of 2 Raid Starships, my Champion, and the Cursed Golem.  My Cursed Golem is at 1% health.  The non stop attacks from the Dark Spire slowly whittled down my homeworlds defence fleet.  My economy, pft what economy?  A wave of 1200 Armor ships has just been announced.

The only remaining question is how long until the AI wipes out the last bastion of Human resistance.

The AI hesitated.  Their 1300 ships waited to march through the wormhole onto my Homeworld.  But they didn't.  Not before I had a lightning warhead into the mass of ships.  Theres still 400 left, but thats less than what was waiting to kill me.   For now, I am still alive.

It appears that 173 Dark Spire ships have gotten themselves stuck in the 2 Black Hole Generators on Grand Exchange.  I take much pleasure in their entrapment, since they have cause me much pain.



As if I thought that whole "I'm still alive" part would last.

Over 2k Mk 2 - Mk3 Neinzul Tigers were launched at me, quickly making the trip to my homeworld, the Homeworld Command Centers shields didn't stand a chance against them.  At least they suffered the same death that the Human race did.

The leason I learned here about the Dark Spire is pretty big. Dont tank waves on Vengeance Reactor worlds.  Ever.  I should have just tanked the waves on Duke's Vision, and had my defences set up on LooManckStrat's Legacy to catch the Exos, but hey, losing is part of the fun (or so claims FTL).  I really underestimated the impact that the Dark Spire would have on my game.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2012, 08:29:18 pm by Jefferson »

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Dark Spire Pain
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2012, 07:45:48 pm »
Shareholder's Fortune has fallen.
But symbol AIP closed up 20 points after heavy trading? 

Quote
It appears that 173 Dark Spire ships have gotten themselves stuck in the 2 Black Hole Generators on Grand Exchange.  I take much pleasure in their entrapment, since they have cause me much pain.
Ah; hostile ships have logic to kill BHGs trapping them, but (most) minor faction ships have logic to prevent them from killing AIP-causing structures.

I can hear the gears grinding against each other all the way from here ;)

Or are those the non-AIP-causing trader variant of BHG you mentioned earlier?
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Offline Jefferson

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Re: Dark Spire Pain
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2012, 07:58:13 pm »
But symbol AIP closed up 20 points after heavy trading?

I guess its time to buy AIP stocks.

Quote
Quote
It appears that 173 Dark Spire ships have gotten themselves stuck in the 2 Black Hole Generators on Grand Exchange.  I take much pleasure in their entrapment, since they have cause me much pain.
Ah; hostile ships have logic to kill BHGs trapping them, but (most) minor faction ships have logic to prevent them from killing AIP-causing structures.

I can hear the gears grinding against each other all the way from here ;)

Or are those the non-AIP-causing trader variant of BHG you mentioned earlier?

Both of them are the non-AIP BHGs on that world. 
« Last Edit: September 24, 2012, 07:49:37 am by Jefferson »

 

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