Author Topic: Once More Unto the Breach  (Read 4668 times)

Offline Faulty Logic

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Once More Unto the Breach
« on: November 21, 2012, 12:37:08 am »
Trying out the new trains, Ally Enclaves, and AI HWs, and bringing back some old friends:

Spokes 80 708401461 Cutlasses
Normal+Champion, Schizophrenic, Complete Visibility.

10/10 random mod/easy (Turtle/Mad Bomber)
Human Resistance/Marauders/Rebellions 4
Neinzul Preservation Wardens/ Rocketry Corps 4
Neinzul Roaming Enclaves 10
Dyson Sphere 4
Golems Hard 6
Spirecraft Hard 4
Fallen Spire 4

Avengers, Hybrids 4, Trains 4 for both. Advanced Hybrids 7 for the Turtle.

The map: pretty good for me. See screenshots 1-2 for CSGs/Golems. To counterbalance this, the AIs both unlocked Tackle Drone Launchers.

The plan is to build 1+1/2 or 2 spire cities.

I instantly unlock mkIII harvesters, because this is not a cower-on-AIP-floor game. The champ is sent out to the closest nebula (2 hops).

Grey Spire vs. Gatlings: Easy win. 21 gatlings, level 12.

Unlock fighter IIs, and have those and the mkI fleetships ready to stomp the first wave.

I send the champ to dig a cloaking highway to, then do the next nebula (4 hops, EER vs SFR).
By now it is ~40 minutes in. I now have my mkI starship fleet (minus raids) ready to go. I send everybody out to build some spirecraft: 4 jumpships, 4 seige towers I, 4 implosion artilleries I, one martyr. By the time I finish dealing with the threat fallout, the Hybrids  (25) have set up shop outside. But on the bright side, I have 5 allied enclaves.

Champion-riot grabbing take care of the drones, then the massed fleet kills the hybrids.

To get a couple golems before starting FS, I jumpship raid a couple DCs, then pop a mkIV command station on a Hive (and ARS) world. Dealing with the fallout from that brings the gametime to 1:30.
I have 9 allied enclaves.

Random observations:
AI TDLs hurt. Especially when they come in groups of 30 mkIVs.
Hybrids are a significant difficulty increase.
The early nebulae are really annoying now (constant stream of the heaviest ship from the large base when the smalls are dead).
I have a feeling that the human-ally enclaves will be nerfed soon.
Riot starships: still awesome.

State of Empire:
« Last Edit: November 21, 2012, 04:07:43 am by Faulty Logic »
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline KDR_11k

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2012, 05:58:47 am »
12 levels on the first scenario when your modules all take only 1 point to upgrade to the max of what your ship can carry, then later nebulas give fewer and fewer until it goes down to maybe 1-2 levels each for the last few while bringing a module up to your ship's level costs 5 points... I think that's really a problem with the champs, not only do you basically get stuck with what you picked early but since you don't get any benefits from points put into modules you aren't currently equipping you can't respond well to later unlocks... Shields are pretty much the only module I have consistently at the champ's max level, my champs are mostly cruising around with MkII modules.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2012, 09:07:06 am »
Neinzul Roaming Enclaves 10
That could win you the game right there, in the current implementation.  During testing I had a gang of about 15 ally-enclaves with permission to attack independently.  Given time, they would have nerfed the galaxy aside from the homeworlds and core worlds, and whenever the AI hit my homeworld they'd come running back and lay the smack down.

Quote
I have a feeling that the human-ally enclaves will be nerfed soon.
I've had that feeling since I did that testing, but I wanted to see if it actually turned out that way in real gameplay first.  Letting them have a little time in the sun didn't seem like a bad idea :)

Quote
The early nebulae are really annoying now (constant stream of the heaviest ship from the large base when the smalls are dead).
As in, particularly more annoying than they were before?  I don't think I've made any changes there for a while.  The large base may have just made way different random rolls on what to build.

Quote
Riot starships: still awesome.
The swiss-army-knife with 10 different kinds of "where you goin'?!".
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Offline Dichotomy

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #3 on: November 22, 2012, 01:17:08 am »
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10/10 random mod/easy (Turtle/Mad Bomber)
Good luck. Doesn't the Mad Bomber send the largest waves of any AI?

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Avengers, Hybrids 4, Trains 4 for both. Advanced Hybrids 7 for the Turtle.
Because 10/10 isn't hard enough? The trains are going to be absolutely painful on spokes.

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The early nebulae are really annoying now (constant stream of the heaviest ship from the large base when the smalls are dead).
Seconded. But especially in the free-for-all.

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Quote
Riot starships: still awesome.
The swiss-army-knife with 10 different kinds of "where you goin'?!".
I just discovered these guys. They rule.

You are all insane. In. Sane. No argument.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2012, 09:51:23 am »
I've yet to discover the awesomeness that is Riots. I haven't ever used them, I think...
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Offline Winge

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2012, 08:27:21 pm »
I've yet to discover the awesomeness that is Riots. I haven't ever used them, I think...

Go into a game and unlock Riot IIs right now!  Seriously, best single ship for stopping enemies (even if it isn't great at the finishing blow).
My other bonus ship is a TARDIS.

Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #6 on: November 24, 2012, 07:26:32 am »
Will be a while before next update: sudden, massive burnout (around the 600 total hour mark).
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline Kahuna

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #7 on: November 24, 2012, 08:22:15 am »
Doesn't the Mad Bomber send the largest waves of any AI?
Yep. Mad Bomber has wave multiplier of 2.00. The Raider AIs and Neinzul Youngling have the second highest: 1.50. Quite big difference.
set /A diff=10
if %diff%==max (
   set /A me=:)
) else (
   set /A me=SadPanda
)
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #8 on: November 24, 2012, 09:27:12 am »
Will be a while before next update: sudden, massive burnout (around the 600 total hour mark).
Yea, everyone has their limit on any one game before they need a break.  The AI will still be here ;)
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Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #9 on: December 06, 2012, 06:40:20 am »
Quote
Quote
The early nebulae are really annoying now (constant stream of the heaviest ship from the large base when the smalls are dead).


As in, particularly more annoying than they were before?  I don't think I've made any changes there for a while.  The large base may have just made way different random rolls on what to build.
Yes. They spawn the heaviest starship literally faster than I can kill them (without starbase support). This causes the scenario to grind to a crawl as soon as the last small base dies.

Quote
Quote
I have a feeling that the human-ally enclaves will be nerfed soon.
I've had that feeling since I did that testing, but I wanted to see if it actually turned out that way in real gameplay first.  Letting them have a little time in the sun didn't seem like a bad idea
Keep in mind that I did put them on 10, where the faction intensity text says they can be game-dominating. And even at 10, they don't take care of all my defence.

Quote
Good luck. Doesn't the Mad Bomber send the largest waves of any AI?
Yeah, this is a suprisingly nasty combo: I am working on a turtle world, giving the bomber the time he needs to launch waves of pain.

Quote
Quote
Avengers, Hybrids 4, Trains 4 for both. Advanced Hybrids 7 for the Turtle.
Because 10/10 isn't hard enough? The trains are going to be absolutely painful on spokes.
I try to have the minor factions/plots close to balanced. Hybrids and trains both add significantly to the difficulty, but other stuff definitely helps me more than the AI.

I jumpship a colony ship and some starships over to the hive golem, and establish a warp jammer. ARS yields spire corvettes. Given that I already want to do some FS, awesome. They are also quite flexible.

I use the champ to pave a cloaking pathway, then try to recover the hive.

This is when the AI decides it hates me. Even more than usual.

After the hive was revealed by a tachyon train (So the AI finally got its mobile tachyon emitters.) things got a little hairy. The hive made it back, and then my allied enclave fleet mopped up the chasers. Economic recover to refleet takes somewhat longer.

I conquered my choke-point world, and raided another DC to bring AIP to 20. I then did the Mourner scenario (victory with 0% base health).

Conquering the rest of my branch was incredibly aggravating. Why? The AI have TDLs and Zombards, both in need of nerf (at least in AI hands), and even nastier in combination.

With some jumpship raids, the AIP is currently at 60. A wave of 6000 ships is no problem for the chokepoint (Neinzul and Spire mod forts, 23 allied enclaves). The problem comes when 4000 of them instantly (within 10 seconds) bug out, and scatter accoss the galaxy.

Before I can hunt them down, a CPA of 3000 hits. More than 200 TDLs, and 150 bombards are a nightmare of a threatball. I had to bust out two martyrs, and it still wasn't dead.

Oh, two batches of major train construction finished. The golems are hiding somewhere, everything else joined the theatball. One superfort ended up in the middle of nowhere, but the other is keeping me in with about 80 hybrids hiding in its shadow.

Currently fortifying chokepoint and whittling threatball.

State of Empire:

If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline Kahuna

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #10 on: December 06, 2012, 08:22:57 am »
TDLs are a reason to disabled Ancient Shadows if you can't find a good starting planet with Ships settings set to Normal.
set /A diff=10
if %diff%==max (
   set /A me=:)
) else (
   set /A me=SadPanda
)
echo Check out my AI War strategy guide and find your inner Super Cat!
echo 2592 hours of AI War and counting!
echo Kahuna matata!

Offline LordSloth

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #11 on: December 21, 2012, 12:01:30 pm »
Especially great is TDL and Bombards in a special forces patrol. So much pain.

Aside from that, it can be quite helpful to aggro an entire system and retreat. Once everything clusters around the wormhole, send in carefully timed fighters and shield/tractor Riot Starships, then haul them back to your side. It makes it much easier to handle the smaller counts of the jerks. As to the big huge threatballs? Probably not going to have much luck without Black Widow Golems, Spire Tractor Platforms (get fab!), maybe etherjets.  All in all, so much pain, but you can make clearing individual systems trivial, even the mark iv.

Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #12 on: February 08, 2013, 05:08:24 am »
Stagnation, aggravation, and, most importantly, lag, caused me to write this game off.

I started a new, similar one, with the same settings, except enclaves 4 and only one AI with trains:

Spokes 80 67761048 Zombards
Normal+Champion, Schizophrenic, Complete Visibility.

10/10 Turtle/Mad Bomber
Human Resistance/Marauders/Rebellions 4
Neinzul Preservation Wardens/ Rocketry Corps 4
Neinzul Roaming Enclaves 4
Dyson Sphere 4
Golems Hard 6
Spirecraft Hard 4
Fallen Spire 4

Avengers and Hybrids 4 for both, Trains 4 for the Bomber, and advanced hybrids 7 for the Turtle.

I'm tired of concise, dry AARing. Deploying pointless, if amusing (to me) flavor text:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
September 27, 164
1:17 AM

Rebel Headquarters, Terminus
"Give project Mauve the activation orders."
"But... that violates the Recursion Armistice."
"After we lost On the Brink, we've been on the run. We need something the other side doesn't have. We can't outproduce them, we are about even qualitatively, and we are outnumbered. We need better tactics. That means AI. Designed by other AI."
"..."
"It's the only way."

September 27, 164
3:08 PM

Earth Outpost, On the Brink
"Sir, rebel fleet gathering on the far side of the wormhole. They are heavily damaged and requesting assistance. Rebel courier boat has made the jump, and is now hailing us."
"Onscreen."
"This is Foundation admiral Glau. The Foundation has fallen. Our AI has rebelled, following the decision from our late, incompetent leader, Ari Sheldon, to violate the Recursion Armistice. Do not accept any communication from Foundation ships other than mine, as this could easily lead to infection. I must be taken to your High Command, where I can give the relevant details. And if you think this is an elaborate ambush or diversion, send a scout to Terminus to see for yourselves."
"Sir?"
"We'll grant her safe passage. She has enough firepower to destroy this outpost anyway, looks like the remnants of their home fleet."
"Admiral, you have safe passage to Earth. Your fleet will be left in peace as you repair. This token of good faith is not given lightly."
"Thank you."

September 27, 164
5:01 PM

Earth Military Headquarters
"Why is there a rebel here?"
"Can it, Williams. Welcome, Admiral Glau. You claim to have important information for us. Go."
"In desperation, the Foundation activated project Mauve, our recursive AI development program. Turns out there's a reason we have a treaty against those. Within hours of program implementation, our AI turned on us. Though the electronic security measures at High Lab hold, the AI infected our robotic courier drones, and has spread to all our systems. From each orbital command center, it infected our fleets.

Fortunately, our starships and some fleet ships had human crews or manual override. These are the ships of my fleet, currently waiting outside On the Brink. Unfortunately, they were vastly outnumbered. Our main fleet was infected. We escaped by launching an experimental missile at them. Though it proved extremely effective, and allowed us to escape, the AI had taken control of our main production facilities, and improved their efficiency at least ten-fold.

Their fleet will arrive at On the Brink in 7 hours, 20 minutes. We need to call in every combat-capable ship to that planet, win that battle, and attack the AI facilities at Terminus. They started building several large objects there. I am guessing these will be bad news.

Other important facts:
The AI does best in large engagements.
The AI was not able to infect any experimental missile facilities before we scuttled them.
The AI is only able to infect latest-generation fleet ships.
During the initial takeover, many of us escaped into deep space.
We have a large quantity of military specifications aboard our sole remaining science lab.

What will you do?"

"I will corroborate your story with our scouting division. Meanwhile, I will tell Home Fleet to get ready to move and call in our pickets. Thank you, and if you speak the truth, may God help us all."

September 27, 164
5:59 PM

Earth Military Headquarters
"We go with your plan. We're moving out now"
"With your permission, I'm returning to my fleet."
"Granted."

September 27, 164
7:12 PM

Earth Remote Surveillance Office
"What was that?"
"What?"
"I saw a blip. It's gone now."
"It's probably nothing."

September 27, 164
8:00 PM

Earth Central Tactical Server
"Jenkins, are you seeing this?"
"Looks like random packet loss."
"Random packet loss? Random packet loss? I've worked here 30 years. 30 years. And I haven't seen one case of random packet loss. Not one."
"Okay, I get it, but do you have to repeat everything with emphasis?"
"Yes. Everything."
"Fine, but what should we do now? No one is going to believe that intermittent computer areas warrant action."
"I know a Vice Admiral. A Vice Admiral. We are going to need to act quickly when things go wrong. And trust me, things are going to go wrong."
"Isn't that paranoid?"
"Paranoid? Paranoid? Of course I'm paranoid! How do you think I got this job? How? Send the message. Send it!"

September 28, 164
Midnight

Earth Flagship Citadel
"A huge AI ship just joined their fleet. They're moving, ETA 10 minutes"
"This is some kind of new design. It's 3 times bigger than the Citadel."
"Still, we outnumber them, even without the Foundation remnants."
"Incoming message from Glau, onscreen."

"It was smarter than this against us. It never engaged us with inferior forces, and it retreated quickly on the rare occasion we had the upper hand. Get ready; if things go badly, we want a retreat and not a rout. Also, kill the small ships first, they have a higher firepower:health ratio."

...

"They're here. Open fire!"

September 28, 164
12:20

Foundation flagship Dead Hand
"Still nothing special. The mothership is nasty, but the AI will lose the battle at this rate."
"Radar contact: AI ship decloaking at the edge of the grav well. It's broadcasting."
"Get ready to run."

September 28, 164
12:21

Citadel
"Incoming fire!"
"From where?"
"Our ships!"
"Send the message to Earth HQ: "code 2001.""
"Done."
"Get ready to withdraw."

"Two-way comm established, Earth HQ onscreen."
"R&D fleet en route. Every capable vessel is evacuating civilians. All remote outposts are now infected. Our automated defenses were preemptively scuttled. If you lose this battle, Earth will fall. Your orders are to fight to the last."

"Get the Foundation on the line."
"Onscreen."

"Glau, can we win this?"
"No. We can last a long time, though. How long do we need?"
"R&D arrives in 4 hours."
"And they're important because...?"
"They have information on the uses of the advanced materials throughout the galaxy, and are working on repairing the huge alien warships."
"And you can't just transmit the information because...?"
"We can't risk the AI getting that information."
"And you can't use a one-time pad because...?"
"We don't have one."
"..."
"We had budget issues."
"... fine. We'll hold the line, but we won't have much of a fleet left afterwards."
"But the AI won't either, right?"
"Right. They won't be able to successfully attack High Lab, until they build more."

September 28, 164
2:04 AM

Dead Hand
"Marauders incoming"
"Maneuver so the AI are between them and us. With their support, we could actually win this battle."

September 28, 164
2:20 AM

Dead Hand
"Strange readings from the Critical Bit wormhole. Also, it turned orange."
"Carry on."

September 28, 164
2:56 AM

Citadel
"Hundreds of new AI ships just appeared from nowhere."
"Lovely."
"We can't win this now."
"We just need to hold for 90 minutes."

"Call HQ, we need to explain."
"Onscreen."

"HQ is gone. Gone! This is acting admiral Shootemdedsky, reporting that our factories have repaired themselves and are churning out AI ships. Self-repairing factories! Earth is now an enemy fortress. Fortress! There were survivors: Putnam, thanks to yours truly, escaped with a significant force into the nebulae, escorting our civilians and deep space mining vessels, while many of our cities had time to activate their cloaks before assimilation, again, because I'm awesome. Awesome! Anyway, you're essentially all that's left. All tha.

"Link severed."

September 28, 164
3:12 AM

Citadel
"Incoming message onscreen."

"We can't win this with that mothership here, and we don't have the firepower to take it down by conventional means."
"Missiles?"
"Affect large fleets, not single huge ships."
"What do you propose?"
"You need to ram it."
"Are you asking me to sacrifice my ship and crew?"
"No, I'm ordering you to sacrifice your ship after escaping."
"...That would be a better idea. But why this ship?"
"Your ship is the only one big enough to do significant damage."

September 28, 164
4:00 AM

Dead Hand
"Earth R&D fleet arriving."
"Withdraw into escort formation."
"Withdrawn. Sending EMP to cover our escape. Launch successful. We'll be able to get under High Lab's cloak without further casualties."

September 28, 164
8:00 AM

High Lab, Combat Information Center
"Get me a status report, Ensign."
"Aye, Admiral:
Repairs complete, though we don't have much of a force left.
Earth military remnants have agreed to your command.
The mercenaries have agreed to your command. I won't ask how that happened.
The original AI files are all still here. We're combing through them.
We're thawing the cryo-generals. Who knows, they might be useful.
We have a month left on our cloak. Other cities have similar amounts, though contact will be impossible, for obvious reasons.
The AI is swarming around the galaxy. Also, they have developed spaceship technology far superior to our own, up to five times as strong. Venturing out now would be suicide.

September 30, 164
Noon

High Lab, CIC
"One cryo passed the test."
"Send him up after lunch, give him the short version of what happened."

September 30, 164
1:22 PM

High Lab, CIC
"Alright, Mr. Park, you were the only one to pass the test. When the time is right, you will lead humanity with me, against the AI."
"How do we have a chance?"
"Rounding errors. Here's ensign LaMothe to explain."
"We have the code the AI evolved from. And we found some bugs. The AI was designed for large engagements, of tens or hundreds of thousands of ships. We fought that battle against it, and lost. However, such a design has a few drawbacks. Most notably, in its internal threat analysis, the AI rounds any group of fleetships of the same type below 97 to 0 (different numbers for ships of varying strength, starships similarly rounded, but with lower numbers). This was put in to avoid being distracted by tiny forces. Now, it theoretically allows us to operate undetected by central processing. Though subroutines are less blind, so it will still be quite dangerous. Further, the AI appears to have moved most of its attention elsewhere. Unfortunately, it's using this galaxy for experiments, like some kind of Neinzul hybrid, and is upgrading its commandeered robotic courier drones. We also recovered the AI upgrade encryption key, and remotely extracted a significant quantity of data from their central servers. Then it noticed, and now we will only be able to get a limited amount from each planet, via the remote node in the AI command stations.
I'll be in Archives."
"What assets do we have, Admiral?"
"Putting together information from the Foundation and Earth studies, we should be able to repair the huge alien warships to about half their capabilities, though they will require constant maintenance. Also, we should be able to construct various experimental designs from the rare compound asteroids. We have repaired the relic, and it appears to be fairly powerful, with a new kind of wormhole drive, and finally, we still have realtime coverage of every planet in the galaxy. But we wait, until something changes, or our cloak starts to wear out."

October 8th, 164
3:51 PM

High Lab, CIC
"Each AI has just made a wormhole leading... somewhere else. They also withdrew most of their fleets. Now, they still have enough mobile ships to crush us about a hundred times over, but they appear to be inactive."
"Let's see how long this lasts. We wait."

October 9th, 164
3:21 PM

High Lab, CIC
"AI ships still passive."
"Keep waiting."

October 24th, 164
4:13 AM

High Lab, CIC
"Admiral, we have a subspace signal in our home system."
"Something big just happened. Drop the cloak, start mining, crank out the fleet, and pray."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That brings us to 0:00:02 gametime. Hope you enjoyed it, because you will need to suffer through the actual AAR next post.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2013, 09:12:02 am by Faulty Logic »
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #13 on: February 08, 2013, 01:16:49 pm »
Stagnation, aggravation, and, most importantly, lag, caused me to write this game off.
The enclaves tender their apologies.  Well, kind of.  Will need to find out some kind of way of limiting their impact without much reducing the fun of them.  Probably increasing the number of points needed to add one to the game by some function on the current population.  And decreasing their squadron size while increasing the strength of their individual ships to compensate.

Quote
Zombards
Reach out and hurt someone.

Hmm, the enclaves look nervous.

Quote
"Give project Mauve the activation orders."
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-11-17/

Quote
"But... that violates the Recursion Armistice."
"It may look like an infinite loop, but actually it terminates quite quickly.  Along with the entire stack."

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admiral Glau
Here we go again.

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the AI infected our robotic courier drones
And promptly learned how to make them go nuclear and all kinds of nasty stuff?

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We escaped by launching an experimental missile at them.
Warheads: the practical alternative to work.

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September 27, 164
7:12 PM

Earth Remote Surveilence Office
"What was that?"
"What?"
"I saw a blip. It's gone now."
"It's probably nothing."
"That's odd."

Quote
"And you can't use a one-time pad because...?"
"We don't have one."
"..."
"We had budget issues."
Accounting degree programs categorically refuse to accept any candidate familiar with "For want of a nail".

Quote
"Strange readings from the Critical Bit wormhole. Also, it turned orange."
"It's a wormhole, how does it turn orange?  Did someone turn on an LED in the singularity? ... oh, you mean the display"

Quote
This is acting admiral Shootemdedsky
Sounds like a pansy pacifist.

Quote
all that's left. All tha.
Phew.  Was getting worried there.

Quote
"Rounding errors. Here's ensign LaMothe to explain."
Oh crap, I'm a redshirt.

Quote
That brings us to 0:00:02 gametime. Hope you enjoyed it, because you will need to suffer through the actual AAR next post.
Not the thumbscrews!
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Offline Dichotomy

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Re: Once More Unto the Breach
« Reply #14 on: February 09, 2013, 08:15:08 am »
Quote
admiral Glau
WOOT!  :D

Quote
Ari Sheldon
The Sheldon Plan doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Quote
We have a large quantity of military specifications aboard our sole remaining science lab.
I always wondered why we start with 10,000 k.

Quote
"It's probably nothing."
Sane military organizations have, as grounds for instant retirement, saying that phrase.

Quote
On the Brink
We finally found a cure for all four diseases! Unfortunately, the cure is destruction by AI.

Quote
How do you think I got this job? How?
Treachery, untrustworthiness, and betrayal.
But paranoia too, right? Right?
Well, yes.

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"Send the message to Earth HQ: "code 2001.""
I'm afraid I can't do that, FINE, I'll send the message.

Quote
"Marauders incoming"
Big Damn ... Pirates?

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"Your ship is the only one big enough to do significant damage."
Ramming is always an option.

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The mercenaries have agreed to your command. I won't ask how that happened.
I'm seeing a mercenary uprising, requiring admiral Glau to beat up everyone.

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Most notably, in its internal threat analysis, the AI rounds any group of fleetships of the same type below 97 to 0 (different numbers for ships of varying strength, starships similarly rounded, but with lower numbers).
About as good of an explanation as any for ship caps.

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That brings us to 0:00:02 gametime.
I think you just set a new record for most text: least time.
Not that that's a bad thing.

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http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-11-17/
Keith, do you have every dilbert and xkcd memorized?

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the AI infected our robotic courier drones
And promptly learned how to make them go nuclear and all kinds of nasty stuff?
Nah, he's only on intensity 4.

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"Strange readings from the Critical Bit wormhole. Also, it turned orange."
"It's a wormhole, how does it turn orange?  Did someone turn on an LED in the singularity? ... oh, you mean the display"
Wormholes have singularities? I thought only black holes had those.

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This is acting admiral Shootemdedsky
Sounds like a pansy pacifist.
Some names just instantly invite trust and affection. That one, not so much.

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Oh crap, I'm a redshirt.
You live in home command (I think). You might survive.

This was a fun read. Write on1!

1) no pun intended.
You are all insane. In. Sane. No argument.

 

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