Author Topic: Outside the insanity 1  (Read 18119 times)

Offline Malkiel

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Outside the insanity 1
« on: November 16, 2015, 04:35:16 pm »
This will be an ongoing report updated as each hour of time passes in game, so even I don't know the outcome yet.
Settings:
I took inspiration from Pumpkin's and Red Queen's most recent AARs and went with somewhat similar settings and rules:
Full Visibility but not allowed to look at AI HWs until you've been there with a ship (honor system) -taken from Red Queen
60 planets - keep it short due to work being demanding.
Concentric map starting near the center. - Pumpkin did one starting near an edge.
All ships except DGLs turned on.
Shark B enabled at 4 for both AIs - They both had this on.
Schitzophrenic for both AIs
Broken Golems (I've never liked botnet) on hard 4 - RQ used botnet easy 8 and turned on something for the AI to balance it.
Human colony rebellions on 4
Human resistance fighters on 4
both AIs at diff. 8 with chivalric/Random types (it's counter spy for one and everything for the other) - Straight from RQ on the last few items
AIP Auto increase at 1 every 10 minutes (I normally play with this turned OFF, so didn't have the guts to go full Red Queen on it.)
After choosing my start location (connected by hub to dead center point of galaxy) I went with a random bonus ship type. - Pumpkin inspired this

---Beginning of battle---
Normally my first move is to unlock ScoutStar IV and map the galaxy, but due to mimicking settings from other players recent AARs, That wasn't needed. I'm minorly known for making the sentry eye salvage economy strategy back in destroyer of worlds beta, and when I saw 3 sentry eyes, one along my main path as the only C shield generator world, I knew it would be an option.
*Unlocked Logistics command 2
*Unlocked Logistics command 3
*Unlocked Heavy Beam Cannon
I lost both my early scouts getting a legit peek at my 3 adjacent planets, due to counter spy AI type. The central planet of the galaxy, a dead end, was my first priority for conquest. I saw design backups there and went galaxy map to check which ones.
I then determined I was fighting an everything AI, which means no new achievements for me. I also realized 2 hops away on my ring was a 3 backup world: Firefly, Bulletproof, Beam Frigate. I earmarked that as my first planned hack and settled on getting whatever the ARS 3 jumps the other way gave me. (it was on my path)
I built a raid starship and attacked the central planet first, then the one by my hack target, then the last adjacent to HW planet to secure my borders. I also built a few missile turrets, 5 HBC between HCS and those wormholes, and a few needler turrets in front of the HBCs to soak enemy fleet alpha shots instead of my precious cannons.
The first enemy waves contained 270ish autolasers (easy kill) and a wave of only 27 ships, can't recall what type but it was comically ineffective. after those two waves, I finished taking out the third adjacent AI world.
This took less than 23 minutes.

I put up military command centers on the front line worlds for obvious reasons, economic 1 in the back line world. I then remembered I didn't have a silo yet and got myself a mk1 lightning warhead built.
A brief skirmish using fighters to clear tach. coverage was done on the next 2 worlds along the inner ring, as neither had counter spies. I put off hacking the one to the right while I built up defenses, cleaned another world, and got some K coming in.

I sent in a transport full of fighters next to a cloaker starship on the left side to ninja the command station. This triggered a rather brutal AI response as every ship on that planet went threat and all realized "He hasn't built his outer shell turrets yet!"
In my rush to get the cloaker SS and transport full of fighters back and into the fray, I lost the cloaker flying too close to a wormhole and had to mad dash around with the transport. (stupid gravity drains)

As the battle began to unfold I realized I was outclassed, and needed my turrets built two minutes ago.
*Unlocked Needler Turret 2
*Unlocked Heavy Beam Cannon 2
*Unlocked Heavy Beam Cannon 3
Built 10 engineers on the embattled world and started speedbuilding 10 sniper turrets, 20 needler mk II turrets, and 2 HBC mk III.
I had started too late and the zenith siege contingent took down the command station.
WTShark?!
I ended up fighting an intense battle on both my new frontier worlds and having a few (unlucky) teleporting enemy ships get onto my homeworld. At 43:50 I was forced to discharge a lightning warhead to save the right flank's command center, which lived at 4%. Another sharking would probably have killed me then and there.

After the storm had subsided, I decided I needed my offense to be faster than it usually is, and with 4/6 guard posts unshielded, 3 being needler and 1 being antistarship arachnid on the left world I had broken off the AI empire before the storm, Fighters would be the ideal choice for this.
*Unlocked Fighter 2
*Unlocked Heavy Beam Cannon 4

The HBC was just so I could stop having to keep the need of it's unlocking in the back of my mind, and enable me to focus on more immediate decisions for the rest of my tech unlocks.
My fighters moved to clear those 4 posts, noting the MLRS and Specops ones under shields would probably be a while to kill. I brought in a neinzul starship and sat it just out of the MLRS's range to wear down the FF.
One the Right side planet I built the HBC mk IV as a temporary placement nearer the enemy wormhole, since if you're going to unlock it you may as well use the thing.
I began a design download for those 3 designs at about 52 minutes in.
After the download, enemy ships came pouring into my right side system. I greatly enjoyed watching them get vaporized by the dozens from that HBC4... but then it wasn't seeming to fire.
Paralyzers, Bane of the HBC4. I routed my fleet over and between my other defenses and my fleetball, the enemy was massacred.
I finished clearing the second left world and tachyon cleared the ARS (and next ring access point) next to it.
ARS Has Commando (decent) Sabotuer (possibly my favorite bonus ship type, for style alone) and Scapegoats (never really liked those)
Guess I'm going with commando because 1) I already have firefly to work alongside it and 2) my current HAP is -140 due to the triple hack.

Good Heavens, would you look at the time!

Time: 1:01:03
Planets: 5 (none under attack)
AIP: 97
HAP: -140
K reserves: 4000 with none incoming
Metal nodes controlled: 34 (well above average)
Metal on hand: just under 2 million (merc dock works on neinzul SS merc when it passes the 2M mark)
Fleetships all built, only starships are 1 raid 1 bomber 1 neinzul
Unlockables: Firefly 1, Maw 1, Bulletproof 1, Beam Frigate 1
Range from my closest planets to AI homeworlds by intended path: 15 hops to 1, 16 to the other. 11 shared hops along those routes.


A brief synopsis of goals for future sections:
1) take out that munition command center on the ARS world and start knocking out the A network.
2) get a golem before the 3 hour mark or the exo will kill me.
3) get my research costly metal generation system running so the 19,000 research I put into setting up for it doesn't go to waste
4) figure out who to neuter and who to conquer along the way to golem worlds (8 hops out on intended path, fyi)
5) build missile reserves and minefields because the exo will most likely attack from the planet described as "right" meaning I'll have barely any time at all to stop it cold, and my HBC4 won't be there by the time the exo hit since it will have been redeployed as part of my metal farm.

Offline Malkiel

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2015, 10:17:14 am »
upon looking further at the ARS system I intend to take on first, I realized 2 things:
1) everything is definitely clumped together per the commander, except a couple stray ships at tachyone posts.
2) nothing had over 100k health except the Munitions command station, which is rather useless alone...
Lightning Warhead for expediency, then fly through to neuter adjacent system. then time it will save me should be at least ten minutes of messing around in there, which is the 1 AIP for the warhead.
1:08:55
ARS world secured, commandos added to the youngling team

1:20:34
Have neutered planet I am skipping on next ring out. Many younglings lost. also 2 waves came in during this time, one everything wave and another that died so fast I didn't find out what it even contained.

That's all I have time for today sadly. next post in 24+ hours.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2015, 01:27:56 pm »
Wohoo! A new AAR friend!

I love the colors you're using. I don't know why. ;D

You didn't write much explanation about your plot behind the game. Why "outside the insanity", for instance? I would love to hear more about the story you'll tell us with your AAR. From inside of a concentric to the outside? Is there a "break free" trope?

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to read what's next.
Fortune favours the bold!
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline Malkiel

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2015, 08:32:52 am »
Hey Pumpkin, good to see one of my inspirations is checking in :)
Outside is a nod to your AARs, Insanity is a nod to Red Queen's.
I really liked how in your AARs, you are forcing yourself to use different tools than your normal methods, and different methods/settings.
For myself, I took that to a lesser degree... I took away my exodian and showdown devices, for example, as they're my 2 main roads to victory, but I left my golems intact.
The addition of auto-AIP is directly taken from Red Queen, and is a huge departure from the normal way I play. I've found it's already greatly changing the way I perceive warheads.

The main story behind my AAR will receive more focus after the first CPA, for right now I've committed to getting far enough along that the project gains traction within my priorities... I was also holding off until my vacation, which just started 4 days early. It directly references the second Red Queen "Incident".

1:21:47
Used Younglings to fly through a couple mk IV worlds and knock down a data center. got greedy and went for a post on the target world, didn't get it and lost remaining younglings.

1:23:27
Due to youngling combat clearing threatfleet, Reprisal Level 1 announced.

1:24:46
Sacrificed a pair of raid starships to take out another Data Center.

1:26:15
87 ship reprisal headed for my staging system in 2:28. Threat deemed minimal and plans shall continue towards expansion.

*Unlocked Heavy Bomber Starship 2


multiple needler posts, a swarm of cloaked etherjets, a counter spy, and a sentry eye means the next op needs a lighter touch than has been my typical.
The raid went reasonably well, taking out 2 needler posts, a counter spy, the remaining tachyon detectors, and bringing the final needler post to 4% hp, all at a loss of 1 heavy bomber mk II starship. This should free up a large number of ships into local threat making that system far safer to traverse in the future.

System past that analysis:
laser post under forcefield
mlrs post under forcefield
cloaker post
missile post
radar damp (everyone)
primary defense ship: bombards
3 backups
planning advisory:
insertion method: uncloaked transport rush
destroy command with younglings, their speed will help counter bombards, assisted by radar jammer cutting bombard range.
take out cloaker post and missile post using frigates.
leave remaining posts up until a better takedown plan is devised.


during that combat, I will have both marks of fighters assaulting the system I just weakened, aiming to remove the needler post, the arachnid post, and a spire implosion guardian. new younglings will be routed to the neutered system prior to it so any fighters carried away by etherjets will be heading into systems where I have active combat forces to rescue them. adding 1 flagship to accompany younglings.

Operational results where mixed: the threat piling up in the neutered system was bad for my efforts to control space there, SF was flying through the entire combat area when the attack was launched, 2 level 1 reprisals where triggered, but every single targeted item was destroyed.
 The fighters and missile frigates are also in overall excellent shape following the attacks, though the younglings did all die (I threw the remainder at the shielded posts since there was no getting them home at that point)

1:44:13
I have taken control of the system with the 2 shielded posts, gaining mk V MLRS turrets, which have been deployed in core worlds.
Looking forward, the next 2 systems on my strike list both possess fortresses and data centers. the first is an ARS world, the second has Spider Turret V and Artillery Golem. the one past that has my beloved Black Widow Golem, though I have yet to review it's defenses.
world 1 has a fort 3 by the command station, a fort 1 by the data center and specops post, and a shielded MLRS post in the middle of nowhere.
world 2 has a fort by the data center with a needler post, another needler post nearby but out of missile blast range. It's 3 MLRS posts are near the command station shielding post, I might be able to catch 2 of those and the shield post in a single, well placed warhead strike. if that will not work, I can definitely get 2 MLRS posts with the missile, though I question the value of such a strike with it being a rather soft world in general.

Reviewing the defenses of world 3, it'll be a nightmare scenario:
counter spy, gravetric command station, all posts clustered around the station, radar jammer 2, anti starship arachnid post, widow post... 187 units in barracks and the world is mk IV. Did I mention it's all under a pair of mk III ai forcefields?

Thank god for artillery golem.

by precise strikes I could knock out the command stations of worlds 1 and 2, putting the fortresses on world 1 offline. Then I'd only have to deal with the one on world 2, but the issue with this method is world 3 becoming alerted making for an even greater nightmare when I am forced to take it on. A brief test indicated that counter spy does not, in fact, take out armored warheads. this means it will be possible to hit the command station with one on world 3 with relative ease, which would knock out the fortress on world 2.
then the only time-intensive portions of clearing would be 1) the shielded MLRS on world 1 and 2) the 187 mk IV ships released from barracks on world 3.

Goal for 2 hour mark is to neutralize all 3 worlds inside the next 15 minutes utilizing 1 armored warhead and 1 lightning warhead 1 to clean up the barracks ships. AIP should end up in the 150-160 range at that time.

Attack Plan:
World 1: Younglings kill command station and retreat to strike point, later second fighter wave knocks out tachyons, then colonize.
World 2: transport of 70 bombers knocks out command shield post, transport of 24 bombers knocks out command station, bombers attempt to flee to strike point but no survivors are expected. Youngling spam to distract while second wave bombers clear MLRS posts and bulletproofs clear needler posts. send starship support.
World 3: transport of fighters takes down tachyon, heads back to world 2 taking out tachyons. after second wave of fighters clears remaining detectors along the route, armored warhead hits command station. when youngling spam arrives, roll a lightning warhead in to clear threat while they are distracted.


1:50:24
Special forces intervened, as should be expected. the sudden surge into world 2 prevented my first fighter wave from taking out any tachyon posts.
worlds 1 and 2 where both removed from AI control, but the detection net is still intact. also, there was a plasma eye on world 2 I had not noticed before, thankfully it didn't activate during the battle due to SF boosting AI ship count. Threat is at 423, 237 of it at world 1 where SF has decided it'd be nice to hold a campout and sing kumbaya.
going to try slipping that armored warhead into world 3 despite the obvious detection issues, counting on it's large health pool to make it reach the target. once that threat piles in, it will easily be enough to prompt an attack against my strike world, where I will be preparing to receive them and holding on to that lightning warhead.
Also, Exo was announced at 50% charge... you know, because the AI wanted to cuddle.

1:54:35
at 93% health my armored warhead has made it onto world 3, where I only now notice the flaw in my plan... there is a command station shield post here.
SF has withdrawn further into AI territory and threatfleet was crushed on my strike world. Threat currently stands at 380 with about 4k total strength.

1:56:12
Bomber starship run took out the first 2 data centers and is on it's way back to strike point. it also cleared the detection network out to planet 3.
I don't know if counter spy can kill a cloaker starship, but that lightning warhead is getting escorted to planet 3 by 1. hopefully I can use that to knock out the shield post and the armored to kill command station, but if this works I may just use 3 more lightning warheads instead.. 2 for station 1 for barracks fleet. Downside to that is construction time would put me behind my 2 hour mark goal.

1:57:16
the missile/starship combo is indeed not falling victim to counter spy. a wave hit my staging world, logi 3 station survived at 90% (shields took a siege shot)
Began working on a mk II lightning warhead to deal with that command station, and it's time to work on colonizing the first world in the line.

1:58:41
lightning warhead takes out target. bomber starships are securing world 1. construction of mk II lightning warhead is complete and cloaker starship is en route to rendevous for delivery escort.

2:00:01
Cloaker is mostly through world 2 on way to pick up warheads. World 1 is building a command station and has bomber starships neutralizing the two fortresses.

Hourly Report:
Planets: 7 (1 building 2 clearing)
AIP: 131 (with 23 more incoming asap followed by 15 reduction when I hit that last DC)
HAP: -46
K reserves: 7905 with about 6K more incoming (9k more after taking world 3 down a peg)
Metal Harvesters: 43 with 12 more in near immediate future
Metal on hand is regularly exceeding the 2 million mark.
Fleet Status: fighters and bombers still rebuilding from my disastrous recent campaign, all other fleetships at cap. starships built include all bombers, 1 flagship, 1 cloaker, 1 neinzul, 1 merc. neinzul.
Mercenary forces include just 21 parasites.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2015, 10:52:51 am »
Hey Pumpkin, good to see one of my inspirations is checking in :)
Outside is a nod to your AARs, Insanity is a nod to Red Queen's.
I really liked how in your AARs, you are forcing yourself to use different tools than your normal methods, and different methods/settings.
For myself, I took that to a lesser degree... I took away my exodian and showdown devices, for example, as they're my 2 main roads to victory, but I left my golems intact.
Hehe. You make me want to do my Outa Tracks MkIII! I was rather sad when Red.Queen suddenly disappeared. Maybe you're the sparkle I was waiting for. ;)

Quote
The addition of auto-AIP is directly taken from Red Queen, and is a huge departure from the normal way I play. I've found it's already greatly changing the way I perceive warheads.
Yeah, warheads have a price that highly depends on auto-AIP, incidentally.

Quote
The main story behind my AAR will receive more focus after the first CPA, for right now I've committed to getting far enough along that the project gains traction within my priorities... I was also holding off until my vacation, which just started 4 days early. It directly references the second Red Queen "Incident".
I can't wait to discover that!

Oh, may I slip a request in? Would you post a galactic map with mspaint'ed custom annotations? I feel it's better to see which planet you're talking of and where they are, their connexion and stuff.

Oh, also, would you list the golems you currently have in your hourly reports? Or highlight their capture as you do with science unlocks? (I love putting color in AARs; I feel it's much more nice to read and it highlight the big actions and decisions on the long run.)

 (1:54:35)
Just a question: did you canceled the armored warhead detonation because the command station was protected by a Command Station Shield Post? Or did you blow up the warhead and was disappointed because the OCStation survived? IIRC, OCStations are immune to warheads, with or without external invincibility.

Anyway.
Keep it up!
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline Malkiel

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #5 on: November 19, 2015, 11:52:26 am »
That immunity is to detonation by method of the delete key. if you select warhead and right click command station, it gets hit too. I believe this is intentional design because sometimes you don't want to blow up a command station.
Also, I have been listing golems controlled. it's presently 0... and I have things needing cleared before I can capture the artillery/widow golems yet.
I did cancel the strike because when I went all zoomed in for the right click, I saw that invulnerability and was sad. :(

Just so people know, second ARS had Protector Starship for default unlock. that is going to be a huge help in the immediate future, as it settles how I'm going to kill some needler posts on "world 2"

regarding the screenshot request, any technical assistance on that front would be appreciated.
I have attempted to link a galaxy map screenshot to this post, where p1 is the planet referred to as "right" p2 is my current staging system, and p3 is the world where missiles are about to rock a grav command station.
p5 are worlds I intend to conquer.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #6 on: November 19, 2015, 01:56:54 pm »
That immunity is to detonation by method of the delete key. if you select warhead and right click command station, it gets hit too. I believe this is intentional design because sometimes you don't want to blow up a command station.
Oh, nice. I wasn't aware of this. I always use the delete key to precisely control the bounds of the AoE. Thanks.

Quote
Also, I have been listing golems controlled. it's presently 0... and I have things needing cleared before I can capture the artillery/widow golems yet.
Oops, my bad. I thought you captured the golem when you said "Thank god for artillery golem." I wasn't reading carefully enough. :-[

Quote
regarding the screenshot request, any technical assistance on that front would be appreciated.
IIRC, you need to upload it somewhere and put the URL between "img" tags.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline Malkiel

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2015, 05:17:14 pm »
2:09:58
Having knocked out the command station at the third world in my previous offensive with a mk II lightning warhead, I quickly used the mk I warhead on it's 187 barracks ships... turns out 43 where missile frigates.
I installed a starship warp gate on the staging system next to the warhead warp gate and unlocked Protector starships with the ARS from world 1.

*unlocked Mobile Space Dock

repairing my fleetships was taking too long. now I just need a bit more time for the bomber starships to repair then they, the flagship, and the protectors (one against missile, one against shell) can go wreck the needlers one system over.
That worked rather well... but after taking the system, golem repair is taking too long.

*Unlocked Engineer Drone mk II

built 5 and off we go! Metal supply ran out at 88%, took the mk II drones off the project.

***Artillery Golem online***


moved into next system and started working on widow golem only to do the math... I predict I'll have around 1 million total metal before the exo hits. repairing the widow will take about 3 million.
I'm not going to make it.
Backing off widow golem and beginning defense reconfigurations at worlds marked p1 and p3 on the map pic with most recent post. I'm going with something I refer to as the "en passant" defense config, named in honor of a chess rule.

*Unlocked Widow Mines
*unlocked Force Field Generator 2
*unlocked Hardened Force Field Generator


The thing about exos is.. they are under a speed buff and immune to slowing until the "lead ship" is destroyed. They also have a strong tendency to take the most direct available route from their spawn (exogalactic wormhole on AI HW) to your home system. The first fact makes them hard to stop before you take heavy damage, the second one makes them as predictable as the seasons.
Immunity to slowing isn't a problem when you slam a couple large forcefields in the way, providing time for your defenses to pound the grouping and hopefully take out the "lead ship", which then causes a failure of the group move order and devolves the exo into an every man for himself mindset, if I am remembering correctly.
Basically, I have no intention of killing the exos on the first worlds they hit. I'm going to break them.

Second part of the above statement means that section 1 of the exo, frome western ai homeworld, will only pass through p1 and into my HW.
Section 2 of the exo, from southeastern ai homeworld, will pass through p3 on it's way to p1.
P1 has the mk IV HBC
P3 gets the bigger slowing forcefields to make certain the 2 sections do not link up by a coincidence of timing, thus enabling me to deal with them piecemeal. Also has artillery golem camped out to kill the big stuff.
Had to pop a distribution node at 2:40, making a few hundred mines and mk V spider turrets really eats and already golem drained economy.

All offense stopped at 2:30 as exo prep began for estimated 3:10 strike time.

*unlocked Leech Starship 2
*unlocked Leech Starship 3
*Unlocked Military Command Station 2


CPA 1957 ships announced for 2:53 arrival
1490 Mark 2 ships freed in cross planet attack
467 Mark 1 ships from strategic reserve freed for cross planet attack
9 Mark 1 ships from shark plot freed in cross planet attack.. what?! I guess the incidental damage taken by my stations generated ships... though I have been replacing border stations with military 2 stations... you know, just in case of fire.

Massive strength gathering north of P1... and here we go!
As the defenses start to crumble I'm not really suprised.. the enemy was out of alignment for the mines because they where going for alternate targets and whatnot, fortunately there where so many that every mine got hit.
Early on in the battle I remember thinking "oh yeah, I got this"
When 29 stealth battleships got my paired shields around command center to 60% I thought "oh crap, I don't got this!"
I managed to move in a lightning warhead and detonate it while passing a hardened forcefield over the command center. then I grabbed a shield bearer I had leeched, added it to group 5 (the group of things that do not auto frd) and placed it over command center.
Total threatfleet strength was 17,000 involved in that assault out of around 31,000 available.
Of greater concern was the timing. My defenses just got rocked on a critical point with exo charge at 95%
3:00:08
Artillery golem lost. P3 station went out 30 seconds before that, shark attack location unknown. The warhead I had thought I had in the region.. well, it was not in the region.
enemy strength in the attack was about 9k of the cpa threat plus two waves hitting the planet.
The shark plot pulled another 11k strength out, hitting at p1 and the other side of my core defense group. so now I'm fighting on three fronts. With Exo at 98%.

3:00:08 hourly report
Oh My God, Everything is on FIRE!!!

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #8 on: November 19, 2015, 05:45:54 pm »
 :o

I was tempted to post just the smiley, but... hell! Things are crazy, out there. Exo + CPA + Shark... ouch.

And the Artillery golem was lost during the battle? That would have been an abort point to me. What will you do? Try hard to survive this? Use the Zenith Time Reverser (aka reload autosave)? Throw your keyboard through the window and go play a less-than-10k-units game?

I wish you luck, but I feel you'll need more than luck to pull yourself out of there.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline Malkiel

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #9 on: November 19, 2015, 06:54:57 pm »
3:00:08 report
Planets:9 (1 lost)
AIP:147
HAP: -16
K Reserves: 3k
Metal: 1,940,000 with most harvesting intact
Fleet Status: heavily engaged, mostly destroyed. the attached picture says it all. What I've managed to leech is putting out the fire at p4.
Starships: leech 4s, leech 3, bombers 1 and 2, neinzul 1
Mercenaries: neinzul hive, 87/88 parasites still alive at p1, rerouting to p4
Human resistance has arrived at P3, way to cock it up and be late you fools! still, should alleviate pressure and allow for a buildup+counterattack.

Offline Malkiel

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2015, 06:59:59 pm »
I want you to take a good, hard look at the first 3 hours pumpkin. I was walking over the AI like it wasn't even there. My defenses are not designed for cpa fighting, but designed for the imminent exo instead (meaning I knew I was vulnerable)
The artillery was lost but widow is at 40% repair. the fires are under some form of control, but I don't think it's under my control _yet_
After this CPA + exo I have 3 hours to regain control of the situation during which time the AI is basically a helpless kitten against me, and forgetting a missile rebuild is the only reason I even lost that golem.

Also, the world is watching.
In other words....
I got this.

Offline Malkiel

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2015, 07:43:59 pm »
lol, I don't got this.

Seriously, shark is _nasty_
I was just a hair shy of surviving.

Offline Toranth

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #12 on: November 19, 2015, 08:10:50 pm »
My defenses are not designed for cpa fighting, but designed for the imminent exo instead (meaning I knew I was vulnerable)
"Well, there's yer problem."
True, Shark does not mix well with Exos, but CPAs are still the usual killer.  It sounds like you planned on using pre-staged warheads to deal with the CPA, but something happened to them.  Did you ever figure out why they weren't in place when you needed them?

Offline Malkiel

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #13 on: November 20, 2015, 02:38:30 pm »
Yes. I had used that warhead and failed to replace it. This was 1 of 4 critical mistakes that led to my defeat. It was the warhead used against the 187 mark 4 ships from p3 barracks.
The second was activation of the artillery golem over the black widow. The widow is a far better defensive piece and it cost me dearly having the wrong golem. The worst part is that I _knew_ I wouldn't be doing any attacks until after the exo/cpa, and thus the artillery golem was basically a dead piece on the board.
The third was I had been lax in my overall defenses, as the energy surpluses in pictures clearly illustrates. This was a byproduct of every "wave" that hit being a complete joke, often numbering around 65-70 ships.
The final mistake was how I portioned out my defenses in my second section's interior (this was lacking to the tune of being about 30 spider V per planet nothing more). I suffered four shark attacks in the end section, and while it was technically the exo that killed me, the sharks are _why_ it was able to do so.

Basically, I got cocky and careless, and the AI smacked me down like an insubordinate child.
The best cure for a big ego is a little failure.

Offline Malkiel

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Re: Outside the insanity 1
« Reply #14 on: November 20, 2015, 06:54:21 pm »
General West looked at the data feed, knowing this was certain to prove a political nightmare.
"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Without the additional resources from LCZSO, defeat is projected at 3:14:08" displayed on the screen.
"Do a projection of events at that point with LCZSO active in the near immediate future" he commanded, taking out the least recent data chip.

"Estimated Progress includes both golems active, 100% more mercenary forces warped in from sector 1, and fortress coverage of all front line systems."
The general slumped his shoulders, let out a sigh, and turned for the door. He placed the data chip into the incinerator per protocol, triggering the door to open allowing him to leave the AI room.

"See general, I told you we didn't need to re-institute the barbaric practices of the first war" said the woman in a suit waiting outside.

"Senator, if we don't, we won't last another two days. I'm giving the order."

Senator Michelle Fleck looked aghast. Her people had assured her that even without Live Combat Zone Salvage Operations, this war could be won, especially with recent data showing the AIs where only sending 23% the number of ships comparative with the same portion of the first war. "General, I understand the golden shield AI did save us in the first war, but perhaps it's being a bit too pessimistic?"

"Ma'am, the AI is behaving differently than last time because this was supposed to be a war game to it. You're the one who suggested after the sector 2 and 37 Red Queen incidents that intervention was required, and now we're on the far side of the warp grid in a war we didn't have to fight. You swore you would let me handle this per martial law, and that means I have orders to issue before it's too late."




below is a picture of live combat salvage operations begun on the world to the immediate left of P0. I loaded a save from the 1:40:00 mark and am taking the same actions as before, the same unlocks as before, except I have replaced mobile space docks with fortress mark I

 

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