Author Topic: Raid Starship Challenege  (Read 3472 times)

Offline Hearteater

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Raid Starship Challenege
« on: March 13, 2013, 04:20:08 pm »
Some people feel Raid Starships are too weak, especially after the Guard Post buff.  I beg to differ.  This game is all Raid Starships, all the time.  If it shoots, it can't enter any system until I've built a Command Station there.  Once I've owned a system, it is fair game for anything.  I'm allowed to move any unit through AI system in Transports, but I have to put them in powered down and scrap them all if the Transport is destroyed in a system I've never owned.  Self-destroying units (Rams, Martyrs, Warheads) can be used only when I'd normally use them, with a preference to never using them if possible.  Once I attack a homeworld, I may open up my offense on the homeworld itself.  But if I can do this all Raids, I will.

Difficult: 8/8 Both Random Medium (Camouflager & Feeding Parasite)
Ship Types: Complex
Bonus Ship: Zenith Siege (eh, I'm only allowed to defend, so why not, mainly picked for location)
Map: Maze D
Factions: Spire - Hard 4 (need Exos to keep it interesting and at least some Spirecraft are useful)
AIP: +1 per 15 minutes (to keep me honest)

First hour involves claiming two systems, defeating four waves-ish waves, running a few gate raids, and clearing out a few guard posts for the future.  Waves are a non-issue since I'm setting up my entire fleet for defense only, which is why I don't really know how many have hit so far.  Since Raid Starships are crystal heavy, I've unlocked Crystal Harvester III, but left Metal Harvesters at Mark I.  I also unlocked Mark II Scouts, Gravity Turrets, Tachyon Turrets, and eventually Mark II Raid Starships.

I'm trying not to use Raid Starships as disposable at least while my economy can't afford to pop out replacements constantly.  That's okay, because so far only Missile and MLRS Guard Posts have given them any pause.  Mostly I can shift-click all the Guard Posts and let them clear the system.  Pull them back for repairs and then send them in with FRD to clear out ships.  This is the slowest part, and a Camouflager doesn't help.


I'm planning on taking all the P5 planets, so almost the entire Linpih branch south of my homeworld.  I'm leaving Zazing alone and plan to have that be the locations waves eventually come from.  It doesn't have any resources or anything else of value.  Making this full sweep nets me CSG-E, 2xCSG-A, a decent bit of asteroids and a fair number of resource nodes.  Once I've got this cleaned up, I'll start pushing out to find the rest of the interesting stuff.  Sadly, Zamund has a AF not an ADSC.  That would have been too perfect.

Capturing Admbanburn was interesting, partly because it had a Ion IV I wanted to keep alive since I wanted that for my whipping boy.  And that's tricky when the AI is a Camoflager so tracking down everything that can plink it isn't very easy.  Second, there was a Needler Guard Post covered by an MLRS Guard Post.  Since I didn't feel like throwning away my Raid Starships yet (I want at least Mark IIIs before I do that) I decided to use a Mobile Builder to build a Force Field around the Ion Cannon.  Then drop a Command Station there.  Once the Command Station was built, I moved in and cleaned out the system.  Somewhat cheesy, but this is only a Mark II system so I wanted to get on with it and see something really tough like the IVs.  Also, I learned Mobile Builders count as fleet ships and can be killed by Ion Cannons.

I should note that gate raiding Wane (which I'll be capturing later) involved a Gravity Guardian, which concerned me at first.  Thankfully, Raid Starships hurt those pretty bad so I was able to kill it and complete the raid without loses.  Lastly, taking Admbanburn trigger a Special Forces Alarm Post in Zazing.  Not a huge deal, but it did appear to add a touch of threat.  I can't actually recall what they do now with the new special forces.  It appears they release special forces ships into regular threat.

Current AIP: 65
Time: 1:01:47

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2013, 05:10:44 pm »
Interesting :)

Lastly, taking Admbanburn trigger a Special Forces Alarm Post in Zazing.  Not a huge deal, but it did appear to add a touch of threat.  I can't actually recall what they do now with the new special forces.  It appears they release special forces ships into regular threat.
Actually into threatfleet behavior (rather than normal threat that turns into threatfleet if alive after 30 minutes), but yea.
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Offline Vyndicu

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2013, 06:35:31 pm »
Hmm I am curious. How far do you plan to take spire city hub campaign? I see you can get two city hub easily just behind your homeworld; One at Dichar and one at Linpih.

Perhaps you should considering using scout starship to spot cloak since those do not shoot anything at all. You will still have to clean up with or without scout starship so I personally don't see any issue with it.

I was wondering how do you plan to deal with barrack (224 at Zamurd) with raid starships? Just fly in and shot the barrack and flee? But that would give AI a lot of roaming fleet ship and starship that you would have to deal with later. One option is to create a bait command station at
hagchuvil or jero and left it defenseless to lure the AI into attacking with your blob just one "ctrl + right" away.

Offline Hearteater

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2013, 07:22:09 pm »
I'm not doing Fallen Spire campaign, just the asteroids and Exo fleet.

As for cloaking, the Camouflage is not cloaking, and can't be seen with tachyon beams sadly.

The Barracks will just get destroyed at some point, and they ships will get baited back to Admbanburn and die.  I don't have a lot of turrets (intentionally) so I can pull back my mobile fleet to bait.  I also will have the entry wormholes locked down to trap them in once they bite.

Offline Diazo

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2013, 07:35:22 pm »
Hmm I am curious. How far do you plan to take spire city hub campaign? I see you can get two city hub easily just behind your homeworld; One at Dichar and one at Linpih.

Just to clarify, Heart has Spirecraft Hard on, not the Fallen Spire campaign, two different things.

And Camouflager is annoying. If there's anything that is suited for taking those out though, it's the raid starship.

Watching with interest.

D.

Offline Vyndicu

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #5 on: March 13, 2013, 10:11:11 pm »
Oops easy mistake on asteroid vs spire city hub. Hmm odd I don't often encounter enemy camouflage. All you can do is just move near to them and provke them to shoot you to deactive the camouflage?

Hmm now I am curious. Which asteriod spire craft do you plan to use for your defending blob?

Offline Hearteater

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #6 on: March 13, 2013, 10:29:12 pm »
Attritioner of course.  Implosion and Siege Tower if asteroids permit.  But Jump Ships will be pretty useful for this strategy and I might end up using a pair of Scouts to find stuff quickly.  I'd really like to decisively end this one quick, so once I've grabbed this back branch for enough economy to quickly replace Raids I really just want to knock out the CSGs and end it.  And so Scout + Jump Ship can make that happen.

Also I'll probably make up some Rams before the first Exo to make sure even the biggest lead ship gets dead quickly.  If I Raids rile things up too much kill Guard Posts I might need to break out a Martyr.  Hopefully not.

Offline Hearteater

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2013, 02:32:58 pm »
I spend the next bit clearing and capturing Wane, Ubaid, and Dichar.  This nets me two ARS (Raiders and Y.Commandos), Vampire Claw Vs (Fab on UBaid), and an assortment of asteroids I still haven't used yet.  I keep the Warp Gates paired back in advance so Zazing is the only source of waves.  I played pretty fast and loose so I lost Wane's Command Station several times because I didn't feel like fortifying it against random raids.  I also lost both of my ARS (I still have the unlocks).  But since I've mined out all the Knowledge so far anyway with just a Science Lab I, I'm not particular concerned.

The most interesting part so far was Dichar.  Right on the warp point from Wane was a Missile Guard Post II and Anti-Starship Guard Post.  Needless to say that's not fun for Raid Starships.  It took two tries.  The first wiped out my whole force of 9 Raids (I have Raid IIIs unlocked), and the second cost me 2 more Raids before I got both down.  Maybe it is just subjective, but I feel like the Missile Guard Post was actually worse than the Anti-Starship Guard Post.

The Barracks in Dichar was minor and easily dealt with by baiting the released ships into Wane where my normal forces slaughtered them.  Zazing counter attacked at that moment (of course) so there was a bit of action, but no real damage.  I'm just about to clear out Rede next.

I've unlocked Fortresses because my economy was running out of things to build, so I've dropped two on my homeworld just to keep any threat fleet from getting the wrong idea.  Once I get my backfield secure, I might clean up Zazing a touch and set up something to keep it from building up too much.  Besides that, scouting the rest of the map is my next major goal.

I played a fair bit of this hour at +5 speed, just because things take a bit of time doing it with just Raid Starships.  Now, if I find the ASC I think I'll see a bit of a pick up since that's a 66% increase in my total Raid Starship firepower.

Current AIP: 134
Time: 2:36:12

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #8 on: March 14, 2013, 02:38:57 pm »
Sounds like that AI better hire an exterminator.

Though unless it has about 1000 speed, is made of mkIV missile guard posts, and stays on special forces I don't think it's going to do much good.
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Offline Winge

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #9 on: March 14, 2013, 06:40:55 pm »
I'm interested to see how you fare with Raids, especially after the starship changes (despite wanting to see the ASC, I haven't even updated yet...trying to finish off a game first while testing Shattered Haven  :-X).  At least AIP-reduction raiding will be easy...
My other bonus ship is a TARDIS.

Offline Hearteater

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #10 on: March 15, 2013, 10:24:44 am »
I had some time last night to get some more in, so I finished up securing my back field.  Rede fell easily and I cleared out the random roaming AI ships (mainly Vampire Claws) which were extra annoying because of camouflage (so I basically can't decloak them).  I switched to a Science Lab II after my poor Lab I finally got killed.

Unlocked mini-forts just for some extra defense.  I dropped these temporarily on Wane and Dichar while taking Rede to catch stuff sneaking past.  They worked very well for that, especially when I popped the Barraks on Rede and 224 ships decided to make a break for it.

So with all that cleaned up, I start my Spirecraft production aiming mainly at Implosion and Attritioners.  I'll probably make a few Rams just in case since the Exo has started building.  I'm going to save some asteroids for Jump Ships and Scouts, but I'll need to see what's what before I make the call there.  I start clearing out all my defenses on back worlds and do some other house cleaning.  I also throw down much heavier fortification at Admbanburn.  Zazing is basically unassailable with Raid Starships at this point, having 1400 ships already.  I probably should have cleared it before that happened.  However, it does have a special forces guard post so some of that is probably SF which won't ever attack if I recall correctly.


Core Shield Generators: A A A A B C D E
Current AIP: 153
Exo Progress: 68%
Time: 3:16:17

Offline Hearteater

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #11 on: March 15, 2013, 01:41:29 pm »
This was a short session.  I finished up reworking my various defenses, part of which is ensuring a break-out from Admbanburn will get caught.  I also make up two Mark II Spirecraft Scouts and proceed to reveal the entire map in the span of 2 minutes.  Yes, they are very over-powered.  A single Xamphite and I get to see everything.  This will make planning really easy.  I also cleared out Hagchuvil.  I might actually take the system to create a buffer for stuff like Exos and CPAs.  Really, I want to make it a planet for baiting in ships and killing them.  But I also don't want to waste too much time knocking out the AIP reducers I've now found.

I've unlocked Hardened Shields for a bunch more shields to secure Admbanburn better, as well as my home command station in case the Exo comes from in from Hagchuvil.  I also unlocked HBC for some additional punch on Admbanburn.  If the Exo hits there, I won't have any trouble stopping it.  More wary about an Exo hitting my home world, although I do have 2 mini-forts and 3 Fortresses there at the moment.

EDIT: Added the pictures, how could I forget after all that nice scouting!

Core Shield Generators: A A A A B C D E
Incoming CPA: 9 minutes, 35 seconds
Current AIP: 154
Exo Progress: 84%
Time: 3:31:05


Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #12 on: April 23, 2013, 05:26:25 pm »
Did this get any further, or did the AI finally get the pesticide deployed?
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Offline Hearteater

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #13 on: April 24, 2013, 11:19:57 am »
Business travel killed my lunch breaks for a couple of weeks, which is when I was playing :( .  But I hear there are some changes for Raids in a patch...I need to explore that.  I just have so much going on, and the forums are exploding with stuff too.

Gah, Arcen, why do you have to be so responsive to your players!

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Raid Starship Challenege
« Reply #14 on: April 24, 2013, 01:15:08 pm »
But I hear there are some changes for Raids in a patch...I need to explore that.
It's purely for the mkII+ stuff; mkI is obviously really powerful as-is (though living a bit dangerously since the guard post buff).  But mkI was doing its job so well that 4000K for an upgrade just didn't do it, so I took the suggestion about going with utility over combat power for the upgrades.  Possibly too much utility, but we'll see.

Quote
and the forums are exploding with stuff too.
Haha, no kidding.  I should have stuck to 1-2 new balance threads at once ;)

Quote
Gah, Arcen, why do you have to be so responsive to your players!
It's all part of a dastardly plot that I'm sure I'll figure out at some point.
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