Author Topic: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10  (Read 7934 times)

Offline Fruden

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #15 on: June 25, 2010, 10:18:44 pm »
___Part 15___

 Little quickie, went to get the 4 data centers at the second homeworld, built up defenses on my 2 newest planets, finished researching available knowledge, and captured a whole bunch of ships.

15:45 - Planets: 6 AI Progress: 67 Kills: 80,387 Deaths: 7,330 Reclaimed: 21,552 Scrapped: 14,679

Offline Fruden

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #16 on: June 25, 2010, 10:20:02 pm »
___Part 16___

 Almost ready to take down the first ai. Settled a base of operations, finished the data centers, removed the raid engines and guard posts, took care of the fortresses and ion cannons, and prepared a large attack force. Next time i'll be losing a lot of ships, but that base and avenger are going down.

 Reloaded 3 times when i got impatient and tried to skip formalities. I'll try to learn my lesson now. Really.

 Btw, the game seems to have a memory leak. If i leave it running for a long time it consumes very large amounts of memory, and starts to skip instead of being smooth, one time it finished in a crash. Save + quit + load seems to fix it. (edit: i have reproduced the high memory use + crash by loading lots of large games in a row)

17h30 - Planets: 7 AI Progress: 81 Kills: 91,049 Deaths: 8,155 Reclaimed: 23,935 Scrapped: 14,757

Offline Fruden

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #17 on: June 25, 2010, 10:21:57 pm »
___Part 17___

 Ugh, the avenger is tough.

 Sooo, i  quickly killed the ai base with my 2000 ship force to check out what the avenger looked like, and i thought i could take it with those troops. Sadly, i was wrong. After reloading and with a plan, i did a super nice assault on the ai's station, losing only 100 ships. I figured with all my good stuff i'd give the avenger a good whooping buuuut 600 million health is a lot of health. It escaped with 115 million health left on the branch that leads to my third planet.

 I did a test to see how long its gonna take it to reach it, and thats a good while it seems. I can either take a planet between or sacrifice my third. I think that's what i'll do, and take the ai's homeworld, that will show it. Sucks that it's impervious to missiles, that's 2 out of my 3 turret types i can't use on it.

(edit: i included a screenshot i had taken a bit before i destroyed the command station with all my ships in position. Transports in front to take the first volley, electric shuttles and shield boosters weakening incoming ships, bombers aiming at command station, impulses at shields, frigates and beamers behind providing long range support, raiders and (micro)fighters providing close range support, raid ships in front taking down shuttles and beamers before they do too much damage, and 2 mobile repairs under a cloaker in the back. That's how i did so well with so few losses against the base and then the avenger, by keeping the repairs under cloak and also cloaking raid ships that needed repairs)

17h55 - Planets: 7 AI Progress: 101 Kills: 94,068 Deaths: 9,607 Reclaimed: 24,117 Scrapped: 14,759
« Last Edit: June 25, 2010, 10:24:04 pm by Fruden »

Offline Fruden

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #18 on: June 25, 2010, 10:25:27 pm »
___Part 18___

 More like very tough. I threw a lot of stuff at a first ambush but couldnt finish it. Finally got it a few minutes before it hit my homeworld. Now i have a dead planet neighbour. Booooo. And it had so much stuff, AI had even built a black hole machine on it, i gained almost 40 progress from it blowing up. I'm still at the progress floor, but it's getting uncomfortably high. But good news! The nuclear blast took out 2 trains, including a speed train!

 Since i set myself up some good spots to farm an army from mk3 and mk4 raid engines, rebuilding shouldnt be too long, even with my limited economy and tech unlocks. Gonna have to think a bunch before moving forwards, the avenger difficulty is a lot higher than expected. Really wondering if the game will be won once i beat the second ai or if i'll have to beat another of those. Maybe i'll make a quick save and try and see. Althought it feels cheap, the only other options i can think of to deal with it reliably this game would prolong the game by something like 2 hours, maybe even more if i go settle the first ai homeworld for additional power/research.

18:59 - Planets: 7 AI Progress: 111 Kills: 102,574 Deaths: 11,487 Reclaimed: 25,497 Scrapped: 15,991

Offline Fruden

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #19 on: June 25, 2010, 10:26:18 pm »
___ Interlude ___

 The initial plan was to farm an army, settle the second ais neighbour, clear the second homeworld and neuter the other neighbour, and then build lots of turrets (including all beams) right by its final command station to help my army deal with the second avenger. With all the things to do i figure that would take 3-4 in game hours (so ~6 real hours considering all the pausing).

 However, after checking the forums i found out the game would be won as soon as the station would go down, so i probably would have tried to take one planet to hop right into the final world and rush the command station for a quick win, then close the game and imagine the second avenger threw itself into a sun or something.

 This game was quite fun, and really challenging for the most part, but it also came with some annoyances. Considering how tight my income was, i had no choice but to manually turn on/off the factories and power generators, and that happened about every 10 minutes because of the way i was capturing ships and then scraping them or dumping them in transports to put them in low power mode. After 19h this was really tedious.

 The speed trains also reeeeaaalllyy got on my nerves since i had no reasonable way to deal with them while settling new planets, and early on i had no good way to deal because of the high power needed. So i was stuck waiting for all of them and those on neighbour planets to head away, but if i stopped playing and picked up the game again, the trains choose a new destination on load, so sometimes i'd have to wait again another bunch of time before being able to move if they backtracked through my targets.

 I'm also left wondering how peeps are supposed to deal with the avenger without impulses (or i suppose polarizers). They seemed to have the undocumented feature of shooting through force fields since i managed to destroy the modules on the avenger very fast and before taking its force field down. Or was that the beamers? I still had to destroy the shield before taking the ship out. Weird. But anyway, since the avenger was immune to blades and missiles, that was about half my available firepower i couldnt focus on it, and with its high shields, about half of my remaining firepower had little effect on it.

 Lastly my biggest gripe is the amazing number of hidden numbers. Those are the reason my friend isnt playing his game and my other friends dont want to pick it up. With no in game way to know that bombers take 1% damage from fortresses and they do like 10 times damage to it, my friend lost a game with capped fortresses on defense vs a wave of bombers and didn't scratch them at all, although it says on the tooltip fortresses are strong vs bombers (or rather... vs 1 bomber). He then quit and never played again since he wasnt interested in nerding out about it like i did.

 The other things are all mostly only applicable to a challenge game, but there really needs a better way to let the player know about all the hidden numbers. I'd suggest either an in game reference or basic armor and damage types so x armor takes y% damage from z damage type. Anything really to make it more accessible, i think this game is a gem, and i'd really like my friends to pick it up.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2010, 05:56:34 pm by Fruden »

Offline Frozen Critical

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #20 on: June 25, 2010, 11:17:00 pm »
didn't bother to read such a big wall of text , but how many times did you restart?

i completed my game which has two Raid AI , both Diff 10 , without restarting , but ignore that : just pretend it ain't there , kay?

still , Good work for winning a two diff 10 AIs
AMERIKEAN AM TELEFONMAST

Offline superking

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #21 on: June 26, 2010, 07:11:06 am »
good read! two difficulty 10 AI on 120 planet map, i salute you sir

Offline Diazo

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #22 on: June 26, 2010, 05:56:46 pm »
I see you have Wave Notifications turned off, can you still guesstimate how big the waves that were hitting you were?

And what was your warp point defense?

I'm trying my own game vs. diff 10 AI's and I'm not sure how I'd go about it if wave notifications were off.

Offline Fruden

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #23 on: June 26, 2010, 07:00:43 pm »
 Hi!

 If you want to find out the size of waves at an ai progress of your choice, you can take one of my save games at that progress, put it on fast forward, and wait for a min or two, when the threat meter suddenly jumps up that's the wave spawning somewhere. Since it's been a while that i played the beginning of the game i'm not 100% sure, but i think they were in the 200-300 range or something like that. Probably a bit lower actually, since i had a special forces captain opponent the numbers werent perfectly reliable. Don't rely too much on the numbers you see on the map pictures in the posts, some of those came from something other than waves (rebels triggering raid engines, cross planets, maybe other stuff too).

 For defense, on my first planet i used 50 each of mk1 basic, mlrs, missile and laser turrets, boosted by a light starship (it gave them a 40% damage bonus) for each of my 2 paths from wormholes. Or actually i think i put 60 on the side that had 2 wormholes to defend and 40 on the other. You may want to load one of the saves to check out the specifics. Pretty much only bomber waves could get through the wormhole defenses (when not speed trained, with single or worst double speed trained stuff got by anyway) but since i had to keep turrets for my second planet, i used fighters to finish off anything that made it past them until i had the knowledge to unlock mk2 turrets, and then i put some of those close to my base.

edit: for wave notifications off and cross planet waves options, leaving a scout on every planet within a few hops from my planets that meant that by looking at the map i would always see them coming once the threat meter went up. And schizo made it so i couldnt just make a transport of fighters and one of bombers and one of each counter and just fling them at the right spot when needed. Tell the truth i think this was a ton more fun and interesting than otherwise, i don't think i'll play solo without those settings again.

edit2: here's a screenshot of one of my wormhole defense points after 1h20. You'll notice the mobile repairs in the back to fix up the frequently damaged turrets and soon to be captured ships (the leech ship was just finished and was about to come in position, the light starship by the wormhole was there to tank for the leech, it takes way more damage than the leech since its not immune to missiles but its inexpensive to remake if it dies). At that point that wormhole had 40 of each turrets, it was the side that was protecting from 2 wormholes, the second was just a bit offscreen at the bottom. Also of note is the single tractor beam to help deal with small batches, but more than a very few of them would be unrealistic on this difficulty because of power and repair costs and wave sizes.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2010, 05:42:30 pm by Fruden »

Offline Fruden

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #24 on: June 30, 2010, 08:52:29 am »
___Part 19___

 Well... i wasnt sure i'd finish this game but.... it's hard to stay away... especially with an unexpected vacation day!

 Anyway, settled the first ais homeworld, cleaned up some neighbours, captured lots of ships, and fortified many planets. Sadly i lost all 3 of my raids mk2, these things take forever to make. At least it wasnt my mk3s i suppose.

 Noticed something rather peculiar. The resource shields heal very rapidly while building but very slowly while repairing. Soooo, they seem to tank better while building... would have thought build and repair speeds would have been more similar.

 Next time i'll be sciencing my new areas, try to build my raids and riots mk2 (i intend to use those to cover my beams/flagship booster/lasers when i'll face the second avenger) and start clearing a path for my final assault.

19:45 - Planets: 8 AI Progress: 114 Kills: 109,242 Deaths: 11,859 Reclaimed: 26,359 Scrapped: 15,999

Offline Fruden

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #25 on: June 30, 2010, 08:54:08 am »
___Part 20___

 Ok, so i had some issues with a large wave of ~1500 ships hitting two of my planets. Might have been a wave + a cross planet, can't really tell. Reloaded so i could try something, and yep, electric shuttles vs large groups are hilariously strong. Just waited till all the enemy ships were locked on an ion canon and emptied the transport and whooosh. Looks like their damage isnt reduced by shields too, the shield boosters melted like everything else.

 Besides i've been researching, replacing my raid ship losses, reclaiming a bunch more ships, and also preparing the area around the second ais homeworld. I'm keeping a raid engine on an mk3 planet intact in case i need to trigger 1 or 2 waves when i destroy my last planet's command station, i should have most of my mk2 and mk4 ships soon, so that way i can get my mk3s too.

 Also had a third mining golem pop up. It's really easily accessible, so when i have to take care of it it shouldnt be too much of an issue.

20:15 - Planets: 8 AI Progress: 117 Kills: 113,225 Deaths: 12,069 Reclaimed: 26,832 Scrapped: 16,016

Offline Fruden

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #26 on: June 30, 2010, 08:55:50 am »
___Part 21___

 The ais arent too happy about the fact i've got one of their homeworlds it seems, again had some large groups attacking, but with the speed train my traps didn't work and i lost a bunch of stuff, most notably my tanking mass driver. I hope they don't send a massive speed trained bomber wave right at my command station next time... but if they do i made a cloaker and a colony ship, so i'll tough it out.

 Besides, i'm done building my starships and almost completely done preparing to take over my last planet right by the second ai homeworld. Took care of almost everything on the homeworld and its neighbours, just need to capture some mk3s, clean up a few things, wait for more resources, and i'll be ready to move. Gonna start to have serious waves now that i'm off the progress floor, so i'll have to be careful.

 Also i finally realized that lasers always have super accuracy, even vs shields and at max range, so i switched all my riots to lasers. I thought it was 2-3 times better, but rather they have 100% hit vs 5x boosted shield boosters at max range, while machine guns have 1% hit chance.

21:00 - Planets: 8 AI Progress: 127 Kills: 117,775 Deaths: 12,252 Reclaimed: 27,099 Scrapped: 16,020

Offline Fruden

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #27 on: June 30, 2010, 08:58:09 am »
___Part 22___

 Wow, things are starting to get very extreme with progress this high. didn't help that when i got the mining golem rebels triggered a mk4 raid engine... again... but the waves are now much more frequent and large. Gonna have to try to finish as soon as possible, not that i wanted to mess around, but if i make it passed 200 aip i'm not sure if this will still be  winning battle.

 Anyway, i lost many starships, so i'm stuck remaking them, but at least i finished all the research i wanted to do, and i repelled all those nasty waves + mining + mk4 raid. I havent been able to finish clearing my newest planet of its turrets althought i've had it for over a half hour, too much action! If i can get a little break i'll clear it up and then move in to the ai's home. Looks like its gonna be a turret party over there.

22:00 - Planets: 9 AI Progress: 166 Kills: 127,149 Deaths: 13,019 Reclaimed: 28,705 Scrapped: 16,076

Offline Fruden

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #28 on: June 30, 2010, 09:06:37 am »
___Part 23___

 Accction!! Got hit by some large bomber waves, and one of my tanking ion survived with 13k hp. Barely got my fighters there in time! As for cracking the homeworld, i sent my raid ships on heavy beam destruction missions followed by cleanup drones to make sure they werent rebuilt, and to draw out the hundreds of core frigates at the wormhole i jumped in a transport containing a flagship. Transport ate the first volley, dumped the flagship, mass driver shot, flagship back in transport to dodge the shot, transport back to my system, but just before warping i ejected the flagship again and told it to jump to my system as well. That way the frigates were convinced to follow in the wormhole and into my bomber trap. Took a couple tries to figure out the timing, but this is saving me sooo many resources I'm very happy with this plan.

 Slowly but surely this system is going down. Buuuuut, it was too slow and my income wasnt good enough for my initial plan, so i have made adjustments. Instead i'm making engineers mk3 and will use them to build a base right in the middle of their system without killing off everything else first. I won't be able to unlock all the beams but not like i could afford them this century anyway. With my last tech i'll unlock basic turrets mk3 to help defend and sorta make up for the missing beams.

 Well, most things worked out, although working through that fortified system was painful, i now own the area around their base. A few minutes ago however the ai launched a massive attack against their old homeworld and destroyed everything there. I was silly and moved a bit early to resettle and i wasted my cloaked colony. Not that it matters anyway, i'm about to end this in an orgy of destruction.

23:02 - Planets: 8 AI Progress: 168 Kills: 135,290 Deaths: 13,649 Reclaimed: 29,179 Scrapped: 16,080

 All done now. Man the avengers are tough. Guess i dreamed up the missile immunity on it.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2010, 05:44:23 pm by Fruden »

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Vs Captain 10 + Raid 10
« Reply #29 on: August 20, 2010, 07:14:35 pm »
I _did_ read the wall of text. *bows* You knows your AI:War-FU...I feel so...weak, powerless and stupid against your tactics. Thanks a lot for the writeup!
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