13.04: Spaceplanes are told to go harass the fortress and the Mk. 5 shield it's sitting under. Everyone else is told to GTFO so they don't auto-FRD suicide. However they are free to take potshots at the threat fleet while flying back througn Murdoch.
Oh, and I also pop two carriers letting loose 2,000 angry but soon-to-attrition youngling tigers.
13.05: Thinking about it, I should probably see how much scrap is on Murdoch. Oh, 10 million you say? Looks like my later kills haven't been accumulating any then, for shame. Still, +10,000 metal/s is handy. Wonder how long the command station will last this time.
13.06.13: About a minute apparently. Still, should have got enough to build Zupreape's defence grid.
13.07: Aww man, the command station made the sentinal frigates FRD. Right into the leech starships. Now they have snipers, ho ho ho.
13.08: 5,000 youngling tigers to Rakalurn. Ouch. At least the 1,200 on Murdoch are all about to attrition to death.
13.09: Space planes are really super ineffective against shields - they've got it down by 8%. Wave hits.
13.10: 4,200 younglings wiped out. At the cost of my entire fleet. The remainder make a run for ... somewhere. They'll attrition before long. I think some of the spare threat might have joined in that attack too, to be honest.
42,000 strength left on Murdoch.
Oh, and hey the human resistance show up again with 160 ships. Go get yourselves killed on Murdoch, please.
13.13: Huh, apparently the tigers went after the spaceplanes on Zupreape. Who knew. Human resistance are dead by this point, of course.
31,000 strength remaining on Murdoch. Reprocessors have been drafted in to start eating starships.
13.14: Reprocessors acting under cover of a vast field of lightning torpedos - super effective. How much these guys are actually boosting my economy though I'm not sure.
13.17: 1,000 ships left on Murdoch. 16,000 strength. 58 starships, 800 soon to attrition younglings. It may be time to send in the
clowns rest of the fleet.
13.21: Reprocessors supported by flagships for attack boosts make absolute mincemeat of the starships until they come to the plasmas - ouch, super engine damage and artilley hull types. However seeing as they're the last 8 ships left on Murdoch I just send the entire fleet in.
The spaceplanes have managed to get the shield down to 64%. The fortress is taking great joy in wiping out the metal harvester next to it every 6 seconds.
13.22: Murdoch is finally threat free, and rebuilding can begin.
2,000 bombers to Rakalurn. 2,500 threat still unaccounted for - probably sitting on one of the two AI homeworlds.
13.23: That wave contained an abnormally large number of implosion guardians - threat fleet? Still, can't complain about 7 million salvage.
13.26: Oh cool, the warp jammer is blocking the dire guardian spawn on the AI homeworld. Rather than moving turrets back to Murdoch, half the beams and snipers move to Micvarape to deal with the soon to be incoming exos. Oh, and my penentrator is back up and has been for a while. How did I miss that.
13.29.30: Defences on Murdoch are back up to full capacity.
Now, in order to be able to exfiltrate that penentrator from the first AI homeworld I need to take down the grav reactor under a Mk. 5 shield. However even though it's in range of the Murdoch wormhole, the penetrator only does 56 million damage. I need another 4 million forcefield ignoring damage from somewhere.
Hey, I've leeched 28 zenith siege engines. Let's see what these babies can do when jumpshiped and placed under cloaker cover.
13.29.40: Nothing. They did nothing. Because I forgot the AI homeworld had planetary tachyon coverage.
13.31: While I'm waiting to think of something, and refleet, I send 900 ships through the wormhole to Roadlinl to take out an OMD / Mk. 5 MRLS next to the wormhole. Spaceplanes now have the forcefield at 32%, and can almost fire on the Mk. 3 fortress!
13.31.20: I may actually have come out of that with a net positive number of ships. Thanks leeches! Looks like about 4,500 special forces ships are domiciled on the AI homeworld at the moment. Oh, and did I mention there are currently 202 riot starships on Roadlinl? AI loves its riots.
13.35: Bombers. Why does it always have to be bombers.
13.38: Fully refleeted. +2,000 metal/s (all I get after matter converters). Time to exchange lives for guardposts! And I may as well use that penetrator here, while I'm waiting to think of a valid plan for the grav reactor.
13.40: 3 guardposts down. 12 to go. And remember - this planet has a grav drill on it. This could take a while. That said the AI seem intent on firing on my lightning missiles again and didn't actually do the fleet that much damage. All repaired in under a minute.
13.41: Spaceplanes finally take down the Mk. 3 fortress. That only took you 38 minutes guys, way to go!
13.42: So, the special forces are still sitting on Roadlinl. You know what this calls for? A nuk... EMP warhead!
13.43: I reckon a 30 second EMP will be just fine my purposes ... this time. Geronimo!
Psst. I just checked, grav drills are not immune to EMPs.
13.43.31: So, what's immune to EMPs? Mk. 5 guard posts. Riot starship. Normal starships. That Mk. 3 fortress sitting next to the command station. What isn't immune?
Carriers - including those holding most of the special forces
Fleet ships
Ion Cannons
Some of the guardians
The Grav Drill
And you know what goes well with a disabled grav drill? Jumpships.
13.43.33: Everybody jumps in. Party time! Main body of the fleet are left on the wormholes to cull the surrounding fleet ships and special forces. Raids are sent after ion cannons. And the reprocessors...
13.43.35: Oh come on, that's not fair! Teleportation is still disabled. And my ships' speed is still down to 32. Do me a favour and give grav drills EMP immunity if you're going to let them keep all their abilities
(allllmost
bug)
13.43.40: And to make matters worse, it turns out that ships *in* a carrier are not EMPed. So as I forgot to turn off auto-targetting carriers, 4,000 angry special forces ships smack me around a bit. Gang aft agley indeed.
13.43.45: Also, Mk. 5 disassembler guardians are everywhere and eating all my starships. Well they're getting focus fired.
13.44: All ships have retreated. Only lost a few hundred. Not sure exactly how much damage I did, but there's only 1,300 ships left on the planet and no carriers. Anyway, looks like we're back to the traditional way - slow, steady and heavily cloaked.
13.44.30: Zenith reprocessors take out a Mk. 5 MRLS. What, the jumpship might be slow while grav drilled but it's still a cloaked transport. Heck, I even manage to rescue 7 of them.
13.45.30: And by 'rescue', I of course mean send after a command station shield guard post just around the grav well.
13.49: Ding ding, fleet blob round 2.
13.50: Dire guardian spawning in 00.01. Timed that nicely. Of course, that just means he'll show up for round 3.
13.51: Warp gate guardian you say? On Roadlinl, you say? Well, that doesn't really both me in all honesty.
13.55: Space tanks. Makes a change from bombers, I suppose.
13.55.25: Vun. Vun Mk. 5 plasma starship to take out the last command station shield guard post. But can he survive in low power until the cloaking kicks in again?
13.55.26: That would be a no then. Of *course* there were disassembler guardians nearby.
13.56: 4,000 fighters? Don't mind if I do.
13.57.36: So 10 zenith siege engines, 7 flak guardians and 2 disassembler guardians are attacking Zupreape. And just took out the command station. Hey, I wonder if one of those has my plasma siege.
13.58: Nope, apparently not. That's a shame.
13.59: Reprisal level 1. Surprised it took this long.
14.00: Well, not the most productive hour. And that EMP was just useless. However all defences are back, I'm nearly all refleeted now (including Mk. 2 bombers), and operation 'kick the special forces in the face' can continue to phase 3. Which is quite similar to phase 1 and 2, in all honesty.
Oh, and the command station on Roadlinl is exposed. I should probably send something in to pop it.
