Yup first attempt at a diff 10 in a long, long time. I like the look of my shiny new double paragon badge, just a shame it wasn't Godly. Do spirecraft count as a positive player handicap these days? The only other things I can think of are the Zenith trader and Dyson sphere, neither of which showed up.
Oh and the laptop wasn't a game crash, it was a 'This game is so intense I'm about to self immolate, so I'm shutting down' thing. It does that sometimes if I don't stick something under it to make sure the air intake is clear. Still though, as previously mentioned it can at least handle the particle effects which make my supposedly much superior windows 8 machine chug itself to death.
While I'd love AI War guitar tabs I think it's probably best to wait a couple of years for me to actually be able to play more than 8 chords. I'd rather not slaughter it right off the bat
Definitely up there with Bastion in regards to games where I'd happily pay for tabs, though.
So then, the After Action Report Report. Let's start with the MVPs.
Lyudmila, the little cursed golem who could: Saved my arse on numerous occasion, particularly by using her attractive personality to distract pretty much any AI ship. Even on the homeworld assaults popping her head into orbit made all the ships targeting my fleet on the other side of the planet break off and come after her. Essential for letting the raids / plasmas live long enough to take down that first shielded grav reactor. A steal at +10AIP, and I now feel criminally underrated in my normal games in favour of regen and black widow golems. I still think medium is actually harsher than hard with regards to golems, by the way, for both AIP and energy costs.
Rams, Martyrs and Penetrators: As always, awesome. If you need something under a shield taken care of, ram it or penetrate it. Got a CPA incoming? Martyr. I will happily eat exos for these guys. Just a shame I had such an ultra-limited supply of asteroids, seeing as they don't spawn on worlds next to your homeworld or on core worlds. That left just two worlds eligible.
Lightning Torpedo Frigates: Still utterly amazing, if somewhat cheesy. Despite the atrocious cost and build time the distractionary value of 700-1000 lightning warheads can't be discounted. Certainly the right starter ship pick - thanks for letting us choose now
Zenith Reprocessors: Holy. Hell. I mean, I knew these guys were painful when the AI included them in waves. But I never realised just what a fantastic anti-starship and anti-guardpost force these really are. 230,000 attack * 8 against most guardposts. Slap a couple of flagships with them you can destroy any high-value target. And for only 240,000 odd metal on a Mk. V cap, which is just a touch more than a Mk. 2 flagship on its own. Oh, and they're cloaked by default and have a short firing time. <3.
Sentinal Frigates: Possibly the best unlock I could have gotten from that first ARS. Long range means they can pick of nasty ships before getting near. Along with lightning frigates and eventually bombers, the only Mk. 4 fleet ships I had.
Area Mines and Core Turrets: With a decent chokepoint these guys were eating 6,000+ ship Mk. 2 waves for breakfast.
Matter Converters: Really, matter converters? Truth is, I couldn't have done it without them. By the end of the game I was running 14 matter converts on average, for a grand total of 700,000 additional energy. They destroyed my economy, normally taking up 40-50% of my standard metal income. But seriously, without 'em I wouldn't even have a fleet. Again criminally underrated in my normal games, although to be fair that might be because I normally have at least 2 zenith power generators. But the blasted traders didn't show up this time...
The second most important star of the show -
The Mk. V Jumpship: Hooo boy, were these two exploited to the nth degree. Without these guys and the sneaky black-hole immunity granted to them a couple of patches ago there's no way I could ever have gotten across the AI homeworld which was cutting the graph at ~hour 6. I'd strongly recommend rolling out the blackhole immunity to Mk. III and IV jumpships as well. The ability to drop ships off right next to a guardpost is what took out pretty much every guardpost from the fourth hostile planet onwards, and was key to the homeworld assaults. The Murdoch cheese saved me from some 30,000-odd threat / 150,000 strength. All around, second only to...
The salvage mechanic: Oh yeah. Oh yeaaaah. With an average economy of < 3,000 metal a second, this is what made it all possible. Waves were dropping 4-10 million scrap. Core post exos 20 million. CPAs, sometimes up to 40. All at that lovely 10% warp jammer / 8% mil 2 salvage rate. The scrapyard worker is the salvation of the human race.
This game could have been finished much sooner if I didn't spend so long cleaning up residual AI ships who didn't move from their planets. It could have been over sooner if the CPAs didn't break when there are no non-homeworld planets left to spawn from, and hence gave me scrap and destroyed the strategic reserve at the same time. But still, I count this as a very nice win. As always, Arcen keeps me coming back with the intriguing tweaks and updates.
I think I've got a half-dozen things to write up on Mantis, at least. And I won't even invoice you, despite getting paid a fair sum to do the same thing on a professional level
Now, back to TLF. Where I'm currently bribing the Acutians to dump toxic waste on the Boarine. Who regard me as somewhat of a messiah figure...
