Well, the CPA did involve some warheads. But that is not the master cheese...
12.31.33: I can see the very instant when all the 4,625 ships on Zupreape all realign themselves on the Murdoch wormhole. Dear lord I hope those carriers aren't coming along for the long as well.
12.31.52: 12,076 younglings tiger to Murdoch. Allow me to repeat that.
12,076 youngling tigers. Forget Murdoch going down, that's more than enough to terminate Rakalurn too. I'm going to lose those fabs.
12.32: 300 attack on Murdoch. And plenty more coming. Luckily it seems like the special forces are now retreating to the AI homeworld.
12.32.13: Make that 3,000 attack. With another 1,000 in carriers.
12.32.17. Okay, at this point I need to prioritise. Firstly, the Mk. 5 plasma sieges are getting ferried back to my homeworld. If I lose the fabs, I can't rebuild them. Mk. 5 leeches can stay where they are for the time being, but I'll try to pull them out before they pop. The same with the maws, try to retreat them before they go.
Now, as for lightning torpedo frigates ... I think 25 of them are going to play a little game of keep away with the AI. When the command station looks like its going down, load them into the jumpship and send them to the other side of the grav well. I'm praying this keeps the youngling tigers occupied for long enough for them to atrophy, assuming they don't just go straight through the wormhole to Rakalurn.
12.32.20. Missile silo going up on Rakalurn. 3 Mk. 2 lightnings queued up. At this point I have little to fear from AIP increases beyond slightly larger waves.
12.32.40: Plasma 5s rescued. The only leeches left are the Mk. 5s, and they're at 70% health. Time to evac them. Scrap level is enough to start spider construction on Rakalurn. 4,162 attack on Murdoch.
12.33.01: Oh lord. CPA declared. Hitting in 10 minutes, so (supposedly)
16,709 ships. Spire jumpship is now retreating all remaining starships to Rakalurn.
12.33.22: The tigers are here. 16,094 attack on Murdoch. That's just completely absurd. Lightnings and sentinals are doing their circle strafing thing again, everyone else has been evacced.
12.33.27: Murdoch command goes down. Jumpship is evacuating sentinal frigates.
12.33.32: Oh man, nasty thought. Do younglings in carriers attrition?
12.34: No. No they don't.
12.34.29: 15,216 threat. Jumpship is busy hopping lightning frigates from one side of the grav well to another. The 17 remaining sentinal frigates which haven't been evacuated are told to fire on some of the remaining carriers to get them to disgorge more younglings.
12.34.30: Defences are going up on Rakalurn. Beams, lasers, mines etc. Plus all the 'spare' forcefields no longer needed on Murdoch.
12.35.30: There's a raid starship on Zarpar killing Mk. 5 snipers turrets. Zarpar, as in my homeworld. Sniper turrets, as in the ones I turned off accidentally along with the spiders when I wanted them not to crash my economy by building 6 caps at once.
Thanks goodness he didn't decide to go for the completely unshielded lightning missiles instead.
12.36: This strategy of jumping ships to remote corners of the grav well is working insanely well. Limburger supreme. I think I can keep the entirety of the threat locked down here for as long as I need.
Current threat: 9,226. How much of that decrease is due to chipper shredding ... I wouldn't like to hazard a guess. Strength on Murdoch: 130,000. A.k.a around the size of the special forces fleet that I nuked in that 9/9 heroic game. And if it wasn't for the fact so many are Mk. 5, I might just do the same here.
12.36.01: A nuke starts building on Rakalurn. Y'know, just in case.
12.37.23: Oh god. There's a neinzul regeneration chamber on Zupreape. I wondered where all those pesky little almost dead younglings were going.
12.37.26: Jumpship swings by Rakalurn to pick up one of the rescued Mk. 5 plasma starships.
10.37.37: Regen chamber explodes.
12.37.46: Blast, the brief sojourn on the jumpship allowed them to get in range to take out one of the snipers.
12.38.13: 2,200 bomber wave to nowhere. I should probably have put a Mil 2 up on Rackalurn. Doing that now.
12.39.28: 122,000 strength on Murdoch. The cheese stops them from doing much, but it ain't exactly killing stuff quickly.
12.41: 3,300 bombers to Rakalurn. Salvage time!
Oh, and these two waves are syncing with the CPA.
12.43: CPA hits.
- 114 Mk. 2 ships
- 257 Mk. IV ships
- 4,120 Mk II ships from strategic reserve.
So, not quite the 16,000 you promised then.
Still, I remove all but one of the lightning torpedo frigates from murdoch - I think chasing around just that one guy is enough to keep the threat over there occupied.
12.44: Attack on Rakalurn, couple of hundred. And just after defences finished building, too, it's like the AI wants to feed me salvage.
12.44.31: Bombers waves hit. 3,500 attack. 13,300 threat.
12.44.43: 5,700 attack. Time for the first lightning missile I think.
12.44.55: Eh, took out 1,500 or so. Good enough.
12.45.10: Second missile pops 500 zenith siege engines. 2,700 attack. I think I can manage the rest without another missile, but there is one in reserve just in case.
12.46: Actually, I could probably have done it without the second missile too. Oh well. Both human resistance and marauders show up again - the marauders once again from behind the command station. They go after the still-not-cloaked penetrator.
12.47: Last ship on Rakalurn dies, ignoring of course the 400 or so the maws are still digesting. 20 million or so scrap gives the economy the boost it's been needing for for a while. That single lightning ship over on Murdoch has done an admirable job of keeping that 115,000 strength threat locked down.
12.47.35: Human resistance pop in to help with Murdoch. As there's only about 20 of them, they die rather rapidly.
12.49: While waiting for the now much-faster refleet, I decide that Murdoch could use some beach heading. 24 engineers, one mobile builder. Mil 2 command and 48 missile turrets are up in a jiffy. I'd send in rebuilders, but they they'd just start trying to rebuild mines and stuff that have moved to Rakalurn.
12.50: Full cap of needlers, missiles and MRLS Mk. 5 go up. They'll go down again soon enough, but at least it gives the poor threat something to chase other than that lightning frigate.
12.51: Wow. Those turrets lasted essentially no time at all and took out all of 2,000 strength. Yeah, without the jumpship cheesing I'd definitely be dead right now.
12.52: The lightning torpedo frigate reports that he's lonely. So 31 of his friends, and 70-odd sentinel frigates, warp in to join him. My one regret is that I can't get Lyudmila over there to join in the fish-in-a-barrel.
12.53: Docks report a full refleet on Rakalurn. Now time for starships.
1,000 bombers? That is tiny baby wave.
12.55: This threat clearing is going much faster now that I'm jumping 100 ships around the planet. Last of the current crop of disassembler guardians dies. Man, I hate those things. Fast, and eat starships for breakfast. Snipers retarget the remaining ships based on fastest speed guardians/starships first. 96,000 strength remaining.
12.56: Two dire guardians spawning soon. Ignorable.
12.57: While I'm waiting, 4 regular transports go up on Rakalurn.
12.59: 800 ships quietly load into transports and file through Murdoch to Zupreape. The threat is still intent on the snipers.
13.03: The 500 remaining ships on Zupreape are terminated, along with the needler guard post. That still leaves the Mk. 3 fort at the top, but I'm going to ignore that for now as it's safely out of the way. The jumpship takes a brief break from the sniper ferrying duties and brings over a colony ship and a few engineers. Warp jammer and a full cap of turrets for Zupreape, please.
AIP: 164
Enemy strength on Murdoch: 62,000
I have to say, this is absolutely the most broken strategy I've ever devised. It not so much the killing power of the sentinels and lightnings, although that's fairly significant for a full cap (~5,000 strength per minute), more the fact that the AI just never gets a shot off. Those threat ships have been on planet for over half an hour now, I'm half expecting them to nip off to join the threat fleet somewhere else soon.
