Arcen Games
General Category => AI War Classic => AI War Classic - After Action Reports => Topic started by: Faulty Logic on July 23, 2012, 03:30:19 am
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Because I am insane.
Spokes
50 planet 688921308
Shield Bearers
AI as advertised.
Plots : Avenger only.
Minor factions:
Resistance 4
Marauders 4
Colony Rebellions 6
Traders
Miners 4
Dyson 4
Devourer
Golems Hard 10 no Botnets
Spirecraft Hard 6 no Martyrs
Rocketry Corps 4
Roaming Enclaves 4
Preservation Wardens 4
Fallen Spire 4
One hour in, have not left my homeworld (which is amusingly called Insanity). Scouted 3 hops out, found and popped two Data Centers, repelled Monster Waves (both AI send Raid SSs MkIII), found a co-p, two golems (cursed and artillery) and one ARS (cutlass/weasel/grenade).
Have unlocked bombers and fighters mkII and Flagships. AIP: 2. K remaining: 6000.
P4: will take for continuity/chokepointing
P6: ARS
P7: cursed golem
P8: artillery golem
P1: Co-p
State of Empire:
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This will be interesting
and one ARS (cutlass/weasel/grenade).
How do you know this?
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Science lab mkI in a transport. Once unloaded, in the split second before it dies, look under the ARS tab, it shows you the possibilities.
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Science lab mkI in a transport. Once unloaded, in the split second before it dies, look under the ARS tab, it shows you the possibilities.
LoL you made it sound like a bug. I just tried this myself and all you need to do is select any science lab and then the ARS tab. The lab doesn't have to get destroyed.
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No, it doesn't have to get destroyed, it just always does.
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Because I am insane.
Clearly. :o
AIP: 2
Wait, what?! What version are you playing? As of 5.046, the minimum AIP floor (and thus minimum AIP) has been bumped up to 10.
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AIP: 2
Wait, what?! What version are you playing? As of 5.046, the minimum AIP floor (and thus minimum AIP) has been bumped up to 10.
Most likely 5.045.
In 5.046 the AI seems to be harder and more aggressive. The Core and Spire Hammer both sent guardians and ships on my home planets when I scouted. I didn't attack or anything. I just started the game and scouted and dozens of ships and guardians attacked me.
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Science Vessels are intended to be able to give you information about ARS hacking. It wasn't directly intentional if I recall, but it felt right. Note that Science Vessel II has cloaking and is pretty useful for this...when you aren't playing insane 10/10 games.
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AIP: 2
Wait, what?! What version are you playing? As of 5.046, the minimum AIP floor (and thus minimum AIP) has been bumped up to 10.
Most likely 5.045.
In 5.046 the AI seems to be harder and more aggressive. The Core and Spire Hammer both sent guardians and ships on my home planets when I scouted. I didn't attack or anything. I just started the game and scouted and dozens of ships and guardians attacked me.
Strange.
The ships I can understand, those were probably special forces ships (on high difficulties, special forces ships will not hesitate to enter your planets if the shortest distance to their next way-point takes them through it), but the guardians attacking so early seems odd. Neither guardians nor starships are eligible to be special forces ships.
Wait, did you use transports to carry your scouts? Right now, the AI typically treats transports like military ships, regardless of what is in them, and thus will free ships that the transport gets too close to.
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Science Vessels are intended to be able to give you information about ARS hacking. It wasn't directly intentional if I recall, but it felt right.
Oh no, it's intentional, so you can see what you can hack for. It's not intended to be hard (just get a science ship there _somehow_), just intended to be a little side-mission for a bit of variety.
And it does give the ScienceIIs some kind of purpose. Albeit they weren't so happy to hear that their purpose was "take longer to die than the Is".
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AIP: 2
Wait, what?! What version are you playing? As of 5.046, the minimum AIP floor (and thus minimum AIP) has been bumped up to 10.
Most likely 5.045.
In 5.046 the AI seems to be harder and more aggressive. The Core and Spire Hammer both sent guardians and ships on my home planets when I scouted. I didn't attack or anything. I just started the game and scouted and dozens of ships and guardians attacked me.
Strange.
The ships I can understand, those were probably special forces ships (on high difficulties, special forces ships will not hesitate to enter your planets if the shortest distance to their next way-point takes them through it), but the guardians attacking so early seems odd. Neither guardians nor starships are eligible to be special forces ships.
Wait, did you use transports to carry your scouts? Right now, the AI typically treats transports like military ships, regardless of what is in them, and thus will free ships that the transport gets too close to.
No I didn't use Transports. I only sent scouts. They only seemed to attack when the scouts were detected and destroyed.
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AIP: 2
Wait, what?! What version are you playing? As of 5.046, the minimum AIP floor (and thus minimum AIP) has been bumped up to 10.
Most likely 5.045.
In 5.046 the AI seems to be harder and more aggressive. The Core and Spire Hammer both sent guardians and ships on my home planets when I scouted. I didn't attack or anything. I just started the game and scouted and dozens of ships and guardians attacked me.
Strange.
The ships I can understand, those were probably special forces ships (on high difficulties, special forces ships will not hesitate to enter your planets if the shortest distance to their next way-point takes them through it), but the guardians attacking so early seems odd. Neither guardians nor starships are eligible to be special forces ships.
Wait, did you use transports to carry your scouts? Right now, the AI typically treats transports like military ships, regardless of what is in them, and thus will free ships that the transport gets too close to.
No I didn't use Transports. I only sent scouts. They only seemed to attack when the scouts were detected and destroyed.
Check to see if you're fighting Etherjets or some other tractoring ship. Any ship caught by tractor will cause local ships to awaken (afaik) and become active.
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Updated to latest version, then continued.
Also, in all my AARs, I play schizophrenic.
Took first three planets, repaired a cursed golem, set up whipping boy (rest of mkI turrets). Unlocked shield and triangle IIs and Warp Jammers. AIP: 42 (three planets + 2 gate raids - 2 DCs). K: 4500 (including 350 captured but unharvested).
Further scouting has revealed another arti with an advanced factory, an armored with the dyson sphere, and two more co-ps (total of 3).
I can corroborate that scouting, even with scouts only, will now release ships. I have not, however, yet seen it release guardians.
State of Empire:
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No I didn't use Transports. I only sent scouts. They only seemed to attack when the scouts were detected and destroyed.
I can corroborate that scouting, even with scouts only, will now release ships. I have not, however, yet seen it release guardians.
Hmm, that sounds like a bug. Mantis?
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AIP: 2
Wait, what?! What version are you playing? As of 5.046, the minimum AIP floor (and thus minimum AIP) has been bumped up to 10.
Most likely 5.045.
In 5.046 the AI seems to be harder and more aggressive. The Core and Spire Hammer both sent guardians and ships on my home planets when I scouted. I didn't attack or anything. I just started the game and scouted and dozens of ships and guardians attacked me.
Strange.
The ships I can understand, those were probably special forces ships (on high difficulties, special forces ships will not hesitate to enter your planets if the shortest distance to their next way-point takes them through it), but the guardians attacking so early seems odd. Neither guardians nor starships are eligible to be special forces ships.
Wait, did you use transports to carry your scouts? Right now, the AI typically treats transports like military ships, regardless of what is in them, and thus will free ships that the transport gets too close to.
No I didn't use Transports. I only sent scouts. They only seemed to attack when the scouts were detected and destroyed.
Check to see if you're fighting Etherjets or some other tractoring ship. Any ship caught by tractor will cause local ships to awaken (afaik) and become active.
Nope. Nothing but scouts left my planet. This happened before the first wave.
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Updated to latest version, then continued.
Wouldn't this game still be 5.045? Did your AIP increase by 10 after the update? (Not saying you should restart. Just wondering)
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I don't think so. The floor was set to 10 upon reload, and I believe updates are applied immediately.
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Guards are supposed to leave their posts to chase scouts, they've always done that. However, once the scouts are dead, they should go back to their posts and not become free roaming threat.
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Guards are supposed to leave their posts to chase scouts, they've always done that
Yep that has always happened.
However, once the scouts are dead, they should go back to their posts and not become free roaming threat.
They didn't attack before 5.046. I like the small extra challenge but it might be hard for new players. Maybe difficulties below normal shouldn't do that? (I don't now if they do or don't)
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Scouts are not supposed to cause ships to free, basically ever (there is one nelson-laugh structure used by some of the neinzul AIs that specifically gets mad at scouts, but it's a pretty rare thing). Will look into it :)
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Ok, I just ran a test in a new game pumping out scouts into various corners of the galaxy (well, trying to, not generally getting far even with I/II/III all together) for over 10 minutes and I can't get that threat value off zero. First wave's about to come, so I'm figuring that's the time this should have reproduced by.
Can someone provide a save and steps to reproduce for getting from 0 threat to non-zero threat by scouts only? Thanks :)
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Didn't notice anything like this in the latest version, and I'm even on 10/10 as well.
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Can someone provide a save and steps to reproduce for getting from 0 threat to non-zero threat by scouts only? Thanks :)
Arrrr I just tried few times and the same didn't happen. I got 1 threat in this game however. The first time the AI actually sent ships and guardians.
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Ok now the AI attacked me!
EDIT: OH.. forgot the steps. All I did was made a game, set a Space Dock to build scouts on loop. Then I just sent the scouts on AI planets.
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5.5 hours in, still not dead.
Took Always Go Left and Clockwork, then liberated the Dyson Sphere on Frontier. These systems yeilded Cutlasses, an Artillery and an Armored.
Built SC jumpships to scout the whole map. Popped the co-ps. No other reducing structure in the galaxy. *shakes fist*
Exo at 80%. I decide to hack some knowledge while I wait. Darn it, had hoped hacking followed separate mk logic. Nope, was fighting all mkV. One planet hacked. Exo at 93%.
Shouldn't be a big deal.
28 massive AI ships (3577 FP) are en route to your planets.
*blink*
Oh dear.
Entering turn-based mode.
It's an HK mkIV and some Spirecraft mkV rabble, accompanied by some mkV fleet ship trash.
Whoever made HKs immune to artillery ammo is in league with the devil.
Nearly lost the game right there. I did lose my arti and almost my whole fleet though.
Unlocked harvesters mkIII. I will need the m+c. 8000 k left.
As I am refleeting and repairing the armored and cursed, a 551 Cpa is announced. Shouldn't be a big deal. It wouldn't attack, and is still hanging around as threat. Irritation.
P4 implies intent to take. HWs have an eye each, one has a cpa, the other a raid. With all these planets I have to take to pop the CSGs, I may have to do Fallen Spire. Uh oh.
State of Empire:
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What technologies have you unlocked?
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Almost 8 hours.
Took Down in Flames (FactIV+arti) Hands Are Tied, Earth (Chameleons+bulletproof fab), Twilight Struggle (regen+warbird fab),
and Out of Time (gatlings).
Repelled second exo-wave (enemy golems<one artillery golem w/shield bearers) (For some reason the FP only read out at about 400, instead of the 3500 or so I had last time. Conjectures?).
Waves are now 1500mkV or 4000 mkIV ships. They always completely destroy all my turrets, but then the fleet finishes them off. Mining golems are trivial if you have an artillery. Colony rebellion on Hard Vacuum (not on a CSG-D. Hmph).
AIP: 175
Techs:
fighters/frigates/cutlasses/gatlings mkII
Shield bearers/bombers/chameleons mkIII
Flagships
Warp Jammers
Harvester IIIs (both)
5000 k left.
Golems:
Mine:
Armored
Cursed
Artillery
Regenerator
Detected:
2 Widows
1 Cursed
1 Botnet (grumblegrumble)
State of Empire:
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5.5 hours in, still not dead.
"No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment." ;)
Built SC jumpships to scout the whole map. Popped the co-ps. No other reducing structure in the galaxy. *shakes fist*
You're welcome :)
Whoever made HKs immune to artillery ammo is in league with the devil.
Nah, just with some insurance company executives. You wouldn't believe the figures on a wrecked-HK claim.
With all these planets I have to take to pop the CSGs, I may have to do Fallen Spire. Uh oh.
Uh, yea, that could get tricky ;) Multiple AI-homeworld shard recoveries due to the lay of the map, I figure.
Repelled second exo-wave (enemy golems<one artillery golem w/shield bearers) (For some reason the FP only read out at about 400, instead of the 3500 or so I had last time. Conjectures?).
The relationship between how much something costs for an exo and Firepower is... tenuous at best, nonexistent at worst. Neither number has a great deal to do with the real effectiveness of the thing.
Waves are now 1500mkV or 4000 mkIV ships. They always completely destroy all my turrets, but then the fleet finishes them off.
4000 MkIV ships aren't enough to punch through? Good grief.
Very good show, thus far :)
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9.33 hours in... Ow. Ow ow ow.
Built up the fleet, took the zenith bombard ARS, repaired the cursed golem on that system, rescued the rebels, and build the resistance fleet. Things were going well, even with the 6000 mkIVs I get from time to time.
Then the third exo came.
Another HK mkIV, with two arti golem escorts, and more than ten SC shields.
Advanced Factory: gone.
Fabricators: all gone (bulletproof, decoy, warbird)
Fleet: mostly dead
Golems: average of 4% health each, but all alive.
Home Command: still hanging in there.
Refleeted, but with the CSG-D still alive, and a core raid engine on one of the HWs, I may just surrender this one to the AI. Haven't decided yet, but things are not looking good.
State of Empire:
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Finally, the AI strikes back ;)
If you decide to surrender you could instead pick up the Botnet and see if it will give you the advantage you need. It's being changed (to a separate faction, though not nerfed positive-stat-wise) for the next version so it won't tell us as much balance wise, but it could be interesting to see :)
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Decided not to surrender. Surrender is for people who don't have warheads.
Knocked out the D CSG.
Captured the exp. speed drone fabricator.
Repelled 9000 ship mkIV wave. Regen Golem lost.
Rebuilt fleet.
Repelled 2000 ship mkV wave.
Exos at 50% (when these arrive I'm dead)
Took Milkman's Lair for Widow and stepping stone.
Endgame:
Gathered entire fleet.
Neutered first HW. (the one with the cpa post).
CPA and exos will both arrive in about 10 minutes.
Moved fleet to Hard Vaccuum, repaired it, and built warheads and cloakers.
Popped first HW with jumpships.
Moved entire fleet to next to the last HW.
Nuked the planet.
Send in the fleet.
Win. Techno Dancer, Peeled and Roasted.
It was close. My fleet (which at this point was exactly one armored golem) lasted about 2 seconds avenger time. Also, if the exo had spawned a Mothership, I would have lost.
Cloaked warheads are my new best friend.
Screenshots:
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Pfff trololol.. I thought 10/10 was buffed :D
Imma wait for the next patch and try 10/10 myself.
ps. gj. Was Technologist Raider hard? Did the waves always have something "nasty" (like immune to forcefields?)?
pss. oh cool. just downloaded the new patch after writing that^^ I think I'll start the game today. Since 10/10 The Core/Tech Raider has been defeated now I'll try something different.
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Tech Raider didn't have any immune-to-ff unlocks (thank the RNG), but was quite nasty throughout the game, especially very early (first wave mkIII raid starship). It was certainly the more challenging of the two.
Thanks, and good luck.
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I thought 10/10 was buffed :D
Yea, this is getting ridiculous ;)
I think the 5.050 changes to golems/spirecraft exos would have made a difference, but something is odd when 9000 MkIV ships can't break through.
Of course, if this is what you did to Core/Technologist, I shudder to think what would have befallen the AI on sane AI Types.
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Trying to figure out how you pulled this off.
The first, and most important factor, are your "MAD SKILLZ", and that should not be underestimated as a contributing factor. ;)
Second, is I reviewed the Mk. based wave multipliers
1 1.5
2 0.9
3 0.7
4 0.6
5 0.5
Now, thanks to the linearization of fleet ship types, we can compute the "expected relative strength" by simply multipying the columns together, which yeilds
1 1.5 1.5
2 0.9 1.8
3 0.7 2.1
4 0.6 2.4
5 0.5 2.5
That seems reasonable, though it may need some adjustment.
Then I realized that The Core gets a .5 penalty to wave and .3 to reinforcement numbers. Is that applied on top of the Mk. V wave and reinforcement penalty? If so, that would actually make The Core much easier. In fact, the relative expected strength would be 1.25 (2.5 * .5), which is LESS expected firepower than normal AIs Mk. I waves. True, it isn't quite that simple, due to factors like centralization of firepower and the immunities Mk. V ships get, but still that may need to be looked at.
Three, the map type, spokes, is a pretty trivially chokepointable map type, something it seems that was key for this victory.
Also, lol, won with only a Armored golem (and your homeworld, of course) left in your name.
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Second, is I reviewed the Mk. based wave multipliers
1 1.5
2 0.9
3 0.7
4 0.6
5 0.5
Yea, I've been thinking about removing the rule where fleet ship cap scales down with mk; it doesn't do that for starships or turrets or whatever. And if the "mark mixing" logic used on 9+ now instead of bumping waves up an entire tech level all at once were used on all difficulties instead it would help prevent that feeling of the transition from I to II or II to III being too harsh (which is one reason for those wave-specific multipliers above).
It would make the higher marks more useful to humans too, of course; and really things are balanced with the idea that a cap of MkX is X times as good as a cap of Mk1, which isn't really the case right now.
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Can I recommend this (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=6211) mantis issue be considered if you are already going to be messing with ship caps on everything?
Make most base ship caps a multiple of 8 to fix ultra-low ship cap rounding errors skewing balance
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Can I recommend this (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=6211) mantis issue be considered if you are already going to be messing with ship caps on everything?
Make most base ship caps a multiple of 8 to fix ultra-low ship cap rounding errors skewing balance
I would like to address that too but it's not actually directly related: there are literally some multipliers defined in the code for the various mark levels, and I wouldn't have to touch the individual caps at all. Just set those 10 multipliers (5 for caps, 5 for wave multipliers) all to 1 (or 1.5 for waves since that's what mkIs have for waves, dunno).
Making all caps multiples of 8 would involve a lot of per-type attention.
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He started game with 5.045 patch so was the whole game patch 5.045?
Oh and may I take a look at the save file?. Would like to "study" it.
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He started game with 5.045 patch so was the whole game patch 5.045?
From Reply #12 on: July 23, 2012, 09:57:17 PM
Updated to latest version, then continued.
That would be 5.046, which had the 10/10 buffs; 5.047 didn't have any AI buffs, 5.048 and 5.049 were hotfixes, and 5.050 was last night.
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Next buff should be pretty huge, 66% more ships in waves on 10/10 (assuming Mark II ships in the wave). Against a Core it would actually be 200% more Mark V ships :o !
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Uh, as i see you had a number of systems and didn't do much gate raiding. Which means you couldnt just put all of your defences on some chokepoint.
So, how did you actually manage to defend against those massive waves coming to your systems?
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Congratulations on the win, deftly done. Once you guys stop beating the stones out of the AI with the superweapons I'll have to try out a 10/10 with 'em, just to see what's happened. :)
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Next buff should be pretty huge, 66% more ships in waves on 10/10 (assuming Mark II ships in the wave). Against a Core it would actually be 200% more Mark V ships :o !
Lets not buff anything before we see the save file.
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Next buff should be pretty huge, 66% more ships in waves on 10/10 (assuming Mark II ships in the wave). Against a Core it would actually be 200% more Mark V ships :o !
Lets not buff anything before we see the save file.
Removing the cap-scaling of higher mark fleet ships isn't mainly about buffing the AI (though it does that), it's about making fleet ships easier to balance vs other stuff that doesn't have that scaling (turrets, starships, etc).
Anyway, not planning on doing it today or definitely planning to do it at all, anyway ;)
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I chokepointed with Warp Jammers, and put the entire fleet through the grinder on arachna every single wave. A wave where I only lose half the fleet and all of my turrets is a cheap wave, but then I have a lot of time and a strong economy to build for the next one. And that is with the use of spire rams and shields, which are finite resources. Every wave and exo was a crisis.
Golems are fragile against thousands of high-mark ships (lost the regen to a huge swarm of raptors).
Tech raider is far more of a threat than the core.
Warheads against normal waves started to become routine.
Every exo was a desperate battle for survival. I actually think this game might have been easier sans golems/spirecraft.
The game definitely got much harder upon updating to 5.046.
I can't speak to the exo-buffs in 5.050, because only the last exo occured during that version, and I completely ignored it while attacking the second HW.
I agree 10/10 needs a buff, but this game was on the brink of defeat for most of the last half, so nothing insane.
Thanks all.
The requested save file: right before the final assault (which takes a lot of micro to make work (Pinpoint jumpship control, cloaked warheads directed carefully, getting the entire fleet to the AI HW after the nuke, but before the CRE wave arrives on the core world, splitting the fleet to kill the guard posts, etc), and if the RNG spawns a MS you are hosed no matter what.
(I recomend switching to my layout if possible, the original is somewhat confusing)
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The requested save file: right before the final assault (which takes a lot of micro to make work (Pinpoint jumpship control, cloaked warheads directed carefully, getting the entire fleet to the AI HW after the nuke, but before the CRE wave arrives on the core world, splitting the fleet to kill the guard posts, etc).
Ahh now I see what you did there! :)
About that 9k MarkIV wave. Did you blow up all of them with 1 missile right when they all came trough the wormhole and when they came out of their Carriers?
PS. Suggestion about the Avenger AI Plot. If Avenger(s) is/are enabled the Avenger should be destroyed before the game is won. That's the point of the Avenger.. it's AIs last defense vs the humans. If you fail to destroy it you DIE. And if you die you failed. In my own games I don't consider the game won if I can't destroy the Avenger even if I see the "You Win!" text.
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It took 3 missiles, and an arti golem to pop the carriers.
I always considered the goal of the game to be: kill the AI. Survival is a luxury.
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The way the AI ships comes trough the wormholes or out of the carriers makes it too easy to blow up 1k V ships with 1 missile. They should come like zombies from the AI Eye. As an "endless" stream. Then it wouldn't be so easy to instagip thousands of ships. When Carriers are destroyed or deployed they could let out the ships the same way. 1k ships over 5 or 10 seconds or something like that. The Carrier wouldn't be able to shoot or move while it's deploying the ships. Like in some scifi movies when a big starship is destroyed it doesn't blow up immediatelly. It's "epic".. there's like parts of the starships blowing up (Carrier is deploying the ships). Small explosions everywhere.. THEN there's the big boom (all ships deployed, the carrier self destructs). Kind like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeLqsvFO31o&t=23s)
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I disagree. I think warheads are just about right. When you have to use warheads, it marks the beginning of an AIP spiral, so I think having them be extremely effective is the right move balance-wise.
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The way the AI ships comes trough the wormholes or out of the carriers makes it too easy to blow up 1k V ships with 1 missile.
Well, aside from the fact the missiles are kinda supposed to kill those huge chunks of units at the cost of AIP, id suggest making the carriers "leak" their units as their health drops. Start leaking at 50% carrier HP so they dont leak due to AOE damage at the beginning of the wave.