110 Planets. On a non-forced Chokepoint map

[keith.lamothe]

I am hopeful that resources and energy will be more of an issue going forward.. but the current harvester 3's have made resources a non-issue this game. At 73 planets, I have around 26K income/second for total M&C.

If you take 73 planets m+c and e really should not be an issue except for truly massive outlays.  Taking a planet is supposed to give a solid payoff; not all of them have much resources but if you take that many a really strong m+c income is one of the benefits.

But yea, harvester 3s will be getting some rebalancing attention, whenever I get the chance to sit down and do the numbers again.

It's hard to spend that fast

Multiple spire shipyards FRD'ing to an AI homeworld with as many engies as they'll bear in assistance

[PokerChen]

At 73 planets, I have around 26K income/second for total M&C.  It's hard to spend that fast - but, I can probably plan to build the mark 5 Ion cannon.

The Zenith Traders are in shock at the situation. The price was initially an inside joke, and now they can contemplate retiring on this single sale.

[Nodor]

And the RNG pulls through.


With 3 minutes to go, the Zenith Trader Stops in Archancellor - I build a Orbital Mass driver, Counterspy, and a Black Hole Machine.   The OMD and Counterspy die in the wave, but the Black hole machine under the Spire Hub works wonders.

The Fleet at Skarloc handles most of the inbound, the Hive golems defend the stragglers through the lower right, and after the waves finish filtering it through Murdoch I transport it around to pick up the other stragglers.  During this wave I actually gained systems.   - Very unusual for me.

I spent the next hour cleaning out the lower right hand corner, setting up the new wall at Stibbons, and then grab a whole lot of territory.



This is post the first exo-wave after grabbing Stibbons. 
The right wall is holding and I acquire about 20 planets worth of knowledge.
I pick up Parasites and I unlock Nienzul Starship Mark 4's for the Factory 4 effect.

[Nodor]

32.5 Hours



With the Mark 4 ships at Skarloc, a Warp Jammer at Nobbs (and enough turrets/Forts to stop Exo-Waves), I use the Spire Battleships and Dreadnoughts to clean out the upper right corner.  This is a slow process, due to movement speed around the individual planets, with breaks for exo-waves. 

I finally start using my brain.  To deal with counterattack guard posts I free up a Mark 3 Military command station and 5 mark 1 force fields.  Every Counterattack target is locked down and either the spire fleet or or the mark fleet (depending on waves) locks down the planet.

Sadly, this is right after I lost both of my Black Widow golems.   - I have no idea how they died.   But they vanished about this time.

Next up, building out the spire city hubs.  - I'm still at 22 shipyards.  And I decide I want a hub at Nobbs to stop the AI.
 

[Nodor]

36 Hours in:



In the interim there has been a CPA.   It got loaded into transports and dropped at Wee Mad Arthur.  With 3700 troops in transports, charging into a homeworld seemed foolish, so I started to clean out the approach to the second homeworld.

Then for some reason, the carriers pop into Nobbs and bring the forces down from 4,000+ to 225.  Time to strike. 

Notes on the things going on: 
Throngus had 2 Counterattack guard posts, I trashed one, and went about smashing other planets, while I waited for the 15 minutes to pass.  Because I had been careful about timing with Exo-waves and guard posts, this often meant large gaps of time between counterattack guard posts.The units at Skarloc and Archancellor are mostly turrets.  Neelix is my factory HQ at this point.  You can see the buildup of carriers and barracks at Worf and Zapp they continued to produce a barracks about every 15 minutes.   - if left unchecked, they started spawning carriers.   They would then break open on Ole Ron or Kazzak when they met a dyson gatling.

[keith.lamothe]

And one of the original AI subroutines remarked to a young whippersnapper, "they sure don't make guerrilla war like they used to".

[Nodor]

The homeworld kill did not go as planned.
I moved 20 transports in to see what else I could drag loose and managed to snag the botnet golem and another 100 ships, they were gibbed on Nobbs.    I then moved in my non-spire starships to start smashing the core guardposts.   A mothership, 12 golems, and 45 hunter-killers spawned.   My starships failed to escape the planet.

Nobbs held.   - It turns out that spire ships have longer range and greater speed  - and 120 Spire frigates will eventually kill a pack of hunterkillers.    Almost everything else needs to be rebuilt.   I move my dreadnaughts into the homeworld and smash almost everything before they too go down.   Some recently produced bombers finish off the command station.   - One down.

.. Then I notice the avenger has spawned.   No worries, the defense on Nobbs can handle it.  Sadly, as a result I rediscovered that Avengers Nuke the planet they die on.

I colonize the homeworld, move a number of forts and turrets there and hope for the best - turning attention to the other side of the map.  - The next wave hits - and I realize I have a new whipping boy.

I finish taking out Throngus and Murdoch and discover that every 3-4 minutes there are carriers spawning from Leela, Worf and Zapp.

I move the fleet to the Venture company and try to build a wall.   They smash my (built!) superfortress, and 2 MK 2 fortresses and power back in.   I eventually head the spire fleet into those planets, clear out the barracks, and this enables me to have enough time to put up some defense.   I take Leela, drop a warp jammer command station and build up defenses, as I take the planets in the backfield, snagging the 4 new fabricators, and the last ARS (Gravity Rippers), the next Exo-wave hits.

It cost me a Hive golem due to bad pathing and all four new fabricators. 

38 Hours in:


Time to redouble my efforts, rebuild the walls, and dedicate the spire destroyers to spending time on Worf and Zapp.

[Nodor]

Recovery is quick.



I take all of the open planets and achieve 110 under control.
I finish buying everything you can spend knowledge on.

I use 40 transports to pull the initial hordes of guys off of the homeworld.  - And the exo-wave pops up at 50%.   With everything but the Spire Destroyers sitting adjacent to the AI homeworld, I am ready to play.

Then cookie monster shows up... and hangs out on Leela.   I had missed him moving into the area, and lost a bunch of troops, but he then decided to go sit on my warp gates until the Exo-wave reached 89%.    Then he left.

After killing the exo-wave, and recolonizing a bunch of planets, I turned to the second homeworld.   I moved in about 500 fleet ships and the AI spawned 5 Hunterkillers and 8 golems.   I hopped back off planet, and the fleet crushed them as they exited the wormhole.

I then sent in a large portion of the fleet and it didn't take long.

[Nodor]

Some general strategies/notes:

• Build a wall and expand worked a lot better for me beyond a certain point than capturing as you go.
  
• I do NOT suggest building your whipping boy on a planet with a NRC unit.   EMP warheads can be very very badly timed.
• The Devourer Golem is EVIL  - when you have all of the tasty targets you do not want him around.
• Putting fortresses within range of each other so they could repair each other made a BIG difference in how long they lasted.
• Dyson Gatlings run out of punch when you have this many planets.  One here or there doesn't make a huge difference vs. waves - but having them around to kill the odd Etherjet was nice.
• The Crafty Spire needs MORE spire ships.  Perhaps instead of guardians.  I enjoyed dealing with the Spirecraft I found.
• The Golemite needs more golems.  It was a blast to deal with him. 
• I did not see a Hunter-Killer in an Exo-Wave, despite my AI progress and 36 Spire Shipyards.  They appear to be limited to 8.0+ difficulty.
• At some point, waves coming in as 1000 ships +Carriers becomes an auto-kill.   If I've dropped enough turrets/forts,  I can typically burn though whatever.  7,000 Mark 4 ships is as scary as 2,000.  Missile Frigates typically do the most damage to my defenses, but 20 remains rebuilders and 5-10 engineers quickly fix whatever.  Give a few select turrets Riots Starships as preferred target, and you can ignore waves. I do spend a LOT of knowledge on turrets/forts to make this happen

[zoutzakje]

congratz on the win ^^ nice job. Odd you didn't see any H/K's in an exo. I encountered a few in my 7/7 game at about 750+ AIP and only 5 spire cities. Perhaps you did get them, but they died so fast to your defences that you didn't notice them

[Nodor]

congratz on the win ^^ nice job. Odd you didn't see any H/K's in an exo. I encountered a few in my 7/7 game at about 750+ AIP and only 5 spire cities. Perhaps you did get them, but they died so fast to your defences that you didn't notice them

After the waves dropped I would spend a lot of time checking what was in each exo-spawn and where it was headed so I could optimize my defenses.   I also bought every turret and every support tech.   While I would hope that 100% of turret and fortress cap provides substantial benefits, nothing instagibs a command grade hull. 

[keith.lamothe]

Congratulations!  One front door thoroughly kicked down.

• I do NOT suggest building your whipping boy on a planet with a NRC unit.   EMP warheads can be very very badly timed.

Glad to hear they accomplished something, albeit fleeting

• The Devourer Golem is EVIL  - when you have all of the tasty targets you do not want him around.

I remember once having my spire fleet stumble upon ol' cookie, back before he was invincible.  It was a moment of slack-jawed terror for both sides as his opening salvo eradicated all of my frigates and destroyers without mercy, and the response from the bigger ships took like a third of his health off in one go.

Now that he's invincible, just send a cruiser over to slap a "Kick Me" sign on his back and stay well clear after that.

• The Crafty Spire needs MORE spire ships.  Perhaps instead of guardians.  I enjoyed dealing with the Spirecraft I found.
• The Golemite needs more golems.  It was a blast to deal with him. 

Noted

• I did not see a Hunter-Killer in an Exo-Wave, despite my AI progress and 36 Spire Shipyards.  They appear to be limited to 8.0+ difficulty.

The AIP doesn't make a difference for FS exos, but yea, I figure the city-structure-provoked exos would have enough budget for H/Ks.  Not sure why you didn't see them but it may be that the budget wasn't getting quite high enough: the homeworld defense exos generally have much higher total budgets and put everything into the lead ship and it trickles down to the escorts and pickets (and back to the escorts when picket-count hits max) after that; the normal exos split it 3 ways between those three categories and the leftovers inevitably wind up in the escort category.

And all ship types are either eligible for exos or not, difficulty does not play a factor in that (it does influence size of budget, though).

• At some point, waves coming in as 1000 ships +Carriers becomes an auto-kill.   If I've dropped enough turrets/forts,  I can typically burn though whatever.  7,000 Mark 4 ships is as scary as 2,000.  Missile Frigates typically do the most damage to my defenses, but 20 remains rebuilders and 5-10 engineers quickly fix whatever.  Give a few select turrets Riots Starships as preferred target, and you can ignore waves. I do spend a LOT of knowledge on turrets/forts to make this happen

Hmm, that does kind of put an artificial bottleneck on how threatening a wave is.  Perhaps the carriers should auto-deploy if the AI is massively outgunned on the planet, and that would generally result in it using the exo-like composition for the dumps in cases like this because there's already a bunch of AI ships on the planet.

[Nodor]

As a note on whipping boy setup.   I probably spend 50% of my first 40K knowledge on turrets or forts, 25% on more M&C, and 25% on fleet ships.   Given the time, I may have 4-6 forts, and 500-800 turrets on one planet. Turret types are picked to provide the biggest bonus values against the ships I'm seeing in waves.

Sniper 2, Forts,  Mark 3 Missle turrets, Grav turrets, Mk 3 of "best vs. ship types" turret, & tachyon drones add up fast.