40 planets, my first victory?

[PineappleSam]

Planets: 40
Style: Realistic
Seed: 812500000 (generated random numbers until electric shuttle appeared)

Ships: Complex
Options: All enabled (default?)

Combat style: Fast & Dangerous
Visibility: Full Fog Of War
Cheats: Disabled

Minor factions included: All
AI modifiers: None
Auto AI Progress: 1/30 min (default?)

AI opponents: 2x Random Moderate/Easier @ 7.3


00:00:00 - I arrive

Starting galaxy map

I’m not very good at AI wars. I’ve given up on some games, but most I just lose when a zillion tanks/bombers kill my home command station. This will be one I try to play through to the bitter end! I’ve rewritten the introduction since reaching the 3 hour mark, but every other post is *mostly* as I wrote it while I played.

Electric shuttles are ships I’ve seen the AI use but after playing almost soley with vampires or teleport battle-stations I wanted to give them a go! After finding a map with them on, I start planning...

Zargaraid and Biroifi will be taken first unless they’re level IV worlds, and Melis will probabley be next. Most games I’ve played recently start with my research of Lv. II forcefield and Lv. III command stations but I quickly find my fleet is overwhelmed when I attempt new raids as there’s no knowledge left to boost my numbers/strength. I’ve a few skills and tactics to try out and hopefully this’ll be my first win!


00-04-00: First I was but then I serious’d...

Ships!

Poor resources on nearby planets that would take my resources to 13/7 with 4 planets were a bit of a turn off, but none of the three I had my eye on would take much to clean out. Not only that, but Biroifi had TWO advanced research stations on neighbouring planets! The research planets had around 100+ mk.II ships but at that point they wouldn’t worry me! Scouting in general was easy, and the highest level planet I’ve encountered is a world with 2 Mk. III ships on it, probably from a patrol. I spot 2 special forces guard posts on that planet, so I think I know one of the AI...

The ‘serious’ part involves my home planet. I’m facing etherjets and raptors, and the AI seems to know how to kite

Oh dear… perhaps electric shuttles weren’t the best choice?

..and to add insult to injury they’re BOTH cloaked and one has mine avoidance! There goes my standard 100+ mines per wormhole tactic!


0:11:57 - The penny drops

Not really worth a picture, but after spotting autocannon minipods a thought just occurred… isn’t there an AI that uses all the cloaked units? I know what tech I’m unlocking!

Spider/Sniper turrets in a far corner should stop the odd ship that appears, but I’ll need to think carefully about base defence… do I defend my homeworld’s wormholes or the resources or just heavily fortify the command station and hope sniper turrets handle the rest?


0:17:16 - First raid, first complaint

Raptor raid was dealt with handily, and stealth tachyon detectors are now placed strategically within my homeplanet. A limit of 30 emitters may cause problems later on, but I should be fine. The complaint: My sniper turret ball is fairly far off, and when I set my engineers into FRDM under my forcefield they refuse to go and help build the turrets. If I centre the FRDM on the turrets, they won’t travel across to the distant wormholes to build the tachyon emitters. Can there be no cap on the engineers FRDM range please?


0:28:13 - Invasion ti- WTF!?

Time to take my first planet! I was a little surprised to warp in and then spot 2 Mk.II raid starships. I keep hearing on the forums how awesome they are so I’m a little worries…


0:29:01 - Ok, so you’re not so tough

…and now there both dead. Perhaps not so great then, or they’re good at something other than facing off against large fleets? Current force (after losses): 118 bombers, 63 fighters, 21 frigates, 79 MkI+II electric shuttles.


0:39:13 - Every journey begins with one small massacre

Blue rings of death!

Zargaraid is mine, although harvesters took a while to set up as I forgot to FRDM for remaining turrets  *facepalm*. Oh, and in 1 second 110 cloaked ships will descend on my homeworld and face a mighty defence force of 18 ships and 15 sniper/spider turrets. *hopes attacking fleet manages to return in time, as they were away from the wormhole thatks to FRDM...*


0:39:32  - Remember what I said about the shuttles?

65 cloaked ships have just been taken out by 12 mk.II electric shuttles. They’re beyond awesome... turns out they were etherjets, and after a couple of seconds the remaining ships try to drag the shuttles in a group. I think that the AI should instead of tried to separate the group, but it doesn’t matter now as 12 ships have just stopped an entire raid on their own.

Oh, and I’ve just spotted that one of the advance research lab planets borders a data centre planet. A low-level one at that. For the moment this game seems TOO easy. I’m half hoping I’ll succeed without resistance while the other half of me hopes that the AI is about to do something spectacular!

At this point I took a break to catch some lectures... and I should really mention this: I LOVE how AI wars doesn’t go crazy if you alt-tab to something different while it’s running. So many times I’ve been running a program, decided to change the current track or type something and crashed the program I’ve been using...

The above statement may seem a bit disjointed (Alt-tab = lectures?) but I started posting what music I was listening to when I updated. I then decided against it and edited out parts of my posts.


0:39:32  - Baby steps are done, now for the pentathlon!

My homeworld is no more secure. Lv.1 forcefields combined with tachyon emitters and spider/sniper turrets should keep most fleets away, and now I’m torn… I could either secure Melis OR go after the research/data planets. I think I’ll clean out the Melis first too make myself immune to everything but raids!

Let’s see how this goes. I’m guessing this’ll be as easy as the others (thanks to the electric shuttles) but you can never tell... Melis does have a train station, and stopping the trains passing through my homeworld will be a bonus!


1:23:39  - A challenger approaches


268 ships are about to attack my homeworld in 5 seconds!

Oh noes

Oh, wait, there’s 109 electric shuttles of various levels between 1-3 sitting on the only entrance.


1:23:47 - …and leaves

Woah, it took 8 seconds for the shuttles to kill EVERYTHING!?

Nope.

The previous time had 5 seconds left until the wave, so it took it down in 4 seconds.

See all previous comments on electric shuttles.

Oh, and for some reason my shift key sticks in game and I continue to see move lines and select multiple ships. Possibly is just my keyboard (I use a wireless) but it MIGHT be the game. Does anyone else have that problem?


1:26:58 - Only a matter of time

What’s this? The AI’s ships are streaming off into the great beyond? Mauruders then... huzzah...

Oh, and while I was thinking about base defence I remembered something that annoys me about mines. When they’re decloaked, why don’t ships avoid flying into them? It would encourage use of tachyon drones and that decloaker ship. Not really pertinent to this game, but if I don’t write it down now I never will!


1:29:49 - ARGHAGHBHAAGHJSKGBKA!!41!3!!3!32!31!!

I don’t know how the AI gets away with it, but I’ve seen this happen in other games aswell: I’ll be attacking a special forces guard post AND THEN IT’LL JUMP TO FULL HEALTH!

The tutorial suggests missile frigates, which I use, but even with 165 blasting away SOMEHOW an engineer manages to get to it and heal the blasted thing. I’ve lost 13 ships clearing out everything on Melis except the warp-gate / command station / special forces guard post so I’mjust going to say “NO U” and hurl everything at it.

Let’s see how those engineers like eating 100+ lighting attacks IN THE FACE!!! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!


1:33:02 - Spy sappin’ my sentry!

Well, electric shuttles decimating my special forces guard post seems more accurate

That’s the planet subjugated and now I’m cleaning up the remains. It’s interesting to note that dagger frigates / buzzbombs have appeared on the sidebar but still there’s no marauder warning…

1:33:11 - Whoops

I thought the lack of warning was because the ships were far away, but now I think it may be a bug as there’s a hoard of buzz bombs incoming. Thankfully marauder ships don’t have IMMUNE TO MINOR ELECTRIC ATTACKS so I should be ok.

Oh and a marauder warning eventually appeared sometime between 1:33:11 and 1:35:26


2:03:05 - Stuff this for a game of soldiers

BIG jump thanks to me wanting to rid my planet of marauders. Something that doesn’t quite make sense: I get that marauders live in DEEP space and use STL travel to launch raids but how on earth can they coordinate a raid from two different angles? They must be more patient than I am...

I cleared one wave, and then went “stuff it” again and decided to go elsewhere for the time being. When it takes 10+ seconds to shift+scroll from the frigates to my base I’m not going to wait.

Oh, and 4/5 wormholes on the planet lead to AI settlements. Let them deal with the ships


2:19:50 - You can do it, AI!

Where are you going? I don't smell THAT bad!

Hurray for the AI ignoring me and rushing off to deal with marauders ON MY PLANET

Thought: If AI are attacking marauders, would my sniper cannons kindly NOT shoot them down?

I could turn them off/on but I want to leave them on so I can ignore the planet and concentrate on other things. Like moving my death-glob of electric shuttles as I attempt to take advanced research station number 1.


2:21:29 - ...

All those lines! So many!

Well that’s the planet captured. Hey, where are those AI going? Odd, unless... no... surley not more mauraders?

*holds Ctrl*

ARGH!!!!!!!

I didn’t notice the ‘marauders attacking’ sign until after I saved the screenshot *facepalms*

Oh, and here’s a possible bug: When using repair stations, some ships don’t appear in the build queue. I can click on them and I think they’re built, but they don’t appear...


2:40:24 - *swear words*

I got a little cocky. A wave of raiders took down my advanced research station when I wasn’t paying attention. The raiders are getting ganked, but still... newfound anti-armours, you must avenge your lost honour! Or something!

Go kill some robots regardless!


2:50:24 - I, Ronnie

Maptime. Like Naptime but with more cartogrophy.

*sighs*

I’m an information junkie, and since my Mk.I scouts where occupied on other planets and I’ve no spare knowledge I built some scout starships.

Do you see the level IV world Boputic?

Guess what planet the starship went to first and then died horribly on…


2:59:09 - A break

Defences? Are they like important or something?

Three hours [less thanks to x1-x10] and I think it’s time to stop for the day. The screenshot I leave you with is off a planet being raided two jumps from my main fleet. I’m curious to see how the defences hold. My forcefields have so far been:

-2 mk.II blocking the wormholes on the Cherry Piedom
-2 mk.II protecting my home station
-1 mk.II plugging the Great Northern Fruitcake’s connection to my homeworld

-1 mk.I at the Tomato dependency
-1 mk.I supporting my fleet at Suoao

However I’ve recently noticed that Suoao and the Tomato dependency are the sole wormholes that could let ships into the Cherry Piedom so I’ve started moving the mk.II forcefields up to protect them.

My fleet’s pretty strong atm with a new ship type soon to be added but I’ve been neglecting my knowledge raiding duties.

There’s another lab at Phidetch and an experimental fabricator at Achshlogor that warrant investigating, but they’re two jumps away. Thankfully not through any high level planets so I plan to unlock transports and hop across.

There’s a data centre on Boputic that needs investigating, but Azor’s is my next target as soon as I’ve properly taken over Suoao.

My economy is... ok. The planets I own are pretty terrible, but I’m happy knowing that they are all either choke-points or laboratory planets. MK.II command stations were one of my first unlocks, but I’m glad I held back on getting a mk.III so I’d enough knowledge to boost my fleet.


3:00:00 - Spot on

Booyah, managed to destroy command station and get my own up! I’ve unlocked: Deflectors!?

What ships out there shoot lasers?

Oh well, more cannon fodder if nothing else.

Oh, and guess what... this is the first planet I’ve attacked recently that hasn’t had a marauder wave attack it! Oh, wait. It’s under attack too.

ARGH!!!!

Pineapple Sam, signing off for the time being...

[RCIX]

AFAIK, raiders, raid starships, raptors i think use lasers. Laser turrets also do, and those can be a right pain to deal with sometimes. So deflectors should help at least some!

[Lancefighter]

space planes as well... Certainly looks like your up against a cloaking AI

[PineappleSam]

Thanks for the help! I’ll keep an eye out for laser turrets and so on.

Mk.I raid starships definatley use lasers, but I couldn’t say about the others.


03:27:44 - Too easy?

Galaxy mappin', across the universe

Initially I was contemplating jumping Xuneiso and Birev to get to Phidetch and Achshlogor but then I had a brainwave: Why not check the alternative route from the Tomato Dependency up through Aozor (the data centre) and Leshlo then Seul?

I’m glad I did.

Aozor: I plan to attack anyway to rid myself of the data centre and I might as well clear it while I’m there. The warpgate/command station will stay but I can clear out the troopers to allow a couple of colony ships past.

Leshlo: First planet afterwards and has an ANOTHER advanced research station!

Seul: One jump away from my targets, but unfortunately a mk. II world

So the plan is now to raid Aozor, then capture Leshlo with the same fleet. I’ll try and take Seul as soon as possible to stop it reinforcing (and settle there to prevent raids on the Experimental fabricator on Achshlogor) then capture the two lab planets. Luck seems to favour me heavily as I’ll only have to hold two planets to keep all four safe, and one of them even has only one wormhole!

On the defence side of things all the edge planets are HEAVILY fortified with sniper/spider turrets protected by close range turrets and all have a mk. I and II forcefield protecting the whole back to my home planet.

I’m tempted to remove the forcefields form my homeplanet to protect the new colonies but I’m far from certain... it’s two jumps from anywhere except the Great Northern Fruitcake with her 50 sniper/spider turrets but I keep seeing images of past command stations blowing up from massed bomber/tank waves.

An alternative would be to unlock mk.III forcefields but that’s a bit extreme! We’ll see how things go, and I’ll try and get some more scouting/knowledge raiding done.


03:29:34 - I’m obviously wrong

I was under the impression that marauders attacked random planets: Both mine and the AI’s. I’m wrong... they only attack planets the AI controls JUST as I start to attack them myself. That’s the only explanation that makes sense and explains how 4 invaded planets in a row are simultaneously invaded by marauders. No sign of either of the other two factions has appeared, but marauders are EVERYWHERE.

A wave of 80+ frigates are attacking the Great Northern Fruitcake but I’ve decided to let them attack without my fleet reinforcing. I want to see if this bastion can hold its own. If it does, I’ll move the forcefields on my homeworld. If not then I’ll curse loudly, rage-quit and come back later to rebuild the planet

I’m noticing that the spider turrets move on from a ship after it’s paralyzed, but I’d like my sniper turrets to prioritize moving targets over stationary ones aswell. Would you shoot at the crippled solider way over there or his (her?) comrade that’s rushing towards you with large broadsword?


03:31:05 - Lulz what?

Oy, what ya doin' 'ere!?

The fruitcake defended itself but the tomato was invaded. I’m not certain where from, but there appears to be 40 ships (including 1 mk.IV bomber, 2 mk.IV bulletproof fighters and 7 mk.IV parasites) attacking the planet. Should be able to handle it, but I expect to lose the harvesters there. We’ll see how it goes, eh?

Even planets are well laid out... I was tossing up taking out Aozor’s special forces guard post and that’ll be easy as it’s adjacent to the data centre


03:37:00 - More on my hatred of marauders

...another thing: I’ve NEVER seen them hurt the AI with buzz bombs. Aozor is overflowing with AI ships, but EVERY SINGLE DARNED BUZZ BOMB HITS MY FLEET! ARGH!!!


03:48:14 - Even more on the above topic

Move on after taking down the data centre, and I reach my first planet that doesn’t have marauders attacking when I arrive!

Oops, I’m wrong. There ARE marauders attacking! No need for warnings, the stream of AI ships intermingled with my own streaming out into deep space tells me all I need to know...


03:58:37 - Shiny!

...and I unlock: Munitions booster!

2x electric shuttle damage makes me rather happy

I’ve finally decided to move the forcefields up, and I’ll need to think carefully about my next unlock. Current contenders:

Mk.I-III ships: Not sure what type, but tbh my battles at the moment are just electric shuttles + support. Fighters soak up firepower, bombers crack shields, frigates handle special forces guard posts and shoots anything that gets too close to by death glob.

Starships: Meh to most, but the thought of fleet starships boosting my already ridiculous shuttles EVEN FURTHER gives me shivers

Economy: I’ve maxed out my level II stations, and unless I’m rebuilding a fleet from scratch I’m fine

Defence: I’ve always wanted to try a fortress, and 5 is the perfect number for my edge planets! They’re a more fun alternative to forcefields, that’s for sure. Tempted by transport but they’re not necessary. Yet.

Turrets: With a stealth type AI the only useful turrets are tachyon, spider and sniper which are all unlocked. May go for a laser/missile turret later on but for now they just pick off the speedy ones. Either ships are slow enough for my spider towers to paralyze them all or weak enough that they just sit at my forcefield edge and do diddly squat! A fast ship with a very short range anti-forcefield attack would worry me but as far as I’m aware such a ship doesn’t exist. Yet.

Control: Put simply, no. Although I can stand paying a small amount of an infinite resource to make sure every planet has a mk.I engineer and rebuilder I am NOT paying knowledge that I have to fight to obtain just to give every ship automatic FRDM.

I think it’ll be fortress, just because they look cool


04:11:32 -

Having just spent... a rather LONG time taking down a mk.III forcefield with a special forces outpost behind it (cruisers can’t take down the shield, bombers don’t have the range to face off against the outpost) I’ve decided to go for something anti-forcefield. Bombers tempted me, but I’ve never tried raid starships so there my first choice!


04:26:03 - Silly me

It’s only as my entire maxed-out fleet including three mk.I raid starships FINNALY took down the second mk.III forcefield that I realised I could have just moved onto the next planet (which was my real target ANYWAY) and off’d there supply chain. Bother.


04:39:58 - Am I bovered?

Nope. Oh, wait...

229 cloaked ships attacking... and my fleets far away? Oh noes!

Wait, never mind, the planet has marauders so the AI flee will just run off. No worries.

That was going to be my original post, but I’ve just noticed that the dagger frigates are almost at the planet. I suspect I may be in hot water...


04:43:02 - Stiff upper lip

That's quite a lot of ships!
Galaxy map

You may have noticed in my last screenshot something about a cross planet attack. I assumed it would be an even spread of invasions and that I could handle it.

Instead:
-Suao is unmolested
-Tomato Dependency is dealing with 80 etherjets, and they are ineffectual against the forcefields
-Dessert of Ice is unmolested
-Phidetch may have been attacked, but 1000+ ships saw any invaders off

Overall things look good! I’ve secured the research lab and fabricator (hello Cutlasses and anti-starship arachnids) and scouting has shown me all but 9 planets, and plenty of goodies! My next target will probably be Vilkoas with its IV factory and C fabricator.

Oh, almost forgot to mention: The majority of the cross planet attack hit the Northern Fruitcake. The command station fell without putting up much of a fight and now there are 180 ships on my home planet with 357 mopping up at the Fruitcake.

Hopefully 1 mk.I forcefield will protect me where a mk.II failed!

Wait, that doesn’t make sense...

My one saving grace is thanks to excess resources I’ve be maintaining an engineering fleet of 20 mk.I engineer ships. They’ve been spending most of their time recently building command stations and light defences in the 4 planet line I’ve just liberated. They’re replacing lost ships with a new fleet at a tremendous rate and the invaders are about to eat 134 cutlasses to the face with more ships being produced at an incredible rate!

Hopefully my raid starships will come in to help too. It turns out they can’t bring forcefields down but what they CAN do is kill all the stuff underneath and render the forcefield impotent.

As my sights are now set on a mk.IV ship factory my aim is to also knowledge raid and grab as many mk.III ships as possible. Electric shuttles are already there but what else to choose?

Current thoughts are mk.III bombers, but frigates are also on the menu.

Until next time (unless my command station is about to blow),
-Pineapple Sam


5 minutes later - Oh, bother...

I saved, started exiting and then thought “I wonder what’ll happen?”

1] The cutlasses which were set on FRDM mode by the wormhole head straight there. They don’t attack anything and die horribly.
2] The engineers that were pumping out reinforcements decide to try and save the dying ships/harvesters/whatever. They die, and my stream of reinforcements dies with it.
3] The enemy fleet take down the shield guarding my sniper gun emplacement buying my valuable moments as I realise what’s about to happen rather than just ganking my command station’s shield.
4] I send my 1000 ship fleet in a mad rush to my homeworld, forgetting that I’d set the mode to GROUP move.
5] I rectify this mistake as my station’s shield drops to the point I have to micro and spam move commands so that the forcefield generator stays on top of my command station.
6] The shield dies, and only the weak anti-starship ships arrive from the main fleet.
7] They die, and the home command station follows their example
8] Game over

So I’ve lost. I’ve got the tools to save myself, but I misused them and was punished heavily for it. I’ve only one save (I really should keep more) and that’s the one I’ve posted screenshots of. When I try again tomorrow here’s the plan:
1] Send the fleet at my homeworld to attack move beside by command station. This should keep my command station protected while ignoring the ships stripping my harvesters/sniper enplacement.
2] Order the engineers to stop repairing and concentrate on pumping out ships.
3] Move the sniper emplacement shield to my command station.
4] Send orders for the fleet to return immediately, outposts be damned.

I started trying this before I realised that I REALLY need to grab some shut eye. The results weren’t as terrible as the first time around so we’ll see how this goes!

It’s worth noting that writing this report has kept my interest in this particular map. Normally I might have given up but taking a break every few minutes to type up a short report is a pleasant experience that I heartily recommend!

Now off to get some sleep,
-Pineapple Sam

(This last bit was written at 0410 in the morning on MS word, but internet issues stopped me uploading, hence the sleep statements. I’ll continue today as university thankfully has no lectures on a Wednesday)

[PineappleSam]

9:46:42 - VICTORY



First win for me! Stealth master I named correctly, but I thought other AI was special forces. Turns out they were sledge hammer!?

As the game ends 9 of my 17 planets lie without a command station (including 2 of the three bastion worlds). After the first AI world went down I hulked out a little, and used nukes to take down the permenant mines on the second homeworld and IV gateworld. The AI progress is now at 800, skyrocketing its earlier score. I’m please to note that the cloaked colony thing is still alive, but that’s my ONLY living capturable and I only built one frigate and fighter bomber with it :p

The final assault involve my unit cap of electric shuttles and then the excess crystal was used up by my spiders which got mk.II’d.

VERY pleased with myself, and next up is 120 planets map! Let’s see how this one goes, but I’m unlikely to write a report for it.

-Pineapple Sam

[Lancefighter]

oh trust me, you will KNOW when you have a special forces captain. 8 special forces outposts on a world... yeah..

[PineappleSam]

oh trust me, you will KNOW when you have a special forces captain. 8 special forces outposts on a world... yeah..

I scouted a planet with two of them and nothing else. On reflection I should have realised that it was impossible to face if in medium/easy as it's in the hard category.

Does Sledge hammer affect cross planet attacks and the sporadic ships that come through my wormholes or is it just raids?

-Skitter

[Lancefighter]

sledge hammer is just raids I believe

the special forces outposts are what determine the ships going through wormholes, but a special forces captain will have no regular guard posts. Can get quite annoying, as special forces guard posts are rather powerful