...because a game of shield bearers would be a hell of a boring game.
Setup:
80 planet Concentric
10/10 Stealth Master / The Tank
All ship types (including CSGs)
Marauders 1/10
Fighters 3/10
Rebellions 4/10
Miners 2/10
Dyson 1/10
Rocketry Corps 1/10
(I like to sprinkle in a bit of everything. Not the most evil mix, but it is pretty much my first 10/10)
AutoAIP: 10 AIP / 2 hours (I'm going to regret this)
Starting ship: Shield Bearer (did someone say "this isn't fair!"?)
16:00 - unlocked harvester 3/3s for the start as well as the usual trinkets: tachy emitter, grav turret, warp sensor, scout 2. Scouting reveals nothing good at all... or does it?!
Yeah, absolutely *nothing* to see here at all. Moving on.It was also kind enough to put a CoProcessor right in my face on Earthquake. Well, let's just grab Genesis and Inferno then, that should keep me busy for some time. The Cheese... err Stealth Master looks like he grabbed himself some Gravity Drains and Shield Bearers and the Tank has TeleRaiders and something cloaked. Not messing around, I see. I'll unlock the Decloaker to test it out, I guess. Raids already almost finished.
40:00 Finishing up with neutering Monsoon. Stole some Engi IIIs from it with the Leech Starships. Reclaimed some Raptors from a wave too, will keep those for GravDrain assasinations I guess.
45:00 Monsoon reinforced with 2 EMP guardians on my wormhole while I was cleaning it up. Oops? Whew. 380 Bomber wave comes in for Genesis. Wave, meet Minefield.
53:00 Attacking Inferno. GRR INVISIBLE GRAV DRAINS UNDER FF WHAT IS THIS
56:00 679 Teleport Raiders to Genesis. I HATE Teleport Raiders. Stacking all the FFs on top of command station and praying they don't decide to check out the homeworld. Put a FF on HW wormhole just in case. Fleet is late by about five seconds, but the FFs hold up fine.
1:01 Getting a Lab Mk2 with my fleet onto Inferno...
Teleporting Leech // Armor Ship / Impulse Reaction Emitter
Pretty sure I'm fine with Leeches here, the Refractive bonus makes them even better here. None of these guys are even on the nerf list, but we'll manage.
(You can see I still had some optimism in me at that point)1:13 Setting up Inferno, getting a wave of 563 Fighters to it immediately. My fleet being present causes a minefield malfunction and as a result some 130 of them escape. Too bad I didn't have my Riots on hand, having just queued them up.
1:33 Still trying to find some new targets. A 1.3k Youngling Tiger wave made a bit of a dent in my fleet. Was something supposed to be done about youngling waves or what?
1:41 Unlocked HBCs, Basic 2s and Enclave 2s. Here come the drones
2:00 1.9k cloaked to Genesis. +10 AIP from Auto Progress (oops, gotta hurry up).
2:12 Just finished cleaning up the follow-up 1.3k Armor Ships to Genesis. They managed to break the command station despite my whole fleet standing there mostly undamaged the whole time. Damn are these guys tough. Wish I had those and not the Leeches.
2:30 Fleet is busy clearing scout paths to the left of the homeworld, 1350 cloaked for Genesis. Then 1459 SpaceTanks to Inferno. Whoops. Cloaker wave turns up Raptors and is obliterated by the minefield.
2:34 Tanks cleaned up, not too difficult, but fleet required. Would definitely rather meet them on a single chokepoint, though, but which one? Probably Inferno, it doesn't have stupid resource harvesters all over the place and is farther away from the HW.
2:52 Alright, we're moving the whipping boy to Inferno. That means I need to remove the Eye from Plateau. It took a while, as it tends to happen with AI Eyes covered by 4 Stealth Guardposts.
The decloaker buff did its job, by the way - I no longer want to rip my hair out while using them, quite the opposite, in fact.
1141 Cloaked to Inferno, can probably get the fleet back in time with transports. Let's not take chances.
2:54 It's Raptors. It is always the Raptors, making my grav turrets worthless. At least they're pretty harmless themselves.
Now let's go back to gateraiding and moving the defenses. I'll need quite a bank to do this quickly, so I will clean some more Tachy guardians while money's piling up.
2:56 I'm real low on energy, have to build a third Matter Converter. Don't do parasites, kids.
2:58 932 Bombers to Genesis. Good thing my fleet's here and in full force.
3:00 Well, we got some 80 mk2 Bombers out of that, will be useful at some point.
3:02 Plateau gate down, we're moving.
3:04 Into Scarecrow to kill some tachyons.. There's 4 EMPs here, though, so we're not leaving til they're dead.
3:07 Flare here has a Gravity Drill and 3x Ion 2 + 1x Ion 1. I kind of want this as my chokepoint, but not sure how exactly to go about taking it, as it's mk4. Maybe the new Spire Starships will help me out..
And Gloom, which is behind Flare, has Bombard V and Vampire V fabs. Do want! The path between the wormholes on Flare can definitely be crossed without killing the Drill, then we could take Gloom and then beachhead Flare with Sniper turrets. It's a plan, and I don't really have one at the moment, and I really need to take a planet.
3:15 Still looking for alternatives before I go ahead with the drill plan. As I'm in Overload neutering a CPA of 631 ships announces.
Think I still have time to pop the planetary cloaker on Aggression before the CPA.
3:17 2544 Cloaked to Inferno. Waaat. That sounds like autocannons, but carriers full of them still sounds pretty bad. Evacuating the fleet immediately.
3:19, Well, that was easy, only about 150 escapees. Time to prepare for the CPA.
3:22 2250 Cloaked. Lands 45 seconds before the CPA. That's unfortunate.
... They're Space Planes this time. Radar Dampening 3000, Immune to Mines. That is doubly unfortunate. Immune to AOE and Tractors too. What the hell is this?!
They just obliterate my Basics while taking no damage. CHAAARGE! TAKE THEM HEAD ON!!!
They die like the rats they are, causing almost no damage to the fleet. Got a free cap of mk2's for myself as well.
3:28 Most of the CPA units are coming through Inferno anyway, where they realize that most of them are not, in fact, immune to mines. Everyone is having a happy light show.
3:30 Threat is down to normal levels (about 250), resuming offensive operations
3:40 Fleet returning to base after popping the Planet Cloak on Aggression and the scouted Data Center on Melee. Next I'll check around the left side, want to scout behind Fork and kill the DC on Festival.
3:49 Oh look, there's an ARS on Pandemonium. There's also a mk2 Radar Jammer and an Eye, but no Ion Cannons in sight.
3:50 Launched Raids to Festival, trying to get the defenders away from the wormhole. 1242 Fighters inbound. Going to leave this to my turrets and Space Planes.
The Raids got caught up in Gravity Drains and were smoked. That's a lot of crystal...
*facehuggers* ..
going down the drain.
At least they woke everyone up so that we can kill them one by one.
500+ bastards from the wave escaped. I'm going to neuter Boomerang into the ground and plop a mine run there, I swear.
3:53 3124 cloaked inbound. This is getting annoying. Looks like I've got resistance fighters on Inferno though, that should help. Fleet's way too far away to assist, and my bank account is empty.
Turns out, the Data Center is not only under a Spire FF post, there's also a Grav Guardian next to it. This will take more than Raids.
Everything rebuilds in time on Inferno. Let's see how this goes...
Carriers get popped (I have auto-target on), and a freaking SpireCRAFT Shield Bearer mkII comes out. Scary, I know. The wave is defeated without too much property damage, and the Resistance is even in position to intercept those who flee.
4:00 +10 AIP from Auto Progress. Why did I do this to myself? AIP at 80.
Also, thank god for decloakers (once again), 5 stealth posts covering an Eye would be a danger for my sanity otherwise.
4:02 Finally dealt with the Eye.
The ARS on Pandemonium is in deepstrike range, 5 hops away. I could take Leviathan, as it has a ZPG, but it also means 3 gateraids just to keep the thing safe, and I'm not willing to do that. Instead I'm going to grab some spare Raptors and kill the CS on Pandemonium straight up. Should also sidestep the Eye problem by speedbuilding a command station. That doesn't leave room for HAX, however, so I'll check it first. It would have to have Blade Spawners at this point for me to bother with hacking, though.
The Tele-Leeches are entirely disappointing, by the way, just because they're too expensive to use. I just keep them in reserve now.
4:06 Repairing the fleet on Seraph, about to go for Festival. There's a Data Center on Void as well, nice.
4:08 While I was invading Festival, a SSB killed half my raptors. And all the engineers. Pretty tame for an SSB, really.
4:16 Festival is neutered and the building crew is in place, just need to grab my Lab mk2.
4:18 Just killing the tachy guardian cost me 90 deepstrike threat. Yeah, no prolonged operations allowed.
4:19 Science Lab in...
Spire Gravity Ripper // Zenith Viral Shredder / Neinzul Youngling Commando
Wat.
The Commando is like the only remotely useful thing here!
At least now I will remember to nominate the Ripper in the next Worst Ship poll.
Yeah, I don't know what to do. Hacking this thing is impossible without taking extra AIP, and I don't even want any of the planets that are within 4 hops. I'm sending scouts to Cyclone, but there's nothing else.
The Ripper is another terribly expensive ship that I will probably never use.
The only thing the Shredder is ever going to shred is my energy reserves.
This is the worst I've ever felt seeing an ARS, pretty much. I really need a planet ASAP, so I'm probably going with the Rippers, unless Cyclone makes me change my mind.
Scouts can't reach Cyclone, and it's way too far away anyway. Proceeding with plan Alpha.
100 more threat and the station is down.
Built a Military CS, no guardposts self-destructed. I've read somewhere that they would. Thought I've already learned my lesson with trusting people on the Internet, apparently not
4:24 Unlock Hardened FFs for my new planet. The Jammer is intact, and the CS is right next to it. Both of these things are on a wormhole, but that doesn't worry me too much. Should make a fine whippin' boy. I probably have about 15 minutes before the next batch of waves, maybe I can even move it in that time. I also have to visit Void for the DC, and pop a couple warpgates. Have 360/430k, let's do it. The only thing that worries me is the resource gatherers. There was only one on Inferno, but here they're all over the place, which could create unwanted behaviors like mine and gravity well avoidance .
We'll have to see how bad it is.
4:26 Boomerang warpgate out of commission. Used Space Planes to kill it. This unit seems pretty damn amazing. I didn't lose too many, even though I had to wait the recloak out under a ton of fire because of the grav drains.
5 seconds later...
2952 Youngilng Tigers to Pandemonium in 01:29
CONSTRUCT EVERYTHING!!!!111
-15k m/c per second is getting spent on all the business I've ordered. Here's hoping that distribution node I saved up isn't trojan...
Thankfully, it is not. Still, not all the turrets are done. Carriers once again spew out a shield bearer, this time with about 20 mk3 fleet shieldbearers for company. In addition to 2000 angry tigers.
Well, isn't this a giant mess. The harvesters sure didn't help.
A pandemonium, one might even say. Alright... almost done here...
2,485 Missile Frigates (II) in 01:29
Good grief.
Somehow, my turrets are mostly fine, and I do have a Jammer. But 2500? Daaamn. No money, mines aren't built. Node on Plateau is trojan. Even better.
Here they come...
...and immediately 2000 run off. WTF!? GET BACK HERE!!!!!
Yep, looks like they're heading for Inferno. AFTER THEM!!! I manage to snag some with the Riots, but a full Carrier and a ton more go on to escape.
Moving Basics back to Inferno for now.
Carriers are on Boomerang already, and the turrets aren't done yet. I have Space Planes hanging there to ambush and pop them.
...
...
4:39
Not dead yet.
Inferno gets steamrolled by 1500 frigates (why did I even
bother building turrets), even though the mines took their toll.
The resistance figthers intercept the enemy on Monsoon and finish them off on Genesis. About 300 of them are still floating around, but that's not a big deal.
Now we have work to do. Preferably in 15 minutes before another wave comes down.
To-Do List:
1. Clear Void out and lay mines on the escape route. The AI Eye's not going to help with that, I'm afraid. Kill the damn data center, too.
2. Rebuild Pandemonium back up.
3. Rebuild Inferno if possible.
4:53 The second the Eye pops, 1677 Fighters incoming. This we can handle. Just DON'T ESCAPE!! Some extra tractors will be needed to ensure that.
Just a couple hundred escaped, this wasn't so bad. Now to work on the minefield.
Never thought I'd say that, but it looks like we're running out of mines...
That's over 130 of them.4:59 Oh look, the inspection arrived! 2,129 more Fighters.
5:02 Would be nice to have some more firepower, but mostly it worked out. The minefield did the job, too - nobody escaped. The firepower problem can be solved with these 6k K I have lying around...
Think I'll be getting myself mk2 Lasers and mk2 Lightnings.
5:12 We found another ARS at Nightmare! Too bad there's also a raid engine. I sure do hope that when they come, they come for my whipping boy and through the minefield and not the other way around...
5:17 Turns out my Engineers repair infinite-hp engines on my Enclaves for massive economic damage! I don't even want to know how much money went down THAT drain.
...
(Waiting for 5.051)
... Alright, that's fixed, time to get back to it.
Expect another couple of waves to hit soon, after that we're going for the ARS and Raid Engine.
Also, I think with the K I saved up and the 3k from Nightmare I'll get warp jammers. I need to cut down on the AIP I'm taking, and I intend to use them later anyway for some Spire Archive fun. Since the game was made before the seeding changed, it'll be on a coreworld.
5:24 Still waiting... Doing a little cleanup on Boomerang in the meantime, as I want to put another mine run there.
(I will probably never get around to that in this whole game.)5:27 There we go. 3,257 Cloaked incoming. Pretty sure it's autocannons, if so, nothing to worry about.
Wave arrives, two carriers popped, shield bearers as usual. The Spirecraft SB runs off to the side and tries to headbutt a harvester. I thought it would be ineffective, but turns out AI shieldbearers have guns. Now I'm jealous.
Also, I turned auto-kiting on for everyone. With a Mk2 Radar Jammer, it turns out to be very pretty.
Microing 700 units like a gosuWave eliminated with no losses (I think).
5:30 1700+ Bombers is up next, this will be a little more interesting. Maybe. Also, I need my mk2 bomber cap refilled. Who needs to unlock mk2s when there's so many of them to reclaim?
... the Bombers did actual nothing, too. Only things I'm scared of are the stupid TeleRaiders, the Missile Frigs and maybe Younglings, since there's so frickin' many of them. Alright, time to test this defense on the Raid Engine. Oh, yea, I did get almost a cap of MK2 Bombers.
5:35 Alright, saving before setting the thing off.
1656 Enemy Ships (III) in 00:58
Engine is down with 10s on the timer. RUUUUN!!! And what is this +5 AIP for, might I ask?
It's Etherjets. They turn 'running away' into 'running away with you on the hook'. Some Autocannons in there too. I have to scrap all the fleetships, and a bunch of starships get destroyed as well. La Resistance picks a fight with the wave on Void.
5:39 799 Ships Massing for Cross-Planet Attack in 09:59
I get my fleet into Void to clean up the rest, and the etherjets promptly run off with half of it. The whole tractoring while cloaked thing is evil, but I guess I deserve it for abusing it with Martyrs all the time.
5:43 5 min on the timer, and my stockpiles are a little dry from this whole raiding expedition. I need to either build some stuff over at the mainland or transfer from the whipping boy.
5:48 1 min left, just popped the DC on Eureka, AIP 90. Also shipped some 180 untis to the homeworld in the meantime. Going to build some of those damn Grav Rippers for the first time, I guess, since I have some cash.
5:50 CPA lands, first attack is into Genesis. I send half a cap of Rippers in to test them out. They manage to scratch the paint on two SSBs before being almost completely destroyed. Yeaaaaaah.
5:53 Construction of MK1 Gravity Rippers exhausted available energy reserves. Ordered to halt the constructiion and scrap the already produced units to free up energy for something that DOESN'T SUCK AS HARD.
5:57 3,333 Cloaked incoming. And I was just thinking of finally taking the ARS...
6:00 +10 AI Progress from Auto Progress. Well, back then I thought I could manage it. AIP 100.
6:04 1,517 Bombers. My fleet's a bit out there, but Rippers and fighters should be enough.
6:07 Bombers uneventfully died (my Rippers did, too. Yeah, enough of this.) Dyson spotted on Glimmervoid along with a Warbird fab. Not sure if I should bother with it, but I'll need a CSG-C at some point, I guess.
6:17 Nightmare is cleared wtih some resistance, sending in a lab. In other news, I'm at 700k/1m resources. Makes me feel better.
...
Sniper // Electric Shuttle / Zenith Electric Bomber
Well, I do want me some snipers, thank you!
Now to grab the planet, vacuum the 3k knowledge out of it, then plop a warp jammer down before anyone notices. GO!
6:22 Operation complete. Now what?
I suppose I'll finally check the three unscouted planets at the bottom, it might be a homeworld, though I doubt it.
6:26 2,493 Cloaked Ships in 01:27. Building a bunch of tractors in case they're Raptors.
Mining Golem will destroy Nightmare in 29:57
Mining Golem will destroy Monsoon in 29:57
To hell with Monsoon, but we'll have to pay a visit to Nightmare I suppose.
6:27 Raptors it is. Easy as pie.
6:36 The Enclave-Bomber team that was dispatched to deal with the miners is successful, and the fleet cleaned up the remaining tachyons in the south. The homeworld isn't there, but maybe there's something else..
2,797 Fighters are next in line.
I'm maxed out on everything, might as well build some Leeches.
Carrier made a mk2 Siege Tower for a change.
6:41 Wave defeated, but Nightmare has been thrashed by a raiding party in the meantime. The jammer CS didn't drop remains for some reason.
6:42 I forgot about my scouts, but they found the last Co-Processor on Backdraft! Along with a NRC Silo mk3. The question is, how do I even get to it without causing over 9000 ships worth of deepstrike!? I could take Gloom for the two fabs, I guess, but that's going to take quite some time.
6:45 Warpgate Guardian spawned on Plateau. That definitely needs to die real fast.
6:52 A freshly-built strikeforce raised hell on Plateau, but no trace of the guardian was found.
An interesting incident occurred on Tolaria, where I left my fleet without command, with powered-down enclaves and in range of a fortress for a period of time. After turning the enclaves back on, the situation quickly stabilized. Conclusion: Enclaves with Shield Bearers are an entirely fair thing.
6:56 4,453 Cloaked Ships in 1:29
... that's unfortunate.
I barely manage to get the fleet home from 5 hops out.
It's the Space Planes, too. CHAAAARGE!
...
Now THIS was a mess. I lost maybe half my starships in that. Got another resistance fighter spawn, thankfully, to clear the escapees.
That's it for this post, updates will be smaller as I've been playing this one for a while. It's starting to get kinda desperate
