Yeah it's the double exo's. I can't imagine the pain from 4 simultaneous exo's. Must be devastating.
Thanks for looking into the botnet issue Keith ^^ I was hoping you would
bug report with appropiate saves are on mantis in case you need it.
Now that the exo's are taken care of, I can finally continue with my plan: Starting a zombie apocalypse.
Gust is under attack, probably from the deepstrike threat from earlier. Gravity and tractor turrets hold those 80 ships off long enough for my Botnet to arrive. My main fleet destroys several champions that were stalking the wormhole to my homeworld and with that any threat is as good as gone. For now.
(5:35:49) 706 Raiders, 1 starship (II) to SerpentPerfect, the god of golems is going to love this. By now, most of my fleet is back at Living Armor and I'm building raids and cloacker starships to take care of the warp gate at Corona. I should start expanding again after that. I'm not even far in the game yet, though I should be able to make easier progress now.
I barge into Ocean Dragon with my whole fleet + botnet. Lots of mk IV zombies here. I storm the fort command with my whole fleet. Zombies and botnet absorb most of the damage. Fort command dies and the alarm post at Slayer gets triggered. Not that Slayer had many guards anyways.
New Unlock:
Engineers Mark IIII always unlock these the moment I have my first golem. They're extremely useful and now they also have a higher caps than they used to.
(5:51:58) 597 Raiders, 2 starships (II) to KiliaBusy killing the spawns from the barracks at Slayer when this appears. I'll send the botnet, hopefully the zombies he creates will kill the champions. 40 marauders appear just when my fleet is having trouble with the mk IV ships from the barracks. Making serious losses but I'll win the fight.
Botnet survives with 1% after the wave. Those champions were shooting very powerful long range missiles. That's gonna be costy to repair. Remaining champions killed my command at Kilia. My zombies better finish them off quickly.
The champions managed to destroy Needle Egg and Blitz too before they crashed themselves into my homeworld defenses. I nearly lost the game because of the energy brownout the champions had caused. Forcefields didn't work. Luckily I saw it coming and already started building some energy collectors on a few different worlds. They finished just in time.
6 hours have passed in total and that means my current AIP is now 498. And I still have a long way to go.
I'm surprised how many zombies suicide in an attempt to destroy a single champion. I thought they would kill it a lot quicker. Lost half of the zombie force I had build up, so I better tick off some AI world.
Oh right, I also play with the Cookie Monster. I guess streaming my empire with endless zombies won't happen that easily.
(6:04:22) Incoming AI Exogalactic Strikeforce Detected (50%) (Broken Golems - Hard)
(6:04:22) Incoming AI Exogalactic Strikeforce Detected (50%) (Spirecraft - Hard)Again. Well, I'll make sure I'm better prepared this time. A dozen Rams should do the trick. Maybe I'll even scrap some HBC's on Kilia and use them on my homeworld. I'm planning to move my turretball somewhere else anyways after I'm done in the lower left part of the galaxy.
Meanwhile the Cookiemonster is stalking the world I want to take. He's been here at least 7 minutes now, chasing after every AI reinforcement in the system. Good thing he isn't doing that to one of my worlds now.
Exo's are getting ready faster than I had hoped. I guess that's to be expected with such a high AIP.
I also notice to my surprise that Ramses has an OS Raid Engine. I'll have to be careful when I expand that way.
(6:07:12) 762 Cloacked Ships, 1 Starship (III) to Living ArmorMark III. I guess the mark number in the wave changes when more than 50% of the wave will be mark III. Makes sense as I'm over halfway to tech III with AIP. Well, won't be any champions in this one so just repairing the botnet a little more and then send it there to deal with the wave (probably space planes again).
The wave turns out to be minipods for a change and they are now a part of my undead army.
The Devourer has finally moved on so I can start my assault on Angel Swordian.
I notice my resources have been draining while I'm building nothing. Turns out Zenith Medic Frigates are trying to repair the Botnet. That doesn't seem right. I'll suggest on mantis to make a certain M+C/s rule for medic frigates.
(6:13:27) 527 Enemy Ships, 2 Starships (III) - Post (Counter III) to SerpentThis counter I just triggered on Angel Swordian should hit before the double exo. Angel Swordian succumbs quickly to the power of my botnet. I'm not building any defenses here besides gravity and tractor turrets. There are plenty of zombies patrolling through my worlds already. I have a feeling that everything until the endgame is going to be pretty easy (botnets are useless on the AI core/homeworlds).
(6:23:54) 286 Bombers, 4 Starships (III) to KiliaThis wave and the counterwave will hit almost at the same time. Hmm... Botnet to Kilia and fleet to Serpent then I guess. I just finished neutering Satrage anyway.
Omg, I just noticed Mermaid has nearly 2.5k AI ships on it. All SF ships I assume. I should let the Botnet loose on that at some point.
Bomber wave came with 6 champions! all with those powerful long range missiles. Botnet golem is getting a hard time but he's already finished his work. Time to pull it back. The zombies have a hard time with the champs, even though they're mostly bombers. I'm not surprised if they'll manage to destroy a few command stations again.
Meanwhile the counter wave spawns a carrier which contains a higher mark champion, the Shadow Cruiser. 5 of Them. Right. Let's see how fast my fleet fails. Very very fast it seems. Entire fleet got wiped out and all 5 champions are still very much alive. Rams are on their way, both for the old and new champions. The weaker champions just killed Kilia Command.
The stronger champions just killed Serpent too. My botnet arrives in an attempt to kill the rest of the counter wave, but I forgot about the fact that champions move faster in neutral territory than the Botnet, and it gets destroyed. Restarting from 5 seconds before the bomber wave hits.
This time I'm smart enough to already send my rams right away. Rams destroyed the champs while the botnet cleaned up the bombers.
The Counter Wave still destroys me though. didn't bring enough Rams (nor had the resources to build them), only managed to destroy 1/5 of the champions. Serpent dies again and I'm sending the Rams I reserved for homeworld defense to try and stop them. 80 Resistance fighters show up to help me, but that's not gonna make much difference at this point. I need that Artillery golem at Dark Sword, and I need it fast. Mr Arty will be the main defense against champions.
Oh right, I had a few Rams with 20% hp left on my way to the stronger champs as well. They managed to take out 1 of them, which leaves 3 more and a whole lot of regular ships as well. Botnet, martyr and rams better make it there quickly.
CRAP! The devourer ate my rams. Ok now I'm done for. We'll see how much this counterwave kills. And if it's too much I'll have to reset again. and the champs destroy my botnet again so goodbye.
Third attempt. These champions are really starting to piss me off. I don't think dif 9 Heroic is actually possible without an Artillery Golem. Maybe only if you take very very few planets. Or if your main force is composed of rams and martyrs, which isn't the case in my game.
Allright, the wave of bomber dies from just one martyr and 5 rams. My botnet was already on it's way back to Serpent, and so are 2 martyrs and 15 rams. If this doesn't do the trick, then I don't know what will.
Nope, another failure. Martyrs blew up the regular ships of the counterwave, but my Rams died before they could even harm the stronger champions. My fleet was also completely useless, even though it was just the 5 champs. But I still have an idea.
Attempt #4
This time I will use cloacker starships to cloack my rams and let them go boom when they're next to the champs. First wave dies the same quick death as in third attempt. I guess that is the best way to deal with it indeed. Counterwave is about to hit and everything is on it's way.
And it's a succes! With 2 martyrs taking out most of the counterwave, only 5 strong champions and 66 missile frigs were left. The champs managed to destroy Serpent command but that's when the Rams arrive. They sneaked up on the big bastards and took them out one by one. I brought 13 rams with me and only 1 survives. But the wave is over and that's what's most important.
And here I thought I had the game all covered now that I have the Botnet. I better not let my guard down again. The exo's are at 83% so I still have a little bit of time. I'd like that Artillery Golem fully operational, though I know I have to buy more rams too.
While my fleet is failing the attack at Dark Sword (fortress command right next to the wormhole), the SF decide that their power is needed here and send most of their force. More than a thousand ships come streaming in, right where my botnet is waiting for them. The zombies stalled the fort command long enough for my fleet to take it out.
(6:37:17) 398 Fighters, 1 Starship (III) to KiliaNothing special. I will send my botnet there to deal with it. Exo's at 93% so he needs to start flying back Home anyways. My rebuilded fleet quickly follows as well, the zombies will take care of the remaining Dark Spire at Dark Sword. The 4 mk II Rams I had build and sent to my homeworld earlier have completely vanished. So I guess the Devourer had something to do with that. No rams for me this time then. I'll have to survive with my fleet and botnet alone. Or reload an older save if that fails to much. Hmmm. I'm thinking about scrapping my HBC's and placing them at my homeworld.
A whole fleet of SF ships is making it's way to Dark Dword, where my zombies are still fighting. My botnet can't be at 2 places at once, so it'll have to wait.
Fleet is in place. Botnet just finished up with the fighter wave and moves to Atalanta. Scrapped all of my HBC's and are being rebuild to cover the wormholes from both Wild Gorilla and Salt. Roaming Enclaves attacks Ocean Dragon, Blitz and Angel Swordian, but I got loads of zombies and they attack with just one ship. Exo's are at 99%. Bring it on.
