Spire Hammer
Ow.
It gets better: due to a glitch (I think) it sends an extra extra spire ship with every wave. It's destroyers for now, but AIP is going to get pretty crazy, so I might have to deal with 2 cruisers per wave.
Fallen Spire 6* (I wonder if you synced these with the others/cpas)
I didn't sync those, seemed overly brutal. We'll see 
But that's where the AI needs to sync the most.
Hybrids 4/4*
Advanced Hybrids 7*
Astro Trains 4/0*
OW.
Didn't want it to get easy.
(...) Enclave, Gravity, and Artillery (...) Zenith siege engines (...) Dissasembler (...) shield bearers (...) infiltrators
Good grief. The RNG must feel left out from the AI work.
Yeah, these hurt
quite a bit. They counter champions well, but 8 negotiators don't go quietly.
(and deepstrikes really hurt at low caps)
It should be adjusting the strength spawned by cap scale; does it look like it's just getting moar, or do you mean something else?
I'm not sure. It feels like it's getting the same number of ships as at normal caps, though.
On tractoring and translocation that's true when the source of the tractor/translocation is a non-scaling type. So tractor turrets are the same effectiveness because their cap scales too.
And a certain golem...
The first cargo train construction project left its core starships and golem (black widow) on the AI HW in planetary roamer behaviour, instead of threat or threatfleet. Intentional?
Not intentional, odd that it would do that, will have to take a look. A golem on planetary roamer? Hah.
Two golems, now.
How's the AI feeling thus far? You may not be noticing much difference (aside from the obvious wormhole-wait-point change), but I'm curious.
It got significantly harder. Threat is a lot trickier to hunt down, and seems more aggressive. There seem to be more guard posts than before, and there are certainly more, tougher guardians.
And there are oversized CPAs, as well.
===Operation Citadel Conquest====The center world is where I will make my chokepoint. It amusingly already called Citadel.
My eight frigates neuter the SCL + second ZPG system between my territory and the center (will colonize at the hour mark, to get the maximum benefit), then pops the Citadel command station. They die. Next couple runs clear the threat fallout, then the system.
Citadel colonized. Unlock Warp Jammers, transfer turrets to the choke, installing a warp jammer so waves can only come to one place. Hour 3, intervening SCL conquered. AIP 99.
===Operation Consolidation====Two nebulae: Gatlings (
always first for me, for some reason), then the epsilon remnant.
Champions are level 19, with all five basic modules unlocked to mkIII.
I have the fledgling diplomatic fleet and two out of eight spire mod forts by the time a 1900-ship CPA declares. Exos are at 69%, but they decided to wait.
Most of the threat waits outside the choke, with ~300 attacking from a different direction. The Negotiators calmly explain their mistake.
I hunt the threatballs. It's a lot harder than it used to be, but I have eight destroyers to help out (or, just do it themselves). 8 destroyers will kill most systems in a couple runs.
Exo at 74%.
Over the next two hours, I colonize most of the upper right branch, and gate raid the four planets still under AI control, so that the looming exo has to come through Citadel (where my fixed defenses are) or the upper left hub (Cascade, where my entire fleet + allied enclaves) will be.
The fruits of these systems:
Black widow; now fully armed and operational.
Regen; sitting there unrepaired.
EngineerV, ZombardV, PlaneV, RaiderV Fabs.
2 captured human settlements.
4 SCLs.
FactIV.
My resources go into spire modular forts. My K goes into forcefield and turret unlocks.
I routinely hunt the nemeses and hybrids.
The nemeses are waiting only one system away. I think threatfleet ships are supposed to wait further out (the SF appear to be suffering from the same bug: they are also one system out, but this benefits the AI instead of me). The hybrids keep suiciding. The astro train construction projects keep leaving the golem and core starships at the AI Home.
===Operation Improved Negotiation====The Exo hit before I thought it would. H/K III group and a couple minor groups against the choke, and two golem groups heading for home. Choke holds (focusing k entirely on defense and the eight mod forts help), and the other groups are repelled with no significant damage.
Back to the nebulae:
SP vs CA: absurdly easy with eight missile happy destroyers.
Mourners: Those scale a bit more than I thought they would. Close call.
Ravenous Shadow: shattered monocles!
Four of the things, and no additional enclave time?
I barely survived.
I'm starting to get threat carriers from the planet adjacent to the sole remaining uncolonized SCL. These combined with threat nemeses, the SF camping the same planet, and superfortress on said planet make killing them frustrating.
Ok, something is seriously wrong with that planet. In addition to the SF/threatfleet camping (despite it being adjacent to my territory), most of the astro trains in the galaxy are just sitting there, including a tachyon train. This makes ramming the superfort very difficult.
I did do it, though, with spire shadow cruisers protecting the rams en route. Then, I made a few runs with 8 insanity-mkIV equipped cruisers. That taught 'em.
The AI apparently didn't like me killing the SF threatfleet, because it declared a 2900-ship CPA.
Gametime 5:50, AIP 144, k 4500, champ level 34.
Unlocks:
Military station III.
Harvesters III.
Engineers II.
Warp Jammers.
Riots II.
HBS II.
FFs III.
HFFs II.
Miniforts.
Laser turret II
Missile turret III
HBC IV
Grav I
Observations/BugsI mentioned some of these in the text, but for easy reference I'll put them here, too.
Playing with 8 champs is
fun.
Raid eyes appear to count modules as human ships.
You really should have the botnet-style reclamators scale with caps...
And nerf the mod fort insanity inducers...
Because I will have the equivalent of almost 32 normal cap botnet golems on Citadel by endgame.
Something is up with Lethality (the planet). It's returned to normal by the SoE save, but for a while:
Astro trains would not leave, and
SF and threatfleet would camp there despite it being adjacent to one of my planets.
WhatisWrongWithThisPlanet.sav has it at the height of weird (also shows the raid eye erroneously get upset).
Spire hammer has two ships added per wave.
Carrier changes are very nice.
Hybrids keep suiciding (attached a save over in the current beta thread (6.029)).
Golems and core starships from astro constrution remain on the AI homeworld.
(minor) Upon load, threat waiting the proper distance from a wormhole will "tag" its wormhole, then return to its original position.
State of Empire:
