Against the Zenith Remnant

[Hearteater]

7.6 Starfleet Commander with Astro Trains
7.6 Zenith Descendant

Minion Factions: Broken Golems - Hard, Zenith Trader, Zenith Dyson Sphere
Expansions Active: The Zenith Remnant
AI Progress: +1 / 30 minutes
Speed and Caps: Normal / Normal
Map: Simple (1599487519)

The new battle has begun as I explore The Zenith Remnant expansion.  I've increased the difficulty enough to provide a little more challenge without breaking the 8.0 barrier yet.  I selected Zenith Descendant manually because I wanted to experience all the new Zenith ships.  The Starfleet Commander came out of Random Moderate.  Although I found Astro Trains to be largely pointless in my last game, I activated Astro Trains again just to see if the new train types made them any more noticeable.  But only for one AI this time.  I intend to leave all train stations untouched to further prove my suspicion that they are a non-factor.

I selected Grenade Launchers as my bonus ship type.  It wasn't actually one I was all that interested in of the new Zenith ships, but the home world position was just too nice to skip.

In short order scouting is completed with eight systems under surveillance.  Deeper scouting would require transports and I have no reason to rile up systems this early.  All I need is to have taken a peek two systems deep to catch any alarm posts before I take all four systems adjacent to my home world of Shunu.

Michto and Lare are weak and tempting targets.  Lare is actually adjacent to an ARS, but given my starting economy I don't really need another ship unlock until I capture a few planets to support the energy cost of another ship cap.  In addition, Lare is next to a Special Forces Alarm Post so I'm going to want to take that out first.  Ropije is very weak, but contains a Special Forces Alarm Post itself.   Vegiodi will be last of the systems next to my home world that I take since it is connected to two Mark III planets and I don't want them on alert any longer than necessary.  It is also adjacent to Ropije (SF Alarm Post) so I want that taken first anyway.  Since I have two Special Forces Alarm Posts to take I can be fairly certain I will release all the special forces ships.   To mitigate this I plan on dropping the Alarm Posts early before many reinforcement cycles, and to drop them simultaneously.  So I will target Ropije first and send two Raid Starships to crush the other Special Forces Alarm Post at the same time.  As I build up my fleet, the first two waves are announced:

Wave Warning: 88 Zenith Beam Frigates + 1 Starship (Light) @ Shunu
Wave Warning: 142 Bombers + 3 Starships (Light, Leech, Anti-matter) @ Shunu

I am attempting to play this game without researching a warp sensor so I have no idea which wormholes the enemy will be coming through.  I position my forces between the closer two wormholes.  My Missile Frigates will take the ZBFs, my Fighters and Grenade Launchers will take the Bombers, and my Bombers will assassinate starships.  The waves do in fact arrive through these closer two wormholes.

I lost 58 combined Bombers, GLs and Fighters against the enemy Bombers.  My Bombers took out the Leech with only three units reclaimed.  Meanwhile the Beam Frigates decimated my Missile Frigates, killing 98 out of 103 with minimal enemy losses.  Thankfully the Beam Frigates ended up focusing on my Home Force Field instead of my fleet after crushing my Missile Frigates so I was able to pick them apart while they stripped off 11% of the force field's health.

I will need a better counter for Beam Frigates than Missile Frigates.  The range advantage is to the Beam Frigates until I get Mark III Missile Frigates and x6 damage apparently isn't enough.  I suppose the effective x9 damage from their pass-through attacks combined with a Light Starship for attack boost explains it.  Just goes to prove sometimes the reference tab lies.  This was a good test of whether the AoE immunity of MFs applies to BF linear damage.  Clearly it does not.  I wish I had a good way to order by units to string out in a line.  Since I didn't know which wormhole they were coming through I couldn't pre-position my frigates.

My assault on Ropije goes well, although there is a Stealth Guard Post I still need to find after claiming the system.  A Tachyon Drone finds it in short order after traveling to each of the resource points.  I destroy both Special Forces Alarm Posts seconds apart, triggering both.  Although the odds of not triggering both weren't great, at least I got no additional threat from the second alarm.  Unfortunately, I still did end up with 390 threat.

Securing the now cleared Ropije let me clear my threat down to 250 by leaving my forces on Shunu and coming back through whenever 15-30 enemies had fully committed in Ropije.  With a Force Field, Sniper turrets, Missile turrets and mines, I'm leaving Ropije a third of my Fighters for defense while I build up some additional turret defenses there.

Meanwhile the one planet I don't want to claim yet, Vegiodi, has 113 threat built up on the wormhole to Shunu.  In addition, Vegiodi also has a wormhole to Ropijie so that threat could actually quickly shift to my only other system with little warning.  I'm afraid an attack on Lare will trigger a raid on Shunu.

I decide to heavily raid Vegiodi and knocked my threat down to 30 while at the same time taking out the MLRS Guard Post there.  That leaves only a Special Forces Guard Post, the Command Station and Wormhole Guard Posts.  Of course it has 6 wormholes, so that's still a lot of Guard Posts.

Wave Warning: 130 Vampires + 3 Starships @ Ropije (Light, Leech, Anti-matter)

I don't really want to delay taking Lare so I'm planning to defend Ropije primarily with turrets.  I've found Gravity and Lightning turrets (which get x8 vs. Refractive) work great against Vampires.  Add in some Flak turrets for variety and with a few Bombers to take the starships I should be ok to take Lare at the same time.  I do need to be careful since a second wave is incoming soon.  I likely won't claim Lare until that wave is declared.  Unfortunately it take most of the wave's countdown to repair my ships from my threat clearing mission and so I decide to hold them back to defend Ropije if needed.

While all this was going on, my Leech Starship has quietly gathered up 2 Zenith Mirrors and a Zenith Bombardment ship.  This is my favorite use of Leech Starships: free-roaming defense with a rally post/MBS to gather up their kills.  This will be especially useful here because of the Zenith Descendant AI providing me with tons of toys to steal.  I generally keep my reclaimed ships tucked away in a transport on my home world until I build up enough to be significant.

Because the Vampires came in from the furthest wormhole, they decided to wreck most of the harvesters, turrets and other infrastructure on the way to my command station.  I got a little impatient and sent my fleet in which caused them all to turn tail and flee.  Fortunately they went to Vegiodi which I already cleared out so I had no problem chasing and eliminating them.  I knocked out the Special Forces Guard Post on Vegiodi while I was there.

Wave Warning: 80 Zenith Bombardment Ships + 1 Starship @ Shunu (Light)

I imagine the opening volley of this wave is going to hurt.  Hopefully I can reclaim several Bombards and not lose too much of my own forces.  I've used my own Bombard to measure out the range on the incoming wave and I'm going to sit my fleet in transports out of range and charge in once they've fired.  Since my command station is in range from any wormhole I can be fairly certain they will all fire nearly as soon as they enter the system.

Although I lose a small handful of turrets and one of my transports, I lost only 8 ships killing the Bombards and I reclaimed six Bombards for my troubles.  The transport loss was a surprise since apparently a fair number of Bombards held their fire.  I was cutting it really close killing all the Bombards before a second volley, but I had their numbers thinned enough I likely would have lost no more than a dozen more ships.

Time to take Lare, then Michto.  Both fall easily.  I used only one-third my fleet to avoid causing the units to flee.  As a result, my threat is down to three.  Michto had a Co-Processor that I destroyed to allow me to defend it better.  Once I secure Vegiodi I'd love to scout out the remaining Co-Processors.  But I suspect it is wishful thinking that I'll find them with the limited scouting range I still have.

Next up I'm going to neuter Toswo.  This will make Ropije only subject to raids from an isolated wormhole and so I don't need to worry about incoming waves sidestepping into Vegiodi which unlike Ropije will eventually be a fairly undefended interior system.  Toswo is also Mark III so I don't really want it building up too heavily since it will be awhile before I annex that area, if at all.

Wave Warning: 344 Bombers + 3 starships @ Lare

Lare has a Core Warhead Interceptor, but it is positioned badly and I would likely lose it to the wave so I scrap it for 5k metal and crystal.  I don't think with only The Zenith Remnant enabled the AI even has warheads so really all it offered was absorbing EMPs and a small radius of Laser damage reduction.  Although I like to save reclaimed ships, I'm bring two reclaimed ZBFs and 7 Bombards in to assist since both have the range to deal damage without taking any in return.

The wave is about to hit, 10...9...8...7...

Current AI Progress: 110

[keith.lamothe]

A promising start to what looks like a solid challenge of a scenario

[Hearteater]

Although it took awhile, the Bombers were destroyed without reaching Lare's Command Station.  I had intended to build Tractor turrets but forgot while taking the time to position my Bombards and Beam Frigates.  Thankfully I still had a Gravity turret which provided enough of a delay to allow me to destroy everything.  I lost 64 fleet units plus a dozen-ish Bombers that I made up for through reclamation.  Neither my two Beam Frigates or seven Bombards were touched, and they accounted for 9 and 14 kills respectively.  Those Beam Frigates are nasty.

Next up is getting that ARS, so off to Qulik.  There is a Sniper Guardian under a Force Field so I'm bring a Scout Starship to mitigate its damage.  The counter sniper range proves to be fairly small and I really could have used two Scout Starships to cover everything.  Microing even one Scout Ship for coverage is a pain though, not the least of which because it isn't selected as a military unit.

Sadly the Sniper Guardian really liked sniping reclaimed ships since they were outside my Scout Starship's protection.  I did grab two more Bombards though after killing the Sniper Guardian.  The most amusing part of this attack was reclaiming an engineer who proceeded to repair my fleet for the remainder of the battle and is likely the reason I lost only 48 units in total.

My new ship type is the Teleport Battle Station.  I'm guessing they'll work very nicely against Bombards.  Which is a nice coincidence, because...

Wave Warning: 209 Zenith Bombardment Ships + 1 Starship @ Qulik (Light)

Unfortunately I didn't have time to move the Teleport Battle Stations because I was focused on making Transports to charge my ships in after the opening volley from the Bombards.  Unlike the first wave of Bombards, this one did a ton of damage to the point that I redirected my Space Dock to send replacements directly to the system.  I lost at least 75% of my fleet ships, three Light Starships and three Leech Starships.  The Bombards spread out so much my Grenade Launchers were a lot less effective.  I'm going to need to use multiple Gravity turrets and Tractor turrets next time.

The Teleport Battle Stations proved their worth though.  First, they made it from Shunu to Qulik (two hops away) in just a few seconds.  Second, when the Bombards decided to flee back into enemy space I set my FRD point right next to the enemy wormhole they were heading for, and all my Teleport Battle Stations appeared there instantly to head off the Bombards and that contributed largely to zero escaping.  As a result, my threat is currently zero.  These look like they will make a strong rapid-response reserve force.

Looking at dealing with Bombards in the future, Transports seem a workable damage sponge since they will absorb 45 shots at the cost of 16k resources, or 2.8125 shots per 1000 resources.  But even better than that are Mark I Fighters which can absorb 5 shots per 1000 resources.  Until I unlock more ships or higher marks, that is a lot of firepower to lose absorbing their opening volley.  But I think for now I will need to consider Transports full of Fighters as Bombard bait.

Anyway, I have a lot to rebuild especially on the expensive starship front.  I had a Trader show up on Ropije but I didn't really see the need to buy anything there yet.  Maybe if my resources weren't already running on near empty I'd have considered it.  I think it is time to unlock Mark II Economic Command Stations.  I have four systems and plan on claiming three more in short order so I could use the extra resources to speed things up.

Before taking Vegiodi, I plan on neutering Toswo since it is Mark III and has been on alert for awhile now.  The loss of my Leech starships is unfortunate, because I really wanted to bring them to capture some nice Mark III units.  Besides killing normal guard posts and the Warp Gate in Toswo, I'll also knock out the Wormhole Guard Post next to Ropije's wormhole so I don't have a build-up of ships to fight through when I warp in if I later decide to take Toswo.

My force is staging in Ropije while I'm preparing to upgrade four system to Mark II Economic Command Stations.  I've researched Mark II Fighters and Bombers in preparation for the influx of additional resources.

My raid on Toswo goes well, but slowly.  I knock out several guard posts and collect a few Mark III units for my trouble.  My Teleport Battle Stations prove excellent for catching pesky Bombards.  Not to mention reinforcement TBSs from my home world can be back in action in seconds.  Although I hate losing the chance to reclaim them, my Leech Starships just aren't fast enough to run them down in a system with a lot of other threats to avoid.

Wave Warning: 423 Vampires + 2 Starships @ Michto (Light, Antimatter)

Although I think I can handle the incoming Vampire Claws with just turrets, I'm pulling out of Toswo just in case.  I need to repair my ships anyway, and that takes a little time with just Engineers.  It may be time to unlock a Mobile Repair Station.  It turns out to be a good thing that I pulled out because my turrets are still building when the wave hits.  I send in my Mark II Engineers to assist and I have my fleet at the ready.  I won't make the same mistake this time of causing the wave to flee.  I won't come through until they are within Gravity turret range of my Command Station.

Incoming Exogalactic Strikeforce Detected (51%) (Broken Golems - Hard)

So, setting up my defenses has a time limit now.  I suppose it is too much to hope I'll have time to seal up my corner of the galaxy before this hits.  On the plus side, I needn't have worried.  My 15 Lightning Turrets wiped out the Vampire Claws in less than 10 seconds.  I'd guess one Gravity turret and 5 Lightning turrets would probably be enough to handle any number of Mark I Vampires.  I still have the two starships to clear out, so I sent in my Bombers to handle that.  They did a drive-by kill on the Light starship and the Antimatter fell almost as quickly.

Wave Warning: 646 Zenith Mirrors + 1 Starship @ Lare (Antimatter)

I set up twenty Lightning turret at the only wormhole the wave can come through.  I needed to do this because the Mirrors have more range than the Lightning turrets and that would be the only place I force them to take damage from Lightning turrets.  I sent my Grenade Launchers and Missile Frigates up to engage and held everything else back.  It was incredibly painful to watch this battle because I was losing units much faster.  But that was only because most of my damage was AoE, so while I dropped from almost 200 ships to 130, the Mirrors all fell to less than 5% health.  But then they cleared the Gravity turret and sprinted toward my Command Station.  Thankfully the next wormhole in line had a Gravity turret as well.  This was actually now a friendly wormhole I just hadn't removed the Gravity turret from.  I actually don't like Lare's wormhole layout for defense because anything coming in has to pass right over two friendly wormholes making it pretty likely an incoming wave will disperse to attack multiple points.  I think I want to do a warp gate raid shortly.

With the Mirrors almost dead, I went all-in and finished them off with minimal additional loses.  So now the question is, do I finish neutering Toswo, or should I take Vegiodi in preparation for the incoming Exogalactic wave?  My experience in AI Wars is everything I want to do always takes longer than I think it will, so I think Vegiodi is next on my to do list.

Current AI Progress: 131
Exogalactic Strikeforce Status: 57%

[keith.lamothe]

My new ship type is the Teleport Battle Station.

Sweet, those can be really useful.  They can also die in a hurry.

Looking at dealing with Bombards in the future, Transports seem a workable damage sponge since they will absorb 45 shots at the cost of 16k resources, or 2.8125 shots per 1000 resources.  But even better than that are Mark I Fighters which can absorb 5 shots per 1000 resources.  Until I unlock more ships or higher marks, that is a lot of firepower to lose absorbing their opening volley.  But I think for now I will need to consider Transports full of Fighters as Bombard bait.

Hmm, perhaps keep all your non-mkI-fighter stuff in the transports, and leave the mkI fighters "loose" outside the transports?  That should spread out the targeting more and still protect the more expensive stuff until it can get into range.

My Teleport Battle Stations prove excellent for catching pesky Bombards.  Not to mention reinforcement TBSs from my home world can be back in action in seconds.  Although I hate losing the chance to reclaim them, my Leech Starships just aren't fast enough to run them down in a system with a lot of other threats to avoid.

Sounds like you need the teleporting leeches from LotS! (/car-salesman)

Incoming Exogalactic Strikeforce Detected (51%) (Broken Golems - Hard)

So, setting up my defenses has a time limit now.

*ominous background music*  Though actually the first one shouldn't be too bad.  But it can be disconcerting if you're not used to it.

[Hearteater]

After a prolonged holiday break that left me little time to play, I've return to continue saving humanity.   I first patched from 5.019 to 5.020.  The only change is AI Fortress health reduced by 50%.  I haven't seen any yet, but I'm sure they are out there and this will make them less tedious to remove.

I'll start by mentioning I ended up save scumming due to the long break between games.  I read over the notes I'd left myself on what was next on the agenda, and it said: "Take Vegiodi and then neuter Toswo."  I looked at the Exo's status and thought, "heck, I can probably just finish off Toswo first."  I did so quite well.  Up to and including killing the Command Station.  There are two systems behind Toswo that this put on alert.  And by chance both are Mark III systems.  Which would be why my notes said neuter Toswo and not take Toswo.  Oops.  As a result, this session was a a bit shorter than normal since I basically played it out twice.

So, once I got my head back in the game, I tried it again.

I quickly roll over Vegiodi's handful of ships and start setting up a Logistics Command Station.  I'll replace it with an Economic Command Station later but I felt the extra defense was wise given it has three hostile neighbors--two of them mark III--and any attack here can quickly spread out to almost any other system I control.

On to Toswo for some serious neutering.  This time I clear out the last two non-Wormhole Guard Posts, the Warp Gate, and all the ships but leave the Command Station intact.  I then gather my forces at the wormhole to Ropije and concentrate fire on taking the Wormhole Guard Post out.  I plan to eventually knocked them all out.  While I start that, a reinforcement wave hits and I need to clean out a new batch of ships.

The Teleport Battle Stations prove invaluable knocking out the Bombards that spawned at the far side of the system, but my fleet is fairly beat up at this point so I bring in an Engineer to repair them.  I really think I need to unlock Mobile Repair Stations.  I could probably have saved myself 20 or more fleet ships during the course of this whole operation.

Wave Warning: 312 Zenith Beam Frigates + 1 Starship @ Vegiodi (Leech)

With 40% left on the Wormhole Guard Post I figure I have time to finish it before I reposition to defend.   Of course a reinforcement wave happens again and I finally need to just pull out and defend Vegiodi despite leaving some of the reinforcements and the Wormhole Guard Post alive.  I arrive with eight seconds to spare.  Without the Mobile Repair Station my ships have taken fairly heavy damage I haven't been able to repair with a lone Engineer Mark I and I'm going into a fight with only a 5:3 advantage in fleet ships.

The Beam Frigates prove just as nasty as I recall from earlier and cost me around 200 fleet ships.  Between Toswo and a few handfuls of escapees from the wave I end up with 47 threat.  A few ships eventually raid some of my other systems and die to turret defenses, leaving me at 34 threat.

I've queued up two Antimatter Starships to help with anything big in the Exo as well as pushing the rest of my combat starships to cap.  I also need to get Riot Starships going.  I'm thinking of unlocking Scout II, MRS and Bomber III.  The Bombers because if I'm going to be clearing many Wormhole Guard Posts, they make it a lot less tedious.  The Teleport Battle Stations are tempting too, because they are so good at applying pin-point strikes against things like Bombards that more damage is very useful.  I am somewhat worried they'll fall off in effectiveness later in the game though.  Once waves hit 1-2k, popping in to assassinate 5 or 10 Bombards just isn't as useful.  And I still need to unlock Spider Turrets.  Choices, choices.

Current AI Progress: 153
Exogalactic Strikeforce Status: 78%

[keith.lamothe]

Indeed, many choices    Teleporting units provide some pretty insane tactical options, but like you I'm not sure how well they'd do in a very large fight due to fragility.  If you could micro them like crazy then maybe, but you'll have other things demanding your time.

Anyway, looks like progress, we'll see how you do against that exo

[Mánagarmr]

I really wish I had more time to play. This makes me really want to play more. :/

[Hearteater]

Toswo has a Mark III Beam Starship, which I've never encountered before.  It appears to be prowling about, part of the reinforcements released by my antics there.  The Wormhole Guard Post next to the Ropije warp point is still at 35%.  My own ships are a little banged up with about a third in need of repair.  In surveying my ships I've noticed I picked up several new recruits: a Chameleon III, Vampire Claw III and Missile Frigate III.  But most importantly 16 Mark I Zenith Beam Frigates.  I power them all down, get them repaired and stick them in my "former foes" transport for use later.  That transport now has 67 units.

I attempted to move in to clear out the Wormhole Guard Post quickly, but no sooner do I arrive than a reinforcement goes off and I'm forced to back off.  My threat had just dropped to 19 thanks to some small attacks by the AI on Lare and now it sits at 61, and unfortunately 42 of those are Mark III ships.  After repairs I move in yet again, clear the threat and the finally kill the stubborn Wormhole Guard Post.

Feeling like I'm just waiting on the Exo, I decide to take a little health off the next Wormhole Guard Post in Toswo.  Sadly, two things happen once I start wailing on it.  First, since the AI clearly loves Toswo so it gets yet another reinforcement wave including a Mark III Sniper Golem halfway across the system along with six Mark III Bombards.  Talk about long-ranged damage.  The second thing is something I've been expecting any time now:

Wave Warning: 690 Bombers I + 3 Starship @ Ropije (Antimatter, Leech, Light)
Exogalactic Strikeforce Status: 88%

(I just want to take a moment to mention for any new players, I don't actually know which starships are coming until they get there.  I'm just going back and filling it in after the fact.  So if you thought there was some magic way to know ahead of time, there isn't.)

The good news is Ropije is well defended and I just finished dropping a second Mark I Force Field on my home Command Station and all the adjacent Command Stations (which includes Ropije).  The bad news is they are Bombers.  A lot of Bombers.  More Bombers than I have combat ships total.

It takes me more than a minute to pull out of Toswo but I make it leaving myself at only 30 threat.  The wave hits in only 1:40.  I drop 30 Laser Turrets (x4 vs. Polycrystal) and 30 mines along the two paths the wave might take.  Since I've already removed Toswo's Warp Gate there is only one point the wave can come from.  Which is helpful since I've chosen not to use Advanced Warp Sensors this game.  My existing ten Sniper, Missile, Flak and Lightning Turrets round out my fixed defenses, along with a spattering of Gravity Turrets which, combined with my two completed Riot Starships, should keep the Bombers from reaching anything vital.  I've included an annotated screenshot of my defense.

Unfortunately I misjudged my firepower  and compounded that with a mistake controlling my Grenade Launchers.  They defaulted to firing on the Antimatter Starship which lagged well behind the Bombers, basically deprived me of all that wonderful AoE damage on nearly 700 units.  I was too busy making sure my Antimatter Starships took out the enemy Light Starship to notice until my Grenade Launchers were completely out of range of the Bombers.  Thankfully my dual Force Fields held, but just barely.  They survived at 4% and 15% health with my Command Station uncovered after the last volley.  If my forces had taken another 20 seconds to finish them off I'd have lost the Command Station.

Amusingly the Bombers hit 13 of the 15 mines in their path.  I've been experiementing with mine placement and found straight line paths like this work extremely well.  You can actually completely destroy wave one on 7/7 with around 60 mines laid out in a line (unless they are teleporters or immune to mines obviously).  The placement is a little tricky the longer you make the line, and I was a little lazy on spacing here.  You can put them much closer together.  But if you put a ship at your Command Station and order it through the warp point while the game is paused, you can hold down ALT to see the path on which to lay mines.  So you just hold SHIFT constantly and tap ALT to see the line long enough to line up the mine.

I decide against raiding Toswo again since I have such bad luck there.  Instead I used my Raid Starships to assassinate the Warp Gates in Etpira and Jogensuo, leaving only two systems open to waves: Vegiodi and Ropije.  As I stage my fleet in Ropije to repel the Exo an Astro Turret Train comes through and I was quite amused at how quickly it was destroyed, and how little damage it did in return.  So far just confirming my opinion they are ignorable.

After looking at my deployment I decide to pull back to my home system of Shunu and put my fleet in between the warp points for Ropije and Vegiodi, the only two systems I believe the Exo will come from.  But if I'm wrong and the come from the western system I'll be in better shape at Shunu than Ropije.  I set up my control groups and load up everything except my Teleport Battle Stations into Transports for rapid response.

Other than a small handful of ships attacking Ropije from Toswo, I only have 9 threat remaining.  I'm a little concerned that I haven't seen a Golem yet, but after this Exo I'll unlock Scout IIs and make a real scouting push to see what's around.  I took a peek past Toswo and Bingral and I don't really want to push through those systems if I can avoid it right now.  Youdon and Aosbul are next on my hit list after the Exo since they are Mark IIIs that have been on alert for a bit, and only taking Youdon puts anything new on alert and since it is a single Mark II system that's an improvement.  I should have a Cross Planet Attack soon which will probably be about 1000 ships for my current AIP and difficulty.

Current AI Progress: 163
Exogalactic Strikeforce Status: 99%

[keith.lamothe]

Soldiering on   Looking forward to seeing what the exo does.  With my luck it'll be two confused fighters wondering where they took a wrong turn.

[Wanderer]

Soldiering on   Looking forward to seeing what the exo does.  With my luck it'll be two confused fighters wondering where they took a wrong turn.

I need to find that exo.  I've got another Epic AAR to write and that exo would have been LOVELY to find.

Nice work with the mines.  I've found them to be very useful, depending on usage.  I also use the ALT trick, but I usually CTRL-SHIFT them into place.  It gives me a bit of a spread along the line, but not too much.  Another neat trick to use them is to FF the inbound gate and to wrap the FF with a minefield right at the edge.  They spawn up right in the field.  It's a beautiful thing.

Regarding wormhole guardposts, Bomber Starships are helpful on those.  Bring those with you when you're trying to thump one down.

[Hearteater]

As you may have noticed from the previous galaxy screenshot, I'm at maxed resources and I've basically built every mobile military unit I can.  So I've been wasting a bit of time by not unlocking something useful to spend the resources on.  I probably should have unlocked Mark III Bombers or Fighters for use in taking the two Mark III worlds after the Exo is defeated.  I did throw down some Metal and Crystal Manufactories, bringing myself to 40 of each which will be helpful later in the game.

After some further thought, I finally did some unlocks: Mobile Repair Station, Scout II, Missile Frigate II and Grenade Launcher II.  I completely forgot I hadn't unlocked all my Mark II stuff.  This was definitely a mistake in terms of not utilizing all my income.  Certainly not a critical error, but just one of those optimization issues that will become more important on higher difficulties.

With the unlocks done, I throw down an MRS and another Transport.  The Transport will be for the MRS and all the new Mark II units I'm building.  Speaking of, I queue up the newly researched Frigates and Launchers.  I'll build Scout IIs later.  I also drop another Space Dock.  I like to have one for each Mark of ships.  It makes it very easy to manage my fleet replacements.  I just queue one of each ship on repeat build which prevents me from getting into a huge block of something that eats one resource heavily.  When I'm being really OCD I alternate metal and crystal hogs.

Then, silently and somewhat ominously, the exogalatic strikeforce warning disappears.  I go to the galactic map and switch to view threat.  Youdon has an anomaly: T 119.  I check my threat bar and see it has jumped to 123.  Looks like the strikeforce will be hitting Vegiodi.  I cannot emphasize enough to new players how useful it is to place scouts in all adjacent enemy systems.  Because I could see the incoming Exo you'll see I had enough time to position my fleet and drop addition fixed defenses.

I drop 15 mines in the path of the incoming Exo and another two Gravity Turrets.  Along the system edge I threw down another 5 Sniper Turrets.  I meant to build more Snipers earlier and forgot.  I really should have beefed both Ropije and Vegiodi to 20-30 Snipers each before the Exo but I have such a habit of being sparse with them from late game when I'm covering more systems.

I turn to review the incoming Exo.  The lead ship is a Beam Starship which is only speed 48 so the entire Exo is moving at a fairly slow pace.  Apparently the Spider Guardians are speed 44 and although they appear to be part of the Exo, their speed is not being boosted and they are falling behind.  This causes them to come in much later than the rest of the Exo.

Code: [Select]

Antimatter Starship      1x II
Beam Starship            2x III
Bomber                   4x I, 2x II, 2x III, 6x IV, 16x V
Bomber Starship          1x I, 1x IV
Core Starship            1x V
Missile Frigate          10x I, 2x II, 6x III, 6x IV
MLRS                     2x I, 2x II, 4x III, 10x IV
Riot Control Starship*   1x I
Spider Guardian          2x I
Standard Fighter         16x I, 6x II, 7x III, 6x IV, 5x V

Total: 7 Starships, 2 Guardians, 112 Fleet

* 4x Laser I, 1x Shotgun I, 1x Shield I
I wish I could see enemy fleet compositions of a boxed selection when I held down a hotkey.  I had to hand count this.

Meanwhile as my Space Docks cranks out my new Mark II ships I hit the power cap and I need to pause production of ships.  I fill up my waiting transport with the tiny handful of Mark II ships I've made and I add in the 13 Bombards I've reclaimed, figuring their range should let them engage without risk.  I get them into position just before the Exo enters Vegiodi.

The fight is fairly short and pretty one-sided.  My heaviest fleet ship losses came in the form of 62 Bombers and 43 Fighters destroyed.  All my other fleet losses were just single digits per type/mark and all my Bombards survived.  I did lose one Leech, Antimatter and Bomber Starship.  The biggest issue really came from trying to get my Antimatter and Bomber Starships to target the Core Starship with its x2.6 attack boost.  The enemy ships were just piled so tightly it got a free pass for the first half of the fight, and at more than 25 million health it didn't exactly go down quickly.

All told I basically went 1:1 in losses, and given the higher marks of the Exo I feel the damage was very reasonable.  Honestly the 690 Bomber wave was more threatening.  Thank goodness the Core Starship wasn't with them!

Just as the Exo's last ships are dying the next wave warning pops:

Wave Warning: 378 Fighters + 2 Starships @ Ropije

With the Exo defeated I have only 6 threat outstanding and my factories have a little replacement work to do.  I powered down a lot of stuff in my back systems that I need to bring back online now.  I think it is time to build extra reactors; I'm currently just running the basic set of three in each system.  I could wait until I claim the next two systems but I have plenty of resources so there isn't a reason not to get the extra power up sooner rather than later.

Compared to the wave of 690 Bombers and the Exo, this wave should be trivial.  I think I actually want to beef up Ropije's fixed defenses enough to handle this wave entirely without my fleet.  My definite concern now is getting enough power to field a larger force.  I've been toying with unlocking Mark II Leech Starships for the extra reclaimation against Mark III targets, but their energy cost is so high I think I will need to wait.

I'm actually paying the price of save scumming a few posts back when I accidentally took Toswo instead of neutering it.  In that game the Zenith Trader came to Shunu and I started a Zenith Power Generator there.  Sadly that didn't happen when I replayed the game.  Honestly I feel that's a fitting punishment for the save scumming.  I'm really trying to avoid having to save scum at all.

Current AI Progress: 163

[keith.lamothe]

Pity, though I guess it is normal for starting exos on Golems or Spirecraft to be pretty small

FYI, you don't have to count by hand for exos, if you really want to know you can turn on advanced logging and it will drop a exo-composition-log text file in your AIW's RuntimeData directory and tell you exactly what's in it.

Odd about the spider guardians trailing behind; the leader gets its normal speed and everything else in the group speeds up to +5 from that.  Actually, I'd be kind of surprised if the Core Starship wasn't the actual leader.

[Hearteater]

I actually saved the game after the Exo spawned just in case you cared.  The Core Starship didn't appear to be the leader since it has its speed reduced from 64 to 53, just like everything else except for one of the Beam Starships.  I checked using F3 and most of the ships indicated they were guarding the Beam Starship as well.

I'll turn on advanced logging for the future, since that information will be helpful in the AAR.  Is it an in-game hotkey or something else?

My biggest concern is I haven't actually seen a golem yet and I've scouted most of the planets I'm intending to take in my initial push.  I can't recall if Exos get stronger with time or just AIP, but I seem to recall time is a factor.

[keith.lamothe]

I'll turn on advanced logging for the future, since that information will be helpful in the AAR.  Is it an in-game hotkey or something else?

It's a toggle on the settings screen, advanced tab (or the last one, might have the name wrong).

I can't recall if Exos get stronger with time or just AIP, but I seem to recall time is a factor.

All 3 exo sources gain points over time, but for Broken-Golems and Spirecraft exos the _number_ of points they gain each "tick" is determined by AIP.  Also, each exo's "threshold" for being sent is about 25% higher than the last exo, up to a certain ceiling.  So if AIP does not increase, exos will be spaced further and further out in time until it hits the ceiling, and then the interval becomes constant.

[Hearteater]

Wow, I just realized I didn't build Mark III Reactors anywhere! Well, that would be why I'm having power problems. I quickly rectify that problem. A stock Ropije up with 150 offensive turrets and almost 120 mines right along the "threat corridors" waves will be taking.

Wave Warning: 990 Zenith Polarizers + 1 Starships @ Vegiodi (Anti-matter)

Unfortunately Vegiodi isn't as well set up as Ropije and it has two possible incoming warp points for the wave. That means I need to double defend since I want to avoidi unlocking Advanced Warp Sensors this game. As I begin building I see one of the warp points is red. Odd, that normally only happens if you have an Advanced Warp Sensor, which I don't. I look around the system when I figure it out: Logistic Command Stations have Advanced Warp Detection. Nice! With the ability to defend against the incoming wave I carefully place 29 Lightning Turrets (x2 vs Polarizers) and back that up with 20 Missile, 30 MLRS, and 20 Sniper Turrets.  Along the path to Shunu I place 14 Gravity Turrets (a little overkill) and just in case I drop 8 Tractor Turrets covering friendly warp points to prevent escapees.  Between my fleet and the Lightning Turrets the Polarizers are massacred.  They barely reach the second Gravity Turret.

Next I kill the Warp Gate in Kalcaveael with three Raid Starships. That leaves only the two Warp Gates leading to Vegiodi, conveniently located on my next targets. Once I take them only Ropije will be a valid target for waves.

My first target Youdon. It is the easier of the two Mark IIIs. Taking it puts only a single Mark II planet on alert. I pack my Raid Starships into a Transport and kill the Mark I Ion Cannon. Surprisingly everything makes it back out alive, although the Transport almost died to Bombard fire. Youdon will be an inner system so I don't really need the Ion Cannon for defense and the resources I'll get will be less than the cost of the ships it will destroy while I clear the system. I pick up 40 extra threat, but once I go in I'll be kicking a Mark III bee hive anyway so I'm not concerned. I only have 83 total threat at the moment. I am concerned about an attack from Aosbul, the other Mark III. It appears to have a fair amount of threat. The 5.021 patch messed up the galaxy map drop down lists so I can't actually change to view threat amounts on individual systems at the moment.

Youdon falls easily with minimal loses in terms of the number of ships. However, I do lose 4 of my reclaimed Bombards due to a reinforcement cycle. I had them back at my warp point in relative safety when the reinforcements spawned right next to them. And that included a couple of Zenith Paralyzers so I couldn't duck all of them back out immediately. Sadly, I lost my only Mark III Bombard.

In addition Youdon has a Mark II Fortress, but it is well out of the way so I'll just wait until it is out of supply to remove. It is right next to a Special Forces guard post so I send in the Bombers to remove that. A reinforcement cycle adds some more enemy ships which helpfully stream into my fleet ball and I score a good chunk of reclamation on them, including another Mark III Bombard! Then suddenly, I hear the AI taunt me as a Command Station is destroyed.

I pause and check the map. Everything looks fine. I go back to Youdon and realize he just killed my freshly build Command Station there--right under nearly 800 fleet ships--with a single freaking Vampire Claw! Out of that entire stream of Mark III ships, that one thing slipped through and got the kill. I reclaimed it for the annoyance of rebuilding the Command Station. While I'm messing around with this, a wave warning has popped up but I was so focused I didn't notice.

Wave Warning: 470 MLRS + 2 Starships @ Vegiodi (Leech, Light)

So this wave spawns in Vegiodi and I don't even realize it for a good 20-30 seconds. Only two things saved me from serious damage. One, my entire fleet was next to a warp point directly into Vegiodi, and two, Vegiodi has a Logistics Command Station backed up by almost 100 offensive turrets including those Lightning Turrets which were perfectly placed from the last wave of Zenith Polarizers. I send my fleet through and thanks to the Logistics Station they absolutely crash into the MLRS which are already below a third health from the Lighting Turrets and crawling slowly down a path dotted with Gravity Turrets. The MLRS get decimated so fast some of my fleet was still streaming into the system when it ended.

Between the wave defense and taking Youdon, I've reclaimed 29 Mark III ships. My threat is down to 14 thanks to random silly attacks by the AI against various systems. While I'm waiting on a few replacement ships, notably a missing Raid Starship, I spread my scouts out setting up pickets in a few new systems. In particular at Tichmatyau I discover a treasure trove: ARS, CSG-A and a Botnet Golem. Sadly it is on the other side of a Mark IV with an AI Eye. The only other way to get to it is to go through two Mark III planets, the second of which has an both an AI Eye and a Gravity Drill. Tichmatyau will have to wait until I finish making myself a nice safe corner to attack from.

With my Raid Starships complete I put my attension to Aosbul. There are two Ion Cannons (I and III) which I plan on destroying with Raid Starships. Again, Aosbul will be an inner system and 14.4k metal and crystal isn't worth the headache of a Mark III Ion Cannon which would be killing one fleet ship per second. I'd already be on the losing side of the deal in just 72 seconds if it only targeted my Mark I Fighters (which it wouldn't since it targets most expensive first).

The Mark I Ion Cannon is practically on top of the warp point I'll be entering from so I send in my Raid Starships and have them attack and retreat. Unfortunately I vastly underestimated the firepower nearby and I lose two of them. Thankfully the Ion Cannon dies as well. My MRS is sitting on the other side of the Warp Point to give me maximum flexibility for raiding Aosbul if needed. If I want to wait on my Raid Starships I'll need just over two minutes for Shunu to replace them.

I make a short raid into Aosbul to reduce the firepower around the warp point. There are actually two Guard Posts sitting on it, an MLRS and a Spire Shield which is also under a Mark III Force Field. I don't want to waste time on the Spire Shield with the Ion Cannon hammering me, but the MLRS can be killed quickly, only with the ships nearby. The raid goes fast and smooth and the warp point looks much prettier now.

I've been pondering what options I have for taking out the other Ion Cannon. I finally decide to use my Cloaking Starship to sneak in Bomber Starships. Unfortunately I haven't used Cloaking Starships much and my first attempt gets one of my Bomber Starhips killed the moment they warp in to Aosbul because they don't receive the cloaking quickly enough and I foolishly didn't power them down. I change my tactics and put 49 Mark I Bombers into a Transport and use that to get them right onto of the Ion Cannon. Although I could have done this smoother (again, I didn't power down my Bombers) I do manage to take out the Ion Cannon losing only 22 of my Mark I Bombers. It is both beautiful and hilarious to load my Bombers into the cloaked transport instantly ending the engagement.

Wave Warning: 1143 Zenith Chameleons + 1 starships @ Ropije (Leech)

I pull back my Grenade Launchers and Fighters to help Ropije. The Fighters because they wreck Chameleons and the Launchers for the AoE damage on 1.1k enemy ships. I also decided to unlock Heavy Beam Turrets. I've already wanted to try them and have heard good things about them. I drop five to defend the warp point. Three Leech and Antimatter Starships round out my defensive force.

Meanwhile, all the ships I've been upsetting in Aosbul keep attacking Youdon, helpfully bleeding threat off for me. They have come in large enough numbers that I've sent some small mobile units to assist. Mainly my Teleport Battle Stations which are again proving how great they are at running down Bombards. I do need to be careful about using FRD in Youdon since there still is a Fortress there. Amusingly my five Sniper Turrets currently have the Fortress II down to 92% health. If I take too long I won't even need to wait for it to be out of supply, it'll die to sniper fire. How embarrassing.

The wave hits and it is glorious. Nothing else can describe watching a thousand ships get ground under the that combined weight of fire from so many sources. The wave walked right up the mine path, detonating the entire line to the Command Station and had less than 300 ships left by the end. At the end of the mines a bank of Tractor Turrets waited to stop the survivors progress. They hadn't even travelled half the distance to the Command Station.

The Heavy Beam Turrets did well, but only scored 67 kills. I expected more, but they didn't have a hull advantage and since they do AOE damage, their actual effectiveness is harder to measure. They could have done a very high percentage of the total damage and just lost out on killing blows. I lost 45 and 31 Mark I and II Fighters respectively, 47 and 55 Mark I and II Grenade Launchers respectively, and one Leech Starship. I captured 22 Mark I Zenith Chameleons. I used a Mobile Rally point at my Command Station to peel all the reclaimed ships out of the fight.

Right before this wave hit I also unlocked Flagships since I had about 500k metal built up and nothing to build. For a measly 2k Knowledge I figured them well worth the investment. I am now at 7,750 Knowledge. I'll probably want to be unlocking additional Force Fields soon. I'm not certain I want to open up Hardened Force Fields because of the Zenith Polarizers. If I do I'll want to make certain to keep a mix of normal and hardened Force Fields around my Command Stations.

Now it is time to finish off Aosbul. But first, while I'm replacing my loses I use my Raid Starships to take out the Warp Gate on Yoleaet to avoid having Youdon open as a wave target. Although Yoleaet is only a Mark II planet and hasn't been on alert long, the distance to the Warp Gate is very long so I use a transport. With Bombards able to reach from all over the system the Transport takes punishing fire and dies before even reaching the Warp Gate. The Raid Starships are faster and tougher however, and they assassinate the Warp Gate and escape with minimal damage. The AI is displeased and with the help of a Raider Guardian launches a small counter-attack on Youdon. After fending off 30-40 ships from Yoleaet with the few turrets in Youdon, my Leeches provide me with ten new recruits, including three Mark II Bombards.

With that done, my shipyards have finished returning my forces to 100% and they are ready for Aosbul. I notice there is a Stealth Guard Post there so I build a Tachyon Drone to reveal it and my fleet moves in. While I'm taking out Aosbul, I realize the Warp Gate there can actually allow a wave to target Youdon so I detour my Raid Starships to kill it just in case another wave pops. With five Guard Posts left (excluding WHGPs) something does pop up.

Incoming Exogalactic Strikeforce Detected (50%) (Broken Golems - Hard)

There is no way I can get the Botnet Golem before it hits. That's okay though, because even if this Exo is twice as strong as the last, I don't expect any difficulty. Ropije is proving to be well defended.

I decide not to mess around and risk some enemy units fleeing by popping the Command Center and move to clean up whatever is foolish enough to stay and fight. Until I recall there is a Warp Counter Attack Guard Post near the Fortress II. I swing up and kill that and let my Bomber Starships take out the Command Station. I then begin pulling back to the Vegiodi warp point so I can build a Command Station. But there is too much long range around for and I lose my Command Station almost the moment I start it. The Bombards next to the Fortress II and under the Spire Shield Guard Post can just barely range the Vegiodi Warp Point. And then a wave warning pops up.

Wave Warning: 959 Bombers + 3 Starships @ Ropije (Antimatter, Leech, Light)
Counter Wave Warning: 562 Fleet Ships + 1 Starship (III) @ Shunu (Beam)

I keep hearing a warning about Youdon's Command Station being attacked. And it keeps being an Astro Train. A fact which I personally consider a bug since they do nothing to Command Stations except trigger the "CS Attacked" alert constantly which is extremely annoying and reason enough to turn Astro Trains off. But I hear it trigger a lot, and just happened to notice my power drop a bit recently so I peek in and surprise, there is a Vampire Claw III crewing up my Reactors and Command Station. I redirect my Sniper Turrets to the Vampire Claw. Apparently they felt the Fortress II was a bigger threat. But they aren't killing it fast enough. In fact, I'm going to lose my Command Station because that Vampire does so much damage and is healing just enough. Teleport Battle Stations to the rescue!

From Aosbul, I pull 16 TBS out and almost as fast as I can click on Youdon, they appear and wreck the Vampire Claw in the blink of an eye. If you are a RTS player and good with micro, these things are amazing. At the same time, I've pulled my Fighters and Grenade Launchers back to help with the Bombers.

The wave is destroyed even faster than the Chameleons. I actually tracked the kills for all my units in the battle. Notice the massive kills earned by the Fighters. Proof that bringing the right counter-unit is extremely important.  The mines also preformed extremely well, and clearly the Heavy Beam Cannons are pulling their weight on a per turret basis.  I'm still not sold on their knowledge cost though.

Code: [Select]

Mobile          Units  Kills  Kills/Unit
  Fighters        186    336       1.81
  G.Launchers     186     53       0.28
Turrets
  Lightning        20     25       1.25
  Missile          30     76       2.53
  Heavy Beam        6     36       6.00
  Laser            50    168       3.36
  Flak             20     34       1.70
  Sniper           30     89       2.97
  Basic            30     54       1.80
  MLRS             20     14       0.70
Other
  Mines            32     76       2.38
Final cleanup on Aosbul is going slow. The Bombards are making things difficult. I used a Transport and Bomber Starships to clear the Special Forces Guard Post that was near the Fortress. However, the Spire Shield Guard Post is still protecting those Bombards. Although there isn't a Reinforcement Warp Gate to add to the existing 21 enemy ships, nine of them are still Mark III Bombards and they can nearly one-shot a Bomber Starship. I wouldn't really begrudge the time to clear Aosbul except the counter attack on my home system is only six-and-a-half minutes away. I suspect I will need to leave colonizing Aosbul until after I deal with that. Great.

Wave Warning: 831 Zenith Mirrors + 1 Starship @ Ropije (Dreadnought)

Ok, enough. I tested the exact range of the Bombards and manage to stick my Command Station just outside their reach. While it finishes I send my Missile Frigates and Grenade Launchers to Ropije to assist with the wave. Once my Command Station completes, I destroy the CSG-D and begin building a Force Field to cover the Command Station. Apparently either moving my forces out or completing the Command Station angered the AI because he attacks. I move my Riot Starship up to shield my Command Station and send in my Bombers to kill the Bombards that are still within range of the Fortress. The nine Mark III Bombards blast through the Riot's shield module and the Command Station in a single volley.

After the fall of my Command Station the AI redirects its ships for Youdon. An Astro Train Speed Booster arrives in time to allow them to rocket out of the system before my Bombers can reach them. Not a huge deal because my Youdon defenses can, and do, deal with 21 ships. I send my Bombers and Bomber Starships up to knock out the Spire Shield Guard Post just for completeness. The Fortress I'll destroy later, possibly once it drops out of supply.

My estimation of Youdon's defenses proves a bit short. That, or Bombards just do a metric-ton of damage. Youdon's Command Station falls despite its Force Field. I redirect some ships to deal with the problem. I was distracted making sure the wave fell with minimal loses (which it did, beautifully).  I don't actually know what the Dreadnought was though.  I never noticed it, but that's what the debugging logs say was part of the wave.  Youdon is rebuilt, Aosbul is finished and Science Labs in place. My fleet moves to Shunu to defend against the coming counter attack. I queue up additional Riot Starships to help control the incoming threat.

Yet again Vampire Claws sneaking around cause me problems. Aosbul is the victim of a Vampire Claw attack, all my ships are in Shunu two hops away, and the counter attack hits in only 30 seconds. Again the Teleport Battle Stations bring it, and in only 8 seconds have destroyed the Vampire Claw and returned to Shunu. They make excellent firefighters. While that is taken care of, I drop a few more Sniper turrets in Shunu to make sure I have coverage against Raid Starships although honestly I've not seen any in a wave so maybe they aren't present at difficulty 7.6 waves.

Exogalatic Strikeforce Status: 71%
Current AI Progress: 217