Against the Zenith Remnant

[Hearteater]

The Counter Attack wave strikes and when I zoomed in at first I thought there was a Golem present! It was just a trick of ship stacking though. 562 ships, among them a Beam Starship, Chameleons, Mirrors, Polarizers, Bombards, Viral Shredders, Beam Frigates and Autobombs. They come in from the top right corner and the battle is fierce.

I considered littering my home system with Gravity Turrets to slow them down. But it turns out that it doesn't matter. They are all Mark III and they are 562 to my 833 mixed Mark I and II. Really, I didn't stand much chance. The Beam Frigates are just devastating and the Bombards equally so. I lost almost two hundred ships in the opening exchange. My Riot Starship cripples the Bombards enough that they can't reach my Home Command Station, but the 60 Polarizers that do get there hammer it hard. I only have two Force Fields...big mistake. I had intended to build more before the wave hit and just forgot. I had even been planning to unlock Mark II Force Fields, but all the micro in Youdon and Aosbul distracted me.

My ships hammered them as best they could, but it was like they were doing no damage at all. I just flat out pull back to around my Command Station hoping just to kill the 60 Polarizers and even though I outnumbered them 4-to-1 I just couldn't stop them. And then the Viral Shredders hit. At this point they are replicating enough that the few ships I have left can't possibly reduce their numbers faster than they'd be replaced. For some insane reason the Viral Shredders ignore my Home Command Station and attack the Manufactories, but then I realize the Home Command Station is immune to Fusion Cutters. Small comfort at this point.

To further compound my error, I left all 140 of my reclaimed ships in their transport until it was too late. When they come out they put up an excellent fight, but there are still 200 enemies and although a decent number of my reclaimed ships are Mark III, I just don't have the numbers or the time. Given their performance I'm certain I could have stopped this wave if I had brought them out ahead of time. If I'd unlocked Force Field II and dropped a few of those and the remaining six of my Heavy Beam Cannons I'd have survived.

Sadly autosave triggers in the last seconds, leaving me with only a save a half-hour in game time back, before I even took Aosbul and prior to the Exo warning popping up. Even if I felt like replaying that much the Counterattack wave would likely hit someplace other than Shunu which really wouldn't be fair. I think I'd like to suggest a "Keep last X autosaves" as an settings option. That would be really nice. I don't need them all (which is the only available option besides just one currently) but the last two or three would be really helpful when you want to try something different. (It's already on Mantis, please support with your vote!)

Final Game Time: 3 hours, 21 minutes

I'm really trying to play out each expansion so I'm torn between starting a new Zenith Remnant game, or going up to Children of Neinzul. Also, I've been writing all this up here so I feel like I have a lot more invested in this game than normal.

Really, I lost this to a stupid mistake. The Counterattack on Shunu wasn't that powerful, but I just underestimated it for two reasons. First, I knew it would contain Mark III ships when I triggered it, but I completely let that slip my mind when I evaluated the defenses I needed. Second, 562 ships is a pretty hefty chunk. I guess after watching 1k+ waves get wrecked on Ropije it just didn't hit my attention as anything significant. But they wouldn't be coming at Ropije and they wouldn't be Mark I.

As fate would happen, I'm stuck at home watching over a sick kid so I've decided to back things up and continue. So it's time to REWIND...

I've jumped back 30 minutes to my last manual save. This is moments after the Chameleon wave warning appeared. I've also patched to 5.022 which wouldn't affect anything except there is a bug causing all Tractor Beams to paralyze targets they hold. I use tractors in a few places, but only in very small numbers so this bug isn't going to affect me too much for the replay.  Youdon will benefit the most from this, but again it is just small amounts of threat ships that my turrets would have killed anyway, and as you'll see I beef up Youdon this time around not knowing about this bug.

Wave Warning: 1143 Zenith Chameleons + 2 Starships @ Ropije (Leech)

I still have to clear Aosbul which will trigger the Warp Counterattack Guard Post, but I've already removed the Ion Cannons and cleared the MLRS Guard Post that was right next to the Warp Point leading to Vegiodi. I still have the Spire Shield Guard Post under a Force Field there though. I also still have the Warp Gate on Yoleaet to remove. I'm trying to play this just the same as before, so I'm keeping the same tech unlocks (i.e., Flagships and Heavy Beam Cannons).

So to quickly run through the replay portion, I kill the Chameleons but I received much heavier raiding from Aosbul and Yoleaet (in resposne to killing the Warp Gate) and so I'm slow getting my Fighters and Grenade Launchers into position. I don't get any Starships there in time, so I lose out on the 22 reclaimed Chameleons I got last time. My unit loses are roughly the same, but it wasn't nearly as pretty a battle as last time.

I do beef up Youdon with 5 more Sniper Turrets, 10 MLRS, and some anti-Vampire Claw defense in the form of a single Gravity Turret next to my Command Station and a single Lightning Turret. I really want less distraction from that front this time.

Aosbul is actually tougher this time around. I get two Regenerator Astro Trains while I'm killing off a ton of ships, so that means I'll have to deal with all those ships again later. They don't appear to regenerate as threat however, which I expected and which would probably be a more interesting design. But I think by this point it goes without saying that I think Astro Trains need some work. I save right before killing the Warp Counterattack Guard Post and I keep reloading until it is targeting Shunu. I want a rematch.

Wave Warning: 1313 Fighters + 2 Starships @ Ropije (Light, Leech)
Counter Wave Warning: 569 Fleet Ships + 1 Starship (III) @ Shunu (Beam)

I divert my Missile Frigate and Grenade Launchers to deal with the wave while my Bombers clear the Spire Guard Post from next to the Fortress. The wave is annihilated. I didn't bother sending Leeches since they are just Fighters and losing a Leech isn't worth reclaiming a handful of Mark I Fighters.

Wave Warning: 412 Beam Frigate + 1 Starship @ Ropije (Light)

I have a little under three minutes until this wave hits and a little over five until the counterattack hits Shunu. I send my Missile Frigates, Leeches and Antimatter Starships up to clean up the Beam Frigates. I carefully spread everything out to minimize the beam attacks of the Frigates. They still hammer my Missile Frigates horribly. But despite about 60 enemy Fighters joining in with the wave, the Beam Frigates die with minimal fuss. I do lose two Leech Starships which is unfortunate. Bombards may be nasty, but among the new Zenith Remnant ships I'm just not finding any good counter for Beam Frigates. They are so amazingly painful.

For Shunu's defense I drop 32 Sniper and 34 Missile Turrets, maxing my cap on both. I unlock Force Field II and drop the full cap around my Home Command Station. I stick a Gravity Turret by my Command Station to counter any Viral Shredders. I do one thing that makes me nervous and unlock Fighter III and get those cranking. I'm at 88 Knowledge after that unlock, although I've got about 2.6k incoming from Aosbul. I still hate being that low. I prefer to have 5k Knowledge around for emergencies. Then again, I guess this could be considered an emergency given this fight already lost me the game once. I don't have time to replace the Leeches I lost and I'm burning my economy as is so I pause the Starship Constructor for now. I pull out all my captured units and power them up. I also have a full cap of Riot Starships for disabling the incoming mass. The enemy counterattack arrives:

Code: [Select]

88 Autobombs            37 Beam Frigates
20 Bombards             85 Chameleons
15 Electric Bombers     71 Mirrors
76 Paralyzers           82 Polarizers
97 Viral Shredders       1 Leech Starship
They come in from the bottom left, nearly the closest possible spot to my Home Command Station. Last time they had to cross the whole system first. I send my forces in taking care to set preferred targets for most, holding back faster ships like Raid and Bomber Starships, and leaving my Teleport Battle Stations in reserve. Both sides clash and the Autobombs make it through to my Sniper Turrets but thankfully not enough survive to do more than damage them all severely. The Riot Control Starships wreck the progress of the counterattack and my TBSs appear right on top of the Bombards and wipe them out. I've set my one Leech on the Paralyzers figuring for each one I reclaim, it'll at least get one shot off and take a second ship out of the fight.

All told I take much lighter loses and I pause to assess the situation. Every one of my Force Fields is still at 100%. My loses are:

Code: [Select]

  1 Light Starship            63 Fighters
117 Bombers                   69 Missile Frigates         
  7 Teleport Battle Stations  65 Grenade Launchers
My reclaimed forces were hit fairly hard, losing a total of 48 marks worth of units and now stand at:

Code: [Select]

15 Beam Frigates   13 Bombards
 3 Chameleons      17 MLRS
 3 Paralyzers       8 Polarizers
 2 Bomber IIIs      4 Missile Frigate IIIs
Exogalatic Strikeforce Status: 74%
Current AI Progress: 217

Accumulated Knowledge: 2,750
Additional Resources: 2x Distribution, 1x Z.Reverse
Core Shield Generators Remaining: A, B, C, E

Current Game Time: 3:20:31

[keith.lamothe]

Just caught up, very fun to read

A judicious savescum, I think.  I want to see how this turns out.

Zenith Beam Frigates are very painful; their dps when hitting only one target per shot is actually below a fighter (and that's with the fighter hitting something it doesn't have a bonus against), but their dps when hitting their max-targets-per-shot (9) is one of the very highest in the game among non-superweapons.  On par with an IRE firing on something with a huge energy cost, or a Polarizer firing on something with massive armor.

And yes, astro trains need a ton of work.  We've known that for a while   I thought about that last night, actually, largely inspired by your story here.  I'm thinking much more emphasis on "debuff/buff" trains would help.  Basically they wouldn't be much threat by themselves, because it's kind of annoying to have something immortal just smash up your turret balls (the Devourer doesn't need company in the "inexorable people eater" category), but if one happens to be in a system that the AI is attacking... ouch.  So something like a planet-wide munitions-boosting train, a planet-wide jam-human-tachyon-emitters train, a planet-wide jam-human-tractor-emitters train, a planet-wide gravity train, a train that emits an EMP pulse every hour (wherever it happens to be), etc.  Sound terrifying enough?

[Hearteater]

Yeah, the problem I'm having with Beam Frigates is I haven't found a good counter unit yet.  Missile Frigates would seem to be it, but it isn't practical to spread them out enough to make them deal more DPS than the Beam Frigates despite the MFs' x6 multiplier.  And until Mark III the Beam Frigates actually out range the Missile Frigates!  I'm actually looking over the data you posted crunching so numbers right now, so I'll post my thoughts in that thread.

As for this game, I'm actually going to be holding off until the tractor issue is fixed.  It seems a little cheap to play on with it .

[keith.lamothe]

Yeah, the problem I'm having with Beam Frigates is I haven't found a good counter unit yet.  Missile Frigates would seem to be it, but it isn't practical to spread them out enough to make them deal more DPS than the Beam Frigates despite the MFs' x6 multiplier.  And until Mark III the Beam Frigates actually out range the Missile Frigates!  I'm actually looking over the data you posted crunching so numbers right now, so I'll post my thoughts in that thread.

Hmm, maybe I should shorten up the beam frigate range, then.  I like them being that dangerous, but being that dangerous from long range is probably a bit much.

As for a counter... Dunno.  The youngling weasel might be a good combination of expendable and able to do some damage.  The Spire Teleporting Leech has a decent bonus against them and certainly wouldn't have any problems closing the range (as teleporting battlestations have taught you) and would help you get some for yourself.  Cutlasses would theoretically tear them up pretty good.  Flak Turrets have a bonus against them, as do missile turrets (which outrange them heavily).

As for this game, I'm actually going to be holding off until the tractor issue is fixed.  It seems a little cheap to play on with it .

Haha, yea.  We're planning on doing that release Monday.

[Hearteater]

Too bad I have neither of those expansions enabled .

If you are going to shorten the range, may I suggest something like -700 to Mark I, but then +200/Mark instead of the current +100/Mark.  That would make Missile Frigates out range them at every Mark, although only by 100 units for Mark I.  But the final range of the Mark V Beam Frigate would be only 300 short of what it is presently.  That to me would be the minimum change to range that would help.  I certainly wouldn't complain about a heftier range adjustment though, but that may have balance issues elsewhere.

[keith.lamothe]

Too bad I have neither of those expansions enabled .

But you do have missile turrets

If you are going to shorten the range, may I suggest something like -700 to Mark I, but then +200/Mark instead of the current +100/Mark.  That would make Missile Frigates out range them at every Mark, although only by 100 units for Mark I.  But the final range of the Mark V Beam Frigate would be only 300 short of what it is presently.  That to me would be the minimum change to range that would help.  I certainly wouldn't complain about a heftier range adjustment though, but that may have balance issues elsewhere.

I went ahead and just did a -1000 across the board for them.  In general we'd like to shorten up the ranges on most normal stuff because with the really big ranges it's hard to have smaller engagements on AI planets where you can't reasonably take the whole thing in one go (and that's a tactic we want to encourage).

[zoutzakje]

.

And yes, astro trains need a ton of work.  We've known that for a while   I thought about that last night, actually, largely inspired by your story here.  I'm thinking much more emphasis on "debuff/buff" trains would help.  Basically they wouldn't be much threat by themselves, because it's kind of annoying to have something immortal just smash up your turret balls (the Devourer doesn't need company in the "inexorable people eater" category), but if one happens to be in a system that the AI is attacking... ouch.  So something like a planet-wide munitions-boosting train, a planet-wide jam-human-tachyon-emitters train, a planet-wide jam-human-tractor-emitters train, a planet-wide gravity train, a train that emits an EMP pulse every hour (wherever it happens to be), etc.  Sound terrifying enough?

This I would very much like to see. It would give me a reason to turn the option astro train on. Slow-ish speed on the train so that the effect of the train (whatever it may be) stays for a short while. Sounds like a sweet challenge to me.
And you're right. We already got one fat pig roaming the galaxy, we don't need another one

[keith.lamothe]

We already got one fat pig roaming the galaxy, we don't need another one

Now the Devourer Golem is bugging me to find a way of putting that on a bumper sticker on its image.

[zoutzakje]

hehe
renaming the devourer to fat pig would be funny

Also, more of the story please ^^ I'm curious to see how you will deal with the home/coreworlds when that time comes.

[Hearteater]

After a brief detour with a new player in a multiplayer game I've returned to my own game. First up is cleaning up and regrouping my fleet. It is also time to seal off my corner of the galaxy. Next I'll be heading for the Golem. At least that's the plan, assuming the AI cooperates. With the Exo incoming, I'm guessing cooperation isn't exactly what the AI intends.

Jogensuo falls quickly using just the surviving units from the counterattack. It has an Ion Cannon IV which I want to keep as AIP-free distribution node. I decide to put the Ion Cannon to use sooner rather than later and so I clear the ships around the Ion Cannon, knock out the Command Station, and quick-build a Command Station with five Engineers. This puts the Ion Cannon on my side and all I need to do is kill one Raid Starship that goes for the Ion and knock out the Guard Posts. The Ion evaporates everything else for me.

Exogalatic Strikeforce Status: 84%

I plan on scrapping the Ion as soon as I take Yoleaet since I'm at less than 10k in both resources. Partly this is from some turret expansion in Ropije. You can never have too many turrets. I pick up another two distribution nodes when I roll up Yoleaet and this puts Youdon's Fortress out of supply so I send my Bombers to put it out of its misery. My Sniper Turrets had it down to 46% so far. I almost feel bad taking the kill from them.

Exogalatic Strikeforce Status: 90%

This is the tricky part. I really want to take Etpira, but it has about 250 ships (mostly Mark II) because it has been on alert awhile, and it has a Mark III Ion Cannon I'd actually kind of like to keep as a backup defense. But as I'm reviewing the system, I notice something that has escaped my attention so far. Etpira is connected to Vedi, the Mark IV world I'll be going through to get my Botnet. Vedi also has an AI Eye which functions as a full warp gate. That means if I take Etpira, the Exo can come in through Etpira because there is no way I can kill all the guard posts on a Mark IV with the time I have remaining. So it is time to pull back and regroup for the Exo. Which is good, because this perfectly syncronized double-wave pops:

Wave Warning: 600 Zenith Polarizers + 1 Starship @ Ropije (Leech)
Wave Warning: 392 Vampire Claws + 2 Starships @ Ropije (Bomber,Plasma)

My forces position themselves in Ropije perfectly and I face almost 1000 Mark II ships with just under 900 mixed Mark I-III. I lose less than 20 ships. Sadly one loss is a Bomber Starship. I didn't even intend for them to be in the system but forgot them when pulling out Raid Starships (which also like to die during waves). While allowing that to happen on autopilot, I continue pushing scouts out further.

Right before the Exo hits Ropije, a tiny handful of ships come through from Toswo and pull all my ships out of position. Thankfully my ships return to their FRD stations before the Exo hits. It contains less than 125 ships and the resulting battle is trivial. Lead by a Core Starship, the Exo accounts for only 19 kills, all on fleet ships. I was holding my Teleport Battle Stations in reserve and everything died so fast they didn't even have a chance to engage. The difficulty ramp-up between the first and second Exo has not been noticable, although my AIP isn't all that high yet.

As I being gathering my units to move them out of Ropije, I happen to glance at Kalcaveael which is going to be the focus of my next operation to remove the AI Eye. There I see a second Exo force incoming on Aosbul, only about 30 seconds out. Another Core Starship is leading 112 other ships down on a basically undefended world two hops from Ropije. I redirect and send a transport to Ropije to grab my slower units. The enemy arrives in Aosbul and immediately beelines for Youdon. I adjust my fleets orders and they move to intercept the Exo in Youdon. Turrets in Aosbul do a little damage to the few strangling Mark I freed units that are tagging along with the Exo. In Youdon my faster units arrive and my turret presence is at least a touch stronger, in particular I have several Tractor Turrets that hold them up.

Despite not having many turrets, my fleet rolls over the Exo, again with minimal loses. Unfortunately I had the log file open and so it doesn't appear the Exo is logged. I'm curious what happened. I seem to recall sometimes Exos are split into multiple forces. I find it interesting that they apparently came from the Warp Gate on Vedi, two full systems away from my own planets. Definitely something to keep in mind.

Now enough of this defense nonsense. I move a MRS in to Vegiodi and bring in my fleet ships to get repaired. I'm thinking about taking out the remaining Fortress II in my back system when a third Exo wave strikes Ropije from Toswo! This is out of position for a lot of my turrets although about 80 mark I and II ships from Bingral come in on my primary turrets and die a quick and painful death. Interestingly when a Gravity Turret slows an Exo down to speed 8, the lead ship's followers still get the +5 boost so they are actually moving at speed 13. Once again, and hopefully for the last time, I move to intercept.

My defenses slow down the Exo enough that I intercept before they've even cleared the mine field. Death is swift for the third Exo and I'm beginning to feel my fleet may be getting a touch annoyed with this one. If these Exos had come as a single larger force it might have been tough but this three-way split was interesting. Certainly if I hadn't been careful about the systems I was capturing things could have gone very badly.

After the Exo, Kalcaveael falls quickly and I preserve the Ion Cannon III since this is going to be one of my second line worlds. I lost a few hundred fleet ships all told, but thankfully the AI attack Aosbul with a large chunk of its ships so I was able to retreat and fight in my own system to reduce my loses to the Ion Cannon. I also made heavy use of that fact that I have two entry points in Kalcaveael on opposite ends of the system. This allowed me to clear guard posts and retreat through my space rather than staying overly long under the costly Ion Cannon barrage.

I start my Command Station a touch early and I nearly lose it to a stray Artillery Guardian. Once it completes I want to quickly take Vedi, the Mark IV world with an AI Eye blocking my access to a Botnet Golem. Since I will be getting a Botnet, I'm considering leaving Vedi's Command Station inact to feed my golem Mark IV zombies. However I need to get some defenses down in Kalcaveael first and I've run out of Mark I and II Force Fields. I'll be able to remove most of my back system Force Fields soon, but until then I unlock Mark I Hardened Force Fields.

While I prepare for Vedi, I take out the Data Center in Urnlenan with Raid Starships, kill a stray Astro Turret Train, and notice the Zenith Trader has entered my space. I'm watching them go deeper into my back systems and I will buy a Zenith Power Generator as soon as they get into a good defensible system.

Wave Warning: 181 Zenith Bombards + 1 Starship @ Kalcaveael (Flagship)

I'm going to hold off knocking out Urnlenan's Warp Gate until the AI Eye is gone. No reason to increase AIP when I'm not getting any benefit from it. With my whole fleet located in Kalcaveael I don't expect too much trouble with this wave. I have a Logistics Command Station down so I know Vedi will be the source and I've got that warp point covered with a Hardened Force Field protecting a Gravity Turret and five Tractors. The Bombards are coming in, but they aren't going to be leaving.

I use my Missile Frigates to clear the Tachyon Guardian in Vedi while I wait. I power them down so they don't waste their opening shot and send them through behind a cap of Mark I Fighters. Pausing, I power them up and target the Tachyon Guardian and it dies in a single volley. I return to Kalcaveael with minimal loses. I send through six Cleanup Drones to remove the Area Mines I triggered. They must decloack to remove them, so I lose four of the six, but all the mines are gone for good. Not that the AI repairs them all that often, but just in case  (I actually don't think I've ever seen it repair them). To show my appreciation to the two surviving Cleanup Drones, I scrap them. Oh, and I blow up another Astro Turret Train. They might do somewhat noticeable damage, but they also die noticeably faster.

The wave hits and a hundred and change fleet ships along with two Starships are joined by some of the Mark IV threat from Vedi and Mark II and III stuff from Urnlenan. I capture three Mark II Bombards for my trouble. Moments after the wave is destroyed a Regenerator Astro Train enters the system. Close call if I was actually all that concerned about Astro Trains. The trader doesn't go anywhere more convient, so Youdon is now the site of my Zenith Power Generator. I put three Engineers on it and my economy, although negative now, looks to be handling it quite well for the moment.

Cross Planet Attack Warning: 1,494 Enemy Ships in 12:23

Wow, I completely forgot my first CPA hadn't hit yet. This is not particularly good timing. I think my best use of this time will be to take Etpira to reduce three avenues of attack into one.

Wave Warning: 529 Bombers + 3 Starships @ Ropije (Flagship)

Lovely, more stuff to worry about. I move in on Etpira quickly and begin taking it under Ion Cannon fire since Etpira will be a second line-of-defense eventually. The system isn't falling quite as quickly as I'd like and I need to clear all the Bombards to get my Command Station up. The Teleport Battle Stations help a ton for this, but while I'm fussing with Etpira, the Bomber wave hits and I have nothing there to support. As it turns out, Ropije can't stop that and about a hundered fifty Bombers come through to my home world of Shunu. I'm actually building my Command Station at that moment so I retreat my entire fleet to defend and leave the Command Station to defend itself (with an Ion Cannon III once it finishes). Unlike last time, I pull out my captured units, power them up, and send them in to defend. Again they prove extremely effective. The Bombers barely scratch the sixth Force Field IIs on my Home Command Station and the rest of m fleet arrives to mop up what's left from my reclaimed irregulars' attack.

I begin reconstruction on Ropije, this time with a Logistics Command Station instead of Economic. This does give me another Mark II Eco CS which I place in my back systems. My fleet is being positioned centrally and I'm about to prepare transports for the fastest possible response time. With no metal or crystal to speak of I scrap a Distribution Node...and nothing happens. I gain one AIP, but I'm just going to assume it was a Trojan node, although my resources never dropped to zero. They stayed at about 1100 and 700. I destroy a second and see it indicate how many resources I receive. Looking back in the message log I notice a message indicating the first node was a Trojan. I actually kind of expected an audible taunt when I got hit by a Trojan node.

While I wait on stuff getting built, I use Cloaking and Raid Starships with a Transport to take out the Data Center in Vedi. This is the reason I killed the Tachyon Guardian. Unfortunately it is dinner time and my kids begin having a huge discussion about what they want on their pizza with me and I don't notice that my killing of the Data Center freed a Raider Guardian IV who comes to visit Kalcaveael. I don't notice for so long it destroys the Hardened Force Field and Ion Cannon. So I back up five minutes to my auto save and rectify the problem. I feel certain if the AI had kids it would understand. This does mean I don't actually hit the Trojan Distribution Node even though I destroyed the same physical node. I was trying to just play that part out the same. It is a minor difference of one AIP so I'm not going to worry about it.

Finally everything positioned centrally on Aosbul in transports, the CPA triggers. Detect Threat on the global map shows forces coming in toward both Ropije and Kalcaveael. I split my fleet quickly and send half to Ropije and the other half to Kalcaveael. The Ropije system is cleared quickly and a lot more of the CPA is coming into Kalcaveael. I transfer my Ropije fleet down to assist and hammer the AI's forces.

Wave Warning: 109 Electric Bombers + 1 Starship @ Etpira (Raid)

Lovely. At first I'm a bit confused by the wave size considering I've seen 500+ Bomber waves. Then I notice these are Zenith Electric Bombers, the unholy cousin of the regular Bomber with almost eight times the damage. These things will ruin your day. While that wave warning ticks down, I'm trying to bait the enemy into attacking Kalcaveael again by backing my fleet out. I still have 346 threat. And finally they do take the bait, with only 53 seconds left. I move in to crush them and quickly pop my fleet back into Transports to stop the wave which has already spawned. I'm using my building queues' replacements to hold off the wave until the rest of my fleet arrives. While the come to the rescue, the remainder of the CPA comes in on Kalcaveael again. After bouncing my fleet back in forth between Etpira and Kalcaveael I finally have destroyed the wave and dealt with almost all the CPA. I have only 96 threat remaining. Unfortunately, at some point in the maddness, the Ion Cannon on Etpira was destroyed. I'm not even sure what could have gotten it. After I went to pull the details from the log I see what caused the problem: my first AI Raid Starship in a wave. Oh well, fair enough. Time to focus my attention on Vedi.

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

Seriously? Nothing to be done but get myself in a stronger position.  I've got three Warp Gates and an AI Eye to kill before that finishes if I want any hope of it routing through Ropije. I begin my special forces work on Vedi with two Cloaking Starships and a pair of transports containing Bomber Starships and Raid Starships. I clear out the Ion Cannon II, and a few guard posts but it is slow going mainly because I haven't done this often enough to know all the nuances. The biggest wild card is Astro Trains have Tachyon Beams and one coming through a warp point unexpectedly can cost me my Cloaking Starships extremely quickly.

Wave Warning: 869 Fighters + 3 Starships @ Ropije(Plasma, Leech, Raid)

There are still five guard posts left keeping the AI Eye alive. I set my Raid Starships on a Special Forces Guard Post under a Force Field III and move my Missile Frigates up to Ropije for the wave. While I slowly grind down the guard posts in Vedi the wave hits and it turns out that almost 900 Fighter IIs can actually be a touch of a problem. I need to send more than my Missile Frigates up, but once the rest of my fleet arrives the wave is destroyed. Given how the Fighters were moving around destroying all my turrets, Riot Starships would have been a good idea. A Fortress also would have helped.

As I knock out guard posts in Vedi, I keep releasing Mark IV threat which I bait in Kelcaveael by moving my fleet back and forth to Vegiodi. I unlock Spider Turrets and Fortresses to help shore up my defenses. The Fortress to give Ropije more staying power and the Spider Turrets to shut down my other frontline systems.

Wave Warning: 952 Fighters + 1 Starships @ Kalcaveael (?)

Ugh, more fighters and this time in a system without almost 200 offensive turrets. I've only got one guard post left on Vedi but my special forces units are pretty beat up so I need to pull out for repairs, dodging Astro Trains, and come back in, dodging more Astro Trains, while setting wave defenses. And I've got two minutes.  And if that Starship is a Raid Starship, the Ion Cannon I've gone to great pains to keep alive is right next to the incoming warp point.

Exogalatic Strikeforce Status: 84%
Current AI Progress: 246

Accumulated Knowledge: 7,750
Additional Resources: 3x Distribution, 1x Z.Reverse IV
Core Shield Generators Remaining: A, B, C
Current Game Time: 4:47:42

[keith.lamothe]

Getting interesting

On the Ion scrapping, I nerfed the stuffing out of how much that refunds a long time ago.  How much are you getting?  I don't mind it being a worthwhile thing to do (the more strategies, the better), just making sure it's not as bad as it once was (where people could pretty much cap-out at will).

this puts Youdon's Fortress out of supply so I send my Bombers to put it out of its misery. My Sniper Turrets had it down to 46% so far. I almost feel bad taking the kill from them.

I anticipate those snipers being selectively ignorant of attacking forces while you aren't looking.

[the exo] contains less than 125 ships and the resulting battle is trivial. Lead by a Core Starship, the Exo accounts for only 19 kills, all on fleet ships.

Awww... still, it had a few more surprises for you than last time

I'm curious what happened. I seem to recall sometimes Exos are split into multiple forces.

Yep, it randomly decides (at spawn time) on a focused or a spread-out attack, so you generally have to prepare for both.  Also, on broken-golems and spirecraft exos it has a chance of going 1-battlegroup and weighting a lot more budget onto the lead ship (making it more likely you'll get a golem or something like that).

I find it interesting that they apparently came from the Warp Gate on Vedi, two full systems away from my own planets. Definitely something to keep in mind.

Yea, they sometimes come from further out; I think the spawn planets are picked such that they can get at all their target planets (if more than one) without going too far.

If these Exos had come as a single larger force it might have been tough but this three-way split was interesting. Certainly if I hadn't been careful about the systems I was capturing things could have gone very badly.

Yea, the idea is that if it tries both it will have a better chance of getting through at some point

Unfortunately it is dinner time and my kids begin having a huge discussion about what they want on their pizza with me and I don't notice that my killing of the Data Center freed a Raider Guardian IV who comes to visit Kalcaveael. I don't notice for so long it destroys the Hardened Force Field and Ion Cannon.

I was wondering when that tactic would kick in.  Don't worry, I specifically told it to not actually give the kids candy, out of deference to parental nutritional plans.

Then I notice these are Zenith Electric Bombers, the unholy cousin of the regular Bomber with almost eight times the damage. These things will ruin your day.

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

Seriously?

Seriously   Particularly as AIP goes up, the early exos can come fairly fast.  Each one is only about 25% larger than the previous, so if your AIP grows faster than that the intervals will get smaller.

As I knock out guard posts in Vedi, I keep releasing Mark IV threat which I bait in Kelcaveael by moving my fleet back and forth to Vegiodi.

I've been thinking about having that "should I attack?" logic count firepower on adjacent planets too, for a variety of reasons.  Dunno.  It would probably just lead players to adopt more sophisticated tactics for pulling 2 systems back and rushing back in.


Good work thus far

[Hearteater]

Honestly, no Ion Cannon is worth scrapping for the most part.  They might actually return too little resources when scrapped.  If you go through the effort of keeping one alive, you'll almost always have lost far more resources then you get.  It's 0.1% right now, and although it doesn't need to be increased, and certainly shouldn't be decreased, it could probably go up to 0.25-0.5% without any danger of abuse.  At 0.5% they'd be like a Distribution Node, but you'll pay in terms of unit loses in most cases, and a Mark V is probably worth keeping around in a lot of cases.  But I did do the math wrong and thought the Mark III was returning 144,000 otherwise I actually wouldn't have even bothered capturing it on Jogensuo.

Mark	Value	Scrapped
I	800,000	800
II	3,600,000	3,600
III	14,400,000	14,000
IV	43,200,000	43,200
V	129,600,000	129,600

I also thought they did at least some damage to higher Mark targets but I checked 5.018 and I misread it.  Even then, I keep thinking I read somewhere they did actually do something to higher marks.  I have this recollection of them changing to do 1/2 health to +1 mark, 1/4 health to +2 marks, etc.  But I watched my Ion Cannon III hitting Mark IVs and it does just its base weapon damage which is next to nothing.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I could bump up I-IV's scrap amount a bit.  Maybe I could just always make them give 50k m and 50k c (the mkV one still gives more than I'm entirely comfortable with) so that there's some point but it's not an overwhelming "this is always more useful melted down".

Regarding their effect against higher-mark stuff, yea, I didn't change that when I changed the spirecraft ion blaster.  I was concerned that it would make AI Ion Cannons too dangerous, or at least too resource-drain-annoying such that it would be more of a punch to the player than anything else.

[Hearteater]

To date, I've yet to find a situation when I don't just assassinate them with Raid Starships.  I can't think of anything that prevents that.  There is always a way to pull it off.  Fighting with an Ion Cannon beating on you is only for when you want to keep the Ion Cannon.  I guess a Gravity Drill and Counter Spy positioned badly could prevent it.  But once you kill either one you are probably free to take out the Ion.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, they used to be way harder to take out, and I'm seriously thinking about bringing that part back.  Not that you wouldn't be able to assassinate them with raid starships, but it wouldn't be just a couple shots, either.