Help Me Avoid My HaP Overdraft Fees!

[Radiant Phoenix]

Normally I win my games pretty handily, so I decided to go for more challenging AI types. Unfortunately, I got sloppy and overspent about 180 HaP at the superterminal. Which was behind my choke point. Now there's 4 million strength of AI ships stomping towards my homeworld. The only good news is that the superterminal is dead.

I haven't actually lost this game, but my computer is choking on handling this many ships, so I'm certainly not going to win it.

Status: (in the named save, not the autosave)

• Main choke point very secure. Unfortunately, the enemy is behind it.
• There's a recently-built MK3 lightning warhead on the planet north of my home command station
• A couple Spire Capital ships are intact
• Time: 7 Hours by the in-game clock.

Parameters:

Spoiler for Hiden:

7/7 Golemite / Raid Engine
60-planet Clusters Microcosm 709032257, Complex ships

Minor Factions:

• Fallen Spire 4 (My go-to thing)
• Alt Champion Progress 10 (I don't like having to depend on the RNG for my unlocks)
• Alt Champion Nemesis 4
• Dyson Sphere 4
• Human Resistance 4
• Human Marauders 4
• Neinzul Roaming Enclaves 4

AI Plots: Hybrid Hives 4/4

Disabled Ships:

• Swallowers
• Dire Guardian Lairs

AI Mods:

• Schizophrenic
• Reveal Random AI Types
• No Wave Warnings
• Cross Planet Waves

Expansions: 0-4

Lessons learned:

• PAY ATTENTION TO HACKING PROGRESS!
• Parking a Mk1 lightning warhead next to a Super Terminal is not an adequate safety -- the warhead will *not* hurt the super-terminal, despite the superterminal having only 2k HP.

So... can anyone recover from this? (I'm just going to revert to my save from before I started, and pay closer attention to my HaP, because even if this is winnable, I don't have the patience to chug through at about 1FPS)

[Captain Jack]

The obvious suggestion is to kill it with nuclear fire. You're going to have to STALL HARDCORE so that you can get several million of those ships onto a planet you don't care about and detonate a nuke, then have to eat 50 AIP but it's better than losing.

Your other serious alternative is hardcore defensive layering. Buy turrets. Heavy Beam Cannon, gravitation turrets, Sniper Turrets and Spiders at mk. IV. Literally line entire planets with these and as they're destroyed rebuild them on the next planet. Use your full compliment of mines, also on every planet, building them into the next line when it's destroyed.

Use excess scrap to buy mercenaries. Neinzul Starship IV can help a lot if you can keep it ahead of the vanguard.

[Radiant Phoenix]

AFAICT, most of the ships are Mk5, and thus nuke-proof.

In the named save, there is only one planet left between them and my homeworld. (the SuperTerminal was only three jumps away)

[Captain Jack]

All right, then there's only one thing to do: Mk. III nuke out of spite. Game over man.

Unless you want to be clever and start mass producing lightning warheads by building a full cap of warhead producers, scrapping the factory after it finishes a warhead, and rebuilding the factory, but I think it's a bit too late for that.

[Red.Queen]

Unless you want to be clever and start mass producing lightning warheads by building a full cap of warhead producers, scrapping the factory after it finishes a warhead, and rebuilding the factory, but I think it's a bit too late for that.

That works to reset the warhead building lockout?  <contemplates this new information in light of my unhealthy enjoyment of orbital WMD strikes> <smiiiiiiiiles>  (That should probably be changed.)

[steelwing]

Unless you want to be clever and start mass producing lightning warheads by building a full cap of warhead producers, scrapping the factory after it finishes a warhead, and rebuilding the factory, but I think it's a bit too late for that.

That works to reset the warhead building lockout?  <contemplates this new information in light of my unhealthy enjoyment of orbital WMD strikes> <smiiiiiiiiles>  (That should probably be changed.)

Darn it, Watashiwa, don't you know how dangerous it is to give Red.Queen ideas like that?!  >D

[Pumpkin]

Darn it, Watashiwa, don't you know how dangerous it is to give Red.Queen ideas like that?!  >D

For the next April fools I'll post two mantis suggestions. The Kahuna HBC turret controller and the Red.Queen no-cap warhead builder.

You're happy, R.Q? You gave your name to a strategy. (Or maybe you prefer we give your name to the Red.Queen-level auto-AIP?)

[Radiant Phoenix]

Calculating based on the Mk1 missile frigate being S16 and having 12.5k health (UL cap), S4M should be 3.14B health, which would take about 125 Mk3 lightning warheads to kill.

That's 10m28s of unboosted building even if you can somehow negate the build delay, and 11.3M metal, which I don't have and would take on the order of 20-30 minutes to gather (There are a few distribution nodes floating around, but not that many) My Champion is a battleship with everything unlocked, but my ModForts are at the choke.

I have grav turret 3 and engineer 3 unlocked, so I think it is maybe a quarter of the way to conceivable to pull this off if the warhead cooldown can be overcome. Especially if you back up to the autosave from 5 RL minutes before.

... oh, and cheats are enabled, albeit not used, so obviously one could use "Armor Em" a dozen times to get the needed missiles, but that's no fun. (Wait, does that give mk1 missiles or mk3? If the former, you would need to do it about 60 times)

[Red.Queen]

Darn it, Watashiwa, don't you know how dangerous it is to give Red.Queen ideas like that?!  >D

 >D  >D  >D

I assume you have to scrap all the Missile Silos on the map to make it wipe the timer, but still... You could leave warpgates up for normal cases, and deal with the Silos manually...

[/quote]

For the next April fools I'll post two mantis suggestions. The Kahuna HBC turret controller and the Red.Queen no-cap warhead builder.

You're happy, R.Q? You gave your name to a strategy. (Or maybe you prefer we give your name to the Red.Queen-level auto-AIP?)

>>What is "choose only one"?  Is that a concept similar to "restraint"?  I have nuclear weapons that can obliterate whole galaxies, I don't need "restraint".

(Man I wish Mk.II-III nukes were ever practical...  )

(I am now really wondering if it would be possible to make no-lockout warhead building not unbalanced as hell.  Maybe if the AIP escalated with each one detonated in rapid succession -- sure, you can fire off a fast salvo, but it's gonna cost you... I'd still do it.)

[/quote]

Calculating based on the Mk1 missile frigate being S16 and having 12.5k health (UL cap), S4M should be 3.14B health, which would take about 125 Mk3 lightning warheads to kill.

Killjoy time -- Missile Frigates are immune to AoE damage, including Lightning Warheads.  This is why I hate them.  If a significant chunk of this mass is Mk.V frigates, they're immune to Lightning and Nukes.  Did I mention I *really* hate Missile Frigates?

On the other hand, if you were left with nothing but those, maybe a win could somehow be pulled off with enough EMP abuse and insanity!

Do you have the Devourer Golem turned on by any chance?  (I don't remember if he'll eat Mk.V though.)

[Radiant Phoenix]

Do you have the Devourer Golem turned on by any chance?  (I don't remember if he'll eat Mk.V though.)

I don't have him on, but he doesn't like Mk5.

[Captain Jack]

I have a potentially unconventional solution to this problem, but pulling it off elsewhere would require preparation.

Spirecraft Attritioners. They're suppose to cause damage over time AND inflict a portion of destroyed ships max health to all ships in system. I'm fairly certain this effect stacks. As long as Mk. V fleetcraft aren't immune to Attrition, you can pair high mark Attritioners with a full defensive line and WMDs, Matyrs or a Cursed Golem and you can probably break the entire wave.

[Radiant Phoenix]

I don't have golems or spirecraft on.