Back to basics

[PineappleSam]

00:00:00 - Set up

Planet Number: 80
Map Style: Realistic
Available Ships: Complex
AI progress: 1/30 minutes
Expansions: The Zenith Remnant, Children of Neinzul
AI: Random (level 7), Random (level 7)

Well, this will be interesting! I finally got round to purchasing the expansion packs (having a job, albeit shelf stacking, means that I'll happily purchase rather than pirate) I thought that I'd make my first proper game memorable by making a note every 10 minutes! I'm at the 3 hour mark and keeping to the schedule with reasonably well!

It's a pretty standard setup, with the exception that I can't see the full galaxy map. Putau is the three wormhole starter with Zenith Viral Shredders. I haven't played for a while, so I'll just have to see how this goes.

00:10:02 - Well, this is interesting

Wait, what? We start with 40 manufacturies?? That's pretty cool! The cryogenic pods and settlements aren't bad either... Initial scouting shows that 2 of the adjacent planets have black hole machines, while the other is level 4 complete with a level 2 fort. I start pumping out ships to prepare for an assault on the weakest of the three planets, and have a quick think about what path I'll be taking research wise. Nothing pops out, so that's it.

00:20:01 - More of the same

I've plopped down some 5 tractor turrets on each wormhole (my favourite turret by far!), and 20 missile turrets that cover every hole. They won't take down a fleet, but they'll pick off the odd ship that's feeling lucky.

00:30:03 - one down...

First planet has been taken! The universe is now that much safer... well, but not for me. Oh, and I've just realised something... Zenith Viral Shredders. Ship cap is 98, and I currently have 299 of the monsters! First research option chosen: Lvl.II Economic orbital command station. Oh, and those are something I hadn't come across either!      

It was tempting to grab the lvl.III upgrade, but that would have just been extravagant

00:40:05 - ...and that's two

That's the other low-level planet taken, and it's worth noting that I've kept the black-hole generators alive on both worlds. This means that if the enemy want to go through those worlds then they'll have to take out the generators. This second world has a reserve ship thingy, but I'll leave it alone for now. I can't spare 1,000,000 energy! Oh, and 334 shredders now.

00:50:24 - More unlocks?

Unlocked lvl.II Missile Frigates and Zenith Viral Shredders, along with Fortress mk.I and Zenith Space-Time Manipulator. I've now stuck a fort on each of the new planets and a manipulator on all of them. I might have started the fortress research 10 minutes ago, but it's close enough.

359 shredders, with a total fleet size around 700 ships including 3 bomber starships, 2 leech starships and 3 fleet starships. Leech + shredders = bigger fleets. Giggle.

01:00:10 - So maybe they aren't so great

I thought the shredders were awesome... until I was force to build inefficient power stations to keep from brownout. 446 shredders (239% of the unlocked shredder ship cap) apparently put quite a drain on my power levels. Oh, and I've found my new nemesis...

[1] Okay bomber starships, take out those guardians/guard posts/AI eye! (guardians are yet another feature I hadn't seen before!)
[2] No, the guard posts... not whatever your shooting at.
[3] Oh, fair enough, Decoy Drones. Well, get rid of them then!
[4] Wait... they're not taking damage...
[5] ARGH

Currently the bomber starships are being supported by fleet starships to try take down the drones... they go down pretty fast!

01:12:13 -    HAH! Take that!

Well, that's the high level planet down, and with that my homeworld is secured. Time to turtle down and scout for a bit! For the moment Tiolocjo looks the most promising of the planets, with both a data centre AND an advanced research lab. My AI progress level has been rising steadily to 76 and it could do with being lopped down a bit. Oh, and the unlocked craft would be nice...

01:20:25 - Another unexciting day...

Not much really happens.

01:30:04 - Wut?

So apparently guardians travel through wormholes? Who knew! On the bright side, my fortress plus other defences managed to take them out, leaving Partho (the stepping stone to Tiolocjo) badly weakened.

In other news I doubled my crystal manufacturey count to 40 to keep up with demand.

01:40:12 - Huzzah for transports

Tiolocjo is assaulted thanks to some transports, and goes out with a whimper. That's me down to 67 AI progress now, huzzah! Fleet took around 100 casualties though, so I'm down to 665 from around 800 ships. I lost a few capital ships too thanks to not paying attention. On a more positive note I did manage to leech two repair ships though... with 0% and 3% health. It's a pity I can't jsut task engineer drones to repair them...

01:50:05 - Huzzah for free ships!

Thanks to AI wave(s) I'm now up to 514 viral shredders, with more mk.II's than mk.I's (276% of cap). New ship is from the research lab is *drumroll* Zenith Autobombs! A pity, as I already have a kickass fleet of close-quarter fighters. Even there AoE attack isn't that useful, as the shredders handle those reflecting cube thingies without a problem. Later on I realise that they're perfect for taking out data centres on blackhole planets, but for now I build some for the sake of it and believe that they're useless.

It doesn't help when they blow up instantly when entering enemy territory, but at that point I hadn't thought to turn them off before targeting them.

02:02:37 - Fly, my pretties

Now all the fleet is in one place, I can see that I've a force of 1185 ships including 3 leech starships! Oh, but just under half of that is shredders... as I was struggling with scouting I've now unlocked lvl.II scouts along with lvl.II bombers and autobombs. I've also grabbed the next fortress unlock as I'd reached my cap already

This has come at a cost though, as I've 4 lvl.II and lvl.III power stations running inefficiently. For now I go back to scouting to pick up some more juicy morsels, and worry about the AI progress level of 88. It's a pain, as half of the planets have blackhole generators... my choice is to either take them down (10 progress) or simply take the planet (20 progress). I'll stick with just popping the generators for now, but I do wish there was some way of bypassing the choice.

02:10:03 - MOAR

That's me up to 522 shredders now and that's without unlocking mk.III, and my fleet size is now up to 1139 ships. Not much more to say about that.

02:21:00 - Plans are made

I decide to send a small fleet to cripple Mikumja, so that I can jump across to Revisarae and then Lapi. Revisarae has an advanced research station, while Lapi has a data centre just beginning to be taken out! Super terminals aren't something I've dealt with before so I'll ignore it for the moment.

02:30:06 - Ouch...

Hmm... my raid on Mikumja went just as planned, but as I was preparing to transport-ship my support vessels across when a wave of vampire raiders are announced... now, if only I had a ship that was good against vampires...

02:44:17 HAHAHAHA, HOPE YOU LIKE YOUR STAKE!

...and now I have 759 shredders, thank you vampires! Good grief, and that's without unlocking mk.III. I've wiped Revisarae clean, and shortly I'll colonise it.

02:51:12 Another one bites the dust

Revisarae is colonised, and the data ventre on  Lapi has gone down! That's me at 80 AI progress, with a floor of 28, so it's definitely tempting. It was in this assault that I tried out the autobombs properly, using them to take out the data centre while the rest of the fleet languished in Revisarae.

03:00:13 Silly AI, waves are for kids!

829 shredders now. Scouting further afield hasn't revealed many new targets, but there are still options:
[1] 4 hops for a an anti-starship fabricator
[2] 4 hops for a IV bomber starship fabricator + Artillery golem
[3] 4 hops to an advance research lab
[4] 3 hops to a data centre

Although when I first created this save I was planning to grab the anti-starship fabricator, but now I'm doing the write up the bomber starship looks a lot more attractive... they're nice ships, and I've always wanted to try out golems!

03:00:13++

...now what? I've written up to my current location so it's back to gaming! I've a feeling that I've set the difficulty too low, as the only problems I've facing are the black-hole generators and scouting, but all I can do is press onwards for now and see if the middle/end-game has more to offer...

I have saves available for any of the times mentioned above if people are curious, and I'd really appreciate any suggestions you might have?

[Oralordos]

Haha keep it up I like a good after action report.
Zenith Viral Shredders are definitely awesome. Based on the tooltip, to make them "reproduce" faster, spread them between several planets and only bring around 50 of each mark with your attack force.

[Lancefighter]

use those autobombs >.>
if your economy can support it, build some spacedocks rallied to a hostile planet in frd, and set it to repeat build autobombs.

Its a giant resource draining gun, but its pretty effective later on.

[PineappleSam]

03:00:13 - Well?

You've read the reports, now lets see what happens next. This time I'll write as I play, so I should be able to give more information.

03:13:18 - Not the best of starts

I'm not certain why I had a fleet at Mikumja, but I didn't want it there so I ordered a retreat tactical withdrawal to prevent unnecessary losses. Unfortunately this assault stirred up a hornets nest of activity that took down the undefended Revisarae.

The power stations went down first, which led to a brownout, which led to the forcefield going down... and that finished with the command station being popped. I've now cleared the planet (after a close call where I tried to take down a flak guardian with viral shredders), and re-establish my grasp on it. Now some autobombs are on their way to Iniusqui's blackhole generator while hiding in a transport!

Well, they will be shortly...

03:20:10 OOPS

Ah, so it turns out that when every autobomb I have explodes against the blackhole generator, they bearly tarnish the paintwork. Although they have slightly more luck against the AI eye, the key word here is slightly as it still has half it's health left... and by the time wave two arrives it's back to full health.

Time for a new plan.

Autobombs transform and roll out damage the eye and then every mk.I bomber and fleet starhip takes it out... I lose all the starships in the process, but with the eye gone the kid gloves can come off and the rest of my fleet rush in! The mk.IV ion cannon puts the hurt on, but for the most part I brush off its effects. The world is cleansed, but I leave the tinpot despot in place.

03:31:01 - That's enough of that.

492 bombers + 1 starship -> 60 shredders

More than that, but I only took a note of the starting number AFTER they'd been at it for a few minutes. 742 of the blighters now! I've also made up my mind... the empire needs expanding. I'm in desperate need of SAFE energy, so I'll be rapidy expanding to conquer neibouring stars. Once down, I'll take control of the AI super terminal to try and calm things down a bit...

First stop, the ravaged Iniusqui is conquered... which means I take the double whammy AI progress hits from destroying the blackhole generator AND the command station. Ouch.

Oh, and if your curious, I plan to have Iniusqui, Gioshlo, Arachvar and Kaluhni as choke planets... unless I'm lucky and Aeoark, Nitch of Fibu leads to dead ends.

03:31:01 - ARGHLBLARGH

Hmm... I need more resources... oh, look! Iniusqui has a distribution noARGHAHGAHWEHTHAEHFHAWEHFAHEFHAEHFHAEHFAHEF. ASDASDAS. GVGNADGMK. AVFW. AWTB AWF AW.

Well, you get the idea.

03:42:45 - Weeeeee...

Some planet renaming was in order to help me keep track, but things are going well! I'm getting close to the 400,000 required to accommodate the Zenith reserves. A couple of planets went down, and things are ticking along nicely!

03:51:29 - Distractions

I keep losing and rebuilding planets, while the AI progress steadily climes... 167 now...

I've finally decided to pop the Zenith Reserve pod thing, so hopefully the extra ships will help! Other than that, nothing too exciting to report.

03:54:16 - A picture is worth 1,001 AI bombers

A break from the 10 minute format...

and here's why

Kidesba looks pretty doomed... it was one of the three initial buffer worlds against attacks on my homeworld, so I'm kind of scared. Thankfully they'll need to take out the black hole generator before my homeworld is wiped clean.

...except that they're bombers, so that isn't exactly an epic task for them. Lets see how they do against ONLY my 700+ shredders as the rest of the fleet is occupied with the occupation of Partho.

04:02:28 - Few...

03:57:08: Shredders are at only enemy wormhole, while rest of fleet is clearing out the other planet... avoiding the warp-gate as I don't know how destroying it will affect the wave... Parthos IS where the wave is coming from. No new defences have been put up, but the two forts have been moved to opposite ends of the planet... both within maximum range of the wormhole and my command station. Two mark one field generators protect the blackhole generator AND the command station... but they won't last long against the bombers! 3 seconds till the bombers arrive... 342 shredders only, as most were lost due to mismanagement in Portho.

03:57:39: Half the bombers are down, but the two forcefields look like they're about to kick the bucket. I've only just realised that sending the engineers across might help.. 372 shredders.

03:57:49: Too late... that's the command station and one forcefield down... the other is probably about to go too, but it's been switched off so hopefully not. The Black hole machine is at full health though! 417 enemy ships, 390 shredders.

03:58:10: ...and that's every bomber and the starship down, while my viral shredders are up to 420. Thankfully the black hole generator is still up, and a command station isn't exactly hard to replace!

I've now gone back to planet (re)conquering and I've realised that there are plenty of friendly planets with untapped knowledge. I decide to rectify this problem, and make preparations for properly turtle-ing around the 4 choke planets. Oh, and I do some renaming too... so that's cool.


@TyberZann: Ah, so that only a few are adding build points and that means new shredders are created faster? Interesting thought... I'll try and bear this in mind while clearing out the AI forces.

@Lancefighter: That sounds too fun NOT to try! I've a few planets in mind, and it'll be curious to see how/if they compliment the shredders...

[Oralordos]

Well that and the amount of build points required goes up if you are over the ship cap for the ship on the current planet only. If you have 2000 in one planet and attack another with 50, you'll get quite a few more per build point then if you attacked the other planet with all 2000.

[PineappleSam]

04:02:28 - Back again

...and so I return to gaming.

04:12:33 - Yawn

Nothing much happens here, it's just moving ships about and recolonising the planet I lost earlier.

04:21:50 - Batten down the hatched

The last world is about to be taken in my mini-empire, so I start reassigning forts and forcefields so that the bastion worlds can take the brunt of whatever is thrown at them. Each gets 1 mk.I fort, 1 mk.II fort (or 2 more mk.I forts), a mk.II forcefield and two mk.I forcefields. I'll make use of liberal amounts of turrets, and once the last planet goes down I'll be gunning for the data centre followed by the super terminal!

04:32:00 - Stop lying to me...

Okay, so I've got a cross planet attack coming. Well, it's still 10 minutes away, so I feel I can comfortably deal with destroying a counter-attack-warp-thing-guardpost as I can deal with it first! It does specifically say that I only get a short warning!

Wait... are you kidding me? The wave is going to come within a minute of the cross planet attack? AFTER I've moved my ships to intercept it... wherever the attack might be happening?

...AND it'll be against my undefended planet with a 2x wave space-time manipulator instead of one of my heavily defended bastion planets?

Hmm...


What happens if I destroy the last warpgate adjacent to a planet that has a raid on the countdown clock? Will the raid occur as normal as if I'd done nothing, or will weird things happen?

[orzelek]

What happens if I destroy the last warpgate adjacent to a planet that has a raid on the countdown clock? Will the raid occur as normal as if I'd done nothing, or will weird things happen?

Wave will happen anyway.

[PineappleSam]

I'll write a report up in a bit, but I've stumbled across rather vicious bug that's left be in a bit of a pickle (save uploaded, and at some point I'll try to figure out mantis to report it).

06:49:04 - Crying time

Earlier on I'd popped a world with two counter-attack-guard-post-things, the first post sent a wave of 1001 teleport battle stations, and after realising that the world had a black hole generator, and that they were weak against Zennith viral shredders, I sent the shredders to the undefended world that the raid was being launched at. I then pop the other guard post, and it's another 1001 teleport battle stations on the adjacent planet. Awesome! My shredders will only need to go through one wormhole pair to deal with them...

The save is 3 seconds before the first wave, and I named it Crying time as taking on 2002 ships might cause problems... and it did, just not the problem I was expecting.

First wave: 1001 FIGHTERS fly in from the edge of the galaxy map... I'm a bit surprised, but put it down to me misremembering what was coming. There was still a second wave, so they must be the battle stations! I get rid of the fighters after they take down the local command station and prepare for the wave on the adjacent planet.

Second wave: 200+ fighters, and 700+ BOMBERS. They proceed to ignore my shredders and instead fly around taking down irreplaceable black hole generators, command stations and power stations like there's no tomorrow. I have a save at the 10 hour mark, with half my fleet camping my home station while the other half tries to stop the bombers...

If anyone's an adept with Mantis, then I'd appreciate it if you posted on my behalf, and sent me a heads up!


@orzelek: ...and so it did, thanks!

[Giegue]

please elaborate on what this bug actually is, that'd be helpful.

[PineappleSam]

please elaborate on what this bug actually is, that'd be helpful.

Ah, re-reading I see my post didn't link the two statements...

The waves of fighters and mixed fighters - bombers appeared at the times the AI claimed it was sending teleport battle stations. If you load up the attached save you'll see that a wave of teleport battle stations is set to arrive in 3 seconds. 3 seconds lated, and there are no teleport battle stations... instead, 1000 fighters fly in from the edge of the map.

Teleport battle stations =/= fighters

The same things happens with the next scheduled wave.