Disposable Heroes

[zoutzakje]

only on multi homeworld actually. I don't think the new harvesters are extremely overpowered in a regular 1 homeworld game. they just feel good.
But yeah, it's funny on multi homeworld lol. Hundreds of thousands of resources in mere minutes.

[keith.lamothe]

3:17:00 Apparently I can't drive, i got the entire Raid Armada blown to pieces.  Rats.

AI traffic ticker: 15-raid pileup on I-285, detour through Caesar, point and laugh.

3:22:00 Found the first coreworld on Draconis in the left hand side of Bob.  At a guess, the HW is right behind it in Canopus.  One found... and a lot closer to the chokepoint than I'd figured.

Bear in mind that the first HW is put as far as it can get from your HW(s), and the second HW is placed such that its distance from your homeworld(s) AND its distance from the other AI HW are maximized.  At least, I think it's strictly in-order like that.

ARS 3 is Paralyzers, Polarizers, and Acid Sprayers.  Of them, I want to try playing with the Paralyzers on the whipping boy defenses.

Lately feedback seems to indicate that paralyzers are pretty brutal since they learned how to target.

May start leaving the Parasites on the whipping boy.

I think I heard something about a 750 ship Cross Planet AttackDonation coming sometime soon.

I left four Ions alive to assist defense.

Do the Ions even fire anymore?  "Why kill them?  It only encourages them."

With your econ, I imagine a pirahna defense's dps actually goes up when the AI starts killing them by the hundred, simply because building a new ship is faster than reloading.

For amusement value, what that looks like in formation driving:

"Alright you morons, turn off your tachyon beams and I'll hear when you ram it."

local delaying tactics have saved me

Iirc, speedbuilding a space dock and using that+engies to speedbuild frd nanoswarms just confuses the AI no end.

[PokerChen]

This map is hilarious-fun, seeing all the neinzuls work together... With most seeds you'll get only one or two unlocks and it's harder to FRD-one's way to the AI homeworld without the numbers (Tigers do better since they can trivially take on the common emplacements: Ions and Fortresses, ala Struggling Khan's concurrent game).

ARS 3 is Paralyzers, Polarizers, and Acid Sprayers.  Of them, I want to try playing with the Paralyzers on the whipping boy defenses.

Lately feedback seems to indicate that paralyzers are pretty brutal since they learned how to target.

Oh they are. Beats the daylight out of Gravity Rippers with their special ability, sitting in a forcefield pretending to be EMP turrets... I reckon no one would care if they were nerfed to a DPS of 1 as long as they keep firing.

May start leaving the Parasites on the whipping boy.

I think I heard something about a 750 ship Cross Planet AttackDonation coming sometime soon.

The AI is very generous with their regular donations and is my favourite sponsor of Free Ships (TM), although the Cookie Monster sure feels like the tax department in this regard, swooping in at random intervals.

AI War Economics look like this: AI wave (primary industry) -> Player with reclamation (middle-class) -> Cookie Monster (government).

[Wanderer]

I unpacked this map about a week ago in a dual 8/8 game. Won in just over 3 hours. Didn't build a single triangle ship, all neinzul ships and enclaves. Was one of the most hilarious games I've played in a while. Honestly the only thing that could slow down the invasion was the occasional eye, other than that nothing can stop 3000+ neinzul frd'ing into a hapless planet.

I also must say, the new harvesters are ridiculous, particularly on multi homeworld.

Hm, I've been running into multiple Eyes blocking me.  Otherwise, 6 hours seems more likely.  3?  Hm, I'm doing it wrong I guess.

Possibly typing too much and micro-ing too little.  Well, we'll see.  I'm having fun with it so I guess that's all that matters.  I fear getting too sloppy after the opening salvos though.

[Wanderer]

With your econ, I imagine a pirahna defense's dps actually goes up when the AI starts killing them by the hundred, simply because building a new ship is faster than reloading.

For the Tigers, that's actually possible...

"Alright you morons, turn off your tachyon beams and I'll hear when you ram it."

I'm still chuckling at that, but it's pretty appropriate.  The Scout Tachyons are practically hull - distance.  Higher levels are better, of course, but 2k meters?  Yeah.  It's like sonar on a deaf bat with an earhorn.  " 'eh, what sonny?" *THUD* "Oh, TREEE, right."

[Wanderer]

only on multi homeworld actually. I don't think the new harvesters are extremely overpowered in a regular 1 homeworld game. they just feel good.
But yeah, it's funny on multi homeworld lol. Hundreds of thousands of resources in mere minutes.

Yeah.  "Watcha do, rob a bank?" "No, we ARE the bank, now pay up."

I can't wait to let these loose on an 8xHomeworld FS campaign.  Half tempted to do it against Scorched Earth or something for giggles. "No econ? LOL, here, let me show you how much your 'lack of supply' means you bastage!  CHARRGE!"

[rchaneberg]

Yeah.  "Watcha do, rob a bank?" "No, we ARE the bank, now pay up."

I can't wait to let these loose on an 8xHomeworld FS campaign.  Half tempted to do it against Scorched Earth or something for giggles. "No econ? LOL, here, let me show you how much your 'lack of supply' means you bastage!  CHARRGE!"

Well, I know what I'm doing next

*edit* Can you even build spire cities when you don't have supply?

[dotjd]

only on multi homeworld actually. I don't think the new harvesters are extremely overpowered in a regular 1 homeworld game. they just feel good.

I'm playing a game with them right now, and yeah, they feel really good.  They feel so good I decided to work some things out myself.  I know this was discussed elsewhere, but I played some, went back and reread the numbers, added some assumptions of my own...

1. The aforementioned homeworld.  Homeworlds have either 12 or 13 harvesters.  Going from 20 to 73 each is a 53 res/sec increase.  Multiply by 12 in the worst case and you have a free 636 res/s additional income that you can unlock as soon as the game starts.
2. Did I mention you can unlock it as soon as the game starts?  At least with econ IIIs you have to cap a planet first.
3. If a planet has 4 harvesters, it's automatically better.  Assuming 2/2 for simplicity, you get 146/146 m/c per sec.  How is that better than 160?  Because you haven't factored in the additional resources from the command station that you have to place.  Econ Is give 30/30, bringing you up to 176/176.  Mils and Log Is are slightly worse, but bring other benefits.  And if you unlock higher-level command stations, the margin just goes up.
4.  You know planets with ARSs?  Those tend to have 5-6 harvesters, and you have to take them.  Even if core shield gens didn't exist, they'd still be well worth the AIP for the ship and the resources.  That's an extra 70 or 140 res/s per ARS planet, of which there are usually... 5 or 6 across the game?
5. Advanced Fac planets spawn with additional harvesters too, iirc?  Or maybe I'm just getting lucky.
6. Previous discussion talked more about the average number of harvesters per planet, not counting homeworlds.  I think it was 3?  Well, you can skip 99% of the 1-2 harvester worlds, but you're predisposed to capture worlds with lots of harvesters.

So basically, the new harvesters are almost strictly better than econ IIIs even in a single-homeworld game.  They give you 600 income completely free from the start of the game and still outperform econ IIIs on average in the rest of the game.  And you don't use up a command station slot.  That last bit alone should be cause to make them a good deal worse than Econ IIIs (you can still get lots of income from your chokepoint world that has a Mil III), but they're still better.  It's just... wow.

[Nodor]

only on multi homeworld actually. I don't think the new harvesters are extremely overpowered in a regular 1 homeworld game. they just feel good.

I'm playing a game with them right now, and yeah, they feel really good.  They feel so good I decided to work some things out myself.  I know this was discussed elsewhere, but I played some, went back and reread the numbers, added some assumptions of my own...

1. The aforementioned homeworld.  Homeworlds have either 12 or 13 harvesters.  Going from 20 to 73 each is a 53 res/sec increase.  Multiply by 12 in the worst case and you have a free 636 res/s additional income that you can unlock as soon as the game starts.
2. Did I mention you can unlock it as soon as the game starts?  At least with econ IIIs you have to cap a planet first.
3. If a planet has 4 harvesters, it's automatically better.  Assuming 2/2 for simplicity, you get 146/146 m/c per sec.  How is that better than 160?  Because you haven't factored in the additional resources from the command station that you have to place.  Econ Is give 30/30, bringing you up to 176/176.  Mils and Log Is are slightly worse, but bring other benefits.  And if you unlock higher-level command stations, the margin just goes up.
4.  You know planets with ARSs?  Those tend to have 5-6 harvesters, and you have to take them.  Even if core shield gens didn't exist, they'd still be well worth the AIP for the ship and the resources.  That's an extra 70 or 140 res/s per ARS planet, of which there are usually... 5 or 6 across the game?
5. Advanced Fac planets spawn with additional harvesters too, iirc?  Or maybe I'm just getting lucky.
6. Previous discussion talked more about the average number of harvesters per planet, not counting homeworlds.  I think it was 3?  Well, you can skip 99% of the 1-2 harvester worlds, but you're predisposed to capture worlds with lots of harvesters.

So basically, the new harvesters are almost strictly better than econ IIIs even in a single-homeworld game.  They give you 600 income completely free from the start of the game and still outperform econ IIIs on average in the rest of the game.  And you don't use up a command station slot.  That last bit alone should be cause to make them a good deal worse than Econ IIIs (you can still get lots of income from your chokepoint world that has a Mil III), but they're still better.  It's just... wow.

I sense a 5.033 nerf.

[keith.lamothe]

I sense a 5.033 nerf.

Ho yea.

[dotjd]

Actually, I can't do math.

3. If a planet has 4 harvesters, it's automatically better.  Assuming 2/2 for simplicity, you get 146/146 m/c per sec.  How is that better than 160?  Because you haven't factored in the additional resources from the command station that you have to place.  Econ Is give 30/30, bringing you up to 176/176.  Mils and Log Is are slightly worse, but bring other benefits.  And if you unlock higher-level command stations, the margin just goes up.

160 is the baseline for econ III planets?  Nah.  Forgot to factor in the 20 income from baseline harvesters.

Actual values are 73*numHarv + 60 vs 20*numHarv + 320.  At 4 harvesters it's 352 with harvester upgrades vs 400 with econ IIIs.  At 5 it's 405 vs 420.... so it takes 6 harvesters to 'break even' vs econ IIIs with the upgrade.

Except that (almost?) every ARS planet and a number of others have 6 harvesters, you still get a slot to do something different with the command station, you can sustain your income over more than 6 planets, and even if you're stuck with a bunch of one- or two- or three-harvester planets it doesn't come anywhere close to balancing out the free 600 you've been getting from the start of the game.  So it's still very superior, just not quite as much.

But mostly, it's just amusing that even though econ IIIs are no longer the obvious beginning opening, you're still stuck spending 9K knowledge on income at the start of the game. =p

playing a disposable heroes game now, and it's entrancing to watch 2000 ships roil over 50 AI ships on low caps while your resource meter is constantly pegging 999,999.  would've done this earlier if I'd known the seed also had autobombs. =p

[_K_]

Damn you guys. I complained about the harvesters being overpowered before it was popular.

[Wanderer]

4:18:00 Central core is cleared, redirect swarm towards furthest ARS for first hacking.
Ship-Hacker being guarded by 30 Raid II SSs to make sure nothing ugly happens enroute.

4:20:00 All the areas are reacting to the ship-hacker in transit even when they don't have an ARS on planet.  I thought this was corrected?

4:21:00 ARS Hack 1 started.

4:22:00 Hack 1 spawn compositions:
3/31/2012 12:31:13 PM (5.031) 4:21:40   Counter-Saboteur Spawn on Green Lantern (playerNumber:
spawnStrength = max(1,(AIDifficulty * Handicap)) * 2.5 = 22.5
kRaidAntagonism = TotalAmountOfKnowledgeRaided * (10000/3000) = 0
kRaidAntagonism *= (8/TotalHumanPlayersThatGetKnowledgeCount) = 0
superTerminalAntagonism = TotalNumberOfSuperTerminalTicks * 1500 = 0
shipDesignHackingAntagonism = if 1 Adv Research Station hacked then 30k, if 2 hacked then 90k, if 3 270k, etc = 0
totalHackingAntagonism = 0
multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = max(1,(totalHackingAntagonism-80000)/160000) = 1
spawnStrength *= multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = 22.5
maximumNumberOfWildRolls = 1 + (totalHackingAntagonism/40000) = 1
wild-roll:TachyonPulse, spawnStrength = 22.5
spawnedType:MissileShipII quantity:5 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:BomberII quantity:3 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:ZenithViralShredderII quantity:3 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:ZenithParalyzerII quantity:1 (strength-each:2)

4:25:00 Build another Ship-Hacker at JJ to make sure I don't have to travel this one back through enemy territory after the huge increase in Hacking.

Shove said Ship-Hacker in a transport.

4:26:00 5 minutes to go.  Twiddle.

4:29:00 Pickup all the support units (rebuilders and Engi IIIs) that have been left behind by the swarm and ship to Nero.  Twiddle for another 2 minutes.

4:30:00 Cookie's threatening the defensive fleet at Nero, not much I can do about that.  Guess I'll rebuild later.  Going to stuff them in the central core and hope he passes us by.

4:31:00 Cookie is helping kill the wave on Nero and most of the fleet escaped to HotSauce.  Hacking done, blow up the ship-hacker.  redirect swarm to second hack location.

4:32:00 Cookie's moved back up into the Bob region, and the defensive fleet comes home to finish cleanup work.

4:33:00 Second Hack begun.

3/31/2012 12:47:47 PM (5.031) 4:33:00   Counter-Saboteur Spawn on Confederation  (playerNumber:
spawnStrength = max(1,(AIDifficulty * Handicap)) * 2.5 = 22.5
kRaidAntagonism = TotalAmountOfKnowledgeRaided * (10000/3000) = 0
kRaidAntagonism *= (8/TotalHumanPlayersThatGetKnowledgeCount) = 0
superTerminalAntagonism = TotalNumberOfSuperTerminalTicks * 1500 = 0
shipDesignHackingAntagonism = if 1 Adv Research Station hacked then 30k, if 2 hacked then 90k, if 3 270k, etc = 30000
totalHackingAntagonism = 30000
multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = max(1,(totalHackingAntagonism-80000)/160000) = 1
spawnStrength *= multiplierForSabotageResponseSpawn = 22.5
maximumNumberOfWildRolls = 1 + (totalHackingAntagonism/40000) = 1
wild-roll:ShortRangeWarpJump, spawnStrength = 22.5
spawnedType:ZenithViralShredderII quantity:1 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:MissileShipII quantity:3 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:FighterII quantity:3 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:BomberII quantity:3 (strength-each:2)
spawnedType:ZenithParalyzerII quantity:2 (strength-each:2)


Still good to go.  Probably could have done both at once.  Will remember.

4:38:00 Twiddle.  Stop using nano-parasites in the swarm and use them on the Whipping Boy.  Dig deeper into Bob with the scout armada.

4:39:30 In preparation of taking the ARS systems, the Raids go out warp-gate hunting.

4:43:00 Ship Design Hack complete, blow up the hacker.  Blow the local cmd-station and prepare a colony ship.

4:45:00 All cmd stations with aRS's popped, warp gates popped, AIP at 202.  Colony ships enroute and a team of Engi IIIs are standing by to support builds as they appear.

4:48:00 2/3 ain't bad, but I still got Teleport Raiders.  Ah well.  Toss 'em in the swarm I guess.

4:53:00 Trying to soak the K off Blackstone which I'd just neutraled earlier, 1/5 of a wave heads for it.  Redirect the kids there.  I've built out 125 Grenade Thrower Vs and 5 Blade Spawner Vs for the Whipping Boy from Fabs, and dropped a Fab Warp Gate on Nero to make sure they get where they needed to be.

Almost done in the backfield.  Fact IV and setup on HotSauce next then we chew up Bob.

4:55:00 While defending from the wave, I blow the cmd station to not have to do this twice if they back-to-back on me.

4:57:00 The wave bled out to the Blade Spawner V ARS world and managed to clean it off before the swarm could defend it.  Still have a Spider V fab there I missed earlier that I'd like to protect, depends on what the swarm pulls off.

... No joy, they got caught up on the tail of the wave and couldn't get to the ones hitting the system.

4:58:30 Swarm was able to finish cleanup before they got to the Grenade Spawners.  Little bit left I guess, oh well.  Rebuild the other system since I already warp-gate cleaned it and i'll let it sit.  REdirect the swarm into Bob.

5:00 Use some of my 16,000 K to bring Nanites and Tigers to Grade III.  Realize that wasn't the brightest considering the MK IV factory I'm about to take, but I'll live.

Swarm is stuck on a threatball hanging out in Irian (Nero's Wave feeder).  It'll break eventually, not worried.

5:01:00 Game is starting to get really chewy on wave arrivals.  REALLY shoulda went lowcap.  AIP is 227, AIs are at Tech II.  Time to tag a few more data centers/hit the CPs.

threatball in Irian is RUNNING, not assisting.  LOL.

5:03:00 HotSauce and Fact IV conquered, begin moving swarm-spawn secondary units.  Shut down space docks on JJ in case of horrible failure of intent.

5:04:00 HotSauce is built up with 15 Space Docks, 100 Engi Is, 27 Engi IIIs, and Cockroaches are brought up to MK III/IV.  An FRD path through most of the visible planets is built for them to clean up a massive swath.  Mirrors and Teleport Raiders are included in the swarm.

5:05:00 An attempt to send the raids out to get the Cps ends badly as they jam against the threatball in Irian and a grav guardian.  Retreat before they get wasted and ruin my econ.

5:07:30 Finally the swarm broke the threat-ball on Irian.  The Teleport Raiders on FRD are nearly useless, they don't stop long enough to acquire targets.  Deactivate the raiders from the swarm build.  They're basically just annoying a bunch of neinzul spawner posts.

5:08:00 My econ finally tanks just building 'normally'.  It's about due... XD

5:10  I put up regen chambers for the parasites in Nero.  It'll screw up the swarm attacks but I need to get the econ a chance to breathe.  I'll blow them later.

5:14:00 Achievement Gained: What have we done.
3/4 CoPs destroyed.

5:15:00  A bomber that I didn't notice that the raids woke up hunting CPs down takes out Kerensky's Econ I.  Oh drat.  Deal with that shortly.

5:15:30 4th CP down, 171 AIP.
Cookie's in Irian screwing with the swarm.  Deactivate the swarm build until he passes by.

5:16:00 Cookie heads to Nero, defense fleet runs for its life.

5:18:00 Cookie's headed off. start building tele raiders on the whipping boy as a fast-response defense force to avoid cmd center loss in the future.

5:19:30 Econ's repaired, reactivate the swarm generators.

5:24:00 Rear random drifters keep annoying my back-systems.  Everyone gets 10-20 Basic Is.

5:26:00 Needing to still pop an E-Class CSG, I take one in the center of Bob.  The last HW is in the farthest point of Bob in the upper right.  Still still be a bit out of reach, but I'll live with that.  I need a neutral up in there.

5:27:30 I blow Dyson's command center for one less problem later.

5:29:00 Scrap 1500 Teleport Raiders just because.  Achievement time, chasing the 20k scrapped one.

5:30:00 With the last CSG down, remap the swarm into the AI Eye held HW Canopus.  I'll be sending the raids to reinforce once they get there.  Waves are interrupting the swarm attacks, but at least no threatball is allowed to live.

5:31:00 Instead of trying to defend the satellite jump system, I blow the reactors and the cmd station.  Too many enemies nearby and an Ai Eye with counterstrike as well.  Don't want to get hung up again.

5:33:00 Swarm hits Canopus.  AI Eye is spawning MK IIs, very nice.  Swarm might have a chance here.  Raids are waiting for refill of lost soldiers.

5:36:00 Change of plans for the raids.  Not much left in the AI HW, so they're going to start clearing the swarm path to the fnial HW of Eyes and other assundry annouances, including Data Centers.  We're approaching Tech II again.

5:39:00 Blow up another 1400+ Teleport Raiders.  Raids are digging around the backfield hunting down low-hanging fruit for ease later.

Swarm is ~70% done on a HW SpireShield/FF V Combo.

5:42:00 Somehow, I lost my Raid Armada again.  I have no idea how, they just died in transit home, completely.  Well,crap.

That's gonna wreck the econ, 'eh?

5:42:30 Build 600 Metal-> Crystal Converters back on JJ.  They'll finish eventually.

5:43:00 Send the 20xBomber SS Fleet to Canopus to help finish the spireshieldpost.

5:44:30 AI Eye on Canopus falls.

5:46:00 Another 1470 Teleport Raiders are scrapped.  Woot woot.

5:48:00 Kids finish cleanup in AI HW, leave cmd station.  Begin cleanup of path to final HW: Superman.

5:58:00 A massive threat releases in the back, not sure from where.  Barely save Confederation, Kerensky fell again.

6:00:00 A 10,000 ship wave hits Nero.  The swarm is having significant problems against an AI Eye leading back towards Superman.  15/30 Raids rebuilt.

6:02:00 I stop building MK I Triangle Ships, realizing why I'm not getting any reclamations... D'oh!  Stop building MK I Paralyzers, too.

6:03:00 Remnants of the swarm which have been re-directioned to a defensive posture are finally able to clear the AI Eye and 2 MK III FFs from target planet.  Popping CMd Station as final jump point.

Finally got a look at Superman.  Raid Engine + AI Eye.  Sounds familiar.

6:04:00 Send the MK I fleet out on a suicide mission so they can a) get killed for reclamations and b) go do something useful at the same time.  Probably will end up running into the Raid Engine... XD

6:06:00 Scrap off another 1400 + Tele Raiders

6:07:00 Raids are 700 ships, roughly.  Should be about even with the swarm since they'll be MK IV.  This should get lively...

6:08:00 Of course, raid + coreworld vs. swarm was another matter...

Did I mention the AI also has gotten nano-parasites?  They tend to chew into the swarm pretty effectively...

6:09:30 Redirect nanoparasites on defense to help with offense.  Go get me some MK IV!

6:12:00 A couple of swarm ships snuck through and set off the engine again.  D'oh!

21 Raid SS's rebuilt so far.

6:15:00  or so.  Another 1 weasel gets to Camel and lights up Superman's Raid Engine.  Enough of that.  All swarms are sent to not go to that planet again until I can get the galaxy to settle down.

6:19:00 It's world war Swarm out in the space between Nero and the homeworld.  They've got a wormhole camped and my swarm is just barrelling into them.  I fouled up econ briefly so the swarm lost momentum, they're back on track now.

6:21:00 With scrapping another 1400 or so Raiders: Pile 'em on the Heap achievement complete.
That one for reclamation's gonna take a bit, I fear...

6:25:00 Assault on Camel re-ignites.  Raid engine gets itself all excited again at the prospect of some more murder.

6:28:00 Assault fails getting chewed on by the Raid, but more of the locals were cleared, and most of a Fort III (there's 2, one under glass) was taken down.  Raid SS's are almost ready to be engaged while the swarm distracts.  One more run.  Swarm redirected to holding position just off Camel.

Second Raid Engine was engaged before all of the swarm was destroyed.  Whoops.

6:30:00 For giggles, an 8000 ship wave announces for Nero.  Woot woot!  *facepalm*

6:32:00 An announcement for 1 Massive ship (0FP) announces.  I don't have exos on.

Wha?

6:37:30  Distraction wave hits Raid Engine, Raid SS fly past.  Trapped by Grav Guardian.  kill Grav and Mass Orbital, run for Raid, pop it.

Most of Raid SS dies to Heavy Beam post.  Ow.

Redirect swarm to HW.

6:38:00 Blow up more Tele Raiders.

6:40:00 Realize I'm at 2 million in power and get the hamsters to turn off a ton of reactors.

6:42:00 AIP goes to Tech II, no more reducers available.  6000 ship wave inbound at Nero.

6:42:30 Blow up more Teleport Raiders

6:47:00 HAving sent the majority of the fleet out to die/get reclaimed again, I start building MK I triangles again and open up HBC Is.  I then drop the 60 on the whipping boy entry.

6:48:30 CPA announces, 1500 ships or so.

6:50:00 Swarm vs. AI Eye/Homeworld going alright, but losing ground.  AI Eye protected by one post at this point, spireshield.

6:51:00 Realize Cookie's on swarm build world.  Shut them down, get my econ back into something reasonable.

6:59:00 No signficant progress yet.  CPA releases, a lot of little bit here, little bit there threat lights up.  Will probably wreck the backfield.  Suddenly wish I still had some tele raiders...   Though, there's a few things they can't shoot, like Viral Shredders, who are the real danger.

7:03:00 Things are getting dicey in the backfield.  I take all my MK II Triangles and send them back towards Eaglecraft to help defend the Homeworld that's getting almost all the action.

Having forgotten about my Merc Fighters, they get involved.

-- No go.  Savescum to 7:00, and get the Mercs involved a bit earlier.

7:01:00 The Merc Fighters tear through the offensive concerns.  All rear systems are lost.  Begin rebuilding process while continuing to sweep for annoyance threat drift.

7:18:00 Still attacking AI HW, still trying to rebuild rear systems.  It's becoming a significant hassle.

-- Dinner Break --

[Wanderer]

No significant notes.  At around 7:30 or so I broke the spire shieldpost on Superman.  Then I screwed around for 50 minutes getting the 30,000 ships reclaimed and 20,000 scrapped achievements after blowing up the Command Center.  Once I had those, in 1 minute the other command station fell to 30 Raid Starships.

I did go get some more knowledge at one point and had 155 of each mk of lightning turret up.  Let's just say it was a VERY pretty light show... once my computer would unjam against 8000 ship waves...

Finally got the devourer beaten, at least.

Hm, I need to win on a 10 planet map.  Wonder if I could 8*HW Fallen Spire that...    But, where would we build? 

I may retry this seed with significant opponents/plot items instead next time.

[keith.lamothe]

Congratulations   Pursuing variety instead of continuing to pave Earth over with a hyperspace bypass, you have consumed the galaxy with unending swarms of ravenous fruit-fly-analogs.  Well done.

I may retry this seed with significant opponents/plot items instead next time.

That would be entertaining, I think.  Though I imagine the kids would eat the hybrids alive because the hybrids' production infrastructure is accessible.  But with roaming enclaves and preservation wardens they could probably put on a lot more pressure.  Tossing in Golems-Hard and/or Spirecraft-Hard without using the superweapons would be for the true "swarm beats rock, swarm beats paper, swarm beats scissors" game

And just to make sure it's recorded around here somewhere (probably will put it in a new sticky with the seeds for this game, since folks asked), after finding a seed for Coppermantis's spire-themed game, also found a seed with Blade Spawners, Maws, SSB's, Tractor Platforms, Gravity Drains, and Teleporting Leeches (and gravity rippers incidentally are right next to some of those too, but probably nobody cares about that right now) :

Map Seed: 1243604790
With:
Map Type: Simple
Planet Count: 80
Campaign Type: Conquest
Expansions: all three on
Available Ships: Complex
Cloaking, Teleporting, Parasites, Tractor Beams and Swallowers on (the others may be on or not on at your discretion)

Anyway, I figured someday you'd want to try that one.