Do not pass Go....

[Wanderer]

... do not collect $200.  Go directly to homeworld.

Seed: 1751178491 - Maze A - 10 worlds - All Expands
Homeworlds: 8
Minor Factions: None
Modifiers: Schizo
Plots: None

Ships: Complex, but NO CSGs (I've never done a CSG-less game)

Options: Normal/Normal/High/Full/No Cheats/Show unexplored.

Starting ships:
Acid Sprayer
MiniRam
Blade Spawner
Teleport Station
Raptor
Armor Rotter
Sentinel
Youngling Vulture

AI:
Technologist Homeworlder 10
Zenith Decendent 10

Objective: Insta-kill the AI.  No worlds (except leading whipping boy).  No ARS. No Fact IV.  Open and shut game (and clearing the 10 world achievement).

Well, so much for no Fact IV, the whipping boy has one... as well as a counterstrike, great.  Fine, we'll do a homeworld defense.

Unlock Grav Turrets and Harvester IIs.  Set all homeworlds to 2x Reactor builds.  Drop off a web of gravs.  Set Skye (leading edge homeworld) to autobuild 70 Engi Is and 20 Rebuilders.  10 FFs on both wormholes (one leading deeper to homeworlds and inbound) and another 20 over the home station.

Put up another space dock with exactly the same build orders so the engineers don't overwhelm a single one.

First homeworld is found, 4 off the homeworld at Pox Aurelia.  No particularly nasty posts other than a pair of Neinzul Spawners.

One of my choices are Youngling vultures.  They need to go to work.  They get set to FRD into the first planet from a third space dock.

80 Scout Is cannot successfully survive landing on a Homeworld planet 4 worlds out.  That's a hint.

No turrets going up yet, I'm waiting for full fleet build.  Enemy has a mess of nasty things.  Mirros, Z-Bombards, Beam Frigates etc.

First wave to attack is 8*50 ships.  must be the Technologist.  421 ships total.  The fleet is at 1242 ships.  They're gonna get WIPED... ROFL.

AIP is at 11 at 8:00 due to SF Post.

60 MK IV Virals are TOUGH to stop, just FYI.  PArticularly with a MK I overload.   So are 7 MK IV Spire Starships.

Next wave from the MK II inbounds is 2,429 ships.  We're still trying to kill off the Technologist.

To help out I drop off the first bank of 280 LRMs, and let them start building.  I also build off maximum Engineers and drop some more FFs on the inbound wormhole.  This is about the time I notice those Spire Flagships have Dampening.  Oh how cute.  Drop off a bank of full snipers.

1,800 ships are on the homeworld station at 12:30.  BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.  No joy. XD  The MK IV/Vs were easier to stop!

YOU HAVE LOST

[Wanderer]

Round 2... All Turrets, ALL THE TIME!

This time, though, Harvester IIIs.

Massive banks of Snipers, Lightnings, and Basics dropped first, along with a huge pile of forcefields.  No ships building.  I decide a flock of Fighters are cheap and effective, as are the vultures (after dropping a regen chamber).

With those built, I drop the stack of MLRS between the two wormholes.

First wave announce at 6:44 414 ships again. 

Next, the Flak Batteries.

The turrets fared WORSE against the MK IV Assault.  We'll see how well we can rebuild in time for the next wave of 2,308 ships.  Most of the AoEs are down.

Something, on arrival, blew apart over half the turrets under the forcefield.  My guess is it's the alpha strike from four siege starships.

... Well, that held a little better, made it to ~16:00 this time.  But yeah...  The world survived longer but they'd punched through all the +AIP stuff hiding next to the homeworld.

Interestingly I had plenty of income still while everything was dead and they couldn't finish punching through the final forcefields on the cmd center for a while.

Just nothing was using it.  Maybe if I used the second world in to support with ships while the first world does a turret build...

Still, the Tech IV mini-wave is a lot easier to handle though than the massive numbers of Tech II.  Hmmmm....

[Coppermantis]

Always wanted to try this. I'll be interested to see how this turns out!

[keith.lamothe]

10-planets is a cage match.  The AI is kind of like a grizzly bear: if it notices you, and feels at all threatened, you have a serious problem.  10/10 AIs are kind of like a... some kind of greek-legend-demigod grizzly-bear-sabertooth-tiger-combo with electrified adamantine claws/teeth/etc.

10-planets on 10/10 (with a technologist, to boot) is a cage match with some kind of... yea, you get the idea

I know they aren't the i-win they used to be, but are tazers being used?

If you want to try a variation after a couple rounds of adamantine evisceration, you could turn on cross-planet-waves so that the enemy ships don't materialize out of thin air on your wormhole but instead come from an AI planet and pile up on the other side of said wormhole (until they think they can take you, at least).

[_K_]

You better hurry up before 5.036 kicks in or you might have it a little harder than right now.

[TechSY730]

If you want to try a variation after a couple rounds of adamantine evisceration, you could turn on cross-planet-waves so that the enemy ships don't materialize out of thin air on your wormhole but instead come from an AI planet and pile up on the other side of said wormhole (until they think they can take you, at least).

Yea, it makes waves less immediately threatening, but it makes "threat balling" an even bigger factor and chokepointing and gate raiding much, MUCH less effective.
So, pick your poison.

[Wanderer]

So, I finally got things well enough organized to figure out how to defend the massive Zenith assault.  I'm still 98% sure the Alpha from the Plasma Sieges are what's laying out over half my turrets under the inbound FFs.

Alright, a few things. 

1) You need more research, and you need it quickly.  Drop at least 5 Science Is in the backfield, you'll need 'em.
2) Counter Missile Turret is your friend, so are my old friends, the Tazers.  That's 8K in research you won't have at the beginning, because...
3) You need a massive economy to get your defenses up.

Initial build: If it's a cheap ship, build it.  Fighters, Raptors, Acid Sprayers, and Youngling Vultures, roger dodger.
Next, start laying down your grav field and extra FFs.  Once those go up start balancing out your economy by dropping massive amounts of whatever turret you have too much material for.

Those 100+ engineers you can build?  You're overwhelming any Space Dock with them, fire up one space dock for each ship you've got if you survive the second wave.  Dedicate at least 12 Engineers to your Starship Builder too, you never want them to stop pumping out Riot IIs until you've got at least 10 of them.

I've survived to 15 minutes, time to start eating the galaxy.

[Wanderer]

The Vulture crew has been trying to chew their way out into the universe on FRD-Patrol.  They broke the two planets of heavy reinforcements but have been dying 3 out.   Meanwhile I've kept the fleet mostly back to see how things would progress.

Waves from the Techno are at 400 or so ships at AIP 11 right now.  He's actually NOT the threat on waves, at least not right now.  Where that's causing all sorts of grief is trying to chew his planets up.

I've only gotten one wave off the Zenith right now, and that was his initial 'backup' wave at ~10 minutes in for 2400 ships.  That took FOREVER to kill, but kill it we did.  With the fleet now built I don't expect as much of a problem, though it does mean I need to behave myself.  I've been waiting for its next wave before I move the fleet out.

The map itself actually looks like a snake map, it spirals from the inside out.  I've taken the inside and am working my way around the outside.  Map posted below.

I won't bore you with minutia details on this AAR.  I've got 16,250 more K I can spend researched off the rear worlds, and that's it with the whole 'take nothing' theory.  Though, I DO have to pop that homeworld that's 5 worlds out eventually.  It'll give me a stepstone as well as net me 3000 K.  Problem: Jumping THAT much AIP in this fight WILL kill me.  It's got to be a double kill.  I'll probably be investing a ton in defenses here shortly.

My next unlock will most likely be Fortress Is.  You'd think that wouldn't be so great, but with 8 homeworlds I get *40* of them.  Forty. Four Zero.  DAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMNNNNNNN.  That should help hold the front door, particularly if I pick up Acid IIs and let the Acid's hang back to help with anti-Polycrystal work.  I'll let ya know once things settle down.  Econ's pretty much staying near max but I'm negative at the moment, and I want full econ when the next wave impacts.

I should mention the multi-planet energy improvement is working FANTASTICALLY.  Thanks for that Keith.  Makes life SO much less painful when dealing with the massive troop volume for multi-homeworld.

After a while of waiting I send out the main fleet and try a Teleport Station raid against the coreworld's Ion cannons.  They kill *1* Ion cannon.  So impressed.  The Vultures had gotten tied up trying to deal with the coreworld and the leftovers + reinforcements along the attack line so the fleet showed up to help.  I'd like to mention 5 MK V Laser Guardians are PAINFUL.  My fleet lasted ABOUT 2 minutes.

After a bit of pain I've got a MK I-V fleet ball of around 315 ships parked on my entryway.  I figure they'll come in with the next wave.  I've stopped the Youngling assault for now (they were just suiciding) and am building off 8 Fortress Is.  Yes, my econ cried at that too.  I ended up only building them 4 at a time because of the utter destruction my econ took.  Not that it was much better but at least I could expect to get some of them operational eventually.

At 40 minutes in, Zenith-boy STILL hadn't sent me a wave.  I was starting to get a LITTLE nervous.

Feeling ornery I decided to test out ~250 vultures vs. the threatball.  I think the threatball GAINED strength.  Well, alrighty then.

Eventually, Zenith boy gets his pants in a dither.  7200 ships at AIP 13.  *blink*  To be a wise-guy, Techno backs him up with roughly 700 MK IV ships.  Hooooo boy.

Right out of the gates I had 109 dead turrets under the FFs.  They also cold-clocked the 4 Fortresses that were at close range.  When I say cold-clocked, I mean dead on enemy spawnup.  My guess? Zenith E-Bombers.   Time to move the forts back.  Happily, though, that threatball DID attack with the waves.  I got the inbound down to about 3000 ships when Techno-dropped in with his 700.

That let 500 or so ships (mostly IVs) reach the next homeworld's WH and blow down the 10x FF I had on it.  Not enough firepower.  Savescum back to the 15 minute mark...
Wow, I'd done a lot of things different between pt A and B.  Alright, let's swap a few things around.  First off, get the short-range turrets out from under FF.  They're just getting alpha'd to death anyway.  Besides, I eventually intend to drop an EMP Minefield there, to help out the Tazer-Riots.

This time I also build off a fleet of Bomber SSs.  I'd built off a fleet of Raids before but they didn't have enough 'ooomph' to even take down a single MK IV Spire Flagship with 24 of them.  The Bombers will come in handy.

Hopefully THIS time the AI doesn't max-wave me again, or at the worst hopefully I'm better prepared for it.

On a side note, you know your econ's twisted up in resource usage when you've got 20 of the new manufacturies going and you're STILL gaining Crystal in spite of that.

It's wierd, Techno seems to send all the raids until Zenith builds up this MASSIVE thumpage.

Again, at about 40 minutes, I get a 7000 ship wave sent at me.  Interesting.  No backup wave this time though.  Not really surprised, Techno's been going nuts with waves in comparison (3:1 ratio, roughly).

Tazers just off the WH only worked iffy.  The range wasn't enough to cover the massive fleet hanging off the WH to keep them shut-down.  I was *barely* able to shut that wave down.... with 6 fortresses in there to boot.  If they'd actually used the wormhole to the next planet they blew open with 700+ ships I'd ahve lost.

I'm going to save here at about 50 minutes in.  I've got to rebuild a crapload of stuff, unfortunately, and I'm tired.

However, it looks like the majority of this game is going to be like playing a round of defender mode.

[keith.lamothe]

My next unlock will most likely be Fortress Is.  You'd think that wouldn't be so great, but with 8 homeworlds I get *40* of them.

That's not an asteroid belt, those are space stations.

I should mention the multi-planet energy improvement is working FANTASTICALLY.  Thanks for that Keith.  Makes life SO much less painful when dealing with the massive troop volume for multi-homeworld.

Glad you can now move on to more interesting forms of extreme pain

I'd like to mention 5 MK V Laser Guardians are PAINFUL.  My fleet lasted ABOUT 2 minutes.

Good to hear the ol' workhorses still have it in them   Guardians had a pretty wild balance ride at first; initially puny, then reports of flak guardians wiping out entire fleets in a single salvo, then the artillery guardian firing a seemingly unending (and increasingly dense) salvo of missiles due to how overkill-refund worked, etc, etc.  A lot of nerfs since then, but they seem to be in a fairly good place now.

Eventually, Zenith boy gets his pants in a dither.  7200 ships at AIP 13.  *blink*

Yowza.  "That's what you get for starting with half the galaxy", I suppose.

On a side note, you know your econ's twisted up in resource usage when you've got 20 of the new manufacturies going and you're STILL gaining Crystal in spite of that.

Yea, that's pretty Messed Up (tm).  Homeworlds are certainly crystal-heavy.

However, it looks like the majority of this game is going to be like playing a round of defender mode.

Except no timer to win by

[Wanderer]

Because major wars are always fought better with a LOT of beer...

*Cracks another beer*

Please note: Last call was half an hour ago.  Yes, I took a taxi.

... and no, I can't aim my mouse all that well drunk.  Pause is your friend.

So, when I last left off most of my space docks were obliterated but a rebulid shouldn't take long, so that's step 1.  Step 2 is dropping a small ton of Gravs in front of them to not have to deal with THAT again...

So, with that done, I turn off the Vulture assault to save some mc and get the fleet/turrets rebuilt...

... and a wave of 730 MK IVs announces.  WOOOOOOOT!  Come get some you leetle suckas!  AIP 12 FTW!

On a random side note, what's with the rebuilders?  Rebuild 5 turrets in a second, get stuck trying to rebuild *1* for five seconds.

Okay, another random note.  Tazers + Riots + not being on wormhole = huh?

Alright, here's the scenario.  Because of how "well" the last tazer smack was working I pushed all but 4 of the Riot Tazers off the WH.  That's... errr... 25 of them sitting in the back waiting to be used.  However, those ones in the back that I didn't power down were the ones going off.  Back in tazer-lock land this wasn't a problem, it is now, the ones not actually in range of an enemy are screwing up the ones that are.  Easily handled with a power-down though.

... Odd.  32 Bomber SSs and they're all... dead?  I never took 'em out of the home system.  Well, fine.

Bored, I take the Raid SS's out for a drive...  This ends poorly.  I run into a threatball in the first system out + Grav Guardian.  I REALLY hate those things...  I lost 1/24 Raids just getting past it!

16 raids made it home from a run 2 planets out but cool!  I've got too much Xtal anyway.  The econ and engi's are mostly devoted to rebuilding the bomber SS fleet anyway.

I send the primary fleet through to clear the threat-ball with 2 Riot IIs for support.  Of the 1200 ships 950 come home, and most of the Raptors and Bombers were the casualties... because I didn't have ENOUGH metal problems apparently.

8 Fortresses up so far, I've had to go to 3 Powerplants/planet now.  I'm trying to keep a vig of 250k in power roughly.  I loose the Vultures again, who start pissing off the coreworld.  They're losing against released threat so I prep main fleet to support and send them out.  I lost a good 1/6th of them to the leech+firepower. Freow!

Mid-point wave ~6000 ships.  What's left of the main fleet heads home.  10 Forts. Of course, being a wise-guy, 1000 MK IV ships are the backup.

With the initial wave down to ~2000 ships the MK IV reinforcements arrive...

I don't have enough firepower.  The space docks are leveled.  The defenses are overrun.  There's 1300 ships in the system and they're laying waste to everything.  I finally stop the assault with AIP 60 from cryos and home settlement losses, along with another MK IV 900 ship wave announced.

That's all folks!

We'll try this again on a new map.  I wasn't happy with this one anyway once I realized how badly I fubar'd the deepstrike.

[keith.lamothe]

Better to take a Raid Starship out for a joyride and wrap it around a Grav Guardian than take a real car out and wrap it around a tree

Yea, 10/10 on 8 Homeworlds... dazzalotaships, Occifer.

[Wanderer]

Alright, gonna try this again.

Step 1: Swap out Zenith Decendant for... Hrm... Entrenched homeworlder.  Keeping the Techno Homeworlder.

Next up: New map.  Want something that doesn't deep strike on the AI HWs.

Found what I wanted.  Same setup: Maze A 10 world, Seed: 1306251150  Whoops, wait, no go on that, the Station's practically parked on top of the inbound wormhole.  Barely can fit a Grav in there.
143718834... No, too difficult to defend the homeworld bound wormholes...
1565966110...  Now we're cookin' with oil.

Cutlass, Spider Bot, Infiltrator, Vampires, Microfighters, Grenade Launchers, Armor Boosters, and Y. Commandos.  Hrm.  This is not exactly under the header of 'a few of my favorite things'.

Pause at 0:00:01.  Everything until start is done under pause and if I say 'savescum to restart' when I unpause that's what I'll mean.

Alright, let's take a look at this hodge-podge.  All of these except the Armor Boosters (woot woot?) are light ships.  I'm going to be running HUGE fleets here.  It also means I've got very little punch.  I've got raiders in Claws and Infiltrators.  I'll need to use that to my advantage.  Launchers will help with Defense.  Commando Stream will give me some offensive boost and a permanent assault into enemy territory.  Spiders and Cutlass will primarily be a defensive build.  Armor Boosters... I dunno.  Don't ask yet.

Start with basics.  5 Science Is in the back on auto-research to push through the systems.  Engi IIs to No Way Out, the entry system. Scouts to the first outbound, Earth. What the heck is with me playing the Vorgons?  That system is literally going to end up as an interstellar bypass!

Next up, science.  Harvester IIIs, Grav Is.  That wipes out the opening science.

40 FFs for now, 20 near the inbound WH, 10 on Home, 10 on backfield exit.  Set No Way Out to produce maximum Engi Is and 22 Rebuilders on automatic.  Begin building the 1 Dock/ship setup in the back as well.  Regen Chamber too for the opening defenses for the Younglings.

Lay out a line of Grav Is (17 of them for now) from the inbound to the outbound.  Outbound is between Station and Inbound so that helps minimize the # needed.  I may get more out there eventually to protect the harvester attacker leakage but one thing at a time.

Econ is pretty even this time around for harvesters, so I drop in 50 snipers and 50 LRMs as well.  Caps are 280 ships for Fighters (and most turrets) to give you an idea of volume.

Unpause.  I'll use turret builds to even off construction deficits.

Trying to even things off from the massive FF/Grav build, 280 LRMs and 280 MRMs begin building ~2:00 in.  I drop in a few more gravs around the WH to keep the enemy at bay.  To obliterate my Metal overstock that's built up I drop a stack of Flaks near the WH.  They'll get lightnings eventually...  I need to survive the opening waves though.

I've let something slide... Riot IIs.  Time to fix that.  Also something else I wanted to setup for this round.  EMP Mines.  I drop 500 of the little puppies on the Inbound towards all the priority targets.

First wave is the Technologest with 342 ships.  Come get some.  The lightning turret swarm is currently building.  First tazer isn't built when they arrive, but the EMP minefield is up.  That didn't work as well as planned.  With the fleet going in after the enemy, they never really hit most of the minefield.  We'll see how things go when the larger fleets arrive.

I realize I've got a different problem.  I need to shut down the enemy's teleporter battlestations and I have -0- ways of doing that on a homeworld.  Well, crap.  I've got no way to protect the ship-builders.  I'm going to move them a world back, I think.

First 'normal' wave is 681 ships from the other AI.  Really?  That's wierd.  I check the wave logs, what's going on here?

Keith, I'm just attaching these for now (post length limit), I figure you'll get more out of them than I will, and I might take a look at 'em later, but that's just odd... and I want to play, not code scour at the moment.

I move most of the construction back a world and give them 60 of the Engi Is for fleet building.  That'll leave me 43 for turret rebuilds on the primary.  The Younglings will also build off No Way Out, only perma-ships were sent back to Eaglecraft (the construction world, first homeworld inbound from the front door).  Map's an attachment at the end.  I find it easier to see it in another window, personally.

Side note: My CPU is catching fire trying to track all these ships.

Got a look at one of the homeworlds.  It's packing a Raid Engine.  That'd be Blackstone on the left.

With the first two waves deflected and a solid Turret Core up, time to start Commando Assaults.  They start FRD'ing up the Riker path.

I need something metal heavy to produce, since I'm 999k to 7k in M/c.  Bomber SSs it is.  That's primarily because of a full stack of snipers being brought online though... or so I thought.

The Commandos are getting stuffed trying to get out due to a Theatball at Earth, so the entire fleet (3226 MK I ships with some starships) heads out to help.  Since I've got 'patrolling' on, I set them to FRD their way back to No Way Out so when they're done with cleanup they'll come home to the rally point.

Only 1432 ships from the main fleet actually survived to come home.  Massive Backwash comes in from Misery when the Commandos first get there and die almost immediately on the front door.  Almost all the enemy ships are MK III/IV at this point.  My guess is the II's just die.

To get nasty about things I start building off Plasma Sieges to assist with defense as well, also leeches.  Each ship gets its own Starship Dock back on Eaglecraft.

Next wave announces at about 20:00.  389 ships again, MK IV time.

I need to be careful here.  The younglings attacking Misery may set off an EMP that I'm not ready to deal with.  I send them in the other direction for now.

Once that wave is down, I send the Infiltrators to Misery.  Primary target, the EMP.  The rest of the fleet stands by to intercept at Earth if they have to... which didn't go as planned.  Guess what; I set another EMP off from the other direction in Mantis.  The main fleet heads in to intercept that one, instead!

Meanwhile I get a look at Riker, the eastern homeworld.  Nothing of particular nastiness on it.  Excellent.  So, Blackstone first with the Raid engine, then Riker.  Assuming I live that long.

About this time is when I realize INFILTRATORS DONT HAVE CLOAKING.  D'oh.... *facepalm*  With intense curiousity I see how long it takes 500+ infiltrators to take down a single EMP II.  Answer: WAAAAAY too long.  Useless gits.

The fleet heads out again to deal with a Fortress in Mantis as well as just generically harass the locals.  I also redirect the YCs up the Riker arm again, so I can work the left arm without significant concern of them 'setting off' the Raid Engine quite yet.

Still WAY outvolumed on Metal, I start up Light Starships.  This is becoming a theme...

We set off another EMP accidentally up the Riker arm, go commandos!  I'm not even sure why they bypassed Misery on EMP when there were still guardposts and whatnot to attack.  At a guess, the detection of killables isn't triggering directly on entry but on a pulse timer. Probably due to # of ships in the galaxy.  Either way it doesn't matter, need to eat the EMP IV.  Bomber SS flight to the rescue!

LOL, at 33:44 I get a message: "Did you think we wouldn't see?"  XD  AH!  Keeled off one of my scouts.

AIP is at 11 due to auto-increase now.  The bombers didn't quite get to the EMP in time in Misery but leveled it nearly immediately once they caught up with it in Earth.  Meanwhile, another Tech IV wave is hitting No Way Out about 35:00 in.  The fleet's hanging back to make sure they eat them before moving forward.

Some of the fleet was still fighting over in Mantis, and a Tractor Guardian ran off with some of the fleet towards Blackjack... and fired up a 118 ship MK IV wave.  Errr, ummm... oookay?  More threatening was the massive core backwash that came after me from Blackjack due to the tractor waking them up.

While I'm prepping for that, a 1500+ ship of MK IIs headed for No Way Out.  THat's looking a little more normal for wave size.  I decided to watch the EMP Mine fireworks and see how decent they were (they're still in the OP version).  Unimpressive due to hit-pattern.  However, the Tazers were working just fine.  There is now a MASSIVE fleetball of IV/V and a scattered set of IIs (with a lot of guardians) sitting on the entry WH.  Alrighty then.  *Revs up the chainsaws*  I send everyone out to meet 'em, trying to do a flash attack and bait them in.  Not so good.  I send 'em all back and this time they engage enmasse.

I'm ashamed to admit, they didn't get very far...  the ones that lived the longest were the ones the tractor gaurdians dragged off.  They DID clear about 80 of the ships off though.  From 330 to 247.  Another massive Fleet assault like that and I might get them (I'm not sending the Starships anywhere, they're purely defensive).  The Commandos are trying to keep up the pressure at least, a constant flood is suiciding out the gate.

Bombers are becoming a problem keeping at max compared to the others so I grab a small handful of Engineers and directly assign them to the dock building bombers.  That'll help a bit.  With another wave coming in I'm hoping the threatball will attack with them... which they unfortunately don't.  What they get actually is reinforcements from escapees!  Dangit.  I prep another massive assault.  If we can clear out the guardian mass I've got a reasonable chance of getting free again.  And that failed again.  Meh.

I setup a missile silo as a last ditch effort.  I want to avoid using it if I have to.  Also, my econ is maxxed off and I still can't build fast enough to dent it.  Looking over the build planet, over half my FRD'ing engineers are wasting time 'helping' a maxxed off space dock.  Lovely.

This time, the SSs are comign along for the ride to clear the threatball.  This is gonna hurt.  With massive Starship support the fleet is finally able to clear the outbound wormhole.  Wootah.  Those Starships (~100 of them) made it from a blockade into a speedbump.

Time for a Raid Run in one direction while the fleet heads in another.  To be a complete arse about things, I hit a Data Center in the Riker Arm.  AIP: 2.  Yep.  Two.

*point + giggle*

The Raids also whomp down the local Ions for a few planets and clean up some random stuff and head back to Eaglecraft before they overstay their welcome.  Meanwhile, the fleet heads west!  Not wanting to micro them I just let them FRD in Mantis.

Alright, problems.  There's AI Eyes in Blackjack and Blackstone.  That means it's not fleet-assaultable, at least not reasonably.  I send the fleet east to FRD their way up the Riker arm.  The Raids will work the west.  The fleet gets distracted though chewing up a ton of threat that started parking in Earth screwing things all to heck for the Youngling FRD-Assault.  They basically die to it, unfortunately, until I send the 32 Bomber SS Is in to give them a hand with the guardians.

I've still got 18k in Research.  Tempting to boot up Raid IIs.  So I do.

Not a lot left of the fleet after getting caught up in a vs. MK IV battle in Earth, so they just head back to No Way Out to hold the doors... and let some of my Engi's concentrate on Raid IIs instead of fleet rebuilds.

At 1 Hour I've cleared holes into the coreworlds but I haven't really pushed into them yet.  Keep getting tied up by MK IV Threatballs on the inbound door.  I don't want to blow my research just in case I need it for defense as long as I've got some momentum, which I do, just not a lot of it.  Kinda bored waiting around for the Raid SS IIs to build, but I *do* have momentum.  Bored here is a relative term.  Raid SS IIs building in 16 seconds each is a bit fast in any book.

I decide to send the fleet in a group attack formation up the Riker arm.  They'll blow away the guardians the Commandos are dealing with and hopefully clear some backwash out of Solaris VII.  Besides, the Raids finished and my econ got bored...

I set the Raids on a 'bounce around the world' in Blackjack to clear all the GPs, Ions, Mass Drivers, etc.  It's got a Superfort in it as well as a regular fort that will need to be cleared eventually.  This is going to fire up a LOT of threat, though.

In the middle of all that, a 1500 ship wave fires up.  This should get ugly.

When the fleet hit Solaris VII, they got SLAUGHTERED.  It wasn't a fight.  All they could do was try to drain off enough firepower to make it easier for later.  At least the fleet will be rebuilding for the inbound wave... 1500 ships at AIP 2... yeesh.

Massive amounts of threat now inhabit the galaxy... 1103 of it to be precise.  1:10.  The wave however was easily turned away... because half of it ran for the hills!  I send the fleet (with SSs) to clear the threatball gathering on Earth.  If I let the never ending threatball rebuild... 1000 ships.  Good grief.  OW.  Too late.

After a certain point I just had the fleet beat feet.  I've got a plan but it'll take a little doing.  A quick review confirms my assumptions.  There's nothing there with tachyons.  Good, I can sneak a bait fleet out.  I need to fully refleet though.  There's 774 enemies on the inbound.  After I fix this I'm going to have to do something permanent about these never-ending threatballs.  Permanent and drastic.

At AIP 2, I'm still apparently under the floor for waves.  802 MK IV ships inbound to No Way Out.  This should get completely and utterly ugly.  I'm still waiting for the Bomber SSs to fire up and they've been pretty heavily necessary on defense.  I've only got 4 right now.

Threat ball is up to 804.  I'm hoping they'll push in with this wave into the defenses.  That'll be 1600+ MK IV but I think the defenses can take it.

I got it to work... ish.  The Vampires (cloaked and over in Earth, waiting to play bait) were fired up while the wave hit.  Since the threatball could either stay and fight or push in and help out the wave attack, about 2/3s committed to the attack!  Woootah!  Of course, the AI is dropping a 700 ship wave right into the middle of that from the Tech II.  The first wave was erased, along with the additional threat, before they land however.  Nice try, AI.

The fleet, not worried about a TII mini-wave, heads out to finish clearing Earth.

I decide it's time to invest some more K.

Spider Turrets, Fortress Is, Engi IIs.  I'm about to plant a flag on Earth.  I do save right before I sink the K though.

First up, grab an edge, drop some gravs on it, then drop 80 Spiders.  Metal Econ's on the ground right now, the home team just started rebuilding the Bomber SSs.  That's okay, I start building a fortress anyway.  I also manually flip on 3 planets worth of metal manufacturies.  Unfortunately, at ~97% complete on the fortress a wave hit No Way Out, and all the escapee starships wailed into the building assault force on Earth.  The main fleet will have to hang out on Earth till I have at least 5 Forts in place.

Realizing the Fortresses are going to kick me up an energy problem, I fire up all worlds to 3 Generators each.  I only have 200k in power at the moment, barely a buffer for a force this size.

I figured out what the Youngling's problem was, why I had so many 'drift pasts'.  The entire fleet doesn't acquire targets at once (only 40 or so) so you can watch them break off from the pack as they decide to fight.

Bored waiting on construction, I send out the Raids again, this time, they're after Blackstone.  It's time to start ending this.  They head right after the Raid engine.  AIP is 3 at the beginning of the assault.  AIP is 4 when done.  About the time they start looking raunchy with a lot of pain, I yank 'em out and head 'em home.  Only 27 make it back of the 48 that went out.  Still, nice raid.

At 1:35 we're up to 4 fortresses built and the raids rebuilding.  The majority of the fleet is still in Earth making sure the anti-threatball doesn't come loose until it's prepped.  I finally pull them back for repairs after the mass threat the Raids released finally dies with 4 forts built and the fifth nearly complete.

The Asteroid Belt (that many fortresses can't be called anything else, thanks for the name, Keith...) is able to hold up decently against drifters.  Excellent.  Time to see what they'll do against wave fallout.  I'm waiting on the raids to rebuild at the moment.

I still have 7750 in K left that I'll hang onto for now.  Want to stay versatile.

A youngling vs. Virus war has developed on the Eastern arm in Misery.    They're basically staying even with each other, I'll have to send something over to break the stagnation eventually.

That's interesting.  With the asteroid belt of fortresses out on the inbound planet, the wave doesn't seem to want to run away as much anymore.  Sure, a few stragglers made a break for it but none of the heavy 'REVERSE ENGINES!' I'm used to seeing.

1:41 and the Raids are ready to rock'n'roll again.

After the reraid on Blackstone, clearing the Eye and making the Cmd Station vulnerable, AIP is at 17.  Go go Gadget Data Center.  Now for Riker and the deepstrikes.  Only 26 Raids made it home but that's good enough for me.  The Asteroid Belt is taking care of guardian drifter and everything else attempting to threatball up dies to the spiders very nicely.  6 Fortresses now.  I basically always have one under construction with 10 Engi IIs working it.

Time to take the fleet out for a walk.  2600 ships, all MK I.  Let's see what kind of damage I can do to the universe.

I start to realize the Spiders aren't defending the asteroids. The asteroids are defending the spiders.  Really the biggest concern is that the snipers can't whack the guardians and the forts chew them up. 

1:48: Start the 8th Fortress.  The fleet's busy knocking over some FF IIIs that kept hanging up the Commandos in Misery.

Waves are starting to get nasty.  3000 ships Tech II to No Way Out.  Just a little bump in AIP and ugh.  Majority of the fleet's out gallavanting so this will be interesting.  Time to REALLY see what the EMP minefield is worth.  This wave was VERY heavy on the Cutlasses, over 1000 of those alone.  The wave went down without significant impact, but I did need to toss about 10 more FFs up for later if I intend to protect the Riots.  No escapees did any significant damage.  I also decide I'm going to drop a few fortresses on No Way Out... just in case.

Meanwhile, the fleet continues to hunt the Riker arm, working through Neverending Story.  With the Raids ready to go again, I ship them up to Solaris VII to pop the Ions and friends before the fleet needs to get in there.

With 2000 ships left, I invade Solaris VII with the fleet.  Riker's sporting 360+ ships and that's only gonna get worse.  Blackstone is back up to 320.

At 1:58 with an AIP of 18 I send the raids after Riker to pop the necessary cannons.  The fleet stalled hard in Solaris VII when a batch of Fighter Vs landed on the MK I bomber fleet who were working over a fortress and laid waste to them.  The rest of the fleet didn't do all that much but eat up a bunch of locals.  I'm suiciding them and letting them rebuild while I work the raids, and build another fort or two on No Way Out.

A single assault against a Heavy Beam post on Riker knocked out 13 of my Raid SSs.  Ow.  Knocking out two more of them left me with 11 Raid SSs.  I sent them after the remaining posts under glass and two Core Boosters in there.  They never made it home.  I also have to deal with a spireshieldpost.

The asteroid belt in Earth is under HEAVY assault from 400 MK IV+ ships due to backwash from the assaults.  That assault team just kept building, too, in firepower.  I send what's rebuilt of the fleet out to support... which most of it was able to rebuild.  AIP is at 34 though, and waves will be brutal.  I need to keep the front door sealed and I don't want the fleet to be hanging around out there forever.

With the fleet as cannon fodder, the asteroid belt has gone to work, laying waste to huge swaths of the enemy.  Massive inbounds from both directions were flooding in.  All the fleet's really doing is giving them something at short range to shoot at while the spiders and forts chew up everything.  Watching that many Forts fire is more like watching artillery...

2800 Fleet went in.  1100 came home.

I've been doing a lot of suicide runs lately, but as long as I don't mis-time it I should be alright.  I'm still waiting on the raid rebuild.  I want to double pop the AI HWs.

I deactivate the Youngling Commandos.  I don't want them to continue to set off massive planets for reinforcements right now.

A wave spawns up, 1800 ships.  That's within reason for the defenses, and since the fleet's good to go so I get them heading up to Solaris VII.  Once they've dealt with the Fortress there they can start heading into Riker.  I turn the Commandos back on to support the Solaris VII assault.

Cute.  Because of the numbers, i hadn't realized that was 1800 MK IV ships, I thought it was the MK II.  The MK II sets up a back to back wave on me with another 1800 ships.  This should get interesting.  The first wave is cleared before the second hits, but repairs aren't done.  The majority of the primary run of the EMP Minefield is still destroyed and the Protective FFs for the Riots are still rebuilding.

The MK II wave, however, dies in a very unglorified fashion.  They just... melt.

The fleet having popped the Fort on Solaris VII heads for a Deepstrike on Riker to try to take down the Spire Shieldpost.

Because of the constant flow of MK V threat ships, it's almost like fighting an Eye.  I set the fleet for suicide against the shieldpost, and see what they can do.

In the end, I've got 1300 threat (ALL MK V) and the spire shieldpost is down to 67%.  This will be ugly.  I send what's rebuilt of the fleetships out to Earth to help the asteroid belt hold off the inbounds.  There's a ton of ships ED'd on Riker still that won't move for a while.  I'll have to plow through them on the next run.  Suddenly glad I invested in another 60 spiders for Earth, the extra anti-bomber is helping nicely, particularly since one of the wormholes is out of range of the Fortresses.

Since my biggest problem right now is that spire shieldpost, Bomber IIs it is.  5250 K left.

2:23 and I'm still rebuilding the fleet to make another run at Riker.  AIP is 36 and next wave is 2744 ships, MK II.  I get the Bomber SSs off FRD this time, I need them for later.

Over 900 ships escaped to assault the asteroid belt.  I send the fleetships after them.  The asteroid Belt took a pretty bad beatdown from the ships until the Fleet got there.  It wouldn't have held against the MK II invasion alone.

Another wave MK II announces at 2:29.  The MK IV going for a max-time wave is getting to be a bit scary.  I drop another two Forts onto No Way Out.... after bringing up all worlds to 4 of each generator.

There he goes.  Just as I hit Riker again, I get a 2600 MK IV wave inbound.  Ho boy.

With the full fleet (bomber SSs and Bomber IIs really making the difference) we're able to blast down the SpireShieldpost.  The fleet bolts for home.  I've got threat out the wazoo and a ton of MK IV inbound.

The Asteroid Belt is saving my life.  All the threat from the deepstrike is getting stuck in Earth.  Additional Grav Turrets are significantly helping.  However, the Belt won't hold and I'm not sure I can save it.  Escapees from the Wave assault are now in Earth.  What's left of the forward fleet is just barely arriving at 2:36 and I send what's rebuilt in as well.  There's still 400 ships or so and plenty of threat (848) still on its way.  AIP is 39.

With the fleet's arrival Earth becomes the stop-gap, allowing No Way Out to repair in case of another assault.

136 ships are 0'd out for Speed due to ED on my last attack back in Riker.  They're slowly, at 1 kph, attempting to cross 5 worlds.  Yeah, that'll be a bit.  I just need to remember they're there.

I send the Raids out to finish cleanup on Riker.  There's one guardpost left and then only the Cmd Centers.  Having just survived the MAx-Time wave of the MK IV, I'm feeling a little cocky, but not enough that I want to do that a few more times.  It's time to end this.

Riker's down.  AIP is 141.  I'm on a timeline here folks!.. and an EMP Guardian is making its way towards me.  Joy.

Here's the problem.  I lost almost all the Raids to the Fortress next to the command center.  Assuming that'll happen again I need to rebuild the Raids for Blackstone.  The transports are built, just waiting on the Raids to finish up.

I can hear it in the background.  Tick.  Tock.  Tick... Tock... Wave... waiting... wave... coming... DIE... HUMAN... DIE... HUMAN....

2:48.  The transports head for Blackstone.  same time a 5,200 ship wave announces for No Way Out.  MK IV.  It's a race.

2:49.  Boom.

YOU WIN

On a side note: It didn't count as a 10 planet game.  Well, ALRIGHTY then.

[keith.lamothe]

And he goes and wins another one!  The nerve

Now we're cookin' with oil.

Oil?  This is 10/10, buddy.  Combustion below the order of a tactical nuclear warhead won't even warm a steak.

What the heck is with me playing the Vorgons?  That system is literally going to end up as an interstellar bypass!

Maybe there should be an achievement named "The L. Prosser Award" with a couple crossed battle axes for the icon.

I realize I've got a different problem.  I need to shut down the enemy's teleporter battlestations and I have -0- ways of doing that on a homeworld.

EMP mines on the probable teleport-to points in the vicinity of your space docks (or whatever battlestations consume for sustenance)?  They don't seem to have the immunity, but maybe their nonstandard movement causes them to not trigger them.

First 'normal' wave is 681 ships from the other AI.  Really?  That's wierd.  I check the wave logs, what's going on here?

Keith, I'm just attaching these for now (post length limit), I figure you'll get more out of them than I will, and I might take a look at 'em later, but that's just odd... and I want to play, not code scour at the moment.

My guess is it's the Zenith Descendent's getting +40 effective AIP for the purpose of offensive waves *dodges thing on your foot*.  It's listed in the wave calcs but I don't think it's ever been on the wiki *gets nailed by the other thing on your foot*.  ZDs also get bigger waves and fewer reinforcements in general, but that's at least already on the wiki.

Probably should fold the +AIP values into that article that says what AIs get what multipliers to wave/reinforcement size but here's what's in the code:

Code: [Select]

    if ( IsReinforcing )
    {
switch ( player.AIType )
{
    case AIType.Alarmist:
    case AIType.Turtle:
    case AIType.Teleporter_Turtle:
    case AIType.Technologist_Turtle:
    case AIType.TagTeamer:
aiTypeBasedAIPIncrement = 30;
break;
    case AIType.Camouflager:
    case AIType.Fortress_Baron:
    case AIType.ShieldNinny:
aiTypeBasedAIPIncrement = 20;
break;
}
    }
    else
    {
switch ( player.AIType )
{
    case AIType.Bully:
    case AIType.Assassin:
    case AIType.Raid_Engine:
    case AIType.Retaliatory:
aiTypeBasedAIPIncrement = 20;
break;
    case AIType.Sledge_Hammer:
    case AIType.Technologist_Sledge_Hammer:
aiTypeBasedAIPIncrement = 30;
break;
    case AIType.ZenithDescendant:
    case AIType.Spireling:
    case AIType.Experimentalist:
aiTypeBasedAIPIncrement = 40;
break;
}
    }

Side note: My CPU is catching fire trying to track all these ships.

They aren't supposed to do that?  What puts out more heat: a v4 engine, or a quad core processor?

About this time is when I realize INFILTRATORS DONT HAVE CLOAKING.

"Then, Lancelot, Galahad and I jump OUT of the rabbit... er, um..."

Run away!

We set off another EMP accidentally up the Riker arm, go commandos!  I'm not even sure why they bypassed Misery on EMP when there were still guardposts and whatnot to attack.  At a guess, the detection of killables isn't triggering directly on entry but on a pulse timer. Probably due to # of ships in the galaxy.

There is a throttling on how many ships can do the targeting routine per second; more are allowed through if they're close enough to another ship of the exact same type (and controlling player) that's already done the full target check to just piggyback via "aggregate targeting", but it's still finite.  Not sure if that's what you're seeing here; I wouldn't expect ships to be able to fly through a system in the time it takes to get a target list.

I hit a Data Center in the Riker Arm.  AIP: 2.  Yep.  Two.

Captured via towel and reprogrammed to be constantly happy. "140 Herring Sandwiches to Earth in 0:42"

I need to fully refleet though.

In a sane world, a navy refits between campaigns.  Here, there's nothing left to fit, so it refleets.

On the threatballs, I'm curious based on something I heard another player talking about months ago about how to short-circuit them: how about parking a relatively high-attack-power chunk of fleet on the enemy side of the wormhole (once it's clear, I know easier said than done in the midst of stuff) under cloaker-starship cover.  Or just the whole fleet without cloaking cover as long as it isn't enough to cause the enemy to threatball just one planet further out.

The idea being that the threat will dribble in and get eaten by your stuff as it tries to park, so a large threatball doesn't form.

Naturally if that actually works I'll probably have to fix it to be smarter, but was wondering if it works   My guess is that it would rely on the AI still having something fairly high-firepower on the planet you're trying to anti-threatball, as otherwise the presence of your om-nom force would cause at least some minor threatballing on the next planet out.

Hmm, spider turrets might work well too; particularly if the threatball logic doesn't exclude "ships I have that are engine-dead" from the firepower calculations.

Only 26 Raids made it home

When the quantity of rogues behind you have to start lining up to take turns backstabbing you, the element of surprise is somewhat diminished

Watching that many Forts fire is more like watching artillery...

The tactical officer was unnerved to see the display fill rapidly and be replaced by a helpful simplification: "Flame.  Endless Flame. ... Lightning too."

YOU WIN

The nerve.

On a side note: It didn't count as a 10 planet game.  Well, ALRIGHTY then.

Ah.  Ehm.  Well, it wasn't actually a 10 planet map, you see?   The grid-based maps have to produce a rectangle (maybe even a square, I forget).  Counting is the way to show the AI that you're not reliant on computers.

Sorry about the confusion there, I could have put 2+2 together when you said "and clearing the 10 world achievement" and "Maze A"

[Oralordos]

So... do we have a name for the next release yet? I am partial to The Wandering AI.

[Hearteater]

Refleet is my new favorite word.