Author Topic: How high can you go?  (Read 2904 times)

Offline rabican

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How high can you go?
« on: October 19, 2012, 09:51:21 am »
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120 planet . X  10/10 random AIs. Full visibility, reaveal random, no plots. 15min per aip   1 hw

Fallen spire 4
golems       4
dyson        4
resistance fighters 4
colony rebellions   4
traders
wardens    7
roaming enclaves 7


Plan : I'm going to put whipping boy on middle of X  with unfinished spire city . Then take every single planet in galaxy.

Attempt 1#

Bonus ship : spire corvette .
Enemy AI types : Golemite, The core

Uhoh, Haven't finished any games vs these 2 types. Golemite is minor nuisance, artillery golems might annoy shadow ship some but thats about it.

The core on the other hand.... I'm unsure how this works but in light of the recent ship mark cap changes i assume this will be exactly light vanilla ... just with mk V ships instead of II.

After quick look around its clear things are going to go badly . Core has tackle drone launchers as bonus ship. Special forces will be unaimaginable pain. It also has double CRE on its homeworld.  This might just be completly uniwnnable game from the get go :)

00:06 : 100 frigate MK Vs in  a wave. If these had been bombers it would've been game over already. This is going to be rough. So rough that 10minutes of playing is enough for now :)

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: How high can you go?
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2012, 11:49:01 am »
Plan : I'm going to put whipping boy on middle of X  with unfinished spire city . Then take every single planet in galaxydie.
Fixed that for you ;)

Quote
The core on the other hand.... I'm unsure how this works but in light of the recent ship mark cap changes i assume this will be exactly light vanilla ... just with mk V ships instead of II.
I... don't know off the top of my head.  Each AI gets "bonus ships" and "bonus core ships".  The former are basically what they are for you: types available everywhere.  The latter are what they can spawn on their homeworld reinforcements... but actually I think it's what it can spawn in any context that happens to (for whatever reason) call for MkV ships.  For most AIs that translates to "homeworld reinforcements" (most of the time), but for The Core... it could be basically everything, everywhere.

Quote
Core has tackle drone launchers as bonus ship. Special forces will be unaimaginable pain.
That is a sound evaluation :)
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Offline rabican

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Re: How high can you go?
« Reply #2 on: October 20, 2012, 11:39:03 am »
Next 3 hours are pretty uneventful. I do 6 nebuale, capture eventual whpping boy and clear up counter strike guard posts. And ah, accidently blow up AI command center in middle of nowhere. Which is kinda bad but ohwell, at least i won't get deepstrike threat for my strikes in that part of the galaxy.  Deepstrike threat in this game is painful, MK V tackledrones in ... well hundreds.

Waves provide no problems, AIP is pretty low still and i got modular fortress on both of my planets. I've somehow managed to lose my home command FF but that is not a big deal.

Unlocks so far: Harvesters MK II (need these to build some forts + trader stuff on whipping boy) , Beam turret, Gravity turret, Corvette MK II(hopefully these can keep nebuale ships alive while raiding counter strike posts).     

2:55 and First CPA is announced and i realise i'm in trouble. I've barely manged to destroy counter guard posts in my arm of the map and there are still 19 planets worth of counter posts i need to pop. I'm running out of time, i can manage first CPA and probably first EXO just fine but after that... i don't know. Half the ships in galaxy are MK V, how long till CPAs are using only mk V ships? Gah, i need to hurry , need to use some K for something.


Current state of the "empire" . P0s are CA guard posts i need to destroy. Those in the same arm as my planet are already destroyed but uh, i don't know how to remove priority thingies.

Offline Winge

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Re: How high can you go?
« Reply #3 on: October 20, 2012, 04:31:03 pm »
Current state of the "empire" . P0s are CA guard posts i need to destroy. Those in the same arm as my planet are already destroyed but uh, i don't know how to remove priority thingies.

Click one of the priority buttons (any one will work) and right-click the planet you want to remove the marker on.
My other bonus ship is a TARDIS.

Offline rabican

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Re: How high can you go?
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2012, 11:46:16 am »
Thanks

Before CPA hits i unlock Harvester MK IIIs , build 2 matter converters and most of my turrets and starships.

Cpa hits and its bit funny, for some reason AI has some MK I ships that it sends with the CPA. It also doesn't have enough ships and taps in to strategic reserve , for 50ish ships. Apparently it rather uses that than core ai's ships. Well that makes cpas much easier, i only have to deal with triangle ships and snipers. Building counter sniper turrets near anything important, and the cpa goes down easily.

Exo is announced soon after that. Euh, still on 2 planets, i should be able to handle it with ease but i'll pick up a hive golem anyway. As a bonus this eliminates deepstrike to 3rd arm of the galaxy , leaving just one with deepstrike potential.

Some generic CA guard post cleaning, traders stuff building(bhg, armor inhibitor halfway) and nebulae for hour or two, all but the last nebulae done. Champion has way lower XP than i'm used to , only level 31. Good thing the mod cost were reduced. I got 8 roaming enclaves from ravenous, no idea how they are supposed to behave, but they just sit on a AI planet between my planets. Well good enough, that planet is next to my HW so no guardians(they wont die) and the spawns fly all over from there. Don't know what will happen when i take the planet but for now they can just sit there.

While clearing up the last CA guard posts i get some deepstrike threat 1600ish . ABout 200 of those are MK V tackle drone launchers. I have 500 wasps ready so this shouldn't be a problem, but exo is at over 90% so i decide to save them and explore other options. I hear area mines are OP and i haven't used emp mines since they were made less ridiculous so i unlock those.  First full cap of aoe mines followed by full cap of emp mines followed by full cap of regular mines, all between the wormhole with tackle drones and my command station. I lure the threat in and it rolfstomps me. Mines did almost no damage, it seems TDs are not mine immune so they just run ahead of the launchers and clear up all the mines. Crap, savescum.

Attempt 2 vs TDL fleet of death. Don't unlock mines this time . I lure them in, engage with nebulae/SS fleet and release the wasps. Wasps die in less than 5 seconds, eventhough ~all the enemies are shooting at my shadow FFs. I'm guessing that tackle drone explosions destroyed them.

Attempt 3 . I'll take offensive stance and decide to release the wasps in the threat ball from the other AI, the one with no tackle drones. Wasps slaughter those 800 ships pretty fast, and tackle drones attack my planet. They go after my hive golem... which can kite them endlessly thanks to logistics station. I take out the 600 something triangle core ships, and set couple of waypoints for the golem. 20 laps around the planet . 2 modular fortresses , nebulae fleet and champion. I eventuall wear them down and CPA announcment comes in .

5mins till 4 500 ship CPA hits and exo is at 96%. Can't be worse than that last threat ball was. 

Offline rabican

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Re: How high can you go?
« Reply #5 on: October 23, 2012, 03:32:16 am »
CPA and exo come back to back and die pretty fast. Full hive golem stomps exo in matter of seconds, CPA lingers on for longer but goes down eventually. Luckily exo hit the whipping boy instead of home world. Need to make this 100% sure for next exo. Time to take some planets.

Start rapid expansion, first get every planet behind my HW. Full nebulae + Starship fleet takes care of that. This goes very quickly, ever other world is empty because of the recent cpa. Only speedbump is ARS that i'm hacking. Its choices were paralyzer, teleport leech and bulletproof fighter. Normally paralyzer would've been superb ship but at this game things die so fast that the paralyzation abilityh would be next to worthless. Teleport leeches would be okay , but i can't reclaim core's ship anyway and the other one has snipers + tigers as bonus ships. I can get those snipes with other ships and triangles are better with knowledge anyway. That leaves BB fighter which is pretty nice, goes well in offense because of the Insta kill immunity. Would go without TDLs anyway.

Stuff goes pretty well and at 9:30 i'm sitting at 29 planets.  Aip near 700. AI has unlocked bladespawners and tractor platforms and saboteurs. Seems like both AIS got all those ships, meh, thought this was fixed. 

Anyways, AI has both TDLS and BS? Time to get some gravity, unlocking riot MK IIIs and gravity turret MK IIIs. And counter missile turrets and couple of other turrets and corvette IV and militray command station MK III.

I quickly discover that Radarjammer MK II + Gravity turret MK IIIs + crapload of fortresses is ... ridiculous combination. 15k ai waves? Doesn't even get into range of my lower range turrets, snipers missiles and fortresses are taking care of it.

3rd Exo and cpa hit. Exo dies easily. Cpa  is different matter. Combination of snipers +tdls + bs is pretty bad. Snipers kill gravity turrets, blades and drones rush right through. I had prepared somewhat to this by placing counter sniper turrets all over the place but i don't have enough of them. They manage to get all the way to my fortresses and blow up first line of the turrets, due to tackle drones ignoring forcefields. Biggest defensive loss in the game. Oh well, economy is so strong that rebuilding 400 turrets doesn't hurt a bit.

Time to expand to another sector of the galaxy, one free of homeworlds. Getting artillery golem before i get there first. At ~700 aip ai reinforcements are starting to be quite annyoing, nearly every planet has either 100ish TDLS or 100ish BS. Going to have to use hive golem for the first alerted planet and then quickly mop up everything behind them.

The game will soon be unplayable on my current computer, already the lag caused by vast amount of ai is ships in waves is dampening my enjoyment of the game.

Picture of a cheese i'm using in this game. Also note the next cpa, quite big but the ai only has 12k ships . Will the strategic reserves be enough to compenstate for lack of 20thousand ships?



Offline rabican

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Re: How high can you go?
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2012, 04:42:26 am »
Yep the next CPA was messed up. Message showed that AI released 20k ships from its strategic reserve when it didn't have that much and actually released aroud 10k ships.

In other news, game is at ~1200 aip and completly bat¤#%#& crazy. Each reinforcement pulse is about 3 caps worth of ships. In 6 all 6 planets i have alerted. AI packs 200ish ships in transport and sends them in every other minute. These things are like mini exos, some guardians and half of ships are low cap ones. Oh and every other one of these has all ships MK V because of core. By themselves they are no problem. But they come and keep coming and stop be from doing any serious rebuilding on my minefield and grav turres.

Grav III turrets + radar jammer II  is such a ridiculous combo. I haven't felt the need to build spire city or about 7 caps of turrets i have unlocked on the whipping boy.  At this point only couple of things could kill me. Badly timed exo, that would clear up my grav turrets and make a path , wave of spire corvettes. Not sure if there is anyway i could defeat 1k of these just sailing past my grav turrets. Oh right warheads, nevermind there.  Full waves of bombards, raptors and possibly something that could almost outrange grav turrets might be  a problem, mainly because of my turret positioning is horrible.

Then again , if i'm looking at another 1200 aip if i capture almost everything and wave sizes of 100k might be enough to kill me by just sheer hp.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: How high can you go?
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2012, 05:11:24 am »
Then again , if i'm looking at another 1200 aip if i capture almost everything and wave sizes of 100k might be enough to kill me by just sheer hp.
Or perhaps by burning your CPU to a crisp. Never underestimate the tenacity of the AI ;)
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: How high can you go?
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2012, 09:33:42 am »
Yep the next CPA was messed up. Message showed that AI released 20k ships from its strategic reserve when it didn't have that much and actually released aroud 10k ships.
Odd, the strategic reserve should be accurate about what it releases; it may not be enough to cover the CPA but what it says it does release should be accurate.

Do you have a save from before that CPA releases?
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Offline Aklyon

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Re: How high can you go?
« Reply #9 on: October 25, 2012, 01:47:57 pm »
200 MK V tackle drone launchers.
I think the Core is onto your plan already. ;)

Offline rabican

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Re: How high can you go?
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2012, 04:33:10 pm »
Here you go.

Also another thing that is probablyh bug in this. If you check some enemy planets, like the ones near the popped planet in nw arm, yo u see that 1.) both ais have unlocked exactly same things 2.) both ais are reinforcing each others planets.

I might be more than little senile but i don't remember this happening before

 

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