It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a SPACE plane!

[Diazo]

Alright.

To test out the changes to the Space Plane, I went ahead and started up a game with them. Diff 7/7, all minor factions on except the fallen spire storyline, random AI. I also decided to experiment with the Lattice map type.

Took me several maps to find the space plane and my home system has 5 wormholes. Oh well, we'll see what happens. Start the game and I get Golemite and Everything AI types.

And the Everything AI type hurts. (More on that later....)

Anyways, I am actually quite impressed by the Space Plane for raiding purposes. Pop your fleet in, pop the wormhole guard posts, pop your fleet out. You can now raid the system with impunity as the space planes have cloaking and the AI can no longer see you coming. Neutered a Mk IV system with Mk I and II space planes pretty easily, it was early in the game mind you so the Mk IV had not built up a lot of forces but it was still the 30-40 minute mark before I was able to attack it.

So, I'm running around neutering a Mk III system and pop a counter wave post, 200 ships to one of my back end systems. No biggie, I've got 400+ ships not counting my space planes so I've got this.

Except it's the Everything AI that sends the counter wave. And everything means everything. Now, this is one of my back end systems so I don't want to build a bunch of defences so I'll rely on my fleet to take care of the wave. SPlit them up, FRD everything so they will chase and watch to make sure nothing goes wrong.

And then teleporters, teleporters everywhere. Well, everywhere on top of my command station. But I'm okay, 1/3 of my fleet was parked at my command station just in case.

Or not, a blade slips through while my fleet is dealing with the teleporters and one-shots my command station leaving me with one dead command station, Ugh. (Well, two-shots but with a 1 second reload......)

Did I mention this was one hop from my homeworld? I'm now stuck in a tail chase trying with my fleet trying to catch up before they tear my home system apart. At least my home system has some defences up, I think I'll be okay.

Infiltrators? Argh! The forcefields, they do nothing! There goes my power stations and hello energy blackout. And there goes my home command and the game. Ouchies.

But that was an interesting lesson anyway, I seriously underestimated the threat of 200 ships when there are many types of ships as opposed to 200 ships of only one or two ship types.

I'm actually not sure I can even save scum this. Reloaded a couple times already to see what actually happened, (I missed the blades originally) and I don't think I can save the system the counter attack wave arrives in, not with the save I have from just before the wave arrives anyway.

Having said that, I quite enjoyed the Space Planes I started the game to experiment with, it was the Counter Attack post that got me. And the Lattice map was interesting, more wormholes but I didn't have to change my strategy majorly, at least in the early game, to adapt to it.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Everything = Pain.  So much pain.

Glad to hear the space planes were able to stir up some trouble for you

Pop your fleet in, pop the wormhole guard posts, pop your fleet out.

Did you mean non-wormhole guard posts?  These little guys do hit relatively hard, but a wh guard post is a bit much

[Diazo]

Argh.

Yes, I meant the Tachyon guardians, the Wormhold Guard Posts don't have tachyon so they don't reveal the space planes.

D.

[PokerChen]

Well, I would suggest using Parasites against an Everything AI...

Since you don't seem to haven't faced them before, I'll say this: invest in a grav+tractor (+flak optional for melee craft, +EMP mine optional if you're scared, placed them at the edge of the FF closest to the CS. After a couple of teleport attacks you should get a hang of the place they will always teleport onto) under your command station FF whenever an everything wave comes in. You can always scrap them later. The best things about facing an Everything AI is that no ship-types will be relatively numerous and defeat-in-detail is easiest to accomplish.

[Diazo]

Heh, my problem is I tried to use the minimum force necessary (so only my fleet) and no static defenses so no FF on the command station in this system. It's 3 hops away from the nearest AI system at this point.

The teleporters died in very short order with the command station still at like 99% hp, it was the blades from the 2 blade spawners in the wave that killed my command station so fast, all the teleporters did was make it so my fleet was still reloading when the blades arrived. :/

I have since unlocked Mk I hardened FF and every system is now getting one. (I'm save scumming this from an earlier save.)

D.

[Diazo]

Alright, this game continues!



Now, I've been having fun with with my space planes, I've actually cleared out a corridor about 2 systems wide down the left hand side that has no tachyons left, allowing my space planes and scouts free reign.

In doing so, I find an option open to me I really did not expect to see on a lattice style map.

I can take 4 systems (the yellow line) and form a bulwark, with an added bonus of a black hole machine (yellow and red circle) to setup my whipping boy system in.

Taking all those systems will send my AIP sky high into ranges where I've never been before but I get:

2x ARS
2x Golems
3x Spire Civilian Leaders
1x Super Terminal to bring the AIP back down some
3x or 4x Data Centers
A really big chunk of Knowledge.
30+ Asteroids for my spriecraft

I think I'm going to go for it, it's not completely scouted out yet but I'm working on that.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

A very interesting find   I wonder if the Human Home Command Station has a "Graph Theory Department" for just such an occasion

[Diazo]

WHAT! MINING GOLEM! NOOOOOoooooo...........

Ahem.

Change of plans time.

The first wave of mining golems just arrived. 2 of 3 three are not an issue, the one on my 234 ship planet dies quick and the one on the 335 AI ship planet can go off, I don't care about that system. Both systems are near the top of the yellow line)

However the 3rd on is on my black hole system, I can not afford for this one to go off. I have 30 minutes to capture this system, I can't just pop the mining golem as the black hole device would leave my fleet stranded. But it's got an Eye in it. Ummm......

Warhead time I think.

This is going to be intense whatever happens.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

This is going to be intense whatever happens.

An excellent collusion between the mapgen (in making the system necessary), the mapgen again (in making the system a pain to capture), and the miners

[Diazo]

Yup.

Was not as bad as I was afraid of, but it was a low mark system.

Mining golem dies with 9 minutes left on the clock.

Lit. Warhead the tachyon guardian on the incoming wormhole then space plane raid the guard posts. The last two were a stealth and a MLRS under an FF so I had to use an EMP to expose those.

And only half my fleet is trapped in the system, not sure I'm going to expidite capture, need to fortify it first.

D.