Journal of a newb's first campaign (Image Heavy)

[athros]

Unlocks are almost never wasted. If you don't need the extra starships to support the golem, you can always keep them for defending other fronts or when attacking elsewhere. If you're not finding yourself needing to split your forces yet, don't worry... it will happen. 

Ok, that's good to know. I really am worried I wasted them, even though I think the Riot Starships are pretty cool.

As far as ships freeing after a gate raid, I don't think they're supposed to do that. Were they freeing on the world that you were raiding? It might have just been that you brought so much firepower through that they all freed from that. Especially if you brought the golem along, because they count as some ridiculously high firepower number. If they were coming through from another world, then I'm at a loss as to what would have angered them.

I was Gate Raiding with 11 Zenith Elec Bombers and 10 Zenith Chameleons. I also hit 4 systems in 10 minutes. I let the group get whittled down as I went, so it ended up being 3 bombers and 5 Chameleons that got wiped out in the last system. I didn't go raiding with the Black Widow, I was too busy using her in the system with the Grav Drill, since it seemed she wasn't slowed at all by the Grav Drill effect. I don't know if that's a bug or not.

As for the trojan distribution nodes... I'm an evil cheater and I always always save scum on those. It may be lame, but the alternative is usually just wasting a few minutes for my resources to build back up so it seems like kind of a pointless deterrent. The minor AIP increase is enough of a tradeoff for me. If you save, pop a bad one, reload, and pop it again it will usually reroll itself into a good one.

Heh. I was tempted, but it's too late now Too many defenses set up in the system, and I don't want to redo it now. If the Black Widow Golem not being slowed by the Grav Drill is a bug, I'll pull the save game when I get home. I have it saved before I went into the system.

[BobTheJanitor]

Looks like all the golems are immune to gravity effects. They're too big and bad to slow down for some paltry gravity drill.

[Red Spot]

I feel I wasted the Starship unlocks after getting the Black Widow. She kind of defeats a lot of the purposes for them. I'll push on though, mistakes happen.

Nice planet, looks good with the FRD-color


Yes and no. If you feel a need to unlock a ship it will often complement your playingstyle, having a cap of for instance raid starships at hand but not using it may seem like a waste, but when a single AI starship/spirecraft/etc penetrates your lines it sure is sweet to have a cap of some of the fastest ship in the game available and free to be used .. even if it is not the natural counter of the broken-through foe.

Freeing ships on AI planets, afaik, also happens cause of the build up there. When I gate-raid it always sends me a welcome party, though small. That said I play a fairly high difficulty with a fair number of nasty minor factions/AI scenarios enabled so they reinforce like crazy. (It could also simply be the fact you get some ships fairly close to the CC which makes it send part of its force after you. ... See you answered this yourself: too small-range ships, you angered/alerted the AI-CC.)

Some units are immune to speedboosting .. this also works for negative boosts(!) *hint*

[Entrenched Homperson]

I like how some Golems are she and others are it. 

I always refer to the Black Widow as she too.

[athros]

Golems being immune to Speed effects means I have a good use for the Black Widow and Artillery Golem, once I get him.

My brain is assigning Gender to the Golems that I've seen thus far. I haven't been this into a game in a loooooooong time. I'm enjoying myself a whole helluva lot.

First, the updated Galaxy Map (now that I found the setting for "Always have the names on")



I only took one world, Uhos. Kinda painful, there were a couple hundred Mk III's and about 100 Mk II's of various ship types. Once I had secured it, the AI Counterattacked at Inaeo with 300 Mk II Zenith Beam Frigates, 2 Starships and multiple Speed Boosters. I fought it off, and started the fight in Putic...with the Black Widow. I managed to kill the Ion Cannon and get her out before she died, but the counter attacks were brutal. 200+ ships at Murdoch, 300+ ships at Revtol (the Gravity Drill Planet) 20's and 30's on all the border worlds, and it spilled into the dead end area where I have next to no defenses.

So, last night was clean up, and prep to go after Putic again. It looks like the numbers have dropped off considerably in that system, so I shouldn't have too much to worry about once I go back in.

Distribution Node netted me 300k Metal, 150k Crystal. I unlocked Spider Turrets for more long range firepower, mainly for Revtol, since the Translocation shots are so random, and usually push the ships outside the range of the turrets, and I'm running out of Sniper Turrets. Human Marauders are kinda of a pain in the rear, but nothing like what I was expecting.

Lessons learned
 - Don't Raid with a Golem. Sacrifice some Starships.
 - Counterattack Guard Posts suck, but I don't know how to get rid of them other than destroy them and brace for the incoming. The counterattack wave hasn't been too horrible (especially with Golems). The time frame has been 7+ minutes, giving me plenty of time to prepare for them. 
 - Mk. IV Planets are deadly. Even to Golems.

Outside the game: Steam is starting to do screenshots for Steam Cloud....with the F12 key. And Photobucket is really irritating me with how much they shrink the screenshots. I just might have to go elsewhere (or upload them to Steam) and see how that goes.

[BobTheJanitor]

Imageshack doesn't mess with image size and you can direct link to the images without any trouble; that's what I usually use. That or imgur since I found out it has a firefox plugin for easy re-sharing of pictures that are already online, but that's not really a factor for game screenshots.

Widows are definitely more of a support golem than a solo powerhouse golem. If you're looking for a golem that can eat a world all by itself, grab a botnet golem. As long as it gets some shots in early and starts making zombies, you can almost just leave it on FRD and go make a sandwich and come back to find a world full of zombies and 0 enemy ships. They can't kill guardposts or guardians though, sadly, so you do have to do a little more to actually take a world with one. Pair one up with an armored golem or a cursed golem though, and you have a two man team that can easily roll over Mk I-III worlds with no other support.

[Entrenched Homperson]

:O

Armored Golem is my favorite -_-

[Red Spot]

First, the updated Galaxy Map (now that I found the setting for "Always have the names on")

Incase you like it, but rather have them turned off by defauly .. you can press 'ctrl' when in galaxy view and it also shows the planet-names for as long as you press the button.

[athros]

@Bob: Imageshack it is.

Good to know about the Golems. I like them, but I don't know if I'm really going to play with them on after this. They really do make it easy (when it's on Easy  )

@Red Spot: I actually like the names on. It helps me keep track in my head.


Updated Galaxy Map -



All I took was Putic. First chokepoint is held. More raids on my inner worlds, so I had to back off from doing much more.

Now for some more planning. More scouting is needed past Pucha, up to Iche and that area, and past Putic. Once I do that, I should have a better idea. Putic is defended now, and I intend to gate raid all around those worlds that are between my homeworld and Putic. Mk V Armor ships are interesting, I'm still working out how to use them.

Problems - Crystal production is in the dumps. Looking at my planets, I have very few Crystal resource points, so I'm starting to look for specific areas with Crystal in them. I'm also hunting for more stuff.

Knowledge is another, but with the worlds I might take, I think I can get at least one Mk III ship. I'm just torn between Fighters, Bombers or Tanks. Teleporting Raiders are very very fun to use, they just die in droves, and I think that might be part of my Crystal tanking all the time. I need to look at the costs.

[BobTheJanitor]

Looks like you do have plenty of metal though. You might build some crystal manufactories. I know you start with a few, but the conversion rate is actually pretty terribly slow. If you want to get any sort of efficiency out of those converters, you probably need to add another 20-30 or so to convert to the resource you need. At least, that's what I always end up doing, although I may be a little impatient.  I also notice you have a ton of energy. You might consider going around and turning off some of your energy reactors for the time being. They can be an easily forgotten resource drain. Although the game isn't really designed around you having to micro-manage your energy reactors, so don't feel like it's something that you absolutely have to worry about. But you may just have too many built at the moment, that's a pretty massive energy surplus. Of course you could try to get 600,000 more energy on top of that and get the "Who Read These Plans?" achievement.

[athros]

I must have not been paying attention during the tutorial when it explained that the reactors use resources.  

Annnnnd...I lost. 2900 ships in a CPA. Wiped me out. I'm not one for going back, so I'm going to start again....and post in here some more

Lessons Learned:

Golems are cool, not for me though. I like the Overwhelming Fire Power, I dislike the insanity of having to manage Engineers so they don't continually repair them.

That is a lot of ship types. The Zenith ships are interesting. I'm assuming I didn't get to see nearly as many of the ships in other expansions. No Zenith Expansion this next go around.

I hate Human Marauders. Popping up everywhere, it makes choke points kinda useless.

I like Starships, but they're expensive.

Tech means a lot

Next Post: New Game!

[Invelios]

Golems are cool, not for me though. I like the Overwhelming Fire Power, I dislike the insanity of having to manage Engineers so they don't continually repair them.

Did you know that they don't lose health in low power mode? You really only need to heal them after every battle you use them in, and I try to only use them in battles where they make a real difference.

And yeah, those CPAs can be brutal if you aren't prepared for them. That's how I've lost all my diff 7 games so far, minus that one time I got killed in the first wave cause I tried to build too many turrets and wrecked my economy.

[athros]

Golems are cool, not for me though. I like the Overwhelming Fire Power, I dislike the insanity of having to manage Engineers so they don't continually repair them.

Did you know that they don't lose health in low power mode? You really only need to heal them after every battle you use them in, and I try to only use them in battles where they make a real difference.

And yeah, those CPAs can be brutal if you aren't prepared for them. That's how I've lost all my diff 7 games so far, minus that one time I got killed in the first wave cause I tried to build too many turrets and wrecked my economy.

Hmm...no. I didn't know that. Low power = no health lost. I might be able to play with them turned on if that's the case. Having 2 Golems, and needing to micromanage the Engineers away from them (usually to the far side of the system), which led to a lot of insanity with FRD and..yea. Lets leave it at that

I'm still trying to work out which turrets are good for the resources and which aren't, even though I'm betting they're all good..depending on the enemy force composition. I also need to be a little more frugal with my research picks, at least early on.

I'm still working out which Expansions and minor factions to turn on (mainly because work picked up and I haven't had the time..withdrawals suck). I just might go with the core game + Human Captives and Human Resistance...no Marauders, and diff 7.0

Hopefully more pics and ramblings from me tonight/tomorrow morning.

[athros]

Ok, new game, new seed, No Expansions, Human Resistance Fighters and Colony Rebellions. Raider was the ship for the system I picked.

Diff 7/7 - Entrenched Homeworlder and Fortress Baron. Map with some scouting done.



Thotictether has an ARS

I'm planning on taking Charisa and Uvetjo for the resources, Thotictether for the ARS and Rodor just because it's a dead end with nothing in it attached to my homeworld. I have more scouting to do after that.

Opening Tech Picks
Scout, Fighter, Bomber, Raider, Engineer Mk. II
Advanced Warp Sensors
Tachyon Turret Mk I
Basic Turret Mk II

Built one extra ship yard for ships and 10 Sniper turrets for homeworld defense and 5 Engineer Mk II's.

Here we go!

[BobTheJanitor]

Almost directly south of your homeworld there's a planet called "Takenow". I think it's trying to tell you something.