Newbie and the Beast

[Dragondraikk]

Why oh why would anyone ever want to use a MILITARY command station?  It's better to not let the bad guys reach your command station at all.

Can't tell if you were being facetious here, but I figured I may as well give an answer regardless!

Military CS help quote a bit with the problem of "not letting the bad guys reach them" since they are the proud owners of translocator weaponry. So apart from not being made out of cotton candy, they can also keep a small number of enemies at a distance. This is especially entertaining when the AI tries to sneak a single Raid Starship or  so past your defenses only to find it can never actually reach your command station.

[Hearteater]

Additionally on Military CS: Add Spider Turrets near the CS for added amusement. They CS pushes the enemy away, the Spiders kill there engines. Eventually you have dead-in-space enemies littering your system waiting to die. In the days of galaxy caps for turrets, a Military CS + 5-6 Spiders could hold off 200 enemy ships. It only got stronger now with per-planet caps. In addition, the Military CS has Tachyon beams, attack boosts all your units in the system, and has extra immunities. In particular: Antimatter Bombs, Blades, and Fusion Cutters. The Mark III variant has Engine Damage, Paralyzes, and has Planetary Tachyon coverage.

[Alex Heartnet]

A single space plane decided to infiltrate Geminorum and just hide.  Come out and show yourself!

Suddenly my tachlyon emitters no longer feel like a waste of science.





See?  Your fancy radar dampening doesn't protected you from sniper shots, does it?

I now have tachlyon emitters and MLRS turrets at the wormholes, flak turrets near the jammer, and a forcefield around said jammer.  No more sneak attacks.  Bring a fleet or GTFO.



My main fleetball will once again try to re-take that three-planet cluster, while a raiding force will try to figure out how to get at that data center at the far upper part of the galaxy.



D'awwww, the machine brought a Sniper Guardian to the battle.  How cute.







(how many snipers can a single Scout Starship defend against at once?)

The Iota Pegesi system must be cleared out, I -will- be passing through there a lot.

Let's start with the guard posts near the wormhole.  I see 3 targets:

Target A is a MLRS Guard Post.  It gets bonuses against various things that are not Heavy or Polycrystal hulls.

Target B is a Special Forces Post protected by a forcefield.  The ships not going after Target A will instead start hammering that objective.

Target C is the Sniper Guardian and its Space Plane escort.  A suitable target for my Riot Ships! (not)



Unfortunately, I forget to check the attack range of the MLRS post, which immediately proceeded to fire on Group B, resulting in unnecessary losses.  At least my bombers and tanks were able to kill it before it did too much damage.



Meanwhile, in the Capella system....a Data Center!



You know you are causing massive damage when the special forces decide to flee.



Get back here!  No quarter.





Oh, you are probably chasing after my secondary raiding force.  Sorry.  Not happening





And I lost my fleet again.  At 26 AIP.  At least Iota Pegasi won't be giving me any more problems.  It's a major crossroads, so I'll be traveling through here a lot.



An experiment in flanking tactics!  So everything doesn't get hit with a plasma bomb all at once.

In hindsight I could of just charged it with my raiders.



This is what attack waves look like at 26 AIP.



Finally, I can get my revenge on those stoopid MLRS guard posts.  They died so quickly I didn't even get a screenshot of it.



My construction team can actually reach the Streve system this time!  They are immediately greeted by the remains rebuilder.  Hi!



Don't need this anymore...



Meanwhile, on the way wayyyy opposite side of the galaxy, the raiding party finally reaches the Leonis system to strike at the data center contained therein.



Numerous obstacles have taken their toll on the raiding fleet.  But all that stands in their way is one final guard post!





gflksjglfslkmfslkmfskla

e-raequit

[keith.lamothe]

And the Data Center lives to Data another day! ... or another few minutes, at least.

(how many snipers can a single Scout Starship defend against at once?)

All the snipers.

(aside from the relatively recent protector starship, all counter-ammo abilities are infinite in that sense)

[Alex Heartnet]

I may or may not of modded the game's graphics 



Expect nonsense like blue lasers and black plasma bombs



yus yus moar metal gimme gimme mine mine

Looking at the map, it'd be easy to hold this three-planet cluster.  I think this is the most player-friendly galaxy I have ever seen.





Wow okay umm is this the point in the game where I should start panicking?

Also what's the point of player-created warp gates when I just manufacture my new MKV Armor Ships from the space dock



I see I'm not the only one who has shiny new special effects colors.



My fleetships will pop the Capella barracks, while my flagships simotaniously handle the Alpha Centrui barracks.  What could go wrong?









I'm starting to think that my simultaneous attacks are a bad idea.



Ugh, I go through all the effort of having set up not one but -three- defensive lines in this system, and you robots can't even make it past the first one.



I brought my full fleet this time, the Capella system is as good as mine.





Alpha Centarui as well, that MKIV starship factory is crucial to my plans.  Say hello to the fancy new effects that my autocannons have.



Come to think of it, I was going to do a hack to get that MKIV fab?  Derp, ah well my previous savefile is too far behind to bother.



This cute little ship group must be the CPA.  I don't think I noticed the actual attack.



Wait so umm so as long as I hold the MKIV thingie I can make MKIV stuff from any constructor anywhere?!



This is Shield Network B.  Say hello to it.  Now say goodbye.





With more systems comes more science!  Hmm, decisions...

Let's start with MKII Force Fields, I'll certainly find a use for those.

This leaves me with 7,000 science.  I plan on taking 4 more systems after this -  however the forth system won't be taken until just before attacking the AI homeworlds (Core Gen D is is a problematic location).  7,000 + 9000 = 16,000

Assault Transports = 3,000 Science
MKIII Spire Starship = 4,000 Science
MKIII Zenith Starship = 4,000 Science
MKIII Flagship = 4,000 Science
I would love to unlock area mines, but apparently those aren't a part of the base game.
Additionally, in what order should I science up the above starships?

What can I do with the remaining 1,000 science?

Well, my MLRS turrets see heavy use and get bonuses against the light and ultra-light hulls that the Vicious Raider and Stealth Master both like.  MKII MLRS = 750 science.  The remaining 250 science can give me MKII Scout Starships, for the improved tachylon emittion range and multiplex cloak booster.  These MKII Scout Starships look like a surprisingly good bargain for 250 science, I will have to remember these next game.

Alternatively, I could try out Decloakers for 1,000 science...

[Bud Backer]

Very entertaining write-up. Are you Finding the changes to the game version over time having any impact?

[Alex Heartnet]

Very entertaining write-up. Are you Finding the changes to the game version over time having any impact?

- Plasma Siege Starship HP nerf
- Turret Cap Changes
- Energy System Changes
- One patch changed the positioning of each and ever wormhole
        - The location of AI guard posts remained the same.  Tachylon Guard Posts in particular are no longer located near wormholes.  Makes scouting easy.

[Bud Backer]

Very entertaining write-up. Are you Finding the changes to the game version over time having any impact?

Tachylon Guard Posts in particular are no longer located near wormholes.  Makes scouting easy.

I noticed that the Tachyon posts are sometimes in what I thought were odd locations far from the wormholes. But I think there were always Tachyon posts also near the wormholes in those worlds. I'll have to pay more attention. Usually my fleetball kills the post when it pops into the world so it's harder to keep track, which means I'll have to watch as I scout.

[Alex Heartnet]

I noticed that the Tachyon posts are sometimes in what I thought were odd locations far from the wormholes. But I think there were always Tachyon posts also near the wormholes in those worlds. I'll have to pay more attention. Usually my fleetball kills the post when it pops into the world so it's harder to keep track, which means I'll have to watch as I scout.

Ancient Shadows has Tachyon Posts trying to guard the unstable wormholes that aren't actually there if you aren't playing with champions.  Other then that a Tachyon Post is always seen guarding both sides of each and every wormhole.

Sometimes you have to strike across multiple systems worth of tachyon posts so your scouts can get though - the type of raids where the ships you send might not come back.  In this situation fighters shine because of their low cost and 600% damage multiplier against the Medium hulls that the tachyon thingies have.

On a related note, it seems that the AI uses Wormhole Guard Posts as rallying points rather the the wormholes themselves.  Those are mis-aligned as well, resulting in the AI rallying in the middle of the system instead of near a wormhole.

[Fleet Unity]

An update changed the position of every wormhole guard post and tachyon emitters, ect this only happens to older saves, when you start a new game they will not change anymore but all of the planet icons and backgrounds will when you reload the save, but nothing is reseeded so all items will still be in the same position, and this will only happen once in a new game.

Edit: It was the update that reset all the metal harvesters when you loaded an older save file, when that happened the whole galaxy seemed to reseed making items appear in weird areas as the wormholes themselves also reseeded but normal items like ships, structures did not.

[Kahuna]

Wow okay umm is this the point in the game where I should start panicking?

Lmao how the hell can the CPA be that small??
Anyway. This has been very entertaining.

[Coppermantis]

Wow okay umm is this the point in the game where I should start panicking?

Lmao how the hell can the CPA be that small??
Anyway. This has been very entertaining.

Many versions ago I got a CPA of 1. No idea how or why given that I was a noob and had huge AIP, but it happened.

[Alex Heartnet]

I haven't even planned out my endgame strategy yet, but it's clear that Iota Pegasi is going to become a major crossorads.  As such it must be cleared out.



Iota Pegasi is mostly empty already, it only contains a command center, a guardian, and a few wormhole guard posts.  I guess I can leave the command center intact?



The wormhole posts can die though.  All of them.  I'm not quite sure if blowing them up actually does anything, but they can die anyway!



A small beachhead should be enough to clear out anything the command station spawns.



This is getting annoying.  I need moar firepower!



quote science center ARS thing



Blah, I already have space tanks grr now I have to waste more hacking points on an ARS hack when I do attack.  Next game I'll be sure to scout all the ARS thingies before pirating any AI ship designs.

And then I noticed the special forces.



They pass though the system without letting themselves be destroyed by my beachhead.

Fine, fine, I'll bring the beachhead to them!



Now I have not one but -two- beachheads in system!  Now what are you robots going to do?

[keith.lamothe]

Now I have not one but -two- beachheads in system!  Now what are you robots going to do?

Send in the BombBots

[Alex Heartnet]

Oh, it's you again.  <_<

Got burnt out on editing 5 hours of video again, update will arrive soon™