Author Topic: Oh. Dear. Lord.  (Read 16401 times)

Offline Wanderer

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Oh. Dear. Lord.
« on: October 17, 2012, 03:44:14 pm »
Well, somehow or another I've missed the 100 planet map achievement.  I still want Sledge and Zenith 9+ achievements too.  I'm mostly interested in BASE GAME changes at this point.  The Champions and whatnot have been used and abused heavily but to actually see how things are working I need to see base game with less variables.  so, setup:

Clusters looks interesting.  Eventually you can dual/triple chokepoint any region, but it should make for a fun game.

Let's see... what the hell is THAT thing... Zenith Reprocessor?  Oh, yeah, right right.  The ships that basically says "Come and die for me..."  Should be excellent in the early game, and has... 10k/second dps?  Oh, ship cap 8, I'd wondered.  You know, that'll be an interesting defensive ship to test out for early game economic boosting.  We'll try that puppy out.

100 worlds - Clusters Simple - Seed: 1210157283
Expands: All
AIs: Sledge Hammer 9.6/Zenith Descendant 9.6 
Ships: All
Game Options: Normal/Normal/High/Full Fog
AI Options:
  Modifiers: Reveal Random AI Types, Schizophrenic
  Minor Factions: Human Resistance Fighters, Human Colony Rebellions.  Temptations to turn on Golems - Hard and the new SCLs, but I'll get to those.  KISS.
AI Plots: None

So, why 9.6 instead of 10/10?  Because I wanted to test the game at about the extreme edge of where my abilities should lie.  Faulty and a few others are much better at particular micro or exploiting certain game events, so they should be able to usually get .2 ahead of me, and 9.8 is supposed to be that limit.  Also, I'd like to WIN my first AAR coming back after a long break. :) 

Fire in the hole!

Alright, first system (Zupyar... that can't stand, renamed to Homeworld) is a reasonable setup with 4 inbound WHs, and I've got reasonable distance from all of them.  Galaxy map needs almost no untangling... oh lords I love it.

Paused on entry, of course, I start looking over initial research options.  Nothing in particular strikes my eye but I notice I get this new Modular Fortress for 3k.  Ooooh, those could be handy.  Also, Mini-Fortress for 1k.  SOLD!  No significant changes to turret K costs, didn't miss anything there... Pop open grav Is.  Alright, now, hrm.  Harvester IIs of course.  I'll sit on the 4,250 K that's left for now, since I can't double tap the harvesters to III yet.

Alright, first builds.  10 scout/50 fighter/5 bomber/5 frigate/1 Reprocessor on repeating Local FRD.  Oh, wait, there's new controls for FRD, need to check those out!

Holy crap... errr, load my settings from disk, thank you...

Oooh, Brave Cloakers, let's get that turned on (YES, it's been a while, thank you...).

Alright, where was I?  Oh, right, intial constructions.  10 Econ Is on FRD, and a new Sci II lab.  Drop out two of those new Mini-forts and watch my econ plunge. Let's check in on the neighbors.

MK IV next door on Suolik (2/4).  That's nice.  Lesseee... AutoBombs, Beam Frigates, Bombars, Chameleons, Elect Bombers, Mirrors, Paralyzers... Polarizers... Shreders... Zenith Medics... Siege Engines... SERIOUSLY?  Who the hell ordered up an 'everything' AI?

Fort II and assundry MK III annoyances on Afrzi(4/2), next world clockwise.  Boatcini (4/0) is a nice easy MK I world, as is Geswo (1/1).  Well, that's going to be annoying.  The first choke world out of the cluster, Tusan(3/1) is a MK III and packs dual Counter-strike posts.  Yeeeeesh.

Another nearby world, inside the cluster, Ribvar (0/2) packs an Ion Eye.  This is an ugly starter position, but we'll see.  The first 10 Scout Is are up so I drive them deep into enemy territory at 0:0:56.

Edit: Hit wrong button, will continue in next post...
... and then we'll have cake.

Offline Wanderer

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #1 on: October 17, 2012, 06:01:23 pm »
Those scouts don't even get past the second system out from Homeworld.  Triple Ion Cannons and a Fort III made short work of them on Mantis (1/2), that's going to get ugly.

At about 0:03:40 the Dual Minis come online, and fleet production re-activates.  Scouts find yet another MK IV right off the port bow on Isheis(2/4), Sentry Eye, couple of Ion cannons, already loaded for bear with units... and ANOTHER MK IV next to that at Tolyo... errr, changing that to Tokyo(1/2)... That's a square of MK IV worlds with a MK III mixed in just for amusement.  Yikes.

Lessee, MK III with PAralyzer V down at Xumir... and a counter, great.  Another MK IV two hops out at Pirafenori(3/0), also packing an Ion Eye.   C'mon, seriously?  I'm literally ringed by MK III+ worlds except for two crappy locals.

First wave announces.  69 ships 3 starships to homeworld in 1:39.  Fleet's still constructing... but I'm curious to see how the mini-forts hold the line alone.  Scouting continues, and another MK III is found at 3 out with 3x Counter-strikes.

Well, mini-forts alone are nice, but not enough to stuff the wave... though my poor grav turret positioning didn't help... and here I realize one of my mistakes, waiting for the docks to produce 98/98/98 instead of 96/96/96.  Whooops.

First targets are the MK IVs right off the entrance, and I might as well start with Afrzi that has the Fortress.  Get the entire mess out of the way early.  Confusion point arose here though... the mini-fortress when hi-lighted reads as 2 out of 1 in Service and Ship Cap 1.  It's... very non-intuitive.

At 10:45 ish I move to start the first assault and allow Raid Is to start construction.  A 93 + 3 wave announces for 1:40 out about 11:00 so I don't heavily commit the fleet in Afrzi, I just visit and clear the entryway and start working on a local FF3, and pull back at 30 secs out.

For the next 8 minutes or so I greet a single Railcluster, a single Mini-siege, and have only removed 50% of a MK III FF with my entire fleet... though we are building Fleet SS and Leech SS back at home.  I need more firepower.  Fire up Bomber II... and Harvester Metal III.

Scouts finally have found my first ARS in the starter cluster back at Dora.  Another MK III world with a Fort II on it and a counterstrike, but at least I know where one is now.  Scout Is aren't doing it anymore.  I'll use them to picket and upgrade to Scout IIs. 

My first run after the Fortress itself on Afrzi goes poorly.  I lose over half my bombers to a MK IV shredder replication that I BARELY get back under control when the bombers get abck to the main fleet.  It'd almost hit critical mass for my current firepower. 

At about 33:00 I finally have the fleet fully built, those Bomber IIs really chewed up my available materials, and I'm running into power concerns.  It's time to take a target, and I've been working Afrzi for a while, and have just been getting hung up on the FFs.  Railclusters still list cap as 5, btw, instead of 8/4... and DAMN they're brutal to MK Is as MK IIs.

JUST as I pop Afrzi, a wave announces for 333 ships against homeworld.  Dammit.

And i get 253+3 as a back to back.  I do get 99 Spider bots from my leeches though... :)  Afrzi is now sporting a mil I with dual minis and dual FFs building over the Mil I and my energy is back off the floor.  I'm not going to bother with it beyond that as it's really out of the way of just about everything... and I left a SF post alive on it.  AIP is currently 31.

this wave has nearly 200 Beam Frigates in it, must have homogenized on me.  The majority of 'em made a run for Boatcini to become threat, which is now at 81.  Got 45 Beam Frigates for my trouble though.  So far, so good.  Gonna go whap that threat tho'... which isn't hanging around there.  not quite sure where they got off to yet.

At 50:00 or so econ has hit 500k/500k, so I start building off Siege/Bomber/Cloaker SSs.  Battling on Suolik has taken a masive toll on my fleet, so they've retreated with only maybe half the fleet left and getting hunted down by a massive group of railcannons and reclaimers, with some mini-siege mixxed in.  My guess is this is the new SF group.  I'm going to need some more firepower.

I'd forgotten to bring another 10 Econ Is online on the homeworld for new construction after initial builds, so I've been twiddling a little too long here.  I use a bunch of K on Raid SS IIs, figuring I'm going to need them here eventually. 

At 59:00 A 16... 16? ship wave announces for Afrzi.  Errr, oookay.

Damn those spire railclusters are nasty.  I got a chance to jump the SF conga line at one point when they responded to my assault at Geswo.  They tore the fleet to pieces.  Wow.

The 16 ships were Railclusters, and they trashed the mini-forts on entrance.  They got 4 of them down though.  So much for that... the fleet responds.

1 hour update: One MK IV world destroyed and conquered, one MK IV world hurting, SF forces are becoming a problem, and minor upgrades to units have occurred.  Primary cluster almost fully scouted.

An 88 Zombard assault hits homeworld.  Niiice... not.   I do recover 25 of them for defensive fleet though before they take the leech ss's out.  I'm stuck doing a famine econ refleet so I start doing Raid SS work with 3/2 I/II of them.  You know, I'd SWEAR F3 used to turn on the debug system...   Oh, only visible in galaxy view now?  And it's under the P0-9 control.  Interesting. 

wow, I'm getting seriously stifled by the SF group.  NICE.  It's about time they were a power in the 'verse.  Hm, what to DO about it though... beach-head maybe, force a cleanup of them constantly.  That could work.  Btw, the reclaimers... not so joyful.

1:20:00 Suolik (another MK IV border world) falls to the fleet.  AIP 52.  1:30 we're refleeting due to a massive brawl and wave hitting homeworld while also trying to cover the initial buildup on Suolik.  A 607 ship wave announces for Afrzi.  I'm starting to see the beginning of the stagnation, as my econ is nearly pure famine at the moment.

There's the humans!  Wahoo, saved from economic destruction.  Afrzi was going to hold, barely, but the Humans coming in for cleanup saved me complete fleet wipe... though it's pretty close anyway.

So, time to really look over SF changes in detail.

Quote
Special Forces made more interesting
AI Special Forces: Now get periodic extra spawns (in addition to the usual trickle from reinforcements) if under a "special forces population cap" determined by difficulty, AIP, etc. The spawns are spread out among all special forces posts (and special forces guardians) in the galaxy, except those in non-AI territory. Each post in non-AI territory instead increases the special-forces-population-cap by about 5%. So there's a reason to kill them, in tension with the +1 AIP from killing them.
 If you're curious about the math, etc, turn on Advanced Logging and check SpecialForcesLogicLog.txt in your RuntimeData directory after the game has run for a bit. There's some minor spoilers in there about what ships each AI has, but nothing you probably won't find out looking at a few AI planets anyway.
 
Will now rally to defend an AI planet that is under significant attack and at least mildly important (AI Homeworld, core world, or a planet with a CSG, ARS, Advanced Factory, Super Terminal, or Broken Golem on it, giving priority to HWs/core-worlds).
 Now keep the special-forces flag even when they have encountered the enemy, so that rallying to a planet does not just dump all the special forces there as normal threat.
 When not rallying to defend a planet, will select a staging planet about 3 hops deep into AI territory and rally there until an eligible AI planet is attacked.
 To prevent a player's first attack from running into several hundred AI ships out for blood, as entertaining as it was during testing, special forces ships are no longer seeded during the initial map seeding.
 Thanks to Hearteater, Faulty Logic, Martyn van Buren, Diazo, TechSY730, Lancefighter, Sunshine!, Bossman, Draco18s, Ozymandiaz, Wingflier, and chemical_art for feedback inspiring these changes.

Ah, so that CSG-E I was fussing around with on Suolik was what was triggering the SF assault team to come a-knocking.  Good to know.  Also I've left two SF posts alive so that's around 10% increase to the cap with them on my planets.

Knocking them out however seems pointless on other planets unles they're "behind the wall", just mine.   Let's see what else is in the notes...

Quote
When a special forces alarm post is triggered it converts all special forces in the galaxy directly into threat-fleet, and then blows up the alarm post (not causing AIP, unless it was triggered because it was shot to death).

Hm, good to know.

Alright, simple enough.  I need to go beach-head a CSG world for a while and clean out the damn Special Forces.  Preferably OFF the beaten path.  As are ARSs, Bs are Fact IVs, Cs are Fabricators and Ds are Counterstrikes... sounds like a D is my best choice for that, as long as I don't eventually take a counterstrike world.... which I will at Tusan when I put up the real whipping boys... dammit.

Map as it stands:


The two yellow arrows point at the two MK IV borderworlds I had to take out before AIP got too high.  Also, decent resources.  Boatcini, one of the borderworlds, will end up as the eastern whipping boy.  Eventually I'll also get down and take Tusan and make a southern-facing whipping boy as well, with the two blue lines indicating the entries to my cluster.

Over at Superman, there is a single Datacenter that I found, that's it.  I haven't popped it yet.  Over in the cluster, on Dora, is the ARS (P9).  Please note the mass of MK III/IV worlds between me and it.  I still can't get scouts onto Suoverjo. 

I'm debating on really fracking with the SF's head.  Go through the cluster and wipe out all local SF posts.  Then, invest Dora with a beachhead forcing the SF troops to constantly come through the two whipping boy gates.  Should be fun if I pull it off.

Time is 1:37... and my head cold is demanding some down time.  I'll come back to this later.
... and then we'll have cake.

Offline Volatar

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #2 on: October 17, 2012, 06:12:37 pm »
Lesseee... AutoBombs, Beam Frigates, Bombars, Chameleons, Elect Bombers, Mirrors, Paralyzers... Polarizers... Shreders... Zenith Medics... Siege Engines... SERIOUSLY?  Who the hell ordered up an 'everything' AI?

With that lineup I would hack every ARS I can until I find Acid Sprayers.

Offline Dichotomy

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #3 on: October 17, 2012, 06:17:30 pm »
Only 9.6/9.6?!?
The insanity hypothesis gains credence.
You are all insane. In. Sane. No argument.

Offline Wanderer

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #4 on: October 17, 2012, 06:39:16 pm »
Only 9.6/9.6?!?
The insanity hypothesis gains credence.

When was this a mere hypothesis?  I thought that I was nuts was a well known fact...
... and then we'll have cake.

Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #5 on: October 17, 2012, 06:39:56 pm »
Only 9.6/9.6?!?
The insanity hypothesis gains credence.

When was this a mere hypothesis?  I thought that I was nuts was a well known fact...
He's new.
Glad to see you're back.
Edit: Why is this thread so named?
« Last Edit: October 17, 2012, 06:42:47 pm by Faulty Logic »
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #6 on: October 17, 2012, 08:35:11 pm »
Let's see... what the hell is THAT thing...
Yep, you're gonna be saying that a lot.

Quote
Zenith Reprocessor?
Not actually one of the favorites out of the new bonus types, but it did get buffed pretty good more recently, so there's some potential here :) 

Quote
You know, that'll be an interesting defensive ship to test out for early game economic boosting.
With the cloaking it might make an amusing raiding ship.  The "I stopped at the traffic light and they field-dressed my car!" kind of raiding.

Quote
Galaxy map needs almost no untangling...
I believe that's a theme in all map types from CoN onward :)

Confusion point arose here though... the mini-fortress when hi-lighted reads as 2 out of 1 in Service and Ship Cap 1.  It's... very non-intuitive.
Ah, will need to fix that next week then.  The per-planet-cap thing hasn't been around long-enough/commonly-enough to get all the wrinkles shaken out. 

Suffice it to say, you can build 2 per planet.

Quote
Railclusters still list cap as 5, btw, instead of 8/4
The listed cap is true; I didn't adjust the caps of the stuff to which unit-cap-scale does not apply (namely, the stuff that was already low-cap like the spire fleetships)

Quote
Gonna go whap that threat tho'... which isn't hanging around there.  not quite sure where they got off to yet.
*whistles innocently* Threat?  What threat?

Quote
You know, I'd SWEAR F3 used to turn on the debug system...   Oh, only visible in galaxy view now?
If it's not showing the main info window, move your mouse cursor around.  The window is shy about the cursor.

Anyway, welcome back :)
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Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #7 on: October 17, 2012, 08:40:16 pm »
Confusion point arose here though... the mini-fortress when hi-lighted reads as 2 out of 1 in Service and Ship Cap 1.  It's... very non-intuitive.
Ah, will need to fix that next week then.  The per-planet-cap thing hasn't been around long-enough/commonly-enough to get all the wrinkles shaken out. 

Suffice it to say, you can build 2 per planet.

The text description needs a bit of work. "A few" means three, dammit!
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #8 on: October 17, 2012, 08:57:22 pm »
The text description needs a bit of work. "A few" means three, dammit!
http://xkcd.com/1070/
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Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #9 on: October 17, 2012, 09:02:40 pm »
 :)
"Few" alone is vague, but "a few" means three. No argument on this point will be sustained.
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline Wanderer

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #10 on: October 17, 2012, 09:03:01 pm »
Edit: Why is this thread so named?

Expectations... Merely because of expectations.

Quote
Zenith Reprocessor?
Not actually one of the favorites out of the new bonus types, but it did get buffed pretty good more recently, so there's some potential here :) 
Not a bad fighting ship but I'm a little disappointed in it.  I expected to be swimming in M/C after waves.  If it's doing much, I can't even tell.

Quote
Quote
You know, that'll be an interesting defensive ship to test out for early game economic boosting.
With the cloaking it might make an amusing raiding ship.  The "I stopped at the traffic light and they field-dressed my car!" kind of raiding.
Cloaking?  It can't shoot and cloak, can it?

Quote
Quote
Galaxy map needs almost no untangling...
I believe that's a theme in all map types from CoN onward :)
Yawhoot!


Quote
The listed cap is true; I didn't adjust the caps of the stuff to which unit-cap-scale does not apply (namely, the stuff that was already low-cap like the spire fleetships)
AH!  That makes sense... nasty little fegs though... very very nasty.

Quote
If it's not showing the main info window, move your mouse cursor around.  The window is shy about the cursor.
Ah, kk, will do.
... and then we'll have cake.

Offline Wanderer

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #11 on: October 17, 2012, 09:04:25 pm »
:)
"Few" alone is vague, but "a few" means three. No argument on this point will be sustained.

I wholeheartedly agree!  There is absolutely no reason to sustain an argument that has to do with a word that means more than 1 and less than a volume that actually matters.  :D
... and then we'll have cake.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #12 on: October 17, 2012, 09:12:18 pm »
:)
"Few" alone is vague, but "a few" means three. No argument on this point will be sustained.
Ok, I'll have the AI send a few motherships to investigate.
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Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #13 on: October 17, 2012, 09:14:15 pm »
Motherships don't scare me. I fought a few a couple games ago.
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline Wanderer

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Re: Oh. Dear. Lord.
« Reply #14 on: October 17, 2012, 09:43:05 pm »
Well, on spawn up I finally got a few scouts back to Suoverjo, and it was unimpressive.  The new 'dying on a different world sound' almost sounded like a flat gong... will take a few to get used to.

So, there are only two reasons to get into the backfield of my own cluster.  The ARS and to clean out Warp gates.  Next stop, Boatcini and its whipping boy off Mantis... which means I really need to pop the Eye and friends down on Pirafenori... which I need to do anyway.  Raids to the rescue!... besides, I'm still in famine econ.

With Econ never getting off the floor I unlock Crystal Havester III and am back down to 1,250 K again. 

God DAMN those Railclusters are evil at MK IV.  entire fleet only got 3 of them dead against a mini-threatball.  Holy crap.  Doesn't help that they're threat release from one of the other MK IV worlds and have a few artillery's parked there as well to lay out my starships.  However, with the Raid fleet active again, back to Perkadillio or whatever the hell that planet's name was.

I also popped a Distribution Node (Trojan of course) to try to get my economy off the floor.  No joy, but at least no serious loss either.

Homeworld gets an announcement for a wave inbound, 73 ships.  That's gonna hurt.  Most of the troops just got whapped when I tried to hit Boatcini while the Raids had dragged a bunch of wormholers off the entry.  The human rebels took on the inbound MK IV Guardian fleet at Afrzi though, so that saved me a bit.  However, 71 Reprocessors are just parked on Homeworld at the moment... great.  Unlock Tachyon emitters... TOO LATE.  Lost a Home Settlement... two of them.  dammit, savescum... and my autosave is right as they start opening fire on the home CC.  Crap. 

Going to restart this game.  I'm not happy with my additional unit and I stalled out hard trying to dig my way out of all those MK IVs right off the homeworld.  Same settings, new seed, new starter ship.  I'd blame the cold-medicine but that's not all of it.
... and then we'll have cake.

 

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