Ok, moving on.
==== Operation Flotilla Reconica ====1:45:37 The fleet is assembled. Going to try something new (for me) here. Hilarious failure is a
definite possibility. Basically I'm tired of my scout caps getting eaten by whatever out there, and I don't feel like doing a low-key tachyon-drilling operation.
So I'm sending everything (just about).
13 Transports:
2 holding fleet ships (292 total)
1 holding combat starships/starship-like ships (37 total)
1 holding MRSs (4)
1 holding Cloaker + Enclave starships (4)
1 holding Engineers (10)
1 holding scouts+scoutstars (27)
1 holding mobile builders + colony ships (9), in case I need to set down somewhere to avoid deepstrike threat
5 empty transports for spares and drawing fire.
Operational objectives:
1) Locate at least 2 of the remaining Advanced Research stations. I've downed two CSG-As and haven't found any others in my limited scouting of the other three clusters.
2) Locate both AI homeworlds.
3) Scan as many other planets as possible, so I know what my options are.
4) Try to not lose
everything.
I anticipate a fairly amusing amount of threat generation, among other things.
For my itinerary:
1) I will transit out of the cluster through the Bingbing wormhole to Joifi in the south.
2) From there, I will proceed south to Asbuldi, and destroy the data center while I'm there.
3) I'll then dispatch scouts through Aorew to its remaining unscouted neighbor to make sure I don't run into a raid engine or something like that.
4) I'll then enter Aorew, and send scouts (probably built by my enclaves) 2 hops out to the next set of unscouted planets.
And so on, though about that time the transports will give out from wormhole attrition unless I take a planet (to repair or rebuild them). I guess I should give the intel reports on the planets I've already scouted, but that takes a long time and there's nothing too critical (Aorew has the superterminal, but I'm not concerned about that right now).
From there, we'll see how it's gone.
Onward, into the fog!
1:46:35 Fleet is in position on Bingbing, will dispatch scout to get a look at what to expect.
That counterwave will hit Ipq in 43 seconds, but I've added turrets and am having a core tackle drone launcher custom-built to defend it. Also, those missile turrets finally took out the AI Fort-III a minute or so ago.
=== The Hop-Skip-Jumping Of Joifi ===Threat eval:
95 MkIII fleet ships, 47 more in barracks. Decent, but I'm not concerned.
Ion I; so most of my fleet ships are staying in the car.
12 MkIII guardians. Respectable, but the zombie is the only one I'd worry about, and the fleet ships are staying in the car.
Nothing else notable, really. A quick peek at my old intel reports on the neighbors doesn't show any interplanetary.
Ok, let's just cruise through.
=== The Drive-By-Shooting Of Asbuldi ===1:47:01 Probably should have dropped a scout in to threat eval first, but no harm done.
Cruised over to the data center, gonna drop off some combat ships to take it down.
1:47:07 The clear out the chaff and I give the order.
AIP 122.
I'll send the combat stuff to the Aorew wormhole on their own power, gonna need to send scouts through.
1:48:12 The counterwave attack on Ipq is underway, but things look under control thanks to Core-Terry.
Scanned Helin. The far side of Aorew doesn't have anything interplanetary, though it does have another Data Center (but also an orbital mass driver, not wanting to raid-ship that) and a CSG-D.
Scrapping my scout Is on other worlds and sending IIs from my home dock to re-picket. Starting my enclaves with the fleet on a new batch of scout Is.
=== The First Battle Of Aorew ===1:48:57 I enter Aorew; wormhole is a long way from the hostiles, so deploying starships (there's an Ion Cannon) to let Terry thin things out before moving to the Helin Wormhole and doing another scout wave.
Transports are on their last legs, but I don't want to take Helin, so I may be hoofing it after this.
1:49:10 * Terry looks pale.
"Boss! The Tackle Drones! They Do Nothing!"Ah, yes, a gravity guardian has appeared. Apply focus fire until it assumes ambient temperature.
"Uh, boss, I didn't do very well in physics, but won't that-"Nevermind, just see if you can shoot those drones in some other direction for now.
1:49:39 Grav Guardian down, tackle drones resume Hilarious Speed.
1:50:30 Ion down, may as well haul out the rest of the fleet for this fight. The AI isn't taking my intrusion kindly.
1:50:56 The Special Forces Have Arrived. That's a lot of ships.
1:52:01 Solid combat, really, with a rolling fall back on my transports that I moved back to the grav ring. The MRSs are really shining in keeping stuff alive. If one of my starships gets focused so it can't repair, I duck it into a transport to break the target lock.
(from between the last two entries)
The resistance just showed up, 25 ships. Should help a fair bit.
Special Forces snipers just showed up too, so I think we're getting near the end of the main SF fleet.
1:52:37 The marauders just joined the battle, and are approaching my transport haven from the rear, so I need to reposition. The AI is losing, but my casualties are mounting among the fleet ships, I should probably change my approach.
1:52:45 The marauders got one salvo off on my transports, and it popped the one with the colony ships and mobile builders. Oi.
1:53:37 I managed to get out of the way fast enough for part of the marauders to go after the AI, which is now getting hit from both sides by them and the resistance while I catch my breath, but a few marauder frigates have rather doggedly stuck on my transports. Annoying buggers.
1:54:32 I've got my fleet ships camping by the MRSs and Scout Starships (nasty snipers, lost several core bombers that way) while my starships sally out into the fray and try to end this fracas. Definitely an uncooperative planet.
* Terry smashes two blade spawners together in frustration.
"Boss, their Ion Eye just turned on!"Ion E- oh boy. Teaches me for ignoring a proper threat eval. Fleet ships in the car! In the car!
1:54:53 Ok, situation appears to be stable, but I don't want to think about how many ships I just lost...
1:57:26 SF Post down.
AIP 123.
But now the eye's down too, and remaining AI resistance is basically gone. The resistance took their whole half of the system down, posts and all.
Time to resume the scouting mission.
1:58:07 A warp gate guardian just spawned on this planet. Interesting. Kill it.
1:58:38 WG-guardian down. Ok, scouting.
=== The Harassment Of Helin ===1:59:34 Ok, scanned both of Helin's unscouted neighbors. Sicaever has nothing worrisome, but Afrfuisi has an Interplanetary munitions Booster (and is MkIV to boot).
I
strongly suspect that Sucaelcen (4 hops from Aorew) is an AI HW, so I want to at least get one of its neighbors to confirm the Core World telltales.
But after that brawl I don't really want to tackle a MkIII with an Interplanetary Munitions Booster backing it up.
And that Orbital Mass Driver of Helin is a real pain in the... wormhole, it's sitting right on the other side of the wormhole from my fleet.
I am in need of a Dynamic Entry.
Brother Koolaidius!(
THOOM, THOOM, THOOM, THOOM, whirrrr, crackle, stop)
"
Yes, Commander?"
Terminate the Xenos Orbital Mass Driver.
"
Yes, Commander."
(actually, spire railclusters are being utilized, due to licensing issues)1:59:48 Wo-hoa! My first railcluster moved around for about 0.5 seconds, then I saw a line drawn to it any everything went dark again. That's one impressive sniper, even a MkI cluster has 3,350,000 hit points!
And the next two go through... and also die! Good Grief! Abort entry! Abort entry!
(the dreadnought would not have had this problem)Only 3 casualties, whew. One was a mkII. 6.7 million hp, poof!
Wow, yea, I knew I was arguing in some thread a few weeks ago that the sniper's bonuses were an important counterbalance to the sentinel's advantages, but the game didn't need to go demonstrating it
on my face! And there were only 9 mkIII snipers.
... oh, and an interplanetary munitions booster. Yea.
Ok, plan B, I'll just send in my (checks sniper bonuses) non-close-combat, non-light, non-medium, non-polycrystal starships to kill the orbital mass driver...
What could go wrong?
2:00:00 autoprogress,
AIP 124.
Ok, gonna take a break. Tune in next time to see how many pieces my rear end has been carved into before it's handed back to me on a platter.
(fyi, I don't try to do regexes in the forum software, I type these up in Textpad, which has a slightly modified regex dialect iirc, and after I'm done I apply the following find/replace pairs using the regex flag:
^\(===.*===\)
[color=#E0E070][size=16pt]\1[/size][/color]
^\([0-9]+:[0-9]+:[0-9]+\)
[color=#C0C0FF][size=12pt]\1[/size][/color]
\(AIP [0-9]+\)
[color=red][size=11pt]\1[/size][/color]
^\(Unlocked [^\.]+\.\)
[color=#80FF80][size=11pt]\1[/size][/color])
State of the galaxy:
