Right off the bat traders visited Hiigara, so I bought my two zenith powerplants. My energy had been getting really low, so this was a welcome development.
The Dyson Sphere is triggering two dark spire vengance generators... I'll need to free it soon... in other news, an astro train group flew through my base and tried to kidnap a few of my ships. I scrapped them before that could happen. I also found some dark spire wraiths that had visible health bars o_O (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452920651 )
As I finished cleaning up, the Dyson's control of the region began increasing. I decided to send my champs to deal with it before the gatlings took out my home command.
I have determined that the AI has these bonus ships so far; Spire railcluster, Armor booster, and bulletproof. Scouting also revealed an advanced fleetship constructor only 3 jumps from Hiigara, and the botnet golem/Lighning turret MK V fabricator right next door! I also found an impulse reaction emitter (no clue what that is) MK 5 fabricator. (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452930869 and
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452930939 )
At 52:00 I freed the dyson sphere. (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452932221 ) This will help keep the Ai off me while I set up my bottlenecks. I sent research labs to all the planets I freed, and unlocked the shadow battleship upgrade, plasma siege cannon, Photon lance (YESSS), Acid Jet, Impulse reaction cannon, projected shadow tacheon pulse emitter, rail cluster, Heavy beam module, doom accelerator, and projected shadow Decoy. The Epsilon Eridani Remnants also arrived, finishing the splinter faction collection.
The Civilians pushed me into the MK 2 AI range, so i had to boogie on those bottlenecks. The devourer golem also decided to pay me a visit, but it only passed through.
Using my newfound K, I unlocked Munitions booster 2, logistics 3, forcefield 3, area mines, medic frigate 2, missile frigate 2, zenith starship, flagship 2, and scout starship 2.
Using my new champions (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452936053 ), I sliced through the fleet camping near Hiigara (Action shot!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452937032 ) and on the first bottleneck. I then set up a bottleneck on this planet. Thanks to my two zenith generators, power was not an issue at all.
While waiting for construction, I set up my planet-specific controls for the bottleneck (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452938183 ). Once all the turrets were set up, I brought the munitions boosters in to give the turrets the x2 boost (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452939467 ). Found the amusing dyson gatlings captured by tractor train as well xD (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452940386 )
Once my economy evened out, I began work on the second bottleneck. during construction, i destroyed the A prime generator that was sitting on the planet. When I got the ARS, I had the choice of lightning torpedo frigate, spire blade spawner, and the lightning Starship. I decided to go with the Spire blade spawner. The Torpedo frigate I've found to be pretty useless and lag inducing (as well as the annoying false-alarm explosion sounds), and the lightning starship's attack really isn't that great at all for how low the ship cap is and it's reload time.
With the second bottleneck just about complete, I place four economic stations within my territory to give myself some energy and metal boosts.
Once everything was in place, I began to split my fleet into two defender groups. (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452941899 &
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452941924 &
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452941995 ). Once that was done, I sent a survey ship to the spire signal, and sped up time. Literally not a single AI ship attacked at all, and I recovered the shard without incident.
While waiting for the second signal trace, I used my MK 2 scout starships to dash around and gather intel about planets further out. They discovered another advanced fleetship constructor, but it's way too far out to be practical compared to the one I already found. They also found a showdown device, and a warbird fabricator/Advanced research station. the final stop was a civillian planet before they died. (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452943694 )
Next shard was located one hop west of the bottleneck outside Hiigara, on an attritioner planet x_x, so I sent the survey ship with a cloaker starship to wait just outside while I sent my champs in to get rid of the attritioner.
at 1:52:00, I had discovered the spire ship. Once again, no AI activity.... o_O I popped a data center though to bring the AI back down to MK 1, however, the AI had already unlocked the Zenith Autobomb.
Sent another scout dash out while waiting for the next signal, thanks to the dyson gatlings a lot of the tachyon guardians were destroyed, allowing me to go further into enemy space. I found a grav drill nearby, and an advanced starship constructor on one of my future spire bases (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452945171 ). I need to get rid of some of these train stations so I can keep my scouts from dying to the tachyon emmiter trains however, as I cannot keep constant scout coverage....
Spire civilians hit again, luckily I stayed in the MK 1 AI tech level. the next shard was located on "Jerpan" (I dunno, i find that name funny xD
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452946499 ) so, as per usual, i send my champ and my 8 spire frigates to clean it up. This planet just so happens to have a dark spire vengance generator, so this will be fun...
Cleaned up the planet, had to recall one spire frigate before it died, but the remaining 7 and the 3 champs guarded the surveyor until the shard was discovered (Action shot!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452947676 ). Using a fancy little tactic I made myself, I select all the spire/champs and the shard while they are in proximity to each other, and set them to go to the bottleneck planet. after that, I select just the shard, and send it to my home planets. Now the spire ships will move with the shard at the shard's speed, but stay and defend the bottleneck while the shard goes onward. (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452948438 )
The reactor was reactor was recovered easily with minimal incident and resistance. An abnormally strong hybrid, however, was detected soon after. I sent the brand new colony ship to the first location(
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452949715 ), and began construction of a city. Thanks to engineer spam (
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=452949783 ), the hub was quickly constructed and scans began immediately.
My spire fleet now consists of;
24 frigates
4 destroyers - ( 2 MK 1 rail, 1 MK 2 shield, 2 MK 2 Laser)
2 cruisers - ( 4 MK 1 rail, 2 MK 2 rail, 2 MK 2 laser, 1 MK 3 shield)
at 2:55:06 in-game time, I shall stop for this session. I'm sure this wall of text is already too much ^^; I have this session saved as a different instance than yesterday's so that I can back up if I screw up. If you guys want me to upload them to you can look for yourself, just tell me how and I will
