Picking up the Fallen (Spire) pieces.

[Diazo]

Oh, that is an artifact of how the ships are picked? Alright.

One of the reasons I'm doing this, I've never faced exo-waves before because I usually don't turn those options on.

Anyways, that means fun times ahead for me.....

By the time I get the exo-wave down to just the spire and zenith SS left, my own forces have taken a beating. My forts are still intact but everything else has taken at least some losses. If I still have 50million DPS left I'd be surprised and those Spire and Zenith count their HP in the hundred millions left.

Just means I'll have to get creative. 

D.

[Diazo]

Okay, I've managed to survive the city-building exo-wave, barely.

I took 2 more AI systems for the knowledge to unlock FF Mk III and they all go over my home command, that buys me enough to to kill the Zenith and Spire SS before they pound it down and kill my home command.

Even with the extra 360million HP of force fields over my home command, I still lose:

The refugee outpose, all my home settlements (2), most of my cryo pods (16 of 20 lost) and my defenses are gutted. The spire city hub gets paused while I rebuild. With all my static defenses in my homeworld, my fleet is 99% of my wave defense and I don't have a fleet at the moment....

...

10 minutes later this is telling.

Between 2 waves (acid sprayers and missile frigates) and carriers still being spawned and going straight onto threat I'm hurting.

I lost no systems to the exo-wave, but I've now lost 3 systems to the "less dangerous" attacks that are going on.

Things have stabilized for now, I'm down 3 systems but the AI does not have a hope of cracking my homeworld with them so I've got threat sitting in empty systems that I think I can clean out.

The big problem is that this means the spire city building stays paused while I clean this up. I have 1,200 threat sitting around and I'm still expecting more carriers to spawn onto threat as things proceed.

I don't know how long I have before that first exo-wave hits either, I'm in a really weak position at the moment so it's going to be a long haul to clean all this up.

Onwards and upwards.

D.

[Diazo]

Le sigh.

I need to consolidate all my defenses on the homeworld to survive the exo wave, but I need all my defenses on my border worlds to survive the regular wave attacks and threat.

I can't survive past about 30 to 40 minutes after I survive the exo-wave.

CPA + Normal Waves + Threat simply overwhelms me, I can't relocate enough forces from my homeworld to my border worlds in time.

So, changing topics, attached is my planetary layout.



Those of you with more fallen spire experience, how would you defend this?

Ignore the fact this game has a Speed Racer, I'm looking for Fallen Spire advice in general here.

D.

[Toranth]

I need to consolidate all my defenses on the homeworld to survive the exo wave, but I need all my defenses on my border worlds to survive the regular wave attacks and threat.
<...>
Those of you with more fallen spire experience, how would you defend this?

Err.  Don't play on a lattice map type?
Exowaves spawn from warp gates, and follow (generally) predictable routes to their destination.  By gate raiding extensively, you can get some control.  This is particularly useful if you have a backfield.  Unfortunately, your map is... unfriendly in that respect.  Gate raiding in the south would let you channel the Exowaves into Aidunbark.  I don't see anything you can easily do in the north, though.  You'd need to gate raid everything north and west of the Jawayarran-Tchsamulau-Roadca-Icknagin line to push the spawns south enough to channel through Ednow.
The other thing you can do is just watch the path the Exowave take, and build defenses there.  Sometimes the Ai's pathfinding will bias to one system over another.

I assume P5 markers are where you intend to build your cities?  Just remember that you'll need to clear the AI out of every system adjacent to the cities, which means Dismirhas and Roadcave will require a LOT of AI Command Station killing (12 systems for Dismirhas alone).  Fallen Spire lets you handle higher AIP, but an extra 240 AIP is still noticeable.

Really, for Fallen Spire, lattice map type just looks scary.  Try simple, and try to pick a map where you'll be able to maintain no more than 2 or 3 entry points to your empire.  I always plan out my city locations before I even start the game.  I look for areas like the pocket southeast of  Quiowde and Genboom.  Only a little larger, to fit more Spire cities.

So, yeah.  I said a lot, but tl;dr is that I don't know how you can easily manage both threatfleet and exowave defenses on your current map.  Sorry.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, FS with a many-points-of-entry-into-humanland map is... very interesting.  Usually it is terminally interesting, unless you're playing on a lower difficulty.  8 might be low enough, but toss the speed racer in there and it's kinda rough.

2 or maybe 3 chokepoints can work (keep some good backup defenses on the homeworld to deal with leakers and the occasional punch-through), more than that and I'm not sure if you can really go to the end of the FS campaign.  Partway-and-then-win-normally would be more flexible, though.

[Aeson]

I'd gate-raid Melvu, Burnquce, and Dismirhas, since that should mostly push the Northern exo-waves through Zortus. Also gate-raid everything in the South west of Yimik (and possibly even two or three hops further than that), since that will encourage exo-waves to only take the Northern route into your space. Then turn Zortus into a fortress world. Assuming, anyways, that the only things you have which are exo-wave targets are your homeworld and your Spire city on Chani.

If you have to, abandon everything except Chani and Ribark, and split your defenses between those two worlds until the first city and its Spire fleet complete, then work on reclaiming the worlds you lost.

Exo-waves in my experience take the shortest route from their spawn location to their target location, though they don't necessarily spawn as close to the target as possible.

I would also consider allowing Ednow and Aidunbark to remain lost, if they fall. Clearing and rebuilding lost worlds can cost resources you can't afford while you are building a city. Alternatively, take Tiopo and Aurin, since that reduces the number of border worlds by 1 and gives you a larger energy buffer, and you'll be taking Tiopo eventually anyways if you're going to put a city in Suokiler.

Speaking of Spire Cities, it looks like you're planning to put cities in Dismirhas and Roadcave, assuming that P5 continues to indicate city sites. These worlds are mutually exclusive, and also have so many connections that I'd be wary of putting cities down in them even if I had a massive Spire fleet. I'd suggest moving the planned Dismirhas city into Ednow, and the planned Roadcave city into either Mikbanguh or Yimik, because increasing AIP by ~100 just to expand a city is a little much, even late in a Fallen Spire game.

[Diazo]

Just an update that this game is probably dead.

However, spawned by other conversations, notably the one about chokepoints vs. maptype, I started another one on a realistic map type.

I'd say there's roughly half the warp point connections of the lattice map? Things are certainly easier.

I'm not going to do a full AAR on it, I also dropped Fallen Spire to 2/10 so it's something of a cakewalk but after my last experiences I really want to win this thing for once.

I'll append anything of note to this thread on it, but my next full AAR will be another Fallen Spire 4/10 on a lattice with what I learn from this one.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Playing a winnable scenario definitely helps learn the ropes, so you can get your revenge

[keith.lamothe]

FYI, for 6.013, which I hope to have out tomorrow before noon (EST) :

* The chase-exos for the recover-first-city-shard and building-first-city parts of the Fallen Spire progression have been toned down somewhat, and the later chase-exos increased somewhat.  Player feedback seems to consistently indicate that those first-city ones were too strong, and the later ones (the chase exos, not the pre-announced ones) relatively underwhelming.

So your repeated horrible deaths might possibly not have been in vain

[Diazo]

FYI, for 6.013, which I hope to have out tomorrow before noon (EST) :

* The chase-exos for the recover-first-city-shard and building-first-city parts of the Fallen Spire progression have been toned down somewhat, and the later chase-exos increased somewhat.  Player feedback seems to consistently indicate that those first-city ones were too strong, and the later ones (the chase exos, not the pre-announced ones) relatively underwhelming.

So your repeated horrible deaths might possibly not have been in vain

Well, that's what I'm hoping to accomplish in my Realistic/FS2 game tomorrow so I appreciate it.

As I only have Fallen Spire at 2, I probably won't submit specific feedback on it, it is just making something that would have been easy easier.

For reference, I returned the second shard (Refugee ship) from 2 hops out with only the Mk I ships you get at game start as escorts. I did not kill a single warp gate or build a beachhead either so I certainly have it on easy-mode at the moment.

D.