Alright, AI, it's time for us to continue our... oooh, new update. Shiny.
Hm, 4 worlds left to eyeball this side of Earth. Jumping Jax, Huge, Solaris VII, and Cyborg.
There's Eye/Fort/Peacemaker combos cutting me off along the north and center at Three Kings and Marik. Earth and Craps are simply Peacemaker Eyes. Better place to make my tests, they're also both only MK IIs. Need to get some pickets on them.
Still have that ARS at Kerensky I can't get near at the moment, too. MK IV, hiding behind the Peacemaker/Eye/Fort walls. That planet also happens to have a Speed Booster Fab on it, for all the good those would do me. They die to a sneeze.
Just started getting econ again, I have 3,650 energy with 2 of the home human settlements (8k energy, +25 m/c each) powered down to allow it to cover. With the other 3 I have 24k in energy I can manipulate... or I could put up a set of tertiary reactors. Which would kind of defeat the purpose but those two human settlements would cover the costs if I just needed raw power.
Current economic income is 721 metal/sec with an outgoing of 228, net 493. Crystal is 996/sec with 228 outbound for net of 768. And I'm metal heavy on my construction. Snort. At least it'll help with Raid pops.
For one of my tricks, I build a Starship constructor and a Rally point (local) on Blackstone. We'll get back to that later, I just want it there for now. Eventually, I'm gonna start capturing some of these inbounds to help with defenses. You want to send MK IIIs at me? Allllrighty! Rally will end up at the command center to help with 'breakthrough' defending. I also need to move some turrets around, but I'm waiting till I hit half-mill in each material before I move more than 5 at a time. It'll also let me take a bunch of grav turrets down.
Realizing I'm definately in need of more energy, I bring homeworld up to 3xAll Reactors... and realize all this time I've had the calculation completely FUBAR. I'd thought (for example, the MK III) was 80,000 -> 80k * 0.8 -> (80k * 0.
* 0.8... yeah, no.
Whoops. So that third set of reactors is only getting me ... errr, wait a second. Something's off here.
That's the reactors. I've marked with the blue tag the Misery reactors.
Reactor Is: 5000 -> 4000 -> 3200. Cool, this is how I thought they worked.
Reactor IIs: 40000 -> 24000 -> 14400. Hm?
Reactor IIIs: 80000 -> 16000 -> 8000. WTF?
So, Reactor Is have a 20% effeciency loss. Right, that's what I'd thought they all did. Now, actually LOOKING at the help text...
IIs are a 40% effeciency loss. IIIs are an 80%... Holy mother of gods. No wonder my math was so off on the Z-Gennie that Keith didn't even bother to correct it. I'm actually better off building the 3rd and 4th II instead of a 2nd III? 30 instead of 40 m/c costs. What the filthy foul? *sighs* There comes a point here where spamming Reactor Is becomes more feasible than a reactor III. However, there seems to be a loss cap on the Reactor IIIs. that should have went to 3200, not 8000.
You know, I just don't know. I've got the 'nudge' of power I needed, enough to bring two FFs online over the Cisko exit on Blackstone.
Getting a few scouts past Earth to Hacker, I find a new ARS. This one's lightly defended by the Tank on a MK II world. Ya-voot! Poker's just a MK III world that I'll have to run over at some point.
4:20. I've popped a tachy over on Tau to land my last Scout I as a picket and have worked on getting pickets out to Earth/Craps with the Scout IIs. Wave for 877 ships (48 AIP) fires up for Blackstone. I've moved... most of the turrets at this point, but I wasn't anywhere near as polite to my econ as I said I was going to be. However, the fleet's at Blackstone, ready to help out as needed, but I'd like to see how the turrets perform on their own.
Waiting for the wave, I take a look at Earth. Both Mass Drivers are exposed and are on wormholes. That'll help. Craps also has both exposed. So, Fleet-Raid the Mass Drivers then Raid SS the posts down. This might work.
Marik, on the other hand, has both of the Mass Drivers next to a fortress and the cmd center. That'll have to be a polycrystal run.
Not bad. Better alignment on the turrets and a 'wider' minefield and I should be good to go. Did wreck the econ again though. All the dead turrets I simply popped and moved. The AoE turrets could use another couple of FFs tho'. I patiently wait for the Whipping Boy to fully rebuild before I move the fleet. It's agonizing waiting.
I'm glad I did, 1008 announced at 4:27, and we're not fully back online yet. Yeah, fleet's gonna help stuff this one, most of the mid-range batteries are still moving to their new 'in-line' position.
Not too badly shaken from that. Majority of the fleet's still up and the turrets didn't get TOO badly thwacked. The fleet's heading back to Misery for R&R tho'. Thinking of trying the EMP Mines with off wormhole turrets so the turrets only engage the active targets while the EMP'ers stay stuck in the back. May take a bit of doing to pull that off. The mined run is working nicely... well, at least it's blowing up nicely... and I'm assuming is doing some decent work. Can't beat 'em for the price.
4:37 Fleet's rebuilt, econ's starting to flow again, and Whipping Boy is up. Let's go see about Earth. I think, since there's only 67 units on Earth currently, I'll simply take the Maws and Bomber IIs in, while the rest of the fleet resides as backup in Eridani.
That didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Lost 3 Maws. And there's a grav guardian under glass that's covering the inbound wormhole that's not letting me speed the Bombers out for a suicide run. The Ion V isn't helping. All the Bombers were dead by the time they broke the gravity well.
Alright, that grav's gonna mess me up. New tactic. Bombers to Marik. Pop the dual Mass Drivers on the Cmd Center and work the fort a bit until they're dead. Then I can eventually get into Earth from Marik... and hopefully sneak a few more scouts into the middle of the southern area, too. Can do a reinforcement cleanup in Green Lantern while I'm at it.
4:47 I'm due another wave, and soon. Fleet's just about ready to go.
Yep, 4:49, 876 ship wave. I took a little bit of smackage taking 250 ships off Green Lantern, so the fleet's gonna head home to Misery and chill while we confirm I'm not going to end up with my arse airborne.
Man, those poor Basics and Lasers. They just DIE in the 3rd or 4th enemy salvos. I need more range. Meh. Ya-whoot! 160 Human Resistance Fighters. Go boys Go! Well, since the resistance hopped in, I can head the fleet for Marik.
WOW. Really? Suicide Guardian took out ALL 186 bombers in a single pop. They did, however, manage to get the two Mass Drivers, so I can at least raid Marik out now. Those Human Resistance fighters are just suiciding all over the place, though. Well, at least they're dying with style.
4:57 Blackstone is STILL rebuilding. Yeesh.
There's a SpireShield on Marik that's going to cause me grief, I'll have to deal with that. Bomber SSs are probably my best bet. Guess I'll build a few.... errr... after Blackstone and the fleet are done. AIP at 51 from Spec Forces GPs and time at 5:00:00.
5:00:00 Wave announce: 1,268 ships. Here we go again. The Rebellionists have finished their anti-threat walkabout and are at 43 Bomber 35 Frigates left. That'll help. I'm still rebuilding the turrets though, in particular the AoEs. Ugh.
266 unit carrier is on board. That's gonna hurt. The Rebels and parking my repair/rebuilder drones under the AoE forcefield saved my bacon, that fight. Hmmm. Meanwhile the Raids got all but two of Marik's GPs down.
Finally got scouts onto yet another 'inner' planet, Huge. 1 Counter II, Fact IV. Fort I but no Eye this time on a Peacekeeper (Peacemaker) world. I keep this up I really am going to swap out the transport template for Moya...
Twiddle twiddle. Rebuild rebuild. Twiddle Twiddle.
5:08: Hey! Blackstone's done.
5:12 Fleet's ready to go. The Raids are on Marik already, and started work on cleanup for all the little guys under the Spireshield. The main fleet is going to try to punch a hole in the Tachyon grid in Three Kings, hopefully letting me get scouts onto Jumping Jax... the Raids are sandpapering the Spireshield. I'll need to keep an eye on them.
Three Kings, for some reason, is at 200 ships, and is MK III. This will probably hurt a bit, but if I can just get the Tachyon cleared I might be able to sneak the Scout IIs down there.
Heh, I just realized I've got two Fact IVs down here with me, Huge and Riker... right next to each other.
OMG. Did those stupid self-destructors get a beefup or something? 400 ships dead on entry into Three Kings. Tachyon Guardian's down but OMG. Seriously?! Ow.
5:17. The Raids have the SpireShield II down to 72%. I can hear the sandpaper machine goin gin the background.
5:18 CPA, 407 units announces. You know at about 5:16 I'll get a wave warning.
Finally got eyes on Jumping Jax. Peacemaker, Eye, Data Center, Alarm. DC is near the wormhole. I can probably Raid SS suicide it. MK IV planet, too. With most of the fleet needing a rebuild though I'm loathe to do anything but let the Raids just keep working on the SpireShield.
Eyes on Solaris VII now too, 3/1 with nothing else of import. Last world to see will be Cyborg. And Eyes there now too. 3/2 world with an Eye... but NOT the Peacemaker (for once).
So.
What we're looking at here is pain. Lots of pain. The P0 worlds are the Eye/Mass Driver worlds, usually with Fort. The P4s are the CoPs. Three Kings is heavily dug in, that's just going to hurt trying to get past.
Fact IVs on Riker and Huge there, in the middle. Kerensky's an ARS, so I've got to break Three Kings eventually. Marik, along the northern run there, is nearly broken. Earth and Craps are Eye/Mass Driver worlds, which I need to get through for the rest of the galaxy. Jumping Jax has my Data Center. As you can tell, time in game is 5:22. CPA still needs to land, and most of the fleet's rebuilding from that suicide guardian. Spireshield is at 44%.
What'd I tell ya?
The wave was stopped reasonably cleanly with only minor human support (36 ships or so). Just in time the fleet's nearly done, too, so at least my econ isn't super-loaded for the turret/ff reconstruction. All 407 ships were MK IIs, too. The majority of 'em were heading for Eridani, and some of my remaining rebellionists went for the cutoff. Thanks guys, appreciated... we're still rebuilding the Lasers and Basics, as well as a good chunk of the minefield.
AIP 52 from Autoprogress at 5:30.
Next wave: 1316 to Blackstone. Oh JOY. Hey, FLEET? Get over there. Your presense is no longer requested on Misery.
The Raids finally take down the last station on Marik and head for Misery for some well deserved repairs and a few bottles of some champagne like substance our local Dock workers are brewing from cattle leather. I don't ask as long as noone dies from it.
With fleet assistance we jam up the second wave, but about 50% fleet losses. I can live with that, considering the remaining CPA came in with 'em. the turret field is actually mostly intact, it looks like the Fleet took most of that on the nose, just the basics and lasers are completely flattened. To save me some fleet, my Raids head over to Marik and piss off the last Suicide Guardian, since they can take the hit.
5:41 The bombers land on Marik, taking another swing at the entry wormhole covering Fortress III. This time, they're basically left alone to do their job. I'm micro'ing them to pick off one-off attackers cause, well, I've really got nothing better to do until this is done.
Cost me half a fleet due to some misclicks, but Earth is finally devoid of Mass Drivers. Raid time. DAMMIT, soaked a reinforcing Suicide Guardian. Didn't even have time to react. Sonofa... that's gettin' old. There's a bunch of cloaked stuff in here, must be a stealth outpost. Oh, Scout Starships, you're UP! ... err... Crap, I didn't rebuild you, did I?
That's odd... I KNOW the Stealth is here, because there's a Grav Guardian that keeps playing hide and seek with me. However, the Scout Starship isn't Tachyon'ing the stealth awake. Hrm. Whuzzup wit dat?
Oh, duh. It's on the resource point right outside the FF. *facepalm*
5:51 957 ship wave at AIP 52 to Blackstone. Fleet's still a bit banged up but I send 'em over anyway.
Man, these basics are USELESS when the enemy's got more than just Frigates for range. The Basics and Lasers are basically dying in the alpha-salvo to the Beam/Raptor/Frigate combinations. Bah.
5:58. 992 ships to Blackstone. It JUST barely finished rebuild. The fleet's almost finished it's rebuild, so they're gonna head over to help out. I'd like to get enough econ up to move the Lasers/Basics back off the front line and let the enemy 'glide' into them piecemeal. They're useless where they are. I need the FFs and tractors to take the alpha salvos.
Hm, there's *2* stealths in Earth. Great.
FF rebuild from scrap is REALLY nice. Don't have to constantly go check on my whipping boy and figure out 'Hey, you run out of FFs yet? No? K.'
Hey! That picture WAS right the first time. The stealth wasn't revealed while it was under a FF. No Fair! I call that an illegal hit!
Alright. AIP is 54. Time is 6:05 game time. I've really gotten, well, nowhere, except for banging my head against a few brick walls until they fell down because all the blood removed the foundational support... However, I have scouted all the inner south, found my next DC (if I can ever break the planet(s) guarding the raid run), and started to break the Earth/Craps choke. After I take the DC out, my next 'real' target is Hacker, the ARS on the far side of Craps, which ISN'T a MK IV planet and is right at the edge of the 'four hops' I can reach without deep strike. At least I want to see what's on it. It's a crappy planet for resources (0/3) but I need a stepstone to continue the scouting for the last CoP... and, well, it's an ARS and CSG-A. They need to go down anyway. I'll most likely pop it, K it, and then abandon it to the wolves.
Eridani, on the other hand, is a nice 4/4 world hooked off the existing whipping boy. I'd need a get pop or two to control the inbound directions but I could also leave a partial patrol fleet behind protecting both worlds. We'll see.
I gotta get some sleep. Night all.
