Okay! Round 2:
Same settings except for the AIs:
AI (Red): Tank 10
AI (Blue): Peacemaker 10 (My poor Raids)
Home planet's a 5/8 again. Stupid kitten. Get out of my map.
This time I detangled a little more intelligently.
Standard start. I'd debated on only taking harvester IIs instead of IIIs and beefing the fleet immediately, but it's 50% boost at H II, and nearly 80% additional boost from II to III. I'd also though about only boosting the Metal to make up for the early deficiency, but eventually I end up stupid crystal heavy (Raids) and Peacemaker's going to eat a lot of those.
I may be savescumming here a lot. The last round I kind of gave to the AI once I realized what I was in for with that AIP + wave boost. This one's going to be a significantly serious attempt. For full disclosure to those who are reading these to help learn strategy, I'll show my savescum learning experiences like always.
I alter the initial build out slightly to 50/5/10/1 repeating to try to balance off the metal consumption from the Maws.
AI extra ships: Armored, Tank (obviously), Shredder, Beam Frigate, Raptor, Autocannons.
Planet scouting:
Borderworlds:
Green Lantern (2/4): Co-P and Fortress. Seriously? *facepalm*
Cisko (2/2): Dual Mass Drivers... you know, I'm not even going to mention the interceptor/mass drivers from now on unless they do something significant. Assume they're everywhere, x2, shutting down a Raid SS based anti-Eye plan. Rest of planet is negligible.
I wonder if Maws are Mass Driver targetable. Since they can be hit by Bomber SS, I have to assume that's a yes. That's going to dent some plans.
2 out:
Shawshank (4/3): MK IV world. The tail is blocked, particularly with the spireshield IV sitting on there.
Flamethrower (0/0): AI Eye/Co-P. Spiffy. Only a SF post on it though, can pop the Eye pretty easily.
Matrix (1/4):Fort I, some posts.
Blackstone (1/3): ARS. Niiiice.
Hot Sauce (2/3): Dual Counter IIIs, 4 Ion cannons.
Strana (1/4): AI Eye, nothing else of note.
3 out:
Eridani (4/4): AI Eye, Fort III.
Tau (0/3): Lightly defended.
Marik (4/1): (This one took awhile, didn't find it until midpoint of the second wave) Fort III, Spireshield II... not much.
Draconis (4/3): Lightly defended
Knee-jerk reaction of initial scans: I'm hosed. That's a lot of Eyes and Forts out there.
At about 5:30 with the fleet nowhere near ready I setup lines of gravs from the two inbound wormholes.
Knowing I'll be facing Tanks and Armoreds, I take a quick lookie-loo at their hulls. Armors are Ultra-Heavies. Space Tanks are Polycrystals. Righty-o. Heavy on the sniper for the Space Tanks... now, hrm. Basics like Ultra-Heavies... Ah, Lasers! Heavy and Ultra-Heavy bonuses. Laser IIs... gyeah. LOL, wait a second?! The Science details for Laser II Turrets tells me about the Laser Drones, and nothing about the turret! D'oh! That's hysterical. Not that I can't look it up in the build screen but that's not going to help newbies.
So, I'm looking at primary defenses using Basics (Anti-arty), Lasers (anti-tank), and snipers (anti-bomber). The AoE turrets should chew up any fighters on the whipping boys.
First wave: 88 ships to Misery landign at ~8:10. Oh, that's better. That's MUCH better.
Fire up 30 Basics for now to help defend short-range at the station. Fleet's at 100/50/100/5 when the enemy lands. Not a lot of concern here... 16 cloaked, 7 armoreds, 6 bomber, 10 fighter, 9 missile, 8 tank, 12 shredder, 20... Youngling Tigers. Hrm, well then. Oh, yeah, Bomber SS, Flagship, and Siege too. The fleet comes out of that relatively unscathed (except for the bombers, they're ruined... AGAIN), with most of the damage being done by the SSs. There's still 16 autocannons hiding around here.
I science up Tachyon Turrets and Bomber IIs in between the waves, and begin construction of both. I also get 30 Snipers going on homeworld (Misery).
Second wave is a mere 68 ships. ROFLCOPTORS! Seriously. If anything proves just how over-weight early game AIP boosts are to certain AIs, this is it.
My econ is completely in the gutter, though, so that's a GOOD thing. I'm not going to have more than 45 bombers or so when this wave lands. LOL, my maws are trying to swallow the flagship and Leech starships. They're not immune to swallow but it doesn't seem to work.
Okay, that's not funny anymore, guys. STOP IT. With only 5 of you 2/5s of your abilities being wasted is NOT FUNNY.
Okay, time to stategerize:
Green Lantern's dead to me for now. The Co-P on it is a false 20 AIP boost, and I'm going to have to break a fort getting through there anyway. I've found 2 of the Co-Ps but until I've got four... yeah. We saw how that +AIP boost worked out last time, didn't we...
So that leaves getting out through Cisko for the moment into the southeastern areas. Well, that works, ish. My first real target is Blackstone so I can check out that ARS. Matrix and Flamethrower aren't really worth conquering. Looking at the starmap in Cisko, though, Matrix's WH is problematic for a whipping boy. It's close to the homeworld outbound WH and is waaaay off center for combined defenses from the other two (Blackstone and Flamethrower). Hrm, I may not want to setup on Cisko at all.
That means I skip out and head straight to Blackstone, one of the intended defender worlds anyway. If I simply blow the warp gates on Cisko and Matrix, Blackstone's layout isn't too bad, particularly with me expecting to take Hot Sauce eventually. Heck, I don't really need to even blow Matrix's, just Cisko's. I also want to break Shawshank. I want to see what's behind it on Irian and Syphon in the tail and a 4/3 for econ isn't a bad thing if I decide I want an econ planet.
Alright, we're going to do some fleet work for a while. Immediate goals are to determine the devastation those mass drivers are going to do to my Maws, clean up some locals, pop the Fort on Green Lantern, and open the door on Blackstone to get my Science II in there to see what's in there. Once I've got that going I'll drop in on Shawshank and feel the burn.
13:45: I'm letting my fleet rebuild and my maws finish dinner before moving forward. Scout I's are heading out for picket duty.
18:10: Still getting pickets out but the fleet's good to go. Grab a save before continuing. 4 Scout Is aren't enough to actually break into the last two 2-out systems and stay alive to picket them. I'll need to get the fleet involved in some tach pops.
First stop, Cisko. I need to see what I'm dealing with for Mass Drivers. Oh, AWESOME. The Mass Drivers don't shoot at Maws. Oh, you're gonna BURN AI! Also, my entire fleet can't wake a neighbor planet. That's a bit scary.
I knock out some posts and most of the fleet on Cisko, but purposely don't pop the Warp Gate. I need to see what these max time waves are going to land as before I bump the AIP again. I do, however, head to Blackstone to open the door. I suffer the Ion Cannon mostly because I'm not sure if I'll want to keep it for Whipping Boy defenses or not yet. I leave with about half the fleet dead before I wake an EMP guardian. Taking out the local guardians was painful enough that I don't want to strip my forces down completely. The Science II makes its way to Blackstone while the fleet R&Rs, prepping to go after Green Lantern.
Blackstone options:
Primary: Zenith Polarizer
Secondaries: Zenith Bombard and Cutlass.
Ooooooooooooh. Oh, choices choices. Polarizer does extra damage against armor ships... Wiki time. Rats, no data. I know somewhere around here is the scaling multipliers for them. Dang, can't decide. Bombards or Polarizers? I AM fighting the tank... 3k armor on Armor ships and Tanks, both. You know, the polarizer might be a best option here. Those ships are NEVER GOING AWAY. No hack, we're going polarizer.
Meanwhile, the fleet's split in half on Green Lantern. The Bomber I/II squadron's after the Fortress while the rest of the fleet harasses the system. A stealth guardpost shows itself when the bombers get near so they take that out, too.
1st of the 2nd wave announces. 143 ships to misery. Okay, that's handleable. Fleet which is still in reasonable shape heads home to support the defense after popping a good chunk of Green Lantern. Couple of posts under glass left but the 200 ships that WERE there are mostly dead. I also begin Raid SS production. I realize they're not going to be worth heavy investment in for marks but they'll be useful on the non-Peacemaker worlds, in particular for popping Ion cannons.
After wave defense, the fleet after R&R heads back to Green Lantern at 32:30. Target is to break Shawshank open, the Mk IV world.
Having some spare cash (half a mill each) I drop some turrets onto homeworld... and start running into power issues. Fire up the 2nd set of homeworld reactors. (Ahem, for those listening, YES ENERGY RESTRICTS YOUR FLEET COUNT!) *cough* Sorry, frog in my throat. I shut down a homeworld settlement for now to get a bit back.
Wait a second. My fleet, earlier, couldn't fire up a 150 ship MK II planet, but I just woke, with a VENGEANCE, a 120 ship MK IV planet with the SAME FLEET? Oh gods. RUN GUYS RUN! Dammit, Maw-death cascade, about 20 ships (mixed II/IV) a piece. Ow ow ow. Nothing like 'make your own wave' offenses. The only way that could have gone worse was if I'd had no cash stockpiles for the rebuild or I'd woken an EMP. Ow. Annnnd, at 38:00 we refleet.
So, since I can, I take the little Raid SS Is out for a joyride in Blackstone, being VERY careful of the EMP guardian.
Next wave landing at 42:30, 160 ships. They've got some guardians for backup from the Raid flight. Should get interesting. However, that was worth it, I finally got a picket up on Hot Sauce.
This isn't good. Those maws have a SERIOUS desire to try to eat starships with the new fix in place. That's screwing up over half a cap's worth of firepower right there. Houston, we have a problem.
The Raids were able to set off a huge MK III force hiding up on Hot Sauce, as well as pop the 3xMK I ions (Useless to capture, everything's MK II or higher). The planet basically came to Misery and assaulted us. The fleet, nearly rebuild, is rebuilding again. Lost half of it or more to the defense. It did clean out 100+ ships from Hot Sauce though.
52:00 Fleet's rebuilt. Time to go smack that MK IV planet again. Hey, Shawshank! I'm comin'!
54:00 I get an announcement for 181 ships to Misery, just as I start hitting Shawshank. they'll land in a minute. The fleet finishes hunting down a sniper guardian before U-turning and heading for Misery. They should get there in time to help, if necessary. The fleet ended up probably being unnecessary, but it would have been a close thing. No reason to not play it safe, it's not like I'm 10 minutes away on a deep strike right now. We pounded a decent sized hole into the Shawshank defenders, now I just need to push through it and get the rest of that tail mapped off.
While that's rebuilding, my Raiders head out to Strana, a Tank world, to start working down the guardposts to eventually drop the Eye. Right out of the gate I see another EMP Guardian I'll have to be careful not to wake... crap, too late, I spawned on top of it. Ladies and gentlemen, this might be the end! Prep the fleet!
I get the fleet ready to dive into Green Lantern to intercept the EMP while the Raids go to work in Strana... There's actually *two* EMP Guardians in here. It's the last 2 out planet I didn't have a scout on yet, and this just makes things quite ugly, 'eh?
1:00:00 Status: EMP Inbound, fleet's rebuilding, Raids are dying, and a large threat fleet heading for me. Yahooo!
The Fleet intercepts the EMP in Green Lantern with little difficulty and pulls back. I'm going to get the other one fired off as well if I can while I'm prepped for it.
Of course, while I'm pulling this stunt and send the fleet to intercept the second one, 105 ship wave announces to land at 1:03. The turrets will have to deal with local fallout, that EMP's gotta GO! With that quickly dealt with, the fleet heads home to support. We'll catch this mob on its way into Misery in small pieces if I can get them to drifter in. They didn't. I basically just wrecked a doublewave.
Strana's almost completely emptied out now, though.
Wonder if I can get one of my last 2 Scout I's to park there... Hey, neat, finally did. I hit Shawshank again about 1:08. I got hung up on a Spireshield IV + Laser IV, getting it down to about 75% before reinforcements chased off the fleet remains, of which there wasn't much. With a wave coming in we tuck tail for home. I'm going to have to bring the Raid SSs with me to nail that Laser so we can pop the spireshield. I suicide the remaining bombers after the MAss Driver left in Shawshank. They didn't make it.
I've got a mass of MK IV ships coming in to support this wave, this will be painful... The only thing alive after the defense is the Maws, and that's because I was being VERY careful with the Micro. Full Refleet.
However, my Raiders were able to remove the Eye from Strana without a loss, so they're coming home now that I can pay an ounce of attention to them. Shift-click is your friend.
My metal/crystal is at 50k/600k. I manually flip on the metal factories for a bit to help even the load.
1:15. I'm feeling a bit stalled out. I've gotten my initial objectives done but that MK IV world is just really being a bear to get past. I've emptied a number of local systems out of heavy duty defenders too, it just *feels* like I've gotten nowhere. What it is, though, is mostly prep work. These things have to happen eventually.
Bored, I sic the Raiders on the Mass Driver in Shawshank. They get it down to about 30% before all 3 are dead.
I send out the half-fleet to go clear Green Lantern of some threat that's building up while I wait. I also fire up Scout Starships for some additional scouting potential. At 2k in energy a piece it's a bit of overkill but I'll be able to power them down once they're in position.
1:20, Refleet complete, Starships are building again. We head for Shawshank to continue clearance work... we'll wait on the spireshield till the Raids are ready and the Mass Driver's dead this time.
Of course, as soon as I hit Shawshank a wave announces, 141 ships this time. I drop 40 MRMs and 40 basics in to help deal with it, the fleet's busy dangit. 30 more snipes, too, when I look it over and decide it's not enough firepower.
With all the "dead" fighters rebuilding on homeworld to help out the defense, it holds with little concern, and with the raids removing that stinkin' laser guardian (and the lightning, eventually) the spireshield IV drops like a stone. Well, more like styrofoam, but it gets there.
So, I finally get eyes on Irian when I crash through Draconis with fleet leftovers. (2/2) Mk III with an E class. I'm unimpressed. Last one is the tail in Syphon, and my 5 Scout Starships are going to see if they can't get an end-run in on it. The fleet's heading home for R&R before I'm rebuilding my entire bomber squadron again.
Syphon's a 1/4 with an Alarm, a counter II, and... meh. Well, crap.
1:30. Rearfield objectives complete. Shawshank/Draconis are 4/3s but they're off the beaten path. I wanted Green Lantern as a Whip Point but I can't do that until I find the remaining Co-Ps. Best I can do is shut it down for waves against homeworld for now but that's an open wound waiting to get hit, there's too much that can float through that point on a CPA, it doesn't have backfield control.
Eridani's a hard point on the SouthEast. Fort, Eye, Mass Drivers. There's no easy way to break that system. I'm walled off. So, I need to work my little area for the moment, and get a new plan. I can get out via the north, but 'eh. Blackstone has the ARS, is a 1/3 system, and could be taken and turned into a whipping boy to get the pressure off the homeworld. This sounds like a plan to me. None of the 3 worlds between Misery and Blackstone are really worth taking. Warp Gate pop the two homeworld connections and simply move out to Blackjack. That'll give me a staging area for hitting Eridani with as well as a decent turret stack to retreat to when I fire up the AI Eye.
Hot Sauce is a 2/3 world, but its got a pair of counterstrikes on it. However, it could help me bleed off pressure from Blackstone. Here's the problem... if they escape Hot Sauce they get into Green Lantern... which means direct homeworld access. No joy. We stick with Blackstone. The wave reduction from time vs. AIP just isn't worth the difference... yet.
So, next set of plans. Take Blackstone and my polarizers. Get 3000 K in research, open up Scout IIs, and either Maw II or Frigate II, kind of a toss up at the moment. Punch a hole through Eridani into those center systems as well as get eyes on Earth as a chokepoint. I'm actually kind of nervous Cyborg or Jumping Jax MIGHT have the AI HW on it. I doubt it but I want to confirm.
This will not be a race to the finish, I believe.
<Note: Photobucket's being a PITA at the moment, I'll upload a current map at 1:30 when it behaves itself.>
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