===Operation Scientific Cooperation=====
Hack 10 is going to hurt, but I am unwilling to either sacrifice a mkIII/IV fleetship or capture another planet, so:
Hacking fleet consists of 10 SBSs, 16 TDLs, 2 miniforts, 6 Riot starships, Faulty Logic (in human form), and three neinzul enclaves with all four drone streams.
Half caps of fleetships (frigates I-IV, bombers/fighters I-II) augment the HW defences (1/2 caps of all turrets, SRO, two mod forts), while the rest of the fleetships, the basic starships and remaining riots, and the champion minions go to Apex to defend against the inevitable psuedo-cpas.
300 k, raid group (62 raid starships) attempts to disregard gravity rules. Clever, but save-reload defeats this particular glitch. Annoying, though.
600 k, zombies mindlessly roaming the map, streaming into my two worlds to die.
1002 k galactic zombie count reaches critical mass, redeployed into carriers, and they lose their zombie status. Phase one of the hack is over.
I spend the next 8 or so minutes mopping them up with the brutally effective Triple Ripple.
Stage two: similar to stage one, critical zombie mass achieved again at 1600 k.
Stage three: 2400 k.
Stage four: normal cpa declared around 2800 k, zombie cpa at 3000.
Riots. Are. Awesome.
So, this hack was like chewing glass, and paying the snooty waiter exorbitant m+c prices to have more (my fleet was repeatedly heavily damaged, but no evisceration, thankfully).
===Operation Turntable=====
So I have 11,000 ships after me right after the cpa declares (couldn't hunt the additional 2500 without Bad Things happening).
They all pile up against two FactIV wormholes, with the 8500 group on the safe side.
For a moment, I hope they will stay there, and I can just do them what I have done to every other threatball, and defeat them in detail. The AI is not so obliging.
So: 11,000 fleetships vs: 170 starships, 1 champion, 1200 fleetships of my own (including full caps of SBSs and TDLs I-IV), neinzul dronestreams, 1/2 caps of turrets (4 drone turrets I-II, HBC Is, Snipers), and a spire mod fort.
It was close. A combination of champion fleet kiting, riot engine crippling/tractor grabbing, a full resistance spawn, and then simply holding at the FactIV forcefield with a grav field and all turrets wins the day. The reserve of six cloaked lightning warheads (thankfully) proved unnecessary.
My econ is in the subatomic range, though.
===Operation Mop Up=====
Ok, operation is a bit of stretch. While my fleet/ fortifications are rebuilding, I send Faulty Logic out again and again at the free threat. It usually kills 300 or so, sometimes a few as 100. There are still around 850 belligerents, though, which lasted long enough to enter threat fleet behavior, and are hiding on a planet with an eye/fortress.
With nothing much to occupy my attention (AIP still at 16, waves die horribly on my homeworld without inflicting damage), I again appreciate the awesome music. AI Revolution really helps me play through the middle of the night.
===Operation Round House=====
Time to take 3 more ARSs, and then one each of the CDE CSG networks. I start with the C network, which also has the Archive I mentioned earlier (I figure there will be fewer chances for things to go wrong at lower AIP). Amazingly, the AI/Murphy coalition takes the day off while the archive extraction process finishes.
As soon as my modest escort fleet leaves, though, a threatfleet comes in and trashes the place, killing the command center, energy collecter, and fabricator before reinforcements arrive. Not a huge deal, as I already have a cap of the Core paralyzers in a transport, but quite annoying.
I then take the CSG-D world, followed quickly by the remaining As (railcluster, miniram, IRE), and then the E. The threat fleets are hounding me constantly, routinely trashing a system just when I barely can't get reinforcements there in time. The miniforts, they do nothing (against threat fleets).
Now one solution would be to kill the bloody threatfleets, but they are hiding on a fortress/sentry eye combo... which also happens to be the SF rally point. Emergent or programmed, it is hugely frustrating (in an awesome way; it feels like the AI really hates me).
CSGs down, AIP at 73, no reducers left.
"Hey, what about the superterminal?"
"Are you trying to get us killed?"
STs are severly gimped at 9/9 or above, only really worth it with FS or golems moderate. So no reasonable AIP reducers left.
Again, no colony rebellions ... is there an "if AIP below N, do not rebel" line in their code somewhere?
And now for the endgame:
The gentle AI homeworld has an Ion Eye, a monster squid, and a Pinwheel o' Doom.
The other one has a Parasite Eye, a core CPA post, and a CRE. But wait! There's more! One of the core worlds also has a raid engine. I decide to take out the active defences (CRE, RE, CPA).
My assets:
Fleetships (combat): TDLs, SBSs, Railclusters, fighters, bombers, and frigates mkI-IV. IREs I-II
Fleetships (reserve): core paralyzers, core acid sprayers.
Starships: All basic, riot IIIs, 4 FS frigates, Neinzul enclaves I and a merc enclave.
Champion Fleet: one level 35 battleship, 147 minion starships, and 25 Dyson gatlings.
Missile division: lightnings I-III, nukes, minirams I-IV, cloakers I-II.
===Operation Fast Pace=====
I am going to need a serious hammer to go through a core world, destroy an RE on another one, then go to the HW and destroy its CRE+CPA. Fortunately, I only have one active lightly defended planet (my harvesters mII/cIII and ten nebulae can handle lots of energy problems).
Said serious hammer also needs to be fast. I nominate the champion fleet (minus the gatlings) for the job.
It smashes through the first coreworld with minimum casualties, takes a few lumps killing the coreworld RE, and enters the HW with about 75 percent strength. Note that started as about 150 starships, and a champion. As they move toward the CRE, the nemesis fleet enters engagement range. It is no contest.
The battered, limping battleship, at 2% health, kills the CRE under projected shields. The CPA post is intact. There were no nemesis casualties. There were no human survivors.
CPA post is killed before it's timer resets by Faulty Logic (Spire Form) and a cloaker starship.
Again, it can't scratch the paint of a nemesis, in the face of overlapping shields.
Dealing with the fallout from Fast Pace is fairly easy; even 2000 mk IV ships dies in a hurry against my full fleet. The CPA (only 2000?) threatballs around my HW, where they won't be getting past a double mod fort anytime soon.
I turn my attention to the other HW, which still has all its brutality.
===Operation Dead Calm=====
Doing some math (shocking, I know), a full cap of minirams I-IV can dish out enough pain to kill a new brutal. Operation Dead Calm's goal is to do just that to the Pinwheel.
The champion carves a cloaking path onto the HW.
Then I send in the minirams in transports, under cloak. Now, with the short tachyon emission of the Pinwheel (almost didn't see that; nice try, AI), I send a transport out of the cloaking envelope (after unloading) to start the wheel, then time it so all the rams enter tachyon range just after the beam passes them. Some die anyway, but Dead Calm is a success: no more Pinwheel.
Of course, I have to build up my minirams again.
Wave of 2100 ships repelled at HW, some fort damage, econ becoming an issue.
But I recover, and decide that squid has to go.
===Operation High and Dry=====
Same procedure as Dead Calm except targeting the monster squid; succeeded; this time I have enough minirams leftover to take out one nemesis frigate.
While rebuilding the rams, the last CPA (one way or another) is declared, with 11,000 ships.
There are currently about a thousand free threat to augment them as well, and I really can't kill the threat without provoking even worse problems. Stopping here.
State of Empire:
