So let's see if the "spire hammer" can use smartly use capital ships

[chemical_art]

After several games with nenzul I'm going to grow and learn to play without them.



This game is going to push me. I've doing a lot of stuff I haven't before. Duel 8.3's, two hard ai's, Two capital ship using AI. Both with hybrids and 50% handicaps, just to help the AI out.


The largest challenge I think will come between the third and fifth shard. At that point the waves will start crashing hard yet I can't use my BB's or DD's.

I'm going to replicate my previous success by very, very aggressively reducing fronts. I already found one stubborn fort world that will endure some rapid EMP's shortly.

These waves hurt! The first one had the 600 bombers punch right through my initial fleets.

[keith.lamothe]

This should be interesting, I've never actually seen the Spire Hammer in long-term action.  The standard ship-control AI is pretty good, though.  I don't remember if they use the modules, honestly.  I'm sure you'll find out when you see that first Destroyer   Watch out for those Frigate beams, though, they can do a nasty amount of damage.

2 8.3s on a hard AI type sounds like pain to me, particularly with Hybrids, but the 50% handicap may balance it out a bit.

[chemical_art]

This should be interesting, I've never actually seen the Spire Hammer in long-term action.  The standard ship-control AI is pretty good, though.  I don't remember if they use the modules, honestly.  I'm sure you'll find out when you see that first Destroyer   Watch out for those Frigate beams, though, they can do a nasty amount of damage.

2 8.3s on a hard AI type sounds like pain to me, particularly with Hybrids, but the 50% handicap may balance it out a bit.

Less then an hour in I've already seen a cruiser. It employed a build order it seemed so of "shields, then beams, then lasers" in its choice of modules. My two starter ships, bombards and rams, should hopefully slow them down until I can deploy ships of my own. The AI waves they send are also solid; I can't ignore them to defenses even now only one hour in. It's great!

[keith.lamothe]

Is it actually having to build the modules in sequence or is it starting with them when spawned?  Iirc they spawn with the wave so if they were building them from a queue (which I don't think works properly for AI units anyway) the initial spawn on top of a wormhole could be disadvantageous to its health   Unless you're playing with Cross-Planet-Waves, of course.

[chemical_art]

oh no, sorry for implying they did. They are fully built from the start.  Idk if the modules rebuild, normally the ship quickly pops once its shields are down.

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, thanks for the clarification.  And yea, by the time you've got enough firepower focused to bring down those shields, the hull isn't going to do much better.

It'd be funny to see if folks take to using Eye Bots for stealth through-the-shields attacks to blast the heavy beam cannons and whatnot off the heavier capital ships.

[chemical_art]

On reflection, I think that spire cruiser I saw was from a nasty MK III counter attack post. I haven't seen any normal waves use spire ships yet, thankfully.



--------






So I find myself needing to get to Burnme to capture a shard. With multiple intersections any gate raids will be costly. I need to reduce these fronts unless I will leave a fluid line between core planets and the shard, I will still try to gun and run for one more shard before sealing up my back door.I need to push toward it.

-----






This AI response is stiff. A MK IV is simply a tough nut to crack. I sent full caps into this wormhole initially. It resulted in me being repulsed with only a quarter cap of frigates and bombers.


-----





Rather then waste 30 minutes building 3 waves and risking building up my fronts I decide a short cut is in order. A MK III EMP will nullfiy all but the hybrids allowing a decimating alpha strike,


-----




The alpha strike was a great success. With minimal total casualties I already scout ahead on to my other fronts as I scout forward worlds.


-------





The AI reinforcement response is insane. In one minute a border world went from 100 to 200 units. If I can keep the AI pumping out cheaper MK units I'll gladly continue this with some border aggression suppression operations.

The main path is blocked by an eye. I may just pump another EMP missile followed by a guard annihilation group of starship vessels.

[Sunshine!]

It'd be funny to see if folks take to using Eye Bots for stealth through-the-shields attacks to blast the heavy beam cannons and whatnot off the heavier capital ships.

I would do this to hybrids before the eyes got nerfed (okay, they got 20x the HP, but their build time increased and their damage dropped by 3/4 IIRC).  Before the change, a full cap of mk1/mk2 eyebots could chew through a mob of 10 hybrids (any upgrade level) in about 5 seconds.  It was glorious.

If I were going against Spire capships, I might choose Infiltrators over Eyebots since they build to cap faster and cheaper, probably have higher capDPS, and can be affected by command station speed boosts (easier to relocate them to a new battlefront during a critical multi-front battle).  They may or may not have fewer issues with the particle beams since as a giant mob you're losing fewer infiltrators compared to eyebots (in relative cap terms), but if the capital ship is on the move... infiltrators might be worse off because of the "raking" effect.  Also, the addition of heavy beam cannons probably isn't going to do wonders for the infiltrators survival rate.

[keith.lamothe]

Also, the addition of heavy beam cannons probably isn't going to do wonders for the infiltrators survival rate.

Aside from maybe Armor and a few other hefty types, my guess is that basically any fleet ship type isn't going to understand the concept of "survive" when fighting against a fleet of those beasts.  It's more a question of "can I get in 2 shots, 1, or 0?"

[chemical_art]

Also, the addition of heavy beam cannons probably isn't going to do wonders for the infiltrators survival rate.

Aside from maybe Armor and a few other hefty types, my guess is that basically any fleet ship type isn't going to understand the concept of "survive" when fighting against a fleet of those beasts.  It's more a question of "can I get in 2 shots, 1, or 0?"

This game has been sidetracked due to multiplayer games, but those cannons are why i chose bombards. They hit hard enough to puncture armor and at long enough range to maybe survive to reload. The ultra heavy bonus makes it huge difference.