The 10/10 Challenge

[Diazo]

We're very much open to more feedback on this; basically diffs 9.3 through 10 aren't really where we expect people to play (indeed, we may need to make them harder if someone actually beats 10 in a fair fight again), but we want it to be fun for those who do.

I'll take this challenge. 

With the recent changes to the higher wave difficulties, I figure I would take another shot at a 10/10 regular game. I figure it would have to be easier then the dual Scorched Earth AI game I tried way back when.

A few games later, I may have to take those words back. I have yet to survive past the 2 hour mark.

I am playing with the settings as follows:

80 Planets, 1 homeworld, Complex map type.
All expansions and ship types enabled, all AI options disabled.
2 Vanilla AI's, both diff 10.
AIP Progress at 0 per 30 mins. (So none.)

After 6 or 7 game overs, here's what I've tried so far.

Because I don't want to wall myself into a dead end, I am picking a home world with 2 or 3 wormholes. I then blow up all the warp gates, except for one, with a quick raid of 20 bombers and a transport so that by the 3 minute mark I have only a single warp point I have to fortify. I can't totally ignore the other warp points but I know from which point the waves will exit from.

Well, mostly.

This AI is tricky. Once I get my inital fortification done and start working on actually cleaning out the next system to expand to, ships that are freed and are shown on the threat meter will wait at the wormhole and go through at the same time the wave arrives at the other warp point. It's a nasty surprise when you destroy a command station with raid starships and add 150 ships to the threat meter and those ships wait until the next wave to warp through leading to a pincer attack on your command station. Ouch.    Lost more then one game that way.

The other thing I found myself having to do was lighting missile the first few waves to allow myself enough time to build up my turret wall. Because I do a single system start I don't have a high resource flow to play with and because I pop the warp gates early, the first wave is with an AIP of 20 or so, not 10. It means a bit higher AIP but if I ever survive long enough I'm intending to raid using raid starships and constructor starships (forgot the name, the ones that build fleet ships) and  neuter systems rather then destroying the command stations.

Having said that, I have not actually gotten it to work yet. 

I've gotten to the point where I can survive indefinatively in my single system. The problem is when I take that second system and the AIP from the command station the waves spike quite a bit and I have not figured out how to handle that yet.

I'm looking at you 1500 Vulters and that 600 Zenith Chameleon wave only 75 minutes in.

I may have to resort to lighting missiles again until I get the power plants up to support the bigger turret wall or just wait longer to get more turrets up.

More experimentation to come, I can't refuse this challenge after all.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

*Grabs Popcorn*

If it keeps being intransigent you might try starting with a 300% handicap for yourself, just so those early game resource constraints are less of a concern.  At least if we saw that even that was death, we'd know it was even more death on no-handicap.

[Diazo]

I'm thinking about it, but for all that I'm not surviving at no handicap, it *feels* like I should be able to survive.

I will have to experiment more on the weekend but we will see how this goes.

Right now I am totally dependent on the Lighting Missile intercepting waves just after they warp in, that may be throwing my impressions off at the moment.

More to come.

D.

[Diazo]

And here's some more experiments.

Was able to save scum my way past the Zenith bombardment wave and so I've managed to continue that game.

However, a question on wave sizes. I got hit with a 1200 ship Anti-Armor wave at AIP 41and then 10 minutes later got hit by a 264 ship Missile Frigate wave at AIP 42. I wouldn't think the Anti-Armor ships and Missile Frigates have that much of a ship cap difference in waves? Or am I missing something?

I'm just wondering because my wall that handled the 1200 Anti-Armors isn't even going to notice this small wave of frigates.

And I'm going to have to call this game a loss. My command station is not destroyed, but I've dumped all my knowledge into defence and I can't expand at this point.

Taking a break before another try.

[keith.lamothe]

However, a question on wave sizes. I got hit with a 1200 ship Anti-Armor wave at AIP 41and then 10 minutes later got hit by a 264 ship Missile Frigate wave at AIP 42. I wouldn't think the Anti-Armor ships and Missile Frigates have that much of a ship cap difference in waves? Or am I missing something?

AntiArmor is a 2x ship-cap type, but yea, you're looking at a more than 4x difference there.  There's also some randomization of wave size which could account (at most) for one wave being 1.375 times larger than another under identical circumstances.  A semi-wild card is the wave size multiplier that's based on how long it's been since that AI player sent a wave, and that could theoretically account for the rest of the discrepancy.

On the other hand, missile frigates have a 1.2 wave size multiplier because they're considered less useful to the AI in waves.  Fighters have the same.  Neinzul ships get 2x for that multiplier.  Bombers get 0.8x for it because they're so particularly lethal to most human defenses.  But none of the other types (including anti-armor) get that multiplier; yet, at least.

If you had advanced logging on you probably have the calculation in your txt logs in the RuntimeData directory.

Anyway, a good attempt, I look forward to the next

[Diazo]

Ah, k.

I was able to find the log in question. Looks like the biggest thing was the anti-armors were size factor 2.45 and the frigates only 0.9.

As for my next game, I have figured out how to survive, now I have to figure out how to split resources off to spend on offensive operations somehow.

Still mulling that one over.

D.

Code: [Select]

2/4/2012 10:17:36 AM (5.023)
-----------------------------------
Triggering Normal Wave for player 8; wave size factor: 2.45; Game Time: 1:14:36

2/4/2012 10:17:37 AM (5.023)
-----------------------------------
Receiving AddInboundWave from AI Thread at Game Time: 1:14:37
WaveSize factor: 2.45
Raw Units Dictionary Entries:
AntiArmorShipII => 125
AIRaidStarship => 2
LeechStarshipII => 1


2/4/2012 10:17:37 AM (5.023)
-----------------------------------
Performing first CheckWave with size factor of 2.45 on wave at Game Time: 1:14:37

CheckWave: populating count of AntiArmorShipII with base magnitude of 125
numberUnits = kv.Value * this.WaveSize : 305.88
after applying the ship-type-specific cap multiplier (which includes the unit-cap-scale multiplier), numberUnits : 305.88
after applying UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier if any, numberUnits : 305.88
after applying Mark-based multiplier if any, numberUnits : 275.26
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 275.26
after applying difficulty-based multiplier (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.75, <= 9.6 : 3, <= 9.8 : 3.8, 10 : 4.5), numberUnits : 1238.67
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 1238

CheckWave: populating count of AIRaidStarship with base magnitude of 2
numberUnits = kv.Value * this.WaveSize : 4.89
after applying the ship-type-specific cap multiplier (which includes the unit-cap-scale multiplier), numberUnits : 4.89
after applying UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier if any, numberUnits : 4.89
after applying Mark-based multiplier if any, numberUnits : 7.34
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 7.34
after applying difficulty-based multiplier (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.75, <= 9.6 : 3, <= 9.8 : 3.8, 10 : 4.5), numberUnits : 33.03
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 33
it's a starship so only adding one rule : 1 (had you going there, didn't we)

CheckWave: populating count of LeechStarshipII with base magnitude of 1
numberUnits = kv.Value * this.WaveSize : 2.45
after applying the ship-type-specific cap multiplier (which includes the unit-cap-scale multiplier), numberUnits : 2.45
after applying UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier if any, numberUnits : 2.45
after applying Mark-based multiplier if any, numberUnits : 2.2
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 2.2
after applying difficulty-based multiplier (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.75, <= 9.6 : 3, <= 9.8 : 3.8, 10 : 4.5), numberUnits : 9.91
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 9
it's a starship so only adding one rule : 1 (had you going there, didn't we)

Wave total ships: 1240
TypesForDirectAdd count by type:
AntiArmorShipII => 1000
AIRaidStarship => 1
LeechStarshipII => 1
TypesForCarrierAdd count by type:
AntiArmorShipII => 238


2/4/2012 10:27:20 AM (5.023)
-----------------------------------
Triggering Normal Wave for player 8; wave size factor: 0.9; Game Time: 1:25:24

2/4/2012 10:27:21 AM (5.023)
-----------------------------------
Receiving AddInboundWave from AI Thread at Game Time: 1:25:24
WaveSize factor: 0.9
Raw Units Dictionary Entries:
MissileShipII => 120
AIRaidStarship => 1
DreadnoughtII => 1
LeechStarshipII => 1


2/4/2012 10:27:21 AM (5.023)
-----------------------------------
Performing first CheckWave with size factor of 0.9 on wave at Game Time: 1:25:24

CheckWave: populating count of MissileShipII with base magnitude of 120
numberUnits = kv.Value * this.WaveSize : 107.81
after applying the ship-type-specific cap multiplier (which includes the unit-cap-scale multiplier), numberUnits : 53.91
after applying UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier if any, numberUnits : 64.68
after applying Mark-based multiplier if any, numberUnits : 58.21
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 58.21
after applying difficulty-based multiplier (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.75, <= 9.6 : 3, <= 9.8 : 3.8, 10 : 4.5), numberUnits : 261.94
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 261

CheckWave: populating count of AIRaidStarship with base magnitude of 1
numberUnits = kv.Value * this.WaveSize : 0.9
after applying the ship-type-specific cap multiplier (which includes the unit-cap-scale multiplier), numberUnits : 0.9
after applying UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier if any, numberUnits : 0.9
after applying Mark-based multiplier if any, numberUnits : 1.35
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 1.35
after applying difficulty-based multiplier (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.75, <= 9.6 : 3, <= 9.8 : 3.8, 10 : 4.5), numberUnits : 6.06
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 6
it's a starship so only adding one rule : 1 (had you going there, didn't we)

CheckWave: populating count of DreadnoughtII with base magnitude of 1
numberUnits = kv.Value * this.WaveSize : 0.9
after applying the ship-type-specific cap multiplier (which includes the unit-cap-scale multiplier), numberUnits : 0.9
after applying UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier if any, numberUnits : 0.9
after applying Mark-based multiplier if any, numberUnits : 0.81
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 1
after applying difficulty-based multiplier (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.75, <= 9.6 : 3, <= 9.8 : 3.8, 10 : 4.5), numberUnits : 4.5
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 4
it's a starship so only adding one rule : 1 (had you going there, didn't we)

CheckWave: populating count of LeechStarshipII with base magnitude of 1
numberUnits = kv.Value * this.WaveSize : 0.9
after applying the ship-type-specific cap multiplier (which includes the unit-cap-scale multiplier), numberUnits : 0.9
after applying UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier if any, numberUnits : 0.9
after applying Mark-based multiplier if any, numberUnits : 0.81
after applying at-least-one rule, numberUnits : 1
after applying difficulty-based multiplier (if <= 3 then 1, <= 4 : 1.5, <= 5 : 1.75, <= 6 : 2, <= 7 : 2.25, <= 9 : 2.5, <= 9.3 : 2.75, <= 9.6 : 3, <= 9.8 : 3.8, 10 : 4.5), numberUnits : 4.5
numberUnitsInt = numberUnits.IntValue : 4
it's a starship so only adding one rule : 1 (had you going there, didn't we)

Wave total ships: 264
TypesForDirectAdd count by type:
MissileShipII => 261
AIRaidStarship => 1
DreadnoughtII => 1
LeechStarshipII => 1
TypesForCarrierAdd count by type:
edit the 1st: Hmmm. Maybe blowing the warp gates early is not the way to go, first wave was 64 fighters and 3 starships at the 7 to 8 minute mark, easily handled. The second wave (first from the other AI) is 91 fighters, 3SS at 10 minute mark.

More to come.....

[Wanderer]

On the other hand, missile frigates have a 1.2 wave size multiplier because they're considered less useful to the AI in waves.  Fighters have the same.  Neinzul ships get 2x for that multiplier.  Bombers get 0.8x for it because they're so particularly lethal to most human defenses.  But none of the other types (including anti-armor) get that multiplier; yet, at least.

If you've ever tried tazer defenses, particuarly in schizo, I can assure you that's not the case.  They ignore the AoE Paralytic and are the #1 threat in a tazer defense.

Regarding your 10/10 defenses.  Don't bother with early turrets or smacking down Warp gates early.  Use the 34 floor to your advantage to get your starter fleet up.  Get a full cap of your MK1s up, a Mk2, and a warp detector so you know which wormhole to worry about, and grav turrets (just a few) near the home station to slow down anything that slips the net.  Start building off your mk2 ship once your initial fleet is up and then get some light starships for firepower support.  Endure the first two waves by allowing the enemy to split as they come in your wormholes.  Camp your fleet about halfway down so you're only handling about half their fleet at a time to conserve resources.  Make sure you've scouted the locals to find out if you need tachyon emitters.

Once that's done, stay mobile.  Leave a few token turrets up around your command center for drifters (5-10 basics, 5 snipes, 5 LRMs is my usual minor defenses).  Your priority in early game is to get your econ up and to keep your head down.  Warp gate assassinations should wait until you've gotten a whipping boy fully prepared.

Also, eventually you'll want a cap of Riot IIs with tazers.  Hide them on the whipping boy under the FFs you'll setup to protect the tractor turrets.  You may need to go to IIIs as well if you can't seem to keep the inbound waves under lockdown.  You'll also want Basic IIs when you generate the whipping boy to deal with Missile Frigates and their ilk, who can't be paralyzed.

I wouldn't start looking to invest in the whipping boy until  you're controlling 4-5 systems with Econ IIIs and have upgraded your fleet a bit.  In general, a mobile force that you can use both to do crowd control on the local IVs by whacking guard posts will serve you a lot better early.  Starships are too expensive to lose on suicide waves like that so keep them in the back.  They also make a good emergency drifter counter group.  Keep the starships around to support defenses when you'll need the firepower the most.

Another thing I've had pretty solid luck with is streaming offenses.  Using Younglings as my special unit (Tigers seem best), setup a base against a wormhole of a system that need to be pounded down and just FRD younglings into that system from the host system.  Don't setup a regenerator because these will be suicide units and you don't want to have to constantly re-micro ships that come back for repairs into the other system.  Best to let them fight till their dead and replace them.

Eventually you'll start seeing wave sizes that are just too much for your main fleet to handle, even with the Mk II upgrades.  That's when you want to look into setting up the whipping boy, because when you do you're going to bounce up about 40-50 AIP from warp gate raids, so make sure you wait until you've beaten down a wave before you send your raid starships off to raid.   You'll need the lull to keep yourself setup.

Edit: I should probably add that my longest stretch right now against 10/10 AIs with waves is about 5 hours on simple maps.  I got hung up trying to take down a MK IV world barrier off the 7 home systems and just got eaten eventually by threat+waves.  Eventually I'll do it for 'real' and do multi-homeworld in a dead end system, but I'm having fun goofing off with the standard method.

[Diazo]

I wouldn't start looking to invest in the whipping boy until  you're controlling 4-5 systems with Econ IIIs and have upgraded your fleet a bit.  In general, a mobile force that you can use both to do crowd control on the local IVs by whacking guard posts will serve you a lot better early.  Starships are too expensive to lose on suicide waves like that so keep them in the back.  They also make a good emergency drifter counter group.  Keep the starships around to support defenses when you'll need the firepower the most.

I think I follow your logic here, but how do you handle the waves when AIP is that high? I am playing to win legitimately so I am playing against Vanilla type AIs. That 1200 Anti-Armor wave I mentioned earlier in the thread? That was at AIP 41, 75 minutes into the game.

As for my current game, I've just started building up the first system I've captured which is going to be my whipping boy system and I'm finding it's a 50/50 chance I'll have to lighting warhead the wave to survive depending on the ship type. I don't have my defences up to handling even a small wave in that system yet. Still find myself having to save scum however, think I'm on reload #7 at this point?

On the topic of my current game, as I now have 2 systems and a better power situation, going to try out fortresses again.

Status: 00:55 Gametime, 35AIP, building up my second system to become my whipping boy.

More to come.....

[keith.lamothe]

I had a note on my todo list to look at the 10/10 first wave sizes because they can actually be pretty small right now (<100 bombers, though if that was low caps that's still not insignificant as a first wave) ; is there actually a need to bump those up a bit (so as to not have someone get lulled into a false sense of this-is-easy), or is it feeling ok right now?  The waves after you've taken at least one planet seem to be what they should be: brutal

[Wanderer]

I think I follow your logic here, but how do you handle the waves when AIP is that high? I am playing to win legitimately so I am playing against Vanilla type AIs. That 1200 Anti-Armor wave I mentioned earlier in the thread? That was at AIP 41, 75 minutes into the game.

That's about right.  AA ships are weak though.  Get some riots for crowd control.  Riots are your friend against weak huge waves like that.  So are Grav Turrets.  I can't stress those gravs enough.  When you know a raid is coming in scatter a few through that system, and use the Warp Detector to use it intelligently.  If you're going Econ II instead of III, you should have enough to get Riot IIs on board as well early for tazers.  They'll help a lot against mass waves like that.  Just watch out for missile frigate waves, they won't help.  That's when you'll want to slam a ton of basic turrets up in a hurry.

As for my current game, I've just started building up the first system I've captured which is going to be my whipping boy system and I'm finding it's a 50/50 chance I'll have to lighting warhead the wave to survive depending on the ship type. I don't have my defences up to handling even a small wave in that system yet. Still find myself having to save scum however, think I'm on reload #7 at this point?

That's just it.  You shouldn't need defense turrets yet.  Don't engage the wave at the wormhole.  When they come through, about 50% are going to beeline for your command center. Handle those first, then handle the rest.  Hopefully you took either a starship killer or a mass ship remover (IREs or Beam Frigates come to mind) to help deal with the inbounds.

I don't usually build the turret ball until ~3 hours into the game.  That's about when the opening moves end and it's time to dig in for the midgame.

On the topic of my current game, as I now have 2 systems and a better power situation, going to try out fortresses again.

Status: 00:55 Gametime, 35AIP, building up my second system to become my whipping boy.

More to come.....

35 AIP is a bit high there, but I could see it.  You're way too deep in time though.  Your fleet should have been up ~8-10 minutes, second wave defense at ~13 minutes, first system conquer at ~25/30 while you get starships up and running.  It takes that long because my first target is always the highest mark system hanging off my command station, to reduce reinforcement impact.  Then slam down the next two Mk II systems, or wait a wave, do one, wait a wave, do one... etc.

I don't use cheats and I'm always 100%/100% for me and the AI, so I'm going standard as well.

[Wanderer]

I had a note on my todo list to look at the 10/10 first wave sizes because they can actually be pretty small right now (<100 bombers, though if that was low caps that's still not insignificant as a first wave) ; is there actually a need to bump those up a bit (so as to not have someone get lulled into a false sense of this-is-easy), or is it feeling ok right now?  The waves after you've taken at least one planet seem to be what they should be: brutal

No, actually there isn't a real need to bump it.  The waves get nasty fast, and in a single system you're back to the old floor.  At Mk II starting they're pretty intense, especially with just a starter fleet and trying to stop the starships too.  They're a little light, yes, but that's alright if you go defensive out of the gate.  It just means you're not stuck rebuilding a third of your fleet... again.  The spacing seems just right too.  About the time you're done cleaning up the first wave the staggered second wave announces, so you've got a minute and a half to get yourself re-organized for that wave too.

The light opening (and it's really not that light) is a calm before the storm.  It will lull the unexpecting into getting wiped because they'll get too aggressive too fast.  Those numbers weren't on low caps though, they're normal.  100 Mk II bombers though is still tough to stop early, especially when most of your fleet is chasing down the raid starship.

[Wanderer]

Oh, I should mention.  Fortresses are plenty powerful but don't rely on them for defense once you're up and running.  You're going to need those for knowledge raids.  Also early fortress builds are worth an entire fleet.  You'll be looking at 30 minutes to build one until you're settled in with your core worlds unless you get a lucky pop on a distribution node or two.  I'd personally spend the K, early anyway, on mk II ships.  Possibly even bump to Mk III.  Research the fortresses when you're ready to start K-Raiding.

2x Fort + 40 snipers + 20 basics for point defense (teleporters and cloakers), 2x FF + ResearchIII.  Standard K-Raid group for me, works quite well once you've neutered the system (or let the fortresses do the neutering) if you build as far as possible from the Cmd Station.  You WILL need to K-Raid otherwise your fleet ships will just not have the firepower to handle the mid-game, and you can't afford the AIP it'd take to get the knowledge normally.

[Diazo]

Interesting.

You've got a totally different approach, I'd have to start a new game to try that out, I can't just plug your suggestions into my current game.

I'm not stonewalled in my current game yet, but I'll look at trying it out next one I start.

D.

[Diazo]

Alright, Monday night report and thoughts.

Ohh, new patch, install.....

And we are off.

Gametime 1:15, AIP 43, second system conquered with defences up. Threat 440? Going to have to deal with that.

The AI has a nasty habit of holding ships that are loose (counting as threat) on the far side of a warp point until a wave arrives and sends the loose ships through aswell. That 440 threat will significantly increase the danger of the next wave if I don't deal with it.

And I wanted to try the taser on Hybrids MkII, never actually used it before. Ah well, I'll deal with this threat first and see how it goes.


1st edit:

Alright. Dealt with the threat and continuing to solidify my hold on my whipping boy system.

Now, I've had to save scum a wave of Spire Stealth Battleships several times now. There's only 40 of them in the wave but I just can't kill them fast enough, even with my entire fleet there. Any tips for these guys?

2nd edit: Never mind, I have an auto-save from just before the Stealth Battleship wave, going with that.

3rd edit: WTF? Ummm, what are the mechanics for ships turning loose? I just had a whole bunch of ships join in on a wave that were posted in an adjacent system without them showing on the threat meter. That should happen?

The system does have a very high number of ships as I've been ignoring it for quite a while but I was not aware of a mechanic that just threw ships at you without warning. It wasn't a CPA, they didn't show on the threat, I have not touched the system for 40+ minutes game time, any ideas why they did that?

Erg, that's a game over. 400 ships with no warning out of an undefended wormhole? ouch. 

4th edit: Just reloaded my save and did not get these mystery ships breaking loose and attacking so I'm not sure what happened. Would still like a current list of ship attack mechanics however.

Waves
CPA
Ships broken loose on the threat meter.
High Population systems start on the barracks and carriers.
Anything else?


Think that's it for tonight.

Nothing I want to add overall beyond the fact that it's starting to look like 10/10 requires a very specific map setup. I am setting up a defense point with only a single warp gate adjacent and fortifying that one with most of my forces, but I keep getting waves out of other wormholes due to threat or some other mechanic I am missing that I can't handle.

As I play on a realistic type map, finding an arm with a single warp point into it isn't going to happen.

And I did not get to try out hybrids either, hopefully tomorrow.

That's it for tonight,

D.

[zoutzakje]

I've been reading all these 10/10 attempts and they sound very interesting and challenging... I'm itching to try one out soon as well with my own strategies. I've noticed that dif 7 and 8 aren't to much of a challenge anymore (putting aside the fact that I got stomped by the new hybrid plot, but I'm not planning to play with those in a dif 10 game anyway), even the harder AI types die by my hand. I figure it's time to try something new.
Not sure if I should write an AAR about it though.... it's so time consuming