Author Topic: The AI 9 through 10 run  (Read 69480 times)

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #60 on: February 25, 2012, 05:18:33 pm »
Include the additional armor of Tech III and the like, and my AoE turrets under glass were much less effective.
That would nail your flaks, yea, but iirc all lightning stuff (turrets included) have max armor piercing.

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So, in those 2 second gaps, they died.  This was also the first major wave I'd faced since the .027 upgrade.  It's possible I was getting better Riot II locks then I'd figured.  The new mechanic released them for longer 'short stints', which probably made the biggest difference to the few hundred cutlasses under the FFs.
Yea, I think that probably did equate to a net nerf of the riot tazer.  I don't think it was too much, though, as I imagine if you didn't have riot IIs unocked by now for whatever reason you would unlock them even for the reduced tazer effect. 

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However, the additional FFs and the outright doubling of the whipping boy due to the Mil III should handle most of the issue.
Yea, once humans get serious about piling up a stack of forcefields the total hp count can get pretty serious.

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Out of curiousity, was it a design decision to not allow Fortresses to get bonuses, or is that an oversight?
It was intentional; turrets used to not be boostable at all, but when we made boosting a non-binary thing (used to be you receive +400% or +0%, period) it seemed ok to let them have some.  Letting fortresses be boosted sounds pretty intense ;)  But we could probably let them get +20% like starships or something like that.
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #61 on: February 25, 2012, 05:58:48 pm »
The last of the humans were relatively secure in their recent position.   While K-Raiding the eastern front (which apparently always spawns +1 MK from current tech level) largish waves hit Macross and were able to be turned away with the help of recent research and the Zenith Trader's deliveries.

The Zenith Trader's builds were progressing nicely on Twycross, having gotten a Radar Jammer II, a Cloak Killer, and an Armor Inhibtor up by now.  Construction was progressing nicely on the Armor Booster.

Recent researches into Neinzul Factory Craft had progressed nicely, and they were now able to generate Neinzul Factory IIs.

The foreign colonies had been converted to Mil IIIs and Econ IIIs, as thought appropriate.  The Rebel Colony at Argyle had kindly provided a small fleet to assist in the endeavour.

At 10:45 game time, the human fleet took Eridani and the AI's ARS stationed there.  The two fortresses went down without a hitch and the humans also captured a Spider Bot V fabricator.  The Spider Bots would do very nicely against the massive volumes of Cutlasses being sent at the fleet.  At 10:55 the human commander realized there was going to be a significant warp gate problem.  Clipping the wings off Confederation wasn't going to be the problem.

After a discussion of suicide tactics and the necessity for the human race, 6 Raid Starships head into Kirk to remove the dual Warp Gates stationed there.  Their job was further compounded by the need to continue to nerf Kirk to help avoid significant AI logistics due to alerting them to the nearby capture of the system, made necessary by the CSG-A.

The humans stationed a Mil III on Eridani and the fleet dug in, waiting to take on the raid as it crossed the wormhole into controlled space.



The humans, hoping that direct confrontation before releasing the waves into known space might help save the satellite colonies, stand tall in Eridani.  Twycross command realizes the situation and stop calling for immediate support from all known fleet elements, and digs in.  C&C is moved to the chapel.  It can't hurt.

The Engineer corps head for Argyle, to help with their rebuilding efforts once the main fleet has been damaged.  Colonists the galaxy over pray for the safety of the fleet.  It was in vain.

Twycross's defenses hold with the help of the autobombers, who did the best they could in spite of the enemy missile frigates ignoring their area blasts.  With that, everyone turned towards Eridani in hope.  A transport had arrived dropping off the last of the fleet reinforcements from Kerensky, where the Fab Warp Gate had pulled the new Spider Bots to.

The wave heads into Kirk, and beelines for Eridani.  Local guardian defenders on Kirk join the parade of AI forces pouring towards Eridani.  The first guardians come out of the wormhole and the fleet pounds down a few bomber starship IVs and assorted guardians.  Then the raid starts to pour through.

The cutlasses, in spite of gravity altering structures, pour through the nearby Military command station's force field and proceed to chop it to finely carved bits.  The soul who thought putting the command station on the wormhole to Kirk would be courtmarshalled, but he's dead now, lost in the firey explosion of the tactical center supporting the fleet.  Once the tactical center fell, the fleet had no chance.

The 2500 MK IV ships poured through our mixed fleet of 1200 ships in a sheerly fear inspiring array of death.  Our maws and Blade Spawners tried to get out of the line of fire, doing what they could to pick off as many ships as they could before they escaped into the colonial areas.

As I stand here in the cloaked starship on the edge of the galaxy, it's a sad sight.  There's nothing left of the fleet.  Nothing.  All of our brave souls are dead except for a handful of ships trying to race back to the homeworlds to help, and they're being heavily outrun.

When the wave hit Cyborg, the cutlasses split off, beelining for the western colonies.  The rest of the wave poured into Kerensky.  Emergency power was recently brought back online, activating the 3 fortresses on the planet.  Troops manned the Ion V cannon with effeciency, but again, the defense was in vain.  Kerensky fell along with our Polarizer V fabricator and all hands lost on the Military III station.   In a fit of pique, the AI left us a fortress behind.  Without supply, though, we hear reports of hunger and cold from the men manning the station.  They request assistance as soon as they can, so they can go back to their duty of helping to protect the last of mankind.

The cutlass troop of over 300 MK IV cutlasses poured into Solar Moon and destroyed our token defenses there.  They did the same in Jumping Jax, destroying both Military Class III stations.  The main force, heavily blunted but by no means less dangerous by the war in Kerensky, of around 900 ships continues to travel through the AI neutered systems towards Twycross.

On Twycross command, a larger chapel is hurredly built.  Construction of the Armor booster is taken offline to help rebuild the fleet.  Whispers across Twycross state that homeworld command has dictated that Twycross MUST hold.  No matter the cost.  If Twycross falls, humanity is over.

The Merchants at Argyle are hurridly trying to build off a replacement fleet from the rebel colony, getting a pair of Heavy Beam Cannons and a large gravity well to help deal with the marauding cutlasses.  There's no chance they'll be getting pilots from homeworld with the mass fleet cutting them off, so anyone able to fly is being hurridly trained and pressed into service.  When the cutlasses arrive, only 20 ships have been able to be brought online.

There's no reason Argyle should still be alive, but they are.  The Cutlasses were apparently getting horrible orders from the AI with the confusion at Twycross and must have crossed its circuits.  As the cutlasses arrived the rest of the raid began its assault on Twycross.  The cutlasses took out the HBC inside the gravity wells, and with still 280 cutlasses left, must have gotten orders to come to Twycross and assist the assault.  Yet, they were stuck in the grav well.  Our fleet, maneuvering the best it could, thinned out the ranks of the cutlass forces by half as the cutlasses retreated back into the wild.

On Liao, two starships have shown up to menace our Factory IV.  The Bomber IV that's pounding on the forcefield is popping the 4 HBC cannons as quickly as they rebuild while our 3 sniper turrets harass it, barely scratching the paint.  With the FF 50% down a Leech starship joins in, but the HBCs are finally able to overcome the Bomber starship and the leech retreats.

Twycross has held.  As the enemy fleet poured into the system, our civilian engineers continued fighting in the midst of heavy firepower raining down on it, holding the forcefields up.  The rest of the raid died in what's known as the 'Land of Lightning' on Twycross, amongst the Riot II tazer region.

At 11:15 into the war, humanity has been hammered back to a whisper of its previous glory.  In one bold stroke, the AI that nearly destroyed all of us has beaten us down again, reminding us of why we must utterly destroy the machines we made if we ever hope to live.



Fleet's been erased, utterly.  I've lost pretty much all the fabricators except for the Fact IV on Liao and that's only because the AI didn't really go after it, I got some token drifters.  It was a risk and a price.  I HAD to shut down the warp gates on Kirk, or I'd be eating CPA waves when they ran over Eridani.  I knew it was going to be inane but YEAOW!  At least I know what I'll be dealing with later after I'm done banging away on Riker.  The core economy's still strong and the last defensive line is still up.  The Zenith toys on Kerensky are gone so they're a moot point at this point.

1) Get the fleet back up and rebuild the economy.
2) Finish improvements on Twycross.
3) Don't put the darned Mil III station right on the wormhole again INTO the raid area (dumb ass....)
4) Proceed as planned, with a 2 hour delay (roughly)
... and then we'll have cake.

Offline Wanderer

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #62 on: February 25, 2012, 06:09:23 pm »
Include the additional armor of Tech III and the like, and my AoE turrets under glass were much less effective.
That would nail your flaks, yea, but iirc all lightning stuff (turrets included) have max armor piercing.
You're right, the lightning are max AP. 

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Yea, I think that probably did equate to a net nerf of the riot tazer.  I don't think it was too much, though, as I imagine if you didn't have riot IIs unocked by now for whatever reason you would unlock them even for the reduced tazer effect.
True, very true.  I'm just thinking it's a combination of the little things that made for a massive difference.

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It was intentional; turrets used to not be boostable at all, but when we made boosting a non-binary thing (used to be you receive +400% or +0%, period) it seemed ok to let them have some.  Letting fortresses be boosted sounds pretty intense ;)  But we could probably let them get +20% like starships or something like that.

Yep, I figured that was it, but wanted to doublecheck.
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #63 on: February 25, 2012, 06:22:23 pm »
Wow.  Now that was some serious pain.  Good work by the chapel construction crew.  Or the Forcefield crews.  One of the two, probably.

Those cutlasses sound pretty nasty.

Congrats on surviving :)

Working on some the hacking stuff right now, but making a note to make sure the super-terminal spawns in a place you can actually realistically use it before killing an AI (if it doesn't it may as well not spawn, for all the good it would be on a non-trivial difficulty, though having it not spawn is a valid option in the land of the DM).

How's real-estate value looking in the Land Of Lightning?
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #64 on: February 25, 2012, 06:34:24 pm »
How's real-estate value looking in the Land Of Lightning?

For humans, rather high.  For the AI...  ;D  Seem to be a lot of vacancies.
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #65 on: February 25, 2012, 07:13:40 pm »
Have you counted how many ships come out per k-raid pulse?  Looking at the code it seems to be doing the spawns once per AI player, so instead of 4 ships every 2 seconds (on diff 9-9.8) you'd be getting 8.  Or do you really only get 4?
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #66 on: February 25, 2012, 07:49:19 pm »
Have you counted how many ships come out per k-raid pulse?  Looking at the code it seems to be doing the spawns once per AI player, so instead of 4 ships every 2 seconds (on diff 9-9.8) you'd be getting 8.  Or do you really only get 4?

I'm 99% sure it's 4.  But it's hard to be completely sure with Maws. 
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #67 on: February 25, 2012, 09:17:52 pm »
I'm 99% sure it's 4.  But it's hard to be completely sure with Maws.
(cue burping noise)
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #68 on: February 26, 2012, 10:26:35 pm »
I'm 99% sure it's 4.  But it's hard to be completely sure with Maws.
(cue burping noise)

Hmph, you're right, I am getting 8 per burst.  But, it's weird, every now and then a burst only has 1 in it.
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #69 on: February 26, 2012, 11:12:27 pm »
I'm 99% sure it's 4.  But it's hard to be completely sure with Maws.
(cue burping noise)

Hmph, you're right, I am getting 8 per burst.  But, it's weird, every now and then a burst only has 1 in it.
Thanks for the confirmation.  I've changed it to all come from the owning player instead of both players, but the same amount.  This way if you've got one AI player whose bonus types are particularly annoying, you can raid the other guy and not get those in the spawns.  Unless you don't have any viable targets held by the other guy, of course :)
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Offline TechSY730

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #70 on: February 26, 2012, 11:36:53 pm »
There is still the oversight where non-zombiefiable stuff can be spawned as a zombie in k-raids. (Spikey00's find, found at http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=5913)

I'm pretty sure this is an oversight and not an intentional design choice because AI eyes are not allowed to spawn non-zombiefiable stuff.

Superterminals may need double checking about this as well.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2012, 11:48:36 pm by techsy730 »

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #71 on: February 27, 2012, 09:44:32 am »
There is still the oversight where non-zombiefiable stuff can be spawned as a zombie in k-raids. (Spikey00's find, found at http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=5913)

I'm pretty sure this is an oversight and not an intentional design choice because AI eyes are not allowed to spawn non-zombiefiable stuff.

Superterminals may need double checking about this as well.
For k-raiding it was an oversight because it wasn't even paying attention to cap-scale, let alone individual-type ship cap multipliers.  In the recent work for 5.028 I changed that anyway, but thanks for the mantis link as I it can now be marked resolved; as I said there:

"Fixed for 5.028 to consider ship cap in determining how much "spawn strength" it "costs" to spawn each unit, whether smaller (laser gatling) or larger (blade spawner) :)"


Superterminals were already doing it that way, that's the logic I copied.

AI Eyes don't spawn the "capped" stuff at all, but that's just the AI Eye using a different mechanic.

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Offline Wanderer

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #72 on: February 28, 2012, 07:42:04 pm »
First half of this AAR is a little boring.

11:30 - 12:00 was a rebuild/beef up on the whipping boy.  Nothing particularly fancy.
12:00 - 12:30 was retaking the rear systems and cleaning up leftovers.  Even the 800 ship parking lot on Cyborg wasn't interesting enough to stick in my head to describe.
12:30 - 13:00 Travel down to HotStar staging area taken earlier, do a 2x K-Raid on Krupp.
13:00 - 14:00 Play hide and seek with a blasted stealth guardpost on Tau.  Opened up Decloakers to find the blessed thing.  Many attempts taken, finally located the little bugger.  No, it wasn't on a material point.  Formations of Scout SS IIs were pointless, I must have ran over it 15+ times.
14:00 - 14:15 Move the fleet to Tau and neuter it completely so the fleet could quietly eat backwash.  Setup builds with the Factory ships to replace local ship losses.

14:15 - Begin more amusing pieces of AAR.

Three Kings was a royal PITA.  The command station was a 2x FF (III and a v) 1xFortress III blockade.  With a zombie guardian.  Did I mention the AI Eye?  Alternating between 6x Raid SS attacks to drain off troops and try to get at the weaker positions, and dropping in my Bombers I/II/III (I didn't want to donate my IVs to the attacks, I don't have that factory ship for a while) and doing bomber runs against the 2xFF'd fortress.  The Eye wouldn't trigger unless I full fleeted so the little (little?!) 250 bomber fleet would get some work done until the zombie had eaten about 1/8 of the fleet and eveyone else chewed them to pieces.  Then rinse/restart.  This was pretty much inhaling my economy but we were getting there.  Ish.

Add to that a few things.  A grav guardian was hiding on top of the orbital bombardment cannon again and 2 Bomber IV starships were roaming the place, chewing my little Raid SSs to pieces when they stopped to shoot at things.  An MLRS post under glass was also pretty well protected, so I had to give up actually killing it with Raid SSs and bombered it to death.  This process took about an hour.  Luckily the homeworld didn't get TOO built up during all this, only about 450 units.

Once I cracked Three Kings with a backup of the blade spawner brigade and a bomber run, I was able to setup shop on Three Kings into Riker.  CHAAAARGE!

Primary attack was nothing but a defensive brigade to cover the blade spawners.  I tried sending off the raids but quickly realized that just got them dead.  After we cleared the initial mass of ships, however, the bomber starships went out and popped the couple of ion cannons that were pounding on me, and then played hunt the cockroach spawner.  When prepared for them and being defensive, it wasn't too bad.  Any escapees were handled by the respawning I-IIIs that were being produced on Three Kings.  Having cleared the majority of areas but needing to still deal with the fortresses, I backed off to Three Kings to rebuild.

This didn't take too long, and I shipped down MK IV and SS replacements via transport from HotStar, where I'd setup a Fab and Fact IV warp gate.

Rebuild and smackdown Riker a little shy of 15:45.  420 (ish) AIP at this time.  The whipping boy is going to get eaten if I don't get this lowered, but look!  What a lovely little SuperTerminal.  Be a shame if anything happened to it.

Queue massive inhalement of fleet ships with a MK III Military Command Station on it.  Raid the gates on Three Kings to avoid issues.  At first I got a 2x wave of ~2000 MK III ships that decided to hit Riker while I was trying to work the superterminal and savescummed that away.  Hey, if they can be cheesy, so can I. ;)

After that, I only had one mini wave come in of about 300 ships that we just inhaled.  While I was working them, a 2500 ship CPA announces and launches.  It wrecks the back systems, though I'm able to hold onto Liao by turning off all the Fact IV warpgates.  I'll pick them up later if I have to.

At around 500 reduction the SuperTerminal decides it's going to start being bigger than me and fires off three surges in a row.  That's the beginning of the end of what I could handle.  I saved after clearing that to test a strategy and tried popping the Mil III station to turn it off.  Nope, dangit, it's still going!  Quickly head back to pre-kaboom.  I've got a transport with a colony ship hiding under cloak in Three Kings if that worked, but it didn't.

At around 580 removal I can't take any more.  I'm down to roughly 700 ships and my Maws are all fat and bloated.  If it surges the core fleet will run rampant through the galaxy and I'll literally NEVER get back to it to turn it off.  I blow the ST.  I quickly blow the Mil III station as well to avoid further 'random wavepoint' issues from the Exo-Galaxy wormhole.

I head into Three Kings, pop the station and neighboring WarpGate in Tau, and setup shop for Research.  There's a super-research thingamabobbie here for 9k in the system.  Cool.  Set it up with a Mil III guardian and a FF and K-Raid Tau.  Time to head home and clean up my mess.

Bring along colony ships for HotStar and start rebuilding my way home.  I pick up the MK IV units on Liao after clearing the border threat and turn the warpgate back on for Kerensky.  K is building, I need 10k for the Mk IV builder for the final push of this plan.  I hit Cyborg and they clean out the front door.  I go through and clean off Macross for good measure.  Then drop a 4th Fortress on Kerensky and get some more Trader Toys going.  Clean out the rear systems, get the rebels back online, and refill that portion of the fleet.  Then I wait a bit, letting the econ work trader toys while I wait for research with the primary fleet on Eridani, waiting to go.

Finally, I get my 10k Research.  I turn off Liao's factory.  I build off factory IVs and get them prepped on Eridani.  I set the entire fleet up in transports and save.  This will take a few strategical attempts, I'm sure.

I haul arse for Earth.  Earth with its multiple Ion Cannons, AI Eye, 2x Raid Engines, and a Fortress III under 2x FF with the Cmd Station covering the single entry portal.  That Earth.  I bypass the 800+ core ships parked on Kirk while I do it, too.



Not too shabby an AIP for what I've researched and already killing one of the AI Homeworlds.  Also, not an impossible fleet to stop, but Kerensky's gonna bite it.

I get to Earth and unload, albeit slowly from the massively packed transports.  It's no good.  The idea is completely sound but the AI Eye was just too much.  Having an equivalently continuous zombie spawn of Core ships land on your head just doesn't work.

I have no idea what the heck I'm going to do.  I've thought about bringing in my Maw/Blade Spawner stacks with Starship support and only MK IV Missile Frigates.  Get them off the gate and setup shop, and I might be able to lay waste to most of the guardposts with the Blade Spawners.  Depending on their fussiness that day they might take out a raid or two before they fire again.  If I can hide the Raid Starships in the pack until we clear up most of the interference I could Raid SS the Raids down too.  That's a major part of my problem.  If I can get rid of that I can get on Kirk and then just raid Earth into oblivion.

That AI Eye + Raid Engines are just too blessed powerful on their own though.  No matter what I do, however, the MK I/II ships will have to stay behind.  I'll set them up on Kerensky to help the defense there, but they're just getting me killed on Earth.

... and then we'll have cake.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #73 on: February 28, 2012, 08:08:15 pm »
Ah, so the first homeworld falls to dogged persistence, and the ST is taken for a ride all the way to the bank.  Then Earth decides to be extremely stubborn.  Perhaps the Vogons could offer some advice?

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At around 580 removal I can't take any more.  I'm down to roughly 700 ships and my Maws are all fat and bloated.  If it surges the core fleet will run rampant through the galaxy and I'll literally NEVER get back to it to turn it off.
At least it's keeping you that honest now :)  It's going to want a rematch in 5.028, though.

As far as what to do about Earth...  just stuff transports with as many ships as the AI Eye would let slide, starting from the ones best suited to kill a raid engine (probably bomber starships) and working down.  Then throw that against a raid engine.  Repeat as many times as necessary to kill the raid engine.  And hope the defenses back home hold during the process.

If I had time, I would provoke some AI Eye spawns and then use transports+riots (+cloakers if necessary) to kite and engine-kill the entire swarm so that it's out of position and not going much of anywhere.  But 2 raid engines = distinct lack of time.
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: The AI 9 through 10 run
« Reply #74 on: February 28, 2012, 08:20:24 pm »
Ah, so the first homeworld falls to dogged persistence, and the ST is taken for a ride all the way to the bank.  Then Earth decides to be extremely stubborn.  Perhaps the Vogons could offer some advice?

Hitchhiker's Guide.  Mk II.

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At least it's keeping you that honest now :)  It's going to want a rematch in 5.028, though.
LOL, I'm sure. :)

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As far as what to do about Earth...  just stuff transports with as many ships as the AI Eye would let slide, starting from the ones best suited to kill a raid engine (probably bomber starships) and working down.  Then throw that against a raid engine.  Repeat as many times as necessary to kill the raid engine.  And hope the defenses back home hold during the process.
  I'd thought about that, but part of the problem is the Kirk releases, and 250 core ships on the homeworld, apparently of which over half are guardian or starship.  It's not, just feels that way.

I just tried a MK III/IV raid, well spread amongst the transports to unload in 4 pumps at most, with the spawners and maws.  That's about when I realized I'm trapped between the Fortress as described and a Heavy Beam Guardian with an Ion V on the other side of me.  *facepalm*  I've been tempted to transport raid.  Once concern is that I've got an EMP Guardian that releases in Earth, which is heavily defended by the 2x raid.  You don't want to know how quickly Kerensky fell when it was EMP'd for 45 seconds.   The secondary fleet didn't even stand a chance.  They were 2/3's dead as the 3000+ ships poured into the system.

The factory ships are a killer idea, but ONLY if I can get a reasonably defendable beachhead.  They're dying far too easily as 10+ bombers pour into the fleet and hunt them down.  One of the few times I want to use them and they can barely survive to produce anything.  Sure sure, they're helpful when doing wandering deepstrike, but they were my strategy.  My strategy is dying to mass.  That's 20k or so I'm gonna have to flush.  Well, at least it was only K-Raid K. ;)

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If I had time, I would provoke some AI Eye spawns and then use transports+riots (+cloakers if necessary) to kite and engine-kill the entire swarm so that it's out of position and not going much of anywhere.  But 2 raid engines = distinct lack of time.

Not a horrible idea, but definately not something I have time to do.  I may have to try the primary fleet at home and a massive transport raid with bombers.  If I can take *1* of the raids out AND drain the homeworld of most of the fleet, I have a chance in dren.  I almost have to take down that EMP Guardian before it reaches me though.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2012, 08:22:37 pm by GUDare »
... and then we'll have cake.