The AI 9 through 10 run

[keith.lamothe]

Just to be annoying, immediately after the save they behaved themselves and popped the guard post.  Once the post was popped the guardian was detonated about a second later.

Given your MSSQL experience I assume you're familiar with the phenomenon where a technical problem's reproducibility is inversely proportional to the proximity of a technician who can do something about it.

Something else I just noted.  Space plans vs. Lightning turrets = damned dampening fields.  No wonder this setup on Llama was having issues.  Moved the FF to barely cover the lightnings so the space planes that ride up on it will actually get fried by lightning.

Isn't that because space planes are (as of recently) immune to aoe, rather than radar dampening?

pound my way into the corner and... no SuperTerminal.

It does that sometimes.  Probably defeating my desire to see it in proper action in the same scenario as most recently provoked the changes  

K Raids?  eh, maybe.  I'm really spread out and don't want to deal with the offworld spawns right now.  Not for a few thousand K.

Hmm.  Bear in mind that the offworld spawn happens on a PickNeighboringAIPlanet roll, and each such roll only moves the spawn one planet, and it can only move to an AI planet (maybe I'll add a hop-to-any planet variant roll later).  Considering the, uh, nature of Llama's defenses I'd figure that you could k-raid Blackstone, Liao, Batman, and Davion without concern about where the stuff was spawning, only what and how much.  And I'm confident at least the first raid's quantity wouldn't hurt.  For that matter, thanks to the positioning of the dyson ball you might be able to get away with murder.

Whether you even need additional K at this point is another matter, but I figured I'd clarify

Reading the rest...

[Wanderer]

So, while my fleet gets itself rebuilt after the first attempt at smacking Riker and failing utterly miserably, I decide I've got Space Planes and Warbirds, I'm going to USE Space Planes and Warbirds.  Cloak 'em up, power 'em down, and ship them 8 worlds away to Riker from Llama.

And one stinking little MicroTachyon nearly gets them all killed.  Of course, as they arrive, a 1700 ship CPA announces.  I'm still waiting on the Rebels to rebuild so I take the fleet to the west and start cleaning up the reinforced worlds off the colonies, to make sure that anything that comes at me is a homeworld dump.  I'll get the fleet over to Blackjack and make sure that I don't lose the fact IV if I run out of time.  Getting down into the corners to sweep them is annoying.

Meanwhile, since the Cloakers are already on Riker, time to do something with them.  I get the space planes turned on, pop the micro fighter, and then turn them off and RUN.  Meanwhile, I had stalled out my Warbirds for just such an annoyance.  They come in afterwards and circle the entire system, turning them back on to go after one of the Ion Cannons and a Neinzul Spawner.  The Space Planes almost finished their guardpost so the last of the Warbirds (under fire from orbital mass drivers) goes for the kill, and we pop two posts with a nice simple raid.  It also dumps about 80 ships off of Riker, dropping it down to a reasonable 130 again.

While those rebuild, I'm sweeping up for the CPA. 

I've realized that if people are looking for my tactics and not strategy, I'm going to have to post more often and in more detail, because I forget the thousand little things that are habit by now.

[Wanderer]

Just to be annoying, immediately after the save they behaved themselves and popped the guard post.  Once the post was popped the guardian was detonated about a second later.

Given your MSSQL experience I assume you're familiar with the phenomenon where a technical problem's reproducibility is inversely proportional to the proximity of a technician who can do something about it.

You mean my mostly black candles and rubber chicken I sacrafice to the bug gods?  I don't know what you're talking about.  Please note, the rubber chicken has worked...   

Isn't that because space planes are (as of recently) immune to aoe, rather than radar dampening?

Yeaaaah, that would be it, I'd missed that earlier and noticed later when 600 of the things are just staring at me.

Hmm.  Bear in mind that the offworld spawn happens on a PickNeighboringAIPlanet roll, and each such roll only moves the spawn one planet, and it can only move to an AI planet (maybe I'll add a hop-to-any planet variant roll later).  Considering the, uh, nature of Llama's defenses I'd figure that you could k-raid Blackstone, Liao, Batman, and Davion without concern about where the stuff was spawning, only what and how much.  And I'm confident at least the first raid's quantity wouldn't hurt.  For that matter, thanks to the positioning of the dyson ball you might be able to get away with murder.

Can't raid Davion, no supply.  Can't raid Liao, same problem.  Blackstone and Batman are an easy two, though I thought to raid the west first with them trapped behind Ceasar at Arrakkis and Solaris VII, making the spawn on random AI a moot point and protecting the exit wormhole instead of trying to fight all over the place in the system.

Whether you even need additional K at this point is another matter, but I figured I'd clarify

I seriously miss my Raid SS upgrades, but so far I'm alright, and making due with what I have, primarily the Rebel Colony fleet.

Reading the rest...
[/quote]

[keith.lamothe]

And one stinking little MicroTachyon nearly gets them all killed.

Space Plane pilots live for that kind of moment...  Or is it cease to live? 

Please note, the rubber chicken has worked...   

Sometimes an otherwise implacable Machine Spirit will relent if given a genuine laugh.  I found the database software eminently reasonable, for the most part, so long as we did nothing to offend it.

ColdFusion, on the other hand... I only encountered the words "Branch Offset Too Long For Short" maybe four times, but they still send a chill through my spine.

Thank God for C#.

Can't raid Davion, no supply.  Can't raid Liao, same problem.

Oh, duh, sorry.  For some reason I thought I'd changed the mkIII labs to not require supply with the hacking changes.  I still may, but I'll probably add some wilder rolls for unsupplied hacks like being able to hop to any world, etc.

[Wanderer]

16:10: I've done four Space Plane Raids now.  They've cleared all but 1 of the non-FF shielded posts, and have killed off both roach Spawners and the Orbital Mass Driver.  With that gone, my raid ss's snuck in with a cloaker starship and popped the remaining Ion Cannon.  I've kept the Warbirds in the back with the main fleet.

Meanwhile, my 'sweep and clean' system worked rather nicely to remove threat from the satellite worlds.  Only Ceasar had any threat left, and I purposely left those two wormholes close.  While I moved in to clean up one CPA's worth of threat the other filled in behind me.  Backtrack immediately and cleaned up both relatively easily.

Only one significant problem came up and that was the drifters from the Earth area heading for Sox.  My Rebel Fleet was racing to help out already because a warp guardian had spawned on Macross again, so that worked nicely.  They got there, helped out Sox, then cleaned up Macross for good measure.  They'd already cleaned out the backyard systems when they last refilled so that went nicely.  The spawns from Davion were hysterically obliterated.

It's time to go for Riker.

[Wanderer]

16:25.

With the Space Planes leading the way as the cannon fodder vanguard, the fleet arrives after the Space Planes have led the few defenders still around on a merry chase.  With the arrival of the blade spawners, the heavy beam post under glass eventually goes down while the fleet concentrates on the two spire shield guardposts.

With those cleared and the blade spawners having done a significant amount of damage to the cmd station campers, the polycrystals head in for anti-fortress/anti 2x FF V work on the cmd center defenses.  My forgotten SS Is are sent down to help find mines on this world, as Riker is defended by the Mine Enthusiast.  They find a ton of them on the cmd station and the blades clear those out in between whacking the slowly waking defenders.

With those cleared, the fleet, still mostly intact and suffering few casualties, heads back to LLama.  A transport group brings a colony ship back down to Krupp for re-establishment of the transport way-area.  A cloaking starship also heads down to Krupp.  AIP is 245.  Dyson Ball is the ONLY reason Llama has held.  The waves are massive, averaging at 2000-2500 ships a piece.  Speed waves are ~1000 ships.  I could, in theory, have held it if I'd paid any attention to it and used certain elements of the fleet for backup, as well as opening up Riot IIs.  I have 3000 K I haven't used yet, and 0 hacking done.  With Riot II + Counter missile, and having spent resources on Zenith toys instead of Merc Units, I could have changed that outcome. 

However, could I handle the volume of waves I'm getting?  I'm going to go with no.  Not with just that.  I'd also have to bring my Maws in, another FF set to stack the wormhole (1000 K for HFF), EMP AoE Mines to assist with the Tazering (1500 K) since they've been meh-effective for my opponent, and probably leave the Mk I Blade Spawners behind.  Include a Mil I station instead of the Econ III for boosting.

Now, with all THAT, I could probably handle the chokepoint without the Dyson.  Luckily, I don't have to.

About the EMP Mines:  Whoever I told previously to just scout beforehand?  I was wrong and working on limited data at the time.  Your ships WILL STILL hit visible mines on exit of a wormhole.  They'll just also be able to shoot at them.  Engaging any of the Mine Enthusiast's locations without first blasting teh mines (and sometimes your ships will sail right into one to get at one further back) will usually end up with 20-30 ships EMP'd for 1-2 minutes.

I usually scrap these lazy carcasses on my way out of the system just to drop the threat level when my real fleet's not there.  Yes, it hurt when I had to scrap two Warbirds with 0% Engines left, I do it to my ED dead units from hitting Siege units too.  Nothing for it, I don't have Engi IIIs.

At 16:30 I'm debating on what units to load into transports to leave behind on Krupp under Cloak to send into Riker for the kill-switch.  I think, actually, I'm just going to leave my Space Planes there with Bomber SS in the transport and they can cloak themselves in for additional support to make sure I don't get sucker-punched by a reinforcement while they're in there.

Everything else I'm going to need for the Anti-Raid Engine Run... including two systems.  Confederation and Eridani are next on my list to take, for one simple reason:  It'll get the Dyson Ball involved in blocking the Raid attack.  It'll dilute the heck out of the Llama system but this is end-game baby.

[Wanderer]

Round 1: Dyson vs. Raid Engine.

This worked to a point.  I popped confederation and dropped an Econ II on it, and then popped all the warp gates connecting to force Llama as the whipping boy still.  On my way through Eridani I merely blew up the cmd station and didn't take the sector.

The fleet gets through Kirk in around 50 seconds, and then my bombers are pounding on the FF/Fortress combo protecting the sole Raid Engine.  I kill it 5 seconds after it retriggers.

Grrr.

Well, I try to fight it out, but my 1000+ gatlings are rode hard and put up wet, so half of them are half dead anyway.  The raid spawned in Earth, so it chewed up my fleet who were busy doing other things far too easily.  I needed to space them out before at 200-300 ships.  At 2000?!  Yeaaaahhh.  No.

So I let the Dyson vs. Raid Engine double spawn try to figure themselves out.  The Raid Engine's second spawn wins.

Savescum.

Round 2:
Well, I take on Confed like last time.  I also send for Rebel Fleet reinforcements and get them shipped back up.  Once everyone's together, I send the troops into Eridani and pop the cmd center, then Speed-move into Earth instead of group-move.  As things arrive I assign them their tasks.  Rebel Bombers and Fleet Bombers all head for the Raid Engine.  Dead with 1:20 to spare this time, beautiful.  It takes me repositioning the blade spawners a few times but they finally get under all the FFs and beat down the local guardposts.  The bombers have dealt with both fortresses by this point (10 minutes or so) and that's done, we blow the command station.

On the east, the cloak team heads for Riker and gets rudely interrupted by a tachyon microfighter.  I lose the bomber SSs but get the Space Planes in, and they get a whole 80% off the cmd center before getting blown to pieces.

Meanwhile, back on defense, the Dyson ball has lost 700 or so gatlings and there's still 1000 or so of the Raid Left parked on the Kirk Wormhole just eating the gatlings as they head out to fight.  My fleet stalks in from behind and they're torn to pieces.

Dyson ball is at 300 gatlings and is still able, with heavy turret support, to hold the line at Llama against the Tech III wave.  Excellent.

The fleet's back at Llama at 16:52.  AIP is a hair over 400.  Time to finish this up and head to Riker.  Organize the fleet and send them down.



*claps hands together to clear the dust* That takes care of that.  +/- four hours for goofing around with wave testing, that's about right.  Figure 13.5/14 hours for dealing with what the Neutral Dyson eventually smacked around, considering how long it was stymied, and I can live with that for a 9.8.

So, things learned:
1) Never, EVER, try to deal with a HW Raid Engine at 200+ AIP (at rediculous AI DIFF) without cataclismic level backup.
2) I miss my Raid SS.
3) Remember: Check the ARS first, THEN blow the command center.  Dingbat.
4) Space Planes are useful!
5) Armor Ships make TASTY fodder.
6) There might as well be a sign on the AI Command Station: Bombers only.  All others declined service. Seriously, take a look at that list of immunities...
7) If your enemy has anti-cloaker ships, don't expect to 'float' a cloak brigade in for final kills.  Send in a cleaning service first.
Bring the ZPG online earlier ya nut, whatever the price.
9) Rebel Fleets were yet more powerful then I'd expected.  Part of their power is their punch + speed.  They make an amazing reaction force to all but wave-attacks.
10) Dyson Ball pwns allcomers.  Come get some.

[PokerChen]

I believe congratulations are very much in order...

Bravo.

[Wanderer]

AI 10 Opening:

This is already VERY different.  For starters, and my first hint, the starting system.  The orange circle is rougly where I always started with the home command station.  You'll notice I'm in a different sector now.



Next is the AI's opening units.
Mine Enthusiast (Red) Opens with MLRS, Teleport Raiders.
Vanilla (Blue) Opens with Cutlasses and Teleport Leeches.

Ergh.

There's two fortresses already scouted.  One in Twycross (first system leading to the galaxy), next in Macross (next system leading to the galaxy).  CoP on Twycross.

ARS on Fraggle Rock, unknown value yet.

There's a SuperTerminal hiding back on what used to be Roulette (Two west from homeworld, leads to the 2-system arm with Huge behind it).

Dyson's on Sox, the one that hangs off Macross and I used to create the Dyson Ball in 9.6.

Alright, that pretty much answers what I need to know here.  Keith, do you see any value in continuing this until the Dyson Ball gets itself beaten with a nice fat nerfbat?  I'm not sure there is.  It won't change much.  The Dyson Ball CAN handle dang near anything.  It would basically mean I'm just testing anti-RaidEngine tactics and reinforcement levels.

[Wanderer]

I believe congratulations are very much in order...

Bravo.

Thank you.

[keith.lamothe]

So I let the Dyson vs. Raid Engine double spawn try to figure themselves out.  The Raid Engine's second spawn wins.

*gasp* The Dyson has limits!

Indeed, bravo!  The Vogon-Rebel-Dyson Alliance slays the dragon and... uh, well, paves Earth under with a hyperspace bypass.  Can't have everything.

Beating 9.8 in a fair fight (well, with Mike Dyson standing there to bite an ear where necessary) is quite a stiff challenge.  Very informative too; this game seemed to be much more on-balance in terms of the AIP/K ratio, and in terms of how much AIP reduction you were able to achieve (indeed, the fact that you were able to win without any hacking, having been denied an ST, is pretty impressive and I think somewhat counterbalances the fact that the Dyson did so much of the work for you).  With those factors more balanced, we got to see 9.8 performing under basically normal AIP conditions, and the result seems right: waves that require serious attention.  Not all waves, but when the max-time ones kick in (and particularly when they double-up) it's painful. 

1) Never, EVER, try to deal with a HW Raid Engine at 200+ AIP (at rediculous AI DIFF) without cataclismic level backup.

Glad to know that refused to be ignored

2) I miss my Raid SS.

Glad to have toys in there that the player really wants to have, but they can't generally have them all at once (kinda reminds me of Master of Magic; there were spells in every color I wanted in every game, but which ones I tried for and which ones I got added so much variety)

3) Remember: Check the ARS first, THEN blow the command center.  Dingbat.

FYI, you can still check the ARS tab of the tech menu on the ARS planet after capturing it.  The concrete's already dry, of course, but it can help you see if you really want to savescum (not normally a kosher thing, but if you're playing at 9.8 then it's just payback for the AI messing with you).

4) Space Planes are useful!

I think they just put that on their refrigerator.  Can't tell for sure.  It's cloaked.

5) Armor Ships make TASTY fodder.

All that armor is actually layers of fried batter!  Took rather a lot of trips through the peanut oil...

6) There might as well be a sign on the AI Command Station: Bombers only.  All others declined service. Seriously, take a look at that list of immunities...

That would work as a paraphrase of something from the tutorial, I believe   An alternative involves something roughly moon-sized with an absurdly powerful continuous beam weapon.  And friends.

7) If your enemy has anti-cloaker ships, don't expect to 'float' a cloak brigade in for final kills.  Send in a cleaning service first.

You think it's hard on your end, imagine what the other guy feels like when six trillion space planes suddenly appear on sensors.  Approximately 63% of the internal volume of a Tachyon Microfighter is storage for spare pilot jumpsuits.  Not for when they fail, but for when they succeed.

9) Rebel Fleets were yet more powerful then I'd expected.  Part of their power is their punch + speed.  They make an amazing reaction force to all but wave-attacks.

I was rather impressed with the Rebels this time, yes.  And they actually seemed fairly balanced in terms of how much pain they did cause you, would have caused you if you had not saved the colony, and could have caused you if placed in an even less convenient location.

10) Dyson Ball pwns allcomers.  Come get some.

Oh yea.  When AI met Dyson, Dyson used AI to redecorate.  I think I've got an idea on how to bring that down to a point where the end no longer needs to say "DYSON WIN!" instead of the current message, but still have the potential for dysonic hilarity.  The good part is that this idea doesn't involve the destruction of the galaxy.

This is already VERY different.  For starters, and my first hint, the starting system.  The orange circle is rougly where I always started with the home command station.  You'll notice I'm in a different sector now.

Next is the AI's opening units.
Mine Enthusiast (Red) Opens with MLRS, Teleport Raiders.
Vanilla (Blue) Opens with Cutlasses and Teleport Leeches.

Ergh.

Hmm; refresh my lazy memory: has the station moved between previous cases, and have the AI opening types been changing?  I didn't think I'd changed anything that would affect that stage of mapgen, as the planet "what is unlockable here?" initialization happens later.

Alright, that pretty much answers what I need to know here.  Keith, do you see any value in continuing this until the Dyson Ball gets itself beaten with a nice fat nerfbat?  I'm not sure there is.  It won't change much.  The Dyson Ball CAN handle dang near anything.  It would basically mean I'm just testing anti-RaidEngine tactics and reinforcement levels.

Hmm, I think you have a point there.  I have a plan for the dyson but I dunno if it's gonna get in for the next release, as 5.032 is pretty much on the "whenenver Chris gets a chance to kick it out the door" schedule and I don't want to toss in ripe bugs right at the end (not like it doesn't happen anyway).

Perhaps an intermission of disposable heroes or something like that?

[Wanderer]

*gasp* The Dyson has limits!

I know, shocked me too.

Indeed, bravo!  The Vogon-Rebel-Dyson Alliance slays the dragon and... uh, well, paves Earth under with a hyperspace bypass.  Can't have everything.

Vrrrrrmmmm!!!!

Beating 9.8 in a fair fight (well, with Mike Dyson standing there to bite an ear where necessary) is quite a stiff challenge.  Very informative too; this game seemed to be much more on-balance in terms of the AIP/K ratio, and in terms of how much AIP reduction you were able to achieve (indeed, the fact that you were able to win without any hacking, having been denied an ST, is pretty impressive and I think somewhat counterbalances the fact that the Dyson did so much of the work for you).  With those factors more balanced, we got to see 9.8 performing under basically normal AIP conditions, and the result seems right: waves that require serious attention.  Not all waves, but when the max-time ones kick in (and particularly when they double-up) it's painful.

Quite true, all of it.  Even the lack of hacking ARS's probably contributed partially to the 'validity' of the test.  I tried to be as honest as I could about the waves.  Lacking the Dyson Ball, my 'spare' 3000 K and two K-Raids would probably have been necessary to keep the chokepoint alive.

2) I miss my Raid SS.

Glad to have toys in there that the player really wants to have, but they can't generally have them all at once (kinda reminds me of Master of Magic; there were spells in every color I wanted in every game, but which ones I tried for and which ones I got added so much variety)

Yeah, I had to make due with other units to perform the tasks I usually reserved for Raid SS.  The Rebels performed very nicely as a 'make-up'.

FYI, you can still check the ARS tab of the tech menu on the ARS planet after capturing it.  The concrete's already dry, of course, but it can help you see if you really want to savescum (not normally a kosher thing, but if you're playing at 9.8 then it's just payback for the AI messing with you).

Throughout this game I tried to avoid savescums except for two reasons.  1) Experimentation and testing, which was known going in and 2) Game-ending screwups.  Anything that I could reasonably recover from my own stupidity for without going into it knowing I was purposely just screwing around I did.

7) If your enemy has anti-cloaker ships, don't expect to 'float' a cloak brigade in for final kills.  Send in a cleaning service first.

You think it's hard on your end, imagine what the other guy feels like when six trillion space planes suddenly appear on sensors.  Approximately 63% of the internal volume of a Tachyon Microfighter is storage for spare pilot jumpsuits.  Not for when they fail, but for when they succeed.

Thank you for that.  There is now beer all over my PC screen and coming out my nose...

I was rather impressed with the Rebels this time, yes.  And they actually seemed fairly balanced in terms of how much pain they did cause you, would have caused you if you had not saved the colony, and could have caused you if placed in an even less convenient location.

Gods, +100 AIP for no benefit in this game would have been ruinous.  Would have been as bad as the earlier Co-P testing.  It was relatively convenient except for forcing me to move the whipping boy and the most logical place being the one that the Dyson was soaking my reinforcements off of.  On a side note, the Dysons did appear to continue to force Davion to reinforce, though we'll confirm that in .032.  They just never scoured it again.

Oh yea.  When AI met Dyson, Dyson used AI to redecorate.  I think I've got an idea on how to bring that down to a point where the end no longer needs to say "DYSON WIN!" instead of the current message, but still have the potential for dysonic hilarity.  The good part is that this idea doesn't involve the destruction of the galaxy.

I actually still like your idea of # of Friendly Dysons = AIP.  Maybe AIP *2.  It's enough to give support but it can't pwn the universe.

Hmm; refresh my lazy memory: has the station moved between previous cases, and have the AI opening types been changing?  I didn't think I'd changed anything that would affect that stage of mapgen, as the planet "what is unlockable here?" initialization happens later.

I think it's the switch from a non-integer 9 to a 10.  Command Station to this point had not moved, nor had opening ships.  This is an utter change from the 4 previous incarnations of this challenge.
Seed is 1445559743, Tree Map, 40 planet.  First AI is Mines, Second is Vanilla.  Choose the Maw planet that shows in the upper left of the screen.  I can test the 9.x again and see what startup looks like.  I'm pretty sure it's due to the integer change of the AI Diff.

Hmm, I think you have a point there.  I have a plan for the dyson but I dunno if it's gonna get in for the next release, as 5.032 is pretty much on the "whenenver Chris gets a chance to kick it out the door" schedule and I don't want to toss in ripe bugs right at the end (not like it doesn't happen anyway).

Perhaps an intermission of disposable heroes or something like that?

Sounds like a delicious option, I think I'll take it.

[Wanderer]

Confirmed.  All changes are due to the AI 10 vs. 9.x difference.  Just spawned up a new 9.6 and everything seems to match up.

[Wanderer]

Maestro!  Drumroll please!

The moment you've all been waiting for.  The Battle Royale.  The unfathomable vs. the unbreakable!  AI 10/10 vs. the Vogons Humans!

I fired up a brand new game due to all the changes since the last time I took the save for the game.  I'm going in as blind as I usually am with the same settings.  Fire in the hole.

Opening moves: Harvesters II/III, Grav Turret Is, Adv Warp Sensor for research.  Fire up scouts for rebuilds and get the primary fleet going.  Maws are once again the starting unit.  I do love my Maw.  Space station is 'offset' again, same as described above.  It's off against an edge of the system.  It's not TOO far from the Shawshank wormhole but it's nearly a full planet away from Twycross.  I can probably leverage this eventually.

Build a Science II, Adv Warp Sensor, and 10x Engi Is and 2x Rebuilders on the homeworld via autosettings.  Send out the starter Scout IIs to see what they can see.

CoP on Twycross.  Great.  Fort I there too.  Dist Node and nothing special on Shawshank (first planet towards the backyard).  Janeway (backyard system) has nothing of import.  However, I do get some knowledge.  I'm facing MLRS, Teleport Raiders, Teleport Leeches, and something cloaked.  Why 'something cloaked'? Because the planets I've looked at so far are all pushing the full set of cloaked enemies off the bottom of the screen due to stealth guard posts.  I'll find out what they are soon enough.

Fraggle Rock, another backyard system, is packing an ARS.  There's a SuperTerminal in the backyard, too.  Whoa.  That's on what usually is called Roulette in this AAR.  It's not overly heavily defended, either, merely a MK III world with a triplet of Ions on it.

That's the first set of Scouts dead.  my econ is currently trying to build the next set out at 2 mins in... and there they are!  All to Huge, the 2-system away planet in the backyard.  Go boys go!  They get into Huge with a single scout left and find... another ARS.  That's some beauty.  I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but it's pretty!

So, the front door is jammed up, but lets see if my scouts can find out if I've got a local Dyson.  I start working the front path with scouts while the fleet continues to build to deflect the opening waves.  3 minutes in.  I setup the Fighter cap I've built on a hotkey.  It's time to hunt down that distribution node.

Found the fourth ship, it's cutlasses.  So, two teleporters, a ff ignoring melee, and a Missile Frigate wanna-be with stronger firepower.  Oh, THIS will be fun!  Logistics stations anyone?

Oh, that's frickin' HYSTERICAL.  Thanks RNG.  The Node was a Trojan.  4:10 and I've sacrificed a small bit of my fighter fleet (who are heading home now) to pop a trojan and blow away any slight buildup I used to have of econ.  Mutter mutter mutter.  10% AIP increase for nothing gained.

Found the Dyson.  It's sitting at a nice little location just off Macross on the front door.  Macross is a MK III world packing a Fort II and other assundry annoyances.  Nothing's got a counterstrike on it though, at least not yet.

So, what is Wanderer looking at for the opening options:



The two Yellow dots are the ARSs in the backfield.  Macross is going to be the whipping boy, with Sox (eventually to be renamed Dyson) having the Dyson Sphere.  Dyson Ball Backup on the whipping boy, even with the nerf, will be a great help, albeit limited.

So, intentions.  Twycross, Janeway, and Shawshank will indefinately remain AI held worlds.  Shawshank will get its warp-gate popped as soon as is reasonable, with turreting on the homeworld aimed towards defending from both wormholes, to help deal with future possible aggression while I work the backfield.

The homeworld looks like so:


The green lines will be the generic approach vectors of the enemy fleet.  By putting the majority of the homeworld defenses in the yellow region, I'll be able to cover both approaches with reasonable effectiveness until I get the whipping boy moved forward.

Still at 4:10 (Pause is my friend) and looking over the map further, I should be able to get one last set of scouts into Craps and then I'll post up the Scout Is locally.

The fighter fleet meanwhile tries to get back out of Shawshank with minimal losses.  They did some reasonable damage while they visited, though.  They get home at 5:00 or so.  Fresh scouts are built so they head out on a suicide to Craps.  Not too shabby, it's got a Data Center on it.  That'll help.  In the 9 worlds I can immediately scout I've only got two MK III worlds and a single AI Eye on Janeway which won't become a significant issue.  Neutering Superterminal will become annoying but it's handleable.  I'll want to keep command stations/power stations up on both Huge and Fraggle to help me support my energy needs eventually, so they'll have to get knocked down for population concerns.  I'll also have to blow the warp gates on Shawshank and ST eventually.

The decision is how long do I wait before I try to tackle the Macross/Dyson combo to move the whipping boy.  Do I take Fraggle early and get myself a second bonus ship before heading east or do I go for it immediately and get the whipping boy off the homeworld ASAP?  Earlier experimentation showed that at 9.8 I could hold on the homeworld till ~70-80 AIP without significant issues on a reasonable entry length.

I can't really 'wake' the Dyson until I hit the tachyon guardian on Macross and can get a scout into Dyson to keep it awake.  Dyson's also got an AI Eye on it so really, I'd rather Dyson argued with it.  So, Fraggle's the first target.  I'll whipping boy the Homeworld once primary fleet is operational.

At 6:43 the first wave announces.  100 ships.  It's coming from Shawshank, the short-range wormhole.  Grav Turrets immediately start building, a small cluster in front of the station for now just to slow down any fast-movers.  I setup the key-commands for the primary fleet and the Maws (extra-hotkey for those due to micro).  The maws pull back behind the grav well and the main fleet moves to an intercept position.  Remember these are MK II waves.  The main fleet is done building about wave-arrival so I start up 10 Sniper Turrets to keep econ pushed.

The maws nicely handle the teleporting problem that arrives and the main fleet intercepts the first Raid Starship and Bomber starship.  I move the maws out to handle the slowed troops while the main fleet goes on FRD.

First wave is fully defeated at 9:32 and the second one hasn't announced.  Minimal losses allow me to fire up a few more turret banks.  I want some more close range defenders to deal with the teleporters.  Drop down 20 Basic Is and 20 MLRS for now.

Did I say 20?  I meant 40.  Held the wrong button down. XD  Either way, we're not going anywhere until after the second wave and I start pushing out the Scout Is to the picket points.

10:02 second wave announces, 82 ships, again from Shawshank.

The turrets build out at about 10:45.  I should be good to go here.  I slap another 20 snipers into play.  I've got 3000 in K built up that I've not determined where it's going yet but I'm pretty sure it'll end up in bombers.  However, I want a hair of versatility here.

11:30 the wave arrives.  No teleporters in this batch (well, 1 T-Leech) but otherwise cutlasses.  With the maws happily VERY fat (I'd say they were munching on ~100 units at this point) we've stopped both waves with minimal losses.  Time to make our way towards Fraggle.  Meanwhile, starting construction on Raid SSs.

However, annoyingly, I'd really like to see the factories be able to be repaired without having to be online.  Stupid Siege Starship.

Fraggle's pretty decently defended against an early fleet.  Fort I under FF II, Carrier Guardian, an Ion Cannon, and ~100 assorted ships of MK II.  This should get interesting.  The Ion is a MK IV under FF (Spire Shield post II) with 112 mill in HP.  not an easy kill for an early fleet, but it's WAY out of range of the Fortress.  Alright, as expected, Bomber-Time baby!

I fire up Bomber IIs and the dock to build them.  We're busy in Shawshank still though, it's only 14:09 and we're donig some nerf/clean-up.  I need the time to fire up the bomber fleet anyway.  No reason to waste my time in there.

For giggles, I've decided to fire up reinforcement logging.  Let's see what's really happening out there.  16:08 I go in and clear the logs so it's just this game being logged without a ton of clutter.

I bring the main fleet back home for repairs after clearing most of Shawshank, leaving 2 SF posts behind.  17:50: 74 ship wave announces for homeworld.  I could ignore it but might as well show up and hang out for a minute or two.  I just finished building the Raid SSs about a minute ago and am still waiting on the Bomber II fleet.  No reason to push too hard right now.

The enemy comes in the Twycross gate and immediately makes a run for it.  Oh, nice...  Lousy so and sos.  Only about half the wave sticks around.  Threat's at 27.  Alright, I'm not really worried about that, I've got a small but useful turret wall up at the homeworld.  Time to bump that up with some laser turrets while the fleet heads to Fraggle.

The Raids hit first and do a drive at the Ion to take it out before it can harm the fleet.  They nearly bought it on the inbound wormhole but complete their mission.  Meanwhile the fleet fights the carrier guardian and loosed threat from the raid entry in Shawshank, killing it without having to deal with significant reinforcements.  The fleet pops the Tachyon guardian and the Science II from homeworld makes its way to Fraggle for an investigation while the fleet works the planet.  In the meanwhile the Raids head home for repairs and we work on the shieldpost with FF protection. 

ARS options: Grenade Launcher with Y.Commandos or Shield Bearers as secondary options.  Hm.  There's something to be said for a commando steaming attack force, though mostly it's "AAAAAAGGGGHHH STOP KILLING MEEEE!!!!!".  The shield bearers are right out as an early open for me.  I need firepower right now.  I'm wicked metal heavy already with the maws and the grenade launchers are only going to make that worse, and this planet's a 1/3, with Huge no better as a 1/1.  Hrmph.  Macross is another 1/3 with Dyson being a 3/3 (oh, that's helpful... sigh).  I'm VERY crystal heavy... which will help out my Raid SS builds later but for now...

That's a crap assed decision.  Hack for younglings or eat metal-issues.  Grenade Launchers it is, I don't want to hack this early and they're roughly equivalent to me in firepower.  Send the Science II off to a corner for now.

At about 25 minutes during this fight I realize I've got ~180k each in material.  Time to build something.  light Starships it is.  I begin having power problems and double up generators on homeworld.  Still waiting for the traders to come through, could really use a Z-Gennie.  I power down the Raid SSs for now.

The fortress on Fraggle has a Stealth post next to it so there's not much I can do but sacrifice the bomber fleet into trying to take down enough ff for the first pass.  With the Light Starships completed I start up Scout Starship Is (SS Is) for future tachyon concerns... stupid mine enthusiasts...   The Bombers take down the fortress without much issue, happily.  The rest of the fleet is on the other side of the system during a reinforcement and eventually recombine.

29:30 88 ship wave announced for homeworld.  I ignore it for now.  Let the turrets and rebuilds handle it.  The fleet however does start heading home for repairs and resupply before we take fraggle for real.  They should arrive to help if things go south.

Having seen a reinforcement, let's see what's been going on under the hood. 
First reinforcement since logging was 19:13, next was 22:25.  So, approximately 3 minute between reinforcements.  This is actually easier to see in Mainthread.txt:

Code: [Select]

5/29/2012 10:43:22 PM (5.035) 0:19:13 ReinforcementCounter reached > 2400 for player 9 (since game was loaded, took 192 checks of (10+rand(2 or 3))
AIProgressionLevelEffective = 11
AITechLevel = 2
numberOfReinforcements = (number of planets not controlled by the AI / 2) = 0
numberOfReinforcements must be at least 1 and at most 15; = 1
since AIDifficulty >= 10, numberOfReinforcements += 2 = 3
AICommandType.SendReinforcements sent to AI thread


5/29/2012 10:43:23 PM (5.035) 0:19:14 ReinforcementCounter reached > 2400 for player 8 (since game was loaded, took 193 checks of (10+rand(2 or 3))
AIProgressionLevelEffective = 11
AITechLevel = 2
numberOfReinforcements = (number of planets not controlled by the AI / 2) = 0
numberOfReinforcements must be at least 1 and at most 15; = 1
since AIDifficulty >= 10, numberOfReinforcements += 2 = 3
AICommandType.SendReinforcements sent to AI thread


5/29/2012 10:47:57 PM (5.035) 0:22:26 ReinforcementCounter reached > 2400 for player 9 (since game was loaded, took 193 checks of (10+rand(2 or 3))
AIProgressionLevelEffective = 11
AITechLevel = 2
numberOfReinforcements = (number of planets not controlled by the AI / 2) = 0
numberOfReinforcements must be at least 1 and at most 15; = 1
since AIDifficulty >= 10, numberOfReinforcements += 2 = 3
AICommandType.SendReinforcements sent to AI thread


5/29/2012 10:47:58 PM (5.035) 0:22:27 ReinforcementCounter reached > 2400 for player 8 (since game was loaded, took 193 checks of (10+rand(2 or 3))
AIProgressionLevelEffective = 11
AITechLevel = 2
numberOfReinforcements = (number of planets not controlled by the AI / 2) = 0
numberOfReinforcements must be at least 1 and at most 15; = 1
since AIDifficulty >= 10, numberOfReinforcements += 2 = 3
AICommandType.SendReinforcements sent to AI thread


5/29/2012 10:57:28 PM (5.035) 0:25:39 ReinforcementCounter reached > 2400 for player 8 (since game was loaded, took 192 checks of (10+rand(2 or 3))
AIProgressionLevelEffective = 11
AITechLevel = 2
numberOfReinforcements = (number of planets not controlled by the AI / 2) = 0
numberOfReinforcements must be at least 1 and at most 15; = 1
since AIDifficulty >= 10, numberOfReinforcements += 2 = 3
AICommandType.SendReinforcements sent to AI thread


5/29/2012 10:57:28 PM (5.035) 0:25:39 ReinforcementCounter reached > 2400 for player 9 (since game was loaded, took 193 checks of (10+rand(2 or 3))
AIProgressionLevelEffective = 11
AITechLevel = 2
numberOfReinforcements = (number of planets not controlled by the AI / 2) = 0
numberOfReinforcements must be at least 1 and at most 15; = 1
since AIDifficulty >= 10, numberOfReinforcements += 2 = 3
AICommandType.SendReinforcements sent to AI thread
AI 10 is apparently a bit more intense on that... XD.. anyway.

Code: [Select]

5/29/2012 10:43:22 PM (5.035) 0:19:12 calling SendReinforcements
PlayerNumber = 9
AIProgressionLevel = 11
AITechLevel = 2
NumberOfReinforcements = 3
Planets in order of planned reinforcement attempt (note: alerted planets will get two lines, and a line with priority >= 2000 will get tried twice) :
17 (Shawshank) (alerted)  reinforce priority = 0
42 (Twycross) (alerted)  reinforce priority = 0
29 (Riker) (homeworld, +500)  reinforce priority = 500
27 (Earth) (homeworld, +500)  reinforce priority = 500
26 (Kirk) (core, +300)  reinforce priority = 300
12 (Three Kings) (core, +300)  reinforce priority = 300
17 (Shawshank) (alerted)  reinforce priority = 0
42 (Twycross) (alerted)  reinforce priority = 0
(33 more reinforceable planets that are not alerted and have reinforcement priority = 0
so, besides missing a parentheses at the end there, what are we looking at.  AIP is 11.  # of Reinforcements are 3.  Erm?  I own *1* planet.  Alright, that's not what I expected but sure, whatever.

The two obvious reinforcements are Shawshank and Twycross, the ones I've alerted.  Well, looks like that Dyson alert fix is going just fine, Macross isn't even on the list.

However, later, when I'm attacking Fraggle:

Code: [Select]


5/29/2012 11:01:18 PM (5.035) 0:28:51 calling SendReinforcements
PlayerNumber = 9
AIProgressionLevel = 12
AITechLevel = 2
NumberOfReinforcements = 3
Planets in order of planned reinforcement attempt (note: alerted planets will get two lines, and a line with priority >= 2000 will get tried twice) :
18 (Fraggle Rock) (alerted) (outnumbered, +2000)  reinforce priority = 2000
17 (Shawshank) (alerted)  reinforce priority = 0
42 (Twycross) (alerted)  reinforce priority = 0
18 (Fraggle Rock) (alerted) (outnumbered, +2000)  reinforce priority = 2000
27 (Earth) (homeworld, +500)  reinforce priority = 500
29 (Riker) (homeworld, +500)  reinforce priority = 500
26 (Kirk) (core, +300)  reinforce priority = 300
12 (Three Kings) (core, +300)  reinforce priority = 300
42 (Twycross) (alerted)  reinforce priority = 0
17 (Shawshank) (alerted)  reinforce priority = 0
(32 more reinforceable planets that are not alerted and have reinforcement priority = 0
That looks right.  Cool.  Alright, let's see what other nuggets of joy we can yank out of this.  Starting at the 19:12 one again...
Well now, THAT'S odd.  It sent reinforcements to Shawshank, Twycross, and then Shawshank again... ignoring Riker heading up the list in third place.

Code: [Select]

******calling SendReinforcementsToPlanet on planet 17 (Shawshank), StrengthBudget = 0
Number of this player's units on this planet = 54
reinforcement population cap = (GuardPostsNonWormhole + CommandStations) * UnitCapScale.AIShipCapPerPost = (3 * 100) (must be at least 200 and at most 700) = 300
Number of this player's units on this planet does not exceed reinforcement population cap, continuing reinforcement attempt
guardPostReinforcementPulses = (AIProgressionLevel / 10) = 1; (must be at least 3 and at most 11) = 3
guardPostReinforcementPulsesShiftedToCentralPulse = guardPostReinforcementPulses - ( GuardPostsAll + CommandStations ) (cannot go below 0) = max(0,3-(10+1)) = 0

***Doing central reinforcement pulse (this will go to the command station if there is one, and pick another spot if not)
AITechLevel = at least planet's AIOriginalTechLevel = 1
aiTypeBasedAIPIncrement : 0
reinforcementStrength = 1.5 * AIDiff * handicapMultiplier = 15
reinforcementStrength += 4 + random(0,AIDifficulty) = 26
reinforcementStrength += ((AIP/10) * (AIDiff/10)) = 27.1
reinforcementStrength *= (tech level multiplier) = 27.1
reinforcementStrength *= 0.07 = 1.89
reinforcementStrength must be at most 35; = 1.89
reinforcementStrength *= (1 + guardPostReinforcementPulsesShiftedToCentralPulse) = 1.89
Inside AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType, multiplier: 1
after AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType call, reinforcementStrength = 1.89
numberShips = Floor(reinforcementStrength) = 1
StrengthBudget += 3 = 3
--- AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 3
bought 1 EngineerDrone for 5
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 5, remaining = -2

***Doing guard-post reinforcement pulses:
reinforcementStrengthPerPulse = AIP/270 = 0.04
reinforcementStrengthPerPulse *= (tech level multiplier) = 0.04
reinforcementStrengthPerPulse must be at least 1 and at most 7; = 1
after AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType, reinforcementStrengthPerPulse = 1
---doing pulse for SpecialForcesCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 3 = 1
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 1
bought 1 MissileShipII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -1
---doing pulse for SpecialForcesCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 3 = 2
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 2
bought 1 FighterII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = 0
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 1
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 1
bought 1 MissileShipII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -1
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 0
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 0
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = 0
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 1
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 1
bought 1 FighterII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -1
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 0
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 0
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = 0
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 1
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 1
bought 1 MissileShipII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -1
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 0
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 0
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = 0
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 1
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 1
bought 1 BomberII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -1
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 0
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 0
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = 0

***checking for additional (no-strength-cost) guardian spawn
not buying guardian due to adjacent to human homeworld

SendReinforcementsToPlanet result: happened, remainingReinforcements = 2, StrengthBudget = 0

******calling SendReinforcementsToPlanet on planet 42 (Twycross), StrengthBudget = 0
Number of this player's units on this planet = 29
reinforcement population cap = (GuardPostsNonWormhole + CommandStations) * UnitCapScale.AIShipCapPerPost = (4 * 100) (must be at least 200 and at most 700) = 400
Number of this player's units on this planet does not exceed reinforcement population cap, continuing reinforcement attempt
guardPostReinforcementPulses = (AIProgressionLevel / 10) = 1; (must be at least 3 and at most 11) = 3
guardPostReinforcementPulsesShiftedToCentralPulse = guardPostReinforcementPulses - ( GuardPostsAll + CommandStations ) (cannot go below 0) = max(0,3-(7+1)) = 0

***Doing central reinforcement pulse (this will go to the command station if there is one, and pick another spot if not)
AITechLevel = at least planet's AIOriginalTechLevel = 1
aiTypeBasedAIPIncrement : 0
reinforcementStrength = 1.5 * AIDiff * handicapMultiplier = 15
reinforcementStrength += 4 + random(0,AIDifficulty) = 21
reinforcementStrength += ((AIP/10) * (AIDiff/10)) = 22.1
reinforcementStrength *= (tech level multiplier) = 22.1
reinforcementStrength *= 0.07 = 1.54
reinforcementStrength must be at most 35; = 1.54
reinforcementStrength *= (1 + guardPostReinforcementPulsesShiftedToCentralPulse) = 1.54
Inside AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType, multiplier: 1
after AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType call, reinforcementStrength = 1.54
numberShips = Floor(reinforcementStrength) = 1
StrengthBudget += 2 = 2
--- AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 2
bought 1 MineLayer for 3.34
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 3.34, remaining = -1.34

***Doing guard-post reinforcement pulses:
reinforcementStrengthPerPulse = AIP/270 = 0.04
reinforcementStrengthPerPulse *= (tech level multiplier) = 0.04
reinforcementStrengthPerPulse must be at least 1 and at most 7; = 1
after AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType, reinforcementStrengthPerPulse = 1
---doing pulse for SpecialForcesCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 3 = 1.66
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 1.66
bought 1 SpireTeleportingLeechII for 4
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 4, remaining = -2.34
---doing pulse for AIShortRangeGuardPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = -1.34
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = -1.34
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = -1.34
---doing pulse for AISpireShieldSphereGuardPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = -0.34
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = -0.34
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = -0.34
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 0.66
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 0.66
bought 1 MissileShipII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -1.34
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = -0.34
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = -0.34
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = -0.34
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 0.66
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 0.66
bought 1 FighterII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -1.34
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = -0.34
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = -0.34
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = -0.34

***checking for additional (no-strength-cost) guardian spawn
not buying guardian due to planet not owned by this player

SendReinforcementsToPlanet result: happened, remainingReinforcements = 1, StrengthBudget = -0.34

******calling SendReinforcementsToPlanet on planet 17 (Shawshank), StrengthBudget = -0.34
Number of this player's units on this planet = 54
reinforcement population cap = (GuardPostsNonWormhole + CommandStations) * UnitCapScale.AIShipCapPerPost = (3 * 100) (must be at least 200 and at most 700) = 300
Number of this player's units on this planet does not exceed reinforcement population cap, continuing reinforcement attempt
guardPostReinforcementPulses = (AIProgressionLevel / 10) = 1; (must be at least 3 and at most 11) = 3
guardPostReinforcementPulsesShiftedToCentralPulse = guardPostReinforcementPulses - ( GuardPostsAll + CommandStations ) (cannot go below 0) = max(0,3-(10+1)) = 0

***Doing central reinforcement pulse (this will go to the command station if there is one, and pick another spot if not)
AITechLevel = at least planet's AIOriginalTechLevel = 1
aiTypeBasedAIPIncrement : 0
reinforcementStrength = 1.5 * AIDiff * handicapMultiplier = 15
reinforcementStrength += 4 + random(0,AIDifficulty) = 26
reinforcementStrength += ((AIP/10) * (AIDiff/10)) = 27.1
reinforcementStrength *= (tech level multiplier) = 27.1
reinforcementStrength *= 0.07 = 1.89
reinforcementStrength must be at most 35; = 1.89
reinforcementStrength *= (1 + guardPostReinforcementPulsesShiftedToCentralPulse) = 1.89
Inside AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType, multiplier: 1
after AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType call, reinforcementStrength = 1.89
numberShips = Floor(reinforcementStrength) = 1
StrengthBudget += 3 = 2.66
--- AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 2.66
bought 1 MineLayer for 3.34
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 3.34, remaining = -0.67

***Doing guard-post reinforcement pulses:
reinforcementStrengthPerPulse = AIP/270 = 0.04
reinforcementStrengthPerPulse *= (tech level multiplier) = 0.04
reinforcementStrengthPerPulse must be at least 1 and at most 7; = 1
after AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType, reinforcementStrengthPerPulse = 1
---doing pulse for SpecialForcesCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 3 = 2.33
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 2.33
bought 1 BomberII for 2
bought 1 FighterII for 2
total count bought: 2, total strength spent: 4, remaining = -1.67
---doing pulse for SpecialForcesCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 3 = 1.33
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 1.33
bought 1 BomberII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -0.67
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 0.33
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 0.33
bought 1 BomberII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -1.67
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = -0.67
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = -0.67
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = -0.67
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 0.33
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 0.33
bought 1 BomberII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -1.67
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = -0.67
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = -0.67
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = -0.67
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 0.33
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 0.33
bought 1 BomberII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -1.67
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = -0.67
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = -0.67
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = -0.67
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = 0.33
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = 0.33
bought 1 BomberII for 2
total count bought: 1, total strength spent: 2, remaining = -1.67
---doing pulse for WormholeCommandPost
StrengthBudget += 1 = -0.67
AIBuyShipsFromList StrengthBudget = -0.67
total count bought: 0, total strength spent: 0, remaining = -0.67

***checking for additional (no-strength-cost) guardian spawn
not buying guardian due to adjacent to human homeworld

SendReinforcementsToPlanet result: happened, remainingReinforcements = 0, StrengthBudget = -0.67
totals for planet 17 (Shawshank); count: 15, strength: 34.34
totals for planet 42 (Twycross); count: 4, strength: 11.34
totals for EngineerDrone; count: 1, strength: 5
totals for MissileShipII; count: 4, strength: 8
totals for FighterII; count: 4, strength: 8
totals for BomberII; count: 7, strength: 14
totals for MineLayer; count: 2, strength: 6.67
totals for SpireTeleportingLeechII; count: 1, strength: 4
*grand totals; count: 19, strength: 45.67
I'd expect that, but not from the listing I saw above in the order of reinforcement attempts.  I'd have expected the coreworld to get a beefing.  I'm glad it didn't, but still.

I'm going to examine Twycross's reinforcements first, since that's unadjusted since game start (I haven't done anything but scout it).

With four guardposts it maxes off at 400 units maximum for popcap (per AI).  However, this says it maxes off at 700 ships.  I'd thought it was 1000 (10 posts = max cap).  It's obviously not.  At 6 posts + Cmd you're max-capped at a single world.  Because AIP is so low (110 or less) it's not at max pulses to reinforce. In this case, it wants to bottom out at a single pulse but the minimum is 3 for the guardposts and no extra pulses will go to the command center.

The command center decided to buy a... minelayer.  What the hell is that?

Now it starts up the guard-post pulses.  You'll notice that pulse goes through ALL the guardposts, it's not simply refilling a single post.  Eventually it buys a Teleport Leech, a Missile Frigate, and a fighter.  Notice the strength of the pulse above it though.  AIP/270 and it minimums at strength 1.  That means until AIP 270 while you'll reinforce more planets (because of the # you've taken), you won't see more reinforcements PER reinforcement until you've pushed AIP above 270.  I think.

However, I'm reviewing the initial strength calculation for the command center.  That's based on AIP/10 with AIDiff modifiers.  However, there's a few lines in here I'm not quite sure I understand.

Reinforcement strength = 1.54, which floors to 1.  Then it gets a += of 2 which SHOULD bring it to 3 but leaves it at 2.  Not quite sure how that works.

Either way, the command center is getting a lot more boost from AIP then the rest of the guardposts are.

Now, we go into the first pulse, where in theory the pulse is at least 1.  Then for some reason, the strength budget gets itself a += 3 for 1.66 (remove the leftovers from the command center and this makes some sense) but I'm not sure what that entire calculation above was for in regards to the 1 for the reinforcementStrengthPerPulse.

Maybe I can make more sense of it from the next pulse?

Ah hah!  That '3 pulses' from earlier was actually just the base strength of the single pulse?  Wut?  This makes as much sense as dating.

I... don't get it.  Maybe that's the point though.  I have a feeling to really understand this log I'd have to tear it apart with Keith standing over my shoulder.  I thought I understood it, but yeah, no, I don't.

Well, it's doing no harm, we'll leave it running in the background.  Where the heck was I?  Ah, right, Fraggle Rock, here we come!  I build off a colony ship and send it over with the full fleet to Fraggle Rock.  enroute, a 161 ship wave announces at 33:30 for Homeworld.  Well, here's hopin.  I have a ton (200k+ of each material) stockpiled right now due to NOT losing a mass of ships so I slap up some more turrets on homeworld.  30 LRMs and 20 more snipers.  Homeworld Turret Defenses now at: 5 Gravs, 20 Lasers, 40 Basic, 40 MLRS, 30 LRM, 50 Sniper.  CSG-A goes down, AIP is at 33, and I need to Warp-Gate pop Shawshank ASAP.

During the raid the main fleet heads back towards Homeworld, and we pop the WarpGate enroute.  Excellent timing.  35:48 another wave announces while the turrets are still fending off the first wave.  The Econ I and ARS are captured easily enough on Fraggle but the turrets are dying and 58 enemy ships are still attacking on Sushi (Homeworld), including a Bomber SS that is just pounding its way in.  The fleet won't get there in time but the maws are high-tailing it.  Grenade Launcher production is started.

In the end, the turrets are able to stop the wave, but I'd be lying if I said it was 'without concern'.  With the fleet back at home I feel a little safer.  Time to reposition a few turrets, too, since I've pushed the waves to the 'longer run'.  I want the AoEs heavy on that inbound.

Most of the second wave makes a run for it.  Bastages.  Alright, we'll hold off on the secondary defenses for now.  I don't even bother putting up a single turret on Fraggle for now.  It's as safe as it'll get, but it does get a FF and a grav to delay randoms for now.  I also set the planet to alert on a single enemy ship entering, and they get a single Engi I on auto-build.

I wait for the grenade launchers to build up before heading out for Macross to try to 'wake' the Dyson.  I bring homeworld up to 15 engineers since we're starting to spike/save on economy.

Holy crap, seriously?  Another 277 ship wave at 39:29 for homeworld.  10 minutes, 3 waves.  Yeesh.  Oh, did I mention it's a double wave?  101 coming in right behind it.  AIP is 38.  I drop 4 FF Is on the Twycross WH and 30 Lightning Is.  Here, have a facesmack on entry you fegs.

In the meanwhile, I drop the main fleet out to Shawshank to try to get the ARS and Science II home safely.

The waves hit Sushi, and the forcefield 'trap' holds a ton of them at bay while some of the leakage gets through and dies to the LRMs and Snipers.  The Lightning Turrets do a decent amount of work.  We clear the wave by 43:00 with fleet support and I start resupply.

And another wave, 100 ships, announced at 43:27.

C'mon, seriously?  I bring homeworld's rebuilders up to 5 on auto-build.  I include a half-cap of flak turrets at the wormhole this time as well.  Of note: Rebuilders are a confused bunch.  They keep trying to run off then come back to repair things.  If you just shove them under the entry FF they repair things about 2x as fast since they stop trying to 'run home' after each repair.

3500 K available and I'm torn on my research.  I really love my Raid SSs but I want to bring Maws up to MK II due to my recent reliance on them in these games.  However, I'm horribly disparate in metal to crystal and Raids would utilize the overwhelmance better.  At the same time, I need fleet.

Maws it is.  Add them to the docks.  Slap up 20 Tractors at the inbound WH as well just to annoy the enemy... and burn off a bit of Crystal.

46:00.  The fleet really didn't get involved in that defense, I can probably start moving again once the fleet finalizes.  I'm not waiting on the Maw IIs, they'll take a bit.  They're ready about 47:30 and move towards Twycross.  The intention here is merely to make sure I can get scouts to Dyson (Sox in the above) and get the Dyson awoken.  Let it deal with its own problems from there until I'm ready to come back for it.

The fleet took a BEATING in Macross from triple Ion Is, but I was able to pop both Tachyons and the local wh defenders without taking horrendous losses.  The fleet retreated to homeworld immediately following, with the Z-Traders right behind 'em.  Wicked.  z-Gennie time!

Finally able to land a Scout I on Dyson it starts its job at 49:50.  Let's see how long it takes to get itself sorted out.

When the Z-Traders arrive I buy a few toys for the homeworld.  Armor Booster/Inhibitor, Radar Jammer II, and Z-Gennie.  I would normally buy a Black Hole Generator as well for a whipping boy but in this case I'll pass.  I WANT them to leave the homeworld instead of attacking if they choose for now.  The Macross whipping boy will be another story.  The only thing I'll build for now is the Z-Gennie, everything else is a materials dump for later just for self defense.

We're now going to fight a war of patience.  Z-Gennie build + Dyson going to work.  In the meanwhile... we'll deal with the never-ending waves.  251 ships at 50:39.  I've got 7-10 minute interludes to do 'anything' then make sure I'm back here to deal with them right now.  I plan to start nerfing Superterminal soon, as I eventually need access to Huge.  While the Dyson works the east it's as good a time as any.

I'm reporting every wave not to be annoying but to show their volume.  176 ships announced at 51:16.  Double wave, 400+ ships MK II.  I need to let the fleet rebuild so the ZGen is deactivated at 1% build.

While waiting for the wave I check on Dyson.  He's moving FAST.  I may have to get in there sooner than I expected.  Waves hitting Homeworld are trying to run from the fleet.  This was expected, though not desired.  However, it will create a 'wall' with the threatball from the Dyson if I wait too long.

A couple of cutlasses wandered over and started harassing Fraggle rock.  I gave them 10 Basic Is and a grav as a deterrent.  It was too little too late.  I'm now in a MASSIVE brownout.  Crap.

I'm barely able to get above water and keep the homeworld safe.  The Fleet heads out to support Fraggle since I'm an idiot.  the basics do eventually come back online and i've had to deactivate the AoE turrets and one of the homeworld FFs as well as the Raid SSs while those reactors rebuild.

Another wave of 86 ships announces at 54:11.

In the meanwhile, Dyson vs. Macross is now at the Dyson vs. EMP Guardian + Fortress II stage.  Go Dyson!  Please?

Econ's on the floor.  To help out the Maws park under the inbound FFs and the fleet heads up to support.  If I can't keep the turrets repaired they're just going to suck me dry on resources.

Dyson's not faring well against the FF at the moment, but they're trying.  That's okay, I've got my own problems.  I decide to drop another grav and 10 snipers on Fraggle as a little more insurance.

1:00:00.  Status report, Ensign!
Sir, we're screwed!
Roger that, Carry on!

Alright, seriously, 1 hour point.  Dyson's started being freed.  Waves are some value of nasty.  I'm not happy with my whipping boy setup but I don't really have the econ to relocate half of it.  I also don't necessarily WANT to relocate half of it because of the secondary wormhole.  What I want to do is move the blessed thing off to Macross... Pronto.

In the meanwhile I'm trying to build a Z-Generator that costs 3.6 mill of each component on the homeworld.  That's not exactly screaming with speed.  However, dyson's all choked up on the flank due to the fortress and the 1/5 second spawn just tearing them down.  So, do I fight with patience?  I think so.

Status is econ is hammered and I don't have a ton of options right now.  I'm going to let Dyson work the main road while I work the backfield a bit.  If Dyson gets ugly, I simply kill the scout.

[Wanderer]

Alright, first off, we need appropriate theme music.  Tartanic it is.

Second off, no, we don't need beer.   No matter HOW well it goes with Tartanic.

Fleet's rebuilt at 1:00:30.  It's time to go to work on the western front.  The Maws are staying behind for now to help with defenses.

First step, clear the entry for the Raids into SuperTerminal so they can clear the ions and the fleet can come back and do some work.  Only having Raid SS Is I need to be a bit protective of them.  I've decided I'm only going to activate the Z-Gennie build when I've got over 200k in materials and try to time it so I never have less than 50k.

Eventually I'll leave the Grenades behind on defense but right now I want the fodder.

Over 100 of my ships hit EMP mines on entry to SuperTerminal and they're lost to war, another 100 dying in the wh clearance.  However, objective one completed at 1:02 (skipping seconds now).  Raids can enter cleanly.  The main fleet is heading home for resupply while my econ takes a dive again.

There's an EMP Guardian on SuperTerminal that I need to be careful about waking.  However we're about to force abunch of threat to move off the planet with the Raids.  It was a suicide mission, but a successful one.  38 ships freed on Superterminal as threat... which means they may travel to Fraggle.  That's no good.  Main fleet heads to Shawshank.  Hopefully we can catch 'em on exit and not have to deal with the full MK III fleet.  It works reasonably, but that's some heavy duty guardian.

1:04: 387 ship wave to Homeworld announced.

Main fleet finishes MK III threat cleanup and heads home before the wave arrives, however, most of the fleet is wrecked.  Also massive engine damage has me scrap 40+ ships.

My Maws finally did a non-swallow again and this time I remembered to catch a save.  Check the technical section.  It also hosed me up pretty solid.  Fleet is rebuilding.  Raid SS replacement is really chewing into the available materials but that's just life on the farm.

Finally a bit of peace.  Nothing announced, nothing attacking me, the Dyson is still doing a headbang against the fortress.  Gods they're LEMMINGS!  Look, it can kill me in one shot!  I'll go in solo!  WOOOHAAAA!!!  Dumbass.

1:12: 345 ship wave for Homeworld announced.  Let's hope the Maws work this time.  Yep, they're chowin' down like hungry hippos.  Very good.  Heavy bomber wave, too, almost 250 of them were bombers.

Still waiting for my fleet to rebuild at 1:18, primarily the bombers, they got eradicated on the last assault.  I think the Ions hunted the Bombers down in particular.  Dyson's a moron.  I'm going to have to go save it from itself eventually.

Okay, seriously, over two minutes of paralyzation from the EMP mines on some of my ships.  That's inane.  I need some of those...  I need a LOT of those.

1:27: 457 ship wave to Homeworld.  The Fleet's gotten 3 posts and 2 FF IIIs down on SuperTerminal.  The Last Major obstacle there is the shieldpost with an EMP Guardian underneath it.  AIP is now 40.  Z-Gennie is at 10%.

That wave went down like butter with the Maws working.  Excellent.

My entire fleet can't wake up a 45 ship planet... it's 571 ships.  I really don't grok Firepower calculations.

1:32: 548 ship wave announced.  The fleet, repaired and resupplied, is in SuperTerminal taking care of EMP issues.  The Dyson is still playing lemmings.  The wave arrives and is pretty well mixed, but it's 280 Tele Raiders.  the numbers are basically perma-skewed in this fight.

In the meanwhile, ST has finally been nerfed and the fleet heads to open a hole into Huge for the Raids to pop the Ions... and I screw it up and get the raids in there FIRST... dumbass.  I lost one and the raids head home for resupply.  However, they did get the Huge wormhole guards to pop into ST and hit the main fleet.

I send the main fleet into huge and just soak the Ions while the fleet races to kill them.  It works with huge losses, but almost all the ships in Huge are gone.  I send the main fleet home.  We've cleaned up the backfield but I want macross up before I take Huge.  It's time to help out the Dyson.

1:38: 314 ship wave announced for homeworld.

I've let Twycross build up to 200 ships in the meanwhile, I'll have to pound through that to get at Macross and Dyson to help them out.  There's 4 Ion Is on Macross.  Utterly useless for the whipping boy when the AI starts at Tech II.  I'll have to pop those.

I head east after cleaning up that wave and take the Maws along.  First, we clean up Twycross a bit.

1:42: 310 ships to Homeworld announced.  The fleet ignores it and the homeworld holds on its own.

At roughly 1:45 we've cleaned up Twycross and the fleet heads home for R&R.  The Raid SSs head for Macross to clean up the ions.  I end up micro'ing them around avoiding the threat I'm awakening in system.  I'm hoping they'll play with the Dysons.  They really seem to like my raids though.

It kind of works.  The EMP at least got hung up on dysons but some of the threat chased me into Twycross.  The fleet is hanging in Sushi waiting for the EMP to come to Twycross so they can meet on even ground...

The EMP wouldn't come out to play.  YEESH!  The Dysons do finally hunt it down though.

It's time to take a risk.  It's 1:50 and I'm going to early-pop the Dyson so that I'm not fighting both it and the AI (particularly the fortress) in Macross.  Then we go after Macross with the fleet once I see a wave come in and know what I'm dealing with.  The only problem is there's a Command Station Shield Post on site.  I'm able to pop them both before the neutrals kill the raids, but it's tough.  I need to clean out the local posts to clear the eye but I decide to let the friendlies win first.

1:52: 547 ships to homeworld announced.  AIP 61

Once again the Maws jammed.  Heavy fleet involvement was required to stop the wave.  Mind you, it never got near the real turret banks, but this is homeworld and I'm not in the mood to lose right now.

Meanwhile, Dyson has not one but TWO Stealth Guardposts.  Oh skippee...  Well, those were easy to find for once, both were on mineral deposits.

1:57: 577 ships to Homeworld.

This time the maws worked.  It appears to have something to do with the last time they were moved and if you've been on screen a while.  It's the best I've been able to troubleshoot from this side.

The fleet's in Macross harassing the locals and taking out the fortress.  Once that's gone Dyson will eventually finish cleanup for me for anything but the guardposts.  Since they're free, I send the fleet home once the Fortress is dead, with the bombers sticking around to deal with a spire shieldpost.

2:00:00: Macross is about done being taken. Need to pop the Cmd Post.  AIP 64.  Dyson's freed.  Econ is strong but will be erased on whipping boy movement.  Eye and other problems cleared off Dyson.  Prepare to move the Whipping Boy.

In general, I haven't really done anything but use my smaller fleet to harass and abuse rearward systems.  I'd hoped to have the Z-Gen higher than 15% by now but with waves and a lack of economy... meh.  The Dyson was supposed to have done more work but it just got hung up on that fortress.  However, I've got the backfield weeded of problems and can move forward for the moment.  Once Macross is up, I can pop the DC in Craps, pick up the ARS in Huge, and then look into expanding outward with a solid and effective whipping boy, pulling the majority of turrets off of homeworld.  Once I get down to the main Axis, Cyborg, I'll have a better idea of what I'm dealing with for the rest of the galaxy.