Author Topic: The many adventures of Buttons.  (Read 4236 times)

Offline Buttons840

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The many adventures of Buttons.
« on: June 11, 2010, 05:57:24 pm »
Decided I would start posting my games and strats in hope of helping other and perhaps someone can give me some tips.  First let me explain how I arrange my games.  In short I play "random everything", random starting ship, random map, "Random All" AI's at difficulty 7.6.  I don't save scrum, ever.  I don't like to update during my games, I like the rules to be the same in the beginning and the end.

I will try to post the progress of my games every 2 game hours.  I will provide a screenshot for quick viewing and a save for those who wish to inspect further.



I'm using my usual strategy in this game which is to pick 7 to 13 planets which will be easy to defend using choke points; in this game I found 9 planets which can be defended by fortifying just two planets. 

I first captured the planet south of my homeworld (I will be using names in future posts, but don't have them in my current screenshot), and decided to use this as the deliberate entry point for AI waves and also one of the 2 choke points; I built about 80 of both basic and MLRS turrets, and 100 sniper turrets.  While these turrets were slowly building I went to the planet north of me and destroyed the command station to let ships into my homeworld where they would be easier to kill.  I then destroyed the two warp gates adjacent to the northern planet before capturing it.  Upon capturing the northern planet, I build 30 basic turrets and 30 MLRS turrets - this being my standard defense compliment.

The only major setback came when taking the southern planet which had a mark 3 fortress and a shield booster.  I sent in about 160 bombers, a mix of mark 1 and mark 2, and tried to rush them to the fortress using a carrier.  The carrier died about half way there but I continued the attack. In the end I only managed to get about 20 percent off the mark 3 fortress, and then decided to retreat; I lost 100 bombers.  I rebuilt and tried using only mark 2 bombers.  Because the fortress takes forever to kill even a mark 1 bomber I had plenty of time to attack it - all the other AI ships were just hanging out at their local guard posts doing nothing.  Most of my shots were deflected by the fortresses 3x boosted shields, thanks to the shield booster.  I finally killed the fortress after about 2 minutes of focus fire.

Oh, and I failed to mention the most important point of all.  The second thing I unlocked was mark 3 command stations, so now I have 2 mark 3 stations and my home station.  I've also build mark 1 and mark 2 reactors on all 3 planets.

With good resource income from my mark 3 command stations, and with adequate energy I prepared another fleet of bombers and some of my mark 1 vampire claws - my special ship for the game.  This fleet went on a transport tour and killed 5 AI command stations, and a fortress, in about 10 minutes.  The vampires were good at distracting the AI, and I learned that vampires can attack special forces guard posts which they were particularly effective at thanks to the vampirism ability.  With all, except one, AI command stations gone the cleanup of the remaining turrets was easy because they were disabled.

I'm currently in the middle of clearing all the 5 planets I "command station sniped."  Once that's done I'll capture that mark 3 planet which will be the second planet in the choke point.  After I have it, I will then get around to capturing the remaining planets, all of which will have already been cleared.  My resources are quickly exceeding my limited energy supply, I may have to build a mark 3 reactor which I normally avoid.

Current AIP: 202
« Last Edit: June 11, 2010, 06:08:56 pm by Buttons840 »

rubikscube

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2010, 07:39:55 pm »
I would love to follow your stories and plz mind me posting.

202 aip progress with 5 planets cleared? clarification plz

pretty hardcore with everything random

nice with the 80 basics and 80 mlrs and 100 snipes.get cooler stuff there  ;)

nice economy too.

Offline Buttons840

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2010, 08:07:08 pm »
Well, 10 to begin win.

2 planets killed and captured, 40.
5 planets killed. 100.
40 auto AIP, 40.

There's 190.

I also killed warp gates on a few planets outside the 9 planets I intend to use as my economy center.

rubikscube

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2010, 08:13:21 pm »
hard core, i turn auto aip off.

Offline Buttons840

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #4 on: June 12, 2010, 06:06:59 pm »
Clearing the remaining planets was more difficult that expected.  Even though I had cleared the AI command stations already, they continued to reinforce the planets using the remaining guard posts.  It's hear I learned a new trick:

If the AI defenders don't abandon their posts after you kill their command station, you can trick them into abandoning their post by building your own command station.  Just purchase a relatively cheep colony ship, and plop down your own command station right in the middle of all the enemies.  Sure, it won't last long, but once it dies all the AI defenders will abandon their posts.  It should be easier to clear those remaining turrets now.

It took all 2 hours to clear the planets and get my heart of economy set up like I wanted.  I moved (by scraping and rebuilding) all my turrets to the two choke point planets.  I was still afraid a CPA might break though my defenses so I unlocked spider turrets and build at least 10 spider turrets on every planet hoping they would stop any ships which might break though, I could then kill them with mobile ships at my leisure.  I like to place spider turrets far from each so the AI can't kill too many before all it's ships are immobile.

With all 6 mark 3 command stations deployed I have a very strong economy bringing in about 700 of each resource per second.  I often reach my ship cap and am forced to use a mercenary space dock to avoid wasting resources.  Never let either resource reach 600,000.  Build mark 3 reactors if needed, and use mercenary space docks.  It's better to spend the resources on anything rather then let it go to waist.  (This rule only applies to single player.)

Current AIP: 272

rubikscube

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #5 on: June 12, 2010, 08:05:36 pm »
I know i don't do it myself cause i don't know how, but consider attacking more and lose your fleet more often (what am i talking about, this means that you're ready for a even awesomer difficulty)( I turtle and constantly get a lot of resources when all my ships and starships are built, but easily spent when i get a trader on my planets, consider a zenith power generator as that will let your resources stay level for a few hours.

mercanary, i consider you use them as backup, since you can rebuild mk 1s and mk 2 at a easy price, keep them as your reserve fleet.

Why would you want to make all of them desert your post? I know if you have a big enough fleet but it's still not worth getting all of them to attack you at the same time? best way i know is transport ninja. super fast and super low losts. maybe it's cause you want to defend on your planet.

Offline Buttons840

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #6 on: June 12, 2010, 09:44:04 pm »
Yes, I always try to keep a "project" ready to sing resources into, but sometimes the trader doesn't come around enough and so I end up with nothing to spend resources on.

I like to have the guarding AI ships attack me so they will die in my turret blob I have set up just through the wormhole.  Basically move the fight to my home court, where I have the advantage.  Might be a little more risky, but it gets the job done quicker.

rubikscube

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #7 on: June 12, 2010, 10:06:46 pm »
yes your home court has some few turrets , is that it? it's not like you have a shield booster on your planet which would be actually home court advantage.

Offline superking

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #8 on: June 13, 2010, 05:19:34 am »
thats probably more planets than you need, I normally settle on about 6-8. with that kind of AIP at this stage, your endgame is going to be a killer grind :)

Offline SonicTitan

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #9 on: June 13, 2010, 08:03:56 am »
While I can see the advantage of saving time in making the AI abandon a planet all at once, I'm with Rubikscube on this one for the most part: it's an incredibly dangerous proposition.

I'm currently pulling the exact same trick on my current campaign, but I keep a fleet of MKI through MKIII grenade launchers sitting at the other side of the wormhole, plus a few tractor beams. It's hilarious, and a real time saver. Without the AoE damage it simply couldn't be done.

Offline Flying_Bread

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #10 on: June 13, 2010, 02:49:28 pm »
I use much the same strategy, although I use spider turrets instead of grenade launchers. Gets even better if you happen to have a leech starship nearby  ::)

rubikscube

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #11 on: June 13, 2010, 04:18:52 pm »
it really depends on the ship number on the planet, and whether you can handle it.

Offline Buttons840

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #12 on: June 14, 2010, 07:13:34 pm »
While preparing for my first CPA a small battle at Dresda triggered about 300 marauders to attack.  The bombs killed a large portion of my fleet, and I sent my vampire claws, which are immune to missiles, to attack the 150 marauder frigates attacking.  They're surprisingly long range was able to kill everything on the planet before my vampire claws could finish them off.  Thus, I lost Dresda, but quickly rebuilt it.

The first CPA freed about 1,700 ships.  They attack Octavia and were distracted by the partially constructed superfortress I had.  The AI's generally ignored the black hole machine instead focusing on the not-yet-operational superfortress, which had more than enough health to survive.

I had forgotten how long a CPA can last.  By the time the 15 minute countdown finishes, and then the AI gathers and finishes attacking it took nearly an hour.

In the 6th hour I captured a advance research station on Dulcinea which unlocked the rather useless Sentinel Frigate.  I doubt I will be using them as there are no situations where a few snipers are going to help much.  My worlds are already well defended and I don't need the warp sensors.  Has anyone used Sentinel Frigates to much effect?

I began clearing a path to Eleonora to claim the advance research station there.  I killed 2 fortresses along the way with transports and bombers.

I don't have a lot to say I guess.

Current AIP: 325.

rubikscube

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #13 on: June 14, 2010, 07:26:31 pm »
sucks for you, 6th planet and already mk2 waves.

Offline Spymine

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Re: The many adventures of Buttons.
« Reply #14 on: June 15, 2010, 01:54:19 pm »
In the 6th hour I captured a advance research station on Dulcinea which unlocked the rather useless Sentinel Frigate.  I doubt I will be using them as there are no situations where a few snipers are going to help much.  My worlds are already well defended and I don't need the warp sensors.  Has anyone used Sentinel Frigates to much effect?

Sometimes usefull when you want to snipe the guard posts in a heavily defended system -> sentinel & cloaker

 

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