Author Topic: Two for One  (Read 6653 times)

Offline Faulty Logic

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Two for One
« on: July 16, 2012, 09:56:17 am »
Looking at the forums, I saw a couple of challenges:
1. beat crosshatch on 9/9 or higher
2. beat 10/10 with waves

Being lazy, I decided to do both in one game.
The report:

Map: Crosshatch 60 planets seed 1445401318
Starting ship: spire stealth battleships (!Shield Bearers, Uh oh).

AI 1: 10 Fortress Baron Red
AI 2: 10 Mine Enthusiast Orange

Plots: Avengers for both

Minor Factions:

Resistance 10
Marauders 4
Dyson Sphere 10
Fallen Spire 4
Human Colony Rebellions 6
Neinzul Preservation Wardens 4
Neinzul Roaming Enclaves 4
Zenith Miners 1 (still want to try them)
Zenith Traders

Objective: cause bug report.

First hour: try to scout, fail, unlock scout mkIIs, try to scout, succeed in finding first DC (five hops away).
Superterminal right next to me. ARS two hops above me.

MkIV world with good resources is the first target, as it would be a major problem if left to fester.
I unlock Fighter/Bomber/Frigate IIs and Riot Control IIs. Only 1000 k left.
With my new fleet, I take it, with some help from the resistance.
The initial resistance spawn then goes to the ARS world. Awesome.
I take that world too. Zenith polarizers unlocked. Was not worth hacking.

Time to work on AIP, which is currently 53.
Two data centers are now in non-deepstrike range, so I pop those (AIP now 13) at the cost of fifteen transports, three raid SSs, and having to defend against lots of high-mark released threat.

Observation: Riot Control Starships I+IIs + Logistics command station + missile and sniper turrets= awesomeness.

I use cloaker starships, transports, and bombers to clear tachyon posts to, then of, the four worlds in the center. This allows a scout mk 1-2 group to get anywhere. Entire map scouted.

This is a decent map for me. The AI HWs both have Eyes, (one of them has two for some reason), and one has a core cpa, but neither of them and none of the core worlds have raid engines (yet, there are still some unbuilt posts). I should be able to take a continuous empire comprising of:
The other 4 ARSs,
An Advanced Factory,
A Spider V fabricator,
An Exp Speed Boost fab,
A Zenith Bombard V fab,
A Neinzul Vulture V fab,
A Beam Starship fab,
A Spire Blade Spawner V fab,
And a Dyson Sphere,
all for only a net of +80 AIP after I pop the Co-Ps. Then I have the Superterminal. I will alert some core worlds (I have a bad feeling about this, but I still think it is the right move) but there should be enough planets on alert to make that non-terrible. Or I could research Warp Jammers; I have not decided.
 
I take another world, then pop the last two DCs. Things are going well.
State of Empire:
P4 means I will take it, P3 means I will take it very late in the game. P6 is the Superterminal. Chaos Marsh is red and "being attacked" by one ship because I did not pop the Spec Alarm.
 
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline zoutzakje

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2012, 01:16:44 pm »
you could easily put the zenith miners on 4/10. They don't have a really big impact on the game.

Offline rabican

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2012, 03:02:56 pm »
1 for miners probably means they come every 10hours or longer. Might be you wont see them this game either

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2012, 09:15:49 pm »
Looking at the forums, I saw a couple of challenges:
1. beat crosshatch on 9/9 or higher
2. beat 10/10 with waves

Being lazy, I decided to do both in one game.
Utter insanity.  You fit right in around here :)

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Objective: cause bug report.
;)

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Observation: Riot Control Starships I+IIs + Logistics command station + missile and sniper turrets= awesomeness.
Why destroy the enemy when you can drop them in quicksand and laugh?

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The AI HWs both have Eyes, (one of them has two for some reason), and one has a core cpa, but neither of them and none of the core worlds have raid engines
Hrm, that's about the kindest roll it could have given you ;)
 
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P4 means I will take it
*counts P4 planets
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Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #4 on: July 17, 2012, 05:57:56 am »
Five hours in...

Nothing much to report.

Popped the Co-Ps (Cloakers+transports+raids+riots).
Took five more planets, then befriended the Dyson Sphere.

Asset list:
Unlocked Riot IIIs, fleet starship line and bomber IIIs (as I do every game).
Two more ARSs yielding mirrors and munitions boosters.
Advanced factory
Spire Blade Spawner V fab
Spider V fab
Experimental speed booster fab
Dyson Sphere
Pause button: I don't know what engineer invented the quantum-stop box, but humanity owes him big time right about now.

CPA of about 600 ships repelled with lightning fleet (Speed boosts + engine damage from riots and spiders + logistics command stations mean I often go 20-30 times as fast as the enemy).

Observation: Core worlds reinforce much, much faster than normal worlds. This will be a big problem later. I bet Keith was smirking to himself when he read my plans.


General Crosshatch and tactics comments:

Crosshatch cannot be defended with static defenses. I use the free turrets to augment my fleet, but I can never rely on them to repel a wave on their own, and would not be able to hold more than a five or so planets even if I blew all my knowledge on turret unlocks. On this map anything that cannot travel through wormholes is far worse than anything that can.

Riots are staggeringly awesome for both defense and offense. Combined with log commands, they chop waves into tiny little morsels, then tractor the morsels to a more convienient location. On offense, they prevent the enemy from bringing its full fleet to bear. I can also prevent enemy stragglers from escaping and becoming threat by parking them on top of the wormhole the ship was trying to use. Or, with micro, I can form them into a giant scoop to move an entire enemy wave far away from important structures. The only units of comparable utility are fleet starships and shield bearers, and even they lose in the flexibility department.

Scouting is both easy and especially vital on Crosshatch.

Grouping all 78 speed boosters means your fleet can be anywhere, yesterday.

Resistance and Dyson gatlings are not that great. I had a skewed view of them playing on Spokes, as they (and the Botnet zombies) would most frequently be where you needed them or at least close. They are nice for minimizing straggler-hunting micromanagement, but they will definitely not make a big difference this game.

AI Eyes on the HWs mean starships, nukes, or surrender.

Raid engines suck on Crosshatch even more than normal.


Questions:

Why are there bare metal and crystal points on the HWs? Could these become Raid posts?

How many awful guard posts/eyes should there be on the HWs at this difficulty?

(is there a thread for basic forum UI stuff?)

State of Empire:

If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline rabican

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #5 on: July 17, 2012, 07:41:53 am »


How many awful guard posts/eyes should there be on the HWs at this difficulty?





From the patch notes:

On Diff 9+ it always gets two picks from this new set. So you could get an Eye + a Core Raid, or two CPAs, or two Eyes (which is actually kind of nice to you since they don't really stack), or whatever. But not 3 Core Raids. And not none of the above.


So the empty resources can't be raid engines. Umm... they are likely sentinel guard posts(moving weak ones), only explanation i can think of. Which is pretty nice if you got a lot of them, they are probably easiest core guard posts.


Question, how much annoyance has the border agression been? Does ai just suicide stuff every now on then, not attack at all or actually do unannounced attacks that you have to react to?

Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #6 on: July 17, 2012, 08:16:48 am »
Border aggression was not a problem when every planet had a enough turrets. Now, it is a constant annoyance, actually requiring a fleet response (and thus my personal attention). However, sometimes the threat builds up enough and I have to split the fleet to respond to several unanounced attacks of about 100 ships each. Never a major problem though... yet.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2012, 02:06:13 am by Faulty Logic »
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #7 on: July 17, 2012, 01:53:32 pm »
Observation: Core worlds reinforce much, much faster than normal worlds. This will be a big problem later. I bet Keith was smirking to himself when he read my plans.
Not specifically, but yes, core worlds do get much higher reinforcement priority :)  Homeworlds even moreso.  There's a reinforcement-logging toggle in advanced settings if you're interested in exactly how it figures out what to send where (it writes it to some text files in the game runtimedata directory).  It can be a bit spoiler-y but you already know where the AI homeworlds are.

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Crosshatch cannot be defended with static defenses.
I was wondering if you were somehow still chokepointing waves (that'd be a lot of AIP from gateraiding).

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AI Eyes on the HWs mean starships, nukes, or surrender.
How would nukes help?

I wonder if it would work to kite HW guards off towards the edge of the gravity ring while engine killing a lot of them, so they're there to "appease" the Eye but not getting in the face of your attack fleets quite so readily.

Probably too dangerous to spend that kind of time with the HW and core worlds all on alert, though.

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Why are there bare metal and crystal points on the HWs? Could these become Raid posts?
Not all posts get put on resource spots, but in any event there is no mechanic anywhere in the game whereby a guard post can be added during play.  So what you see now is what will be there :)

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How many awful guard posts/eyes should there be on the HWs at this difficulty?
2 on each AI HW.
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Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #8 on: July 17, 2012, 10:42:09 pm »
Seven hours in...

Took the northern three planets. The ARS yeilds... bulletproofs. Meh. I already have a fighter. It's called a fighter. So my five bonus ships thus far are stealth battleships, bulletproofs, mirrors, munitions boosters, and polarizers. I think I will stick to triangles and starships (for k unlocks) because none of these are that great.

The core worlds I have alerted (3) now all have in excess of 1000 ships. This could get very bad.

Produced the youngling vultures and zenith bombards mk V that I am now entitled to, then decide to pop the Superterminal.

First five minutes of hacking: Nothing terrible, my fleet zips around the map brutally murdering enemy engines as always, and the enemy ships are only mkI (?).

Double wave: 2300 total ships to different planets. lovely. Fleet split in two and dispatched to deal with them, and I put out a call on all frequencies to help me NOW, if you want the AI gone.

In response, a rebel colony declares itself in the upper right corner. That's great guys, but I needed more immediate assistance. Thats when 60 or so human ships appear in the superterminal system from deep space. Hooray! They can kill the AI ships while my fleet is elsewhere! Wait... why are they attacking the command station? TRAITORS! By now my fleet has recoelesced and is zipping back toward SuperterminalWorld at insane speeds. I kill the traitors, but have to wait four minutes to rebuild the command station.

My fleet is still dealing with the superterminalwaves (STWs) and by now the resistance and dysons have a decent presence on the planet.

AIs expected response to further hacking:Moderate.
Uh oh.
Wave w/700 ships announced. Double uh oh. Half the fleet is dispatched.
The Superterminal has experienced a power surge. Great.

Significant casualties from the 20 or so Spire Blade Spawner Vs.
We can absorb this, as I waited until the economy was full before hacking.

The rest of the fleet returns, and the hacking continues.

No notable crises, ST popped at AIFloor of 99. AIP - Reduction now equals -1.

More  comments:
I hate playing this way. The best strategy (that I could think of) recquires constant attention. Gate-raiding on this map is suicide (and I rarely gate-raid anyway), so the fleet needs to move constantly to stop the aggression. The sheer annoyance is starting to get to me. Defense is not a problem per se, but I cannot take a planet except between waves (the word except was not in the original post. Sorry).

78 speed boosters are awesome. My fleet is like lightning on wheels.

Eyes are not immune to nukes. This will likely come in handy for the final assault.

Superfortresses carve through non-bomber fleets insanely quickly.

Speed is a very powerful factor in large-scale battles.

Will take rebel colony, the three p4s, and two other planets (haven't decided yet), build up the fleet, and begin the endgame.
State of Empire:
« Last Edit: July 18, 2012, 04:18:35 am by Faulty Logic »
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline TechSY730

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #9 on: July 17, 2012, 10:49:26 pm »
More  comments:
I hate playing this way. The best strategy (that I could think of) recquires constant attention. Gate-raiding on this map is suicide (and I rarely gate-raid anyway), so the fleet needs to move constantly to stop the aggression. The sheer annoyance is starting to get to me. Defense is not a problem per se, but I cannot take a planet between waves.

Ah, yes, the stagnation of when you are strong enough to hold off defenses, but not strong enough to afford to make progress, (equivalently, the AI is strong enough to stop you from making progress, but not strong enough to break your defenses)*. This sort of very unfun situation can still develop easily, and I still consider it one of the major hurdles to "flow" the game still has, especially in cases where maintaining your defense requires lots of effort and attention (like the super-multi front nature of crosshatch).

Then again, you are playing a 10/10 crosshatch, so you did sort of ask for it. ;)

*One of the more common ways that this can develop is that when you are strong enough to make progress, a wave or an exo or a CPA or something hits, you survive it, but you took so many losses that you are no longer strong enough to make progress. By the time you rebuild, then the next wave or exo or whatever is due. Rinse, repeat, and get really annoyed and/or bored.

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Superfortresses carve through non-bomber fleets insanely quickly.

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=4777
« Last Edit: July 17, 2012, 10:51:47 pm by TechSY730 »

Offline Wanderer

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #10 on: July 17, 2012, 10:52:10 pm »
More  comments:
I hate playing this way. The best strategy (that I could think of) recquires constant attention. Gate-raiding on this map is suicide (and I rarely gate-raid anyway), so the fleet needs to move constantly to stop the aggression. The sheer annoyance is starting to get to me. Defense is not a problem per se, but I cannot take a planet between waves.
You're running up on the stalemate wall.  Approach it slowly or it's real easy to slip past it in a lull and never recover.

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Will take rebel colony, the three p4s, and two other planets (haven't decided yet), build up the fleet, and begin the endgame.
State of Empire:

6 Planets, and AIP is currently 99?

*blinks*

This should be very interesting to watch.
... and then we'll have cake.

Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #11 on: July 17, 2012, 11:22:46 pm »
AIP is -1. The floor happens to be 99.
Also, sorry about the typo, the word "except" really changes the meaning a lot (from "stalemate situation" to "constant aggravation but steady progress").
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #12 on: July 18, 2012, 10:22:51 am »
Took the northern three planets. The ARS yeilds... bulletproofs. Meh. I already have a fighter. It's called a fighter.
But you need MOAR fighters! ;)  Bulletproofs are also helpful versus Ion Cannons (immune to insta-kill) and against a fair chunk of different ship types (immune to shell ammo).

Did you scan this ARS with a science lab before taking it to see what the other options were?

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The core worlds I have alerted (3) now all have in excess of 1000 ships. This could get very bad.
Oh goodness, yea, very bad.  Alerting a core world can be brutal on reasonable difficulties.  On 10/10?

Let's just say I don't anticipate the AI having trouble finding ships for CPAs.

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First five minutes of hacking: Nothing terrible, my fleet zips around the map brutally murdering enemy engines as always, and the enemy ships are only mkI (?).
Iirc it always starts at mkI with them, though I might be wrong.  Well, as long as the challenge works out.

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I hate playing this way. The best strategy (that I could think of) recquires constant attention. Gate-raiding on this map is suicide (and I rarely gate-raid anyway), so the fleet needs to move constantly to stop the aggression. The sheer annoyance is starting to get to me. Defense is not a problem per se, but I cannot take a planet except between waves (the word except was not in the original post. Sorry).
Yea, crosshatch is basically "all chaos, all the time".

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Eyes are not immune to nukes. This will likely come in handy for the final assault.
Huh.  I mean, I don't specifically recall them being immune to nukes, but I figured I would have seen people use that to "poke an eye out" in some of the more brutal recent 10/10 homeworld assaults where eyes were in play.

Anyway, we'll see what 99 AIP leads to :)
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Offline Faulty Logic

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #13 on: July 19, 2012, 12:24:32 am »
Monster post: for the short version do not read text between ~~~ lines.

Took Iteration for the exp. translocator fab, then immediately lost the translocator fab. Oops. “Took” Relay to reachieve contiguity. Took is in quotes because I just destroyed the AI Command center and then harvested the k, but did not colonize because I do not want a Z generator. Unlocked Hardened forcefields. Not much strategic use, as command stations can be easily replaced, but worth it in that it significantly imcreases the expected lifespan of my computer, monitor, window, and sanity. Engineer IIIs unlocked for similar reasons. Basic Turret IIs unlocked: all of them will be deployed at HW, but I unlocked these because they were cheap and I wanted to try the new Drones. Took planet between my empire and the last ARS. Dealt with the Counterattack post. Core Shield Generator Networks are now all down.

Time to send a science lab to see what that last ARS has…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Grand Hack:
The High Admiral looked terrible. He had been slowly degrading ever since the awful galactic wormhole network was scouted. He had been using the quantum-stop box too much. It may have saved us all but moving through time at different speeds cannot be good for you, no matter what the artifact examination team may say. I personally don’t trust the Zenith who sold it to us, but we really aren’t in a position to quibble. Only the purchase of more forcefields and engineer IIIs had helped the Admiral, and that was only a small improvement.

 Exhausted, haunted eyes barely moved as I entered the room with the scientific report on the so-called “Last Hope” AI Advanced Research Station on Segfault.

 “Sir, I’m sorry, but it is just a youngling nanoswarm data file. We may even consider bypassing this world, as we already have destroyed the A-Prime Core Shield Generator network. All hacking would get us would be teleport battlestations or shield bearers, and after the SuperTerminal, it probably isn’t worth it.”

“Very well. Dis-Wait. Repeat that last.”

“It probably isn’t worth it?”

“No. The ship types we could hack.”

“Teleport battlestations or shield bearers.”

For the first time since the fall of the Grand Coalescent Fleet at Earth, the battle that lost the war to the machines, the High Admiral had hope in his eyes. The words “shield bearers” transformed him completely. He looked rejuvenated, ready, even optimistic.

“Build a ship design hacker. Wake me when it is complete and there are no waves inbound. Admiral Glau to command in my absence.”

“Yes sir.“We’re ready”

“I want the best science officers you have, and I want you, Chief Science Officer, to oversee this one personally. You did well at the SuperTerminal, and this may be even more important. I will command the fleet defending you personally. Glau can defend us from any inbound waves.”

“System cleared. Begin hacking.”

T+0: move hacker to edge of system. Cloak at full power. I can see Riot Starship IIIs out the window, providing forcefield defense in case the cloak should fall. But I have more important things to worry about. I need to unlock that data.

T+60: good progress, High Admiral has had no problems defending us.

T+150: Williams tripped a firewall. An AI anti-hacking routine is activated. I send a message to the High Admiral: AI response now estimated to be VERY HIGH. I repeat VERY HIGH.

T+220: Wave reported coming at homeworld. Half the fleet dispatched.
“Keep hacking.”
“Will do.”

T+330: Fleet reported as taking heavy casualties. Tachyon pulse knocked the cloak out. A zombie fighter got through, and hit the lower port section. No matter, that section was in charge of establishing a connection with the ARS, so its job was already done. We lost Williams. Never liked him anyway.

T+360: cloak back online

T+370: Glau’s subfleet has returned.

T+415: Broke through first major barrier to unlocking the station. Unfortunately the AI noticed and warped in an extra 300 mkIII ships.

T+500: We thank the heroic Riot III pilot who gave his life by activating his tractor modules to take 150 mkIII bombers away from the hacker. Another good man lost.

T+530: Second major data barrier breached. AI response similar to last time. Thankfully no heroism required this time around.

T+600: “Admiral: hack completed”
“Good work. Now go home, and take half an hour off. You deserve it.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Or, with less flavor but more concision, hacked ARS for shield bearers.
Unlocked shield bearers mkIII (SHIELD BEARERS! WOOT!).
3250 k left.
Econ is at max and I am out of almost out of AIP buffer (special forces posts), so I decide it is time for the first HW attack. I want a superfast cloaked strikeforce of elite units. I unlock Cloakers II and III.  1250 k.
I then group all the shield bearers, bomber IVs, speed boosters, spider Vs, and Starships (except for half the riots and the light starships) into one fleet of about 350 ships. The fleet is supported by Cloakers and the Merc Enclave starship, as well as 29 engineers. The rest of the fleet is on defense.  I send it down from Relay to the first HW…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Infiltration:
The High Admiral looked terrible, but was in a good mood (for him) as he came on to my bridge.

“I will be coordinating the attack fleet from your vessel, Spire Captain Fleming. Control of this particular ship will remain yours, but it must survive, no matter what happens, for obvious reasons.”

Grumble grumble. No one likes to be expendable, even compared to a genius, but the Admiral was right; he was simply more valuable to humanity, and thus his presence meant my ship had to survive. I suppose this was actually good for my crew, but…
I digress.

“Our mission: scour the Mine Enthusiast Homeworld at Total Conversion of all guard posts. But I warn you, if we wake up any of the AI subcommanders on Arachna, Brisco Gap, or Deadly Folly… it’s over. We will not survive. Not just this fleet, everyone. Therefore we are going south from Relay, through No Retreat, then Always Go Left. We will succeed. We must. Any questions?”

“How strong is this fleet?” Idiot. Ensigns shouldn’t directly question the High Admiral. The comment was meant for me.

“It’s the best we can put together, it should reach and destroy the HW guard posts, and might even return more or less intact. Shield Bearers will defend us, spiders and Riot starships will hold the enemy at bay, bombers will destroy the enemy structures, and other starships and the resistance will kill the enemy fleet. It has to be a small fleet, otherwise we trigger the Eye. We don’t want that to happen. Now, if there are no more stupid questions, we sail.”

“How strong is the enemy fleet?” God. Jenkins just will not shut up.

“What war have you been fighting son? Stronger than ours, full of nasty tricks, unpredictable, highly armored, heavy firepower, you name it, they have it.”

“What kind of nasty tricks?” I think Jenkins is going back into cold storage after this flight. Everyone knows not to talk about what the AI could do. It is just too depressing.

“They have heavy beam cannons, capable of vaporizing lots of us at once, a fortress to carve us up, gravity guardians to slow us down, starships that can eat us whole, and mines. Lots and lots of mines.”

“No more questions. Time for the beginning of the end.”

We sail through No Retreat with no casualties, having already zapped the system.
The core world, Always Go Left, is a bit more of a problem, what with multiple ion cannons. However, the speed boosters and a short wormhole distance make it non-terrible. Only four unmanned shield drones lost.

Upon entrance to Total Conversion, five of our Cloakers are totally converted. To scrap. By mines. The Admiral quickly powers up the fleet, and it’s time to start the real mission.

Nearest post to the wormhole is a heavy beam, and it’s just chewing us up. My ship took a pounding: hull integrity at 8%. I retreat to the only Cloaker left, and a few seconds later the engi IIIs repair us to full. No idea how they do that, but I am rather grateful.

The fleet is staying together, and takes out two of three ion cannon IIs. Unfortunately, we came within fortress range. Shield bearers mkIs and IIs are dead now, but the engineers keep the rest up as working protection.

Going south in the system, suddenly the fleet stops moving. Gravity just went crazy. Admiral orders everyone to focus fire on the Grav Guardian. I thank the alien engineers who designed a ship to be immune to gravity. We sail forward to try to kill the thing, but suddenly we are inside a massive AI ship, our weapons don’t work, and we are slowly being dissolved in acid.

The fleet breaks us out 20 seconds later. We stay together, killing the last guard posts. Suddenly there is huge swarm of AI ships. Over fifteen hundred. They are weak though, and can’t do much against the Shields. They do kill the Engineers and Merc Enclave ship though. We were going to attack the Fortress III under double glass, but the Admiral said to pull out.

We are now without speed boosters or shields. Significant casualties on the retreat, but mission mostly successful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zapped first HW. Refit. Carved Tachyon-free path to second HW, triggered and zapped core cpa.

Observation: three heavy beam posts all next the wormhole = dead fleet.

 Took huge casualties. Repelled cpa (and the simultaneous waves and normal cpa). Refleet the elite ships. Time for the big attack on second HW…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 The Final Hour:

“Gather the entire fleet together, and build me a nuke.”

“Yes sir.”

“It’s ready sir.”

“Excellent.”

“Send an elite strike force of the Spire and Zenith starships to take out tachyons and warhead interceptors.”

“Done. No one returned.”

“Rebuild.”

“Now send the cloakers and warheads to the final AI Homeworld.”

“Warheads en route. Sitting at the last wormhole.”

“Nuke ‘em.”
“It’s done sir. The AI ships are… leaving their homeworld.”

“Send in the rest of the warheads under cloak and the entire fleet.”

“But sir, we need to defend against the released ships.”

“No. This war ends now.”
...

“First, use our missiles to destroy the Heavy Beam posts before the fleet arrives. Then split the missile group into three, to take out the far posts. Keep all the warheads under cloak. The fleet will kill the Spire shield post, then the AI Command Station.”

“Beam posts destroyed. The fleet has arrived, and is bombarding the Spire shield post. We are getting chewed up by the Superfortress. Also, one of the missile groups hit a tachyon guardian and died.”

“Dispatch spire and zenith ships to the post the missiles were going to kill, other ships need to kill the spire shield.”

“Other post dead.”

“Spire post dead. Not much left of us now.”

“Kill the Command Station. Officer, I am asking for all your lives, but it must be done to save humanity. Godspeed.”

“Yes sir.”
“AI Home Command Station destr—WHAT IS THAT? OH GOD!! It’s ripping right through us.”
“Pull your fleet back to our Homeworld. Except put the bombers in transports and send them to the other AI station.”

“Sir we have no bombers left.”

“Oh…”

At Human Home Command...

The Admiral hurriedly sent commands to the Engineer Corps to build bombers and transports as fast as they could. The second command station should have fallen to the eight lightning warheads planted hours ago, under cloak.

No immunities to major electric ammo were reported by the scouts. Joshua would need to be fired, as this mistake almost cost us everything.

The AI ships were next to the homeworld. The Admiral was once again grateful for the Riot Control Starships. Bombers and transports were reported as complete. He sent them in.
He leaned back, resigned, as the last AI Station fell.

"Sir, have we won? Will we survive?"

"This was never about survival. Only vengeance. I am going to sleep. I expect I will never wake up. I am sorry, but this was never a war we could win."

"But sir! SIR!"
He ignored me. I went to his second in command.
Glau gave me the defensive situation. Two giant monster ships coming in, as well as hundreds of normal mkVs, and seven hundred ships of assorted mkII rabble. Our fleet was in tatters, and we had few stationary defenses. It looked hopeless.
But then she said:
"I can make this work."
I hope so.
It doesn't look possible, but she hasn't failed us yet...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Victory!! The last homeworld attack was pretty bad, but not as bad as I thought it would be. I am never playing on crosshatch again. Once I started to get AI carriers from the core I knew I had to win soon or not at all.

Nothing as exciting as last time, though; victory at close to twelve hours.

Possible bugs:
1: ships lose their cloak for a split second going through a wormhole. Not usually a big deal, but when you are escorting a nuke... (this happened despite cloaker SSs on both sides of the WH.)
I destroyed the warhead interceptors and guards around the wormhole to sidestep this.
2: You can nuke a planet with a warhead intercepter, just recquires some micro + pause.
3: AI Home Stations are immune to warheads, but it doesn't say so in their immunity list (no "Major Electric Ammo" listed).
4: You still get the AIP from a warhead destroyed by an intercepter, contrary to the text description. I will probably mantis these after I get some sleep.

State of Empire:
« Last Edit: July 19, 2012, 06:50:02 am by Faulty Logic »
If warheads can't solve it, use more warheads.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Two for One
« Reply #14 on: July 19, 2012, 04:27:10 pm »
Not much strategic use, as command stations can be easily replaced, but worth it in that it significantly imcreases the expected lifespan of my computer, monitor, window, and sanity.
Your machine appears nervous that you may be implying something ;)

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the so-called “Last Hope” AI Advanced Research Station on Segfault.
Uh, yea, don't trust computers on a planet named Segfault ;)

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The words “shield bearers” transformed him completely.
Hahaha, yea, possibly the most effective force multiplier in the game.  Combined with MRS units, it's pretty insane.

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AI response now estimated to be VERY HIGH. I repeat VERY HIGH.
This could get messy.

An excellent point-of-view piece on the attack on the mine enthusiast HW :)

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Nuke ‘em.
A mildly satisfying thing to get to say after hours of banging your head against the wall ;)

Interesting introduction to the Avenger for that fleet ;)

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Pull your fleet back to our Homeworld. Except put the bombers in transports and send them to the other AI station.

Sir we have no bombers left.

Oh
;)

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Victory!!
Good grief, that's like 3-4 10/10 wins in a week.  This game is going to be made harder ;)
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