What Could Possibly Go Wrong

[TechSY730]

To keep the derailing from going to far, continued discussion on the IRE stuff at http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,9895.msg93650.html#msg93650

[Minotaar]

So the Dyson's on Chrse (I can't quite read the name of the selected planet, and the intel window is for a different planet) ?

Yep.
Guess we will have to take a detour, what with the 1400 Core ships and all that. 

[Minotaar]

@3:50
We have the map!

Things That Are Wrong With The Map (And Other Generally-Wrong Things)
12. There are two Anti-Starship Arachnid fabricators on the map.
13. There is a motherload of core ships right next to me.
14. Did I mention there was a motherload of core ships next to me?
15. The hybrids found out our comm frequency


In other news:
The second ARS is SSBs! That's the only thing this galalxy needed: more SSBs.
So now I'm planning what to do next. Some of the possibilities are:
1) Jumpship Hit Squad: kill ALL the datacenters. And maybe the co-processors. Especially the one that is under a Core Raid Engine. Just to send a message.
2) Operation Strip Mine: do a little sweep at the bottom of the map and help myself with some 1 Titanite and 4 Adamantite. Probably not even worth it.
and the most tempting one
3) Operation To Hell With It: kill the first AI, milk the Superterminal on Aoshlose before patch 5.027 is released, kill the second AI. There's this whole over 2000 MKV's matter, but after thinking more about it I'm pretty sure it's just going to be a speedbump.
Stay tuned and thanks for all the responses! 

EDIT: 5.027 is already out! Nooooooo!

[Hearteater]

On the plus side, the Anti-Starship Fabs are Spider Vs now.

[keith.lamothe]

12. There are two Anti-Starship Arachnid fabricators on the map.

Now that it's 5.027 they should be at least worth building, if you have the m+c for V stuff

13. There is a motherload of core ships right next to me.
14. Did I mention there was a motherload of core ships next to me?

That's not the spirit.  Try “The enemy is in front of us, the enemy is behind us, the enemy is to the right and to the left of us. They can't get away this time!”

15. The hybrids found out our comm frequency

Oh man, I laughed so hard...

And those aren't even the chat line they do have.  They might get added.

2) Operation Strip Mine: do a little sweep at the bottom of the map and help myself with some 1 Titanite and 4 Adamantite. Probably not even worth it.

Titanite can build some interesting stuff, though I think only a few of the types it can build really make use of the potential.

3) Operation To Hell With It: kill the first AI, milk the Superterminal on Aoshlose before patch 5.027 is released, kill the second AI. There's this whole over 2000 MKV's matter, but after thinking more about it I'm pretty sure it's just going to be a speedbump.

Haha, it'll be a little different now.  But if you're really focused about it you can probably still camp the ST as long as you need to.  Just make sure you have enough firepower in range to "push the button" and kill the thing, if necessary.  Remember: what could possibly go wrong?

[Wanderer]

I have only one comment:

I laughed until I woke whatever girl I took home tonight awoke, and then told her to go back to bed!

Rock dude!  Rock till your headbanging is broken!

Wait, wut?  You wanted the serious?

[Minotaar]

Hmm. Sorry about the little break there.
You see, I heard that the Spire Military Academy was going to hold an open seminar on the topic of "Destroying Thousands of Mark V Ships With Little Or No Casualties", so I just had to tune in to the livestream. Well, then everything went to hell. First off, my exogalactic receiver broke 2 seconds after I turned it on, so I called tech support, and they told me to bring it to their service center for examination? No consideration given to the fact that it's IN A DIFFERENT FREAKING GALAXY? Had to pull out my old exogalactic modem. Too bad it can't handle live video streaming in 69120p, but what else are you going to do? So I finally turned on the stream and of course the video is frozen and the audio is stuttering horribly. Could only make out some words: "You" "Can't" and a couple hours later "Lots" "Dreadnoughts". Wait, what? Dreadnoughts? What's wrong with these guys? We humans stopped building those hunks of junk like 1500 years ago, and they still do? Maybe they even think they can shoot at fleet ships? I expressed my opinion of the academy's credibility in the chat and promptly got IP-banned. And i'm not going through all the trouble of getting a static IPv12 address just to watch that nonsense again.






Please tell me I set the Guinness record for the most elaborate excuse for not writing an AI War AAR.

Anyways. It's 4:41 on the clock and there's this

What kind of an intel report is that?
I'm telling my scouts to go find Something That's Kinda Like Hybrids But Is Sorta Strange And Really Strong Somewhere In The Galaxy.
No, it is NOT an elephant. And it's definitely not in the room. An elephant wouldn't fit in anyway.
Though no other sensible explanations were given, so maybe it is. A hybrid elephant? Don't even wanna know.

Alright, I'll talk about the, you know, GAME.
So I wanted to attack that core world. But there was an exo-wave, and then a wave, and then a 1.3k CPA. With two waves naturally coming in at 2:00 and 1:00 left. The whipping boy got destroyed, but the attackers were halted at the next wormhole.
Some believe this is a benevolent strategy on part of the AIs.
You can't just go free 2000 core ships when you already have 2000 attacking you.

Also gives some time to reload the stupid penetrator that just killed a mk1 stealth battleship.
But one of us is going to kill the other.
Soon.
Hey, it went something like that in the script, I dunno.
I have a master plan.
And I already tried it on a small scale with a piece of this little CPA.
And who knows? It might even work.

[keith.lamothe]

You see, I heard that the Spire Military Academy was going to hold an open seminar on the topic of "Destroying Thousands of Mark V Ships With Little Or No Casualties", so I just had to tune in to the livestream.

Eh, you didn't miss much, what can you expect from guys who think someone has to be TOLD how to do that?  Ya line em up, Ya beam em down.  Ya go to lunch.

Or you tell them to go to the service center

What kind of an intel report is that?

The kind you get when you haven't scouted!

You can't just go free 2000 core ships when you already have 2000 attacking you.

Sure you can.  What, are they getting scarce?

A-ha!  Not only will they not know what hit them, they won't know what they're hitting!

[Minotaar]

This report must continue, at any cost!  Sorry for not updating again. Blame AVWW. And me. 

It was time to put the master plan into action. After some minor cleanup operations, I positioned my assets on the dyson world, my Martyrs and Cloakers on top of the coreworld wormhole and the fleet covered by Fortresses and Shield Bearers and Attritioners and probably something else hanging back on the friendly wormhole

The plan was as follows:

1. Get the EMP Guardian on the other side. Failure to complete this part of the plan could result in minor disruption of the defences.
2. Alert all the things on the other side. Failure to complete this part of the plan could result in the survival of the humanity.
3. Catch them with invisible martyrs as they come through, then blow'em up. Failure to complete this part of the plan was inevitable. 

How it all went down:

1. Tachyon Guardian successfully penetrated! Second Penetrator in position to fire on the EMP Guardian. Success!
2.

RESOUNDING SUCCESS!

3. OMG OMG OMG
So what was supposed to happen is I would select my martyrs and cloakers, then casually tap the K key so they turn on and off and grab more and more ships while staying mostly invisible.
<Reality Ensues>
I take like 6 seconds to actually select all of that stuff while hundreds of core ships pour through.
Yeah, they were in a control group.
They beeline towards the next wormhole and I start chasing them with the martyrs, the cloakers falling behind (no thanks to gravity guardian). The enemy breaks through, the martyrs follow with more enemies in tow. Everything is royally messed up, as the next picture clearly shows!



Then, EXXPLOSIONSS! OP-Martyr squadron scores another one for the humans! Success! Wait, why do I have so much energy again?

Counting the losses:

9 Martyrs (yes, three of them actually survived that and are still in service as of now)
8 Attritioners
2 Penetrators
10 Shield Bearers
~4 Siege Towers
Around half the fleet.
==============
We Can Absorb This.

Oh, minor thing, exowave timer was at 80% when I started.
No big deal, it's at 90% now.
Also it heads right into the dyson world and gets lost in all the rubble left over from the previous fight.

Okay, looking good so far, but we gotta capitalize on our Success! or we'll have to do this all over again. Charging into the coreworld, neutering it easily enough. The homeworld's next up! There is a fortress covering the wormhole, but no other real nastiness. (or so I thought) I go in and manage to take out two guardposts before being forced back. Thankfully, the angry defenders come right after us and get promptly obliterated. Around 100 ships left on the home.
Things To Improve On Next Time:
1) Don't Forget To Bring Your Bombards
2) Don't Forget To Kill Mass Driver
Anyways, fresh Martyrs have arrived, time to continue the assault! Going in much easier this, sending Martyrs off in two directions. What, 900 cockroaches?! We can handle this. <boom>
This time we hold on to our position and start destroying the guard-
Wait, what? When?

Ha, big deal!

All traitors will be shot! Within 2 seconds of spawning. Slight overkill, but worth it.
The homeworld is neutered, but the two other coreworlds have gathered about 300 ships each. One is even covered by an Inter-Munitions Booster, so that might be a tough one. After getting reinforcements, I attack and neuter the other one.

You might think that all is going well. I also had this thought for a minute.

Then grave news arrived.

We ran out of Pysite...

[keith.lamothe]

This report must continue, at any cost!  Sorry for not updating again. Blame AVWW. And me. 

Pesky developers making a game to distract you from writing this.  Inconsiderate fellows.  Oh, wait.

RESOUNDING SUCCESS!

The Spirecraft Cowtipper: when it positively, absolutely, must be seriously annoyed yesterday.

And yea, I bet those martyrs were pretty frustrated.  "We're here to blow ourselves up, alright?  Can't we at least do this in an orderly fashion?"

Success! Wait, why do I have so much energy again?

If the AI had a nickel for every time a player's said that... it still wouldn't have to buy its ships.

You might think that all is going well. I also had this thought for a minute.

Then grave news arrived.

We ran out of Pysite...

Let them eat Cake!

[Minotaar]

HOOOOOOOLY SHIIIIT
THAT DID NOT JUST HAPPEN !?!?!?!@?!?!?!?!@#
WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU KEITH ?

[keith.lamothe]

Flashback time!





But what you just saw was in there with 5.021; there's also a real chatline the hybrids send, but it probably gets lost in the sea of AIP messages

[Minotaar]

But what you just saw was in there with 5.021; there's also a real chatline the hybrids send, but it probably gets lost in the sea of AIP messages

There is no chatline, evil man, I looked through all of it! 

SRSLY ONE STARSHIP?



Alright, lesson learned  Will post my, ahem, "impressions" a bit later 

[keith.lamothe]

There is no chatline, evil man, I looked through all of it! 

Hmph, it would wait until literally the last point to bug out, eh?  It's supposed to display the text "Hybrid: I love it when a plan comes together." , and in my tests it did.  Perhaps the explosion blew up one of your command stations and the AI taunted you about that, which prevented the other taunt (it forces spacing between those).

Congratulations on your contribution to the hybrids' experiment.  Science salutes you!

[Minotaar]

Alright, Hopefully Valuable Feedback Time 

A. The Hybrid/Dyson Plot
Well, it is proven that if youo do nothing about it, it's your own fault
The first two stages are quite manageable though, you can defend the first with about 3 Fort I's and the second with 5 Fort I's and caps of HBC I and II. A significant energy investment, but you won't just die even if you can't scout the thing. And if you scout it, you can most likely get it. So the plot isn't that scary, but it's probably okay this way 
By the way, I fully expected the 3rd stage to be the Dyson transforming into some kind of mega-hive and flying off to the human homeworld, leaving destruction in its wake. Instead I got a free MK3 nuke. I am disappoint. End result kind of the same though. 

B. Spirecraft
Had a chance to try out quite a few of these, maybe I can produce some rebalancing suggestions (and some rebalancing is definitely due for these, I'm sure)
<Wrote a wall of text, realized this needs its own thread>
It's over there