Can anyone save this game? Aka Backdoor hacker is terrifying

[Arc-3N-4B]

12 carriers + 1 MkIII Lightning warhead = ?

Ride the Lightning.

[liq3]

12 carriers + 1 MkIII Lightning warhead = ?

Hrm, it would kill the entire wave assuming the infils are all mark II. I could get away with detonating 10 of them before I die to mark III waves. Gonna have to try this later.

[keith.lamothe]

It's definitely just a time-buying measure, and remember that you can only complete one MkIII lightning warhead every 3 minutes (iirc the delay is 60 seconds per mark) so don't count on rush-producing a lot of them (better to stockpile what you think you might need), but that may be enough for you to pay a final visit to the AI homeworlds.

[liq3]

It's definitely just a time-buying measure, and remember that you can only complete one MkIII lightning warhead every 3 minutes (iirc the delay is 60 seconds per mark) so don't count on rush-producing a lot of them (better to stockpile what you think you might need), but that may be enough for you to pay a final visit to the AI homeworlds.

I think they'll buy me enough time though, since I just learned something very important...

So I read Peter's "Right the Lightning" AAR to see how he someone else was doing Fallen Spire... And he made a comment about "reinforcements going into the wave". I wanted to check it myself, so enabled advanced logging... And finally got the logging info I wanted... 85% of my waves are reinforcement overflow. No wonder I'm getting hit by 12,000 ship waves. If I use some MkIII lightting warheads to defend, use my fleet to neuter a bunch of AI planet so they actually spend their reinforcements (and maybe drop some beachheads to keep those reinforcements dead), and fix up my defences... I should be able to beat this. Definitely going to try this tomorrow.

[keith.lamothe]

85% of my waves are reinforcement overflow.

Ah, yea   And that save is 7.033; in 7.034 the amount of reinforcement overflow was very significantly reduced

use my fleet to neuter a bunch of AI planet so they actually spend their reinforcements

That will help to some extent, but probably the main part of it is from the AIP > 200 part.  Basically once AIP gets over 200, the reinforcements are granted as if AIP were 200, and the excess (without any bonuses from guard posts or whatever) are tossed over onto the wave side.

That way instead of it generating stonewall-level defenses at (say) 700 AIP, it just tries to end the game by killing you.  Which it likely still can't do, on FS, but at least you're not getting stalemate situations.

Anyway, the point isn't for you to have to go out of your way to stop the reinforcement redirection, but rather to provide additional need to achieve victory before things get out of hand, and also not place excessive defensive barriers between you and that victory.

[liq3]

85% of my waves are reinforcement overflow.

Ah, yea   And that save is 7.033; in 7.034 the amount of reinforcement overflow was very significantly reduced

use my fleet to neuter a bunch of AI planet so they actually spend their reinforcements

That will help to some extent, but probably the main part of it is from the AIP > 200 part.  Basically once AIP gets over 200, the reinforcements are granted as if AIP were 200, and the excess (without any bonuses from guard posts or whatever) are tossed over onto the wave side.

That way instead of it generating stonewall-level defenses at (say) 700 AIP, it just tries to end the game by killing you.  Which it likely still can't do, on FS, but at least you're not getting stalemate situations.

Anyway, the point isn't for you to have to go out of your way to stop the reinforcement redirection, but rather to provide additional need to achieve victory before things get out of hand, and also not place excessive defensive barriers between you and that victory.

Hrm. Well all I know is the log said I was getting about 2900 wave str... and then it jumped to 18600 due to reinforcement overflow (so 15700 from reinforcement overflow). Yeh, I just double checked, it's definitely adding that much.

[liq3]

Well, thanks to the Spire City buffs, I managed to beat this. Don't think I could have done it without them though, as the cities dying repeatedly was just too crippling. Cleaning out some AI worlds certainly helped too by reducing the wave size. Got the Exogalactic Transceiver after about 4 hours of consolidating my territory. Few close calls during the countdown, but nothing 2 Armour Warheads MkIII couldn't stop ;]. Very cool ending I must say.

Gonna have to try an 8/8 difficulty game next, or maybe a "What Memo?" FS game. Or maybe both. >:)

PS. I also had literally infinite metal... I could not run out. I think you either need to add MkIV Engineers (I had a full cap of MkIII engineers building ships), or I need to not get so much eco tech when I'm doing FS -.-. The amount of salvage I was getting was pretty bonkers.

[The Hunter]

Congrats.

[Tridus]

, or I need to not get so much eco tech when I'm doing FS -.-. The amount of salvage I was getting was pretty bonkers.

I noticed that too. mk III harvesters used to be pretty much automatic in FS to not make it take an eternity. Right now, if you can get one city up and get the AI to attack it, the salvage pretty much solves economy issues for the rest of the game.

[Shoat]

Congratulations on making it out.
Yay for spire city buffs!

I think you either need to add MkIV Engineers (I had a full cap of MkIII engineers building ships)

I'm pretty sure you can get experimental engineers from constructors (they construct at a ludicrous rate, have teleport and their ship cap is pretty large).

[liq3]

I'm pretty sure you can get experimental engineers from constructors (they construct at a ludicrous rate, have teleport and their ship cap is pretty large).

Hrm seems you can... So very luck based though.

Admittedly, I think it was just a 'problem' because I didn't have anything super expensive to spend it on (besides Fallen Spire ships - no golems, spirecraft or Zenith Trader goodies) and I was getting 50,000m/s in scrap thanks to massive exos dying on my homeworld (one positive to playing against Backdoor Hacker) and the massive 32% salvage from Spire Hub planets.

Still, maybe Fallen Spire should have an engineer you can research in the Galactic Capitol or some such? Could help with late game FS.

[Shoat]

Still, maybe Fallen Spire should have an engineer you can research in the Galactic Capitol or some such? Could help with late game FS.

Better yet something that can't be "abused" for other things (and thus doesn't have to be balanced for anything other than a full-on big-ass FS-campaign).
Also, just having another kind of engineer is sort of boring - think of all the silly fun we could have thinking up FS-campaign metal sinks:

- G.Capitol research: Passive construction speed buff for everything FS-related (shipyards, buildings, building-modules, ship-modules)
- G.Capitol research: Shipyards become modular (or modular alternatives become available) and can mount modules that boost their building speed (or allow for multiple build queues simultaneously from each shipyard, or allow multiple shipyards to collaborate on a single ship for super-speedbost)
- G.Capitol research: Shipyards can construct ships past their galactic ship cap at vastly increased mineral cost that increases exponentially over time like viral shredder BP (would have a bigger multiplier and increase faster for "bigger" FS ships, so frigates would progress way slower than bigger ships)
- G.Capitol research: New building that can be built in cities (requires multiple generators) which allows the use of huge amounts of minerals into otherwise non-replenishable spire-related units (can create some lower mark spirecraft at many times their usual cost or can use minerals to research and unlock new types of small spire fleet ships at exponentially increasing cost)
- G.Capitol research: New building (heavily armed spire military base) that makes a spire city autonomus* (requires exactly one habitat and one generator in current city and takes away control of city after being built, cannot be used on the last player-controlled FS city), city will then be an allied stationary minor faction and produce small spire fleet ships (has 3 randomly unlocked from start, plus one the more you autonomize) as well as proper FS ships (only some frigates and very few destroyers?). *It WILL use player's metal at a rapid rate to build buildings and ships, so the player still has the option to tell it to stop all production temporarily.




So many possibilities...

[Histidine]

- G.Capitol research: Spire cities become mobile.

[Shoat]

- G.Capitol research: Spire cities become mobile.

- G.Capitol research: Spire cities now have the viral shredder's self-replication ability.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Here are a few other ideas for Galactic Capitol research:

• Improved Weapons: Reduce cooldown of all weapon modules on all Fallen Spire ships and cities by 1s.
• Improved Shields: Regeneration over time for all shield-modules for Fallen Spire ships and cities continues even under fire; so long as the module has not been destroyed, it will regenerate each tick.
• Defense Grid: Spire modular forts for distributed defense, planetary cap 1 everywhere. Can use any modules from Ancient Shadows regardless of whether AS is enabled or not and whether champions are enabled.
• Superfortress: Spire modular superfortresses for city defense, planetary cap of 1 for planets with Spire Hub. Can use any modules from Ancient Shadows regardless of whether AS is enabled or not and whether champions are enabled. (This would have to be ridiculously expensive, such that it wouldn't be affordable by anybody just going for a mere five spire cities, but only somebody facing truly large FS exos with sky-high AIP making regular waves deadly. 20k knowledge, perhaps?).

Hmm, I wonder what the stats of a hypothetical spire modular superfortress should be?

Main weapon:
A normal human modfort has 30x1600/6s main damage, range 53,000 (that same as a mark 1 fortress), a normal spire modfort has 1x30,000/1s, range 28,000. A superfortress has 250x1600/6s, so a spire supermodfort could have 8x30,000/1s, range 28,000 and call it a wash.

Armour: 5000 like the superfortress
Hitpoints: 1,500,000 like the superfortress.

A normal modfort has 8 small and 4 large slots - a spire supermodfort should probably have extra large slots as well to go with the general spire theme as seen on their dreadnaughts, so let's say 12 small, 6 large, 3 extra-large.

Yes, it is proven once again beyond doubt: pulling numbers out of the air and making wild suggestions without any balance considerations can be great fun!


---

My favourite, by far, of those already mentioned and those I here propose remains the passive construction speed bonus.