Cross Planet Attacks

[Wanderer]

With the mkV stuff coming in from as-far-away-as-it-gets and in separate groups, is it possible to distract them on other worlds (2-3 hops out from cyborg) by running transports or raid-ss around, etc?  Seems like there'd be some room for smoke and mirrors so Cyborg could take things in more bite-sized chunks.

Enough room?  Probably not.

They usually don't distract that well until they hit a player owned planet.  Tried that stunt once or twice.  You distract about 20-30 units and the rest bypass you, chewing on the main fleet which is where you should have had more of your attention.  I may just be bad at it but it doesn't work as well as I'd usually hope.  The only time I've successfully done that is with Raptors, who have the speed and range to harry without getting caught.  Anyone else gets eaten or is too far off.

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, AIP-costing I know, and won't work on the mkV parts, but the mkIV groups could be "delayed" (and chewed up if you can spare any firepower for it) via an EMP on the planet they're hitting cyborg from.  A desperate maneuver, though.

Ow.  It really needs to ratio when it does that.

Ratio to planet count, or what do you mean?  I'm open to suggestions   In general I think you're right about the AI not liking an overly tidy player.  The planet count is really working against you here too, on 80 you'd have double-or-more the ocean of in-the-hills IIs and IIIs.

[Wanderer]

Ow.  It really needs to ratio when it does that.

Ratio to planet count, or what do you mean?  I'm open to suggestions   In general I think you're right about the AI not liking an overly tidy player.  The planet count is really working against you here too, on 80 you'd have double-or-more the ocean of in-the-hills IIs and IIIs.

Ratio based on mark.  IE: 1500 MK II CPA base.  No IIs 1000 MK IIIs (Base/1.5).  No IIIs 750 MK IVs (Base/2).  No IVs 600 MK Vs (Base/2.5).  That kind of ratio thing.  You want to free up bigger ships that's cool, but knock down the volume based on comparable strength to the base wave.

Side note: Defense in Confederation is working fine, they never get the chance to swarm me, but it takes a lot of micro, particularly with the Maws. Doable however, now that I'm past my stun and realize what I'm dealing with.  I just need to protect the Fab for the Acid Sprayers more.  It's not impossible, just was left with my jaw on the floor at first.

[Wanderer]

Side note: One extra save scum to get the pattern down and the CPA was neutralized with minimal losses, and no fab losses.  Cyborg's got a few extra FFs now but otherwise no significant change.  I just had to eat them piecemeal over in Confederation.

Still, a ratio would be nice. 

Edit: If anyone wants to see what I mean by an 'overpowered Dyson Ball', check out that save and watch the wave that hits Macross.

[keith.lamothe]

Edit: If anyone wants to see what I mean by an 'overpowered Dyson Ball', check out that save and watch the wave that hits Macross.

Yea, I saw that.  I don't think the wave hit much of anything, the last transmission from the carrier commander was "Urgent: Process resource request: replacement underwear."

[TechSY730]

I think the idea about ratioing the number of ships pulled when CPAs pull from other Mks has been proposed before. And I think Chris had a reason why it wasn't implemented like that when it was implemented. Can't remember what the rational was though.

[Wanderer]

Edit: If anyone wants to see what I mean by an 'overpowered Dyson Ball', check out that save and watch the wave that hits Macross.

Yea, I saw that.  I don't think the wave hit much of anything, the last transmission from the carrier commander was "Urgent: Process resource request: replacement underwear."

Craps is once again well named as the whipping boy source.   

[keith.lamothe]

I think the idea about ratioing the number of ships pulled when CPAs pull from other Mks has been proposed before. And I think Chris had a reason why it wasn't implemented like that when it was implemented. Can't remember what the rational was though.

The main rationale is that it's a-ok with us if CPAs get more-than-linearly harder as the lower tier stuff gets cleaned out.  CPAs are often less terrifying than we want them to be, honestly.  This one did us proud

Quite this much?  Dunno.  Though I'm not sure if it even reached the stipulated "free this many ships" number in the case of this save, I didn't count it up.  It certainly cleaned out all the II/III/IV stuff, and I don't think the homeworlds really could have had much more than 140 ships between them since they've gone completely unalerted; though perhaps they did.  Anyway, ratios wouldn't help much in a case where there just isn't enough ships to fill out the number anyway, unless you were pretty close.

[Wanderer]

The main rationale is that it's a-ok with us if CPAs get more-than-linearly harder as the lower tier stuff gets cleaned out.  CPAs are often less terrifying than we want them to be, honestly.  This one did us proud

Heheh.

Here's my thinking.  The wave was 1359 ships.
Actual         Ratio
607 Mk II    (1359 - 607 (*1) = 752 ships left)
257 MK III   (752/1.5 = 502 (rnd up) - 257 ships = 245 ships left )
340 MK IV   (245/1.33 = 185 (rnd up) = free 185 Mk III)
155 MK V    (None)

[Hearteater]

You need to put a Mark II world on alert somewhere to feed those CPAs.  Since it checks downward first, no matter what stage of the game ever ship produced there would be one less higher mark ship in future CPAs.

[Hearteater]

Although looking at your latest game, your galaxy is so underpopulated it can't even fill out the CPA at all, so it is actually best just to deal.