I really like Dark Spire.

[chemical_art]

Dark Spire 10 is definitely a game changer.

Its easy to hit critical mass, and then the galaxy gets overrun. My worlds are fortified so do OK, and the ai tends to fall back to their HW's, and the rest of the map has roaming partisan-like forces of the Dark Spire.

It makes me scream "Yay!"

And I never have to worry about Special Forces again 

[keith.lamothe]

Glad you're enjoying it   I thought it would add some notable variety for the particularly insane among us.

[TechSY730]

Isn't there a risk though that enough of them will "stop by" at once to your worlds to start posing a real threat?

[Faulty Logic]

I like DS too. Somewhere more reasonable than intensity 10, though. Just enough to occasionally give me or the AI some headaches.

[chemical_art]

A cross planet attack? What cross planet attack?

[chemical_art]

Black hole generator + Vengence generator = breaking the threat bar completely.

[Hearteater]

Maybe after a certain amount of ships, DS ships should destroy any BHM in the system?  A nice 4k maybe?  That should be fun to have released all at once.

[Cinth]

Isn't there a risk though that enough of them will "stop by" at once to your worlds to start posing a real threat?

I have yet to see anything significant try to hit a choke point. Even when they had numbers in the tens of thousands.

Black hole generator + Vengence generator = breaking the threat bar completely.

That would be a Roach Motel. The Vengeance Generator doesn't even need to be on the same world

Eventually DS ships it a mass so big that the game stops using most of them. There was a SS I posted in another thread that had the entire inner grav well filled. Those ships wouldn't move at all. Just would have more spawn in. When it hits that point, the AI can actually start killing them off. When the threat is that high, the AI sends only carriers (everywhere). DS won't purposely target a carrier. So the AI floats a carrier around the entire system and cleans it out or cleans off a bunch of them.

[TechSY730]

Isn't there a risk though that enough of them will "stop by" at once to your worlds to start posing a real threat?

I have yet to see anything significant try to hit a choke point. Even when they had numbers in the tens of thousands.

Never said it was a huge risk, or even a likely one. But it is still theoretically possible (due to sheet dumb chance of plenty of the DS happening to have one of your planets as a way point at around the same time), right.

[Cinth]

Isn't there a risk though that enough of them will "stop by" at once to your worlds to start posing a real threat?

I have yet to see anything significant try to hit a choke point. Even when they had numbers in the tens of thousands.

Never said it was a huge risk, or even a likely one. But it is still theoretically possible (due to sheet dumb chance of plenty of the DS happening to have one of your planets as a way point at around the same time), right.

Heh. I could upload the save that has some 250,000 DS ships in the galaxy. The most action I got that game from the DS was from the choke point I set up on a VG planet You do get trickle attacks from DS. It isn't something a good choke (with tachy coverage) can't handle.

[chemical_art]

With 4.2 k dark spire bottled up on a black hole world, I admit it is slowing my game a bit now.

What is worst is that the AI has etherjets enabled, and has about 3500 on that world just in case.

EDIT: At 10:05:00 in I'm tempted to give up my current game. The game is crawling at about 1.5 real seconds per 1 second of game time, and that is with no combat or activity aside from roaming dark spire. Normally my games have around 10K units in total running around during combat, but in this one I have about 8K units during passive phases of the game.

EDIT 2: Given the dark spire are meant to cause chaos anyway, can they be allowed to intentionally pop black hole generators please? I'd rather the aip response kill me rather then my patience

[chemical_art]

I really wish I kept better notes!

It's late game, and now more then ever the Dark Spire dominate. Threat level now jumps a lot but hangs around 10k. A fully shielded spire battleship can't make a deepstrike to the ai hw without dying first, and any ai threat simply cannot get through the mass either.

Hooray!

[Aklyon]

I really wish I kept better notes!

It's late game, and now more then ever the Dark Spire dominate. Threat level now jumps a lot but hangs around 10k. A fully shielded spire battleship can't make a deepstrike to the ai hw without dying first, and any ai threat simply cannot get through the mass either.

Hooray!

Dark Spire: Because to heck with your war, now stay in your seats you two.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I really wish I kept better notes!

It's late game, and now more then ever the Dark Spire dominate. Threat level now jumps a lot but hangs around 10k. A fully shielded spire battleship can't make a deepstrike to the ai hw without dying first, and any ai threat simply cannot get through the mass either.

Hooray!

Dark Spire: Because to heck with your war, now stay in your seats you two.

Mission accomplished? Sort of? I mean if the dark spire can be easily pushed back and the AI is toasted to bits as soon as it sends in ships, then humans can live relatively peaceably. I mean, I know we're supposed to eradicate our horrible mistakes and all, but I'd say not being under imminent annihilation under an ironclad defense is a pretty solid life for a race.

[Aklyon]

The only problem is exo-waves.

Edit: sorta like part of Fallen Spire, actually. Is there a relation here keith?