Is AIP too inhibitive?

[LordSloth]

If you're strictly speaking 800 units....
Logistics Command Stations, Spider Turrets (as few as nine spiders) , and Riot Starships (lasers for long range and ease of kiting). Absolutely ineffective versus certain wave types (my recent game is seeing Armor Rotter waves), but incredibly effective for the low cost in setting up satellite systems. Quite frankly, you might lose a system with this setup, but as long as you have reserve power, it's hardly any concern. Useless in some styles of maps, but quite effective when your homeworld starts two hops from two raid engines in a cluster:microcosm map in the center of a cross-hatch layout.

Admittedly, even with more spider and defensive turrets, I'm incredibly nervous about my homeworld, but after this incoming CPA that won't be a problem. It's a horrible last line defense but an incredibly helpful for taking pressure off of a critical but hard to defend location elsewhere.

I've also been in some co-op games with at least six players. Even on low cap you will see thousands of units, and we did manage to hit AIP level two.  As this was before line placement, even though I was an incredible fan of mines I simply rarely had time to place them. Instead, we did various things like: stack forcefields on the chokepoint, with lightning, flak, tractor, gravity turrets underneath. The first two get a reduced penalty under shields, and combining everybody's MkI lightning turrets with one players MkII/III lightning turrets can do an amazing number. Another player generally spammed fortresses, while a couple players put down heavy beam cannons.

Mines aren't the only solution. They are simply the best one for people like me, and now I no longer have to place each one individually in a hexagonal pattern around a wormhole over the course of a half hour simply to make them look nice and pretty.

A sadly aborted co-op game of about four or five players had us setting up everything the zenith trader could provide. We had Radar Jammers Mk2, Armor Inhibitors, and Armor Boosters just to start.

Sometimes we had four or five caps worth of Attritioner Spirecraft. Occasionally we never got to test our defenses because somebody was trigger happy with martyrs.

[Kahuna]

Hmm.

Now you've got me thinking, there are lots of ways to run a defence so there is no one best in every situation.

Fortresses, followed by mines are the most obvious ones, and probably the most cost effective, but I'm sure I could run a solid defence without either.

Something I will have to ponder.

D.

Military CS ---> Spider, Missile, MRLS | Need to kill engines and swarmers so translocated ships will stay away and swarmers so more "important" enemies will be translocated.
Logistics CS ---> Basic, Missile/MRLS, HBC | Need AoE and multi target damage. Logistics+Mines is a "brute force" defense.
Fortresses ---> Missile, MRLS, Laser | Need to kill Bombers and swarmers. Fortresses get owned by bombers and overkill "mosquitos"
Mines ---> Basic, MRLS, HBC | Need to kill Missile Frigates, Mine Immune ships and AoE for ships weakened by the Minefields. Nuff said.

Military CS + Fortresses + Spider + Missile + Laser
Logistics CS + Mines + Basic + MRLS + HBC
Military CS + Mines + Spider + Basic + MRLS
Logistics CS + Fortresses + Missile + Laser + MRLS
Military CS + Fortresses + Mines + Spider + Missile + MRLS
Logistics CS + Fortresses + Mines + Missile + MRLS + HBC

If you're defending your Home CS think of it as a Logistics CS.

Of course you should use ALL available turrets. But depending on what you're using (Military/Logistics/Fortresses/Mines) you should consider unlocking higher marks of these turrets. Depends on situation too herp a derp.

Hmm.. maybe I should put together all these tips about defending and make a guide of some sort. Dunno.

[Toranth]

Military CS ---> Spider, Missile, MRLS | Need to kill engines and swarmers so translocated ships will stay away and swarmers so more "important" enemies will be translocated.
Logistics CS ---> Basic, Missile/MRLS, HBC | Need AoE and multi target damage. Logistics+Mines is a "brute force" defense.
Fortresses ---> Missile, MRLS, Laser | Need to kill Bombers and swarmers. Fortresses get owned by bombers and overkill "mosquitos"
Mines ---> Basic, MRLS, HBC | Need to kill Missile Frigates, Mine Immune ships and AoE for ships weakened by the Minefields. Nuff said.

Military CS + Fortresses + Spider + Missile + Laser
Logistics CS + Mines + Basic + MRLS + HBC
Military CS + Mines + Spider + Basic + MRLS
Logistics CS + Fortresses + Missile + Laser + MRLS
Military CS + Fortresses + Mines + Spider + Missile + MRLS
Logistics CS + Fortresses + Mines + Missile + MRLS + HBC

If you're defending your Home CS think of it as a Logistics CS.

Of course you should use ALL available turrets. But depending on what you're using (Military/Logistics/Fortresses/Mines) you should consider unlocking higher marks of these turrets. Depends on situation too herp a derp.

Hmm.. maybe I should put together all these tips about defending and make a guide of some sort. Dunno.

Tell me, what ship count are you talking about defending against here?  I just recently got a 17K wave, another 17K wave 30 seconds later, followed by a 7K wave - before I was able to kill even half the first 34K ships.

In situations like that, the sheer number of ships, and especially the Carriers, change everything.

EDIT:  Here's a screenshot of a similar situation.  This is the best I could do for this whipping boy, and I still loes my fortresses and turrets on a regular basis.

[Kahuna]

Military CS ---> Spider, Missile, MRLS | Need to kill engines and swarmers so translocated ships will stay away and swarmers so more "important" enemies will be translocated.
Logistics CS ---> Basic, Missile/MRLS, HBC | Need AoE and multi target damage. Logistics+Mines is a "brute force" defense.
Fortresses ---> Missile, MRLS, Laser | Need to kill Bombers and swarmers. Fortresses get owned by bombers and overkill "mosquitos"
Mines ---> Basic, MRLS, HBC | Need to kill Missile Frigates, Mine Immune ships and AoE for ships weakened by the Minefields. Nuff said.

Military CS + Fortresses + Spider + Missile + Laser
Logistics CS + Mines + Basic + MRLS + HBC
Military CS + Mines + Spider + Basic + MRLS
Logistics CS + Fortresses + Missile + Laser + MRLS
Military CS + Fortresses + Mines + Spider + Missile + MRLS
Logistics CS + Fortresses + Mines + Missile + MRLS + HBC

If you're defending your Home CS think of it as a Logistics CS.

Of course you should use ALL available turrets. But depending on what you're using (Military/Logistics/Fortresses/Mines) you should consider unlocking higher marks of these turrets. Depends on situation too herp a derp.

Hmm.. maybe I should put together all these tips about defending and make a guide of some sort. Dunno.

Tell me, what ship count are you talking about defending against here?  I just recently got a 17K wave, another 17K wave 30 seconds later, followed by a 7K wave - before I was able to kill even half the first 34K ships.

In situations like that, the sheer number of ships, and especially the Carriers, change everything.

EDIT:  Here's a screenshot of a similar situation.  This is the best I could do for this whipping boy, and I still loes my fortresses and turrets on a regular basis.

Any number of ships. The bigger the waves get the more turrets you need to unlock. Pop the carriers with Plasma Siege Carriers and anything that has damage multiplier vs Ultra-Heavy. You could also manually order turrets and Fortresses (Modular Fortresses!) to attack the Carriers and enable Carrier auto targeting in the Controls. Just need to micro a little bit. And attack move (X+r.click) with your fleet and Champions right behind the turrets.

I looks like you have multiple homeworlds am I right? 1,6 million energy If you do have multiple homeworlds, turrets and everything will have higher caps (I think.. (I always play with 1 homeworld)). Also the AIP is 333! If possible try to keep it around 200-250 (depends on difficulty, play style and stuff). After that it can get really hard. 18k attacking AI ships? Did you check out the save file I uploaded? The biggest CPA I've got in my current game was 14k ships @ ~130 AIP on 10 diff. Normal waves have ~2k ships which my defenses easily auto stop.

[Toranth]

Military CS ---> Spider, Missile, MRLS | Need to kill engines and swarmers so translocated ships will stay away and swarmers so more "important" enemies will be translocated.
Logistics CS ---> Basic, Missile/MRLS, HBC | Need AoE and multi target damage. Logistics+Mines is a "brute force" defense.
Fortresses ---> Missile, MRLS, Laser | Need to kill Bombers and swarmers. Fortresses get owned by bombers and overkill "mosquitos"
Mines ---> Basic, MRLS, HBC | Need to kill Missile Frigates, Mine Immune ships and AoE for ships weakened by the Minefields. Nuff said.

Military CS + Fortresses + Spider + Missile + Laser
Logistics CS + Mines + Basic + MRLS + HBC
Military CS + Mines + Spider + Basic + MRLS
Logistics CS + Fortresses + Missile + Laser + MRLS
Military CS + Fortresses + Mines + Spider + Missile + MRLS
Logistics CS + Fortresses + Mines + Missile + MRLS + HBC

If you're defending your Home CS think of it as a Logistics CS.

Of course you should use ALL available turrets. But depending on what you're using (Military/Logistics/Fortresses/Mines) you should consider unlocking higher marks of these turrets. Depends on situation too herp a derp.

Hmm.. maybe I should put together all these tips about defending and make a guide of some sort. Dunno.

Tell me, what ship count are you talking about defending against here?  I just recently got a 17K wave, another 17K wave 30 seconds later, followed by a 7K wave - before I was able to kill even half the first 34K ships.

In situations like that, the sheer number of ships, and especially the Carriers, change everything.

EDIT:  Here's a screenshot of a similar situation.  This is the best I could do for this whipping boy, and I still loes my fortresses and turrets on a regular basis.

Any number of ships. The bigger the waves get the more turrets you need to unlock. Pop the carriers with Plasma Siege Carriers and anything that has damage multiplier vs Ultra-Heavy. You could also manually order turrets and Fortresses (Modular Fortresses!) to attack the Carriers and enable Carrier auto targeting in the Controls. Just need to micro a little bit. And attack move (X+r.click) with your fleet and Champions right behind the turrets.

I looks like you have multiple homeworlds am I right? 1,6 million energy If you do have multiple homeworlds, turrets and everything will have higher caps (I think.. (I always play with 1 homeworld)). Also the AIP is 333! If possible try to keep it around 200-250 (depends on difficulty, play style and stuff). After that it can get really hard. 18k attacking AI ships? Did you check out the save file I uploaded? The biggest CPA I've got in my current game was 14k ships @ ~130 AIP on 10 diff. Normal waves have ~2k ships which my defenses easily auto stop.

Nope, single Homeworld.  If you look, I just have 32 planets.  The AIP is actually at the floor - I still have about 200 points of space (I miss the good old days when the floor was capped at 300).  I think I got 800 or so reduction off the SuperTerminal.
This game is a setup for finishing with the Fallen Spire campaign, but I'd only done up to the refugees at that point.  If I weren't doing the FS campaign, I could probably win from that game, but I have three whipping boys - the screenshot is my weaker one, because it relys on the Grav Drill.  The others are for taking Exowaves and CPAs on.

I'll attach a save, it's from a little later as I was about to start the FS; take a look if you want.  There should be enough resources and time to do some re-adjustment of the defenses to your style, if you want.  I'd be interested to hear your comments.

About your game - I can't help but feel that your style is high-risk to CPA and exowaves - I played an hour or so of it, and the main thing I came away with is that "Wow, EMP mines are much more effective than I realized".  I think I may need to start using them in my games as well.

[TechSY730]

Tell me, what ship count are you talking about defending against here?  I just recently got a 17K wave, another 17K wave 30 seconds later, followed by a 7K wave - before I was able to kill even half the first 34K ships.

In situations like that, the sheer number of ships, and especially the Carriers, change everything.

 

What difficulty are you playing on?
If it is anything <10, and those waves aren't largely composed of high cap ships, then you got a pretty good case in support of reducing the growth rate of the new-fangled polynomial growth rate of waves on difficulties 8+ (right now, for 8+, the formula is ( ( ( AIProgress * 0.8 ) ^ 1.1 ) * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AIDifficulty ), so for example, you could bump down that exponent to 1.05, and adjust coefficients as needed to keep the early game around the same)

[Toranth]

Tell me, what ship count are you talking about defending against here?  I just recently got a 17K wave, another 17K wave 30 seconds later, followed by a 7K wave - before I was able to kill even half the first 34K ships.

In situations like that, the sheer number of ships, and especially the Carriers, change everything.

 

What difficulty are you playing on?
If it is anything <10, and those waves aren't largely composed of high cap ships, then you got a pretty good case in support of reducing the growth rate of the new-fangled polynomial growth rate of waves on difficulties 8+ (right now, for 8+, the formula is ( ( ( AIProgress * 0.8 ) ^ 1.1 ) * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AIDifficulty ), so for example, you could bump down that exponent to 1.05, and adjust coefficients as needed to keep the early game around the same)

That game is 9/9.

The AI Diff part of the Wave Size formula would work out to:

Diff	Diff multiplier
8	1.6
8.3	1.77
8.6	1.95
9	2.25
9.3	2.51
9.6	2.82
9.8	3.06
10	3.33

So it's 2.25 times the wave size for Diff 7 for a given AIP.

I suspect that part of my upset is that recently waves have gotten a buff, and AIP has gotten a buff, high difficulties have gotten a buff, carriers have gotten a buff, and the wave size is increased for fewer ingress systems.  Combined, they resulted in a higher buff than I think is really needed.  And I don't like the way ships that would push the count above 2000 get transformed - it's not uncommon for the resulted 150 ships to be many times more powerful than the original 1000 ships that were in the carrier (I think 2000 is too low a limit, too).  I think the single-ingress penalty is too harsh, and the walk-up (from 6+) is too severe.

All in all, I think the current multipliers make it too hard to play certain games - High AIP, multi-HW, or multi-Champion.  Combine them for even more huge wave insanity.

[TechSY730]

Even though carriers, on average, have like a third of the of DPS the containing ships, do you think the immunities and the durability of carriers is so powerful that even 1/3 DPS is too much on average?

And the whole on average thing falls flat on its face when high-cap ships are involved, which is the most common case for why wave numbers can start getting ridiculous. Compounding the issue is that high-cap ships tend to be low on DPS individually, meaning that the carrier tends to have much more than 1/3 in normal situations.
In other words, scaling its power based on number of ships contained is a too coarse an approximation to be balanced; either it will be too high with high-cap ships (how it is now), or too low with low-cap ships (what it would be if you balanced the carriers for the pathological high-cap cases) depending on how you balance it.

The 1000 (or 2000, not sure which) ship thing triggering carriers is less about balance and is more about avoiding tripping Unity's buggy garbage collector that will hard crash the game in the face of a spike in memory usage (at around 900MB?), instead of, you know, garbage collecting...

Could the limit be pushed up some? Maybe, but that would require some careful testing.

EDIT: Oh, and the early carrier popping respawn behavior is supposed to result in a set of units that are stronger, to make you think twice about popping it early in the first place (do you live with the carrier until it auto-pops, or pop it early and live with what could possibly be some annoying to deal with units?). Still, I agree that the "conversion rate bouns" that the AI gets on higher difficulties for that could stand to go down.

[Toranth]

Even though carriers, on average, have like a third of the of DPS the containing ships, do you think the immunities and the durability of carriers is so powerful that even 1/3 DPS is too much on average?

Carriers get 1 shot per 8 ships + 1, so a full carrier (1000 ships) gets 126 shots per 4 seconds.  A Mk II carrier does 76,800 damage per shot - 9,676,800 damage per salvo.  That's 2,419,200 DPS!  That's the same as 1000 fighters of the same mark, which is what it was designed to match IIRC.  Fighters may not be awesome, but they're hardly 1/3 of the average DPS for fleetships.  In fact, most fleetships have lower per-ship DPS.  Spire Gravity ships, Zelecs, a few others have higher, but not many.

And the whole on average thing falls flat on its face when high-cap ships are involved, which is the most common case for why wave numbers can start getting ridiculous. Compounding the issue is that high-cap ships tend to be low on DPS individually, meaning that the carrier tends to have much more than 1/3 in normal situations.
In other words, scaling its power based on number of ships contained is a too coarse an approximation to be balanced; either it will be too high with high-cap ships (how it is now), or too low with low-cap ships (what it would be if you balanced the carriers for the pathological high-cap cases) depending on how you balance it.

The 1000 (or 2000, not sure which) ship thing triggering carriers is less about balance and is more about avoiding tripping Unity's buggy garbage collector that will hard crash the game in the face of a spike in memory usage (at around 900MB?), instead of, you know, garbage collecting...

Could the limit be pushed up some? Maybe, but that would require some careful testing.

Well, when I do SuperTerminal rides, I usually end up with 4,000 to 5,000 AI ships (no carriers) active at any given moment.  The game will run very slowly, but fine for hours at that pace (and it takes hours to do those high-end rides).  At the least, I would like the limit to go from 2000 to 2500 or something.  Right now, popping 2 carriers + a few starships results in a mini-exowave.

EDIT: Oh, and the early carrier popping respawn behavior is supposed to result in a set of units that are stronger, to make you think twice about popping it early in the first place (do you live with the carrier until it auto-pops, or pop it early and live with what could possibly be some annoying to deal with units?). Still, I agree that the "conversion rate bouns" that the AI gets on higher difficulties for that could stand to go down.

Carrier pops are generated through the Exowave generation process.  However, if you look at it, the point equivalents don't add up.  For example, in the ship pricing, a Fighter is worth 6 points.  1000 fighters should result in an exowave of 6000 points.  Most carrier pops result in about 20,000 points of ships - a major upgrade over what was actually in the carrier.  Significant randomness, though.

Finally, the pop-upgrade process plus the Carrier's FF immunity means that high ship count waves will either require you to pop too many carriers, or allow full carriers of ships to pass through your whipping boy into you squishy interior.

[TechSY730]

Even though carriers, on average, have like a third of the of DPS the containing ships, do you think the immunities and the durability of carriers is so powerful that even 1/3 DPS is too much on average?

Carriers get 1 shot per 8 ships + 1, so a full carrier (1000 ships) gets 126 shots per 4 seconds.  A Mk II carrier does 76,800 damage per shot - 9,676,800 damage per salvo.  That's 2,419,200 DPS!  That's the same as 1000 fighters of the same mark, which is what it was designed to match IIRC.  Fighters may not be awesome, but they're hardly 1/3 of the average DPS for fleetships.  In fact, most fleetships have lower per-ship DPS.  Spire Gravity ships, Zelecs, a few others have higher, but not many.

Wait a second. Keith mentioned quite clearly that his balance goal for carriers was that the carrier, on average, had 1/3 the DPS of the contained ships. Clearly, something has gone horribly wrong with the balance if these stats are correct. 

Wait, what ship caps scale are you working with? Is the carrier scaling factoring in ship cap scale? If not, that could certainly be messing with the balance.

And the whole on average thing falls flat on its face when high-cap ships are involved, which is the most common case for why wave numbers can start getting ridiculous. Compounding the issue is that high-cap ships tend to be low on DPS individually, meaning that the carrier tends to have much more than 1/3 in normal situations.
In other words, scaling its power based on number of ships contained is a too coarse an approximation to be balanced; either it will be too high with high-cap ships (how it is now), or too low with low-cap ships (what it would be if you balanced the carriers for the pathological high-cap cases) depending on how you balance it.

The 1000 (or 2000, not sure which) ship thing triggering carriers is less about balance and is more about avoiding tripping Unity's buggy garbage collector that will hard crash the game in the face of a spike in memory usage (at around 900MB?), instead of, you know, garbage collecting...

Could the limit be pushed up some? Maybe, but that would require some careful testing.

Well, when I do SuperTerminal rides, I usually end up with 4,000 to 5,000 AI ships (no carriers) active at any given moment.  The game will run very slowly, but fine for hours at that pace (and it takes hours to do those high-end rides).  At the least, I would like the limit to go from 2000 to 2500 or something.  Right now, popping 2 carriers + a few starships results in a mini-exowave.

Yea, the engine could probably handle 2000 ships before it starts packing stuff into carriers.

EDIT: Oh, and the early carrier popping respawn behavior is supposed to result in a set of units that are stronger, to make you think twice about popping it early in the first place (do you live with the carrier until it auto-pops, or pop it early and live with what could possibly be some annoying to deal with units?). Still, I agree that the "conversion rate bouns" that the AI gets on higher difficulties for that could stand to go down.

Carrier pops are generated through the Exowave generation process.  However, if you look at it, the point equivalents don't add up.  For example, in the ship pricing, a Fighter is worth 6 points.  1000 fighters should result in an exowave of 6000 points.  Most carrier pops result in about 20,000 points of ships - a major upgrade over what was actually in the carrier.  Significant randomness, though.

Finally, the pop-upgrade process plus the Carrier's FF immunity means that high ship count waves will either require you to pop too many carriers, or allow full carriers of ships to pass through your whipping boy into you squishy interior.

Yep, which is why I said the "bonus" they get for early pops on higher difficulties probably needs to come down some.

That, and Keith has mentioned he would like to revisit the exo-costs of many of the "middle of the line" ships, as many of them are probably too cheap or too expensive for how effective they really are.

[Draco Cretel]

zzzzzz MarkII waves is not the problem. It's all about how you play.
Just take a look at this save file. There's a wave coming to my home planet in 5 seconds and my fleet is about to hack a super terminal on other side of the galaxy. Look how my defenses auto stop everything. "Study" the defenses. You're welcome.

I am sorry but we both have completely different play styles. You play with 10's and huge amounts of defenses and I play with 8's and with a large mobile army. I saw that you had little to no fleet ships unlocked but a huge amount of defenses. I know how to make good defenses but it's not how I play, I would prefer to fly in my fleet to counter the waves with support from my defenses. I go after fabs, factories, ect. and it seems you have none of those. You have only 3 systems and I may have more but it seems the only way to support my play style fully is with the botnet golem or take more systems and get a lot more defenses. The former being the only truly viable option.

It seems that taking less systems is better then why add all the goodies out there? Factories, fabs and the sort? When taking them it increases the AIP and after a certain point the benefits is shadowed by the risk of much larger and deadlier waves, this has effectively killed off my play style in the game and overall my enjoyment of the game.

I used to be able to play with this style quite well and enjoy the game but the waves are getting out of hand without the botnet. I could just drop the 7/7 AIs but I think those are too weak and lowers the fun, I've always played 8/8 as a happy medium and I feel that if I have to change my whole play style to win a game that I do not like where the game is at this state and hope it changes.

And a reply to LordSloth's last statement. I could try spider turrets but I am spreading my defenses out and attackable wormholes for two things: Stopping hybrid harassment and to prevent the AI wave size bonus when focusing on one or two wormholes. I can't use spider turrets to stop a wave like that since I would not have the numbers to stop that many before the damage is done.

[Kahuna]

I'll attach a save, it's from a little later as I was about to start the FS; take a look if you want.  There should be enough resources and time to do some re-adjustment of the defenses to your style, if you want.  I'd be interested to hear your comments.

That save is version 5.078. My game is still 5.076. I'll install the patch after I'm done with my current game.

[LordSloth]

Hybrids? Ouch.

Honest fact is, my experience here is probably on the naive side. My AIP was fairly low due to my recent focus on Gravity Drill/Special Ops Commander combined with hybrid hives and two nearby raid engines.

Near that first CPA, these logistics commands were defenitely going down w/o support. I supported most of them with nine spiders/nine snipers/1 FF Mk1/4 Missile Turrets/4 MLRS turrets/4 Laser Turrets/4 Basic Turrets. I also supported them to this point with a full cap of MK1 Riot Starships.

Most importantly, I supported them by using the 'reserve power' control so I could afford to have one or even two go down.

I could have done better setting up my defenses, to be sure, but it wasn't about stopping an entire enemy force, merely about setting it up for defeat in detail as cheaply as possible, and kiting with Frigates and similar. If I can make it past the thirty or so hybrids readying to attack outside my homeworld (with 20 more on the way), I'll be able to do a superior job of testing this distributed defense.

Up till around planetary system six or so (no Data Centers, Civ leaders on) and the CPA at 4:30... they held off things decently, excepting Armor Rotters, and just about anything else that doesn't need to worry about engine damage (lucky not to face any bombards or sentinels). After I popped the sixth world, they started going down even with Bomber Starship, Riot, AND Raid Starship support. it's a flawed defense, but it worked for what I was currently facing. It wouldn't help with the hybrids at all, of course, but thanks to the mistaken unlock of MkIII Raid Starships, I could actually kill the small groups of hybrids very quickly. Right before this CPA and mobilizing hybrids happened, I was starting to re-evaluate my defensive setup, but got interrupted before I could come to a fresh conclusion.

Frankly, I'm less confident about my suggestion than before, but if you're actually putting enough spider turrets in place to stop the later waves, then its not working. I fully expect to have a command station dead with several hundred AI ships at a standstill while I'm busy stamping out a fire elsewhere.I am planning on establishing a new front line with about six systems bordering enemy territory, and two chokes a little further back, with two gravity drills dividing my empire in three. If I still think it's useful with the horrible restriction on mobility and the inability for each front to support each other, then I'm onto something for lowly 7/7. If not, well... I'll explore it again in a more normal, less grav-drilly game.

When the CPA comes around seems to be the very weakest part of my whole defensive theory. The defensive hybrids mobilizing from much deeper in AI territory (past the gravity drills) can ignore things, and I won't have enough otherwise useless (due to range, low mark) bomber starships or (due to gravity drills) Raid Starships to stamp out each fire. When it's only a half dozen on one system, I can usually pull something off committing my fleet ships. Exo-galactic threat will also probably push down my defenses too frequently for this to hold up as well.