Waves a bit large?

[Mánagarmr]

Two AIs (random unrevealed). About 1:20 into the game we have an AIP of roughly 70-90 and kill a counterwave guardpost MK III (yeah, thanks King -.-). My homeplanet gets a 1000 ship warning as expected. About 3 minutes left of the timer, I get a 783(!) Bomber wave alert on my homeplanet and ANOTHER 1001(!!!) ships to the same planet, this time Deflector drones.

Attached savegame is mid-hilarity.

Is it supposed to be this brutal on 7.3-7.6? There was no way we could counter this on such short notice (3 minutes). The Mark III counterwave (1001 ships, assorted fighters, chameleons and stuff) was bad enough, but another 1800 ships on top of that was just nuts.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Oh cmon, its not like I know what I'm actually doing, it was harmless but I figured it would bite me so I blew up without resistance.....wait a sec...

Yeah, waves were pretty large on this game for sure.

King

[Lancefighter]

counterwaves, are supposed to be huge?

[Mánagarmr]

counterwaves, are supposed to be huge?

Certainly, as were the first one (roughly 1000 mk 3). But the following normal waves were 1001+768 when earlier waves were around 250 to 300. It seems as though something was a bit off.

[unclean]

You might be playing against a really aggressive AI type, like mad bomber. They seem to send out huge retaliatory waves if you take out a command station, especially one on a MK2 or 3 planet.

edit: I'm stinking illiterate

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Deflectors are a swarm unit, they always have large waves. Their best mobile counter is fighters (Drones butcher frigates, despite the frigates Swarmer bonus) but you need the fighters for the bombers. Fortunately you can easily handle any deflector wave with about 50 or so MLRS turrets, and theres plenty of time to build them.  But, a Counterattack wave at the same time as a bomber wave is kinda bad news   All you can do is gather your mobile forces and hope for the best.

You probably do have an aggressive AI for those bombers. Although on my 1 homeworld high ship caps game I've been getting 2000 bombers since probably 100 aip? or so.

In a pinch you can also use bombers against the deflectors

[x4000]

This is probably a bug that the "last wave size" is being set from the counterattacks, when it should not be.  Can you mantis that?

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I guess the corollary to this thread is that CPAs just arnt scary any more compared to waves. My waves have been 2000 ships for the most part for a while, but I just got a CPA announced of 1800 ships.  And my last CPA was like 1600.  I'm not sure if thats intended or not, i remember CPAs being a lot bigger than waves in 3.0

[Vinraith]

It's true. I love waves at their current, actually worrying size (I have to treat them seriously, whereas for far too long I could just count on automated defenses to handle them) but CPA's are positively weak by comparison.

[unclean]

This is probably a bug that the "last wave size" is being set from the counterattacks, when it should not be.  Can you mantis that?

Huh, I've been seeing that as well. From my experience waves are normal until I hit a counter attack guard post, then skyrocket to 1001 and stay there for the rest of the game.

[Elukka]

thing on your foot, I had a 2000-3000 ship CPA a few betas back while wave sizes were still in the hundreds.
It hurt.

[Winter Born]

This is probably a bug that the "last wave size" is being set from the counterattacks, when it should not be.  Can you mantis that?

posted to mantis
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1493

[Wingflier]

Don't know what you guys are talking about. CPAs seem deadly as ever to me. The other day I got hit by a CPA wave of 3500+ which on top of the 2000 wave was positively devastating

[Mánagarmr]

This is probably a bug that the "last wave size" is being set from the counterattacks, when it should not be.  Can you mantis that?

posted to mantis
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1493

Thanks WB!

[Vinraith]

Don't know what you guys are talking about. CPAs seem deadly as ever to me. The other day I got hit by a CPA wave of 3500+ which on top of the 2000 wave was positively devastating

That's the only time they're dangerous, though, when they arrive right on top of a wave. I suppose if you had an incredibly confined frontier (if you were playing a snake map or the like, though it's always seemed to me that snake maps kind of break the game) they'd pack a real whallop, but spread over a large number of systems they're pretty easy to manage (much moreso than the aforementioned waves).