What the heck? 4000 unit deep strike, Diff 7.3, No Mad Bomber

[Sunshine!]

Speed Racer and Assassin, but this is ridiculous.  Difficulty 7.3, 14-minute countdown for 4000 units from deep space.  There's really no way to deal with that, and the AI progress wasn't even over 100.  Any explanation for why something of this magnitude would happen?  I didn't have any AI  wave modifiers on the planet either.

[Spikey00]

You destroyed a counterwave post; their consequential fleet size was increased in light of changes to the time alloted before the wave is spawned.

[Vinraith]

Yup, definitely shouldn't have blown up that counterattack post. 

[Sunshine!]

I didn't destroy any counterattack post.  I had only raided 3 planets up to that point, none of which had counterattack posts.

[Fleet]

Maybe you misclicked, or did not notice the counter attack guard posts. This really, really sounds like an effect of one of those posts.

[Spikey00]

Are you absolutely sure?

1)  13:10 is a similar duration used in counterwaves.
2)  Your AIP is at MK1.  The wave is MK2.

[Vinraith]

Are you absolutely sure?

1)  13:10 is a similar duration used in counterwaves.
2)  Your AIP is at MK1.  The wave is MK2.

To add to what Spikey said, what those two things tell us is that about 2 minutes before said screenshot was taken you either attacked a mark 2 counterattack post or popped the command station on a world that had a mark 2 counterattack post (or there's a bug and the game thinks you did, I suppose).

[Sunshine!]

Unfortunately I can't go back and double check because I don't have a save, but I took time to clear every of the three planets completely, of every guard post and all straggling units, so unless counterattack posts are destroyed on destruction of the command post, I am quite certain I did not encounter any counterattack posts.  I don't think I'd have missed or misclicked on a counterattack post either, because they look very distinctive.  I think I've also seen this before in another game, but at that time it was only a 300-wave and I didn't think much of it, I just thought it was a new feature added in (rare strikes from deep space).

I wish there was a way to test this, but I don't even know what would've caused this if this is a bug.

[Vinraith]

so unless counterattack posts are destroyed on destruction of the command post,

They are, actually. Destruction of the command post "sets them off" triggering the wave and destroying the counterattack post.

[superking]

4000 ships does seem like rather too many though 

[Wingflier]

It's very possible you destroyed a counter-attack post or maybe even 2 when you killed the orbital on that planet.  It's been said before in this thread, but killing the orbital DOES destroy the counter-attack posts, and so if you aren't sure whether the planet had any or not, you can't really report this as a bug.  You were only an hour in, just start over and watch out for that next game.

[Winter Born]

4000 does seem high. w/o a save just prior to triggering the attack not sure if there is a way to tell. I don't know if the stats tab records the death of things like wave counter attack GP's.

I just lost a game to one - 800 mk4 from the planet adjacent to my start planet.

[m_hermann]

It's the 6400 infiltrators that came in as impulse emitters, I can hardly wait to see what my current wave of 12,000 infiltrators arrive as.

It's definitely the counter attack guard post in my case

[Sunshine!]

To those of you saying 4,000 is too high: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7719.0.html

[Vinraith]

4000 ships may or may not be "too high." It depends on whether Sunshine! is playing with high ship caps, and what kind of ships are in the wave.