Why you should always keep fighting

[laughingman]

I removed the previous message because the formatting was borked and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Sorry.

Beam Frigates are quite dangerous to your turrets, especially if you use Ctrl-click like I do. They were probably my least favorite wave to see in this game. So. Much. Carnage.

I took the rebel colony and found out just how tough those rebels can be. If they can clear out a quadrant by themselves, why did they need me to rescue them? They freed up the rest of my fleet to capture the Warbird and Bomber IV Factories. It was easy to clear and hold them, and I got to play with some new toys.

I really, really like  the new Warbirds. They're deadly but not invulnerable, and just a lot of fun to play with. I used them with Raid Starships to make a fairly unstoppable raiding force. Bomber IVs were exactly as I remembered, turning things into debris quickly and efficiently.

All was well, and I was happy, and then...

"2,407 ships are massing for a Cross-Planet attack." I had less than 12 minutes to prepare and I had just crashed my economy building very expensive starships. You can probably see where this is going.

A more skilled player probably could have fought on that many fronts and managed better. I should have unlocked fortresses earlier. I had time to build one before the warning, and none after. That could have made a tremendous difference. I also probably should have unlocked some mk II and III triangle ships, but I was too enamored with my reclaimers. Once your reclaimed fleet goes down, the mk I gets chewed up pretty quickly by mk II and III fleets. My empire was fragmented, with too many places to defend. I expanded too quickly after getting giddy with how much power I had.

Still, I  held out for quite a while. The Zenith fleet dealt more than its share of death to the AI and managed to hold the the Nanoswarm and Blade Spawner Fabricators.  They just turned out to be the wrong planets to defend in force.

The Resistance fleet was a standout, holding its colony by itself, then carving a path through AI-controlled space to the Homeworld, only to arrive too late to save it. It's doubtful how effective they would have been against 800 ships, but I would have liked to see it.

I had used all of my Starships to protect the Warbird and Bomber fabricators, and they were very good at it. A full cap of Mk I and II starships, supported by the Warbirds and Bomber IVs, cleared at least 300, maybe closer to 400 ships worth of Mk II and III threat without any fleet support, and very few turrets.

So, lesson learned: don't forget defense and consolidate your empire. You would think I wouldn't need to learn any more, but...  Still, this was the most fun I have had with the game in a long time. It turns out I was playing a Zenith Descendant (big surprise) and a Tank. I think the next time I pick parasites as a bonus ship, I might choose Zenith Descendant and Spireling opponents. Maybe I'll get lucky again...

[Wanderer]

So, lesson learned: don't forget defense and consolidate your empire. You would think I wouldn't need to learn any more, but...  Still, this was the most fun I have had with the game in a long time. It turns out I was playing a Zenith Descendant (big surprise) and a Tank. I think the next time I pick parasites as a bonus ship, I might choose Zenith Descendant and Spireling opponents. Maybe I'll get lucky again...

I'm STILL learning...

That volume of CPA is due to not keeping better AIP control.  I'd have figured your reclaimers would have fared better turning the CPA on itself, but I guess not.

When you have something like that coming in at you, you have to basically do what your body does for frostbite control, abandon the extremities.  If you can mass your force at a choke or two and eat heavily into the CPA, you've got a shot, but otherwise you'll usually lose all your fabs and whatnot to a CPA of any intensity.

[PokerChen]

Post-mortem for the CPA:
 - The Nanoswarm fabricator should technically be able to defend itself given a healthy amount of income and mark I triangle ship support. With a stream of paralysing/reclaiming bombs, this leaving you with time to focus down immediate threats like Electric Bombers and Starships.
 - Once you've built your Blade Pwners V, you can ditch their fabricators in an emergency. In my experience they're easier to keep alive than most fleet/star ships if you keep them within a fleet-ball.
 - IIRC, CS-destruction restarts the count down timer and does not decloak the Rebel Colony. Therefore you can ignore that system and send your rebel fleet away, and still have time to reclaim the system after the CPA.

 The above decisions frees both the Zenith-ball and rebel fleet for your core defense. Shifting the Plasma-Siege Is would also help. As you found out, never skimp on core defenses with mark-I triangles. You can skip fortresses on 7-like difficulties if you had those good ships to counter likely AI assets.

Beam Frigates are quite dangerous to your turrets, especially if you use Ctrl-click like I do. They were probably my least favorite wave to see in this game. So. Much. Carnage.

I almost LOL'ed when I was making the radar graphs, seeing their maximum DPS - so yes, making sure you place your turrets in a perpendicular line is good.

I took the rebel colony and found out just how tough those rebels can be. If they can clear out a quadrant by themselves, why did they need me to rescue them?

I've always surmised that the Rebel Colony had run out of resources, those magical green crystal or some form of phlebotinum  (control chips) necessary to build those ships...

I think the next time I pick parasites as a bonus ship, I might choose Zenith Descendant and Spireling opponents. Maybe I'll get lucky again...

Ah, you really should try *cough* to pitch those parasites *cough* against a Spireling AI. It's a good learning experience.

NB: Everything AIs will give you a higher reclaim potential.

[laughingman]

GUDare, my AIP was at 354 when this hit. I was just about to clear out the Coprocessors and last two data centers, too.  The reclaimers did well until they, and their reclaimed ships, were simply outnumbered. I know that I should have abandoned the Fabricators and focused on my homeworld defense, but it was so hard to give them up after having them for such a short time. It's not a rational or intelligent response, but I never claimed to be either.

Zharmad, I didn't know that about the Rebel Colony. That would have definitely changed my plan. I like the rest of your strategy. I have a save about 8 minutes before the CPA hits. I could reload it and see if that makes a difference. It goes against my nature as a Roguelike player but I'll make an exception for research purposes this time.

[Hearteater]

Amusingly, I once just could not get to a colony in time to stop it from decloaking.  Once it decloaked, it stayed alive for the next hour and change.  Long enough for me to win the game.  So just because it decloaks doesn't always mean it's toast.  I wouldn't count on that happening every time, but it is possible.

[keith.lamothe]

Sounds like it was a rather fun last-stand defense

Now for humanity's ultimate weapon: Load Game!

[Wanderer]

GUDare, my AIP was at 354 when this hit. I was just about to clear out the Coprocessors and last two data centers, too.  The reclaimers did well until they, and their reclaimed ships, were simply outnumbered. I know that I should have abandoned the Fabricators and focused on my homeworld defense, but it was so hard to give them up after having them for such a short time. It's not a rational or intelligent response, but I never claimed to be either.

LOL, luckily, I'm quite sure I'm not either.   The information about the Rebel Colony is correct, ti just goes back to being cloaked and hides again for a 2 hour timer.

[laughingman]

Sounds like it was a rather fun last-stand defense

Now for humanity's ultimate weapon: Load Game!

I'll admit it was exhilarating. I even thought I might win for a few minutes, there. While I never use humanity's ultimate weapon usually, I decided to see what would happen if I changed my strategy. I abandoned the rebel colony and the Fabricators, and sent most of the fleet back to the homeworld. It was still a tough fight, and I lost my Hive Golem, about half of the fleet, and five planets, but I survived. The AI didn't even attack the fabricators. What luck, I thought.

Until waves of 902 fighters and 987 Polarizers were announced right on top of each other. They rampaged through four of my remaining worlds to get to my homeworld, losing more than half of their number. What was left was enough to finish me off, though.

I guess it's just not meant to be.