General Category > After Action Reports

Neinzul Ally the Fallen Spire

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Cyborg:
Cyborg and Minotaar decide to play a game along the same lines as the community challenge. Each player will play about two hours of gametime and e-mail it to the other. After action reports go here.

Map type:
lattice
100 planets
seed 230355810
0/60 increment

Ships:
Yng nanoswarm
complex
core shields off, everything else on

Game options

Minor factions:

Human rebellion
human resistance
Wardens (what's the point…)
enclaves
Dyson sphere
Zenith trader
Fallen spire
spire moderate
golem moderate

AI modifiers:
reveal AI types

AI 1:
Vicious Raider
8.3 random moderate


AI 2
Attritioner
8.3 random harder
normal hybrids
avenger


Report:

Researched so far (1:50):
Crystal and metal harvesters Mark III
advanced warp sensor
fighters Mark 2
Fortress Mark 1


The game starts off fairly calmly, with the first wave being only 100 armored ships. My first order of business is to get the economy going, as you are woefully poor in this game at the beginning. I get the harvesters up (Mark 3) and set about constructing defenses on my own planet. Scouting around, I noticed some easy targets next to the base, and a Mark 3 planet that has a couple ion cannons, asteroids, and a Zenith power generator. This looks like a great spot to target my playtime, as I like fortresses a lot but they do cost a great deal of energy. Especially if you are playing a hybrid hive game, they're really indispensable. Throwing up some turrets, I finish my fortress just-in-time for the first real test of the home planet.

Well that wasn't anything to be scared of.

Next in line, I notice that Raeiuschr touches a couple Mark 3 planets and a couple Mark 4's. Looks like a great spot for a fortress and a devious plan. I also need to take Pirapude for the economy's sake. I still can't keep above zero for any period of time. The battle on Raeiuschr goes relatively smoothly, with only a few hybrids to worry about.



I notice that the nanoswarm reclamation is abysmal. Absolutely abysmal. The only thing it does well is paralyze and do engine damage. We really need a counter in this game for reclamation performed. Other units' reclamation has been pretty decent, but looking at the behavior for this unit, it seems like it's taking the engine/status of the enemy into account for the targeting. The nanoswarm looks like a teenager learning how to drive, pressing on the gas and the brake at the same time every time it suicides into the enemy.

I'm already regretting this unit choice… watch me put 0 knowledge into this piece of space junk.



Next up on the list is to take care of Pirapude. It's an easy target with a decent mineral setup. I lay down some turrets, but I'm not planning on putting a fortress here right now. It doesn't have too much strategic value besides as a buffer from my home planet. Maybe over time, but right now I have more pressing things to do.

I'm looking at Shokil as the trophy for round one. The Zenith power generator is a great target as well as the ion cannons. The resource values alone for the cannons could be absolutely essential for taking down the avenger (should it become necessary). I don't have great chokepoints on this map, so I'm going to need the ability to replenish my army very quickly.

The plan is to use nanoswarms as a suicide distraction on Shokil. I can't get my scouts in their because of all the firepower and defense on that planet. It has warp guardians, gravity guardians, lightning guardians, hybrids, ion cannons, and a whole bunch of ships, higher mark than I. Fun. After I get my fortress up, I place all my turrets around the Shokil wormhole. I then start suiciding all of my nanoswarms onto Shokil.



This gives me just enough vision. Sending my scouts through is still ineffective, so I bring my heavily armored Raid Starships to soak up some damage while I sneak in a few scouts.

Success.

Then I bring my main fleet over to Raeiuschr (leaving some behind on Pirapude- there are eyebots cloaking here waiting to hit the command station if you leave it undefended). The eyebots' refractive armor needs laser counters. I start sending in my fleet and then dragging it back out, trying to draw in the AI to its doom. It's effective at pulling some of them.



The other side of the wormhole seems to be thinning out, so I sent in the main fleet and make a beeline for the command station.

Boom!

Victory is mine, as the planet soon falls to my fleet. I start setting up double force fields on the command station, a fortress, and forcefield protection for the strategic targets (Zenith power generator, ion cannons). I also lay down some mines around the Zenith power generator. They end up being quite ineffective (you will need to move these around Minotaar).

The AI launches a counterstrike against my new planet- including a carrier, oddly, with 420 unit counter underneath it.



Seems a little early for this. It contains a bunch of Raiders, unsurprisingly. Eyebots and Raiders can be annoying, probably will go for this AI first if possible.

The human resistance fighters decide to show up after the battle is over. Mighty nice of them.



And with that, I leave it to the next commander to choose what you want to research next. A couple notes on needs that need to be filled:

* Running out of tractor turrets. I'm aware that some people like gravity instead. Whatever you feel like.
* Running out of force fields.
* You will need some more defenses on Shokil. You cannot keep your main fleet there forever. Because you are fighting the raider AI, you will need refractive counters. Feel free to reposition the existing defensive infrastructure or use the asteroids for a second fleet.
* I have not started the quest line yet.
* So far, nanoswarms are good for a distraction and to cause weapon armaments to fire before you bring in your fleet. Besides that, looking forward to seeing what you can do with them. I have placed read regen chambers around.

The map:

zharmad:

--- Quote from: Cyborg on May 27, 2012, 05:22:14 PM ---I notice that the nanoswarm reclamation is abysmal. Absolutely abysmal. The only thing it does well is paralyze and do engine damage. We really need a counter in this game for reclamation performed. Other units' reclamation has been pretty decent, but looking at the behavior for this unit, it seems like it's taking the engine/status of the enemy into account for the targeting. The nanoswarm looks like a teenager learning how to drive, pressing on the gas and the brake at the same time every time it suicides into the enemy.
--- End quote ---

First negative feedback on Nanoswarms? :P Just remember that reclamation damage scales exponentially with relative mark-levels (in general), while stun and engine damage are linear. If you want a full cap from one wave you want to pit mark-IIs against mark-Is, etc.

Minotaar:
Not sure if I will be able to hand the next save to you today, but just want to reply to some of your points in no particular order:
1) what kind of devious plan involves alerting two mk4s? I want to know  :)
2) you have yet to see the power of the nanoswarm!  :D
3) Ion cannons don't give much scrap at all, you can't count on them to be distrib nodes, probably not worth capturing in most cases, unless we use it for defense
4) Vicious Raider? Teleport raiders again? Grrrr.

Cyborg:

--- Quote from: Minotaar on May 28, 2012, 11:35:57 AM ---Not sure if I will be able to hand the next save to you today, but just want to reply to some of your points in no particular order:
1) what kind of devious plan involves alerting two mk4s? I want to know  :)
2) you have yet to see the power of the nanoswarm!  :D
3) Ion cannons don't give much scrap at all, you can't count on them to be distrib nodes, probably not worth capturing in most cases, unless we use it for defense
4) Vicious Raider? Teleport raiders again? Grrrr.

--- End quote ---

You're going to need that power generator for the fortresses and the defensive infrastructure. As soon as you lose one base, you lose double power generators. Also, on this level, there are going to be higher mark planets almost everywhere. One fortress is equal to (just estimating) 75% of a planet's basic power production.

Yes, looking forward to seeing the nanoswarm do something. If it's true that the first level is meaningless, that's still pretty bad. The teleporting leech was a lot more effective, as well as the first leech starship.

The ion 3 should be worth it. 10% of that. I agree that the level I is probably meaningless. Worse case, it protects the power generator.

keith.lamothe:
The nanoswarm Is aren't very good at reclaiming, no, but the ability (via looping docks nearby) to "debuff" an entire planet's worth of AI ships with engine damage, (temporary) paralysis, and armor damage for a very small amount of m+c is actually really helpful.  And FRD-looping unending production of them into an AI planet drastically reduces the effectiveness of the enemy forces (the aforementioned debuffs, and overloading targeting queues and splitting up response forces), making it a lot easier to attack with conventional forces.

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