Topics

1

After Action Reports / Surprise

« on: May 12, 2013, 09:28:18 PM »

I'm trying another Fallen Spire game. I've never beaten one, so I hope to do so this time.

Fairly standard setup:

7/7 Random All AIs (weak, I know, but just wait)

80 Planet realistic map

Minor factions:
Resistance fighters 4
Colony Rebellions 4
Zenith Traders
Dyson Sphere 4
Devourer Golem
Roaming Enclaves 4
Golems (Medium)
Spirecraft (Hard) 4
Fallen Spire 4
Botnet Golem (Hard) 4


AI Mods:

Reveal Random AI Types
No Wave Warnings

^^ I've never heard of anyone playing with this so I wanted to try. The AI doesn't get warned when I attack, so why should I? It's just fair, right? RIGHT?

Right.

All expansions are enabled except for Ancient Shadows, which I haven't bothered to install on my new computer yet.



Onto the game:

After spending some amount of time trying to get the map into a readable state, I end up with this:

The massive network at Vanguard Party makes reorganizing the map somewhat difficult, but this will have to do.

Next, I begin the usual early-game stuff. Scouting, getting the fleet built, etc. Yada yada.

Unlocked:

Econ Command II
Missile Frigates II
Grav Turrets
Zenith Bombards II
Mini Fortresses
Laser Turret II
MLRS Turret II

I'm focusing on defense since I will be being attacked without warning and therefore my fleet may not always be able to arrive in time, so I need a decent safety net to hold off aggression until backup arrives. The AI has Mini-Rams, which the grav turrets can hold back and laser gatlings, which MLRS gets bonuses against. The Laser turrets are good vs. Bombers, which would otherwise take out much of my defense, so that's the logic behind those. The AI types I have are Mine Enthusiast, which shouldn't be a problem, and Experimentalist. The Experimental translocators are why I invested in more Bombards, which have enough range to not care much about translocation.

Scouting reveals some good stuff. There's a hive golem on Sloths II, an ARS on Atmospheric Spire and a Starship IV fab on Augustgrad. I'll hack the ARS later, but right now the Golem is top priority since the Hive is probably almost as OP as the botnet golem.

Some waves come, but nothing worth mentioning happens.

The first subspace signal is, obviously, on my homeworld. Blah blah, wait for the timer to count down, and so on. Once it finishes, it tells me that the next signal is on Eastasia, 2 hops away. My fleet is not big enough to deal with the interception fleet, so I take Vanguard Party to provide supply on Eastasia for mobile builders. My fleet neuters the planet and I establish a beach head consisting of mines, assorted turrets and mini fortresses. Vanguard Party gets its own defenses as well.

With the knowledge from VP I unlock Crystal harvesters II. That should help my economy a bit. Once I finish with the beachhead, I send in the Survey ship.

Upon viewing my homeworld in order to grab the surveyor, I see that the home command shield is a little under 50% and being assaulted by bombers which slipped past the miniforts. I must have missed a wave, which does not bode well for the future. The miniforts are moved closer in and make short work of the bombers. It was a close call, though.


Sorry guys.

The survey ship moves to Eastasia and starts looking for the signal. It finds the shard, as usual, and large numbers of AI ships begin to pour into the system (again as usual). It turns out that making the beachheads was a good idea, since my fleet takes almost no losses.


Escorting the Shard

Conveniently, the wormhole to Mimoulette (my homeworld) and Eastasia are very close together on Vanguard Party, so it takes very little time for the shard to get to its destination once it clears Eastasia.


Fighting on Vanguard Party

The subspace reciever is built and begins searching for another shard. Meanwhile, I've decided to pursue the ARS before the golem. I don't have the resources to sustain one at this moment, and Atmospheric Spire has not only the ARS but a Data Center as well. As I expand, though, the whole "no wave warnings" thing is going to start to hurt. At least it still plays the little sound when one arrives, but that doesn't mean I'm always going to hear it. :V

2

After Action Reports / Core Cruisin'

« on: August 09, 2012, 12:06:37 AM »

Since my last game ended in a kind of stupid manner at the hands of the frankly quite annoying Dyson Plot, I have started a new game with Hybrids on 1/10 to disable the Dyson plot, but have amped up the difficulty elsewhere to compensate.

DETAILS:

My AIs are The Core and Neinzul Youngster (7 and 8, respectively)

Enabled Minor Factions are Human Marauders 3, Human Resistance 6, Colony Rebellions 2, Dyson Sphere 4, Zenith Traders, Roaming Enclaves 3 and Neinzul Rocketry Corps 2 as well as Golems medium and Botnet Easy

Map: 80 planet Simple

All expansions enabled

CSGs and Swallowers disabled

Bonus Ship Type: MLRS



^
My map. The marked systems have Backwater Wormholes on them, although my altplanetnames.txt has a planet called "Backwater" on it, along with several other Humorous names.



GAME START:


I'm faced with the problem of having to deal with Core ships early on, so my plan is to fast tech to III as soon as I can, although this also leaves me vulnerable to the large numbers of Neinzul ships that will be coming in waves. I'll have to hold those off with Turrets.

First unlocks: MLRS II, Riot II (Tazers will help keep the Neinzul at bay), Adv. Warp Sensor and Gravity Turret. The Shadow gets two of each module.

First wave at 12 minutes. 72 Core Tachyon Microfighters, no big deal. I suppose that I'm not seeing large enough numbers for their strength to show, although the fact that the AI has them is worrying, as my Anti-Eye strategy involves using cloaker starships with heavy artillery to kill guard posts, and with the Tach fighters present cloak will be harder to maintain. However, I'm not worrying about that too much.

At seventeen minutes the first Neinzul wave arrives. I forgot to turn on Auto-Kite so I took some damage from the Nanoswarm despite my Gravity turrets. Fortunately it wasn't too bad.

Scouting the nearby systems shows little of value save for a Mk. I Zenith Reserve on Sandvich. Not too useful, but I could save it in case I get into trouble.

3

AVWW Mods & Maps / [Mappack] A variety pack of my own!

« on: June 01, 2012, 07:58:28 PM »

The recent mappacks reinspired me to make some more maps. The number is nowhere near as impressive as the others, but some of the rooms are kinda cool. I tried some new stuff with these, hopefully they work. There's a chance a few won't, though (does rubble need to have floor between it and the "Inaccessable" area? If so, I'll need to fix a few rooms.)


Anyway:

Two Outdoor Boss Arenas: Mountain Pond and Tectonic Rift
Four Atriums (Two large, two low): Fountain with Attic, Flooded, Fractured and "Holy Cow That's a Hole"
One Overlord Room: Laser Fortress

So only seven maps in total, a measly number compared to one hundred, but some are interesting, I think. Tell me if they won't work so I can fix them.

4

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Mystery rooms

« on: May 11, 2012, 01:19:36 AM »

So they're found in extremely large buildings, right? The only ones I can think of are the Pyramids and the huge buildings in the Ice Age regions. Are there other valid buildings for this? I'm not finding any large ice age buildings at all (Are they really rare now? I've searched many regions, it might just be bad luck) and the continent I'm trapped in by windstorms has no deserts. I'd like to be able to do one of the mysteries but alas I'm not sure what's a valid target to look for.

5

After Action Reports / Thematic Play-Vengeance of the Spire

« on: March 30, 2012, 12:41:08 AM »

Inspired by GUDare's "Disposable Heroes" AAR, I'm doing something similar, but with Spire ships. Specifically, I'm playing a self-set scenario in which the Spire must regroup and rebuild their own empire, the humans having been destroyed long ago. To make matters worse, a faction of Spire traitors has sided with the AI (one AI Type is Spire Hammer, the other is Turtle)

My rules: I cannot unlock any upgrades to human tech or unlock and tech not related to the Spire. This means no triangle ships above mk. I, no starships above mk. I (I did accidentally unlock Mk. II Riots, but supposedly those are based on Spire tech so I'll kinda accept that one). If I get things in Zenith caches or ARS, I'll take those but otherwise I won't use anything the Spire wouldn't have. The human triangle ships will only be used on defense, since it'd be a bit too challenging to only use Spire ships.

I've got some stuff on, most importantly Dyson+Hybrids (Never been able to see this combo in action), Fallen Spire, Medium Golems+Spirecraft (The medium versions I find more fun).


Redoing the actual game with Kieth's Seed.

6

After Action Reports / Armageddon

« on: March 08, 2012, 07:57:59 PM »

I'm going to play a game of AI war in which I will attempt to win after detonating a mk. III Nuclear Warhead. Not at the beginning of the game, of course, as I must build an economy to support the construction, but as soon as I can I will detonate it.

My strategy is to rely heavily on alternate means of gathering a force (I have a Botnet Golem at the time of writing, I'll be using Neinzul Enclave Starships and my bonus ship is Spire Blade Spawner. I'll load everything into transports upon detonation so that everything survives then go on the offensive. My AIP is going to skyrocket, but with no guard posts or command stations on any planets I might be able to blitz and overcome the AI quickly enough before the core worlds begin to lay on the pain. The map is on the smaller side, so the Core worlds aren't too far away.

I don't have anything special on, really, except the dyson sphere and Easy Golems.



On to the actual game. I'm starting this after a little progress, so I'll sum up what's happened. I'm playing with Vanilla and Scorched Earth AI Types (I think that was a random pick). Two nearby planets have been destroyed, a third captured for the valuable stash. A regenerator Golem, good for sustaining my fleet I suppose, and a MK. V BLADE SPAWNER FABRICATOR. THANK YOU RNG!

I also have Armor boosters somehow, must have had an ARS somewhere.


Nuclear Development progress at 40%.

The AI currently sees me as worthy of a 29-strong fighter wave. Oh, how that will soon change.

7

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Crate Jumping

« on: March 02, 2012, 11:38:13 PM »

Is this intended to be possible? I discovered that a player can jump great heights by jumping, putting a crate below his/her feet and then jumping again. if it's done right, you can do it theoretically infinitely, if it weren't for the vertical boundary. I kind of like it as it's really useful for escaping holes in the thawing plains without wasting a lot of crates, but I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a feature or not.

EDIT: Apparently there's already a thread for this. Sorry, didn't see it.

8

AI War / Please Advise on How to Proceed

« on: January 23, 2012, 12:58:22 AM »

I was doing well in my current Fallen Spire campaign until this happened.


In case it's too small to see, that's an exogalactic wave, a marauder attack, a rebel colony, a cross-planet attack approaching and my existing rebel colony is close to being steamrolled.
 My fleet of resistance ships from the last colony combined with merc ships is the only one close by to Path, the battlefield in the screenshot. A Mk. I fortress may be able to help, but it's doubtful. Also not shown is the 200 ships in the carrier that's inbound.

The Rebel colony planet is reachable and has an ARS so I was planning on taking it anyway, but this is sooner than I'd like. It has an AI Eye and Mk. III Ion Cannon so taking it will be tough.

The screenshot is a result of allowing buildup for hours on a planet I had assumed I neutered but left unscouted. It had accumulated almost 1,000 ships, so I nuked it, having no other viable option. (Moving my fleet in would have been costly and exposed my main front to attack. Perhaps I'm underestimating the power of a Spire city+fleet, though. In any case, that nuke is seeming like a worse and worse idea as stuff keeps piling on. My AI progress is approaching tech level III.

How would you guys recommend dealing with this?

9

AVWW Mods & Maps / [MAP] Overlord Room: The Extractor

« on: December 16, 2011, 06:47:39 PM »

A pretty large "outdoor" room designed as the top of the Overlord Keep. There's the floor, side wings and the central extractor device. Somewhat untested as my overlord mysteriously disappeared after a few revisions (There isn't a way to get him back is there?) so there might be some issues.

AVWW\RuntimeData\Logic\RoomMaps\OverlordBossRoom

10

AVWW Mods & Maps / [MAP] Boss Room: Eye of the Storm

« on: November 12, 2011, 09:59:16 PM »

This map consists mostly of a large, central shaft with concentric circles at the top forming a sort of "Eye", hence the name. There are smaller features below the eye and mid-sized rooms/passageways along the sides for cover.

So far, It's been tested with a  giant Skelebot (not the best for this map as it hangs out near the bottom all time, but I hope you'll still find it fun) and a Red Ameoba Leiutenant (This one was more interesting, it utilized the whole space, mostly circling around the eye.)

Place in AVWW\RuntimeData\Logic\RoomMaps\GeneralBossRoom

11

AI War / Erm...

« on: November 03, 2011, 11:51:19 PM »

I started a new game with the most recent update and, well, it spewed errors. Stuff like row 2: col;0 and so on. The attached image has the whole list. I'm unsure of what exactly this  means and what happened to trigger it. It says it's an error, but I've never seen it before.

12

After Action Reports / My First Time With Fallen Spire

« on: October 03, 2011, 06:27:22 PM »

I finally got Light of the Spire! Yay!

Anyways, I'm starting a Fallen Spire game. Note that I only have a rough idea as to what I'm supposed to to. (Based on random talk on these forums and on the mothership description, I believe it involves building cities and somehow making a Spire-Human Alliance.) Because of this, I'll probably be stomped into the ground, but we'll see.

Specifics: 50 planet concentric map. Spire Stealth Battleship as my bonus ship type.

Minor factions: Fallen Spire, Golems (Hard), Spirecraft (Easy), Human Resistance, and maybe Rebel Colonies. I forgot already.

AI Plots: Avenger, Advanced Hybrids (This is probably a mistake. However, they're not proving much of a problem in my current games, so It's worth a shot.)

Oh, and AIs are Zenith Descendant and Attritioner.




(I'll important events and/or major battles, just to make it a little more interesting. Later in the game, though, the narrations will probably get shorter, and less frequent as interesting things happen less often. Or will they happen more often? FS will probably suprise me.)



An urgent message from Telemetry Lab popped up on the High Command viewport, Titled "Subspace Signal". The message described an unusual signal that had been discovered, and requested more research equipment in order to investigate further. The request was acknowledged, but since defenses were lacking in just about every way, construction of a Survey Ship had to be put on hold until some defensive emplacements could be completed.

It took four minutes to decrypt the signal. What appeared to be a message faded out quickly, but another signal, more distant, was detected two hops away from the Human base. Problematically, there were hordes of AI Ships in the way, and there was little chance of slipping a Survey Ship through undetected. We would need to, as the message from Telemetry put it, carry a big stick.

Alternatively, Cloaker Starships might do. An AI Wave is incoming, so defense is again our immediate priority. With luck, our defense will be adequate and the odd signal can be pursued.

13

AI War / Does the AI Learn?

« on: October 02, 2011, 10:58:45 AM »

I'm playing a game with 10/10 Entrenched Homeworlder/Support Corps on a 10 planet map, and my strategy for taking planets has been first to clear out the wormhole with a lightning warhead or two, and then send in the fleet. However, recently, I've had a core world on alert for a little over an hour, and there are about 1600 ships there. I have a botnet, hive, regen and artillery golem, so if I can clear out the wormhole, I could theoretically take out the planet. (including hive wasps, I outnumber the AI).


The problem, though, is that half of all the ships on the planet are Missile Frigates! About 800 of them, double the amount of the next most common ship, bombers (400). Did the AI wise up to my warhead strategy, or is this just an unhappy coincidence?

14

AI War / A Few Miscellaneous Questions

« on: August 18, 2011, 10:43:13 PM »

Well, more questions from me. There are a few things that have been bugging me for quite a while, as well as some things that just happened, so I thought I'd ask here.

1: Most ships uncloak when they attack, but Riot Starships (I'm using cloaker starships to cloak them) are able to attack while cloaked, and the AI Ships just swirl around in confusion. I suspect this is because the Modules are counted as separate from the ship itself but the AI are incapable of targeting them without the ship being uncloaked.

2: I don't know if this is already known, but warhead interceptors show that they do not increase AIP when destroying missiles but it happens anyways.

3: Just out of curiosity, why are cloak starships not counted as military? I now know that you can use ctrl+click to select them too, but for a while this threw me off.

4: Random question 1: The armored Golem seems to be a reference to the Ohmu from the old movie Nausicaa: Of the Valley of the Wind. It looks similar, is incredibly well armored in a similar fashion and from the wiki the cheat to spawn them is "Ohm" so it seems to be.

5: Also random question, why is the icon for AI War a Botnet Golem? Not really relevant to anything, I was just wondering.
This is what I'm referring to, by the way.

15

After Action Reports / Move Fast, Hit Hard: A 10-Planet Map Adventure

« on: August 04, 2011, 02:50:46 AM »

This is the story of my adventures on a 10-planet map, which I heard from the Wiki was very hard to play. Deciding to test that theory, I set the AI types to Zenith Descendant and Attritioner, both difficulty 7. Most minor factions don’t work on 10 planet maps, but the ones I have enabled are Mauraders, Resistance Fighters and Golems-Hard. My starting ship is the Bombardment Frigate. This is a little wordy, so if you don't want to read it all a summary is included at the bottom of each chapter.

Image of the map

Preface

The Base at planet Lusitania was arguably doomed from the start. Those who staffed it had been assigned to the most difficult sector of the galaxy. A mere 10 planets within the range of any ship, and no chance of escape after the blockade runners had ferried them there. Surrounded on all sides by High-level planets, gaining territory would be extremely difficult, and maintaining the garrison itself had been a nightmare.

But then, the officer in charge of Lusitania was killed by an AI bombing raid, and needed to be replaced. As such, the Human High Command sent a new commander to the garrison, who’s skill turned out to be the best thing to ever happen to the tiny sector.

Chapter 1: Hold the Fort

In the battle in which the previous general was killed, the Human fighting forces had been decimated, and needed to be rebuilt. Our space docks began churning out Mk. I vehicles as the scouts began to locate key targets, and our scientists use what knowledge we had to develop new ship designs.  Turrets were mounted, mines laid and shields booted up. Everyone knew that the AI would not wait to let us get a head start, even now our scouts detected forces massing at our borders.
The low amount of worlds did give us one advantage though: Almost every planet had something of value. It would be impossible to take a planet needlessly. The scouts found that all but two worlds had Research Stations, and Fabricators, Factories and Golems were abundant. Both planets adjacent to Lusitania had advanced factories, but one also had two golems and an ARS, as well as next to no heavy defense. After we fought the initial AI wave, our ships quickly took Talnon.

After erecting our command station and building the basic defenses and material harvesters, we built a full cap of basic ships as well as a few mk.II and III ships. The advanced factory gave us Mk. IV ships, and we also built a cap of Sentinel Frigates and Parasite Mk. Vs from the fabricators. The ARS gave us acid sprayers, and a fleet of those was built too.  We began to repair the golems, but the next AI wave arrived before they could be completed. The AI was still underestimating us, so their waves were easy, for the moment. After both Golems were completed (A Botnet and Hive), we looked for other prime targets. There were two available wormholes, one, Iridia, containing A Hive and Black Widow golem, as well as an ARS, and the other, Earth, which was of little use, and bordered a world with two armored golems and another ARS. We hastily valued Iridia as a higher target, and once the hive golem had amassed its 500 wasps we sent an EMP in and immediately after launched all our ships, including the Golems. It was a mistake. Iridia bordered the AI homeworld, and was stocked entirely with Mk. V ships. The botnet golem could not attack them and they ate up the 500 wasps, not to mention they were unaffected by the EMP. We immediately fell back and rebuilt our forces, defending against the backlash.

Needing more ships, we attacked Earth to gain knowledge, as well as energy and materials, which were abundant. Oddly enough, command withdrew the units before the command station was even damaged. We would go for it later, because our scanners had detected an incoming exogalactic wave: Golems would soon be entering our territory. We needed to build defenses fast.

Worryingly, Iridia had massed almost 1000 ships. Desperate to reduce the numbers, fearing that should we have to move ships elsewhere, the AI would attack, command resorted to the tactic of “Fling lighting warheads at them until something good happens.” It was surprisingly successful, taking out half the ships guarding the wormhole. A few missiles were destroyed by warhead interceptors*, but most of them got through. A quarter of the remaining ships began to retaliate, but were slowed by gravity turrets, bombarded by fleet ships and swarmed by wasps until the number of Mk. V ships was down to 400. Now it was time to brace for the arrival of the Golems.

SUMMARY: We build initial defenses, beat a few waves, and then take planet Talnon for it’s Advanced Factory, ARS and Fabricators. After an attack on Iridia with 500 wasps and 600 standard ships is beaten by the Mk. V ships (Which, I was too late to discover, are immune to EMPs and Reclamation making my Botnet Golem useless), we are forced to launch missiles at them repeatedly, hoping to get their numbers down. We destroy several starships in the progress, but are forced to stop as an Exogalactic Strike Force warning puts us on defensive mode.

NEXT GOAL: Capture one of two Mk. IV planets, as well as Earth. Survive the Exogalactic Wave.




*This increased my AI Progress, yet the warhead interceptor's tooltip said that it did not increase the AIP?