#ai war fleet command

[fugu-in-f]

It's still called AI War: Fleet Command.

I'm running a Let's Play. This is the epilogue.

Right, so let’s reflect on this one.

What went well?

‘Cheap and disposable’ worked really nicely for my early game, and I was lucky to get Neinzul Railpods to play straight into that. Railpods kind of fell off near the end there, but, well, they’re Mk1 or 2 vs. Mk5. I’ve never used Mobile Space Docks to actually build ships in the field, so having the chance to churn out crud on the fly turned out to be really fun. I keep them around to repair my fleet mid-combat, since they’ll do repairs after 5s without taking damage and there’s plenty of opponent ships or structures that deal damage every 6s or longer.

I think I did a pretty good job of scouting. There were a lot of Data Centers to bust, and having forward knowledge about the Raid Array kept me safe.

I could’ve taken Mk3 Railpods instead of Mk3 Cutlasses. Additionally, if I wanted MORE chaff, I could’ve used a hacker to change the advanced research result from Tachyon Microfiters to Laser Gatlings, which are also a) small b) numerous c) cheap. I think the Cutlasses did okay, though.

Securing the Mk5 Teleport Raiders and the Mk5 Needler/Missile Turrets proved ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL. Being able to allocate magnitudes more defense for the same cost as the Mk1 versions allowed me to effectively repel most forces thrown at me. This freed up science points that would’ve gone to nicer turrets for nicer ships instead, and it paid off wonderfully.

If I was itching for science, there were two planets up near Perfidy with, uh, Spire libraries? Something like that? The structures looked like smooch marks, there was one in The Coming Calamity and another next to that. Holding them long enough would pay out 8,000 (!!!) science each, but give the AI 80 (!!!) progress points if they blew up before reaching that number. That’s a gamble I’m more likely to make in future games.

Broadly speaking, I think my choice of planets went exceptionally well. I took and held crucial chokepoints, which allowed me to funnel attackers in where I wanted to receive them. The Omeyocan coalition was, admittedly, a pretty weak conglomeration, but it did let me keep a conglomeration and crossed off all my core shield checkmarks. There were better A and D core shield options, but none that made sense for the B core shield.

The pattern of pausing the game to write about the game while thinking about how the game was doing gave me PLENTY of time to strategize. I mean, you get to pause freely and strategize anyways, but I did not end up with a lot of wasted time. This campaign ran a little over five hours on the clock, but I probably spent four times that with the game in mind. With AI Progress ticking up ever so often (or not, you get to configure it!), time saved made me stronger.

So what went poorly?

I invested into Mk2 missile ships and promptly let them all get eaten on the way to important planets during my homeworld assaults. It’s not a big science cost, but it’s not a good play either. Since there’s 96 in a tier, it would’ve been prudent to build one singular Transport and crammed them all in there so that I could continue to use them without a) dragging the rest of my fleet down to their speed and subsequently b) losing my youngling vultures to attrition.

Speaking of,

I didn’t use my Youngling Vultures well. They’re exceptionally cheap and disposable, but attrition ate them alive before I could get the rest of my fleet into position. They’re surprisingly punchy, except when they’re absent in a deepstrike firefight. Transports would help here again. Or not tying part of my fleet to missile ships. I largely do not like missile ships because they’re so damned slow!

It would’ve been advantageous to hack the schematic for Mk5 Teleport Leech ships. The Raiders lacked a bit of oomph where it mattered and having a second bunch of Mk5s to accompany them would’ve made a lot of a difference.

It would also have been advantageous to hack the schematic for Mk5 Sniper turrets or Spider turrets. I’d take one of these over the needler turrets any day. They were out there in the galaxy, and I ignored them.

I should’ve taken the AI Progress penalty and mended the Armored Golem. I’m not sure it would’ve saved Omeyocan against the one Raid Starship the AI threw at it, but it would’ve kept the lower coalition safe while I did more important work elsewhere.

If not the armored golem, I should’ve taken the energy cost and reinforced Omeyocan and its neighbor better. A little extra science towards forcefields Mk2 might’ve helped too (as would position turrets closer to the command center on Omeyocan, damn that raid starship).

AI Difficulty 7 is perhaps a little easy for me by this point. 7 is the point where the AI ‘comes online’ and your actions start having consequences, so it’s the right difficulty selection for when you’re ready for the ‘real thing’ as it were. Since I’ve done a couple laps around AI War, it feels pretty safe to say I need to bump this up to 7.6 or 8. Yes, difficulty does begin to get granular past 7. 9 is regarded as the threshold of what’s beatable and what’s not. You’re not supposed to be able to win against AI difficulty 10.

Jumping into Perfidy from Yriel was ultimately foolish- it was sandwiched on either side by core guard posts with heavy shields, and I didn’t manage to make sensible damage here besides destroying the mass driver. That could’ve been accomplished with a half-fleet of bombers or something and saved me a bunch of ship cost/reprisal rigamarole.

As far as this LP as a whole goes- yes, the entire thing happened outside of audience participation. This game is done by the time you’re reading post one. Audience participation would be swell, but having a completed playthrough is better. I wrote this because I love AI War and I wanted to tell its story. It’s my hope you’re reading this sleepy-eyed from bed while on your tablet, enjoying that someone else has made this wonderfully dense game more digestible for you, and possibly inspiring a few adventurous thoughts about giving it a spin yourself before you zonk out.

I got to write and show off my favorite toy. I’m so happy about this. My thanks go out to Arcen Games for embodying the indie gaming spirit, for trying at SO many genres, and for always, always having a Linux port of their games. For not shackling their game in stodgy DRM, for allowing me to inflict it in earnesty, in passion, on my poor victims-err, friends. For A Valley Without Wind, and Starward Rogue, for always being brave enough to do something *different*. At the time of writing, Heart of the Machine is recently released and it sounds like it’s a smash hit. I’m glad they’ve survived.

What’s next?

Like I’m going to stop playing AI War. I’m hooked.

< Prev | Next >

[fugu-in-f]

It's still called AI War: Fleet Command.

I'm running a Let's Play. This is part eighteen.

I can’t get a fleet to Zeel, so I’ve scrapped all my Younglings and set them to build down there with a couple of engineers.

A second fleet bears down on Stormseeker next to Omeyocan. I can survive the energy loss here, but I really don’t want any spare aggression nextdoor at Heatshiver. Teleport Raiders on the way.

Shit!

Since I haven’t had to explain it up to this point- When your command station is destroyed, it leaves behind remains, as do the rest of your structures. There’s a three minute cooldown you MUST wait for before you can reconstruct your command center, but beyond that, the only loss when you lose it is temporarily to your metal income and your energy supply, since your one-per-planet energy accumulator blows up when your command center does. ‘Course, if there’s no neighboring friendly planets, you’ll lose supply and consequently any turrets/forcefields/whatever will stop functioning. Additionally, once your juiciest target (the command center) blows up, the AI is likely to go chew on whatever important things you have in the sector. So I lost Translocator ships from the fabricator at Omeyocan when that blew up, but it takes very little to get re-seated once you’ve gotten rid of your attackers.

This is a hit, but really only to what’s effectively a crumple zone. There’s three metal nodes between Omeyocan and Stormseeker, and I have surplus energy from Heatshiver. It’s bad, but not ruinous.

Some of the powerslavers that came from the homeworld stopped to chew on Stormseeker and disgorged a few of my vessels while they were here. That’s…. approximately convenient. The AI leaves a couple starships to toss damage at my broken Armored golem. Wish I’d taken the investment and activated it last hour, huh.

Zeel successfully repels its attackers. Now it’s Varunastra’s turn. It manages.

They’re not going to let the belt go quietly, however.

I send the golem to clean up the lower half of the galaxy and some extra threat pours out at Thread of Hope.

The golem suffers heavily for its efforts and I feel glad I sent my cutlasses and teleport raiders to assist it. It costs me a good million metal to mend it, ough.

I ready the fleet again. This time, I’m going through Wings of Entropy to Perfidy. I’ll bear some fire from the fortress and move the fleet out of the way of it. I can bring the golem this way, and it can snipe out oncoming enemies while I munch on the core guard posts.

I move the fleet away immediately, though none of my spacedocks survive.

Correction- Powerslaver delivery service! Most of them made it, in fact.

The bulwark is stationed. Bombers destroy periphery objects while the golem indirectly pulls shields down at the fortress.

Good enough. Let’s get that obstacle out of the way.

Everything is mine.

The barracks bursts, a final retaliation against me. I’m hoping my golem eats them all alive at range. My bombers disappear, but the powerslavers satisfy themselves by chasing my golem around.

Only the home command station remains.

And with a sudden flash, it’s all over. The AI that tormented humanity has been chopped off at the neck. By human ingenuity and programmed hubris, the impossible has been achieved.

...But with another 23 map styles, some ~50 or so AI behavior types, several dozen more ship and starship types, fifteen minor factions, and another dozen AI plots, are you really done with the AI threat?

This has been AI War: Fleet Command. Thank you for reading.

< Prev | Next >

[fugu-in-f]

It's still called AI War: Fleet Command.

I'm running a Let's Play. This is part seventeen.

One AI is dead. Its planets will remain nuisances, but it is dead. Let’s have a peek at what Red’s got to play with.

Perfidy has the worst of its defenses immediately outside the wormholes to Voidbringer and Wings of Entropy, my nearest avenues. Voidbringer looks like a doable entrypoint, but frankly, I’m gunning for Yriel:

Mostly so I can come out swinging and breaking stuff, like that mass driver. That means I have to carve across not one, but two core worlds.

There’s distribution notes across the galaxy you can bump off for an instead cash infusion at the cost of an iota of AI progress. There’s no reason for me to hold back, particularly since I just spent a couple hundred thousand metal on these guys:

One of the expansion adds Spirecraft, which consume special asteroids to become one-off ships. They’re not usually direct combat vessels. They tend to be integral to high-end strategy, but I’m not a high-end player so I’ve ignored them for most of the game.

nice

Well, no time like now. Let’s jam.

Immediately we’re not going to be able to put the golem into play, as the mass driver is ensconced under a dozen shields. Furthermore, the command station here is a Tachyon station that decloaks all of my vessels- my MSDs might be in jeopardy.

Despite it all, I slam the fleet into the shield bubble.

It’s a costly decision.

Popping the barracks proves costlier as my kidnapping gets underway.

And that reprisal finally bares teeth. 2500 bombers. Pheeew. Younglings are kidnapped off to Yriel while Powerslavers mow down on my MSDs. Most of them come loose with some coercion. The golem crosses space in time enough to field the bomber wave.

I am so very glad that I have a superweapon.

Bombers get some lumps in. If I let them in range, they WILL destroy my golem. I clear the enemy fleet with a little chase around my turrets.

This’ll help me rebuild my fleet.

Let’s look at Yriel:

They’re doing this thing again, and this time there’s a fortress at hand.

I’m skipping the golem. It’s a straight shot from Wings of Entropy to Perfidy.

Fleetblob, check! Younglings in first.

It’s not looking great. This is too many losses too quickly.

And despite erasing the Powerslaver plan, the AI kept a couple dozen for a rainy day like this.

The AI pulls some horseshit while my fleet retreats:

It takes with it my ability to make Translocator ships. I don’t have much to say about them except ‘they were in my fleet.’ I was really hoping to get through this campaign without losing a command center, bah.

< Prev | Next >

[fugu-in-f]

It's still called AI War: Fleet Command.

I'm running a Let's Play. This is part sixteen.

(162 bombers left)

Bombers are dwindling rapidly against surrounding fighters while tractor ships kidnap my chaff and haul it into range of the fortress.

Those damned tractor guardians. Dragged some of my ships into Wondertrap, which set off the guard post. That’s fine. Time to regroup. Frostbreath is a smouldering heap.

The golem is late. Something’s gonna take a beating. That 576 is a Carrier, within which it is holding 576 additional missile ships.

Doing damage to a carrier will harm the ships inside of it, but it’s armored better than any of them are. The enemy tucks tail to run once they drop to their last third of their fleet. They’re on retreat to Voices and I don’t care to have that Threat free-floating, so I send the fleet after it to clean up. Golem is staying behind in Varunastra to field 1600 raider ships in 90 seconds.

That cross-planet attack stuffed a bunch of ships next to my homeworld. The golem is close enough to clean it up, but it did catch me by surprise.

No carrier this time, just many speedy raiders. A clever trick, when building static defenses, is to ring your system with sniper or spider turrets all along the outside so gaggles of ships peel away from the main mass to chew them down. Buys you more time. I did not do that here, so there’s only four clusters of enemies headed towards four clusters of sniper turrets.

happy four-hour mark, by the way.

I hadn’t noticed before, but the command center at Frostbreath has a mean beam weapon that happily chews through my ships while I maneuver around it. There’s another reprisal coming towards Varunastra, but it’s 47 electric bombers and I’m hoping I can just ignore them. Speaking of electric-

(i have only 3 teleport raiders)

I forgot to set a build queue for my teleport raiders. I really want them to push into Wondertrap with so I can ice that orbital mass driver.

Honestly? That’s just silly.

Anyways, the Younglings go in first to blow up mines and catch the hairiest nastiest nonsense on the other side of the wormhole.

Frostbreath is, mercifully, out of range of most core guard posts and the fortress. That eastmost clump of structures in the center is where the mass driver lives. The teleport raiders do it right this time and pop it immediately.

Ignoring that 1300 of my units at Frostbreath are useless missiles, it’s time to move the fleet in.

Really is too bad about all those ships you turned into Threat. I’ve got three minutes before it tries that again.

Unfortunately, the fleet is not especially thoughtful and aggroes in towards the fortress. I’m gonna take losses for this.

Railgun squad begins its duty. Most enemy ships are hunkered down under powerful forcefields; I’m hopeful that my golem will try to attack them and bust up the shields in the process.

They’re not happy about this.

The damage from hungry Vultures and my teleport raiders add up.

The fortress is exposed! Bombers move in.

It’s exposed!

Goobye, blue sky. We’re halfway done.

The next one will fight better.

< Prev | Next >

[fugu-in-f]

It's still called AI War: Fleet Command.

I'm running a Let's Play. This is part fifteen.

Reader, as we gaze upon our galaxy, our triumphs, the wake of scrap carved across space, I find there’s one singular question left to ask.

How do we kill God today?

Here’s the galaxy. Here’s our final shape. Final preparations are underway. Our targets are Perfidy and Wondertrap, and Wondertrap is going to go first. Mostly because of this:

Fighting this planet will incur an immediate cross-planet attack. My AI progress is, at the moment, 76, and with each core guard post we wreck, that number is going to jump ten, since we’re already just ten points shy of the progress floor. Taking out one of the two AI is going to tack a good hundred points on that number, and Perfidy doesn’t have one.

As an aside, there’s an armored golem at Stormseeker. I’m not sure I need it yet, so I’m keeping it on ice.

I start that second knowledge hack over at Augyre. 3,000 Science is enough for Mk3 Engineers, which will mean faster ship rebuilds. I’d need 4,000 or more to take another Mk3/Mk4 starship or smallship, and I’m counting on not needing that.

AI is real sick & tired of my hacking nonsense and has flashed me twice in two minutes. They tried to sneak attack the hacker, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

The fleet moves to gather at Vulconus. The golem trundles towards Varunastra to field a wave assault.

These are all engineers, and they’re all going to be at Thread of Hope. I’ve pulled my surplus from the rest of the galaxy.

More spacedocks don’t necessarily mean faster ship construction, but it’ll let me keep my queues tidier.

The fleet glides through space like the whisper of wind along the blade of the guillotine.

Frostbreath is in the way of Wondertrap- We’ll be coming from Chin Sol on the left. That big round wheel-looking thing is a fortress and we’re wonderfully fortunate that its range is just short of the wormhole. There is, of course, another dire guardian post here in the bottom right corner, and a too-generous smattering of guard posts. The guardian lair is also where the orbital mass driver in the sector lives- it needs to go before I even think about bringing the golem in.

I make a save. Let’s get messy.

I immediately take the teleport raiders to the ion cannons.

it just survives! Bombers fly toward the Fortress while I make a second pass with the Younglings.

I’m losing ships in a hurry; I’m maybe twenty seconds into the assault and already have a reprisal warning. That strategic reserve means the AI is tucking into barrackses to field more ships here.

All nine mobile space docks have been instructed to churn out railpods and younglings. A Mk4 flagship is attending them to give those railpods a 140% damage boost.

The mass driver is down!

The golem moves in to assist the MSDs with suppressive fire.

< Prev | Next >

[fugu-in-f]

It's still called AI War: Fleet Command.

I'm running a Let's Play. This is part fourteen.

These torpedo frigates make me so happy. The missiles aren’t especially powerful, but it’s damage at range well beyond the rest of my fleet.

Gotta say, this is getting a little busy for my tastes. Thankfully, my science theft just finished, so I can get the full fleet into Mistwall to finish matters there.

eh, who the fuck did they steal up here at the north end of the map?

Ooh, and there goes the cross-planet attack. The AI will take ships from barrackses to throw into these, which is why I usually knock those over.

Ashrend is about to get reprised with 300 Bulletproof fighters, and that gives me pause- they’ll ignore damage from certain attacks (for being bulletproof) and while my fleet currently rebuilds and travels through there, I don’t know how well it’ll all hold up.

It’s a bloody wreck, but it seems to be holding. And while that’s happening:

This decloaks everything in the sector. My hacker and its device, my scouts, my mobile space docks. Fortunately, nothing can get close thanks to the sea of torpedos and the MSD gatling railcannon.

There’s a fair amount of threat loose now that the cross-planet attack launched. I see a bunch of it is collecting next to Omeyocan, at Devoto:

It’s done! I can build Mk4 ships!

oh god devoto’s a mess

I use my fat heaping stack of science to make a few unlocks. Now I can build Mk2/3/4 bombers and cutlasses, plus Mk4 Youngling Vultures. Reckon I’m in a pretty good spot to make my final assaults- I might just want to steal a little more science for Mk3 Engineers to speed up construction. There will be losses.

< Prev | Next >

[fugu-in-f]

It's still called AI War: Fleet Command.

I'm running a Let's Play. This is part thirteen.

Today we're removing the threats in the Perandus sector before they get nastier.

beg for your life, Perandus (this is about to get expensive)

I blinked and my fleet vanished.

‘cuz I sent them next door, wow I should go to bed huh

Zeel gets more turrets now that I have Too Much Power. Varunastra gets the golem.

I target the Data Center in Ceaseless Feast, but can’t help but notice my ships aren’t actually moving towards it.

ooooh, that’s why they’re here! My fleet got kidnapped by the dire guardian, I didn't send them this way. And now I’m worried, because it’s just Loose out there.

There! At Algor Mortis! I split off my torpedo frigates and assault it with my chaff.

Reprisals are starting to get more intense. This is still very much in the realm of ‘the golem can handle it’ but if you don’t keep your AI progress handled, this starts to turn into a numbers game you can’t keep up with.

I clock the data center at Ceaseless Feast to bring me down to 76 AIP. Kalisa on the way to Maligaro has a Nuclear Eye (which blows up the whole GODDAMNED PLANET if it goes off), so I’m just going to sneak through with my Vultu-

Goddammit, I’m cut off this way! I have to break the force field if I want to travel this wormhole. I scuttle the vultures in enemy territory. Shavronne also turns out to be useless, so I get to work cleaning up my loose ends in this quadrant.

(there are 672 torpedoes free floating in space)

torpedos just kind of hang around for a while once they’re loosed, and do not count against any unit caps or costs. this is rather a lot of mini-torpedos

While I’m positioning my hacker for the Mk4 Factory, I get prompted about a cross-planet attack coming soon:

This is like where Threat comes from everywhere. I remain pretty well fortified, and this really isn’t that many ships.

I start a couple simultaneous hacks.

< Prev | Next >

[fugu-in-f]

It's still called AI War: Fleet Command.

I'm running a Let's Play. This is part twelve.

Hold the fuck on, how long was this here in Heatshiver?

Anyways, that’s Heatshiver.

Time to size up.

The three-hour mark has come and gone and my AI Progress sits at a manageable 111.

Oh, and our final advanced research station gives us a new ship type:

Fire and forgetti self-directed space sawblades. Awesome. It’s a welcome chunk of beef to add to the collection.

And oh, what a big collection it will become!

Here’s the galaxy now. Honestly, we’re in the final stretch here, now that all the core shield generators are down. Here’s what I’d like to do before beginning my assaults on the core worlds:

1) Dire Guardian lair at Perandus. Die die die die die.

2) Data Centers at Perandus and Ceaseless Feast. Maligaro too, frankly. It only helps my case to blow those up.

3) Mistwall has a Factory Mk4, as does Rathpith Globe. I can user a Hacker to claim the benefit of having one forever at the cost of 100 hacking points. Pricey, but it’s going to balloon how much fleet I can have if I can churn out some Mk4 versions of basic ships.

4) Steal science from Augyre and Voices. This’ll cost 30 and 45 hacker points respectively, but puts me that much closer to having more flavors of Mk4 ships. That saves me, oh, 75 hacker points to go steal another Mk5 fabricator or something.

< Prev | Next >