Building of forces. Researching the dreadnought.



Base built with starship contructor. It takes 53 minutes to build a dreadnought and 23,000 metal. There is obviously a problem here. Need more metal. The 30,000 metal seen here went to the construction of a new fleet.



Scouting the next system. Bad choice since the Ion cannon is an insta kill super weapons. Targeted a less dangerous system.



Trying a new strategy. Building transport vehicles to carry my army(100 units per vehicle). These will protect them from the tractor beams and turrets near wormholes.



Off to the targeted system. I may be a bit hasty with this....but I'm going with it.


This post has been edited by frags: Jan 6 2010, 08:41 PM

Well, Heart of Irons is pretty hard to get into to be honest but I do remember spending some awesome time on the 2nd one, its just pretty overwhelming at first. And I do admit it can be pretty boring to tune the productions/supplies/reinforcements/upgrades/consumer goods sliders pretty much all time (that was improved in HoI3 a bit though).

As for AI War, so far I am not used to the keyboard shortcut yar, getting slowly to it, not being efficient in using keyboard shortcut is one of my major issue in gaming in general actually, I am a clicker by instinct and in some games (some speedy rts or even WoW) it sometimes makes me way less efficient.

To get back to your screens frags, the transport ships seems pretty interesting to avoid blockades yar, I was actually wondering if later on the game would not end in a turtling issue? Since from my little understanding of the game and it's possibilities so far it seems to be doable to really make some systems or wormholes pretty much impassable to the AI. The turrets system coupled with force fields seemed to me like it could hold some pretty huge fleets for a while. Or is the AI really "smart" and will find holes to pass through?

Stuff like Stealth or these transports (and maybe some empty ones sent first as lures) seems interesting

Well you can't turtle since the objective is to destroy the homeworld of both the AI's. Depending on your setting, the AI progression will advance with time(increase 10 every 30 minutes for instance). The AI progression basically means the tech level, the number of ships etc. So if you stay back, you'll be facing a more difficult foe. BUT expand to fast and you piss off the AI and they swarm you.

Wormholes are choke points, you could easily hold a few ships back(As they could with you too). But a couple of hours in, you'll find yourself facing a fleet of thousands. Which no amount of turrets could help you with.

Splitting forces to take out to different areas.


The AI is good. Here they don't just rush towards my units. In fact, they hang around near guard posts and turrets to maximise their fire power. Going after them slowly depletes my fleet.


The AI sneaks past a few ships into my planet. Now the planet is virtually defenseless. No fleets here so I had to build a small fighter fleet. They go after my resources.


Looks like its going to be a tough fight for this planet. The enemy AI dances around the system...i grow tired of this irritating enemy. Built a dreadnought to help out.

To be continued...

The battles have taken a toll on my fleet. Now the enemy outnumber us. Time to retreat but...



Thought up a new strategy, using mobile contructors. These things allow you to build buildings/defences at planets that are not in your control yet. It means turtling in a corner of their planet. I've built a shield generator, and a couple of turrets to hold that position.



With the safe confines of the shield generator, now i can rebuild my force. Engineers can repair damaged ship. Now I can slowly get this planet into my control.


This post has been edited by frags: Jan 8 2010, 09:47 PM

AI continues to harass my planets.


Taming this planet is proving to be rather difficult. Time for maybe plan B. Built a missile silo. Will help the campaign in the future too so good idea to build one now.


Built a shield generator mark 2. Using this new strategy to reduce fleet loss. Using the shield generator(its a moving ship) to escort the fleet.


To be continued...

This post has been edited by frags: Jan 9 2010, 09:30 PM

This strategy seems to be working out well so far. It's still not perfect since every enemy shot damages the shield and reduces its size. Even two engineers constantly repairing the shield isn't enough to maintain the shield if I get too close. The key is to keep your distance until all the dangerous turrets(like tractor beams) are gone.



The AI reacts by pushing my temporary base hard with cruisers and bombers.



Tried to use lightning missiles to help out. It didn't work. It seems lightning missiles damage ships not stationary objects.



Just like in SupCom, I can shift click to change targets after a ship is taken care of. Here i use fighters to handle enemy cruisers(natural counter).



Final push to get this planet under my control. Brought in some reinforcements to make the job easier. This time this planets mine.


To be continued...

This post has been edited by frags: Jan 10 2010, 06:07 PM

Zenith Remnant expansion trailer. This should be out either tonight/tomorrow on Steam.



Why is this interesting? Chris seems to be adding at least some storyline to the game. I don't think it will have a single player mission based system, perhaps just a proper back story. But a more unique AI opponent seems like a nice change of pace.

The mark 2 shields aren't holding out as I would hope. It still gets used up when facing a large and powerful opponent. Need to research mark 3 and I'll stick to this shield technique. unfortunately ran out of research points. Which means I need to capture another planet.



Forces got beat up. Rebuilding forces at friendly planet. Now its time to attack.


Multiple groups make it easier to defeat tough enemy entrenched positions.


To be continued...

PS : I'm liking all the new changes made to the game. The AI now starts using engineers to rebuild destroyed defensive positions. Really irritating but it forces me to go for the orbital command all the time. Destroying orbital command has its bad side as it attracts all the AI ships in the planet.

Zenith Remnant looks awesome with a lot more stuff in the game now. Still haven't played a campaign with Zenith Remnant content but 3.0 has a lot of changes that vanilla game gets.

AI Fleet is currently going for USD9.99.

Good deal but I have too many games on my list as it is.

Yar, one question I had about the Steam version is are we getting all the patches too?

Because I don't remember an update for AI Fleet recently

yes there is a 3.0 patch for the steam version. You'll need to reenter your cd key when you start the game(when your game has been updated). But you don't need to worry. Arcen Games keeps all version updated with the same version. Maybe your game is already updated.

This post has been edited by frags: Jan 15 2010, 05:41 PM

Ha yar, I simply did not start it yet since the update. And since the game is small I probably did not see it downloading it.
The "View Update News" of Steam is also pretty useless most of the times.

Good to know about that, Steam not getting last updates (or getting them later) is one of the few bads points about it.

Too "busy" in GTA4 atm but this game is pretty interesting
The xpas seems also to add a lot but I think I will train more on the vanilla game first.

It is also on sale in Impulse.

Don't really like Impulse though, very clunky interface.

frags, have you tried the coop yet? Is it any good (mp-wise)?

Nope. I prefer to play with people from around here. I just joined their forums but I'm not sure if I can play with them considering the time differences.

Multiplayer is direct IP connection to the host and you can save your game. A pity since I can see how co-op would be awesome. Co-op is good since you have options to share or gift lots of things to your allies.

I was about to get it during the steam holiday sales, but noticed that there's already an expansion announced. Now i guess i'll wait for a bundle sale that includes the ori + expack.

The main attracting factor about the game for me is the coop and AI. Read the article about a coop game (sadly there's only part 1) on RPS and it sounded really fun.

This post has been edited by chiakm: Jan 17 2010, 12:45 AM

The vanila version of the game got a lot of new stuff added as well. In fact until now I can't even check the Zenith Remnant content since I want to finish the game in progress. You need to recreate a new campaign with Zenith Remnant stuff in it.

Besides. Don't just read about other people telling you how great it is...try it for yourself. The demo is now 3 hours time limit...and you can play unlimited campaign(each stopping at 3 hours mark). Even with the demo you can get a lot of fun with.

Even the expansion has a demo. But be quick since the current discount(if you plan on getting it) ends 18th/19th...thats soon....

---

Added on January 17, 2010, 1:02 amThis is my progress after about 8 hours in. Still along way to go. Need to check out the south eastern corner to see if there is an AI home planet there.


Entered this planet to be conquered.


Unfortunately found this. This makes it a bad decision to take this planet. Enemy waves 3X more powerful? ermmm okay...Destroying it also makes the AI progress increase too much(by 100)...Planet should be ignored...time for a tactical retreat?


to be continued...

This post has been edited by frags: Jan 17 2010, 01:03 AM

Kinda stuck now with strong AI all around. Had to retreat to my planet. Now the AI attack me in force.


Looks bad but I might be able to hold out. Probably need to rethink how to capture the next AI planet. Hmmmmm maybe missile silo?


to be continued...

Not much people getting involved with this game hmmm