Regen Astro Train Advice

[deMangler]

I am 26 hours into a pretty good game.
I have been continually harassed by large numbers of AI ships, more than I would have expected,  and I seem to have come to a bit of a stall. Moving out of the systems I hold seems to have become impossible due to the large numbers of AI ships.
Now, I strongly suspect that this is largely due to the fact that, pretty much whenever I am fighting a wave or CPA surge,  or even when taking an AI planet, there is at least one regen astro train around.
So, I am looking for some advice or information about how to minimise the effect of these nasties.
Even simply waiting for them to pass before mounting an offensive is not an option, often it just means another one will turn up, plus you can't just wait to defend against a wave or CPA.
Also, I am pretty central galactically speaking, so re-routing is not practical.
Any ideas?

dM

[TheDeadlyShoe]

You could use Riot starships to cripple enemy engines until the regenerator train leaves the system. 

[x4000]

People love to tell me how ineffective it is to kill Astro Train Stations, which I've never understood.  That's a strategy that I use in all my games, and have since the game was early beta, and it works wonders.  Not as well with a train master or similar, but in most games it doesn't take but a few hours before there are practically no trains coming through my systems.

At any rate, that's what I would do here, too.  Simply snip off the astro train stations that are near yourself, or where you want to go, and that should help immensely.  Astro Trains are only able to move from one station to another, so if there are no lines between stations that intersect your area, you won't see them.  Then when the AI ships come into your area, you kill them once and for all and that's done with it.  This is another reason I tend to carve out a corner of the map and then make my offensives out from there, is that then there's really no chance of that sort of thing.  But it should be a strategy compatible with most styles of play, I think.

[Velox]

People love to tell me how ineffective it is to kill Astro Train Stations, which I've never understood.  That's a strategy that I use in all my games, and have since the game was early beta, and it works wonders.  Not as well with a train master or similar, but in most games it doesn't take but a few hours before there are practically no trains coming through my systems.

At any rate, that's what I would do here, too.  Simply snip off the astro train stations that are near yourself, or where you want to go, and that should help immensely.  Astro Trains are only able to move from one station to another, so if there are no lines between stations that intersect your area, you won't see them.  Then when the AI ships come into your area, you kill them once and for all and that's done with it.  This is another reason I tend to carve out a corner of the map and then make my offensives out from there, is that then there's really no chance of that sort of thing.  But it should be a strategy compatible with most styles of play, I think.

     Planets that serve to connect large groups of stars (and their neighbors) - common even on the simple map type - will never be free of trains, since you'd have to empty half the galaxy of stations to eliminate all the potential routes passing through them.  I have to admit finally turning trains off since all the new ones were added.  It's the only gameplay element I've ever done that with but I haven't looked back.

[triggerman602]

ya i pretty much turned trains off from the beginning. before in 2.0 they were annoy as they would come through and harass you with the 2 billion health and there was not much to do about it but counter it or find the stations and kill them. now that they have these awful upgrades it makes them all the more annoying. I'm fairly certain i wont be playing with trains anytime soon unless they get an overhaul.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Regenerator trains are fun... the mix up the game in much more interesting ways than the basic trains. I had a regenerator train pass through a sector with an active SuperTerminal... I ended up losing 200 turrets and 500 ships at my home station Oo

Fortunately i managed to kill off all the serious threats to the force fields.

[RCIX]

I have them off in my games, but in ones i download (*cough* GotM *cough*) they're on, and it's mildly interesting.

[deMangler]

Thanks for the feedback.
I am learning to cope with them. Definitely something extra to think about.
If I come up with any neat tricks I will post them here.
dM