7/7 Advice needed

[Tridus]

You seem to be doing really fine there, so I'll only really comment on the thing people haven't mentioned:

Dealing with AI Eyes.
It's simple really. First off, try not to blob them, because once you outnumber the AI 2:1, they Eye will trigger. No matter what type of eye it is, it'll hurt. Second, don't try to kill the Eye. That's really really really really boring and often unnecessary. Once all the guard posts in the system is destroyed (including the stealth ones, though I think those are visible these days) it will self destruct. A far easier way to deal with it. Raid starships are great for Eye-assassination.

Interesting, thanks for the advice. I have found the eyes problematic. You think it would be worth it to unlock higher tier Raid Starships for that? I've got an Advanced Starship Constructor, so I could get to mk IV.

[LordSloth]

Well, so is an artillery golem. It can take out an eye directly in around a half a minute.

[Mánagarmr]

Well, so is an artillery golem. It can take out an eye directly in around a half a minute.

Well, yeah. However, that requires you to actually have such a golem and that means dealing with exos. Which is a whole another challenge

[Mánagarmr]

Interesting, thanks for the advice. I have found the eyes problematic. You think it would be worth it to unlock higher tier Raid Starships for that? I've got an Advanced Starship Constructor, so I could get to mk IV.

No problem, happy to help! But no, not unless the Mk I Raid Starships can't get the job done. Higher marks of Raid Starships might be good to have, but if Mk I's can do it, why unlock more?

[LordSloth]

Well, so is an artillery golem. It can take out an eye directly in around a half a minute.

Well, yeah. However, that requires you to actually have such a golem and that means dealing with exos. Which is a whole another challenge

Silly rabbit, exogalactic strikeforces are for kids hard factions. Tridus is on moderate.

As to Raid Starships, if you're 6.0, high mark raid starships are awesome and can just tear apart guard posts. If you're on the recent version, those posts are a lot tougher, but you can get some nice traits/immunities that make them much more survivable. I sadly haven't tried them out yet, and can't speak to their effectiveness.

If you stumble across an armored golem, those are also excellent for taking out guard posts in an eye protected system.

Try combining your default cloaker starship with transports, either filled with fleet ships or mks 1-3/4 starships. Plasma Siege, Heavy Bomber, all off them become crazily more effective with a bit of cloaking and standby when necessary. You can get into range and not worry much at all about the patrols.

[Tridus]

I'm on the current beta as of a couple of days ago. No armored golems on the map. I've currently got a Botnet, Cursed, Hive, and Black Widow Golem. There's a couple of Regeneration ones still available on the map. The Bonet is actualy my primary defense, since the only thing the AI is really throwing at me that it can't stop on a normal wave is Spire Gravity Rippers, and the two systems they can launch waves at have enough turret/fortress defense to handle those.

Hmm, you know I hadn't actually even tried the Cloaker Starship! Seems like a huge omission, I'm going to build some of those next time I play. With the existing Starship fleet I have (Flagship/Zenith/Spire Starships all up to mk IV and a Plasma Siege V), being able to move them around with some more safety would be hugely powerful.

Thanks folks!

[Tridus]

Okay, 13 hours in now! I'm finding it slower going to take planets now as the AI pushes back harder and I need to be careful about what I take. I did take a couple of interesting planets:

- The one in the top left near the AI Homeworld had a Spire Archive (successfully used). I unlocked and put up a Warp Jammer there, so it's keeping the world next to the homeworld from going on alert. I plan on using it as my staging area for the homeworld assault.
- The one in the upper part of the middle had nothing of value, I took it simply because it was within non-deepstrike distance of three coprocessors (marked as P1). The fourth one was already on a border world. It also let me reach a data center way down in the bottom right (one of the coprocessors was also down there, no longer marked since it's gone). The cloaker starships were helpful in making those raids, though they didn't survive it. (The Plasma Siege V is an absolute monster, I had it along for the ride along with my Flagship IV for the attack boost, and my Spire/Zenith Starships IV).

My next step is to set up near the second AI Homeworld, probably on P8 (the second Spire Archive) with another Warp Jammer. I want to use those as the staging areas for my homeworld assaults. At this point I'm not sure if I should take more planets or not, but one area is tempting. In the top middle marked by P5, P2, and P5 are three planets in a row. All three of them contain a Spire Civilian Leader. The middle one also has a Regeneration Golem. Given that they're relatively defendable due to the limited number of entrances, I'm kind of tempted. On the other hand, that's more AIP and would undo the 60 reduction I have left (but give me 3 more SCLs worth as the game goes on).

I'm torn on if it's going to be worth it or not. There isn't anywhere else I plan on taking at this point as doing so would result in my defenses getting overextended. I'm concerned about that since the core ships all seem to be immune to reclamation, which means if some of them come after me my Botnet golem won't be able to help.

[LordSloth]

Do you want to try to conquer the universe?

SCLs cost roughly 15-21 AIP to take, if you've already cleared the warp gates or not. If you count the per hour increase, capturing one will only pay for itself in five hours. If you do need the knowledge, I highly recommend grabbing the regeneration golem and some high mark teleporting engineers. That is, if you weren't using Warp Jammer forward bases. With forward spacedocks and human warpgates for fabs/factories, you can probably rely on your forward base just fine.

If you do decide to conquer the universe, mines (EMP especially) might help prevent you from being overwhelmed at your chokes.

So yeah, I'd greedily grab the regenerator golem and spire civilians, but that's not the course of action I would recommend, if you're already at the front door of one AI and enroute to the second.

On the other hand, if you're taking a bunch of casualties every time you push forward, the regenerator will help you sustain a push, making the AIP reduction less necessary.

[Tridus]

I ended up taking those worlds after all, because I wanted the Regen Golem and the other two were nearby. I'm moving fairly slowly, so I think I'll break even from the SCLs or at least come close enough that it's not so bad.

Hit all the co-processors and all the data centers. Then I moved up to set up my second beachhead, and attacked that AI HW first (since my fleet was already there). I found a few things during that and in general during the last few hours of playing:

1. I unlocked more Raid Starships. They do the job of getting in and killing things, but I find they're kind of fragile and I can lose them easily. I had reasonable success using my Spire/Zenith Starship fleets (I-IV) along with a Flagship IV. They're slower, but they're also tougher and pack tremendous firepower in repelling things that come after them.

2. I used the extra knowledge I got to unlock Neinzul Enclaves II, III (and IV). They're awesome. With that number of them, so many drones were spawning that they were clearing AI reinforcements on their own easily and keeping my fleet totally free to attack. The lone Mercenary one I had was good, but it doesn't compare to when you have them in force at all.

3. The core guard posts say they launch an attack if lazy AI is off. I have lazy AI off, and I didn't really notice this. Some ships appeared here or there, but it honestly wasn't terribly noticable.

4. I found my golems of very limited use in the HW assault. Something was pounding the tar out of my Black Widow and I had to retreat it. The Regen golem worked, but it lost health really quickly. The Cursed Golem also seemed to work but it's fragile and I had to retreat it quickly as well... and the Hive Golem gave me a mesasge I'd never seen before when I unloaded the wasps on the HW, some kind of AI response. I decided that was best avoided, whatever it was. Besides, the Neinzul drones were really effective enough that I didn't need the Wasps. (I didn't bring the Botnet at all, that's being used as my primary defense fleet.)

5. I had to retreat back to my fortified beachhead several times before taking the HW, but that prevented my fleet from suffering massive losses. So I'm in fairly good shape now with most of my fleet intact and reasonable resources available to head to the second HW. The AI did try to counterattack my fortified post once, and it went poorly for it. (Millitary III post with a Fortress II and about 30 of each of the mk II base four turrets, 20 spiders, and 2 HBC II's. Oh, and EMP mines. I basically dumped every defense I had left on that planet.)

Anyway... one HW down. AIP is at 354, and with my fleet in good shape I'm ready to head over to my other beachhead right away. I think I've got this one in the bag now. Thanks for all your advice.

[keith.lamothe]

Onward to Victory!

(or a nasty surprise, but probably not on 7/7)

[Hearteater]

4. I found my golems of very limited use in the HW assault. Something was pounding the tar out of my Black Widow and I had to retreat it. The Regen golem worked, but it lost health really quickly. The Cursed Golem also seemed to work but it's fragile and I had to retreat it quickly as well... and the Hive Golem gave me a mesasge I'd never seen before when I unloaded the wasps on the HW, some kind of AI response. I decided that was best avoided, whatever it was. Besides, the Neinzul drones were really effective enough that I didn't need the Wasps. (I didn't bring the Botnet at all, that's being used as my primary defense fleet.)

Does the AI have Implosion Guardians by chance?

[Tridus]

I'm not sure about the implosion guardians. Maybe.

Took out the second HW. I lost some planets in the process, as that HW had what I believe was both a core raid engine and a core CPA post. That CPA was over 4000 ships and was unpleasant for my isolated worlds. (Honestly the core worlds had so many zombies and gatlings that I think I could have held them.)

So it was a bit surprising when I started to move in and two attacks get declared. Not enough to stop me though. Thanks for your help.

[keith.lamothe]

Congratulations!