A puzzle, or possibly a corner I've painted myself into...

[Vinraith]

I'm to the point where I need to take an AI homeworld. The homeworld in question has an AI Eye. This AI Eye is protected by a core force field. This, needless to say, presents something of a challenge. At present the world is not on alert, only 134 ships are present. I'd like to be able to destroy the Eye without prompting it to flood the system with reinforcements. Unfortunately, I'm a bit short on the right tools for this job.

I have all the starting starships, but the only other starship unlock I have is the cloaker. Attached are the available fleet ships, not pictured would be the Mk IV variants of everything that I have in mark III here. I'm out of knowledge (have 500 left) so further unlocks aren't possible. Any suggestions?

[PineappleSam]

Would EMP missiles help? If they disable the forcefield (and they might not, as I'm slow getting back into the game so I may have missed something) that should give you a short window to take the Eye out... probably with bomber starships supported with something that can handle decoy drones.

[oddlaurence]

Core fields are immune to EMPs and if i remember correctly, Eye is immune to blade attacks... sO maybe its possible to make small raids of like 200 ships (transported) and destroy it eventually? Sure, it will take some time, but this might work if there are no heavy defenses arround, and if there is, maybe you want to destroy those defenses first....
In the game i finished recently, i have discovered sth interesting... from previous version of this game the idea was to have as large fleet as possible so you have enough 'muscle' to take out the core planet. What i did in recent game was completely different - i was sending only small groups of ships 200-500 to destroy all core guardposts (transported, so they make it to destination lol), rebuild - repeat. If economy is at least moderate, it shouldnt be hard. Sure, i had advanced factory captured, but i'm sure it only gave me some advantage staying alive... So after all those core posts were destroyed, i got a headache trying to figure how to destroy AI comand station which was surounded by 2 core forcefields, when i suddenly noticed that comand station isnt immune to blade attacks and at that moment i had like 800 shreders, well you get the point  

I am not sure what exactly your situation is, but maybe this gives you some ideas  

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Just send in your low cap ships (MK IV bomber, Mk III bombers, Spire ships, Starships.) and keep pounding the FF till it breaks.

[ShadowOTE]

Yeah, lots of tier 4 ships being sent in as a constant set of waves should do the trick. What you should do is this: build a ton of engineers and stick them on your tier 4 factory. Attack the forcefield with bomber 4s, bomber starships, and a few high tier cover ships along with a MRS to heal. Use raid starships to shoot at the ai eye under the cover of your fleet (they can shoot through FFs from what I recall, but don't be surprised if they die long before they can do enough damage to kill the eye, at least if you only use tier 1s). If your fleet dies, send a few dozen lower tier bombers and some siege starships through to keep up the pressure so it doesnt regenerate while you're waiting for your tier 4 ships to reach the front. Rinse, repeat until the eye is dead.

[x4000]

Just send in your low cap ships (MK IV bomber, Mk III bombers, Spire ships, Starships.) and keep pounding the FF till it breaks.

Yes, I agree with this.  You could also use raid starships or similar to strike directly at the eye under the FF.  If you REALLY had to, I think you could use some lightning warheads against it, too, but I can't remember if those strike through force fields or not, and it would have to be the lit IIIs.

[Vinraith]

Just send in your low cap ships (MK IV bomber, Mk III bombers, Spire ships, Starships.) and keep pounding the FF till it breaks.

Yes, I agree with this.  You could also use raid starships or similar to strike directly at the eye under the FF.  If you REALLY had to, I think you could use some lightning warheads against it, too, but I can't remember if those strike through force fields or not, and it would have to be the lit IIIs.

Unfortunately mark I raids have essentially zero survivability these days, and Eye's are surprisingly tough targets. I'm sure if I had higher mark ones that would be the best solution, but in the absence of anything else that fires through FF's...

The lightning warhead idea is an interesting one, this late in the game (with an AIP around 350) I can afford a little uptick, but I'm not confident I could get them across the sentinel intact. Well, unless I escorted them with a cloaker. Hmm.

Anyway, thanks everyone for the suggestions everyone! I'll tinker with this a bit but hopefully mk 3 and 4 bombers will just get the job done.

[x4000]

I'd drop them in with a transport -- with that few ships, you should be able to unload them quickly.  Or your transport might die right next to it, anyway.  If one transport dies too fast, send multiple.

[Spikey00]

Unfortunately mark I raids have essentially zero survivability these day

Agreed.

--

Try transport baiting before you send in your forces.

[ShadowOTE]

Sadly transport baiting is no longer nearly as effective as it used to be. That said, in this case it could probably work, since you just need to draw their attention for a little bit.

[Sarnian]

I'd drop them in with a transport -- with that few ships, you should be able to unload them quickly.  Or your transport might die right next to it, anyway.  If one transport dies too fast, send multiple.

I didn't realise you could load warheads onto a transport -has this behaviour changed recently -the game's been updated so much, I can't keep track! 

[x4000]

I'd drop them in with a transport -- with that few ships, you should be able to unload them quickly.  Or your transport might die right next to it, anyway.  If one transport dies too fast, send multiple.

I didn't realise you could load warheads onto a transport -has this behaviour changed recently -the game's been updated so much, I can't keep track! 

I think that was changed a long while back, but maybe I'm remembering wrong, I'm not positive.

[Spikey00]

Well, it does help, and 20 transports are definitely enough to attract most of the AI away if you have no other forces on planet.  When your forces arrive, it sometimes splits roughly 1/2 to transports and to your military.

[Lancefighter]

you can however run cloaker starships with missiles cloaked under their wing 

[Vinraith]

Ended up solving the problem with mk 3 and 4 bombers, mk 1 raid, siege, and bomber starships, and a couple dozen captured FF bearers. Thanks for all the advice, guys!