At a loss.

[Trandrin]

Okay question about one does in a certain situation. Was just in a game where I had a large stream of ships swarming into my home world system. My fleet and assorted defenses had enough numbers to kill them with haste. But they where able to literally peck my shields to death and kill me with a slow attrition. They lasted long enough to keep me from ever repairing any of my several forcefields until finally they just collapsed enough for them to shoot the home command center. Once it started I realized I was in trouble but I didn't know what I could do to stem this problem once started or was it a loss the second they started grinding away at the force fields?

[x4000]

Generally if you have a large stream of ships coming into your homeworld, you're in big trouble.  Generally if that large stream of ships reaches your forcefields, you're going to die unless you have some amazing defenses already lined up.  It's kind of like having your king cornered in Chess -- you can get out of that, sure, but it's darn hard and not always possible.

I try to hold those ships at the wormhole with lots of tractors if I have some warning they are coming, and then have lots of turrets and stuff to kill them there.  If they are the type that can't be tractored, or there are too many, then I line the path from the wormhole to my command station with tons of minefields.  Even better is doing that on a planet outside of your home planet so that they never actually reach your home planet, but if this was a massive CPA that's not always possible.

The last option if there's a ton of stuff headed for your home and you have no way to stop it is to use some sort of warhead -- a nuke to kill the whole planet of them if they aren't mark V enemies, or an EMP to pause them so that you can shoot them.  Other strategies like keeping a ton of spider turrets on your homeworld all in a giant ring around the outside of your planet is something that can really help, too.

Hope that helps!

[keith.lamothe]

It won't solve the overall problem, but you can prolong the life of your forcefield pile by sending a bunch of engineers some distance away, placing a new ff generator, and speed-building it with the engies and then move it in to cover your home command station.  It's not nearly as exploitable as previously available tactics, but I imagine it would work if they let your engies get away.

Other than that, you gotta kill that stuff.  Lightning warheads might be something to look at using to forcibly interrupt the stream, and if you can somehow catch the enemy ships on another planet (which is pretty necessary: you've got to at least slow down major offensives before they get to your homeworld) you can use an EMP to stop them in their tracks and clean them up with your fleet or whatever.

Warheads do cost AIP, but if it's that or lose, and you think you can improve your position significantly if you just get past that attack, it's great.

[Trandrin]

Just guess the shield change has just unsettled me is all, used to be if I focused my attention on keeping that planet/command station alive I could pull it off unless odds were stacked against me too heavily, by sacking force fields on fronts not being attacked and siphoning them to endangered areas. Think it will take some getting used to knowing once they start beating on the gate with their battering rams I am most likely going to die, unless I have a sallying weapon/item on hand at that moment. As I can't brace the faltering door.

[x4000]

Yeah, hyper-stacking forcefields was not something we'd ever intended, and that's definitely going to take getting used to for those who used it (including Keith).  You can still stack FFs to get the benefit of all their healths individually, but you can't create more or repair existing ones under the big ones anymore.

[Trandrin]

I do find what was done against the force fields also make it very hard to set up a strong beachhead in certain areas. You can never repair or fast build more then one force field if you intend to protect your initial push without microing power off your rapidly building force fields moments before they construct, then turning them all back on again. Knowledge raiding got harder.

[x4000]

Ah, that's a good point -- hadn't thought of that.  I can't say I'm too displeased, though, because here again was another case where it was easier than intended.  Knowledge raiding is really meant to be something done only as a last resort if the game is otherwise stalemated.

[bongotron2000]

I've found Riot starships really useful in this sort of situation as they're great for dealing with masses of enemies. Load them up with lasers for long-range and high engine damage, then kite them around a bit using the Z-X keyboard combo to stay out of range of most of the AI, but just in range of the Riot's lasers. After the enemies have all been engine damaged sufficiently they should be down to 25% move speed, which should buy you some extra time to mop them up.

Also missile turrets are good; they're effective against bombers, fire several shots, and have long range.

[zebramatt]

I do find what was done against the force fields also make it very hard to set up a strong beachhead in certain areas. You can never repair or fast build more then one force field if you intend to protect your initial push without microing power off your rapidly building force fields moments before they construct, then turning them all back on again. Knowledge raiding got harder.

In this case, if you clear out the wormhole closest to friendly territory (and/or leave it sufficiently garrisoned) then you can build new force fields on the other side and ship them through when complete to provide additional cover. Of course, eventually you will run out of force fields!

[Trandrin]

Thought force fields could no longer use wormholes? Also I used riot ships to slow the blobs down, I am in love with them now.

[Ranakastrasz]

Thought force fields could no longer use wormholes? Also I used riot ships to slow the blobs down, I am in love with them now.

True. You have to use a mobile builder, and construct the force-field on the other side instead.

[keith.lamothe]

Thought force fields could no longer use wormholes? Also I used riot ships to slow the blobs down, I am in love with them now.

Glad you like them, Riots are one of my favorite types

You can also mount shield modules on them, and the Riot II and III can mount even bigger shield modules.  Unlike almost all other mobile shields those ones have the "push" effect of a mostly-immobile generator (going with the "Riot Control" theme), so in theory you could line them up with a bit of field overlap and use formation move to "push" a clump of enemy ships away from your command station long enough to let the main ff pile get past its 6-seconds-after-damaged repair delay.  But I'm not sure if this would work well in practice all the time: the logic for when a ship is getting bumped by multiple forcefields in the same frame will sometimes result in that ship being put _somewhere_, not necessarily where you'd expect.

But the Riot Shields can also be used to provide cover for a critical target in a pinch.  And could be used as an initial beachhead shield since Riots can use wormholes

[mindloss]

Speaking of riot ships, that sure smells like a feature that was meant (or is meant) to be expanded upon -- modular design. Seems strange to have it for only the one ship, and only with several module options. Any plans to offer more in that direction in the future?

[x4000]

Someday, yeah.  Keith added those in belatedly, and I don't do much with them.

Though, that said the spire ships in the fallen spire campaign are all modular, so riots aren't the only one.

[mindloss]

Ahh, okay. I kept hearing people talk about that campaign and had no idea where to find it until this morning (it IS lumped in with the rest of the scenario options or whatever they're called, right?) I'm a couple hours into one now.