How do you deal with core reactors that are in another part of the galaxy?

[Philo]

Well in our game we have both of the last core reactors on different parts of the galaxy. The other one 9 hops away and the other 5 something. Got the core reactor 9 hops away by first going with force with an armored golem and some fleet to destroy the tachyon guardians and most of the fleet and guard posts on the planets on the way, left the CS's intact though. Then with cloaker starships sneaked some Colony ships on the planet, made a CS and took the core reactor out.

Now this sounds pretty simple but it took about 2 hours to actually do this. And I might have to do this on a smaller scale again on the other core reactor.
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And to top that, both homeworlds are right now about 10 hops away, each in totally different direction. Right now we have about 25 planets.
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So how do you guys usually deal with far away core reactors?

[Zair]

I don't mean to sound overly pedantic or anything, but for the sake of avoiding confusion...

Do you mean the Core Shield Generators?

[Philo]

Yeah that's right, core shield generators.

[Kruztee]

Well in our game we have both of the last core reactors on different parts of the galaxy. The other one 9 hops away and the other 5 something.

If they are both Group A Core Shield Generators, and they truly are the last two, then you'll only need to hit one of them. The last one will self destruct. If they are from different groups (non-A Group) then you'll only need to hit any one of the group and the rest in that group will self-destruct. If both CS Generators are from different groups, then you have still more Generators on other planets that you haven't scouted yet.

And to top that, both homeworlds are right now about 10 hops away, each in totally different direction. Right now we have about 25 planets.

Yeah, I think it's an intended feature of the game that AI Homeworlds spawn just about as far from the human Homeworlds as is possible.

So how do you guys usually deal with far away core reactors?

There's no really easy way to do it unfortunately, since as you know, you'll need to build a Command Station on the planet in order to destroy the Shield Generator. If the planets are on systems that are a long way from the AI Homeworlds, this can work in your favour by bluffing the AI into reinforcing worlds that are not really tactically important to you.

[Philo]

So you only need to destroy one of each reactor type??? Like one of A,B and C. The homeworlds begin with 11x or something invulnerability so is this really the case? I remember always having to destroy all reactors before all the invulnerabilities disappear.

And yeah they were  different types, probably. At least the last one didn't self destruct when I got the other.

Also, as a sidenote. I'm just amazed how some people can get their AI Progress as low as 300 when they finish the game with how many planets you must take to win. For me it's usually closer to 1000 when nearing the end.

[Kruztee]

Group A generators all need to be destroyed by the player except one. That last one will self destruct. For all other groups (B,C,D,E I think), only one must be destroyed by the player. The rest in that group will then self destruct. Hope that helps

[Philo]

Thanks. Didn't know that.

[Kruztee]

The Group A ones can be bothersome, making you take planets (even multiple planets) that you really wouldn't otherwise consider. The other groups though I find really don't impact the gameplay all that much on 60-80 star maps since you'll generally find one of each type in the area that you want to take anyway. I could imagine that on large maps they might be a bit more interesting. Of course if they really bother you, you can always turn the feature off at game creation, but my understanding is that they were introduced as an offset to the AI Home Command Stations now requiring far FAR less firepower to destroy than in previous builds of the game. I remember that you had to hammer away for what seemed hours on AI Home Command Stations with fleets of bombers to win. It was a real grind, and the new setup is far more interesting, in my opinion.

[Zair]

I can't remember where I read this, but apparently they're also seeded on planets with objectives that you ought to be capturing ANYWAYS.

e.g. Advanced Factory IV, fabricators or the all-important Advanced Research Stations.

[Philo]

Yeah I'm really fine with how it is right now. Random difficulties like the last reactor sometimes being far and hard to get make this much more interesting of a game.

Now that I checked my game btw the last core shield generator did blow up as a result of me eliminating the other. Now it's off for the homeworlds.

Daammn. Love this game.

Edit: Yeah there was an ARS on the planet too.

[Nalgas]

There is totally a list/article of all these things somewhere that explains the seeding and mechanics.  You do indeed need to take out all but one of the Class A generators, and only one each of B through E.  The A's spawn on ARS worlds, B's are on Factory IV worlds, C's go with fabricators, I forget what D's are but they're associated with something, and then E's are just randomly assigned.  There's a filter for the galaxy map that'll show all of the ones that you've discovered by scouting and label them by type, and you can watch all the others of that type disappear when you blow one up.

Oh look, I found it.

As far as how I deal with them, if they're on planets I would be taking anyway for some other reason, I deal with them right then and there, otherwise I wait until toward end of the game to decide which ones make the most sense.  Most of the B-E ones can be ignored, and one of the A's, so you have a little choice about which are the least out of your way or least painful.

[Haagenti]

Well in our game we have both of the last core reactors on different parts of the galaxy. The other one 9 hops away and the other 5 something. Got the core reactor 9 hops away by first going with force with an armored golem and some fleet to destroy the tachyon guardians and most of the fleet and guard posts on the planets on the way, left the CS's intact though. Then with cloaker starships sneaked some Colony ships on the planet, made a CS and took the core reactor out.

If you use Light of the Spire, you can use mining ship to construct a teleporting transport ship from an asteroid. These are quite small (like 5 or 10 capacity), but this is enough for a colony ship and some engineers. This works much better than Cloakers as they simply teleport to the new location in seconds.