Exos have become insane

[Kahuna]

After the buff to the Exos they have become insane. Capturing any objects like Advanced Factories, Fabricators or Zenith Power Generators is no longer an option as it's impossible to defend them. The only viable option is to only unlock MarkIIs of all ships and capture all golems in the Galaxy. Unlocking MarkIIIs would be waste because defending the Advanced Factory isn't possible. After the buff the first Exos always destroy me. Yes I Broken Golems, Botnet Golem and Spirecraft were all 4/10 Hard and the AIs were 10/10.

In every Exo there's few hundred ships from MarkI to V, ~5-10 every Starships, ~4 Spire Shield Bearers, ~4 Spire Siege Towers and something. Then multiply all of those by 3 (3 exos). Gonna have to try spamming Spire Mini Rams. Probably the only option.

Any ideas how I or anyone could defend vs the Exos? Fortresses, MarkIII Basic Turrets and Hardened Force Fields? + every single turret on 1 or 2 planets?

[Martyn van Buren]

I don't play with exos, but could having three separate exo sources be making it unreasonably difficult?  I'm not sure whether having more exo options turned on makes individual exos harder or just causes more of them to happen.

[keith.lamothe]

Bear in mind that Diff 10 AIs multiply their exo strength by 3.  Diff 9 multiply them by 2; 8 by 1.5, and anything lower than that has no multiplier.

Also, playing with all 3 AIP-driven-exo sources (Broken Golems, Botnet Golem, Spirecraft, all on "Hard") is going to be very intense.

[chemical_art]

I'd advising throwing in some fallen spire to those 3 exo waves

(I kid, I kid. But at least then if you lost that factory it is not the end of the world)

[Ragnarok]

10/10 is meant to beat you and as such should not used a baseline for balancing etc.

[Kahuna]

Now I also always run out of resources all the time. Mark III Harvesters, 2 planets and no resources. So I can't even get my first Golem before the Exos. 10 metal asteroids, 8 crystal asteroids and a GravDrill.

[Cinth]

3 Exos are very brutal.

I'm not entirely convinced that the Botnet was ever worth its own Exo. It eats fleet ships reliably up to Mk IV but pretty much all Exos contain are ships that are immune to reclamation. The Botnet can't meaningfully assist in fending off the Exo.

Of course all this is opinion and is probably skewed by the way I play. 

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, Botnet balance is still very much open to feedback.

[Cinth]

Well... from my play experience with the Botnet, it seems like the Botnet eats fleet ships reliably up to Mk IV.

Perhaps the AI response to the Botnet should include ships that the Botnet can fight.

The Spirecraft and other golems can contribute to fending off their Exos.


Heh... lost my train of thought... 

[TechSY730]

You know how exos due to Golems (hard) have an increased chance of choosing centralized "loadouts" for their exo wave? Well, why not give the exos due to Botnet (hard) an increased chance of choosing decentralized "loadouts" for their exos? This would, on average, increase the number of fleet ships the AI puts in their Botnet (hard) exo waves, as they are more likely to choose lots of smaller ships for this minor faction.

[keith.lamothe]

You know how exos due to Golems (hard) have an increased chance of choosing centralized "loadouts" for their exo wave? Well, why not give the exos due to Botnet (hard) an increased chance of choosing decentralized "loadouts" for their exos? This would, on average, increase the number of fleet ships the AI puts in their Botnet (hard) exo waves, as they are more likely to choose lots of smaller ships for this minor faction.

That's a good point.  But it begs the question of whether the purpose of the exos is to counterbalance the Botnet, or merely to feed it

[Cinth]

For me, the Botnet needs to be able to fight against he AIs response to it. If I wanted a bunch of zombies in my area, I'll deepstrike and let the Botnet eat those all day long (best use of the Botnet EVER). But all in all those zombies don't assist in front line defense. They swarm around your planets. If the AI never gets to your systems they just accumulate (same can be said of Dyson Gats and HRF).

While you don't want to blatantly  feed the Botnet, perhaps a % of the Botnet Exo could be fleet ships that would be optimal for the Botnet to turn into zombies to help with defense. You would still need to support the golem with other resources.

Thinking like a Hive Golem type response only the Botnet has to reclaim its "wasps"

[keith.lamothe]

If I wanted a bunch of zombies in my area, I'll deepstrike and let the Botnet eat those all day long (best use of the Botnet EVER).

Deepstrike-generated-threat isn't already zombified?  Odd, we made Eye-generated and SuperTerminal-generated stuff zombies to avoid them just being Botnet feeding grounds.

[Cinth]

If I wanted a bunch of zombies in my area, I'll deepstrike and let the Botnet eat those all day long (best use of the Botnet EVER).

Deepstrike-generated-threat isn't already zombified?  Odd, we made Eye-generated and SuperTerminal-generated stuff zombies to avoid them just being Botnet feeding grounds.

Pretty sure about those being normal ships...  I'll load up a save and double check to be sure though.

OK.. thats probably the most severe deepstrike I can create. Its the planet beside the AI Homeworld. No Zombies.

And just to say... the Botnet Golem can't handle anything like that. I've tried    Full caps of everything I had and MRS to boot. 6000 various ships in that situation didn't last long at all.... think I ended up with over 1000 Mk V deepstrike related threat after they killed off the entire fleetball. lol

Mk IV and V response overwhelms the Botnet real quick like. 

[Faulty Logic]

I think the new exos are just about perfect. It is quite possible to survive them, even with 10/10 AIs, even with golems at 10 and spirecraft at 6. Now, doing it without warheads...