How to deal with AI shield boosters?

[Spikey00]

Actually does anyone have a good strategy against shield boosters--they're kind of messing up my strategy right now, causing some havoc for my fleets.  I'm trying starships and a mix of suicide Zenith Shredders, but the shredders are being maimed by defenses and AI forces, and my starships can only handle so many ships at once (and they don't always prioritize shield boosters automatically)...

I'm having a lot more difficulty since the AI acquired this ship--I'm even seeing the dyson spawn having to "hump" boosted AI ships in order to get a decent hit %.  Is there anything that I can do beyond starships, because even then I don't have enough firepower and micro to destroy these blasted things when all the AI units are boosted up to 5x.

I'm currently trying to get more fleet starships and raids, along with some mercenary beam frigates and perhaps I can bring in my fortress creep, but this is a significant problem.

[Lancefighter]

well, fleet starships ignore shields... laser or missile turrets have huge range, but still not that much (not much more than gatlings). That heaves heavy beam cannons (+merc frigates), or swarms of fighters?

shield boosters are certainly a turtle's friend.. having 6 of them in a fleet certainly makes the majority of the fleet impossible to kill..

but if a dyson hits, they still do 88k damage....

[Diazo]

It would be expensive because they are mercenary units, but the Beam Frigates from the Mercenary Space Dock ignore shields.

Send them in covered by your main fleet as a shield should work.

Or EMP the system. I've discovered the EMP missile in my current game and I'm loving it.

D.

[Fruden]

 Just saw your post in aar, since this is a conquer all game, that means you have supply on all planets where you fight?

 If so, you can try to build some turrets in a corner and assign them shield boosters. Snipers, spiders, lightning, heavy beams and fortresses all ignore shields, and lasers have a very high hit chance (minimum 80%) regardless of shields and distance.

 Otherwise maybe some of your bonus ships? Issue with the mercenary beams (and the heavy beams) is beams will hit everything between themselves and the shield boosters before getting their target and since they tend to be accompanied by large groups...

[Spikey00]

I think I have negated the AI's ability with the shield boosters for the majority with ironically, raid starships.  I never noticed they had so many special resistances, so they're doing fine running around destroying the command stations and the like while the AI falls into my main fleet on my friendly planet gradually, instead of having to deal with both defenses and AI mobility.

However with that said, I had cleansed a planet of heathens and only 15 shield boosters remained; a group of maybe 600 II-III bombers were already on planet and started to FRD into the group, along with a group of around 600 II-III fighters.  That was quite a terrible mistake, as I thought they would be able to handle those units, and after I came back I saw that I lost almost all my fighters, and a lot of my bombers were damaged in the process, and the darned things still weren't destroyed!

So I have learned that I should never mess around with these units; even though it will cost me greater suffer to build those expensive beam frigates (rather than spamming fighters) and macro (to handle my manufactories because I generate more metal than crystal), I think I should be able to minimize the frustration. 


As a side comment, why don't raid starships have mine immunity?

[Lancefighter]

AHA! Mines! I knew there was some simple immunity they didn't have xD
kidding, but i seem to recall them not having blade immunities too a while back, is that still true?


(also, do light starships not ignore shields?)

[Spikey00]

I cannot recall whether or not they had melee immunity, but it would make sense (besides they move so quickly).

Light starships shoot through shields (I think).  That's some confidence in my answer! 

[Lancefighter]

well, light starships might be the answer to shield boosters then - minor micromanagementy perhaps, but cheaper than massed bombers id think...

[Spikey00]

Oh, well I was busy holding another planet with those forces, and I sent the bombers and fighters in to quickly deal with the remaining defenses and shield boosters, the fighters after I saw the bombers were surprisingly missing so much.  Perhaps cruisers work...?  It was not in my calculations that 15 shield boosters would be able to survive 600 bombers...  apparently not.

Well, I shall keep it in mind later on, thanks for the information everyone.

[Spikey00]

Wait--new question here.  I hilariously got the Z polarizer after an advanced research station cap, so I'm wondering how these will fair against the shield boosters:  other units that are affected by the shield boost, will this further increase damage done, or is it only based on the raw amount of shielding?

[Lancefighter]

well, i have no clue, but I'm willing to bet there is no getbaseshields function check in shooting - just a geteffectiveshields or similar. Makes no sense to have something else..

[superking]

I always ALWAYS choose zenith polarisers