How to Go Faster

[Radiant Phoenix]

Something I've been trying to do for my last few games is to win faster-- both because it gives the AI less time to build up, and because I think it will make it easier for me to get other people to play with me if I say, "this game takes about 12 hours" than if I say, "this game takes about 48 hours". (I'm aware that the two are somewhat different -- unpaused time vs paused time)

What can I do to achieve this?

Things I know:

1: For shorter unpaused time, use pause a lot and do multiple things at once.

2: Be metal-conscious: (DPS/kM)

• Champions let you move aggressively from minute 1, without diverting metal
• Use turrets instead of fortresses -- an order of magnitude less metal to build makes things much faster.
• Turret upgrades are nice because they don't cost more metal
• Fleet ships are more efficient than starships
• Despite being labeled a Starship, the Spire Corvette is much more like a Fleet Ship in terms of HP, cost, and DPS EDIT: Nevermind, I just looked at some bonus fleet ships, and it's just Bombers and Missile Frigates being heavy on the metal
  
• Offroad reward ships are more efficient than starships, and the smaller ones seem comparable to fleet ships and turrets. They're also very fast. EDIT: Not as efficient as fleet ships, but there are times when fleet ships are the wrong choice
  
• Modular Fortresses are moderately efficient if you have Mk3 nebula upgrades

3: Try to get stuff killed on your planets rather than AI planets when you can -- salvage is good and reprisal is bad

4: Sometimes Warheads are a good idea. I'm not so good at determining when, though.

Anyone else have advice, or critique of my advice?

EDIT: I think I was wrong about something, so I crossed it out.

[CaptainTaz]

If you don't mind going the cheap way, rushing fallen spire is a good way. Escort some colony ships to any generators you can't claim with spire cities (You just need to start building it, you don't have to wait for the station to fully build to nuke the generator) then immediately go for the homeworlds, using regular ships to fend off any counterattack.

I def reccomend going for 5 cities and grabbing the dred. hella useful.

((This is all theoretical of course, as I have not attempted this strategy. I have seen the spire fleet is quite invincible though when amassed together, so I'm pretty sure it will work.))

[Radiant Phoenix]

The Spire Fleet isn't invincible. Even with an armored limousine (AT) to drive them around at breakneck speeds, and with the OMD down, they often get wiped out on homeworlds, and make me need to refleet them.

5 cities = 12 shipyards = 52 FF + 12 DD + 6 CA + 3 BB + 1 DN = 52*(88,000) + 12*(200,000) + 6*(500,000) + 3*(1,000,000) + 1*(2,000,000) = 15mil M for the hulls.

Add on the cost of railguns (2x45k = 90k M per DD, 2x90k + 4x 45k = 360k M per CA, 2x 135k + 4x 90k + 2x 45k = 720k M per BB, 2x180k + 4x135k + 2x90k = 1mil M for the DN), and that's over 20 million metal to replace.

And I was mostly doing this before salvage, so even though I controlled 53 planets, I only had 21k metal income.

That's why I almost always turn around when I start losing Frigates -- because once you're losing Frigates, you're going to start losing stuff that's actually expensive.

[CaptainTaz]

I dunno how you configure them, but with max level rails and shields, only the frigates really ever die....

[Radiant Phoenix]

It might be a difficulty thing. (Also, Spire ships have gotten a 3x relative damage and health boost since back when I learned those habits)

Is your experience from normal planet-clearing, or from homeworlds?

[CaptainTaz]

It might be a difficulty thing. (Also, Spire ships have gotten a 3x relative damage and health boost since back when I learned those habits)

Is your experience from normal planet-clearing, or from homeworlds?

from baddassery. I can sit a decent fleet (double norm cap because dual homeworld) on their homeworld as I cross it. I've only ever lost a cruiser on there as I pass through destroying tach guardians.

I'll try resting a fleet on their HB tonight and tell ya the results, but really, ANYTHING that exists on a planet either gets sniped, or obliterated when they reach beam range. I'm hoping to trigger a showdown with them (and maybe the exodian blade too)

[Radiant Phoenix]

Well, Zombards, at minimum, won't die to that, because they're immune to snipers, and outrange the photon lances. Most Mk5 immobile structures are also immune to sniper attacks.

That said... now that I think about it, I think I haven't gone to the HWs with a GalCap since the buff, only with a 4-city fleet.

For comparison of capital fleets, let's assign a pre-buff FF a strength of "1", a pre-buff DD a strength of "2", etc., and compare a 4-city fleet to a 5-city galcap fleet.

Class	4-city	5-city GalCap
FF	44	52
DD	10	12
CA	5	6
BB	0	3
DN	0	1

Pre-buff raw power:

Scenario	4-city	5-city GalCap
With FF	84	140
No FF	40	88

Post-buff raw power:

Scenario	4-city	5-city GalCap
With FF	252	420
No FF	120	264

For purposes of evaluating multiple engagements, I will square each value, then, for ease of reading, I will divide by 1,000, and round:
Pre-buff square power:

Scenario	4-city	5-city GalCap
With FF	7	20
No FF	1.6	8

Post-buff square power:

Scenario	4-city	5-city GalCap
With FF	64	175
No FF	14	70

Viewed like this, I think it should be clear why I had problems that a modern GalCap fleet won't. My pre-buff GalCap fleets would reasonably expect to require 3.2 runs to do what one run with my post-buff 4-city fleets would do, and my 4-city fleet would expect to require 2.7 runs to do what a 5-city GalCap fleet would do in one run. (Evaluating purely sniper firepower, the GalCap fleet's raw strength is 2.4x the 4-city, so I would expect it to do in one run of its capital fleet what the 4-city fleet would need 5.7 runs to do)

So, what are the numbers of ships in on your fleet?

[CaptainTaz]

Current status;

2-homeworld 5/5 game (my current one)

11 planets, 27 shipyards.

Ship caps;
224 frigates
54 destroyers (2 rail MK 1, 1 shield MK 2, 2 laser MK 2)
26 cruisers ( 4 rail Mk 1, 2 rail mk 2, 1 shield mk 3, 2 laser mk 2)
12 battleships ( 2 rail mk 1, 4 rail MK 2, 2 rail MK 3, 1 shield Mk 4)
6 dreds (2 rail MK 2, 4 rail Mk 3, 2 rail mk 4, 2 shield mk 4)

in total, a fleet of 342 spire ships
+ three champions (Spire, 8 rail MK V, 6 photon lance MK v, 2 shield Mk V, 1 plasma siege MK V)

I am now sending them to the nearest AI homeworld.

[CaptainTaz]

*update*

30 (accelerated) minutes in, entire AI reserve gone, if it weren't for the implsion drones, I'd be sitting here 100% unchallenged.

I'm gunna let the game go for another accelerated hour.

*Update 2*

20 more minutes have passed, I just got visited by the zenith devourer and lost all my frigates and destroyers. There has been very little effect on my survivability thus far, and the level 4 reprisal wave did nothing.

*Update 3*

I've decided to switch to the other homeworld and see if there is any change.

*Update 4*

Made it there almost completely unscathed, lost a few frigates to an orbital mass diver though. Dealt with an artillary golem too.

Now everything is pretty much the same again...

Spire so OP

*Update 5*

Every time the reinforce/attack me, it's like watching surfers hit a tsunami, they live for a little bit, then crash and burn.

Devourer is paying another visit, this time it had mercy.

[Traveller]

What difficulty is that on?

[CaptainTaz]

What difficulty is that on?

5/5 at AI tier 3. I fucked the game over though by not saving before I woke up the exodian blade... so I forever have exos that are unbeatable x_X

[kasnavada]

Errr...

Don't pause ?

That way you'll mearn to build and defend as if you couldn't pause. And be that much faster in next games.

[TheVampire100]

Just a fun suggestion (but don't exept it to worl): Nuke verything in your way.
Nuke every planet you don't want to take. You give the AI a really bad time and have some fun... until all the AIP crashs down on you.
Could be however very funny to nuke the hell out of the galaxy.

[CaptainTaz]

Just a fun suggestion (but don't exept it to worl): Nuke verything in your way.
Nuke every planet you don't want to take. You give the AI a really bad time and have some fun... until all the AIP crashs down on you.
Could be however very funny to nuke the hell out of the galaxy.

There's an achievement called "It was the only way to be sure" where you nuke every planet in a map....

[Shrugging Khan]

Has anyone ever used Nukes to any good effect?
If yes, then what marks?