Neinzul Viral Enthusiast homeworlds or Dear God Make The Pain Stop Please.

[laughingman]

This might be a special case, but it was pretty brutal. I wonder if anyone can give me some advice on how I might proceed next time.

I was playing against a Peacemaker and a Viral Enthusiast and doing quite well against both of them. At three hours I had scouted the AI homeworlds, by seven hours I had all but one ARS, a Factory IV, and fabricators for Youngling Tiger V, Speed Boosters, and Spider Bots. Eight hours in and one CPA later, I still had the Tigers. I'd started with Stealth Battleships, and found Tractor Platforms, Microfighters, MLRS's and Autocannons from the ARS. I felt pretty good about my chances for the first homeworld, but there were several problems.

The two coreworlds both had AI eyes on them, and there was a raid engine on the homeworld. AIP was low, 262 when I first started the battle. This mean that the waves were only 400-500 strong, but they were still mark IV and coming every couple of minutes. I used hit and run tactics and tried to minimize the time I spent alerting the homeworld. I made progress, but slowly, and took a more or less continuous beating the whole time, but eventually the AI eye fell. I withdrew to regroup and rebuild my fleet.

The Raid Engine was about as far away from the wormhole as it could get, and in between were a Mark V Viral Swarmer Colony and a Core Guard Post that spawned about 1700 Neinzul Cockroaches when I got within striking distance of it. Between that and the hundreds of swarmers already released, it was a massacre. The fleet I had sent in was destroyed in seconds, and the cockroaches and Core ships from the homeworld destroyed the remainder of the fleet, and the rest of my empire, mere minutes after that.

I've never seen anything like it. It was beautiful and terrifying and impressively lethal. I just can't see how I could have avoided it. I wasn't playing with Golems or Spirecraft on, or I might have used Artillery or Penetrators. The Neinzul Spawner post was right by the Raid Engine, so as soon as I fired on it I would trigger that wave of doom. Any thoughts on what I could have done better in this situation? I'm sorry I didn't think to get a screenshot, but I was preoccupied.

[Wanderer]

I've never seen anything like it. It was beautiful and terrifying and impressively lethal. I just can't see how I could have avoided it. I wasn't playing with Golems or Spirecraft on, or I might have used Artillery or Penetrators. The Neinzul Spawner post was right by the Raid Engine, so as soon as I fired on it I would trigger that wave of doom. Any thoughts on what I could have done better in this situation? I'm sorry I didn't think to get a screenshot, but I was preoccupied.

Having no AoE ships will hurt you in that scenario, however, there is an easy way to deal with them in theory, but you have to get supply between the cockroaches and your main fleet.  They die to a wet noodle, there's just a ton of them.

First, Raid with Raid Starships.  Even 3 can take down a spawner, Raid I/II is better.  Assume they're going to die, just focus fire the Spawner.  Next get lightning turrets between the cockroaches and the rest of your fleet waiting to catch the raid engine.  ZAP.  It might take two tries with the Raid SSs.  Another thing you can try is to 'buzz' the tower and force the spawn, and RUN.  Let them drift off on attack vector.  Then head back in and deal with the 10/20 extras that spawn later.

The more range you have on roaches, the better.  Gravity is an excellent choice too.  High RoF ships can chew into them if they can stay out of reclamation range.  Not having a lot of options in that department, bring along your Fleet Starship line to kaboom a bunch of them.

Honestly, though... I don't really consider them a significant flight hazard in most circumstances.  If I'm fleet-balling my fleet can usually just alpha strike the roach-spawn while a small kill fleet (bomber SS usually) works around the side for the killshot once they've floated for the fleet-ball.  AI-Eye + 2xRaid Engine being one of the nastiest combinations I've yet to witness on a Homeworld, it sounds like you just got the short end of that particular stick.  If possible, the final option would have been to blow the tachyon guardian in the hw, and then sneak your cloakers in nearby for a killshot.  Were you going to soak a mass of Eye-spawn?  Well, yes.  Still, worth the killshot, particularly if you get a two for one of Spawner post + Raid Engine.

[PokerChen]

1) Consider taking and fortifying a choke point, say the core world next to the homeworld if there's only one - save up to max in advance so you can speed build the necessary turrets in a hurry. Like Wanderer said, you'll want AOE (e.g. Heavy beam cannons and flaks) and Gravity turrets here. Take an extra planet to unlock them if you have to.

2) 262 AIP may, paradoxically, be too low when facing the Viral Enthusiast homeworld+Raid Engine. (Which difficulty are you playing on? What fleet composition are you running into the HW with?) With greater firepower - more importantly, in terms of sheer number of bullets and bullets per second, - you can eat the 1700 roaches and swarmers for breakfast. Consider taking another fabricator or two that produces a ship-type with high firing rate, and expanding your fighters/damage soakers.
 So, if you haven't used plasma sieges, try them. Same goes for Riots equipped with machine guns/shotgun/shield - the Swarmers are probably the only thing they can one shot. Take ALL of your autocannons (marks I-IV) with you, and perhaps your MLRS.

3) Wait with your fleet on the other side to ambush the roaches, and then go in. Now that the AI eye is dead...

4) As a last resort... are the posts susceptible to warheads? Escort with cloaker starships and send enough in to take both out, assuming the warhead interceptor can be taken out first.

= = =

[Diazo]

1700 ships?

That's well above my personal threshold for turning to warheads.

Pop the swarmer and warhead the wave. When they spawn works best but that is probably not possible in your situation so catch them as they exit the wormhole. If you've got a gravity turret on the other side, that bunches them up nicely to catch in the warheads AoE.

The other thing is have you tried warheading the Raid Engines? (Warning: Never tried this strategy myself) A Core Raid Engine has 6mil HP, the same as a Mk III Warhead's damage. You would probalby have to use an Armored Warhead and so eat the 6 AIP but at the end game where you are, 6 AIP is not a big deal.

Looking at the Raid Engine's stats, I don't see anything that would prevent the warhead from destroying it. Just double check they are not immune to Major Electric as that's what a warheads attack is.

D.

[laughingman]

Warheads. Why didn't I think of that? *Grumble*

I did try to pop it with Raids a couple of times, but they couldn't survive long enough to get to it, even in a transport. Core worlds are no joke! I suppose next time I'll have to whittle it down, just like I did with the AI eye planet, and just fight off the raids.

Thanks for the advice. I think my major problem was that my fleet was largely high-cap, low durability stuff that just couldn't compete. I did have a chokepoint set up two worlds away, but it didn't last long. I don't know if the cockroaches or the 250 mark V ships did the most damage to it, but once it was down there were only four planets in between it and my homeworld.

Yeah, the first homeworld I found was six hops away from mine. It's not what you would call an ideal starting position, but you go to war with the RNG you have, not the RNG you wish you had.

[keith.lamothe]

but you go to war with the RNG you have, not the RNG you wish you had.

Fixed that for you

Nothing the AI does can compare to the kind of pants-kick mapgen can deliver

[laughingman]

but you go to war with the RNG you have, not the RNG you wish you had.

Fixed that for you

Nothing the AI does can compare to the kind of pants-kick mapgen can deliver

I just looked and I made a mistake in my original post. The first AI Homeworld was 5 hops away. Check out the screenshot attached at the end of this post. The second was eight. They're five hops away from each other on the same side of the galaxy.

It didn't take me long to find the first Core world, and I think I did a literal double-take. Mark V what? 4 hops away?