So in my current 40 planet game,

[Blahness]

I'm off to a very nice start, with 6 planets captured (all of which have at least some resources), an advanced factory, and an advanced lab and Ion Cannon II in the same system.  My fleet's about 2k big, and I'm using the Raider starships to fly in, gank the guard posts, orbital station, and warp gates of a system, then clean up with my 1k Raiders and 1k mix of everything else. 

Thing is, the AI's starting to get quite feisty on the attacks, and I suspect that capturing 6 of 40 planets might have been a bit much.  My problem, though, is that I don't know how to engage in an attack on a system that's more than 1 system away from some place that I own, and I don't know how to "shut down" a system effectively without boosting the Progress significantly. 

What percent of the planets is good to own (assuming they're decent planets)?
How do I deal with the in-between systems when attacking a system more than 1 jump away?
What do I kill to neutralize a system as a threat, but not increase the AI's overall strength?



One other side-note:  I have a mobile repair station, which has been an absolute godsend in repairing 1.5k ships after a battle against lightning turrets or bugs.  Thing is, I'm repairing all my ships at once by repeatedly right-clicking on the mobile repair station, so that the mobile repair station repairs every single ship at once.  Is there a way to stack ships so that they stop spreading around?  Cause at about 2k ships, I start to lag a bit when trying to get them to stay together.

Thank you very much!

[HellishFiend]

For the repair station, I'd suggest shift-clicking move orders across the fleet for the station itself. Its slow enough to where it will spend a good amount of time repairing each ship. Multiple passes may be necessary though. You can speed up the process by building all 15 100% tugs as well.

[x4000]

For planet hopping, there was a really good discussion on that here:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,2953.0.html  My suggestion is transports.

Regarding what percentage of planets to take, I wouldn't worry about a percentage.  It's more a fixed number of planets; some players will tell you to stay within 6-8 total planets if you can, personally I trend more towards 20-30 in an 80-planet game.  It's up to your playstyle.

If the AI is giving you a hard time on defense, then that probably means you haven't upgraded enough in turrets.  Some of those, like laser turrets, are cheap in knowledge and really powerful.  In general, a turret is stronger than a mobile ship -- just with the drawback of being immobile.  Also be sure not to neglect tractor beams.  And, if you can create a "clump" of your planets to protect yourself so that you have fewer openings into hostile space, that is always a plus (but not always possible).  Lastly, if your harvesters are always dying on a planet or two, you might consider harvester exo-shields.  They'll hit your economy, but can be worth it for the safety -- depends on your style, I just rebuild them.  Oh, and I guess really lastly, I love spider turrets because they do engine damage to incoming ships, which is invalable for stopping especially small raids in their tracks, but even slowing down larger raids.

For your question about neutralizing a system as a threat without increasing the AI progress too much, I'd suggest just capping the special forces guard post (if any), the train station (if any), and then all of the smaller guard posts.  The AIP will go up slightly from the specops post and train station, but it's very small compared to the benefit you get.  Search for "neutering planets" planets for more info on that sort of thing, but I'm sure other players will drop by with their thoughts, too.

For the mobile repair station, there's no way to stack ships, and really what you're seeing is something of an exploit (not that it hurts anything, but it's annoying to you, as you've noted).  Better solution: use the space tugs off the mobile repairs stations, so that your guys get yanked out of battle when they are too hurt, brought back and repaired, and then sent back into the fray.  In terms of knowledge that is free (since you already have the mobile repair station), and it will save you a ton of time (and lost units) during, as well as after, battles.

Hope that helps!

[Blahness]

The defense advice sounds good, and I got laser turrets once I had the knowledge to; very useful against the constant waves against my AI research system!

I try to use tractor beams, but they're kinda expensive in energy, and when you get 40/50 ships in a random wormhole (The AI research system in question has 4 enemy holes), it becomes either a game of destroying and remaking the tractors to the correct hole, or just sacrificing a lot of energy to defend em all.  I'll probably research mk2 tractors soon, because of this.

I have 15 space tugs, and they're extremely useful, but when my mobile repair station moves, the space tugs drag the ships behind that, not repairing them. >.>  Other than that, they're quite useful.  One question, though; why is there no "starship not 100%" tug?  Maneuvering my raiders that're at 75% is a bit tricky.

[Lancefighter]

Yeah, the stacking units onto a mobile repair station is the best way I can find. Especially interesting is with teleporters, if you teleport them far enough away then they will sit there in a single spot until their paralysis cooldown expires :p


Anyway; What about extending the range of them? even with tugs (and by gods they are annoying as hell :\ ) its annoying trying to keep a fleet alive, and nowadays I pretty much only end up being worried about lightning units anyway

it got to the point where id almost /rather/ my entire fleet get murdered, than repair the fleet via engineers.

also, 50 units is like 2 mk2 tractor beams - well worth going mk2 early on tractor beams than with other turrets.

as per starship tugs, do you /really/ want your fleet boosting starships to get pulled back the instant they take damage?

[x4000]

I try to use tractor beams, but they're kinda expensive in energy, and when you get 40/50 ships in a random wormhole (The AI research system in question has 4 enemy holes), it becomes either a game of destroying and remaking the tractors to the correct hole, or just sacrificing a lot of energy to defend em all.  I'll probably research mk2 tractors soon, because of this.

That works, or you could do gate-raids on the adjacent systems if you're dtermined to keep the system.  Or, if you just want to defend the advanced factory you could just plop up a force field and some turrets around (not in) it, and carefully defend it that way.  Tractor beams  a little ways out with the turrets wouldn't be a bad idea to keep the nasties away from the force field (bombers, etc), and/or those that go through force fields from going through (eyebots, infiltrators).

I have 15 space tugs, and they're extremely useful, but when my mobile repair station moves, the space tugs drag the ships behind that, not repairing them. >.>  Other than that, they're quite useful.  One question, though; why is there no "starship not 100%" tug?  Maneuvering my raiders that're at 75% is a bit tricky.

Why move the MRS?  Generally if you are busy on a planet, just park it and let the tugs do their thing.  The tugs evolved over time a bit, and at first the starships one was not needed -- now that could definitely stand to be there, though, you're right.  If you make a post about that in the bug reports forum I'll try to get to that tomorrow.

[Kjara]

On the MRS issue, any chance of getting a tug that is based on engine damage?  Often its a pain waiting for my 94% health, but 0% engine health units to get grabbed by a tug when theres a large number of hurt units on a planet.

I'd also be in favor of a minor range increase on the MRS.  I find that when I have a fleet numbering 1k+ that is all hurt(aka just came back from a raid), the best solution is to continually right click on the MRS(which lags the game since there its giving commands to so many units all the time but causes all of the units to be in the repair range since the are continually moving to the center and don't have time to worry about their collusion radius), but which speeds up the repairs by a huge factor since its pretty much impossible to have 1k units processed in any reasonable time with tugs.

[Blahness]

Why move the MRS?  Generally if you are busy on a planet, just park it and let the tugs do their thing.  The tugs evolved over time a bit, and at first the starships one was not needed -- now that could definitely stand to be there, though, you're right.  If you make a post about that in the bug reports forum I'll try to get to that tomorrow.

Will do.  I'll also argue about MRS movement in that post. 

[Blahness]

Now I've found not one, not two, but THREE more advanced research stations.  I've captured two of them now, and am heading for the third.  At 10/40 planets currently owned, and 250ish AI Progress, I'm starting to feel some real pressure on the enemy defense.  The Fortress AI I'm fighting has a mark III system I have to take out for the third AI research station; shouldn't be too difficult.

Attached is my save file; feel free to critique my unit/turret/knowledge management, and buildings.  The two docks I've built in my beachhead are going to be building up what I've lost; I kinda left it off in the middle of reorganization (moving production from far away to nearby to reduce delays, specifically).

Have fun!

(In retrospect, double posting was a bad thing.  I completely forgot that this isn't GameFAQs any more, and edit functions exist. I apologize!)

[x4000]

Engine-damage space tugs would also be interesting.  I'll add that to the list, too!

[orzelek]

As for MRS - I need to admit I'm a bit to lazy to play with tugs - so maybe creating second similar ship that has longer rep range but no tugs for lazy ones like me?

[x4000]

As for MRS - I need to admit I'm a bit to lazy to play with tugs - so maybe creating second similar ship that has longer rep range but no tugs for lazy ones like me?

You're looking for the fortress -- although it works on your planets only.

[orzelek]

But you can't really take it with you and last time I had them they were not repairing yet;)

[Blahness]

I've found a second AI Factory IV: Is it useful to capture (higher IV unit cap, or anything)?

[x4000]

I've found a second AI Factory IV: Is it useful to capture (higher IV unit cap, or anything)?

No, I would avoid taking it.  If you lose your first advanced factory, then this is your spare.  If you lose both, then you're probably just out of luck for Mark IV ships.  As long as you don't take this one, it is at least safe as your backup.

The other reason to take more than one per player would be if you wanted to build Mark IV at a more convenient location with the second one, or something like that.