Special forces question

[barryvm]

Hey,
I'm currently fighting agains two hidden AI types.
One is almost certainly one of the fortress types (superfortresses on some and fortresses on most planets) and the other is a special forces AI.
I've been trying to keep the amount of special forces low through beachheading and placing turrets to pick off patrolling special forces fleets and doing raids on the SF guardposts.
At the beginning of the game they were content to just defend the planets I was attacking (some of which had core shield generators on them) which made superfortress sieges a real grind and I had to resort to hacking to clear the more annoying planets.
Right now the special forces (about 100 - 200 stealth battleships) are attacking some of my planets but they are not going for the home command center.
I guess they are travelling between SC guardposts but I can't clear all guardposts on one side of the map to stop them doing that (2 more superfortresses in the way there and the fortress AI has a fleet of mostly sentinel frigats, so bomber raids don't get very far).
Do special forces travel between guardposts no matter how many hops there are between them or do they only travel between adjacent planets ?
Does anyone know a better way to thin their numbers (mostly stealth battleships and sentinel frigates) ?

Any hints is hugely appreciated, as I'm about 5 hours in at the moment and I'm not making much progress so far  (only AI progress ).

EDIT: Almost forgot: does anyone know if special forces travel between guardposts belonging to a different AI player ?

[alocritani]

have you tried to bypass fortresses with assault transports (they have cloaking), deploying units just next to enemy special forces post?

[Nodor]

If there's a good spot to beachhead the AI you can draw a lot of forces into a planet and smash them.   Here's how:

First, attack a world that will draw the special forces response that has supply.   Bring a Mobile builder & some enginners.  Have capped available resources before you attack.

Pick a "quiet" part of the planet and drop your sniper and spider turrets.  Buffing them with flagship boosts helps.  Clear the planet of hostiles except for the command station, the warp beacon, and the special forces guardpost or other AIP increasers.

Set up missile, MLRS, and other turrets gaurding the wormholes.  Consider adding a fortress or two.  Set the planet to autospawn repair drones and engineers and if you have enough firepower it can be mostly self repairing.

Because this planet will register as a "defend this" for the special forces, they should be flowing through one of the wormholes into the system and into your tractor turrets and turret defenses... and over time this should limit the buildup of the special forces megafleet which can be a really big problem.


 

 

[alocritani]

Set the planet to autospawn repair drones and engineers and if you have enough firepower it can be mostly self repairing.

Is there any way to do that? using auto-build engineers only works for controlled planet (I tried)

[Kahuna]

First, attack a world that will draw the special forces response that has supply.   Bring a Mobile builder & some enginners.  Have capped available resources before you attack.

Pick a "quiet" part of the planet and drop your sniper and spider turrets.  Buffing them with flagship boosts helps.  Clear the planet of hostiles except for the command station, the warp beacon, and the special forces guardpost or other AIP increasers.

Set up missile, MLRS, and other turrets gaurding the wormholes.  Consider adding a fortress or two.  Set the planet to autospawn repair drones and engineers and if you have enough firepower it can be mostly self repairing.

You will have to first clear the planet and then let the Special Forces go away and then build the beachhead. And that Beachhead will have to be able to stop literally thousands of ships because the Special Forces move as a blob. So just sniper, spider, missile and mrls turrets wont be enough. You will need every type of turret to counter all hull types. And yes you will definitely need max (or almost max) resources. You will also need at least 20 or 30 Mark II Engineers to build the beachhead before the Special Forces arrive.

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,14828.msg163999.html#msg163999

Set up missile, MLRS, and other turrets gaurding the wormholes.

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,14270.msg163060.html#msg163060
In this case the "Command Station" would be the center of the Beachhead.

[Kahuna]

Set the planet to autospawn repair drones and engineers and if you have enough firepower it can be mostly self repairing.

Is there any way to do that? using auto-build engineers only works for controlled planet (I tried)

You could just build a Force Field to protect the Engineers and Rebuilders and Turrets to protect the Force Field.

[alocritani]

Set the planet to autospawn repair drones and engineers and if you have enough firepower it can be mostly self repairing.

Is there any way to do that? using auto-build engineers only works for controlled planet (I tried)

You could just build a Force Field to protect the Engineers and Rebuilders and Turrets to protect the Force Field.

Yes, this is what I usually done. I also put both in FRD but they are usually killed while trying to repair things outside shield.
I suppose I should activate FRD manually when no enemies are there...
I would like to see "show utility range" feature developed, so I could see the exact repair range for eng.

[Kahuna]

Set the planet to autospawn repair drones and engineers and if you have enough firepower it can be mostly self repairing.

Is there any way to do that? using auto-build engineers only works for controlled planet (I tried)

You could just build a Force Field to protect the Engineers and Rebuilders and Turrets to protect the Force Field.

Yes, this is what I usually done. I also put both in FRD but they are usually killed while trying to repair things outside shield.
I suppose I should activate FRD manually when no enemies are there...
I would like to see "show utility range" feature developed, so I could see the exact repair range for eng.

You should use the attack move (X+move order). The Engineers and Rebuilders will stay in place and only repair and rebuild objects that are nearby. So attack move under the Force Field.

[alocritani]

Set the planet to autospawn repair drones and engineers and if you have enough firepower it can be mostly self repairing.

Is there any way to do that? using auto-build engineers only works for controlled planet (I tried)

You could just build a Force Field to protect the Engineers and Rebuilders and Turrets to protect the Force Field.

Yes, this is what I usually done. I also put both in FRD but they are usually killed while trying to repair things outside shield.
I suppose I should activate FRD manually when no enemies are there...
I would like to see "show utility range" feature developed, so I could see the exact repair range for eng.

You should use the attack move (X+move order). The Engineers and Rebuilders will stay in place and only repair and rebuild objects that are nearby. So attack move under the Force Field.

Thanks, I'll try it.