Strategies for dealing with Darkspire 10/10

[Mal]

Alright Chemical Art, do your best to walk me through a Darkspire 10/10 strategy.

I know that when ships die at intensity 4, the Vengeance Generator starts ticking up a certain amount of points before spawning a couple of Hatred ships that can easily wreck a command post. I also know that the VG generates some wraiths. Finally, on intensity 4, there seems to be about 4-6 VG's on a 40 planet map.

What else should I know at intensity 10?

[chemical_art]

Ok cool, the reason I say be careful about Dark Spire is  the quantity of them that are spawned from the very beginning. It is very possible to cause a "feedback loop" in which the wraiths generated are strong enough to wipe out one planet then swarm to the next one. They push on until they find another dark spire structure, then they stir up that one too, etc. In short, once the process starts it is very possible it will cause a cycle of destruction / creation that will not stop for the entire game.

For this reason, you need to set up your empire as best you can before you start the process because they probably is no turning back. You must consider these challenges:
1) You will most likely need to force a one planet chokepoint for the rest of your empire. You need this because you will not have the M or E to defend multiple fronts. It will be very, very difficult to expand beyond this chokepoint later on because there will be so many dark spire flying around and like the AI you simply cant kill them fast enough.
2) No matter how hard to try, you will never permanently be able to hold any planet with a dark spire structure. You might be able to temporarily hold it in an effort to gather K or something, but it will never be an asset in terms of M or C. Even with multiple fortresses and turrets I just couldn't manage to suppress the creation of forces. To compare it with point 1 you may be able to hold some planets with tenacity, but not if they share the structure with the dark spire.
3) As for the chokepoint itself, you will need to fortify it like crazy. The blitz will be long and vicious with few breaks until the galaxy is truely clear. As a result you need several long range defenses and have to clear out any intruders immediately. To do anything short and you will be overwhelmed.
4) Once the blitz is clear, you will still have dozens if not hundreds of dark spire patrolling betweeen the worlds. You will have to bypass them without a fight on your way to the AI HW.


Now you will have a few advantages.
1) You should set the AI to adjust its waves so it has to spawn outside your systems. It will be tricky pre bltiz. However, once things happen anything short of an exo-wave will be killed for you by the dark spire.
2) If you can survive the initial blitz, your defenses should hold for the rest of the game on your chokepoint, allowing you to focus your energy on offense.
3) It is hilarious when it is all said and done.


Anyway, I'll post actual specifics when I get back. Ta ta for now.

[Mal]

Wow, very cool. I love this, thanks for the details Chemical.

This makes me want to try a 10/10 game and use the Darkspire as a bomb in the middle of AI territory..just deepstrike into it with an assault transport and try to "shake the hornets nest".

[chemical_art]

Regarding specifics, here is what I remember from my game:

The game will have three main phases. The blitz, where the hornets are let loose and you do nothing but attempt to survive the onslaught. Pre-blitz is when you aim to consolidate power without triggering the blitz and post blitz is when things calm down because the galaxy has mostly been torched.

To start, you will need to use champions. You need those special fortress rewards for your chokepoint and those extra ships as well. The nenzul variant, with its cloaking will be your best friend as you try to avoid stirring up hornets in a dash toward the special wormholes. That same nenzul variant can lead any charge onto enemy homeworlds post blitz. I still think that ship has an exploit you can use so experiment, I just can't say it because Arcen would then fix it.

Regarding your bonus ships you need a ship class that is cheap. You will be throwing that ship into the melee that occurs during the blitz, with the hope it takes blows to keep more vulnerable ships alive. In other words you need younglings. I prefer fireflys because of guaranteed AoE. Nothing fancy about them. Build 10 space docks on your chokepoint, loop the build order with nothing about them, press ctrl + V and click the neighboring planet with the most dark spire. They will fend off any threats on your world first, then they will make it to the other planet and tie up the dark spire there rather then your own planet buying you valuable time. Don't bother with regen chambers; You need the nenzul to do the dying so your defenses do not.

As for map layout, you need a solid chokepoint. You will probably want at least 2 planets behind that chokepoint to supply it, but more is fine as long as no dark spire structures exist that could backdoor your fortress world. You will also need a map that features champion wormholes with the nearby ones not blocked by dark spire structures. Once you get the cloaking from the nenzul you get a little leeway, but you still should reroll if you cant get 3 or 4 wormholes in peace.


As for exo-sources such as golems, etc. I would not consider it worth it. Most of those craft are not really effective at fighting the dark spire to begin with, and the threat of exo-s disrupting your pre-blitz plan is the worst.

Regarding order of operations, establish your chokepoint and develop planets behind it as normal. Afterward, you will be looking for ways to increase your power with the understanding that anything beyond your chokepoint will die during the blitz. I would consider it wise grabbing an easy research station or two (with the goal of more cheap ships, especially younglings) and doing enough champion stuff to get at least one racial fortress. Don't stir up the AI to much pre-blitz, be strategic. The more the AI is stirred up the longer the blitz will be as the AI recovers ships faster.

For your fortress world you will want a MK III military station. You need the damage boost and the tachyon beams, and extra railguns don't hurt either. Fairly standard defense layout except all your unique defense toys go on one planet instead of being spread out.


I'm sure I am missing something, I'll come back

[Mal]

Very interesting.

I will go experiment with the neinzul variant as proposed to find out what you mean. Sounds like before the blitz you would want some armored warheads for those Hatreds that are sure to spawn.

Does the VG generate anything stronger than a Hatred? Or does it just spam them at high levels?

[chemical_art]

Does the VG generate anything stronger than a Hatred? Or does it just spam them at high levels?

I think at my peak I had like 200 dark spire on my world, although the equilibrium was usual more around the 100 mark. I didn't use armored warheads because they come piecemail, and blowing a warhead to kill a dozen doesn't help so much.

[Toranth]

If you feel too "in control", you can toss in the Zenith Devourerer, who will kindly kick off the Vengeance Generators early (and often) for you.

[chemical_art]

If you feel too "in control", you can toss in the Zenith Devourerer, who will kindly kick off the Vengeance Generators early (and often) for you.

I will try this some time. I always worry the start of games are too boring anyway.

[Mal]

If you feel too "in control", you can toss in the Zenith Devourerer, who will kindly kick off the Vengeance Generators early (and often) for you.

Yeah! Great call here Toranth!

[Pumpkin]

Well, I'm in! And I'm out my first loop effect, thought it didn't go for the blizzard you describe, Chemical Art. Maybe not so many VG were activated. But they neutered some planets and allowed my scouts to go deeper without the need of tachyon raid!

Anyway, I'm here for a question. How to deal with 17 VG on 49 planets? 4 A-prime CSG are on VG'ed planets, so I'll need to take a least 3 VG'ed planets, saving the deepest in "dark Spire territory". Is this doable because when all the galaxy is neutered there is no more ships to die and provoke the dark Spire's loop? However, there is Roaming Enclaves at 10 in my game!

On the chokepoint topic: I'm on a grid map (thank you, Mal). Will I die?

Well, I'll see.

[chemical_art]

Well, I'm in! And I'm out my first loop effect, thought it didn't go for the blizzard you describe, Chemical Art. Maybe not so many VG were activated. But they neutered some planets and allowed my scouts to go deeper without the need of tachyon raid!

Anyway, I'm here for a question. How to deal with 17 VG on 49 planets? 4 A-prime CSG are on VG'ed planets, so I'll need to take a least 3 VG'ed planets, saving the deepest in "dark Spire territory". Is this doable because when all the galaxy is neutered there is no more ships to die and provoke the dark Spire's loop? However, there is Roaming Enclaves at 10 in my game!

On the chokepoint topic: I'm on a grid map (thank you, Mal). Will I die?

Well, I'll see.

You survived the blizzard? That's good! I think if you managed the first blizzard fine any flurries afterward as a result of crushing the shield generators will be fine. In part because as you said a large part of the galaxy is already neutered so any further stirring of the hornets nest is fine.

Come to think of it, I may have had a bug where the dark spire themselves would eventually cause _all_ of the generators to become activated (dark spire casualities caused activating more DS posts). I'm guessing they do not now. I would love to have the option to restart that, from what you describe things are far too tame, even for 10/10  >D

[Pumpkin]

Well, I'm in! And I'm out my first loop effect, thought it didn't go for the blizzard you describe, Chemical Art. Maybe not so many VG were activated. But they neutered some planets and allowed my scouts to go deeper without the need of tachyon raid!

Anyway, I'm here for a question. How to deal with 17 VG on 49 planets? 4 A-prime CSG are on VG'ed planets, so I'll need to take a least 3 VG'ed planets, saving the deepest in "dark Spire territory". Is this doable because when all the galaxy is neutered there is no more ships to die and provoke the dark Spire's loop? However, there is Roaming Enclaves at 10 in my game!

On the chokepoint topic: I'm on a grid map (thank you, Mal). Will I die?

Well, I'll see.

You survived the blizzard? That's good! I think if you managed the first blizzard fine any flurries afterward as a result of crushing the shield generators will be fine. In part because as you said a large part of the galaxy is already neutered so any further stirring of the hornets nest is fine.

Come to think of it, I may have had a bug where the dark spire themselves would eventually cause _all_ of the generators to become activated (dark spire casualities caused activating more DS posts). I'm guessing they do not now. I would love to have the option to restart that, from what you describe things are far too tame, even for 10/10  >D

The blizzard? It was just a breeze. The loop died by itself for an unclear reason, maybe because the game was early and the galaxy was not too much reinforced yet. But I'm barely sure (thought it might require further testing) that wraith and alike are able to wake up other Vengeance Generators. And yap, for a DS intensity of 10 it was a bit disappointing. But did you see what they did to the Zenith in my AAR? That was hilarious. However, I'm not done with the CSG on VG planets! I was very careful in early game and I fear the true blizzard may come sooner or latter.