Tactical Analysis

[Carcer]

Hi, new player (As in started playing yesterday new) and would like to ask you veteran players for both advice and criticism about how I handled something.

Started in a 60 planet game, in an area of the map with 2 planets that connected into 1 planet which also only connected to one planet, which then has 3 connections. The first hour went fine, though my initial assault nearly ground down due to lack of ships, I succeeded, expanded and built up.
The problem finally came in when it was time to move from 3rd planet to the 4th. The 4th planet, as it turned out, was a level 3 planet with an Ion cannon, tons of mines around the only wormhole and enough level 3 ships (Including a blasted raider Starship) to horrifically damage any fleet trying to pass through.

Now, I doubted I could just bypass the system by blowing up only what was necessary and then scrambling through one of the wormholes out of the system. Especially with that Ion cannon. So I tried to raid it with a mixed group of bombers and fighters. Only then did I notice there was also a Special Forces guard post next to the Ion cannon. Bombers and fighters got torn apart.
Quit, loaded, decided to hell with this, I'll just steam roll the planet. Built a 1200 fleet (Mainly tech 1 ships, I had unlocked some tech 2 stuff but couldn't afford to build a large amount in any realistic time frame due to resource shortages.) I jumped in, and instantly had 400ish ships vaporized by mines, had a huge number tractored by tech 3 Tractor turrets which forced me to sit it out and blow them up. 600 ships left, I charged the Ion cannon/SF guard post, and after a long hard battle with more of those evil tractor turrets I succeeded in blowing up both and with maybe 450 moved onto a resource point between my wormhole and another worm hole. I won, barely, with 150 ships left and having killed barely 100 enemy ships, and the AI replacing its lost turrets already.

In short, I had neither the numbers, nor the resources to build sufficent numbers and quality units, to do much of anything. I did manage to capture a missile base, which may or may not be useful information.

Now, as the the actual questions. First, what should I have done? Built up resources and ships, then hopefully punched through with huge numbers? Built up defenses, killed their control center and then hoped to weather in huge tech 3 counter attack? Built missiles? Gone Nuclear? Go find a corner and cry?

[x4000]

Welcome to the forums!  I'm sure others will chime in with their various strategies, but my suggestion for this sort of situation so early in the game is this: transports.

Transports pass right over mines, and are immune to the ion cannon.  So you can build up a big force of stuff like you did, load it into a few transports, and then take your transport over to sort of near the ion cannon to unload, then go and kill the ion cannon and/or special forces guard post.

Alternatively, depending on if you really need this planet, you could consider just killing the special forces guard post and the warp gate, then just use your transports to punch through to the next planet with ease.  Now, that might then cause ongoing logistical problems for you for the rest of that campaign, or it might not, depending on how the wormholes are positioned on the mark III planet that you'd be bypassing (if there is a ton of stuff between them, that will only get worse with time.  If it's largely empty space, then go for it).

Using a lightning warhead to clear the wormhole area is also a time-proven strategy that a lot of people use, but it comes at an AIP cost that you'd do well to be careful of.

Another popular way to clear minefields is to send in a ton of low-level fighters first to clear the way.  Once they have exploded, send in the rest of your stuff.  Of course, if you do that and don't have some other fighters around to help, then you'll be pretty helpless against bombers, so that's something to be careful of.  But using cheap, small ships as "chaff" for minefields is popular amongst those who want to get by without paying the knowledge cost for transports.

Sounds like you are in a pretty narrow map in general, which means that transports are probably a good idea.  If you were on a grid/hubs style of map, then you'd have more wormholes to choose from on each planet, and so transports would be vastly less critical.  It's all about choosing the right tool for the particular scenario -- of course, that's sometimes easier said than done.  That's partly why good early scouting is imperative before you use up all your knowledge.  There is no "standard" unlock build order.  If your early scouting had found that bottleneck mark III planet, then that would have been a good indicator that you might want transports earlier than later, for instance.  Hopefully you still have enough knowledge for it, but if not you can still work with the scenario -- you'll just take heavier losses for a while there.  Bringing in light starships to boost your smaller ships might help give you an edge in that situation.

Good luck!

[Carcer]

Thank you for the advice!

Only problem. On checking, I've only got 250 knowledge left, and already gathered everything. So, brute force then?

[x4000]

No problem -- therein lies the value of good scouting, at any rate; knowing too little about your surroundings can lead to situations where you need to brute force or similar.  I'd suggest the route of a lightning warhead at the wormhole, followed by a ton of your stuff pouring through and heading on in with light starships pumping them up (make sure and group move).  If you're feeling outmatched still, you could go for an EMP warhead instead (with your ships entering the planet directly after it goes off).

If you're REALLY feeling desperate and stuck, you could go nuclear, but that will be some AIP that you'll probably wish you hadn't spent down the road.  But, usually a game can survive a couple of nukes if you really need to use them (though ideally you'll use none).  So if you don't feel like this is looking feasible/enjoyable/etc in the current state, then nuke away.

The best advice, of course, is better scouting from here on out, so that you can plan your knowledge expenditures in advance.  Of course, if you weren't boxed in like this, you could just do some knowledge raiding for a while in order to make up for the oversight without resorting to other less savory methods.  The nice thing about being boxed in like this is that you'll have a way easier time on defense, but it does create this sort of offensive challenge when you run into a high-level planet without being fully prepared.

Another thing you could have done before if you'd had better scout intel: basically, instead of taking the planet next to the mark III, instead build up a big fleet and then send them through that planet to the mark III planet before it is even on alert.  Then there would only be a minimum of ships there, and you can take it by surprise even with the ion cannon there (this works even easier with, again, transports).  Then when the mark III is dead, you circle back around and pick up the lower-level planet since it is pretty easy anyway, by comparison (having it reinforce heavily for half an hour is nothing compared to having the mark iii planet do the same).  With scout intel firmly in hand, you can plan optimal routes of attack to make sure you always meet the minimum opposition with the maximum optimized force of your own if at all possible.

Glad you're enjoying the game!

[Rod Serling]

In cases like these, I would break it down, problem by problem.

First problem is the minefield, because you survived the encounter in general, I assume they arn't permamines.

I would jump in a bunch of cheap fighters, and as many cleanup drones as you can, in one swoop. You can scrap the cleanup drones later to save energy, but once you remove the mine remains, they wont build back, you should be able to knock out a fair amount of mines this way, considering how cheap cleanup drones are.

From there, I would hit the Command Post, this early in the game, you should be able to take the AIP hit, however as you stated, you would have to weather a Mark III counter.

As a natural Turtle myself, a mark III counter-attack wouldn't be much, but you might have to beef it up slightly.

After the command post was gone I would hit the Special Forces command post to prevent reinforcements there, then retreat the fleet back to your sector for defense/rebuilding.

Once that's done, clear the previously-mined wormhole, bring in a FFGen, retreat your fleet to the friendly side of the hole, and bring in a colony ship to capture the ion cannon. Capture seems easier, and less painful than destroy.

But, the basic premise of this is clearing the initial minefield to allow more friendly forces into the sector, hit the command post to prevent reinforcements and to clear some enemies out of the sector, and then simply mopping up the rest. Make still take a large number of casualties. I usually use Raptors to make this all a lot easier, their armor is about as thick as my laptop, but they can pack a punch in a cloaked wolf-pack. Dependent on getting them as a starting ship however.

[Carcer]

Progress! 

As advised, I built up my fleet a bit, constructed a large defensive line around the worm hole, and then sent both cheap fighters and cleanup ships through. That cleared the mines, mostly, and then I sent my fleet in, which still got bogged down and horribly mauled by the tractor beams and lightning towers. Though enough were left to make a made dash for the command center, which was destroyed at the cost of the rest of my fleet.

On the defense, my lines managed to hold against the 600 odd counter attack. Now its just a made dash to build enough bombers to take that SF post before it can reinforce too much. Or have I missed something?

[x4000]

Nice!  Sounds like you are in excellent shape.

[Carcer]

Well, I still have to destroy the rest of the enemy. Hopefully, though, I might end up with a Ion cannon in what is a massive choke point and I'll get an advanced research ship to boot.

Oh yes, and more metal and crystal. lovely, lovely crystal.

[x4000]

[Carcer]

Another question, how do you stop the AI from recognizing your presence? I assume that means the AI is reinforcing those areas, which I would rather avoid.

[x4000]

Here's the wiki entry with all the information you could want about AI Alert Status, I think.

[Rod Serling]

Oh right, you did just alert like 3 other planets didn't you? lol hopefully they arn't as bad as this one. Statistically, they might be.

Also, now that you got the command station down, killing turrets is much more... permanent.

[Carcer]

Well, 2 are level 2 and one is level 4 with some very, very mean things flying about it. Thankfully I can take the long way around that and hopefully avoid it altogether. Thinking back, he really big problem with that system was that blasted Ion cannon- it essentially cut my fleet strength down by a third because its just an utter waste to bring any mark 1 ships to a system with one of those.

Secondly, mark 3 tractor turrets are monstrous. 48 ships immobilized by a single touch as nails turret is on the far side of aggravating.

Anyway, thanks for all the useful advice. Even if I did have to brute force it eventually, I now know what to do next time.

[MaxAstro]

From my personal experience with Ion Cannon, unless you are desperately strapped for resources, don't underestimate the value of bringing your mark I ships anyway.  The Ion Cannon can only kill one ship per second, and while that sounds like a lot on a raiding run it can be relatively minimal compared to the extra firepower of having your mark I ships with you.

Also, as long as their are mark I ships to kill, the Ion Cannon isn't engine crippling your higher mark ships, which can get annoying very fast.

[soMe_RandoM]

well for 1 thing if some of ur fleet is invis then you can have most of them ships get past quite easly. yust lay low with low power mode then hopfully the ships wont be found then slip past until you find the what ever you wanted to kill eg the ion or the special guard post what ever if you dont have cloaking then start using this sendin a bulk of units eg fighters. and have units that are good at destroying ions ecter. but make sure that the units that are yust thier because they are meat. well make sure you got enought to get past if all needs be send in lighting warheads. if thier is an WHI then use the almighty power of TBSF Pause and detonate it when it comes out of the worm hole