Trouble breaking a level 3 planet

[eRe4s3r]

Actually every starship now sucks against them.. which is why you need your "flock" to kill them, with damage boosting very quickly too ;p

But ehm.. even if you reduce the range that doesn't change anything, i'd just merge my 2 fleets into one and get a more spread less even boost of damage, but any boost is a boost.

I am not sure what to suggest, nerfing them again will just lead to them not getting used anymore because thats the ONLY reason to build light starships A 50% reduction in range might be worth a try, if fleet ships get something else

Or maybe we should talk about an complete replacement of the munition boosting ability line - with something else`?

[arthurp]

One of the comments that was made was "But Infiltrators and ac's are not part of a fleet ever (They both are entirely useless in a flow moving fleet)" and I agree. I have empirically discovered it. ;-) Though the Autocannons don't seem to be bad in the fleet (they take out frigets and bombers reasonably well) at least compared with the infil.

However it does make me wonder: What are they good for and how can I use them to greatest effect?

[RCIX]

What about dropping the weapon and health so that they die more easily? there's still incentive to use them but not quite as much because they'll die easily. I really think the fleet starships need to be split from the "cruiser" starships, the latter being more short range assault ships and the former being lightly armed fleet boosting.

One of the comments that was made was "But Infiltrators and ac's are not part of a fleet ever (They both are entirely useless in a flow moving fleet)" and I agree. I have empirically discovered it. ;-) Though the Autocannons don't seem to be bad in the fleet (they take out frigets and bombers reasonably well) at least compared with the infil.

However it does make me wonder: What are they good for and how can I use them to greatest effect?

The infiltrators are supposedly good for hitting FFs and such, and autocannons are great fleet support dealing awesome amounts of damage to a lot of ships.

[Lancefighter]

autocannons are a quick response fleet imo - You keep them together, they move across maps quite nearly instantly, and they are okish against most things.

Infiltrators are specialist units, they go through forcefields and do some engine. Can be useful, but have to be micro'ed somewhat as a separate fleet

[arthurp]

I did the assault like Lancefighter recommended and it was expensive but went well overall. The freed ships didn't all come through the worm hole but at least they spread out on the planet so I was able to pick the off with fewer losses. I was able to clear out the planet fairly easily.

I then took another 6 planets in quick succession (1 for a adv factory, 1 for a core constructor, and 4 for resources (7-8 resources each)). And I learned how to use the infil. They are REALLY nice against force fields and pretty effective against turrets. They however SUCK against mobile ships. So they are great for clearing planets cheaply that you have already drawn most of the mobile military out of or hitting specific. Oh and lightning turrets eat them alive, so you have to just avoid those. I'm actually considering spending the knowledge to get Mk2 infil.

I've been using the autocannons as defense since they are good at hunting down other ships, but I'm not really satisfied I may try them in other capacities.

Thank for all the advise folks!
-Arthur

[Lancefighter]

the one time i really used autocannons successfully was against a planetary cloaking generator..

They all died though :\

[arthurp]

As a epilogue to this story I thought I'd mention that I won the game (not surprising since it was 2 lv6 AIs) and talk about how I did it.

The final assault on the home stations was done as a very deep strike using transports and a large fleet. I put about 500 infiltrators and 200-300 bombers in the transports. The fleet that went along with the transports was a bunch of fleet star ships (3 light, 2 fleet and one zenith) and 3-4 raid star ships (mk1 and 2) and a few dreads. Also I had around 600 other small ships. It was a basic small ship mix accept that it was really light on bombers (they were in the transports). The protective fleet was heavily damaged on the way to the target (there were 4 worlds I had to go through); I lost about half the ships (though no star ships). However once I got to the target I was able to simply unload the transports and obliterate the home command station. Infiltrators eat FF and armored targets alive, as do boosted mkIV bombers.

To my surprise most of the star ships and a few of the smaller ships actually made it back to my own planets alive. So I was able to use them to assault the other home command station as well.

The second command station was about the same except that I had more starships and fewer small ships and there was a cluster of PermaMines in my way. So I built an EMP missile (well actually 2 because the first was destroyed in transit because I didn't defend it well enough) and used that to get past the perma mines. Once I got all my ships up next to the command station I unloaded the transports and killed the command station and the 2 core shields wrapped around it in around 45 seconds I think. It was brutally effective.

[triggerman602]

fish in a barrel.



over 2000 mark IV units died in one of these. it was spectacular.  

[Spikey00]

Quickly replying:  I find it helps at times to destroy the CMD quickly, gather all units at the wormhole, and delay/destroy what you can, then follow them through to your [hopefully] defense clusters on the other side.