Zombie Guardians + Gravity + Spire shield

[barryvm]

Hello everyone,
I'm fairly new in this game and I'm wondering if anyone has some strategic/tactical tips for taking out a few (2) zombie guardians.
They seem to have decided to camp right under a force field in range of my entry wormhole.
I've tried raiding them with the raid starships (I guess their primary use is shooting through forcefields, or am I mistaken) but they always get destroyed before they come into range because there is a gravity drill on the other end of the map.

I was just wondering if there are any ships available which ignore both gravity and shields (or have a huge amount of attack power and range to blast the shield to bits)

At the moment they are happily wreaking havoc on my main fleet ad I'm getting the ominous feeling this will end in a rather stupid defeat at the hands of my own (zombified) ships. 

[_K_]

Just kill the tachyon post and cloak your way to the zombie guardians or the gravity drills.

Generally, if you have a problem in AI war, you need to perform the following steps:
1) Can i ignore the problem?
2) Can i solve it by adding more dakka?
3) Can i solve it with Raid Starships?
4) Can i solve it by adding cloakers?
5) How about cloakers+transports?
6) Spire Rams?
7) Golems?
8 ) Restarting the game?

I dont know if you have tried 1), but if you did and failed, this list easily shows that you are at step 4)

[Diazo]

To add to the list are warheads. They cost AIP but there are problems they can solve that would be near impossible otherwise.

If you do try, I'm not actually sure if the EMP warhead stops the gravity drain's slow while the EMP effect is present. It does not stop spire blade spawners from spawning blades so I'm not sure.

My only other comment is that the zombie guardian's range is 10,000, your missile frigates match this so even if the gravity effect is not affected by the emp, your frigates would have range on the zombies while the forcefield is down from the EMP.

D.

[Minotaar]

Sneaking in a mobile builder and plopping down some sniper turrets could also work

[PokerChen]

If you had a cap of Plasma Sieges, I wonder if the zombie guardians would last as long as the shield does - they so have the long range, high damage, and immune to reclamation properties, on top of being able to damage things under shields at 6.25% or so...

[Diazo]

Not sure, it sounds like the Zombie Guardians are in range of the wormhole.

Having said that, did you check to see what ships you have that are immune to reclamation?

I think it may be just the starships, but there are some fleet ships that are immune.

D.

[barryvm]

Thanks for the tips!
I've cleared several systems now using raid starships and siege starships.
Is it common for an AI to have zombie guardians at nearly every planet or is there some special type involved ?
Also a full cap of snipers seems to work very good at a distance if the target are not protected by a FF.

Still learning (and losing...)

[PokerChen]

AFAIK the choice is randomised when they spawn. At one per guardpost, you'll usually get one.

[barryvm]

Hello,

I'm currently having some trouble with (I think) a raid engine.
If I'm reading the wiki right a raid engine launches periodic raids agains a random planet of mine when one or more of my military ships enter a system adjacent to the system the raid engine is in.
I keep getting wave warnings but no destination planet (it just shows question marks) and several times I've had no warning at all.
The waves in itself are not really difficult (my armored golem is chewing them up nicely) but since they appear every three minutes or so they are tying up my ships.
The problem is: I've had already read up on these and decided to scout all neighbouring planets in advance to rule out exactly this kind of nasty surprises when invading a new planet and I've found no trace of a raid engine.
Is there any way the AI could have built a raid engine or similar structure after I've scouted a planet or is this impossible ?

PS: is there any kind of a "noob questions" thread, because I always feel reticent about starting new threads about (I assume) fairly trivial beginner questions which is why I've posted this in the same one I started earlyer.

[zoutzakje]

howdy =)

do not worry about creating new topics to ask questions, this is a great community and we're all here to help =)
as for your question, it does sound like a raid engine. Raid engines are generated as soon as you start the game, so they can't be manually built by the AI (this goes for nearly all non movable AI units). This probably means that you missed it.
Keep in mind that the raid engine doesn't spawn it's wave at a random planet. I believe the wave spawns directly from the raid engine itself (or the command center from the same planet the raid engine is on) and travels it's way to one of your nearest planets. If you want it to stop, either move away your military forces from the enemy planets (scouts don't matter), or take out the raid engine as soon as possible. raid starships in a transport often works good.
Hope this was of any help to you.

If you have had some experience in dealing with raid engines, you could try out the Raid Engine Ai type. Raid engines everywhere

[PokerChen]

Hello,

I'm currently having some trouble with (I think) a raid engine.
If I'm reading the wiki right a raid engine launches periodic raids agains a random planet of mine when one or more of my military ships enter a system adjacent to the system the raid engine is in.
I keep getting wave warnings but no destination planet (it just shows question marks) and several times I've had no warning at all.
The waves in itself are not really difficult (my armored golem is chewing them up nicely) but since they appear every three minutes or so they are tying up my ships.
The problem is: I've had already read up on these and decided to scout all neighbouring planets in advance to rule out exactly this kind of nasty surprises when invading a new planet and I've found no trace of a raid engine.
Is there any way the AI could have built a raid engine or similar structure after I've scouted a planet or is this impossible ?

PS: is there any kind of a "noob questions" thread, because I always feel reticent about starting new threads about (I assume) fairly trivial beginner questions which is why I've posted this in the same one I started earlyer.

A raid engine will launch forces against a neutral planet (white) and well as player planets. They will also launch forces wherever you have military ships...

You may not have scouted far enough - if there's a scout at the launch destination the question marks will be revealed, and then you can work out the adjacent planets from there.

[keith.lamothe]

I keep getting wave warnings but no destination planet (it just shows question marks) and several times I've had no warning at all.
The waves in itself are not really difficult (my armored golem is chewing them up nicely) but since they appear every three minutes or so they are tying up my ships.
The problem is: I've had already read up on these and decided to scout all neighbouring planets in advance to rule out exactly this kind of nasty surprises when invading a new planet and I've found no trace of a raid engine.

Hmm, if you've really scouted all the adjacent planets and haven't put any military ships on them, and none of those planets are stealthed (or, potentially, a raid engine hiding under a stealth guard post... but I haven't heard anyone running into that), and none of them show a raid engine, then yea, it couldn't really be a raid engine.

Another reason waves can go to "? ? ?" is that there are no warp gates bordering your territory; it's usually best to always leave at least one.  But those wouldn't generally be happening every 3 minutes.

Is there any way the AI could have built a raid engine or similar structure after I've scouted a planet or is this impossible ?

There's nothing in the game (currently ) that does that, no.

PS: is there any kind of a "noob questions" thread, because I always feel reticent about starting new threads about (I assume) fairly trivial beginner questions which is why I've posted this in the same one I started earlyer.

Feel perfectly free to ask questions, and if it's a different topic than an existing thread (or the existing thread has already come to a conclusion), then starting a new thread is the way to go

[Nodor]

Last night we had the Devourer golem "clear the path" for a bunch of zombie ships that then set of some core raid engines on an AI home planet.

Our spire ships giggled and cleaned up the mess, but it was surprising.

[barryvm]

Found it: it seems it was indeed adjacent to a neutral planet which I neutered to get a Dyson sphere on my side but I'm not sure yet if it is really worth the AIP, since it is in a relatively unimportant region of the galaxy.
I didn't realize they would trigger the waves: rather a painfull mistake that.
I Iove the way this game responds to every little mistake with swift (and brutal) retribution.

[keith.lamothe]

I Iove the way this game responds to every little mistake with swift (and brutal) retribution.

It aims to please! (or is that "kill"? hmm...)