I tried using Mark II Military Command Stations vs exos.. well.. they didn't do S... everyone in the exo just drilled trough the Force Fields, ignored everything on my whipping boy and went straight for my Home Command Station.. LOL. I've noticed this behavior before but didn't remember it. There's not enough Force Fields in the game to stop this from happening.. even if there was unlocking all of them AND enough firepower to destroy the exo before the force fields are destroyed before the first exo wouldn't be possible. Gonna have to try getting Mark III Gravitational Turrets and Mark II Hardened Force Fields.
Are these golems-hard exos? Both normal and botnet golems, or just normal? What's the AIP?
Edit: oh, also, what's the game-time?
Yes that was a Golems-Hard Exo. All other exos are disabled so I only get 1 Exo. AIP is 79, in-game time 3 hours 58 minutes and 10/10 difficulty of course. That was the first exo in this game.
I know how I could have made my life easier however. But I just wanted to test a little bit.. I'm a bit busy with studying at the moment. The exo was announced at approximately 2 hours 27 minutes. I sped up the game with Cheat Engine to the point when the exo spawned and tested how my defenses hold. Sure I lost about an hour of play time.. which I could have used to reduce the AIP to ~40 and get about 9000 more knowledge. I could have captured 1 additional planet for +150k Energy and Knowledge hack 2 other planets. I also could have scouted for Data Centers and/or hacked the near by Super Terminal to reduce the effective AIP to ~40.
Anyway.. my defenses and fleet were quite strong. I stopped ~4k+ CPA without much problems and the 1700 ship waves without any problems (and without the Hive Golem). Mark IV planets were no problem. But still I should have prepared more carefully.
With the additional knowledge and energy I could have unlocked Mark I Fortresses. Though the problem with Fortresses is the 90k energy cost. Basically maintaining one consumes 200 metal and crystal every second. (2 matter converters for each fort). A cap of Mark I Forts need 450.000 Energy. I have 2 whipping boys so lets say I'd build 2 forts on each.. that would be -360.000 Energy.. so I'd need.. lets say 4 Matter Converters in addition to the additional planet. 4 Matter Converters would reduce my income by -400 both resources every second. With both resources maxed and nothing being built nor repaired by income is +1126 Metal/s and +1071 Crystal/s.. so with the 4 Matter Converters my income would be +726 Metal/s and 671 Crystal/s which wouldn't be enough. Though the additional planet would increase my resource incomes a little bit.. still might not be enough though.
So.. Fortresses aren't an option. I could use the 9000 Knowledge to unlock ALL Marks of Heavy Beam Cannons which would cost exactly 9000 Knowledge. All HBCs combined would use 79800 Energy so the 1 additional planet would be enough to cover the energy costs. The Mark IV HBC alone does more damage than an entire cap of Mark I Fortresses and uses 20000 Energy... while Mark I Fort uses 90000 Energy.. seems like Fortresses are only usable in ~7 difficulty games.. They're not worth the insane resource costs. I could place the HBCs so they're not in the way of the Exos and manually order them to attack specific targets
(HBCs are at their best when targeted manually).
In short: the next time when I have time I will load an autosave and do the same except reduce the AIP to ~40, capture 1 additional planet, knowledge hack 2 planets and unlock all Marks of HBCs before the Exo.
EDIT: Added the save file right before the exo.
