Ai reinforcing a bit off the chart? or is this normal?

[zoutzakje]

A while ago I started a new game with low caps and epic speed, and many ship types disabled (not how I normally play it, but I wanted to try something new) and now I've reached the first AI homeworld and it's ships just keep piling up. playing against technologist turtle and neinzul youngster, both difficulty 7. AIP is 220, I got 640 ships to use, a mixed fleet of mark I, II and III. I also got a botnet golem and an armored golem at my disposal (golems - medium). Neinzul youngsters homeplanet currently has 1447 ships and 300 in barracks, a few mark IV, but mostly mark V. I know homeplanets are supposed to be tough, but do they really need to pile up this big with such low AIP? it can't be a CPA or EXO wave that's causing them to pile up either, haven't had a wave for quite some time. My botnet golem is useless against mark V ships and the armored golem doesn't last long either.
defense aint an issue. I got about 500-600 dyson gatlings patrolling in my systems, plus the same amount of zombie ships. I'm just unable to beat such a high amount of high ranked enemy ships with my own fleet. unfortunately those dyson gatlings don't go on the offense
I saved the game with my fleet just standing there and I tried a few different tactics so I could reload in case I screwed up. The best tactic I've found so far is this:
sending a nuke through to disable the mark 3 fortress and to trigger a lot of the enemy ships to leave their guardpost. then quickly sending in a small part of my fleet and have it blown to bits or sending my entire fleet in and retreat them fast. both work fine in the way of triggering even more enemy ships into leaving their guardposts and pile up at the wormhole. then sending in 3 mark III armored warheads and blow them all to bits. that still leaves me with all the mark V missile frigates which are immune to area damage and a lot of enemy ships that were out of range. My fleet still gets blown into bits and will barely make it to the first non shield guardpost (always saving those for last and unfortunately they are the closest by).

I'm adding the save to this. I'd like to know if this is normal with low caps and low AIP. If it is normal, then I'd like to get some strategic advice from you guys

[Ozymandiaz]

No seen the save yet, but sounds like you got a border planet to them or something (or the dyson if its on) causing them to constantly reinforce?

[zoutzakje]

I got a border planet yes, but I thought reinforcing would stop at a certain point if the AIP stops increasing? Or do planets keep reinforcing infinitely? If that's the case then next time I should only neuter the core planet and then move on to the homeplanet right away. Though 500 mark V ships would still be near impossible to get through with a small fleet like mine lol.

[BobTheJanitor]

Alerted planets reinforce until they fill up enough to start bleeding over to your worlds. Ideally you would never alert a planet you are going to capture for very long. And especially never leave a homeworld on alert for very long, or you fall right into this unfortunate situation.

[zoutzakje]

haha ok I'll keep that in mind
any suggestions though? or is it hopeless? lol

[Varone]

How about scrapping the command station on the border planet, then have your armoured golem enter the homeworld planet then leave. All the ships should leave their guardpost and exit the homeworld instead of gathering at the wormhole of your border planet. Just put your whole fleet in transports, maybe use all 20 transports, send dummy ones through first and a second later send your real ones. Dump your fleet at the homeworld and do your stuff. Hopefully your defences can handle the stream of MK5 ships that enter your worlds

[zoutzakje]

hmm ok I'll try that. My dyson gatlings and zombie bots will be able to stop the enemy ships long before they reach my homeworld I think.