Dealing with Mines

[Doddler]

I just wanted to say first that I'm pretty new here.  I had heard about the game from a co-worker who was playing it, and I'm really enjoying it.  I've finished a couple games with some friends, not all of which were defeats, against level 7 AI's, using random easier AI.  There were a couple things I was planning on bringing up, like laser gatlings and free roaming ships going after train stations but it looks like that's fixed in the latest patch, which is really cool.

Anyways I ran into one game that had me a bit at a loss though.  I found an interesting starting system with two warps, which I thought would be pretty nice to defend, even if the starting ship wasn't that great.  Turns out that was a bit of a mistake, as one of the starting systems was a mark 4 system, there was no way I was doing anything there.  The other system was only a level 1 system, so I amassed 200ish ships, and went in.  Immediately I lost about 40-50 of my units to mines on the gate.  To make matters worse, the command station was under an 18m shield, surrounded by mines, and I found out there was a troop accelerator in the system, surrounded by... mines.  I couldn't get anywhere.  To make things worse, the troop accelerator would spit out 2-3 mine layers every wave, and they would literally rebuild mines under my units before I could kill them.

I wasn't really getting anywhere, and they were rebuilding mines so fast that every time I sent units into the system I would lose 20-30 ships, plus additional ships for any point I decided to attack.  So I decided it might be a cool idea to make a decloaker.  With the decloaker, other than the blinding hundreds of tachyon lines pointing to every decloaked mine in range, it let me see all the mines.  That is to say, there were hundreds of them.  But my guys were shooting them, so I figured it would be ok.

But it wasn't ok, it took 15-20 seconds to kill a single mine.  It just wasn't worth it.  So I tried to look for a mine sweeper, or something that could remove mines.  Nothing.  The mine builder didn't seem to be able to do it either.  Eventually I gave up, there was no way I was taking that system from the AI, he was building units and rebuilding mines faster than I could, and I quit.

It was more the troop accelerator that beat me than the mines (I never encountered one of these before but having one start next to you is horrible), but I didn't really want to play a game where it would cost me an additional 20-40 units per guard post, mines could be interesting but its kind of tedious if he has them around absolutely everything when the game starts.  Is there an easier way to deal with it, or do I just have to spam more ships to take anything?

[raptor331]

To help you with the troop accelerator problem is blow them to bloody hec with missiles. But first you have to stockpile on resoucess before you even think about building those.

And actually planets with 3-5 wormholes are more ideal. It allows you to gain access to more planet quicker. But of course this strategy only works for experienced players. I myself am not the most experienced but I have handled some pretty dificult planets.

[x4000]

Sounds like you were playing against a Mine Enthusiast as one of your AI Types -- those guys go nuts with the mines.  The decloaker is really helpful in those situations, as it reveals mines and lets your other ships there see and shoot them.  Send in a cleanup drone as well to prevent the AI from rebuilding those mine remains, and you're on your way!  But in either case, it seems like you got a pretty hard starting position there, and it may be more fun to just try a different one if you are new.  Most starting spots are not that hard, but given that there is a high random component to the maps, sometimes you do run across one that is extra hard or extra easy.

Hope that helps!

[Lancefighter]

and wait till you encounter perma-mines.. 

[Kjara]

Generally, with the mine enthusiast(and a few other harder types), you just have to make sure you overkill planets more(aka wait to go in till you have overwhelming force, since you only have to pay the entry cost once that way).  If you lose 20 units out of 100, thats a big loss, 20 units out of 500, not so big of a deal.

On the other hand, that troop accelerator is bad news.  I agree that your best bet might be to clear the wormhole beachhead with some units(and not worry about losses so much as long as you can clear it) and kill it with lightning missiles then build up a real force to take the planet after its down.

[x4000]

For those, Transports are pretty much a must.  You can use Tranports to bypass regular mines, too, I forgot to mention that.

[raptor331]

Generally, with the mine enthusiast(and a few other harder types), you just have to make sure you overkill planets more(aka wait to go in till you have overwhelming force, since you only have to pay the entry cost once that way).  If you lose 20 units out of 100, thats a big loss, 20 units out of 500, not so big of a deal.

On the other hand, that troop accelerator is bad news.  I agree that your best bet might be to clear the wormhole beachhead with some units(and not worry about losses so much as long as you can clear it) and kill it with lightning missiles then build up a real force to take the planet after its down.

I might add that brute force does not solve anything, I have had 300 units loose to a planet with 75 units. Of course they had starships(starfleet commander rules!!!)

[Kjara]

Brute force with a balanced force mix does work though.  My point was more that if you could take a planet with 200 units, 400 units with the same unit mix will take it with much lower losses(alternatively, it sounds like he was able to take at least one wormhole/guard post, so he needs more force when hitting that wormhole/guard post to reduce his losses and make taking the next wormhole/guard post feasible).

If you outnumber the enemy ten to one, surround them.

If you outnumber them five to one, attack them.

If you outnumber them two to one, divide them.

If you are equal, then find an advantageous battle.

If you are fewer, defend against them.

If you are much weaker, evade them.

[raptor331]

Brute force with a balanced force mix does work though.  My point was more that if you could take a planet with 200 units, 400 units with the same unit mix will take it with much lower losses(alternatively, it sounds like he was able to take at least one wormhole/guard post, so he needs more force when hitting that wormhole/guard post to reduce his losses and make taking the next wormhole/guard post feasible).

If you outnumber the enemy ten to one, surround them.

If you outnumber them five to one, attack them.

If you outnumber them two to one, divide them.

If you are equal, then find an advantageous battle.

If you are fewer, defend against them.

If you are much weaker, evade them.

I wasnt saying you were incorrect i was just saying that so that doddler doesnt get the wrong idea. and that quote does help, i think i'll keep that one in mind for sure

[Kjara]

Ah, yeah I was just trying to clarify, since after your post I realized it could have been taken that way .

Its amazing how something like the art of war still applies isn't it?

[raptor331]

thats the beauty of rts games.

[Doddler]

Thanks for the advice, I'm trying again against a mine spamming AI and it's not as hard as I remember it, losing a couple ships here and there but I guess the bulk of my issues were really the troop accelerator.  Not a problem now.

A bit off topic, I've been messing around with the expansion on a small map.  I tried a 10 planet game just for fun (saw there was an achievement for beating it on that), and everything was insanely crowded.  There was like a golem, at least one advanced/core factory on every system, and like 2-3 other capturables on every planet (I don't think you could even get enough energy to use a zenith ship cache on that mode, much less make use of the golems).  After capturing two mark 1 planets, I was blocked by a core planet that re-inforced units twice as fast as I could build them (and I only had access to a couple mark 2 units at highest).  They had emp mines, an Ion Cannon and Mass Driver.  Not much a way you can counter such a situation is there?

Also one last question, Right Click + X didn't work for killing a broken golem under my control, I thought that was how it was done (they just presumed it was a move command under the golem).  Am I doing that wrong?  It gets a bit messy when you're at 80 ai progress and the enemy is sending 800 ships at a time cause your two systems have broken golems.

[x4000]

Thanks for the advice, I'm trying again against a mine spamming AI and it's not as hard as I remember it, losing a couple ships here and there but I guess the bulk of my issues were really the troop accelerator.  Not a problem now.

A bit off topic, I've been messing around with the expansion on a small map.  I tried a 10 planet game just for fun (saw there was an achievement for beating it on that), and everything was insanely crowded.  There was like a golem, at least one advanced/core factory on every system, and like 2-3 other capturables on every planet (I don't think you could even get enough energy to use a zenith ship cache on that mode, much less make use of the golems).  After capturing two mark 1 planets, I was blocked by a core planet that re-inforced units twice as fast as I could build them (and I only had access to a couple mark 2 units at highest).  They had emp mines, an Ion Cannon and Mass Driver.  Not much a way you can counter such a situation is there?

Yeah, those tiny maps are quite different from their larger brethren!

Also one last question, Right Click + X didn't work for killing a broken golem under my control, I thought that was how it was done (they just presumed it was a move command under the golem).  Am I doing that wrong?  It gets a bit messy when you're at 80 ai progress and the enemy is sending 800 ships at a time cause your two systems have broken golems.

Actually, you can't use that on a ship you control -- that only works on enemy ships, so before you capture it.  For your ships, the only thing to do is scrap them (delete them), but golems and certain other huge structures can't be deleted.  You'll gain a ton of AI Progress when they die, so that's a challenge where if you don't want to use them, it's best to avoid ever taking the planet they are on.  On the 10-planet maps, that is... difficult, as you say.  The easiest map size is probably around 30-40, maybe even 40-60.