Dealing with the special forces

[Kahuna]

As soon as I leave my planets I get attacked by ~1500 ships (~60 of them were Spire Railclusters). How do you guys deal with them?

[Eternaly_Lost]

As soon as I leave my planets I get attacked by ~1500 ships (~60 of them were Spire Railclusters). How do you guys deal with them?

I find that a few hundred Spire Fleet ships makes short work of any Special Forces in the way.

[Kahuna]

As soon as I leave my planets I get attacked by ~1500 ships (~60 of them were Spire Railclusters). How do you guys deal with them?

I find that a few hundred Spire Fleet ships makes short work of any Special Forces in the way.

What are Spire Fleet ships? Ships you get by playing the Fallen Spire campaign? I've never completed that.
And how do you deal with Special Forces without Spire Fleet, Spirecraft, Golems, Champions or other super weapons? And no Riot Starships is not the answer. EDIT: ok it is. ^^that's what happens when you write on the forums right after getting your ass whooped LOL. Need Mark I and II Riots + ships ships and ships. Took forever but managed to destroy all ~1500 - ~2000 of them.

[keith.lamothe]

Generally my answer would involve Riots

But mainly: remember it takes time for the special forces to get somewhere.  If you know where they're basing, particularly (they just huddle up somewhere when not going after you), you can figure out how long you've got to take something out.  The more distance they have to cover, the more spread out they'll be due to speed differences within the special forces fleet, which lets you defeat them in detail.

Also going with that: if you hit them in one place with a decoy fleet (but strong enough to draw their attention) farther away from your actual target, it will take them that much longer to respond.

Finally: they don't defend every planet; it's gotta have a Broken Golem, core world, home world, or CSG (if you have CSGs off, then an AdvFact or ARS) for them to bother.

Of course, you may also be seeing the threatfleet if you have any threat, and they follow different rules.

[Histidine]

I'm guessing this is a Diff >9 game where the AIP from finding their staging area and dropping a nuke (or even EMP MkIII) on it is prohibitive?

[Cinth]

I'm guessing this is a Diff >9 game where the AIP from finding their staging area and dropping a nuke (or even EMP MkIII) on it is prohibitive?

Some folks just don't use any warheads. Like me.... there should be another solution besides the "easy" button :p

[Mánagarmr]

Shoot them?

[Kahuna]

I'm guessing this is a Diff >9 game where the AIP from finding their staging area and dropping a nuke (or even EMP MkIII) on it is prohibitive?

10 diff game with ~50 AIP.

[chemical_art]

It's time to get your gurellia warfare cap on.

If the special forces have already bunched up, you shouldn't engage them at their strongest unless you outmatch them, but then there wouldn't be a reason for this thread.

So instead hit them when their weak.

Pick off the roaming units after they disperse. They'll all gather to defend a point, but if you run deeper into non valuable ai territory they disperse and you can chew them up in bite sized pieces.

[Kahuna]

It's time to get your gurellia warfare cap on.

If the special forces have already bunched up, you shouldn't engage them at their strongest unless you outmatch them, but then there wouldn't be a reason for this thread.

So instead hit them when their weak.

Pick off the roaming units after they disperse. They'll all gather to defend a point, but if you run deeper into non valuable ai territory they disperse and you can chew them up in bite sized pieces.

That's not possible because they always move together and respawn about as fast as Sentry Eye sends ships. As I said before. Special Forces atm is like an intergalactic sentry eye.

[chemical_art]

Odd, I've never had that in aip 10 games. Of course for me in 10/10 aip 50 is asking for hair pulling...

But even then there is a solution. Start hitting the ai special forces posts. They directly tie in to both the respawn rate and the max unit size. If you don't want the extra aip then tough it out is all i can say.

[TechSY730]

The special forces spawn rate could certainly use a nerf (it is a little ridiculous atm), I do like their mechanics and the dynamic they introduce.

[rabican]

For me SF seem about right now (i like games hard). Real impact to gameplay instead of what we had before. Lots of different ways to deal with them , and finally operating on AI territory isn't just matter of bullying its pitiful forces to submission with 1/10th of your fleet.

I like how they operate, couple of hundred fighters appearing is usually clear sign that you should leave unless you have sizable force.  One game where enemy had SBS as bonus ship was pretty funny. I kept killing the SF ships , but not the SBS because they were so slow and stealthed that i had already moved on when they get there and i never noticed them. That is until i accidently ran into ~200 of them. Good times.

[Wanderer]

I'm guessing this is a Diff >9 game where the AIP from finding their staging area and dropping a nuke (or even EMP MkIII) on it is prohibitive?

10 diff game with ~50 AIP.

Just a reminder, beating a 10/10 game is a bug report.  It's purposely abusive to the player and usually requires some form of stinky cheese.  At 9.x is where top tier strategies can come into play to allow for a chance at winning.  That it's kicking you around the galaxy is considered a good thing at 10/10.

[KDR_11k]

Every time I've encountered them it felt like I shouldn't bother, no matter how many I kill they'll just spawn more until my fleet is worn down. At least they're low mark. If there is an end to the stream of SF ships I haven't stuck around long enough to see it.

BTW, what do SF rally guardians do now? They don't seem to invite the SF into my planets so what's their point?