Does anybody use the Neinzul Enclave Starship?

[Wingflier]

I'm trying to find some uses for this Starship, I'd like to have a discussion about it.

It seems that, since its inception, the addition of Intergalatic Warp Gates has kind of rendered it useless.  Specifically, instead of wasting precious energy, m&c, and knowledge, the player can simply build Space Docks on the wormhole outside of the planet he's attacking if he wants to quickly reinforce.

I can't see the practical uses for this thing.  The fact that it's limited by supply (like the regular Space Dock) really hinders what it can do.  If, for example, it could build ships outside of supply, its usefulness would immediately skyrocket.

Has anyone else found a use for this ship?

[keith.lamothe]

Iirc, it does actually work outside supply, but I think there's an interface bug where it still draws the buttons in red or something like that.

[Wingflier]

Awesome to know!

By the way, does the game still punish "deep-space raiding"?  It seems like that was a topic of discussion/controversy over a year ago.  Yet there's nothing in the game or on the wiki I can find to say anything about it.

In other words, I'm afraid to try a strategy where I don't take every planet on the way to the enemy homeworld, because I don't know what the repercussions would be (if any).

[Wanderer]

If you go further than 4 planets away from a friendly/neutral planet you begin getting deep-threat spawns.

Now, 4 planets is a lot.  The Enclaves are excellent ships for resupplying your wandering fleet instead of having to head home for resupply.  They also let you 'swarm attack' a deep planet without opening up the entire path (say, on the other side of an Eye wall).

The Enclave starships are primarily most useful to me however when I AM doing a deep-threat attack and I'm living with the heavy threat it's causing.  This is because you can pop out 9 planets, pop a single neutral, and the entire road becomes non deep threat once you've popped it.  The trick is getting there when you're 20-30 minutes from resupplying your fleet.  This is where the Enclaves can come in very handy. 

My fleet tends to do a lot of deep-space middle of nowhere ops.  Because of this, the Enclaves can be handy so I'm not spending 10-15 minutes every half an hour heading home for resupply.  However, is 4000k (the new numbers) worth it for that benefit?  Errr, I'll get back to you on that.

[keith.lamothe]

However, is 4000k (the new numbers) worth it for that benefit?  Errr, I'll get back to you on that.

I don't recall: if you have an enclave covered by a cloaker starship, can it produce without decloaking?  If so, that sounds like a pretty effective "tachyon drill" for opening up the AI's tachyon net:

1) Cloak enclave, move to out of the way spot near your side of target wormhole.
2) Have enclave produce best ship for raiding the tachyon guardian on the other side of the wormhole, send them through until it's dead.
3) Move cloaker and enclave through wormhole, and then to out-of-the-way spot near the next target wormhole.
4) Produce ships to clear that wormhole and the other side of it.
5) Repeat 2-4 as needed.

And once that's done to a reasonable degree, you'd basically be able to set up ship production anywhere in AI territory that wouldn't provoke deep-strike-threat, AI-eye threat (if producing to such numbers), raid-engines, etc.

[Martyn van Buren]

Awesome to know!

By the way, does the game still punish "deep-space raiding"?  It seems like that was a topic of discussion/controversy over a year ago.  Yet there's nothing in the game or on the wiki I can find to say anything about it.

In other words, I'm afraid to try a strategy where I don't take every planet on the way to the enemy homeworld, because I don't know what the repercussions would be (if any).

Oh gosh, you should definitely try skipping worlds! Apparently not four at a time (I've never been bold enough for that), but there are lots of pretty pointless planets in a normal map and it's definitely worth saving AIP and time by skipping them to get at the good ones.  I usually take every planet for the first eight-ten near my homeworld, but then I start skipping over dull worlds, and by late midgame I'm generally taking every third world unless there's a string of very appealing planets or something like an advanced factory that justifies a bit of defense-in-depth. You can always go back and neuter an intermediate world if it turns out to be on a route you need to pass regularly.

[Wingflier]

I thought you had to have 'supply' in order to take a planet?  In other words, I thought you had to be connected to a string of your own planets before you could take it?

Also, how do you defend these "lone planets" from border aggression?  You'd run out of defenses, and getting units to defend said planets would mean sending them through enemy planets.

[Wanderer]

I thought you had to have 'supply' in order to take a planet?  In other words, I thought you had to be connected to a string of your own planets before you could take it?

Nope, you need supply to build turrets and the like, but a command station creates supply, it doesn't need it.

Also, how do you defend these "lone planets" from border aggression?  You'd run out of defenses, and getting units to defend said planets would mean sending them through enemy planets.

And that, my friend, is part of the game.   Seriously though nerf the surrounding planets to lower their max population and you won't see much if any border aggression.  The rare drifters can be handled with a small bit of turret.  You do end up warp-gate raiding the heck out of the borders though if you don't want to deal with waves.  Then again, you can always abandon those planets after neutralizing them too, if you just want to 'drop in' for a bit and get something.

[Wingflier]

Well, you've taught me a new way to play the game. Thank you sir, I am in your debt.

[Diazo]

Awesome to know!

By the way, does the game still punish "deep-space raiding"?  It seems like that was a topic of discussion/controversy over a year ago.  Yet there's nothing in the game or on the wiki I can find to say anything about it.

In other words, I'm afraid to try a strategy where I don't take every planet on the way to the enemy homeworld, because I don't know what the repercussions would be (if any).

This question itself has been answered in that more then 4 systems out does punish you. My question is, with the additition of Core Shield Generators is the deep-strike counter mechanic still needed? I don't know the logic behind the mechanic originally but I'm thinking it's purpose is the same, to prevent the player from sneaking by everything without capturing any worlds.

Removing the deep-strike mechanic would open up more options strategically and the presence of CSGs means that you still have to capture a few systems.

D.

[chemical_art]

Personally I still only use it with a fleet if I need to spam "throw away ships" that I would always want being produced in battle.

So my enclaves pump out autobombs, melee ships, fighters, and younglings of all kinds.

The most potent combo of all however is the parasite youngling.

Words can't do justice to the power of enclaves in a system producing parasites in a fight.

Autobombs come in second.



EDIT:

I don't even deepstrike, but I get enclaves if I get the above ship types.

[Zair]

I just played a game where my first ARS dropped nanoswarms on me. A couple of Enclave IIIs on FRD hugging a cloak starship made paralyzing entire systems' worth of enemies really easy. Just need to watch out for gravy guardians.

I kept the Nano IVs on low power in my chokepoint system for cases where the turret net wasn't quite enough to keep the AI out.

[amethyst]

I've found that using a Merc Enclave Ship is pretty handy; you just need an initial investment of metal and crystal, but no knowledge. Since they had their build speed increased, I usually take one along with my attack fleets to replenish them in the field. If I have suicidal units, I also bring along two regular Mk I Enclave Ships to keep up the numbers.

Using them to take out Tachyon Guardians without causing a deep-strike alert, however, is new to me. Gotta try that.

[keith.lamothe]

Using them to take out Tachyon Guardians without causing a deep-strike alert, however, is new to me. Gotta try that.

They'll still cause deepstrike-threat

And yea, the enclaves are generally best suited to the youngling types (and the autobomb), since rapid field-rebuilding makes such a tremendous difference for those units.  The nanoswarm in particular is simply devestating; it's one of those units that we can give just oodles and oodles of utility because that's basically all it has (doesn't do anything like respectable damage).  I think it's the only bonus fleet type like that (well, that and the paralyzer, perhaps).

[Martyn van Buren]

I thought you had to have 'supply' in order to take a planet?  In other words, I thought you had to be connected to a string of your own planets before you could take it?

Also, how do you defend these "lone planets" from border aggression?  You'd run out of defenses, and getting units to defend said planets would mean sending them through enemy planets.

The thing is you only have to tame border aggression, not conquer it; so do some damage with the fleet you use to get the world in the first place and leave behind a few Mk Is and maybe turrets to deter low-level attacks, and if something overwhelms your minimal defenses it doesn't really cost much to rebuild. Also, once you've beaten an AI world down a bit sending a fleet across it transports is pretty much free.  That said other times you have a nasty Mk IV world in between and something you don't want to lose on the outpost world and things get much more complicated.