Exodian Blade **small spoilers**

[TIE Viper]

So, KnightRAF and I started a new game:

Nomads 4/10
Exodian 4/10
His ship is the powerslaver
Mine is the combat carrier

I'm not at in the game at the moment so I can post more seeding details later but my question is about the Exodian encounters.

The default location clue started 3 hops from KnightRAF's HW.  That narrowed its location to 5 planets.  We hacked on my HW's border to rule out 3 of them.  The hacking response was many jumps away.  But the journal entry said that capturing that planet might help bring the signal out of deep cloak.  Both before and after capturing my border planet, any Exodian hacker placed did not hack at all.

So, what I'm wanting to know is what us the next step?  Are we just doing it wrong? Did we miss a clue from the second journal entry?  Did we discover a bug?  Or what? 

[Aklyon]

Did one of your hacks say it was zero hops away? You want to claim the planet with that on it.

[TIE Viper]

No, the only one we did said many hops.  We tried hacking on a different planet as well as the only one we did hack on, before and after capturing it, but there was no response from the hacking devices.  We placed them and they just sat there not doing anything.

[ArnaudB]

You don't need to hack the planet at "0 hops" to reveal the Exodian blade, only capture the planet.

I just had a maze game where I jumped over a nomad to reach a system with civilian leaders, the Exodian Blade happened to be there. I didn't hack, just captured the planet and the Exodian Blade came up when the command station was completed.

[orzelek]

*** potential more spoilers ****

So what should happen when I get exodian blade to AI H/W ?
Only effect for me is spawn of 70 + massive ships which causes it to die. I'm playing on diff 7 and what spawns on that HW is insane. There is simply no way to allow it to survive there - and I have exo wh quite close but blade will never get there.

Edit reason - exo wormhole doesn't dissapear - it's so deep under AI ships that it can't be found visually

[Aklyon]

The previous beta update made it so you don't have to ram the exogalactic wormhole with the command station intact, it just has to be a AI HW.

As for the effect, well...its a problem solver.

[orzelek]

Yeah I know what the prize is (I think). The problem is that I'm not sure if it's doable even if I would take a transport full of warheads to the place - AI ships spawn almost on top of the blade for me and they immediately shoot it. I guess some pause abuse is in order.

Also the blade idea of targeting is slightly strange at times so it's not able to actually clear path to wormhole (it shoots designed target until it changes it's mind and shoots in completely different direction).

I would assume we don't need to kill that AI HW beforehand - unless it will stop the insane exo spawn?

[Toranth]

What I did that got it to work was:
1)  Carefully inspect each Homeworld to pick the one with a wormhole close to the AI Home Command Station.
2)  Evaluate the Core Guardposts on that AI HW:  Wrath Lance, Grav Reactor are BIG no-nos, for example.
3)  Move most of the fleet to the core-world side of the close wormhole.
4)  Send a small force is transports in through a different wormhole.  This task force will immediately run away, drawing off the Reserves and as much else as possible.  Radar Damping units are good here.
5)  Send in your main force EXCLUDING the Blade and start heading towards the AI Home CS.
6)  Shortly behind, send in the Blade, and tell it immediately to move at full speed to the destination.  Don't let it stop for any reason.

If there is no wormhole close enough to the AI Home CS, or the only one that is also has Wraths, etc, then you'll need to do the CSGs first, then attack and clear some of the CGPs first.  At least you can suicide attack that way, since you won't need to worry about reprisals (one way or another).

Despite all this, it still took me a bunch of tries.  If the spawned Exowave included AI Riots, it was game over right there - they'd just push the Blade away. 
I tried Warheads, but since there's a new spawn every 10 seconds, you basically need to expend an Armored Mk III on the AI Home CS every 10 seconds to keep it clear long enough.

[orzelek]

For me main problem is dual:
1. Spawn immediately targets and fires at blade - it can take 1 salvo and 2nd one is always fatal.
2. There are at least 5-6 high mark shield bearers in the spawn. That means that exo wormhole is simply not accessible since they do spawn directly on it. And due to 1 - no chance to kill them.

Edit:
Actually point 5 from your tips did the trick. Cleaning up core force fields protecting that place helped - blade was able to take care of shield bearers then and fly through. Reward is a You win with full game hang included

[keith.lamothe]

Reward is a You win with full game hang included

You mean the game application stopped responding?  Do you have a save from before the boom where I can observe this?

[orzelek]

Reward is a You win with full game hang included

You mean the game application stopped responding?  Do you have a save from before the boom where I can observe this?

It seems that this win condition is not reproducible.

Spawns are so insane and random that after few tries I can't win again from the same save. I guess I was lucky that one time - and tbh I couldn't be bothered to repeat all of this again. If only thing that decides about winning is the rng phase and what spawns and where it's not a game but gambling
Enemy spawns are so large that my quite large fleet including Mk 4 bombers and Mk 4 frigates is useless. Only thing that can kill anything there is the blade itself. The widow golem I have around helps a bit.. but still a tiny one.