So about those nemeses...

[LaughingThesaurus]

Not so much a "Hey let's change stuff" thread as a "What the hell" thread. I actually hadn't given champions much use since the nemesis factor came into play. I'm playing a difficulty 6 game, figured it'd go nice and easy enough for me to have champion-related fun. I get lone champions that just fly into planets, take not nearly any damage from my champion and fleet combined, and kill all my stuff with no effort at all. It's just a spire frigate, it shouldn't be that bad. All I know is, my champion's absolutely bloody useless on its own and these rip through everything. I mean, I'd like to think I'm not doing something wrong, I just don't really get it. The whole nemesis threatfleet coming for my blood is far and away infinitely worse than the little benefit the champion has actually given me thus far.
I haven't done any nebulas yet. The area I spawned in was a bunch of nice mark I planets, completely contained by mark IV planets. So, I wanted to avoid the sensation of going to a nebula, spending an hour there, and getting next to no reward by getting to level 5-ish like I read about. Turns out, getting the strength to break that contain really made the AI deploy those spire frigates hard. But like, with my fleet split up to defend myself (if a nemesis went for my home planet that would have been game) I don't have nearly enough to even kill one. I got one attacking one planet I had, the station goes down, then I got another attacking like 5 minutes later.

I mean, I don't know, the response seems really extreme to me considering I don't even have any guns that hit harder than wet paper balls quite yet. It also doesn't seem to even be there to counter the champion. It's just there to stab me in the back a bunch on 6/6 and keep my fleet split up. Maybe if the response started when the champion actually could do things, it would be a bit better, or maybe I just have been doing it wrong. Regardless, I'm probably just abandoning the game and playing champion free. It's actually much much easier that way.

[TechSY730]

Two things.

One, in the next patch (yet to be released as of this writing), the nemesis fleets won't start coming until you actually "do something" with your champion (or you wait too long, 3 hours currently). This should help.
Two, there was a bug report somewhere that sometimes the AI nemesis gets invalid module configurations, where, for example, they stack more FF modules than that hull type should be able to support.

[LaughingThesaurus]

That bug seems to be what's actually happening. When I throw my fleet at it, the shields stay up for like 80% of the time, and then the hull falls apart like cardboard. I didn't know if maybe the AI threw lots of points into shield modules somehow or what though. That might be the issue then.
And regarding the doing something thing... yeah, I was really trying to. I'm like right next to a nebula. I just need to hunt down guard posts so that I actually can tackle the scenario reasonably well. I remember going into a scenario at level 1. Yeah, the result was the hour long fight that resulted in me getting what I presume is the bare minimum reward. I don't remember if I got one module or two.

[TechSY730]

That bug seems to be what's actually happening. When I throw my fleet at it, the shields stay up for like 80% of the time, and then the hull falls apart like cardboard. I didn't know if maybe the AI threw lots of points into shield modules somehow or what though. That might be the issue then.
And regarding the doing something thing... yeah, I was really trying to. I'm like right next to a nebula. I just need to hunt down guard posts so that I actually can tackle the scenario reasonably well. I remember going into a scenario at level 1. Yeah, the result was the hour long fight that resulted in me getting what I presume is the bare minimum reward. I don't remember if I got one module or two.

Don't worry. Merely taking out a few guard posts won't be enough to trigger the nemesis reaction to start. Right now it is when you enter a nebula, or possibly when you reach level 5 (not sure about this one), whichever comes first.
And yes, there is already discussion about whether that should change you first complete a nebula instead of merely entering it (or you take X amount of time, to help discourage any sort of level grinding cheese)

[LaughingThesaurus]

Yeah. I actually lurked around and caught wind of that change. That'll probably make it all feel better. I was just frustrated as this was immediately after the whole problem arose. And, well, I did go back and look (back in time as it turns out, the AI did the attack at the exact same time at the exact same place as last time when I reloaded the save). The whole shield thing makes no sense, since all it had was (what appeared to be) a mark II shield module-- which has half the health of the actual ship, which died in no time at all really.

(I made these screenshots dangit I'm uploading them anyway. this is what I had in relation to what the nemesis had)

[Cinth]

Curious... How did you end up with the Spire FF when the Human FF is the starter and you haven't done any scenarios?

[LaughingThesaurus]

No, that's the enemy. The enemy's got this really damaging ship and leveled modules while I'm the one with practically nothing.

[Cinth]

Hey, look at that. I can see the images now

Yeah that's pretty nasty.  All nemesis have MK II modules (lvl 4-5 equivalent to the player champ).

It's rough early, but that alternative would be to see nemesis ships of = size to the players max unlocked hull size ><.

BTW, that loadout looks to be legit (2 large, 2 small).  I haven't flown a spire FF in a long time though.

[Toranth]

It's rough early, but that alternative would be to see nemesis ships of = size to the players max unlocked hull size ><.

No.  No, you I don't think you would.  Not unless you want 40-50 battleships attacking you on a regular basis.  Even defenses that can handle exowaves will start to quail against that.  Even worse, they'd probably just wait around until an Exowave attacked, then join in.

BTW, that loadout looks to be legit (2 large, 2 small).  I haven't flown a spire FF in a long time though.

Legit, yeah.  But Spire FFs have 3 Large, 2 Small, so there's a second FF Mk II module hidden in there.  That means 15M in shields then 15M in hull HP.

[LaughingThesaurus]

So I guess pre-patch the idea would be to pile up loads of turrets and force fields early on until I get lots of cool guns and then fend off nemesis ships more easily? The way Cinth makes it sound, the response doesn't scale up as harshly as your own power does later on.
Edit: Oh. I'll probably put up a save later down the line for easier investigation of shields. It really really felt like it was taking super long to kill the shields but maybe I just had a multiplier against its hull or something. You can also see my ridiculously silly force field placement and stuff. But, y'know, that's why I started a game on 6/6, not 9/9.

[Cinth]

So I guess pre-patch the idea would be to pile up loads of turrets and force fields early on until I get lots of cool guns and then fend off nemesis ships more easily? The way Cinth makes it sound, the response doesn't scale up as harshly as your own power does later on.
Edit: Oh. I'll probably put up a save later down the line for easier investigation of shields. It really really felt like it was taking super long to kill the shields but maybe I just had a multiplier against its hull or something. You can also see my ridiculously silly force field placement and stuff. But, y'know, that's why I started a game on 6/6, not 9/9.

Yeah, the nemesis always stay that that level (4-5 equiv) and the player champs get a lot stronger.  I haven't noticed threat fleet nemesis counts being very high myself, but I suspect that is just because of where my choke point is.

@ Toranth: I was mostly joking around when I said that about the BBs

[RCIX]

Maybe it's just me but I never found that they come very early, and when they do my champion + fleet clobbers it in about 10 seconds? :S

[LaughingThesaurus]

Well, bear in mind my champion's like level 2 with no bells and whistles at all. I mean, bells and whistles significantly increase your DPS right? I was thinking of decorating my frigate with some bells and whistles so that it does more damage and kills it in 10 seconds.
But yeah the thing is, I kept half my fleet or thereabouts on the homeworld "just in case". If a champion hit there while I was out of position, I would just be dead. So, the fact that I did that means I don't really have as much fleet power. It's more fleet response time than actual power. I could also be investing in many more turrets. I'm not even using like a quarter of my cap of any of them because I'm stingy on the limited cap thing. It's also mostly because I don't want to actually end up with energy issues so I'm waiting for fact IV and fab and ARS planets so I can increase my energy and not have to worry about, say, losing a planet and thus having my pants firmly pulled down.
Does an hour count as "very early"? I didn't see peep of a nemesis at all until this hour and 5 minute mark.

Edit: You could say my little bit of fleet on my homeworld is a "strategic reserve".

[Toranth]

@ Toranth: I was mostly joking around when I said that about the BBs

Glad you were joking, but to get rid of that "Mostly", try this saved game.  Just play for an hour or so, and tell me what you think.

Not as bad as 4000 Raids, but close.

[RCIX]

Modules are pretty much free, so no reason not to have them on it.

Turrets are your friend, unlock HBCs mark 1 and station them near your command station and put at least 10 of several types around your wormholes.