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Pirate Radar posted:What decides who goes first when councilors from different factions both attempt tasks on the same target? Getting tired of being beaten to purge points and wasting turns. with the same mission, whoever has the highest odds goes first the only mission where I hate this is Public Campaign, since you'll have some great shots with optimized councilors but everyone else with poo poo odds gets to ruin your work later in the turn order.
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May 3, 2024 02:53
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Complications posted:The moment you put habs in Jupiter you're effectively at war because the aliens will not stop until those habs are destroyed and presumably you intend to defend those habs. This can useful in early rushes because the aliens will penny packet ships into Jupiter for destruction in detail instead of building them up into fleets and building more and more habs into the asteroid belt. Blowing up assault carriers generates a lot of hate, so be ready to rebuild a lot if you're not ready for war. Control of Earth orbit is not a requirement, but if you can't sweep the aliens out of someplace as friendly as Earth orbit then you're probably not ready for prolonged combat. I guess I could let the next one land instead of splashing it, I have China this time so that issue is prevented. I can fight them in orbit with Viper missile spam if they want, but if I try to pick a fight with the surveillance missions they can just evade me and I've burned months worth of fuel income.
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May 3, 2024 05:42
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Pirate Radar posted:I guess I could let the next one land instead of splashing it, I have China this time so that issue is prevented. I can fight them in orbit with Viper missile spam if they want, but if I try to pick a fight with the surveillance missions they can just evade me and I've burned months worth of fuel income. Given that you're going for minimizing hate if you can't mob the Assault Carrier and geek the armies as they debark, I recommend killing the alien armies and then letting another faction handle destroying the Alien Administration. The AA's military score is composed of the nations it makes up, and not the alien army technology level. AFAIK you'll get some hate from killing the armies, but an amount more akin to killing a ship and not the instant smite request of properly destroying the AA.
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May 3, 2024 05:50
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That terrible itchy feeling when you've maxed out the hate you can afford, but you're sure there's at least one more alien agent still wandering around.
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May 3, 2024 16:10
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I kinda hate (heh) the Hate mechanic. It encourages toeing the line and inhibiting certain lanes of progress because you are afraid the aliens are going to come and push your poo poo in. The devs are of course going for a simulationist approach to the game with the aliens using their technological superiority but I would prefer it to be a bit more gamified.
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May 3, 2024 16:22
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What would that look like? It's already pretty gamey that you have a hate bar and the aliens react in specific predictable ways to specific actions.
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May 3, 2024 16:28
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SettingSun posted:I kinda hate (heh) the Hate mechanic. It encourages toeing the line and inhibiting certain lanes of progress because you are afraid the aliens are going to come and push your poo poo in. The devs are of course going for a simulationist approach to the game with the aliens using their technological superiority but I would prefer it to be a bit more gamified. I'm ok with the hate mechanic in principle. However, it seems a bit too binary to me. Either you are hosed or you are not. I (at least I remember I liked) liked the way x-com apocalypse handled it, with the aliens becoming more and more aggressive if you were doing well. If they were doing well, they'd resort to more infiltration-based tactics. It'd be fun to engage in more limited war with the aliens. EDIT: I mean ok, trinary. Not hosed, hosed and turbo-hosed.
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May 3, 2024 16:31
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SettingSun posted:I kinda hate (heh) the Hate mechanic. It encourages toeing the line and inhibiting certain lanes of progress because you are afraid the aliens are going to come and push your poo poo in. The devs are of course going for a simulationist approach to the game with the aliens using their technological superiority but I would prefer it to be a bit more gamified. If filling an orbit around Earth with platforms with a Solar Collector and Quarters to sacrifice to the Ayys whenever I blow something up isn't gaming the system, I don't know what is. If I want to keep something, its a T2 Hab and gets 2x LDAs whether they're effective or not because the Aliens just gently caress off and destroy something else.
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May 3, 2024 16:31
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How much do people care about committing to global research? Because I ended up diverting all my lightbulbs to my own projects and for the most part not caring about setting the next target.
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May 3, 2024 16:31
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You should try to regularly direct a global research slot. They are far too important to leave it completely to the AI's random rolls of the dice. You also get a bonus to all your research output the more research slots you have pips in. It's not enough to make up for the diverted research, but it is a pretty significant amount that ameliorates the bleed. And it makes the whole globe stronger, which is pretty useful imo. Keisari posted:I'm ok with the hate mechanic in principle. However, it seems a bit too binary to me. Either you are hosed or you are not. I (at least I remember I liked) liked the way x-com apocalypse handled it, with the aliens becoming more and more aggressive if you were doing well. If they were doing well, they'd resort to more infiltration-based tactics. The hate mechanic allows you to engage in limited war with the aliens; enough to take out alien agents and priority space targets like surveillance ships. You can even engage in land warfare. There are certain actions which really piss the aliens off, and granted you don't get told what those are, so eh. IMO you only really run into issues if you treat hate as a 'hate cap' on your infrastructure, which I've seen a lot of people do. They get told they can build X MC without pissing off the aliens, they build up to that point, and then get frustrated that they can't do anything against the aliens. If you want to confront the aliens or even the Servants regularly, you need to leave a significant buffer in your hate to do that with. I do think that gaining alien hate by attacking the Servants is entirely wrong headed. Fighting the alien's proxies should be exactly what you *CAN* do when the aliens are too pissed to directly confront. TheDeadlyShoe fucked around with this message at 16:53 on May 3, 2024 |
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May 3, 2024 16:49
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Before I do something I might regret, what is the approximate hate generation of assassinating an alien on earth vs trying to intercept one of those delivery gunships?
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May 3, 2024 19:22
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I’m into Feb 2024 in my long campaign and Luna is so loving poo poo. I’m completely gimped. It feels like I should be conquering mars right now but I lack the boost and the space resources to do it effectively. On the flip side I control research so I get to gatekeep mars at my own pace by going for military and fission techs. My plan is to try and weaponize space as soon as possible. I want to build a 3-4 shipyard (that I’ve dubbed Space Norfolk) and start cranking out Artemis monitors or cruisers to attack the aliens wherever possible and stop their surveillance, abduction and councillor insertions. For this reason I’m going to focus heavily on fission since that gives me a more immediate payoff than trying to beeline fusion. What are approximate years in a long campaign that you “should” have hit certain milestones like mars colonies etc?
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May 3, 2024 19:57
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Alchenar posted:How much do people care about committing to global research? Because I ended up diverting all my lightbulbs to my own projects and for the most part not caring about setting the next target. If you're trying to beat the other factions to a particular planet, you should go all in on the Mission to X techs, because you get a bonus to scanning speed for that planet based on how much you research you contribute. You also get a bonus to the chance to unlock projects from techs based on your contribution.
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May 5, 2024 02:00
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Am I correct in the impression that the scientist Councilor you get at the start is kinda of useless for that stage of the game and should be replaced with an operative or something?
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May 5, 2024 08:10
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SweetBro posted:Am I correct in the impression that the scientist Councilor you get at the start is kinda of useless for that stage of the game and should be replaced with an operative or something? Generally, the scientist doesn't really have a good mission/skill combination so it's not something you generally want in the absolute start since they're better for advising in your best research country. That said a maxed out Scientist can help you pump out a lot of science which is nice.
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May 5, 2024 10:07
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The function of a scientist is to hold all of your research-producing orgs and increase the bonus they give, while otherwise training ADM and sitting in your biggest/best country on permanent advise duty mixed with occasional defend interests when your other councilors are busy. I generally make this my 5th pick, but I guess if you can play an efficient early game it would mean that you started maxed-out advising sooner, so it depends how action-intensive your playstyle is. For me, the early game is completely full because even if I'm not doing anything else, I'm grabbing random countries to control/purge, set to unity+growth, then abandoning so that they end up stable and with high public opinion for my faction. And I am doing something else, because you should always be killing the good Servants councilors while leaving/turning the useless ones until they end up with a stable of fools. Then you should turn the best advisor from each other faction consecutively, long enough to scope out and steal their best orgs. So yeah, don't start with a scientist unless it's part of a specific plan.
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May 5, 2024 11:00
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SweetBro posted:Am I correct in the impression that the scientist Councilor you get at the start is kinda of useless for that stage of the game and should be replaced with an operative or something? The first two agents you get are random, I believe picked from the pool of classes that have the investigate alien activity mission. If you start a custom campaign, you have the option to choose what class they'll be, or start with no agent and +30 influence instead. But yeah, scientists aren't great for the early game.
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May 5, 2024 17:36
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The main virtue Scientists have is that they can roll a wide variety of +science% traits. I like Professors or Astronauts instead. They aren't as guaranteed good at science as Scientists, but Professors can usually go adequately into Persuasion while Astronauts are highly flexible and good candidates to develop as your prime agent.
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May 5, 2024 19:20
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So, I take it Railguns are an early game trap? IE, since all the AI ships will have Guns on by default they'll just get shot out of the sky. Same thing for missiles?
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May 8, 2024 06:17
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Missiles are fine. They're hellacious micro due to how fast ships will shoot a magazine and they don't scale well into total annihilation fleet vs fleet combat due to point defense and again micro, but you can easily take three tiny ships with only missiles and gank a surveillance ship or agent landing ship or a dozen in to geek an assault carrier through a small escort. Don't expect to come out with all your ships afterward or in the case of the assault carrier any of them, but missiles are definitely usable. Railguns are bad. They don't shoot enough to overcome PD, and the projectiles aren't fast enough to catch anything. Coilguns shoot enough to overcome PD in numbers and are fast enough to catch things with the sort of drives you'll be mounting on ships by then. Coilguns are also good when you've lasered and plasma'd a ship or station piece enough to ablate all the PD down. There's not enough armor in the universe to stop a couple coilguns from annihilating a ship when a full volley hits. That said, I discount missiles and guns in AI ships because of just how much PD I mount on mine as a matter of habit. I remember Ye Olde Missile Swarms and don't mind building more ships to mount more plasma and coil on. Complications fucked around with this message at 06:55 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 06:52
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I do wish space warfare came online sooner. It's kinda of lame I gimped a 30 run cause I didn't understand how space warfare, travel, and builds worked. So half my fleet got stranded in Narnia while the AI just flew around and dumpstered all of my space stations, because I didn't realize the actual defensive option is like three super cheap research options into the tech tree. Likewise it seems that starting EU is a bit of a trap. Because you end up at war with every faction and it becomes super expensive to un-war them. Also am I missing something or is there no way to launch probes from stations/colonies other than earth?
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May 8, 2024 08:34
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SweetBro posted:I do wish space warfare came online sooner. It's kinda of lame I gimped a 30 run cause I didn't understand how space warfare, travel, and builds worked. So half my fleet got stranded in Narnia while the AI just flew around and dumpstered all of my space stations, because I didn't realize the actual defensive option is like three super cheap research options into the tech tree. I defend my early space assets with small groups of them - they've got just enough delta-v to get somewhere in the same Orbit, and while they're about as manurable as a tortoise on its back they're pretty good at making the aliens think twice before going at a station (and will bloody anyone that tries). Keep in mind that over time the Aliens PD and ECM will get better, but for the early game I've taken out Destroyers with solo monitors packed to the gills with Viper Missiles. In the later game I'll start pumping out dreadnaughts to defend core areas like Earth/Mars/Mercury/Ceres, but even those designs will have abysmal Delta-V - you don't want to be sending fleets between Celestial Bodies for defense. SweetBro posted:Likewise it seems that starting EU is a bit of a trap. Because you end up at war with every faction and it becomes super expensive to un-war them. If the USA is easy mode, then the EU is... normal difficulty  SweetBro posted:Also am I missing something or is there no way to launch probes from stations/colonies other than earth? Rougey fucked around with this message at 09:04 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 09:01
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SweetBro posted:I do wish space warfare came online sooner. It's kinda of lame I gimped a 30 run cause I didn't understand how space warfare, travel, and builds worked. So half my fleet got stranded in Narnia while the AI just flew around and dumpstered all of my space stations, because I didn't realize the actual defensive option is like three super cheap research options into the tech tree. You need a space dock to launch probes from space. However, probes are good mostly for the asteroid belt. (And mars, of course). Otherwise it's faster to build a science ship to conduct the surveys. Full disclosure: I play on normal and have yet to beat the game, so I'm not a pro by any metric.
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May 8, 2024 10:13
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SweetBro posted:I do wish space warfare came online sooner. It's kinda of lame I gimped a 30 run cause I didn't understand how space warfare, travel, and builds worked. So half my fleet got stranded in Narnia while the AI just flew around and dumpstered all of my space stations, because I didn't realize the actual defensive option is like three super cheap research options into the tech tree. The game has a pretty steep learning curve for sure, and everyone has probably abandoned their first game. I don’t think starting EU is a trap, per se, but it is a path that requires a whole bunch of unifications to pay off and that’s costly in terms of control point cap and councilor action economy. Generally the AI doesn’t spoil the EU member states too badly, instead using them for MC, so letting them develop then annexing as a second mega nation is usually better than doing it first though. But I’ve at least tried to post a bunch of general advice posts in this thread too, for ship design, etc. A lot of the sort of trap stuff (building big expensive ships early, overbuilding on Luna instead of Mars, not managing hate, not getting boost early) are common topics.
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May 8, 2024 12:15
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My preferred strategy has been starting with India, using Kazakhstan for starting boost and Singapore for building boost, looting Saudi Arabia then gulf states for cash, and as soon as my people have trained their skills up enough, taking China. That usually occupies my command points for a while until I can research several techs, at which point I typically use the excess to mess around, doing stuff like taking over Russia to disarm their nukes, disrupt control over EU / USA if the Servants or Protectorate get it, even if I can't afford to hold on to them. Unfortunately, v4 changed all that. I'm still slowly finishing a v3.x game, but I've tried 4, and the economy, map, and CP changes make that strategy not really work on any reasonable timescale. Alas.
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May 8, 2024 12:44
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It's 2035 and I had a go at an assault carrier with some obsolete ships and managed to cripple it with one good ram - now it's sitting uselessly in orbit and doesn't appear to be a threat. Can they repair themselves or am I going to have to go back in an finish the job?
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May 8, 2024 13:26
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Rougey posted:It's 2035 and I had a go at an assault carrier with some obsolete ships and managed to cripple it with one good ram - now it's sitting uselessly in orbit and doesn't appear to be a threat. If you've researched exotics, it's probably worth cracking it open for those even if it's not a threat
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May 8, 2024 13:35
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Rougey posted:It's 2035 and I had a go at an assault carrier with some obsolete ships and managed to cripple it with one good ram - now it's sitting uselessly in orbit and doesn't appear to be a threat. A crippled alien ship in earth orbit is going to be there probably the rest of the game until you or someone blow it up. They never build infrastructure on earth orbit I don’t see them docking at servant stations either. I’d suggest you leave it for now until you’re ready for retaliation then pop it.
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May 8, 2024 13:50
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crippled assault carriers are the best possible outcome. afaik, the aliens dont get hate for crippled ships, only destroyed. and they haaaaaate losing assault carriers
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May 8, 2024 13:54
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What drives do you use for the early missile monitor? How much Dv? Made one with dumbo drives and 8Dv, they don't feel useful.
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May 8, 2024 15:51
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You don't want normal Dumbo drives, you want the Heavy Dumbo since those are way better for defense fleets early on. If you're lucky and unlock the Lorentz or Heliocon drives you can use those for creating ships to move around in space although they're for exploration more than combat. Other than that, I guess maybe the Heavy Orion drive for decent combat ships until you can get even more powerful drives? That said, the drive changes from 3.0 to 4.1 are a bit different so someone will probably find out the "best" ones soon.
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May 8, 2024 16:07
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Koorisch posted:You don't want normal Dumbo drives, you want the Heavy Dumbo since those are way better for defense fleets early on. What about Pulsar and Advanced Pulsar drives?
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May 8, 2024 16:11
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Koorisch posted:You don't want normal Dumbo drives, you want the Heavy Dumbo since those are way better for defense fleets early on. Thanks for that! I killed too many aliens on earth and accidentally maxed out aggression, its a bummer not having decent thrust drives to make defensive ships. If I could wave my wand and fix anything about this game, it would be making the AI factions more competent. My first 0.4 game right now and they feel absolutely anemic. edit: I also wish the game didn't punish me for not wanting to micro armies back to their home states, it makes no sense why airlift home takes so long. Moonshine Rhyme fucked around with this message at 17:18 on May 8, 2024 |
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May 8, 2024 16:32
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Has anyone come up with a ship design that's decent at crippling alien ships but less so at finishing them off? Wondering if a valid defense strat is to just leave earth orbit full of immobile alien ships to keep the aliens from getting pissed too early.
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May 8, 2024 16:35
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Keisari posted:You need a space dock to launch probes from space. However, probes are good mostly for the asteroid belt. (And mars, of course). Otherwise it's faster to build a science ship to conduct the surveys. I’ve had problems using science and colony ships myself - by the time they become feasible to build I find the aliens are usually sniping lone, undefended slow boats plodding through space. I have found a use for colony ships in the late game as part of a massive siege fleet intended to crack alien space stations, send massed marines to occupy their mining facilities and then build a space station and space dock in orbit to refuel and rearm, but that’s hellaciously slow going.
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May 8, 2024 17:19
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Dumbo seems good enough for Earth defense against surveillance ships. I have intercepted two so far with a fleet of low tech escorts. The aliens are cocky and don't try to run away so you can slam them with a barrage of copperhead missiles Someone on the discord showed me their design and they use chemical engines for this job, since all you need is 1k dv.
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May 8, 2024 18:02
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If your undefended science ships are getting sniped arm them or send an escort!
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May 8, 2024 18:11
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I like multipurpose ships so I’ve been making an “escort tanker” cruiser with flag/repair/salvage/platform. Match the acceleration of your main fleet and load up with fuel. No armor or weapons. No science but I’ll send probes once the shipyard is up in a given planet system.
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May 8, 2024 18:20
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:crippled assault carriers are the best possible outcome. afaik, the aliens dont get hate for crippled ships, only destroyed. and they haaaaaate losing assault carriers Perfect - I'm more than capable of taking on the assault carriers on Earth (so long as they land in a friendly territory) but I figured I'd have a crack and deal with the consequences - didn't know it was possible to leave them dead in the water. Atopian posted:If you've researched exotics, it's probably worth cracking it open for those even if it's not a threat I've got them, but I'm trying to play it small until I've got Mercury up and running, and replacing my LEO buff stations is expensive. Velius posted:A crippled alien ship in earth orbit is going to be there probably the rest of the game until you or someone blow it up. They never build infrastructure on earth orbit I don’t see them docking at servant stations either. Fantastic - a mid game snack! Moonshine Rhyme posted:What drives do you use for the early missile monitor? How much Dv? Heavy Dumbo (for now) with 8Dv - just enough to get them to/from where they need to be in orbit. They are complete sitting ducks in combat, but two of them with a PD Destroyer can take out up to an including a destroyer without losses. The problem I have with that design/doctorine is when the Monitors have expended their loads, The Protectorate tries to come in and get some easy kills.
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May 8, 2024 23:59
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Kraftwerk posted:What about Pulsar and Advanced Pulsar drives? They're just too weak, sure you can get them early on but the Advanced Dumbo beats them both if you only want combat thrust and if you want actual range you want something with a lot more Dv like the Heliocon. In the early game, it's a bad idea to have a drive that does both things ok instead of one that does one thing really well, that's for the later engines to do. Also, some ships are made exclusively for defending one planet, you don't need long range if all it does is defend that one planet. e:https://imgur.com/a/cyiifyz Here's the latest Drive chart, you can see for yourself that the Pulsar drives are middling at best. That said, i'm not saying you *can't* use Pulsar drives, just be aware they're not great. Koorisch fucked around with this message at 00:35 on May 9, 2024 |
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May 9, 2024 00:14
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