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Post by hlo on Jun 9, 2015 7:25:37 GMT -5
However, can anyone tell me if there is a certain way to boost bombard effectiveness? Perhaps putting points into gun skill? My transports seem much more effective when using invade. I prefer Bombard over Invade for 70% of my needs. That was possible before 2.2.17. Keep the system habitable can work against you as the xenos can come in with their colony ships. Also some of the conquered systems have abysmal quality as well. Then you need the endless supplies of colony ship from the 3 factions to avoid political issues. My shipyards are working overtime triple shifts to get enough warships and transports..... Invasion may be OP now but I think bombardment is still somewhat "nerfed". |
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Post by khamya9 on Jun 12, 2015 17:50:19 GMT -5
Does anyone have invasion ship designsmthat don't use mid to late technologies? Meaning nothing to right of ship level 4, so nomheavy reactors etc.
I guess, here's a better way to ask it: is it still possible to defeat an ai world using only free technologies? Because outside of tutorial mode, I'm not sure if it is. Certainly in a test of hard, just no way, not possible without massive waves of ships like 16+ per world. Working a normal game now just to see. I have elite, but if a free player cannot win anything but the tutorial I think that's an issue.
So I'm curious if its just that I'm doing it wrong.
Edit: for the record, watching 6 invasion ships blow up in one turn, but still taking the planet with the other two is simultaneously depressing and entertaining. "Nooo they're all gone!" And "oooh look at all the pretty explosions and big numbers" ^.^
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Post by odomi on Jul 19, 2015 22:49:44 GMT -5
Does anyone have invasion ship designsmthat don't use mid to late technologies? Meaning nothing to right of ship level 4, so nomheavy reactors etc. I guess, here's a better way to ask it: is it still possible to defeat an ai world using only free technologies? Because outside of tutorial mode, I'm not sure if it is. Certainly in a test of hard, just no way, not possible without massive waves of ships like 16+ per world. Working a normal game now just to see. I have elite, but if a free player cannot win anything but the tutorial I think that's an issue. So I'm curious if its just that I'm doing it wrong. Edit: for the record, watching 6 invasion ships blow up in one turn, but still taking the planet with the other two is simultaneously depressing and entertaining. "Nooo they're all gone!" And "oooh look at all the pretty explosions and big numbers" ^.^ when I played Crazy on my last game, I did not invade until I had Angelic drop ships, because I had to keep up in economy and advancing figtechs' techs, and most likely, low tech invaders wouldn't stand a chance. |
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Post by darkeliment217 on Aug 7, 2015 17:54:56 GMT -5
Does anyone have invasion ship designsmthat don't use mid to late technologies? Meaning nothing to right of ship level 4, so nomheavy reactors etc. I guess, here's a better way to ask it: is it still possible to defeat an ai world using only free technologies? Because outside of tutorial mode, I'm not sure if it is. Certainly in a test of hard, just no way, not possible without massive waves of ships like 16+ per world. Working a normal game now just to see. I have elite, but if a free player cannot win anything but the tutorial I think that's an issue. So I'm curious if its just that I'm doing it wrong. Edit: for the record, watching 6 invasion ships blow up in one turn, but still taking the planet with the other two is simultaneously depressing and entertaining. "Nooo they're all gone!" And "oooh look at all the pretty explosions and big numbers" ^.^ IMHO, it is best to take out the strongest Xeno Empires ASAP. As soon as I get ships capable of invasion, I immediately start churning out 3 classes of invasion craft: Templar Invaders (guns/drop pods), colony Invaders (colony module/drop pods), and Heavy Invaders (all-out invasion). My initial crusade Fleet will usually be Dreadnoughts (ship with the best armor, guns, torps, etc. That I can put on it), Gun Bunnies (gun cruisers), and fighters from nearby Star Forts (a repair and a refuel Carrier, with an assault fighter and 2 strike fighters). These craft will usually wipe the enemy fleet off the map (comb through all enemy territory I know of, killing everything in sight), and then retreat back to the closest enemy worlds to my territory. Just as soon as the enemy outskirt worlds have Ben cleared of ships, the second wave will consist of 75% Templar Invaders (double as escorts), 25% Heavy Invaders, to begin invading enemy worlds. They will be immediately followed by Colony Invaders (who will aid in the invasion, and then colonize the world's to establish a foothold). I will usually have a colony in alien territory pretty quickly, and, whenever an invader's hull/fuel gets low, i withdraw them to the colony for repair/resupply. Ive only ever lost 2 Invasion Craft using this strategy (and even that was because Xeno ships spawned right next to the ships when they were at half hull). |
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Post by elwoodps on Aug 8, 2015 20:06:40 GMT -5
This is the Heavy Invasion Transport (HIT) that I've been crushing Red Zorga worlds with in my current game (Cadar, Rychart and Alta Vista on the Rinze 100x100, 90 world map vs 3 Xeno [Jyeeta, Sidtax & Red Zorga] on Hard). Though it's kind of late game tech, this was the first IT that I built in this particular game (the necessary research was completed early in year 10), pretty well knowing how I wanted it built based on experience in my last game. The combo of the Skyfire dropship and Duranium hull seems a good balance between striking power and armor, that fits within the 8000 mass limit of the Heavy Reactor 15. So I was resolved to hold out until I had all that, plus Planetary Invasion 3 training, and it paid off handsomely: One Invasion Task Force, made-up of 12 of these transports plus 2 heavy tankers, steamrolled sixteen Level 35 Red Zorga worlds in just 2 years. Please don't put too much stock in my Ship Material and Captain Skills point allocations. Those are the things I'm least sure of, and can almost certainly be improved on.  I plan to start a thread in the near future, explaining the tactics I used in this campaign.
Edit to clarify what I meant when I said "steamrolled": Even though I only use Bombard on heavily defended systems (Defense>20) that have Quality to spare (Quality>11), none of the Zorga worlds took more than 4 turns to purge, and many, if not most, were purged in 3 (sorry, I didn't keep count).
I always tried to have a Colony ship of the appropriate (to maintain a balanced colony count) faction standing by to colonize each world as soon as it was purged, so the Task Force could immediately begin to repair and refuel in-place. Because the Task Force was moving so quickly, logistically this was by far the most difficult facet of the campaign. In a couple instances, the necessary Colony ship was late arriving, and the Task Force had to wait. It never took more than three turns following colonization to repair any of these HIT's; the vast majority were repaired in one or two.
When I didn't manage to have the Heavy Tankers standing by on the scene when a world fell, refueling always took longer than repairs. This was despite the fact that these HIT's are powered by "Refuel 5/turn" Heavy Reactors. In the coming campaign against the Jyeeta, I'll have more and better (multi-refuel 2) tankers.
To me it was a very fast moving campaign.  |
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Post by Captain Starbuck on Aug 10, 2015 20:55:08 GMT -5
Maybe I'm missing something but are you going into battle with a combination invasion/colony ship? Nah, I completely separate them. My view of a colony ship: - Fast to get from secure zone to front line - That means as lean as possible but with heavy reactors - No defense whatsoever - Unfortunately we're forced to have guns but I never use them. These things are meant to get from here to there, colonize, and go away. They don't need guns. I did just learn something here though. I don't put any points into Refuel but very often by the time a ship gets to the front line it might be out of fuel. Like elwoodps I try to keep them waiting nearby and ready to jump in right after the final purge. Rather than hanging in space I do try to park colony ships on a home world. But without Refuel ability they'll just sit there until I can get a tanker in the area. So rather than spending points on durability, I'd much rather try to get them to refuel as fast as possible, just enough to make that final jump. So far I have three types of colony ships, one for each level of planet (white, yellow, red). I'm at the point where I can crank them out fast enough so that I can now put more resources on lower level planets. With the info here I'll play with a fourth type that can do better refueling. But for Invasion, the topic of this thread, I'm still learning. Since ships can't repair I'm burning through my older invasion ships, letting them get destroyed by planetary defense, making way for newer generations (and reducing maintenance by not keeping them around for repair). But yea, I'm still looking for the best specs to take down a planet with 20 population as quickly as possible. |
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Post by CdrPlatypus on Aug 10, 2015 23:37:22 GMT -5
Captain Starbuck refuel is determined by the reactor not by a skill. The repair skill only effects hull point repair in green space
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Post by elwoodps on Aug 11, 2015 5:53:21 GMT -5
Maybe I'm missing something but are you going into battle with a combination invasion/colony ship? Nah, I completely separate them.... No, I'm with you on that. I just try to have a separate colony ship standing by within 3 squares of the planet being invaded, so that I'm ready to colonize in the first turn after the purge is completed. That way my invasion transports can begin to Refuel & Repair ASAP, in the green squares around the new colony.  |
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Post by tenbsmith on Aug 12, 2015 9:18:30 GMT -5
This invasion specialist design places all Ship and Captain points in the stats Cory said affect planetary invasion offense and defense. While this leaves it vulnerable in ship-to-ship combat, theoretically it should excel at invasion. Invader-Sp (Sp for Specialist) Transport (Planetary Invasion 1), Level 4, Reactor 9 Ship: Durability 11, Shielding 8, Evasion 1, Sensor 6 Captain: Pilot 2, Repair 5, Invasion 5 Heavy Drop Pods, Heavy Assault Brigade, Duranium Composite Cladding Weight: 3924/4000 (Logically, I should remove the 1 point in Evasion and put it in Durability, Shielding or Sensor, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.) Invader-I The design of this ship is the same as Invader-SP except Ship and Captain points are redistributed to improve defense in ship-to-ship combat. Ship: Durability 8, Shielding 8, Evasion 4, Sensor 6 Captain: Pilot 2, Stealth 1, Repair 5, Invasion 4 In order to compare performance I used two Invader-Sp ships and one Invader-I purge a Sidtax (level 23) infestation (population ~21, radiation 3, defense ~18) in year 7.12 on hard. The Invader-SP took less damage, though I can't be sure at this point if that was due to design, luck, or order of attack. I'll build a few more Invader-Sp's and report back on the next invasion. |
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Post by CdrPlatypus on Aug 12, 2015 20:37:23 GMT -5
tenbsmith Just want to say i really appreciate you running an actual experiment on this and posting results.
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Post by tenbsmith on Aug 13, 2015 8:55:13 GMT -5
My design above is based on experiments conducted by koles that showed increasing Durability led to decreased damage received during invasions. (See the first page of the Planetary Invasion Discussion thread: startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/11563 ) I believe there have been changes to the planetary invasion rules in the game since Koles did that, so I'm re-doing, albeit on a smaller scale. Of course, higher Durability also gives you more hull making the ships more... durable. |
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Post by CdrPlatypus on Aug 20, 2015 14:15:36 GMT -5
Cory Trese Can you please clarify: Does in evasion increase defense for invasion actions? Or only for ship to ship combat?
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Post by tenbsmith on Aug 25, 2015 19:30:27 GMT -5
I just finished clearing an infestation of Sidtax (level 24), 8.13AE, the planet stats as best I remember were Pop and defense around 20's. Here's a table showing: --The order in which ships attacked. In a given turn, Invader-Sp-a always attacked first. --Ship Name. These ships use the exact designs I specified using these names above. The 4 Invader-Sp designed ships are differentiated via the letter at the end of the name )a to d). --Hull Damage, the number of Hull Points lost during the overall invasion (All ships began with fully repaired hulls). --Notes: Two ships Scouted for the first turn (giving them one extra round of invasion. All other attacks were Invade. Attack Order
| Ship Name
| Hull Damage
| Notes | 1
| Invader-Sp-a | 50 | 1 extra rounds of scouting
| 2
| Invader-Sp-c | 53 | 1 extra rounds of scouting | 3
| Invader-Sp-d | 25
| -- | 4
| Invader-I | 61
| -- | 5
| Invader-Sp-b | 23 | -- |
--The 'Sp' ships with more hull seem to take less damage than the 'I' design ship. Ships invading earlier also seem to take more damage--though this may be due to later invading ships not engaging in combat in the last round of invasion--I didn't track that. Edit: 2nd Invasion, Completed AE 8.37, Sidtax (lvl 25), System stats (Pop 20, Qual 10, Rad 5, Def 23) Attack Order
| Ship Name
| Hull Damage
| Notes | 1
| Invader-Sp-a | 87 | 1 extra rounds of scouting
| 2
| Invader-Sp-b | 75 | 1 extra rounds of scouting | 3
| Invader-I | 72
| -- | 4
| Invader-Sp-d | 69
| -- | 5
| Invader-Sp-c | 60 | -- |
--Damage is remarkably even. Average for Sp design is 72.5 and I design was 72. 3rs Invasion, 9.4AE, Sidtax (lvl 26), System (Pop 20, Qual 10, Rad 14, Def 14) Attack Order
| Ship Name
| Hull Damage
| Exp
| Notes | 1
| Invader-Sp-d | 51 | 5
| 1 extra rounds of scouting
| 2
| Invader-Sp-b | 60 | 5
| 1 extra rounds of scouting | 3
| Invader-I | 97
| 5
| -- | 4
| Invader-Sp-c | 71
| 7
| -- | 5
| Invader-Sp-a | 28 | 5
| -- |
--Attach order is imprecise as aggressive Xeno counter attacks forced repositioning during the purge. |
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Post by elwoodps on Aug 26, 2015 14:08:37 GMT -5
My design above is based on experiments conducted by koles that showed increasing Durability led to decreased damage received during invasions. (See the first page of the Planetary Invasion Discussion thread: startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/11563 )..... I believe you may be misinterpreting koles findings. linkI think that #5 took the least damage because of it's 24 Armor: #1 only had 13 Armor and #2, #3, and #4 only had 6 Armor or less. |
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Post by Cory Trese on Aug 27, 2015 8:27:43 GMT -5
Does anyone have invasion ship designsmthat don't use mid to late technologies? Meaning nothing to right of ship level 4, so nomheavy reactors etc. I guess, here's a better way to ask it: is it still possible to defeat an ai world using only free technologies? Because outside of tutorial mode, I'm not sure if it is. Certainly in a test of hard, just no way, not possible without massive waves of ships like 16+ per world. Working a normal game now just to see. I have elite, but if a free player cannot win anything but the tutorial I think that's an issue. So I'm curious if its just that I'm doing it wrong. Edit: for the record, watching 6 invasion ships blow up in one turn, but still taking the planet with the other two is simultaneously depressing and entertaining. "Nooo they're all gone!" And "oooh look at all the pretty explosions and big numbers" ^.^ Absolutely. I do most of my testing on the Free version because I know so many of our players don't wish to pay for the game, and I'm still very keen to make sure they have a great experience. What version and design are you using? I'm absolutely shocked you've found a design that can fail that hard! I'd love to see what design you have been trying, and on what difficulty / map. |
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