12-Ship Invasion Tactics: Spread the Damage and Keep Moving

[MintDragon]

Aug 20, 2015 2:36:33 GMT -5 johndramey said:

So, for some reason my work computer doesn’t let me get files off of my phone. Since I spend way too much time at the office these days, that leaves me in a bit of a lurch for this post and I’ve decided to go ahead and post a verbal account of my invasions which I can supplement later when I get a chance to upload images from my home computer.

First off, let me state that I am by no means a professional at Star Traders 4X. I rarely actually complete any of the games I start even though I love the game. That being said, I am playing on Crazy difficulty and feel pretty confident that I can handle whatever the game throws at me.

On to my strategy, then. I’ve never really been one to throw away ships needlessly. Never saw the point in it, actually, as in most of my games I’ve found that a butt load of experience can make up for a lot in the way of tech shortcomings. As such, I disagree that throwing transports into the grinder is a good idea.

My current game had my building the Imperator fairly early on and, to be honest, it’s still my invasion work horse. I’ll list its stats and load out right here:


Imperator
Class = Transport
Load out = Reactor 3 / Planetary Invasion 1 / Low orbit drop pods / Heavy mechanized brigade

Ship skills = Durability & Shielding 10 / Evasion 5 / Sensor 2 / Refuel 3 / Gun Decks & Torpedo Bays 0

Captain skills = Gun Attack, Pilot, Torpedoes, & Warrior 0 / Stealth 2 / Repair 2 / Invasion 7


Nothing too special, I know. Sure, it could be updated. Actually it could be updated a lot in my current game, but I’m still rolling with it. The thing to remember is that, aside from the heavy mechanized brigade, everything I used is unlocked with just the first level of planetary invasion.

Anyways, I invaded my first planet on turn 6.29. I chose it because it was on the upper edge of the map and gave the Krangg xeno a nice little jumping off point to harass my space. I really hit the jackpot with it, though, because when I scouted it with my first Imperator I saw its stats. It sported a lovely 20 quality, which meant that I had to have it at any cost. It had a xeno population of 20, a defensive rating of 23, and a radiation level of 13. Not the toughest nut in the world but by no means easy pickings. Time to begin the invasion!

Over my time playing ST4X I’ve learned a lot of lessons. One of those lessons was this; never roll up on an enemy planet with less than 4 transports if you want to both have a decent chance of bringing home experienced troops and capturing a planet intact. So, first order of business was to build 4 Imperators and get ‘em fueled up.

After getting my Imperators up to the planet, after clearing a path with my cruisers of course, I set my plan in motion. Here is where things get really simple and you’ll probably go “ah, geez John, that helps me not at all” but I don’t care.

My strategy for taking a xeno planet goes like this: Scout -> Invade -> Invade -> Invade. I usually will pull one more scout after 5 or so turns just to roleplay a little bit of recon but it is by no means necessary. If I have more than 5 transports, which is actually very rare, I’ll pull a rotation similar to elwoodps . My rotation is a bit different though, as I usually don’t pull a transport back until it has suffered over 33% damage. Sure, pulling transports back faster will save on repair time, but I like to focus on getting experience for my troops and captains.

It took me just 6 turns to reduce that 20 population / 20 quality planet to a ripe little uninhabited rock just waiting for my Thulun Caravan to land on it. Those turns went juuuust like this.

19/20 Population (Just a scout)
14/20 Population (Invasion starts)
10/20 Population
6/20 Population
5/20 Population (damn you dice!)
0/20 Population

Not bad for what amounts to practically the most basic troop transport you can field, eh?

I hope my post is helpful and entertaining to some of you out there, and I promise to come back and fill in the pictures soon! I’ll also post up a log of my second invasion complete with pictures as well.

very helpful! thank you.  hope to see pics of similar early invasions as well...

[pendell]

Hmm .. I've been thinking about this, and I'm hesitant to adopt 12-ship tactics.

But before I discuss, I should first credit the immense amount of work and research elwoodps did, carefully diagramming his tactics with screenshots like that. It's really great work!

And I should caveat this by noting that I've only played at normal difficulty.

With those caveats in mind, I have issues with the plan.

The reason is the need to refuel and resupply the transports. There are only 12 green squares around a friendly colony at the best of times. If we refuel all the transports, there is no green left over for escorts.

That's why I prefer 8-ship transport groups. When I take a new colony, this gives me 8 squares to refuel the transports, 2 squares for refueling carriers, 1 square for a repair carrier, and one extra square.

*My* solution is, instead of a 12-ship group, to go the next step up to 16 -- two full transport attack groups, one is repairing and refueling while the other is conducting an assault. Eventually both groups will have some badly damaged ships and some relatively healthy ships. When this happens, it's time to trade the ships around -- move all the healthy ships into one group and all the badly damaged ones into the second. Then let group 2 heal up while group 1 continues the assault.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[elwoodps]

Feb 14, 2016 16:38:47 GMT -5 pendell said:

......

The reason is the need to refuel and resupply the transports. There are only 12 green squares around a friendly colony at the best of times. If we refuel all the transports, there is no green left over for escorts...........

Hi Brian (pendell ),

One Squad of 2 Multi Refuel Tankers is enough to have all the Invasion Transports topped-off by the time they've finished repairs. So four Tankers (2 Squads) is all it takes to keep the Invasion Task Force moving as follows:

Tanker Squad Alpha tops off the ITF following the purge of Xeno System A, and remains there refueling while the ITF followed by Squad Bravo heads to Xeno System B. Squad Bravo tops off the ITF following the purge of Xeno System B, and remains there refueling while the ITF followed by Squad Alpha (which has completed refueling and is already en route) heads to Xeno System C. Squad Alpha tops off the ITF following the purge of Xeno System C, and remains there refueling while the ITF followed by Squad Bravo (which has completed refueling and is already en route) heads to Xeno System D. And so on and so forth....

The only time the Tanker Squads don't keep up with the ITF, is when I forget and leave a Squad sitting in Green space for several turns after it's completed refueling (Yeah, I've done that more times than I care to admit).

And following each Purge, the least damaged IT's complete repairs in just a turn or two and either wait in Yellow space or start to move out, followed by the less damaged IT's, freeing up Green space for your Repair Carrier and other escorts while the more heavily damaged part of the ITF is still repairing.

[pendell]

I see.

You make a good case. I think the fundamental difference between your strategy and mine is that I start invasions just as soon as I finish researching the Planetary Invasion 2 talent; I do not have multi-refueling carriers at that time, and I go with what I have, given that I'm usually pressed for cash at that point, especially if the ever-factious (heh) colonists decide that today is a good day for a spy battle.

Also, I've never made use of the multi-refueling talent; I see that a single refueling carrier can only fully refuel one fighter with empty tanks before it needs to start refueling itself. I was concerned that multi refueling would pretty much empty the carrier in one shot. Is that not true?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[elwoodps]

Feb 17, 2016 10:20:55 GMT -5 pendell said:

....
Also, I've never made use of the multi-refueling talent; I see that a single refueling carrier can only fully refuel one fighter with empty tanks before it needs to start refueling itself. I was concerned that multi refueling would pretty much empty the carrier in one shot. Is that not true? ......

No. 

The Multi-Refuel talents are pretty cool.

Multi Refuel 1 uses 30WF per shot and supplies 20WF to each ship refueled, no matter how many ships you refuel in one shot.  

Absolutely super for refueling Invasion Transports around a just-founded Colony.  Once the first few IT's have finished repairs, I can line-up 4 IT's in a T formation that keeps 'em all, and the Tanker, in Green space.  Refueling 4 IT's that way per shot, the Tanker delivers 80WF for every 30WF it uses, and (because the it's sitting in Green space too) the Tanker recovers part of that between turns 

I'll grab some screenshots of IT refueling operations and post them here, when I get a chance.

[pendell]

Thank you, elwooddps. Very informative! I'll have to give multi-refueling a try.

:raises eyebrows:

So you can give more water to the ships than you spend? We violate the principle of conservation of mass?

:Thinks:

Rationalization powers: ACTIVATE!

[rationalization]
We know from ST that ice can be harvested for water fuel even when a ship's tanks are empty; there is hydrogen in space, and in gas giants, and ice on comets.

So: When a carrier multi-refuels, it isn't actually transferring water. Instead, it is running a sophisticating harvesting operation on local solar phenomena. Fuel scoops and ice mining are all employed to generate the water-fuel, or hydrogen, used to power the other ships. The water consumed by the carrier is actually water consumed in these harvesting operations.

The stage of operations is primitive compared to dawn age technology; if this technology were sufficiently advanced, it would be possible for a carrier to be truly self-sufficient, even in red space. A variant of this technology was what allowed the hive ships to travel all the way here from the core in the first place. It also explains why you can always colonize with the starting hive ships regardless of how far they travel on the map.
[/rationalization]

That's my handwave explanation. Feel free to come up with a better one!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[elwoodps]

Feb 19, 2016 15:10:45 GMT -5 pendell said:

.....
We know from ST that ice can be harvested for water fuel even when a ship's tanks are empty; there is hydrogen in space, and in gas giants, and ice on comets.

So: When a carrier multi-refuels, it isn't actually transferring water. Instead, it is running a sophisticating harvesting operation on local solar phenomena. Fuel scoops and ice mining are all employed to generate the water-fuel, or hydrogen, used to power the other ships. The water consumed by the carrier is actually water consumed in these harvesting operations.

The stage of operations is primitive compared to dawn age technology; if this technology were sufficiently advanced, it would be possible for a carrier to be truly self-sufficient, even in red space. A variant of this technology was what allowed the hive ships to travel all the way here from the core in the first place. It also explains why you can always colonize with the starting hive ships regardless of how far they travel on the map.
[/rationalization]

That's my handwave explanation. Feel free to come up with a better one! ....

I just thought-up a variation on your theme:

All ships have the ability to re-fuel themselves in Green space (presumably from the hydrogen, etc.., that you refer to) ....

So maybe what the Multi Refuel Carrier actually does is concentrate this matter, in the squares occupied by the Target ship and the ships adjoining the Target ship, allowing those ships to refuel themselves much more rapidly.  This would explain why the ships getting refueled each get the same amount of fuel per shot, whether you're refueling one per shot or 5 per shot.

[elwoodps]

As promised, I'm posting some screenshots documenting Multi-Refuel operations with a 12-ship Invasion Task Force (ITF).  I took these shots during the first four Purges of the Sidtax Campaign, in my current game on The Garden map (Hard, against 6 Xenos).  Here's the design of the 12 Transports that make-up this ITF:



I'd originally planned to stick to my standard practice of using two Tanker Squads (made up of 2 Heavy Tankers with Multi Refuel 2 training), allowing one Squad to remain behind refilling around the new Colony while the other Squad follows the ITF to it's next objective.  But tinkering around with different Tanker designs before the start of this campaign, I found that a Heavy Tanker with a 6 Refuel reactor and Multi Refuel 1 training uses 30 WF per shot and in Green Space recovers >30 WF per turn, making it effectively bottomless once the new Colony is founded.   So I decided to try this campaign with just a single squad of 2 Heavy Tankers with Multi Refuel 1 training.  Here's the Tanker design I used:

---

The campaign against the Sidtax Xeno infestation in our Quadrant, Level 44 and 20 worlds strong, begins in 12.47AE with the ships of the Invasion Task Force moving out from their bases around Salvaria and Galantia toward our first objective: Bassilth



13.0AE: Bassilth falls and a new Rychart colony is founded.

13.1AE ITF Refueling operations commence around Bassilth. 8 HiTs (in 4 ship T formations) in the Green space West and East of Bassilth, each take-on 25WF from the Tankers.



13.2AE ITF Refueling operations continue:  The HiTs that have finished Repair & Refueling move out toward Ieynus, while the remaining 4 each receive two more shots of 25WF from the Tankers prior to departing.



13.6AE: Ieynus falls and a new Cadar colony is founded.

13.7AE: ITF Refueling operations commence around Ieynus. 8 HiTs (in 4 ship T formations) in the Green space North and South of the colony, each take-on 25WF from the Tankers.  Because Ieynus fell quickly less WF was expended, so by 13.8AE they're all able to head on to Shualzo with no additional assistance from the tankers.



13.12AE: Shaulzo falls, and I decide to start Refueling this time before the DeValtos colony ship lands.  This practice works so well BTW, that this becomes SOP for the rest of the campaign.



13.13AE: The ITF finishes refueling in the Green Space around the new DeValtos colony on Shaulzo.  Since 7 of the 12 HiTs are already fully fueled and en route to Danzenth, I queue-up 3 Escorts to get a free dose of 25WF as with the remaining 5 Transports are topped-off.



13.18AE: Danzenth falls, and 8 HiTs get their standard dose of 25WF before the Rychart colony ship lands.



13.19AE: Refueling continues around the new Rychart colony on Danzenth.  While 4 Hits that were particularly low get 2 shots of 25WF each, and 4 others finish refueling themselves in Green space, the rest of the ITF starts moving out towards Skecahines..........



Fast Forward to 14.48AE: The last Sidtax Xeno colony falls. 



During the Sidtax Campaign our forces purged 20 Xeno colonies in 105 turns.  This works out to an average of only 5.25 turns per colony, which I believe is quite respectable since that includes the turns spent refueling and traveling between systems. 

Having only 2 Tankers to handle all the refueling for the entire campaign did not slow our efforts at all.  We did loose a couple turns waiting for Colony ships that were late arriving. 

Based on the light and infrequent damage that our HiTs incurred during this campaign, I think I might finally be getting close to optimal Captain Skill and Ship Material points allocation for Invasion Transports.  But one thing I've learned from past games is that some Xeno species mount a much stiffer planetary defense than others, so I'll reserve judgement at least until I've wiped out the four remaining Xeno infestations in this game.  But if the rest don't prove any tougher than the Sidtax, I'll likely be able to reduce the number of HiTs per Task Force from 12 to 10, without having to slow down to wait on repairs.  For standard Invasion Transports (ITs), I'll stick with 12 ship Task Forces for the foreseeable future.

[Vraesrial]

I usually just have the pain train that is the Nexus class fleet move up and commit hit and runs. Then send the Dusk and Vortex classes to finish the worlds off.................NOT THAT I'M WITH THE TEMPLAR OR ANYTHING. THULUN ALL THE WAY