My best fight so far was mid-late game. I somehow managed to find a derelict Astral with only one D-mod and 3 dagger wings equipped in the early game but had it in storage for most of the game due to the expense of fielding it until I started settling colonies and had no real weapons (I was manufacturing Shades and they were being equipped with mining lasers) but decent LPC chips available from salvage. I used it to fight some bounties that would have otherwise been entirely out of possibility which lead to the capture of a second Astral with 3 d-mods. Some time later my primary colony gained the ire of the Sindrian Diktat (not even for my fuel exports, amusingly). This resulted in a fleet of two conquests and two eagles in particular along with hammerheads, enforcers, and a multitude of frigates bearing down on my core planet. This battle took some 8(+- I've honestly no idea) tries with wildly different tactics and times of intercept (fighting it in hyperspace, letting patrol fleets sacrifice themselves, trying to lure an Independent fleet to help me- that one was a little desperate, etc). I will say I would have simply taken the loss but if I ever failed to stop them my entire planet was disabled for half a year or so if I remember right and that put me deep into the negatives, effectively outright losing me the game. My colony at the time was barely positive since I made the rather poor decision (now that I've messed with more colonies) to settle a 200% HR world because it had decent output bonuses for food and ore.
It's important to mention that at this time I still had my battle size limit at the default, meaning what would otherwise have likely been a manageable battle given the sheer striking power of two astrals, was nigh impossible- at least for me (I imagine given enough retries I'd probably manage to win just with what I had, I actually came close twice but kept getting killed by both eagles deploying together and focusing my fleet to death with me only able to force one eagle off from flux overload while the other dueled all my ships until they both killed me).
For whatever reason there were actually two Sindrian Diktat fleets headed my way, the first of which I could mop the floor with: my fleet at the time as I partially mentioned had two Astrals but it also had an Apogee, Falcon, Condor, and two Shades. All of them, excluding the Apogee, had accrued at least one D-mod. My final strategy involved intercepting the first, much smaller Sindrian fleet and wiping it out and capturing as many frigates as I could from their forces. This ended with me having two Vigilence-class frigates to bolster my forces.
I had only 80 DP to work with and 45 of that was guaranteed to be the Astral, as there was no way the rest of the fleet could deal with their heavy-hitters. The final battle involved deploying my flagship, the Apogee, Condor, and one Vigilence. The condor fell quickly, overwhelmed by the frigates and destroyers that I had no frontline to intercept . I promptly deployed a Shade, hoping it could kite better with its phase drive (and based on experience in previous tries, it could). The Apogee held out a while, killing ships all across the map until it found itself near the opposite border right as the two Eagles were deployed; it didn't last long. The spare DP from the Apogee exploding let me send out the other Shade and Vigilence. I was staying well away from the main blob of enemy ships, striking anything that came close enough with the Astral's bombers- which generally one shot anything not a cruiser and up given the damage 3 wings of Daggers field. The four frigates I had on the field were all distracting various groups of enemy ships. Generally, they were bothering anywhere from two destroyers to three frigates each and simply kiting them around the map. Of course, they couldnt keep this up for long and slowly died but once they stopped distracting the enemy groups those same groups would find their way to me and I would promptly annihilate them: I could deal with those few smaller vessels piecemeal but not when they blobbed and came all at once. Things were going well but were still looking grim, I had managed to kill enough stragglers that the DP ratio was shifting a little bit more even: I had a total of 85 but 50 of it was being used since I had a single vigilence and my Astral still on the field. The deciding moment came when I saw the vigilence was beset by an eagle on both sides and it was already nearly overloaded. Would its death give me the 5 DP I needed or end up shifting the fight's power ratio such that the enemy fleet got 5 DP back?
Fortunately, it was the former. I had 90 DP, 45 in one Astral and an immediate 45 in the second: I now had a chance to kill the eagles and the conquests, so long as the conquests didn't come at me at the same time. After grouping up with my other Astral, I awaited the eagles. Once they showed up they stood no chance, when before I could only overload one while the other did the dirty work I could now outright kill one and through the power of the Astral's recall system promptly nuke the other as it continued to close the gap to us. Another fortunate event- the Conquests were deployed consecutively. Either the Sindrian Commander deployed a Conquest and a Dominator, or the Dominator was meandering around the map too slowly to catch up to any fights until the very end I'm not quite sure which but either way it spelled the Sindrian's defeat. I was able to tear apart the first Conquest, then the Dominator once it actually made its way into range, and then the second Conquest. By far the most satisfying battle I've had in Starsector to date, capturing those two Vigilence were the absolute deciding factor, having two more frigates to distract the enemy fleet with was vital.
I was able to salvage both conquests from that fight and I'm pretty sure I still have them, at the least I know I still have the Astrals: I can't make them yet, though I do have a Conquest blueprint now. Every ship I deployed except for the Astrals died, though I was able to salvage all but the Apogee. The loss of the Apogee was actually a tad sad given it was my flagship from the start of the game and had managed to survive every battle till then.
Loving this update. Having something to drive combat outside of the simple "acquire more money" from the previous versions is wonderful.
Whew that got long, hopefully you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed the fight itself. Looking back it was pretty simple but it was simply so satisfying to pull off I wanted to share it.
