- I have Patrol HQs on each colony, but none have been upgraded. I suppose I could try that. I've been waiting for the 4th industry slot to open up somewhere to avoid having to tear down one of my existing industries.Patrol HQ is useless for stopping even the smallest pirate fleets. They are only good for reclaiming stolen relays while you are away. You need at least Military Base for proper planetary or system defense, ideally High Command. Military Base is so vital that it is an industry slot tax. In your case, with five or six colonies in one system, you may not need one at every planet. Three may be plenty, assuming unmodded game.
- I do have the Red Planet mission.. way out to the remotest corner of the sector. I haven't done it yet though. Can't breathe long enough between attacks to go have a look.This is why the babysitting load is insane. It is hard to find enough time to do such quests, or explore some systems. Often, I am forced to stop midway or so and turn back to put out a fire. This is a reason why I highly value burn 20 and Transverse Jump.
I think what I'm hearing in the suggestions/questions, is that I ought to trust my colony defenses a bit more, and beef them up with Alpha cores? Wouldn't I just be compounded my problem with waves of Hegemony attacks as well?
- Each wave of pirates is showing up with 3 fleets and each fleet has up to 7 Atlas MK II's as well as a slough of supporting Falcons and Enforcers. I can manage these fleets on my own one at a time as long as I can peel off a fleet from the others. If I can't, or they gank me before splitting off then the numbers are too overwhelming: in those circumstance I can deploy at most 3 of my ships and then there's simply too many targets.
Basically, the Hegemony will become a permanent enemy from here onwards. They will send 'Inspection Fleets'. When this happens, you MUST order your colonies to defend, otherwise you lose ALL of your AI Cores. However, asking your colonies to defend against an Inspection Fleet is considered as a declaration of war by the Hegemony. Overall, this is still the only viable to play the game. The AI inspection fleets are about as strong as the various expedition fleets factions send you about Market Share. So nothing a Star Fortress with an Alpha Core can't handle ;)If player is not hostile, just bribe them away. They do not seem to send inspectors too often, and the results are reliable.
Basically, the Hegemony will become a permanent enemy from here onwards. They will send 'Inspection Fleets'. When this happens, you MUST order your colonies to defend, otherwise you lose ALL of your AI Cores. However, asking your colonies to defend against an Inspection Fleet is considered as a declaration of war by the Hegemony. Overall, this is still the only viable to play the game. The AI inspection fleets are about as strong as the various expedition fleets factions send you about Market Share. So nothing a Star Fortress with an Alpha Core can't handle ;)If player is not hostile, just bribe them away. They do not seem to send inspectors too often, and the results are reliable.
If I need to resort to defend, then it is time to sat bomb their worlds and purge them from the sector.
My standard colony building procedure is to build ground defenses and a station before the colony hits size 4 (usually I queue them as soon as the colony starts, sometimes before my first money industry if the colony has very low hazard), then I build a military base as my second industry and I have all of those things at max level by size 5. I also usually build a heavy industry on my first colony as the third industry at size 5 so I have my defensive fleets online as well by that point. Following this procedure and ensuring at least two colonies in the system (I've been aiming for 3 recently), I almost never have to personally defend my colonies from anything.Player has time to build only one thing before the first pirate raid arrives. The very first thing I build is orbital station so that it can block the first pirate raid. After that, I build patrol HQ so I can leave the system and let my patrols control my relays. Then, basic ground defenses. That should be enough to repel weak pirate raids from -1/10% bases. I also get Waystation because I want supplies and fuel. As for industries, I get Farming at first because it is the only industry that has not puked up expeditions from factions while my colony is small (under size 6). At size 4, I pay the Military Base tax. While I like to get Heavy Industry, that has provoked expeditions, so I do not get that until I am ready for them.
Maybe if the first pirate raid comes a bit before my station is on line, or if the first expedition comes before my stuff is maxed out, I might have to head back once or twice, but in general, my defense stop everything in orbit and I just explore freely and do bounties for cash and my colonies are fine.
To be fair I haven't played a vanilla campaign in a while, but I remember this working fairly well (I was able to generally fly around and do what I wanted). It seems like other people have very different experiences with colonies, when do other people upgrade defenses? Is my memory of vanilla that wrong or did I get lucky or something?
Imho this is one enhancement I'd like to see in game. More resilient core worlds. Places like Chicomoztoc, Culann, Sindria, etc. should get bonus officers, higher officer levels in fleets, +3 bonus to stability for being a capital planet, +20 accessibility, and they should additionally spawn an extra Detachment sized fleet that never leaves the area of the star fortress. (This would make sat bombing truly an end-game activity, and also make factions somewhat more resilient vs pirate activity) But that's quite another topic.More resilient would be nice if it means pirates cannot rollover and consume worlds. However, an extra fleet would not be enough - it is still less than three endgame expedition fleet gang against a player colony. A player that can sat bomb worlds with their Ordos smasher fleet will probably be powerful enough to roll over that extra fleet without much trouble.
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More resilient would be nice if it means pirates cannot rollover and consume worlds. However, an extra fleet would not be enough - it is still less than three endgame expedition fleet gang against a player colony. A player that can sat bomb worlds with their Ordos smasher fleet will probably be powerful enough to roll over that extra fleet without much trouble.
I destroy bases when the bounties pop up for income frequently , but I definitely don't kill them all (I generally explore and then kill any bounties that are nearby), and I've definitely never gone to a system to fight raiding forces. I see raids happen sometimes, but usually things just give some phat request missions and eventually recover. I still don't remember seeing more than 1-2 planets decivilize in any campaign. Maybe I killed enough bases to prevent that on my vanilla runs? Seems strange.
Detachment and Star Fortress is about as tough as it gets for human factions, which is still no harder than an Ordos with Radiants, or intercepting all three full powered endgame expedition fleets without backup from my battlestation. Sometimes, I just attack the fleet and fortress together with my endgame fleet, and it is no harder than what Remnants can throw at the player. (Radiant is overpowered.) The only human fortress that is most difficult to defend against is the high-tech one (which only the TT capital world has) because of cheap mine spam.
As for pirates. The one decivilization I had was in Corvus (Asharu). Argeus in Arcadia looks like another problem child, small and with Pather cells (caused by tech mine, so you cannot remove it by stealing a nanoforge they do not have). Hegemony there is not that large.
You need to upgrade to high command and build heavy industry with nano-forges. Then you will get patrols full of pristine paragons. With 5 colones, if you have 2 military bases and the rest patrol HQs you should be completely safe from pirates without any player intervention. I believe the military base/high command influences the number of patrols as well as the patrol size, the heavy industry allows for blue prints to be used in patrols while the nano forge increases the quality of the ships. I'm not 100% sure but I think that's how it works.
You need to upgrade to high command and build heavy industry with nano-forges. Then you will get patrols full of pristine paragons. With 5 colones, if you have 2 military bases and the rest patrol HQs you should be completely safe from pirates without any player intervention. I believe the military base/high command influences the number of patrols as well as the patrol size, the heavy industry allows for blue prints to be used in patrols while the nano forge increases the quality of the ships. I'm not 100% sure but I think that's how it works.
This is what I'll try. I got it into my head to specialize my colonies so I had only one guy set up with heavy industry. I'll try adding one or two more and build them up with Military bases like you suggested. Thank you. And I'll dust off those Alpha Cores as was suggested as well. Thanks guys.
In terms of the actual battles, I'm struggling with the Deployment Point system as well. And to a certain extant the power disparity between the ships of different classes. At some point you need a capital to be able to take an AI fleet containing capitals. But the Caps consume so much DP that you can never deploy large numbers of ships, nor would you want to anyway because anything smaller than a cruiser is just sparklers for a lightshow once capitals are around. Eventually, I'll try tweaking the configs to allow for more spectacular fights.
Alex has teased that top-of-the-line faction fleets in the next version will have officers on every ship. Top-end Remnants will probably be the same.Every ship? As in more than 10/11 officers in a fleet at max level? I'd love to get some popcorn with that fireworks show.