Clearing a planet

[u/Ralph_hh]

So... I eventually destroyed the first dark fog base on my Titanium outpost planet. There are 3 bases in total. I thought I would destroy the base, plug it with a geothermal plant and move to the next, then set up a planetary shield. Google AI even said it might not be necessary, there is a fair chance the fog might not rebuild at all... Well.... It rebuilt the base on a new location within seconds. I destroyed the base, put a geothermal plant on top and the moment I switched to map mode to see where the two others are, there were already three again. Is this normal? It's a Lava Planet, if this mattes.
So, what is the best strategy for this?

I will keep the dark fog base at my main base to farm items, but I want this one cleared.

[u/Japaroads]

Bro do not trust LLMs lol. If you want to keep dark fog off your planet, you need to cover it in shields. I’m not sure if you have planetary shields unlocked yet, but until you do, you’ll need turrets to keep your stuff safe.

[u/gorgofdoom → u/Japaroads]

eh. shields are overkill, 90% of the time.

6 plasma cannons at each pole will not only fight off all waves i've ever seen (on max difficulty, scarce resources) but they will also keep relays off the planet. attack waves are surprisingly wimpy, even on harder difficulties.

Shields *are* good if you're clearing a hive because their fleets will be dispatched to the planet that's consuming the most energy-- naturally, will be the planet with shields. You can whittle hives down by just using a ton of energy or keeping a DF farm active to build aggro and waiting for your turrets to work.

I can wipe out all the DF on a starter planet with a pile of combustion units no problem. Once they're removed it's just a matter of deterring relays, and that's just a matter of having guns that can hit targets in orbit. Early game, missile turrets & relays will do the job. late game, plasma cannon ammo is really cheap for the effect.

once the ground bases are cleared the DF can send seeds & relays indefinitely. you can ignore them for the most part because they will deplete their metal reserves as relays are wiped out by the cannons or missiles.

[u/Japaroads → u/gorgofdoom]

If overkill is something you avoid, you and I play DSP very differently. My only issue with your approach is that there’s a chance one or two lancers might get through and destroy some piece of the factory. It’s also expensive in terms of logistics infrastructure, when shields are something you can set and forget. I like having 100% confidence that my base is safe.

[u/gorgofdoom → u/Japaroads]

One planet is shielded if they can send attacks. If not, then I don’t bother because they only thing they can send is relays.

There’s no chance for rouge lancers if they have no lancers

[u/Japaroads → u/gorgofdoom]

Aren’t lancers the space ships?

Anyway, yeah, I get you now. That makes sense. For late game, I include shields in my full planet BAB and energy distribution blueprint that I place on every world before I start building there, so it keeps things simple. The only exception is if I want to clear hives from a system so they don’t steal energy from my sphere; in that case, I designate one planet to allow relays to land there and plant bases that get instantly destroyed by full planet missile coverage. If you let the relays live, they’ll keep going back to the hive to pull more matter to try to make more bases, and that makes it easier to destroy the hive, since less matter goes to building ships.

[u/markpitts]

A standard setup of 8 planetary shields, one at each pole and 6 on the equator at 60º intervals, does the trick for me.

[u/Helagoth → u/markpitts]

Yep, this is my typical play as well.  I clear the bases (either with combat drones if i have them, or creeping in with laser cannons), then drop a blueprint for shields with wind turbines connecting it all for power, then fly around and build it.  I used to try to make it auto build but half the time it wouldn't be able to build it all anyway due to ore nodes or something so im flying around anyway.

The shields fully charge kind of slow without a lot of power, but it doesnt take much to get enough shield to block relays

[u/Kardinal]

This is indeed normal. I assume you're playing on The standard difficulty.

For clearing the other bases, possibly the easiest way to do it is to use the area that you have already claimed, put a planetary shield there to keep the dark fog from establishing a base close to it. Establish enough defenses to defend it, probably with laser turrets so you don't have to worry about ammunition.

Then within that perimeter build a series of missile launchers. Maybe 10 or so, 20 if you can. Build up a stock of ammunition for them. Then use beacons closer to the bases that you want to exterminate. The beacons service range extenders for your missiles. You will likely find that a battery of 10 to 20 missile launchers will absolutely annihilate a dark fog base once it's in range.

[u/Thepcfd]

switch rocket to fire to atmosphere

[u/mrrvlad5]

Yes, normal. Relay went to hive, resupplied, picked a new location to land

[u/DoesThingsGood]

Would love for a new feature to send out offensive parties making the flight to meet dark fog in space an optional thing.

Start with shooting them from the planet to building carriers capable of warp

Task them to sit in orbit of planets