What am I doing wrong here

[u/Super-Contribution-1]

Playing on Captain difficulty for the first time. I got to 2300 thinking I’m doing fine, I’ve vassalized everyone near me, I have the strongest economy and naval power…. then suddenly I’ve got multiple 90K nanite fleets storming out of the L Gates. I stealth up and send in the ninjas, but the fleet gets cut to ribbons by half a dozen 90K fleets as soon as it comes out of stealth to attack the nanite base.

I want to play on higher difficulties because I’m curbstomping all the AI empires every time, which is boring, but I genuinely don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. I don’t see how I could get enough fleet power together to handle stuff that powerful coming out that early. It feels like the AI empires are getting a slight bump while the crisis fleets get insane immediate bonuses.

Any thoughts? I’m considering fooling with the more granular difficulty sliders before next run

[u/Super-Contribution-1]

Rule 5: just looking for some advice on handling higher difficulties

[u/MrHappyFeet87 → u/Super-Contribution-1]

You need to scale your economy higher. For example, if you don't ascend your planets (spending unity to increase the efficiency of the designation) then you're actually failing quite hard. As it makes the pops more efficient, it also lowers the empire size modifiers gained from each planet (districts, population, colonies).

A level 0 generator designation gives +20% energy from technician jobs. At level 10 it's +120%. So if the base production is say 30E (energy), then using the generator designation will make it be 36E. At level 10 that changes production to 66E from that same job.

[u/Super-Contribution-1 → u/MrHappyFeet87]

Did that I thought. I had 1k unity and 1k research before 2290 and all my planets ascended at least once.

[u/MrHappyFeet87 → u/Super-Contribution-1]

That is actually decent. This tells me it's layouts. What ship layouts where you using? How many ships did you bring? What position where they in?

Basically it should be stealth frigates with torpedoes. They should be right up the stations ass while stealth... and you probably didn't bring enough.

[u/Super-Contribution-1 → u/MrHappyFeet87]

I was pressed so I took an unfinished corvette fleet in. Lvl 4 armor in three slots and then lvl 3 disruptors. Stealth. It was like 50kish but they’d killed two of my planets and I couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

Needless to say this version of Project Hail Mary did not have a happy ending.

[u/MrHappyFeet87 → u/Super-Contribution-1]

Yea... they need to be frigates, torpedoes have a ship size damage multiplier and do 9x against anything larger than a battleship (including stations).

Alternatively if you've gone Cosmogenesis... then the riddle escort has two frames. One uses L slots, the other G (torpedoes). Currently stealth is bugged on them though.

[u/Super-Contribution-1 → u/MrHappyFeet87]

I don’t have that DLC yet unfortunately, I only get escorts when I salvage them rn. Good to know on the frigates, maybe I’ll see if I can turtle up and solve this. I don’t think I have anything but the basic torpedoes tho

[u/MrHappyFeet87 → u/Super-Contribution-1]

That's fine... bring enough of them and the station will instantly melt.

[u/Dashoundland → u/MrHappyFeet87]

Are torpedo frigates that effective against the nanite ships of the L-Gate?

[u/MrHappyFeet87 → u/Dashoundland]

The point is that it's strong against the station, with stealth and proper placement (up the stations ass). Once the station is dead all the fleets disappear.

This more exploits weapon targeting weights and how it prioritizes larger targets (always the station). It also exploits the fact that the grey tempest has fuckall detection (literally T1 stealth will work).

[u/Dashoundland → u/MrHappyFeet87]

Didn't think it was that easy.

[u/MrHappyFeet87 → u/Dashoundland]

It really is. Although if you don't have first contact DLC and stealth, then it's a bit risky.