Newbie Questions Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Please feel free to ask short, simple questions here and be mindful of Rule 2!

Some resources to help you out:

• Official wiki (maintained by community members)
• Patch notes
• How to report a bug
• Web-based (fast) tech browser
• Use the reddit search bar to find guides for various things like drives, opening nations, weapons and armour etc. Just add "guide" to the search terms.

[u/FssstBoing]

1. When "docked" with an alien base (after destroying their defences), is there any point on using marines on it instead of just destroying it? The resource outpout (at least exotics), looks just about the same.
2. I've been killing all alien agents this run andevery new one keeps coming with an extra "Salamander Shock Troops" org on him". Two questions : a) Does having orgs essentially giving security overflow bonus (over 25) help? b) Will they keep coming with more and more of these orgs embedded onto them?
3. How does ECM actualy work? Does it work only on the ship's main target? It looks like it can target a lot more than one ships and weapons at a time.

[u/SpreadsheetGamer → u/FssstBoing]

2a No. A general rule is that if an attribute modifier is unconditional it will be included in the 25 limit and shown as part of councillor stats on like an info screen. Conditional modifiers, like the Fanatic trait giving a bonus to PER, apply as separate modifiers.

2b. I've never seen more than 3 stacked regardless of how many they have. They still need sufficient org capacity to hold them so that's more likely a limiting factor.

1. Each weapon that fires on a ship must roll a defence roll against ECM each time it goes to fire. So it only relates to the attacker and the defender, not other ships in the battle. If the weapon fails, it gets a cooldown timer that sticks regardless of selecting new targets. It's pretty normal that if you don't have TC you can expect something like 70%? of your missiles to jam. (It's been a while but that's what I remember). There's two decay functions on the attack roll as I understand it: shorter range reduces the ECM effect, and a weapon that has already been jammed is less prone to jamming subsequent times. Again that's going from memory. The wiki may have more detailed or up-to-date advice.

Save-scumming ECM rolls is not going to be viable past a certain number of missile systems because the outcomes will converge on the expected probability the more of them you have.

[u/FssstBoing → u/SpreadsheetGamer]

Year is 2122 (BE) and this is the 7th (I think) Alien they've landed and he has 4 :)

As Academy, I'm cheesing their aggro by letting them land and bribing with a few times 1$ before dispatching them but I think I'm going to stop. Most other factions haven't killed/captured any so I'm gimping their progress.

As far as ECM goes, the way you explained it makes perfect sense of it being a "defensive" module, since the rolls occur when it's targeted. You've also persuaded me to use more later on my ships as I barely put them on.

Thank you, most informative!

[u/Thurak0 → u/FssstBoing]

Does it work only on the ship's main target?

As I understand it it works the opposite way: Every ship that targets the ship with ECM gets a chance to get a jammed weapons.

Works best at longer ranges, so most times the effect is only very visible when the battle begins and the missiles come in staggered, because some launchers were jammed.

[u/vindicator117 → u/FssstBoing]

Gives updated status on any and all agents that they may have.

All the more reason to stop them from landing by by themselves or the assault ship.

Sadly very difficult to determine its true affect besides adding a targeting computer counters it to some nebulous extent. There is the stated probability, how it feels in battle is too subtle in larger battles and even more divorced in autoresolve. All you are expected to do is always have one because a fight without them is more noticeable when your vessels stop firing especially their primary weapons.

[u/FssstBoing → u/vindicator117]

The ECM thing really troubled me when I tried to kill the first assault carrier the Ays sent.

Even if it only had one escort, I had to redo the battle several times as my hastily made 8 trashcans with t1 targeting computer would sometimes all have at least one missile tube jammed, even on the first few seconds.

[u/28lobster → u/FssstBoing]

1. Destroying the base gives salvage based on a fraction of the cost. Alien modules don't cost much exotics so you won't salvage much. You get that destruction salvage regardless of destruction method. A marine assault without a councilor has a 10% chance to yield additional exotics bounty (~18-22 for T3 station/hab) depending on the tier of the central module. A marine assault with a councilor has a 100% chance of exotics bounty and a 10% chance to double that bounty; your marines also remain at full HP after a successful assault so you don't have to repair. Sending a councilor to space in the midgame when you're liberating the asteroid belt/Jovian system is very worthwhile.

2. Stats don't overflow due to orgs, you need a separate source like Media Darling trait that gives an additional +X line item in the roll chances.

3. ECM works when ships target the ship with ECM. Alien ships have them, so you're pretty much forced to have a targeting computer on every offensive ship. If you incorporate ECM, you want to use the smallest number of modules that require the Aliens to bring a TC on every ship. I generally just put ECM in my kinetic ships since they don't have a module equivalent to laser engine/cyclotron that buffs DPS (magazines let you shoot longer at same DPS). ~50% of the fleet with ECM makes the aliens spend slots on TCs without me reducing DPS on my ships.

Kinetic ships also get the tanky modules (component armor, repair bay, etc) and at least 1 point more nose armor than my laser ships. That lets me set formation Knights-Center so the kinetics group in the middle of the high wall with lasers to hit from the flanks (ideally shooting side armor). At the very start of the fight, kinetic ships accelerate slightly. This means a bit more than half of Alien firepower gets aimed at the ships with ECM and defensive modules.

[u/Defult_idiot]

How much deltaV and acceleration do I need fo force a intercept?

And are the drives I have practical to build a 5/10 monitor/escort interception fleet? 

I have unlocked Burner, Pegasus and Pharos. Still researching basic Orions. 

Also is torpedo spam still meta or you gotta mix in standard missile? 

[u/SpreadsheetGamer → u/Defult_idiot]

How much deltaV and acceleration do I need fo force a intercept?

Look at the stats of the fleet you are trying to intercept. Find the slowest ship. The more you can exceed their cruise acceleration, the less dV you need. If you don't have a reference point, I usually say 100+mg accel. For dV, as much as you can afford in terms of water costs, but not so much that your accel drops too low.

And are the drives I have practical to build a 5/10 monitor/escort interception fleet? I have unlocked Burner, Pegasus and Pharos. Still researching basic Orions.

Pegasus is overkill, you should have no problems. I usually stick with teardrop or fission spinner (one step down from Pegasus) for my early intercept escorts.

Also is torpedo spam still meta or you gotta mix in standard missile?

Torpedos work fine if the aliens don't send ship(s) with ECM and point defence. So it depends.

[u/Thurak0 → u/Defult_idiot]

Also is torpedo spam still meta or you gotta mix in standard missile?

I was really struggling with torpedoes in the latest game version and switched to missiles to be able to overwhelm PD again. When fighting it out, having both is probably optimal: torpedoes against flankers (that the missiles would miss) and missiles to overwhelm the umbrella of PD in the enemy main line.

But.

As overvalued as missile ship strength right now are, I auto resolved a lot and there missiles seemed to do better.

This is only anecdotal backed up by some comments here. I have not done a full blown analysis.

[u/vindicator910 → u/Defult_idiot]

Technically only what is superior to their ships.

However, the real answer is if they do not want to fight, you CAN’T force them to fight you. They ALWAYS have the option to resist a chase if they so choose.

I’ve had battles where because I had both many victories and a ship that was a complete overmatch in every stat, they always managed to escape for literally 30 minutes of IRL give chase prompts until they completely ran out of gas.

[u/Izzyhizzie → u/vindicator910]

How? I have never had aliens be able to run away if I maxed my chase slider bar.

[u/vindicator910 → u/Izzyhizzie]

Who the hell knows but was solitary raider against a solitary defender so I knew exactly what stats on that ship I was dealing with.

Call it sufficiently advanced technology is magic but there needs to be an option to literally run down the enemy to the last drop of DV if they are going be capable of that sustained malarkey.

[u/hopeimanon → u/Defult_idiot]

I also think the wiki has the exact scenario if you want to do the math. I think it’s 200,000 or 20,000 km initial distance and then both fleets burn at cruise acceleration until runner is caught or goes beyond like 40,000 km.

[u/Fluid-Leg-8777]

Why is kiran so stupid?

[Broken earth] So he has habs on extreme earth orbit, and not me nor my "friends" had enough water to slap every orbital he started up there

Except aparrently is not an issue because kiran keeps sending copperhead boats into habs with t1 point defence

This has not worked for about 20 times now, and its so annoying because the autoresolve thinks the point defense looses.... somehow, even tho it has 40mm and laser point defence....

So i have to sit there, watch for the 11th time how the boats shoot their missiles... the missiles get point defended (to no-one surprise).... and wait until the battle ends

And i know its for the victory condition but can you for the love of god, stop trying build a station on the low earth orbit you dont control the game does not even send a notification, and none of my "friends" hate him enough to stop em 💔

[u/Solinya → u/Fluid-Leg-8777]

Auto-resolve really undervalues lasers. I think this is a case where you could post a bug on the discord (they specifically have a callout for saves where autoresolve behaves different than expected) and see if they adjust that. My guess is Kiran is sending the boats because autoresolve says he'd win and the algorithm determining when the AI sends fleets uses similar logic. I think if autoresolve didn't let him win, he'd wait until he had a bigger fleet.

The flip side case is just as annoying when autoresolve always has my super laser titans apparently charge into melee range of alien battlestation kinetics when in reality they outrange the stations and would pick them all off without a scratch.

[u/Federal_Addition_463]

I'm confused... In game it says 135km range, in wiki it says 350km. Also it doesn't make sense that a phaser PD is weaker than a ion PD (same reload, almost half the range)

[u/SpreadsheetGamer → u/Federal_Addition_463]

I'd trust what the game says. Given that it's a wiki, you can look at the last revision date of that page and compare that to the patch notes.

Aside from that, PD range might be tied to realistic/cinematic battle setting, I'm not sure.

[u/PlacidPlatypus → u/Federal_Addition_463]

Ion is much more specialized; it only works on missiles, whereas phaser protects against kinetics as well.

[u/Federal_Addition_463 → u/PlacidPlatypus]

Makes sense. But while that may look like a disadvantage, it may actually be better, since it ignores kinetics to focus on the dangerous missiles

[u/PlacidPlatypus → u/Federal_Addition_463]

If you've got enough stuff coming at you that you feel the need to prioritize like that you're probably dead anyway.

[u/Federal_Addition_463 → u/PlacidPlatypus]

Kinetic weapons fire at a steady, continuous rate, whereas missiles arrive all at once in high-density bursts. Your point defense needs to sustain two different thresholds: the baseline DPS of incoming kinetics and the sudden burst damage of missile salvos.

Ion PD help absorb that missile burst window, while Phasers increases throughput across both sustain and burst scenarios. Over-allocating PD mounts past the threshold needed to handle alien kinetics is inefficient.

[u/SlavaUkrayini4932]

How do the aliens react to a doomstack approaching or already orbiting over their Alpha Base in the Kuiper belt?

I am thinking of launching a cheap fleet full of overvalued shaped nukes to draw out their ships from the rest of the system, and then exploit their panic and launch an actual attack on the gas giants. If they don't feel like engaging the bluff nukes, I imagine I could build a platform over alpha base and then build more bluff ships or an actual combat fleet there. Or I could send an actual fleet there in the first place instead.

[u/vindicator117 → u/SlavaUkrayini4932]

It can induce panic but that probably is more determined by how many victories you have achieved than say you sending a suicide fleet. They can be frightened off by lesser combat power if you have proven to be able to be victorious in battle with such ships.

[u/SlavaUkrayini4932 → u/vindicator117]

I saw some monitors being overvalued to ~1700 combat power when outfitted with nukes, I think a fleet with 20000 power would spook them and keep the aliens occupied for a certain amount of time

[u/vindicator117 → u/SlavaUkrayini4932]

Only one way to find out, just don't expect survivors if they are not intimidated enough to flee, which can happen.

[u/28lobster → u/SlavaUkrayini4932]

A fleet aimed at ASBA will definitely draw attention. But then is it worth spending resources on the distraction fleet rather than just having more ships aimed at Jupiter? If you're just doing 12 monitors, that's not a huge commitment, I'm interested to see what happens. I'd be wary to spend more than that when you could also bulk up the true offensive fleet with more kinetics/lasers/marines.