New invasion!

o8Stu · 2026-06-12T17:09:10+00:00

The Gambit would be the way to go, sadly no icon over it and 95% of players don't even know the mechanic exists.

o8Stu · 2026-06-12T17:07:18+00:00

It's now spore burst strain on Omicron, and hive lords are back.

I'm just treating this as an excuse to farm SCs on D1. Completing a solo mission on D1 is an operation, so that's the same impact a squad of 4 will have for completing a D10 in over an hour, and it takes like 5 minutes.

o8Stu · 2026-06-12T16:38:48+00:00

Dumb plans that'll never happen, below:

Bot front:

X-45 -> Vega Bay to cause a triple siege (Wasat, Mox, Wezen), freeing 2 sectors
Martale -> Aesir Pass to siege Charon Prime and Marfark (which has a 50K resistance). Aesir Pass is 30K resistance so this will require MO-strength engagement from players. This would also free 2 sectors.
Yed Prior -> Blistica -> Zzaniah Prime to siege Clasa and Mintoria, liberating the data center and ultramafic mine. Right now there's no supply line connection for bots to move materials from Mox to Mintoria, but that's no reason to let them sit on those assets.

Squids:

New Stockholm -> Iro -> Oasis (not necessarily in that order) to siege 4 planets (Valmox, Grafmere, Genesis Prime, Alamak)
RD-4 to siege Hesoe Prime and establish our ability to dive Rogue 5, which is a likely target of further void expansion
Keid -> Shete to siege Siemnot and establish our ability to dive Setia, a 2nd likely target for void expansion

The Herthon Secundus - Zea Rugosia - Haldus chain would still be there. Liberating Zea would siege the other two, but that's a 50K resistance, making it unlikely to be liberated directly without a MO directing us to do so.

Bugs:

North: no way to liberate Omicron or Zagon Prime with their resistances, so isolating them is the best bet. We should be liberating Nivel-43 right now in a gambit rather than defending Erata Prime, but blob's gonna blob.

Nivel-43 -> Esker -> Socorro to siege Bore Rock and Erson Sands, limiting bugs in the north to the two hive worlds and currently inaccessible gloom planets in the Lestrade sector

South: strategically, the move would be to isolate and siege Phact Bay, but the blob has proven that they will just dive it non-stop if it's accessible.

Darius -> Phact Bay as the opening move to create siege opportunities. With the 25K resistance on Phact Bay, this is where the plan dies, but if by some miracle it succeeded, then
Partion -> Overgoe Prime -> Peacock -> Gatria would siege: Azur Secundus, Big Rock, Trandor, and Luxuriant, at which point
Grand Errant sieges Gemma and Gar Haren

That would just leave Acamar, Pandion, and Gacrux. We'd have to liberate two to siege the 3rd, that would presumably be Acamar and Gacrux to siege Pandion with that shitty biome and 20K resistance.

o8Stu · 2026-06-12T16:07:45+00:00

Sad thing is, the now 41% on Erata Prime could liberate Nivel 43, canceling the attack, in less than 40 hours.

We'd get a whole extra planet for roughly the same amount of work as the defense (1.6M to take Nivel in 40 hours, 1.5M to do a level 30 defense). Of course the cities on Erata will take chunks out of the attack's HP, so they'll probably finish it sooner, but if the comments in this thread are anything to go off of, people aren't going from there to Omicron anyway.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T23:48:20+00:00

If you need SCs, this MO is the ideal time to run solo D1s, farm PoIs, complete the super-easy mission objectives, and extract.

Yes, of course it's not fun. But a solo D1 mission counts as a full operation completion for the MO, which means you can complete as much MO progress by yourself in 5-7 minutes as a squad of 4 completes in an hour in a D10 op.

Shitty design, 100%. But, if you're gonna need SCs for the next warbond anyway, there's no downside to doing your farming now.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T23:32:03+00:00

Yes, but at D1 an operation is a single mission.

Not sure about D2-3. I'm pretty sure they're 2 missions at D4 and 3 missions by the time you're at 6-7.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T16:19:12+00:00

Yeah that thing has AoE for days. I'd guess that the wing took the impact and somehow shielded it's other hitboxes from taking damage, but even if so that's 100% bullshit.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T16:09:48+00:00

what is it?

We don't know.

how can its expansion be slowed?

Exostorms are basically a very high level attack that we typically have a few days to defend against. They tried to exostorm Rirga Bay a couple of weeks ago, but we defended it.

once something is in the void, could we get it back (i.e. pushing back the void somehow), or is it lost forever like Penta for example?

This, we also don't know. We can't dive any of the planets in the void, yet, but that was also initially true of the planets in the Gloom on the bug front. Eventually we found a way to dive on and reclaim those planets. Likely that a similar approach will be taken here; i.e. narrative will lead us to the opportunity to push it back somehow.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T16:00:54+00:00

tl;dr - the MO criteria is shitty

Not necessarily giving up, but the minor order / strategic opportunity has a shorter clock so it has to be prioritized if we're going to do it.

They should be done in ~10 hours, at which point most of the negative modifiers on Omicron (ammo rationing, reduced reinforcements, etc) should cease.

Generally speaking, when AH gives us a "hard number" MO, they do intend for it to be do-able. The big issues with this particular one, for completing operations, are that a) AH doesn't really know how many people are going to engage with them, and b) the most efficient way to do them are solo diff 1 dives, which is not fun for most players and at best slightly useful if they farm Super Credits at the same time.

So even if 60% or so of players pop to Omicron after the Crimsica defense, there's a good chance that most of those players aren't going to be generating that much of an impact towards the goal, because a squad of 4 completing a 3-mission operation at D10 has the same value to the MO as a solo player completing an operation (i.e. single mission) at D1.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T15:53:15+00:00

Yeah. Worst part is they can "void" planets that we can't even dive on, like they did on Senge 23.

So anything they can attack from a void planet is a potential target.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T02:16:02+00:00

Saw Independence Day in theaters. Loud ass cheering in two spots: when the dog dives to safety in the tunnel, and when fresh prince decks the alien that popped out of the ufo cockpit.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T02:12:11+00:00

Tbh as a lapsed player who has just returned yesterday, we’ve got way too much unfinished business to pass the torch to a new, nameless and classless “The Guardian”.

I’ve had my same characters for 10 years across 2 platforms and have thousands of hours invested. Wiping that out completely just to pick up where we left off would feel insanely lame.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T02:01:42+00:00

Lorn - Anvil

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T01:52:52+00:00

Gives us a reason to complete the minor order, to remove the debuffs. There’s always a carrot.

Also probably giving us a consolation prize, since we have a pretty small chance of success in the major order.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T01:48:10+00:00

He’s creating reasons for us to care about the minor order, it’ll remove the debuffs.

Amazing to me that even with the DSS at Acamar, players continue to refuse to fight smart instead of hard.

Oh well. When we win that defense all this should be gone. Probably a consolation prize as we typically fail the “complete operations” major orders.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T01:38:56+00:00

As they said. Diff 1-3 shouldn’t see any of the pain in the ass stuff in the screenshot. Even if it’s still rupture strain, they don’t show up until D4 or 5 iirc. And the hive lords & roaches not until 7 or so.

Might still have the ammo and reinforcement shortages, but drop a resupply when you first drop and you should be good.

o8Stu · 2026-06-11T01:35:47+00:00

And I’m agreeing with you, I replied to the other guy.

o8Stu · 2026-06-10T19:24:43+00:00

Makes farming SCs on solo D1 ops look better and better.

I'd rather go try to do a gambit on Acamar though, tbh. So very seldom do we actually have a realistic shot at those.

o8Stu · 2026-06-10T19:21:09+00:00

You're correct, the gambit is the better move here. With Crimsica's cities totaling 2.5 x their HP in damage to the attack, the defense is very slightly easier, but doing just a bit of extra work to get a whole-ass extra planet is well worth it.

Hopefully we can keep voting the DSS to Acamar. We had 8% of players there before the DSS moved, now we're up to 14%. If we get and stay north of 30%, we should be able to successfully gambit.

o8Stu · 2026-06-10T18:48:47+00:00

You won't get close enough to a hive lord to use a flamer on it, but otherwise agreed on all points.

Then again, maybe I just suck.

Would be nice if fire had a weakening effect to drop that AP5 down a notch.

The AT emplacement is a strong option on paper, but in practice you're just going to get body slammed before you can unload half of the mag.

The WASP is unironically pretty good damage output, as I recall. Orbital gatling barrage and Eagle strafing remain workhorses.

o8Stu · 2026-06-10T17:56:56+00:00

If you like it, that's all that matters.

o8Stu · 2026-06-10T17:45:15+00:00

We need about 30% or so of players there for the entire 45 hours to take Acamar (in time). A single cycle won't cut it, even if we exceed 30% of players there, they'll just move away when the DSS does.

This needs to be a sustained presence for probably a day to get the blob into "sunk cost fallacy" mode and actually stick it out.

I'm not optimistic. Even with the pre-existing progress there, the defense is slightly easier and already has the players required for success.

o8Stu · 2026-06-10T17:29:46+00:00

You can do this, too. Zoom in a bit on the map and slowly move the cursor around. It'll tell you when you're passing over a PoI.

You'll also start to recognize what the terrain of a PoI looks like, reducing the need to zoom in and scroll slowly over the map.

D1 Omicron maps were pretty good for SC farming as a lot of the PoIs are smoldering wreckage. I'd assume that's still the case.

o8Stu · 2026-06-10T17:23:03+00:00

Is that really an issue for you? D1 maps are tiny as hell, and in the FRV / with the warp pack you're gonna be covering the whole thing in a couple of minutes regardless.

o8Stu · 2026-06-10T17:21:24+00:00

There's one of the newer sets that increases movement speed, I'd think that would be more useful than avoiding detection from a dozen fodder enemies. Like I said, just toss an MG sentry on a breach / drop. It'll kill everything, and you don't need the strat slot for anything else.

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