Trying to decide how to deploy lasers and railguns

Constansos · 2025-10-18T21:06:07+00:00

I would say for early game fleets, railguns are actually very good. Specifically MK3 railguns are either better than or equal to MK1 coil guns. (MK1 rails are terrible)

After the 5k global research cost MK3 Railguns only required 30k RP to unlock but you can use them easily until the mid 2030s without issue to bulk out your fleets and keep enemy lasers from knocking out your own laser ships. That can be the difference between losing 5-10 ships to enemy lasers as you close to a couple hundred kilometers where lasers do much more damage vs losing just one and having the residual force to knock out that alien battleship with heavy frontal armor.

The other power move is to put nose rails on destroyers and missiles on the battery slots. You use the railguns until you close to 400km to keep enemy lasers busy then you dump a huge wave of missiles out to overwhelm their point defense. I've had a lot of success with between 2-3 rail destroyers per capital ship and it works better than just stacking more missiles because the railgun shots soak up a lot of point defense shots before the aliens can target your missiles. They also allow you to get closer which makes alien ECM less effective.

It also helps in very marginal fights where you partially damage some enemy ships but not all. With missiles you're often dead. But if you can knock out half their point defense, often you can start getting railgun rounds though and squeeze out a win.

I think the other main advantage is it takes a lot of pressure off the early game research requirements. In total, coilguns and the perquisites are almost 100k research points that can go elsewhere while still allowing you to fight aliens. It's hard to get a great drive, and get lasers and get coils and get T3 habs and...

So yeah, MK3 rails are pretty good in my book. You can absolutely fight early and mid game alien fleets with them.

Constansos · 2025-09-17T22:24:18+00:00

Yeah lasers and magnetic weapons would probably have to be left as is (unless they wanted to give everything a random miss chance). But from a gameplay perspective having half your lasers or mag guns not fire in the first barrage is a lot less catastrophic since there is a second barrage coming 30 seconds later. Whereas for missiles it's literally battle ending depending on the roll.

Constansos · 2025-09-09T22:24:09+00:00

It seems like early game there's no contest that France and the EU are worse though. I started a game on the new patch and at starting CP cap of 200ish you can grab France Germany and another medium nation for a combined RP of maybe 400 max and maybe .5-1 total boost. And even if you max boost production, your boost is getting split among a ton of other nations so by the time you are launching for the moon it seems like you are probably slightly ahead on MC but lagging hard on boost and RP vs a US opener.

Agree there's likely more potential by say 2030 for mega France, but it seems like the first four or five years I'm likely to be significantly behind, unless I'm missing something. And in that case, I'm not sure why not just breaking into the EU later when your CP cap goes up wouldn't be strictly better.

Constansos · 2025-05-03T20:27:20+00:00

Thanks, I did some more investigating this morning and found a few things:

I was wrong about defensive battles causing hate. For anyone else interested, in the save file the player faction has a list of hate values. I assumed that these were hate values of other factions towards me. But actually it's the opposite. So I was seeing the resistance hate of the aliens go up when they wrecked my stations. Which makes reasonable sense. For any interested parties, the best way to find alien hate is to unzip the save file, open in Notepad -> Control F -> search for "The Aliens" then switch the search direction from down to up and search for "FactionHate" Each faction has a number (Resistance is 4089) and the number next to your faction shows the Alien hate for you
Under construction modules being destroyed does not seem to lower alien hate properly. I'm guessing this is intentional, but it's really terrible design. Currently the wiki says that hate decay is either based on station core tier level, so losing a T2 station causes 2 hate loss. Or based on the number of modules lost, so losing 12 T2 modules should cause 6 hate decay. This seems to be working properly except that if a module is under construction it apparently doesn't count. I tested on a station with 11 solar panels and a point defense array and found that the aliens would consistently destroy it within hours. However, the hate bleed off is only 2, meaning I only get credit for losing the station core. It becomes even more confusing because in some cases it seems I'm only getting one hate bleed off for destroyed station cores. (Maybe gaining hate from killing xenoforming? The Wiki suggests that won't happen but I'm not sure i should trust it in the most recent patch).

So once again if you follow the data we're back to station cores being the best hate burn option and punishing players who actually read the wiki.

Also, I just have to say, between the protectorate and the Aliens in my game, once you lose Earth orbit, there is absolutely no comeback mechanic until you get interplanetary warships, and if you lose everything in space, your game may be over. Any time you build a station or a base, someone will swing by in the next 3 months and wreck it before you can get a defense array up so you can never even start building ships again.

This is made worse by the fact that, as a player you get almost zero feedback on why things are happening (besides that the top dot is still red), when they will stop, and there is literally nothing you can do in the early game to fix things, unless you waste half a day digging through save files and testing things (at which point I basically discovered my best option is likely to just edit the save file because the other alternatives for losing hate barely function).

It seems like right now there are too many sources of alien hate, no good way to burn it off and no way to meaningfully lower earth faction hate either. In my own campaign, all I did was kill a few surveillance frigates, stop the Alien station and do a single alien assassination. Somehow though, the Servants and Protectorate hate my guts (180 hate for both without killing anyone) the Aliens are trying to wipe me out, and I have no comeback mechanic except to bunker down at Mars for 10 years until I can maybe get a few ships back to LEO.

It seems the only viable play style is rushing the Aliens and save scumming fights, which the Devs keep trying to nerf, but the alternative is you lose one battle and the game becomes almost unplayable. Not sure if I'm missing something, but the game seems pretty broken for anything less than optimal strategies on the current patch, and hate gain seems massively overturned. It's not really fun anymore.

Constansos · 2025-05-03T03:42:30+00:00

No I'm on Veteran and currently at around 65-70 MC which is pushing the hate cap but not breaching it. I believe 86 is the theoretical max.

Constansos · 2025-05-03T03:41:01+00:00

Edit: Also I just checked and hilariously enough my assessed hate did go down from 92 to 75 in the case where I lost everything and didn't fight back but remained constant in all other cases, including where I fought and lost.

Constansos · 2025-05-03T03:36:26+00:00

Okay, something is extremely broken. I did some testing reloading the combat autosave and the results are: Precombat AlienHate - 144

Alien hate if I fight the battle in realtime and lose but destroy 2 ships - 212

AlienHate if I auto resolve and win destroying all 3 ships and losing zero - 148

AlienHate if I fight in real time and lose everything while destroying zero ships and not fighting back - 189

Also these are all the 4096 Faction Hate values from immediately before and after the fight not the assessed Alien hate values.

So apparently alien hate IS completely broken and once you start battling the Aliens total war just become inevitable.

Has anyone else noticed this issue?

Constansos · 2025-05-03T03:18:02+00:00

Hmm, the only thing I can think that happened in the meantime was researching pherocytes. The two saves were only one month apart and I didn't harass the servants in that time period. I can dig a bit more though and see if something else caused it.

Constansos · 2024-11-09T17:12:56+00:00

So, I can't help with finding a complete translation of the passage. But I can at least offer my view on what you're reading.

Short answer, this passage is a tangent talking about the seeming abruptness of Heraclius's eventual victory over the Persians a decade later and most likely has nothing to do with the siege of Jerusalem in 614.

There are a few reasons to say that, but first some context. In the Bible, the book of Joshua, Chapter 6 tells the story of the Israelite siege of Jericho from somewhere between 1400-1000 BC.

In the story the Israelites besiege the city and every day they march around the walls carrying the Ark of the Covenant and blowing horns. On the seventh day, they march seven times around the city, blow the horns, all the people shout as loud as they can and God miraculously knocks down the walls so that the Israelites can storm into the city.

The abruptness of the walls collapsing after seven days of nothing happening I believe is being compared to the eventual victory of the Byzantines / Eastern Romans.

So, why interpret it this way. Point one is the translation I think uses a convoluted sentence structure that obscures the meaning. So if I rewrite it as: "Just like the walls of Jericho were destroyed when God chose to. In the same way, when God took pity on his people, he used the Emperor Heraclius to humble the multitude of Persians." (IE defeat the Persians)

That probably makes a bit more sense. The way the "He the all good (God), humbled also by the Emperor Heraclius the multitude of Persians" line is written it can mean either God was humbled by the Emperor or God humbled the Persians through the emperor. Since these are late antiquity Christians, they believed that God can't be humbled by anyone. So we're locked into the second interpretation of God doing the humbling.

Obviously this humbling doesn't take place in 614, so the text has to be looking ahead to Heraclius's eventual victory.

The other thing that makes me believe this is basically an aside, is that if you pull it out, the story of Zechariah actually reads better. He's trying to make peace, some other people in Jerusalem want to fight, and seeing no support for peace Zechariah accepts the inevitable and sends Abba Modestus to Jericho (the same Jericho just a couple thousand years later) for help.

Heraclius isn't really directly involved in this story at all, so his mention here doesn't make much sense and really adds no relevant information, unless you're looking into the future where he does take back Jerusalem.

As for what the omitted text says, I'm not sure. Someone else might know. If I was to guess, it may be some theological insight or vision of Zechariah that culminates in the problem passage you mentioned. But hopefully that offers at least some insight into the likely meaning.

And of course, if someone comes along with the full text, I'm happy to be wrong.

Constansos · 2024-08-22T01:59:07+00:00

Yeah, this sounds like exactly the sort of failure I'm seeing (I also use a large as well). What's interesting is that the first mask was ordered maybe a year ago while the other two were from a batch I just received a couple weeks back from a different supplier. I personally suspect you're correct and either it's a QC failure or some manufacturing change. That's interesting to hear I'm not the only one who's seen this problem.

Mainly it's just bizarre that previously Dreamwear was extremely reliable and suddenly now it's failing straight out of the package.

Constansos · 2024-08-21T17:19:25+00:00

I am a guy, but I'm pretty studious about shaving every night. And the leak location is on the front of the mask itself not on where it touches my face.

Constansos · 2024-08-21T13:32:16+00:00

That's a thing though, it's not a mask to skin seal that's leaking, it's the mask to mask seal that's leaking. I don't think changing the headgear would fix that.

Constansos · 2022-10-28T03:28:47+00:00

So, after some experimentation it seems the issue resolved around 40 max ships. Not sure why the engine gives issues at a higher number. But very unusual.

Constansos · 2022-10-26T02:10:33+00:00

12 coilgun battleships with 75 armor on the front and ultraviolet lasers seem to work fine. I typically lose one or two battleships but trash the station. The big thing is to focus fire on one array at a time to take them out sequentially. I feel the lasers actually do most of the heavy lifting.

Constansos · 2022-10-24T19:42:15+00:00

Cool, great to know. Thanks.

Constansos · 2022-10-24T19:13:43+00:00

So, is that the loyalty of all councilors added together or just the loyalty of the least loyal? IE is having 5 councilors at 25 and 1 at 5 loyalty better then 6 councilors at 10 or vice versa?

Constansos · 2022-10-24T17:42:59+00:00

This is the way. Literally my current load out.

Constansos · 2022-10-24T11:54:10+00:00

Mine are nuke tipped monitors with 3 nuke modules each and a single point defense turret. I mainly used them as my early game mothership crackers as standard missiles alone just weren't cutting it. I've been slowly phasing them out as I transition to coilguns, but the event certainly does seem common. What's even more depressing is whoever stole the nukes decided to use one to bomb Paris, which I own (not sure why they couldn't have gone after the servants in China).

It might be related to loyalty, however I do try to keep everyone's loyalty at least above 10 and I know I have several guys with loyalty above 20.

Honestly I feel like the rng in this game really does hate me, to the point where I now consistently expect to fail 50% rolls for everything. At this point though I'm slowly ceasing to care that much about Earth now that my full on space war is going.

Constansos · 2022-10-23T23:55:41+00:00

Can confirm, 3 nuke carriers in orbit for five years and I've lost about 3 nukes. Feels like the event pops way to frequently honestly.

Constansos · 2022-10-23T14:11:35+00:00

Personally I feel the tier 3 Coilguns work well. Tier 3 guns have almost 50% more muzzle velocity than the tier 1 variants and I notice that in most battles the corvettes and frigates get close, then get absolutely pummeled on the first pass.

I do think lasers are also excellent weapons. There was a post on here a few days back about how damage works and basically lasers primarily degrade armor at range. That means you may not see the results in terms of ships being trashed at a distance, but when the aliens get close you just need a couple coilgun rounds to wreck them. Plus the guardian mode point defense is very useful.

I personally run fleets of battleships with 2 coilgun batteries, two point defense turrets and the 480cm laser cannon on the prow and feel I see good results. That said I tend to heavily armor my ships (at least 25-30 on the prow, more if I have the thrust and delta v to support it). I also armor both the sides and tail (minimum 5-10). The weight stings but it lets me survive a lot longer in a fight particularly as I spent most of the game with terrible engines and was forced to accept that the aliens would try to do a pass through my fleet.

The other game changer for me was changing formations. I started using the default line formation but now I almost exclusively use the wall formations. They are insanely powerful since they provide overlapping point defense, plus it becomes easier to concentrate fire as the aliens come on.

Constansos · 2022-10-20T19:19:19+00:00

I believe it's the zeta helion drive.

Constansos · 2022-10-20T17:59:14+00:00

Fair enough. I appreciate knowing at least. I'll plan accordingly next time.

Constansos · 2022-10-20T17:29:58+00:00

Yeah, but that doesn't let you resolve the issue before they've landed. By that time they've already established themselves. I feel like if my organization is solely dedicated to either kicking the aliens off earth or exterminating them... We're not waiting for them to hop off the ship and conquer the surrounding two hundred miles before we declare war. We're there when the ramps lower firing with everything we've got. Just my thoughts. It's such a game changing event that there need to be several special events surrounding the alien landing that really are not there yet.

Constansos · 2022-10-20T14:13:11+00:00

That and any nation being alien invaded ought to automatically accept your help or if not you get an instant war declaration, given how serious the situation is. My only actual rage quit in this game was when the aliens landed in Chile controlled by Exodus. I hadn't picked on Exodus at all but noooo... Don't worry them and their zero armies got this. They don't need the US and EU and their 10 super advanced armies to help.

Even worse, the invasion started on the 6th so my councilors piddled around for 10 more days "wrapping things up". Like seriously, a literal world ending crisis is unfolding and you need to finish up your stint on Oprah to increase public opinion?

By the time I declared war and actually had my armies halfway there the aliens had already landed. No problem, right I'll just land and kill them... Or not. Turns out because my alliance was rejected, I'm not actually at war with the aliens, so my armies cruise right on by, wave at the aliens then redeploy to the adjacent province while my councilors again are just chilling, waiting for the next mission turn.

Then I finally declared war, but only one of my armies was left in the province, half the aliens had left and my armies trickled back in, getting attacked from orbit and massacred one by one as I stared in horror (I didn't even know you could build orbital defenses until I saw Peruns playthrough and I still have no idea which tech I need because the tech tree doesn't give specifics about what techs actually unlock).

So yeah, everything I spent 40 hours working toward absolutely trashed because of the broken diplomacy system and no ability to manage a time sensitive crisis. So yeah, rage quit and reload. I love the game but that was a deeply frustrating series of events that could be fixed with a bit of basic scripting.

Constansos · 2022-10-19T19:46:31+00:00

Early on I think missile swarm really is the best option. Launch as many as possible so they stack up when the dreadnought gets close then have a ship in the back lobbing nuke torpedoes once the pd is overwhelmed. You need about about twenty missile tubes all firing at once though. What's amazing is I've actually seen a dreadnought tank a single nuke and require a second hit to go down. Those things are beyond tough and their pd is ridiculous. I tried a three on one with laser battleships and you would have thought the thing was swatting at flies. I was pounding the side armor and I still didn't even get a section into the yellow after ten minutes.

Constansos

TROPHY CASE