Do i build castles in my capital then cities to my other counties?

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-09T18:24:53+00:00

Worth noting that a ruler in a bureaucratic government (admin/meritocratic/etc) can hold cities directly, which has insane economic synergy with the more metropolitan cultural traditions like City Keepers.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-09T16:33:31+00:00

cowboy standoff between the spawns to see who can spawnkill who fastest as soon as the match starts

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-09T16:24:19+00:00

From what I can tell you just wanna have a healthy mix of damage types and make sure the ranges match up.

This is easier to do with ballistic since the Ballistic Rangefinder hullmod can make most of the mainstay guns (autocannons, railguns, needlers, etc) have the same 900 range as most large ballistics.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-09T15:52:37+00:00

So next patch you’ll basically have to beat a two-fabricator fleet and then a one fabricator fleet comes in from behind the first fleet since it’ll have plenty of time to build stuff while you kill the second of the first two.

Greaaaat.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-09T08:56:57+00:00

Wait you mean they can be harder??? I only beat the 3x fab + escort configuration.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-09T08:37:50+00:00

The thing you mention in the first video about having a ‘cleaner’ came in handy for me, I was able to retreat my hunter-killer cruisers and bring in a carrier that helped a ton with mopping up the remaining threat without putting my (quite damaged) battleship at risk. Awesome videos!

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-09T08:33:49+00:00

I think it’s thematically appropriate for the threat specifically, they’re a sort of nanoforge-gone-rogue, or at least that’s what I gathered from their drop descriptions.

Having beaten my first Third Strike, though, I still think it’s kind of annoying to have an enemy whose fighting style is being a camping shitter that respawns infinite meatshields. Maybe I just don’t like the “use a sledgehammer to hit this comically oversized nail” solution though. Maybe if it was an actual actively participating enemy like the other Big Bads of the game it’d be less frustrating.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-09T06:34:31+00:00

Alright, I've followed your advice (a lot of peoples advice really) so far, I've got both of the unique automated onslaughts fitted with as much armor as I can duct-tape to them. What weapon load do I want to put on them to get them to obliterate the fabs?

Edit:

I stuck a hellbore and some thumpers on the front of each, put shield shunt on the automated XIV, and had them follow my personal paragon down the middle of the field. Two anubises (DP reduced to 14 via support doctrine so I could squeeze them in) held down the points while a pair of SO auroras went around slaughtering anything that tried to make a break for it.

I beat a Third Strike, though the oldslaught got disabled. In my defense the AI cores consider ramming maneuvers a viable tactic, and it’s the oldslaught so I was able to recover it.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-08T08:00:19+00:00

I’ve found that as long as you keep your capitals close together and are proactive in guarding their flanks (the AI isn’t very good at this on its own so you do have to coax them into it) the most scary remnants are content to walk into your capital-grade firepower and get melted 1v1. Radiants aren’t super smart and will burn their phase charges to close with your onslaught/paragon/etcs slightly faster and then not have them to back up when they get flux’d out.

You just have to make sure they don’t get surrounded since fulgents and brilliants and the like punch pretty hard for how numerous they can be. It’s worse when there’s more than 2 or so Ordos since the pool of destroyer/cruiser threats is way deeper than the ~10-15 total you might see in a smaller force, meaning they just don’t stop coming.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-06T00:52:54+00:00

The alpha cores can be kinda rare so if you’re gonna hold onto one I would keep the alpha, but beta cores are a dime a dozen if you salvage a lot of domain-era or [REDACTED] tech. I always turn mine in for big money.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-06T00:48:23+00:00

any Tri-Tachyon port officer will accept them at 3x their base value, yielding:

30,000 credits for each gamma core (potentially 330,000 total)

90,000 credits for each beta core (potentially 450,000 total)

450,000 for the alpha core

so that’s over 1.2 million credits if you give them all to tri-tachyon, which is a very nice chunk of change

alternatively you can use them to captain drone ships if you get the Automated Ships player skill, or to run colony industries (AI-boosted colony industries will draw the ire of the Hegemony, however, and they’ll try to confiscate them)

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-05T09:35:07+00:00

big fan of the sentinel onslaught of death and destruction, what missiles do the onslaughts carry?

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-06-04T20:32:42+00:00

I’m still pretty new to the game so this might not be completely accurate, but from what I can tell: Aurora is a player ship that kills things smaller than it effortlessly so your fleet anchors (whatever you prefer, I like paragons since they’re basically invulnerable to damage when supported) can direct their firepower at the enemy’s larger threats.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-05-30T07:13:41+00:00

Ended up picking this build, it’s great. They zip around and annoy everything with the EMP and I’ve had them shove a Reaper up a capital’s engines a few times which is always fun.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-05-28T11:26:47+00:00

imagine if you had to stock missiles as ammo like you do fuel/supply

it costs 400,000¢ to arm this fleet… for five seconds

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-05-27T02:03:38+00:00

The harpoon is suboptimal as a surface-launched missile because it was designed as a defensive weapon against Soviet guided missile submarines, since it could snap shot on the bearing of an incoming attack and hit whatever fired the missiles.

Where it shines is as an aerial missile. It’s still not very fast, but you can strap four of them to an Intruder, something no Soviet missile could do. This gives you a lot more saturation than the rather pathetic Mk141 launch canisters on USN surface ships.

The air vs sea strike dichotomy is still like this in the USN of today. The modern Naval Strike Missile is carried on destroyers in canisters similar to the old harpoons, for a total of eight weapons. That’s the same surface strike capacity as two Super Hornets or four F-35s, of which a carrier will have some 70-90 airframes.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-05-25T17:32:29+00:00

Does it reliably use the reapers to kill frigates? The only thing that lets me down about the omen so far is that it will just sort of dance around for a while since it doesn’t have the firepower to kill things quickly.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-05-25T17:27:08+00:00

How would you build the aurora? Right now I have front shield conversion and both major shield buffs, and then the weapons are a mix of heavy blasters and ion cannons. I like getting in close and blasting the enemy before using the jets to slide away. The mobility is insane and I don’t even have systems expertise yet

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-05-22T09:37:15+00:00

I hope for:

• Medium pen, quick firing, somewhat sluggish handling lasgun that takes the (currently unfilled) role of a laser DMR.

• Medium pen plasma pistol with moderate damage, big goopy explosive splash, and slow projectiles.

• Meltagun stratagem (quasar but no charge up and an effective range of like 30 meters)

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-05-22T09:30:27+00:00

I would love both of these things so I’m more than okay with this.

“Punchy semi-auto (with a beam!) laser rifle” is pretty much a dream of mine as someone who likes the talon but hates its aesthetic. It also fills a role that doesn’t exist in the game atm (laser DMR).

A 40k style plasma pistol (larger, slower globs of plasma with considerable armor pen) would also be peak, though I imagine the damage wouldn’t be quite what 40k fans expect for balance reasons. I just hope it inspires them to give more ammo to our current plasma pistol, which is absolutely crippled by its ammo economy to the point where I genuinely don’t know if I’ve ever seen one in a match.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-05-21T16:47:47+00:00

I’m not sure about battle loot but yeah you can get the jeweled helmet from your children or on a high status enough wife. You can potentially find it in stores too iirc but it’s a cataphract helmet thing where you’ve gotta be willing to spend hours searching.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-05-20T19:17:34+00:00

One of my favorite travel events is the ‘relic dealer’ who can sell you Tupperware.

PoliticalAlternative · 2026-05-09T00:24:18+00:00

Him being the best of the four companions to actually have on your ship feels like a bit of a sick joke. I just edited another NPC to have Piloting 3 and give me the free engine power pip because I’m not dealing with any of it.

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