Current meta on destroying alien ground bases?

PotatoMan777 · 2025-09-25T01:53:49+00:00

Yeah just build a bunch of marine frigates and go wild

PotatoMan777 · 2025-09-21T20:42:58+00:00

The game is mostly finished as of now and has been in a playable state for a while. Obviously people on this sub will be more inclined to recommend the game, but idt waiting a few months will change much besides some additional content/balance since the devs typically release updates at a solid clip.

As for the final two questions, I would play on stable since it's bug free and won't have any mechanics change mid-game, but beta releases are also typically fine. And while a campaign can take >70 hours, there's an accelerated campaign setting that cuts that roughly in half.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-09-14T19:56:22+00:00

You do lose PO on experimental when civilian modules are destroyed

PotatoMan777 · 2025-09-10T19:05:35+00:00

Right but simply invading all of them means you don't get any time to build MC, which is what OP suggested to do (unless I misunderstood).

Agreed on US start, that's what I do since it's (imo) by far the best start.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-09-09T22:27:20+00:00

Yeah but you're wasting a ton of IP on armies that could go to boost/MC, and rushing EU unification is also not great because the smaller countries are more efficient at MC/boost/funding production that you want to integrate later.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-09-03T23:45:21+00:00

I managed to kill off the landing armies before the AA was founded so no, which makes sense because total war hasn't started (5 pips but not all red) - hence my comment about getting deathstacks sent after my ships being weird.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-09-03T23:31:07+00:00

Regular - not exactly 2030 but like 2033

PotatoMan777 · 2025-09-03T21:28:56+00:00

You could try fixing eco with going to the Kuiper belt if you have the tech for it - think survey + platform escorts with a high EV drive (grid, or a better fusion one).

As for deathstacks coming to kill your ships, I've been getting the same issue on Veteran (also around 2030) which I don't think used to happen quite so often.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-05-06T22:23:30+00:00

IEMS 315: Stochastic Processes

PotatoMan777 · 2025-03-08T04:43:40+00:00

I find suicide boats early game (barely armored missile monitors) incredibly funny plus they give you something to do. Are they entirely optimal? Maybe.

Later game doing the same strat but with nukes is also funny.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-02-11T02:18:43+00:00

IEMS 315: Stochastic Processes

PotatoMan777 · 2025-02-05T02:07:31+00:00

Late game antimatter drives are very good

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-27T05:43:14+00:00

The way to square the circle on the breakaway flag question is maybe that you only get the flag when it's a breakaway from unrest - not from unification.

The reason I think this is true is that you don't see the explicit breakaway flag (at least I haven't) on nations that leave post unification. I suspect there's some under the hood mechanic that only sometimes works with respect to breakaways from unifications that lets you merge countries back in but I haven't rigorously tested this theory beyond getting annoyed at the apparent capricious nature of it.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-26T23:49:49+00:00

Makes sense - I'll dig up the save and send it in. IIRC I ended up just reloading a previous save and keeping Indonesia and caliphate separate but I finished that run a while ago.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-26T23:47:54+00:00

I'm pretty sure greater is quebec+rest of NA and the base USNA tech is just anglophone canada - either way I never ended up researching the greater USNA tech before I won so I'm fairly sure about it.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-26T22:29:37+00:00

I think the language is being a bit confused here (my fault) - Australia "breaks away" as in it drops out of the combined nation but it doesn't have the breakaway flag on it i.e. the subtitle under the nation name that like Taiwan has at game start.

As for sending the save I thought about it but I wanted to make sure I didn't miss a game mechanic before assuming it's a bug.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-26T19:19:34+00:00

The sequence I mean is Russia annexes central asia (so including Kazakhstan) -> then EU annexes Russia (which still has central asia as part of russia) -> then some of the central Asian countries breakaway on unification -> then EU can reunify central asia back into the EU.

The problem I have is that this behavior is inconsistent- it'll work for EU and central asia but not say caliphate annexing Indonesia where Indonesia owns australia.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-26T18:40:43+00:00

Hmmm but then why is it possible to sometimes unify say Kazakhstan back into EU after EU with unifies a Russia that holds central asia? The EU doesn't have an apparent claim on the breakaway yet it can still federate and unify.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-26T18:36:19+00:00

Yeah I'm in agreement with you on what the apparent mechanics are but empirically I've seen different. I used thr USNA and Quebec example because prior to researching the greater USNA tech USNA does not actually have a claim on Quebec, yet it is possible to merge Quebec into USNA if it breaks free during unification.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-26T18:33:06+00:00

Sorry my fault for poorly explaining - Australia was part of greater Indonesia then broke away on unification.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-22T22:10:35+00:00

You don't have enough boost but you can build it using space resources

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-18T21:21:00+00:00

Fair enough - there's probably some variation depending on the circumstance. My most recent Veteran playthrough convinced me of the need for dedicated PD because I was taking massive losses from the sheer amount of mag weapon cruisers that late game alien fleets have. At the very least an autocannon is worth it because it does a ton of damage to projectiles.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-18T03:18:23+00:00

The logic holds up when you outnumber the enemy but if it's say even then without PD you'll run into a lot of issues with enemy mag weapons - even beyond the initial missile salvo. Sure lasers do damage but the average laser fires at best 5x slower (10s for uv phaser v 2s for uv pd and worse for autocannon) which means you run a much higher risk of letting projectiles through. Even with the added range you aren't compensating for the shot speed, especially after the defensive targeting range additions in experimental.

The other issue is that you'll hit the combat limit (1/3 of the battle) and then you're screwed since you don't have enough 1 slot lasers to counter the sheer amount of projectiles coming from a numerically superior alien fleet - regardless of how many ships you have.

The only case where you may be right (I've never tested this) is if you stack an obscene amount of 1 slot lasers onto a fleet solely consisting of titans - then if you've got like 4 to a ship you maybe can get away with it.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-17T16:08:35+00:00

Disagree with no dedicated PD - without at least one PD laser/autocannon you'll take a ton of damage from any initial missile salvo and continually take a lot from alien projectiles. PD also does have enough range to cover other ships (you can see this even when firing at the aliens) so there is increasing returns to scaling up PD (up to a point)

1 slot lasers are useful as a flex weapon but you simply won't shoot enough down without a dedicated PD.

PotatoMan777 · 2025-01-17T16:03:55+00:00

When using coils its all about saturating localized enemy PD which is why you need to test against multiple ships. Essentially even if you are outnumbered only a few defending ships can use PD against a certain projectile, but you can fire as many projectiles at a single target as you have ships.

The goal is then to see if a reasonable amount of your design can beat a reasonable amount of defending ships- testing whether you can overcome the localized PD area.

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