Had them jump me before i really got a navy together. Now i finally scrapped together a navy with real weight behind it. Then this monster joined up with a squad of battlecruisers and came back toward sol. I was finally in a position to jump it as they jumped in, cause with they’re absurd speed i couldn’t catch them in any other situation. The fleet threw every piece of ordinance it had at this monster. Over 200 Gen-1 missiles fired at a single target.
All told. One hit. Only armor damage. Now the fleet is gone, Terra is starved for minerals, and the swarm approaches.
In less doom and gloom, recommendations for dealing with a monster like this? I’ve never seen a single ship this powerful before.
The hive is the hive for a reason, there’s only one per swarm but it is enormous, and judging by yours’ tonnage, you lucked out to roll an Extra Large one. Not much you can do against this if severely under-teched (which one tends to be against the Swarm) but stall for time. Ambushing their gravity surveyors and mining JPs or JP survey locations which you know you don’t want them to get works great, too great actually. It might take the fun out of things
I’ve had successful campaigns against swarms two tech levels above mine, but that required specialized designs (engine-heavy ships that match or exceed their speed, particle lances that exceed their small lasers’ range and shields that can handle their big gun fire. Then, the most important thing is to somehow isolate the hive and its royal escort of point defense ships (hive guards) from their heavy-hitters (carnifexes, I believe). The hive is deceptively weak if you can match its speed and outrange its small lasers, because its single spinal gun won’t do much if your shields are at least somewhat adequate.
Carnifexes will absolutely melt anything that enters their gun range, but their rate of fire isn’t too high, so they can be overwhelmed with massed beam fighters. They too can have a PD escort though, in which case I’d suggest eliminating it with missiles first.
Yeah i can see how that’d work. The problem was my initial response was real slow (i’ve never seen the swarm before) and not only was my military tech Severely behind, i had NO navy when i first met them.
Add to that my severe inexperience fighting an enemy of this caliber, my ships and missiles had no ECM or ECCM, serious speed issues and particle lasers way too light for the targets in question, and active sensors far too poor for the needs of combat against this enemy (Range, range and range). i decided to roll a new game when i saw that quantity wouldn’t overcome the issues with quality.
This is a worthy way to end a run, far more noble than the usual “grow so big and successful you get tired of micromanaging things”. Also, discovering a swarm this early is considered especially rare, they are usually quite elusive and one tends to receive the memo about building a starting navy from far less game-ending spoilers. You will fare better next time!
On the side note, I find it very humorous how overcoming quality with quantity is something we do against the swarm, of all things. You’d expect it to be the opposite, but they always get such high tech.
Wow that is one mean mother … ship! Sends a cold chill down my spine just thinking about it. An existential threat does add spice to the story but its still going to sting.
This is why I screenshot start conditions. I have a solar explosion game going and am afraid to explore beyond the given number of new systems to avoid spawning game ending mayhem until after the destruction of Earth.
Also, discovering a swarm this early is considered especially rare, they are usually quite elusive and one tends to receive the memo about building a starting navy from far less game-ending spoilers. You will fare better next time!
