I have been playing a 5.3 version game for quite a while now. I have the precursor and star swarm on but not the invaders. Most of my important research is in the 60K - 80k research point range, nothing super high but pretty good. I had steam rolled over 1 high tech NPC and 2 Low tech NPC, and allied with another. I then ceased all exploration until I could digest my new conquests and explore the new systems they gave me which almost doubled the number I had explored. I used the time to build up my fleet. I made what I thought was an over kill for anything I would run into, my big guns are 24000 ton battle ships that with a 7115km/s speed could run down any precursor ships I found and swat them easily. I built 6 Task Groups of my unstoppable ships and then built a nice collier fleet to keep them supplied but figured that was unnecessary as they could swat anything I've seen so far without a sweat, I had also started two carrier groups with 4 10 fighter squadrons. I even built up my ground forces to a point I thought was a bit over the top, but the more the merrier, I had 4 Marine Divisions, 3 Heavy Assault Divisions, 2 Assault Infantry Divisions, 1 Mobile Infantry Division and 6 Guard Divisions. It was at this point I figured I could start exploring those beckoning warp points. The first 6 new systems encouraged my hubris, I found 2 perfect colony planets and 2 large Precursor fleets and 1 new Star Swarm. I ran them over without slowing down, WOOT. And that’s when the game decided to show me who was boss.
I entered a system and apparently activated a new NPC, he immediately started sending out Grav survey ships and Jump construction ships started building on the warp points in his system. I looked in and after rubbing my hands in anticipation of a new subject race sent in 5 of my 6 Battle task groups, 1 Carrier Group, and all 3 of my collier groups, thinking with this over kill the fight will be over before I could blink. I followed that up with a 3 Marine, 2 Heavy Assault, 1 Mobile Infantry, and 1 Guard invasion force. I also sent the 4th Marine Div. but it was on the other end of my empire and would get there after all the shooting was over. My fist shock was the number of units the Enemy had, 3 1000ton ships, 11 7700ton ships, 7 15350ton ships, and 5 23100ton ships. My second surprise was that EVERY one of them was traveling at 9536km/s. which was just a tad slower than my 10000km/s fighters let alone my poor slow ships of the line. My third surprise was his missile range was longer then my 93.7 million Km missiles. My fourth was his anti-missile fire was extensive and ranged 15 million Km. By the time I cleared the system I had lost 3 of my 4 fighter squadrons, and heavy damage to 2escort battle ships and light damage to 3 battleships, as well as the destruction of 1 Jump battleship, 2 colliers and a fleet scout cruiser and nearly all of my huge supply of missles.
I figured that was the end of the surprises. Ha, I landed my assault force and immediately found out I was at a combat ratio of 0.85 and started taking some nasty damage. My last marine div. landed about 10 days into the assault and just put me at 0.9. It was only after a few weeks of hard fighting that my research into ground combat 20 was completed and my last Heavy Assault Div. finished training up and reached the fighting. This finally pushed me over the top and I was finally able to secure the planet after approximately 210 days of ground combat.
This gave me the last surprise, my winnings. I came away with a population of 2381.969 way bigger then Earths pop. of 1680.52. I got reparations of 148694 credits, minerals: Dur.-27154.733, Neut.-37642.9977, Cor.-11667.0632, Tri.-29388.958, Bor.-11353.7612, Mer.-9185.0862, Ven.-11602.2818, Sor.-22165.12, Uri.-10665.3168, Cor.-22511.6142, Gal.-0. New tech of Min. Jump Engine Size 12, Particle Beam Range 150K, Active Grave Sensor Strength 36,48,60,80, and Minimum Cloak Size 20.
Buildings: 75 research labs, 2824 construction facilities, 720 ordinance factories, 2157 fuel refineries, 658 automatic mines, 4331.5597 infrastructure, 205 Maintenance facilities, 3 Deep space tracking facilities, 41 Ground Forces TF, 24 Navel Academies, 2879 mines, 1 mass driver, and 43651679.1623 in fuel.
Ships: 7 terraformers, 7 Construction ships, 8 geo. Survey ships, and 23 colony ships. Would have 21 cargo ships but they were accidently caught by some stray missiles, ooops.
All in all a huge surprise in one system, a VERY hard fight and well worth the effort with a big reward at the end.
Oh, yah, the shipyards I captured, just a few small ones.
Civ yards: 152000 tons 1 sipway, 144000 3 slipways, 136000 3 slipways, 128000 2 slipways, 128000 1slipway, 120000 1 slipway, 120000 2 slipway, 112000 2 slipways, 104000 1 slipway, 104000 2 slipways, 104000 3 slipways, 1040000 1 slipway, 96000 3 slipways, 96000 2 slipways, 96000 2 slipways, 96000 2 slipways, 96000 1 slipway, 96000 1 slipway, 88000 1 slipway, 88000 3 slipways, 80000 1 slipway, 80000 3 sipways, 72000 2 slipways, 72000 2 slipways, 72000 2 slipways, 72000 2 slipways, 56000 3 slipways, 48000 1 slipway, 48000 2 slipways, 32000 1 slipway, 16000 2 slipways
Naval yards: 18000 tons 2 slipways, 18000 3 slipways, 16500 2 slipways, 15000 3 slipways, 15000 3 slipways, 15000 2 slipways, 15000 2 slipways, 14000 2 slipways, 14000 2 slipways, 12000 3 slipways, 11000 1 slipway, 11000 1 slipway, 10000 3 slipways, 10000 3 slipways, 6000 1 slipway, 5000 3 slipways, 5000 1 slipway, 4000 3 slipways, 4000 3 slipways.
Keep up the good work Steve. Love the game.
If anyone is interested I can post my ship designs later.
Mark
