Terra Invicta: Early Game Fleets (version 0.3.xx)
Its actually not hard to field decent fleets early in the campaign. Just don't expect them to go very far.
Don’t wait to build up your fleets and fight the aliens. You can beat the Aliens early and you should start fighting as soon as you can.
In my first few campaigns, I tried to fly under the radar for as long as possible, which seemed like a safe strategy, but this delayed my growth, even as the aliens forces grew stronger. When I finally exceeded the threat cap, and started fighting in 2032, the alien’s were sending large fleets to earth (8-10 ships) which I had no way of defeating without taking significant losses. Perhaps I could have built more shipyards and pushed out larger fleets all at once, or perhaps I could have designed better ships... I am sure there is a way to make the “Delay Fighting the Aliens as Long as Possible” strategy work, but there is a better play, and that is to just build decent defensive fleets as soon as possible.
In my last campaign (Brutal Difficulty), I built 4 fleets in 2029, one for each of the locations I wanted to secure: Earth (+Luna), Mars, Ceres, and Vesta. I was able to build 2 ships at each site (which the alien’s mostly ignored), then another 2, then another 1, and so eventually placing 5 ships at each base, which was more than enough to defend all my habs and satellites at this point in the campaign. This in turn meant that I didn’t need to build as many LDAs for my satellites and habs and could instead invest more in research. But the most significant advantage of this strategy is that when you are no longer hampered by the threat cap, you can expand your space assets without limit. These fleets do eat up a lot of MC, but that’s unavoidable, and once you have a sizeable defensive force, any excess MC can be spent on expansion to Mercury or Jupiter or wherever.
On a side note, it is possible that recent patches have reduced the alien strength and the size of their attacking fleets - it certainly seems that way to me. But even if that is the case, and even if this change is reverted and the aliens bring more ships down on earth, I expect that they will be easier to fight off in 2029 than in 2032. Furthermore, if I needed to, I could ramp up production by building more shipyards, which would allow me to pump out ships 3 or 4 at a time, rather than only 2 at a time.
MC Usage during the Buildup stage
Of course, I don’t entirely ignore the alien threat meter. I don’t breach that limit until I have all the technology I need and the shipyards in place to build a defensive fleet in every system that needs to be protected.
At Brutal difficulty the threat cap is 50, but it is a good idea to keep your active Mission Control a bit under that limit as small things (eg. purging/robbing the servants) can push it up.
I try to keep my space assets to ~45 MC, then pause for a bit while prepping to build fleets. In my last campaign this is how I spent my MC allowance.
Earth: 6 MC 2 orbital satellites
Luna: 2 MC 1 outpost hab with a mine
Mars: 19 MC 8 outpost habs with mines, 1 orbital satellite
Ceres: 11 MC 4 outpost habs with mines, 1 orbital satellite
Vesta: 7 MC 2 outpost habs with mines, 1 orbital satellite
Total: 45 MCThis worked fine, but in the next run, I may omit the orbital satellites on Ceres and Vesta. Instead I can build docks in those habs, and thus save some MC for more mining of Mars, or more research via low earth orbital satellites.
Technology for the First Batch
I try to limit how many ship components and weapon systems I develop in the early and mid game, as researching all of them can eat up a ton of beakers, and those techs will be made obsolete quickly. You can design effective early game ships that use missiles or particle beams. These designs work, but they don’t upgrade as well as designs based on kinetics.
With this in mind, here is the technology I target for my first batch of ships:
Sodium Heat Sinks
Nanotube Filament Radiator
Nanotube Armor
Solid Core Fission V
Pulsar Drive (Adv. Pulsar if possible)
Rail Cannon Mk3 via Advanced Rail Cannon
Point Defense Turrets
Salt Water Batteries
Hydrogen ContainmentMy primary ship design for the early game uses a Destroyer hull, which allows for an efficient use of MC, while still packing a solid punch. The image below is for the first ships I built in my most recent campaign. It mostly uses the technology listed above, but has 2 significant upgrades: Advanced Pulsar and Tin Droplet Radiator.
Block 1
2 or more of these ships will perform very well against equally sized enemy fleets, but it may lose against plasma cannons. They really need to work in groups though - a single ship of this design will not perform well because the railgun cannon Mk3 doesn’t fire fast enough to overwhelm enemy PD.
On the plus side, this design is cheap and fast to build, only requires 2 MC, and is stupid easy to control in battles. You need to tighten your fleet’s formation then just float forward while locked on the nearest target. It can win against every enemy in the early game. 5-6 of these ships can defend Earth, or Mars or wherever.
You should note that with 9.5 dV these ships aren’t going anywhere. They are defensive units only and need to be deployed with caution even when simply changing orbits. Often I will need to adjust the flight plan so that they will have enough gas to get back home. If this bothers you, just add more propellant tanks. I chose to use 12 propellant tanks, which was probably a bit low. 20 is probably a little safer. Note: with 35 propellant tanks and the Slush Hydrogen Tankage utility module, this ship can reach Mars and Mercury from Earth.
Block 2
With an upgraded nose weapon, this destroyer design becomes very strong. Coil Cannon Mk2 is much better than Railgun Cannon Mk3. (tech required: Coilguns, High-Temperature Superconductors).
PD Arc Laser Turrets are also a huge upgrade, increasing the effectiveness and range of PD to better protect wing mates.
This ship is great, though still somewhat vulnerable to plasma cannons. Other than that, it has no significant weaknesses.
Block 3
Coil cannon Mk3 takes awhile, you need Molecular Assemblers and Ultracapacitors, but the increase in projectile velocity is definitely worth it. Your rounds will start hitting their targets sooner. At a distance of 600 km most ships will be unable to dodge these shots, and unless they have a lot of PD, they will die quickly.
I also added Slush Hydrogen Tankage, which increases dV and allows me to add a bit more armor.
At this point, the ship is almost perfect. You can add more armor if you want, but you won’t really need it unless you are facing plasma cannons, and in that case it is best to bring more ships to the battle, or to not engage.
This design is still best in packs but it is now very capable of fighting one on one, so long as the adversary doesn’t have 2 or more lasers, or plasma.
Block 3A
This next model enables interplanetary travel, and with some extra dV to make the trip a little less ponderous.
The big upgrade is the Hydron Trap (not always unlocked) which replaces Slush Hydrogen Tankage. I’ve also added a Super Conducting Coil Battery, Lithium Spray Radiator, and 35 propellant tanks, as well as a bit more nose armor.
This ship can be used to reinforce Earth, Mars, Mercury, and Ceres, but won’t fly much further. It will never win a race against the aliens, and so it needs to be deployed to a location before the aliens target that location.
You don’t have to wait until you have all this technology to upgrade your fleets to reach other planets. You can just stack on propellant tanks as needed. That being said, if you can wait until you have these other weight reduction and energy efficiency technologies, it will make for a more elegant and nimble design.
Alternatively, you can skip this upgrade, or reduce the propellant tanks with the intention of keeping your defensive fleets in their home system - which is what I do most of the time.
Block 4
PD phaser turrets and Adamantine armor are the next 2 significant upgrades. Phaser PD is crucial - allowing your ships to guard against more advanced alien firepower.
Adamantine is great for new ships, but only optional as an upgrade for your existing fleets.
The only thing this spacecraft lacks is a good drive; the Zeta Boron Fusion Drive is the final piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately, you cannot upgrade ships with Advanced Pulsar Drives to fusion drives, and so these ships have reached the final stage of their development - they are certainly not obsolete, but they will never be fast enough to go on the offensive, and will instead remain base defenders.
When Zeta Boron Fusion Drives become available, I will typically switch to a bigger hull type, but Destroyers are great throughout the campaign.
Enemy Ship Engagement
The aliens will often decline to engage your fleets when you have the advantage, and because they have far more dV, you won’t be able to chase them down and force them to fight. Often times, a weak alien ship will be able to fly into a system you control, evade your fleets, then fly off again, without ever having to fire a shot. It’s super annoying.
There are a few ways to bring them to action. If you have undefended and vulnerable habs the aliens may choose to bombard them, and when doing so their ships cannot run away. They won’t usually bombard earth, but it’s not uncommon for them to do so at Mars, or Ceres, or Vesta.
To entice the aliens to fight it is necessary to send a fleet with approximately the same strength as the target. This often means sending a single ship out to fight one on one with the aliens. Before doing this, you should examine the weapon systems on the alien vessel - if they have plasma, leave them alone. Otherwise, you may be able to win a one on one fight. It will depend primarily on ship design, but luck and skill are also factors.
A more effective strategy is to exploit a flaw in the AI use devious trickery - and expend most of the fuel in your fleet, which reduces it’s power rating significantly, and that will fool the aliens into thinking your fleet is weaker than it actually is. I’ve managed to trick the aliens into engaging a fleet twice their size using this stupid hack clever maneuver.
Ship Combat For Dummies
I am not very good at controlling ships, and have only learned how to use about half of the key controls and tactical maneuver buttons, and most of those I never use. Still, I’ve had a lot of success in ship battles. Here is what I do.
At the start of the battle I will tighten up my formation. This is very important before you have Phaser PD, and afterwards, still a good idea. This is done by veering a ship towards another ship, then after a couple of minutes, straightening it out so that both ships have a parallel trajectory again, but are now closer together. With the ship design described above, I don’t need my entire fleet to be arranged as tight as possible, I just need every ship to have a buddy ship nearby so that 4 PD turrets can defend either.
Then I set all my ships to Locked On target. Your ships cannot be maneuvered when they are Locked On, and so this step has to be done after you’ve tightened up your formation.
Then I assign targets for all of my ships, which are usually the enemy ships in their lane. So my ships on the left will target the closest enemy ship on the left, and so forth. If an enemy ship has 2 or more laser systems, then I will need to have 3 of my ships target it, in order to bring it down quickly. When an enemy ship is destroyed I pause time and assign a new target. If one of the enemy ships has plasma cannons, it is the top priority - once it is in range, I make sure to take it out first.
At some point, I might retract a ship’s radiators if I think it is likely to be hit by plasma or laser fire. Or I may not. With the radiators retracted the heat sinks will start to fill up, and if they reach 100% the ship will just explode without warning. And that sucks. Micromanaging heat is dangerous and often unnecessary. But sometimes it can help.
Other Terra Invicta posts:
I followed your approach and it is 2029, though I lost my research edge against other factions so haven't been able to start on the three global projects needed for coilguns (superconducting magnets, super capacitors, super alloys, and high temp superconductors). I only have half-a-dozen ships, nor do I have Vesta, and I've run up against an MC cap of 58. I'm building up MC in US and European Union (I couldn't get China) but it's going to be difficult to get 5 ships at Earth, Mars, and Ceres (but hope to get that by 2030).
Two issues - the only way I can regain research dominance is by taking out all the LEO faction stations, and replacing them with my own, but that eats up MC that is growing very slowly. But without research, I can't focus global to get coilguns, adamantine, tin drop, etc.
The bigger question is the assumption behind fighting early. If I can get 5 ships at Earth soon, I can go after an alien scout. I can either keep disrupting surveillance missions until it goes home, or catch one and kill it. The aliens have 40+ ships in their fleet. This is obviously a lot better than the 120+ that you face in 2040-42, but is the idea that you wear them down in the early 2030s so they aren't so big later?
I feel like the triple crunch of research shortfalls, MC limits, and alien attacks is a really difficult needle to thread.