Aliens are keeping me away from space-help neede

[Gros Babouin]

So I've played with total disregard to aliens aggression meter and now I'm at the 2050s with a total domination on earth but no space presence. I managed to build a ring hab with nothing but defense and a lone port but the aliens just kept sending wave after wave of ships and I couldn't build ships fast enough to face the growing strength of aliens. I've tried to wait them out but 2 years in and still the aliens aggroed me the moment I went into space. After that, I just stopped trying to appease aliens. So how can I manage to go back to space and build ships, let alone mines? I tried building outposts when the aliens where shooting every other factions but by the time the bases were ready, the aliens were free to focus on me.

[Stac Polly Reiver]

Is the Alien aggro meter solid red?
If no then build cheap targets for them to blow up until they get enough revenge.
If yes (solid red) then you are at war with the Aliens and probably stuffed...

[Wisq]

In my first game, when the aliens came and wiped out all my LEO stations, they left my moon bases alone. I used those to build my fleet and retake Earth orbit.

It’s possible that was because I was playing on Cinematic — they did eventually start coming for my other bases, but they were pretty slow about it.

Also, if you’re building decoy stations for them to blow up (and blow off some steam so they calm down), then make sure you put them in orbits you *don’t* care about, so debris doesn’t become a problem. (And don’t arm them, of course.)

[Morti]

Do the aliens aggro your mercurians and marsians mines ? you can let them some empty orbitals to play with : it can low their aggro.
i guess the play is to build some fleet around mercury ( as the aliens usually focus round earth ) to defend mines and campus ( if you don't have any campus, just build 20+ campus on mercurian habs )
Try to always have an earth orbital hab ( most of the time aliens won't send the big fleets with motherships on mercury while you have something to destroy in earth orbit ).
You can build hab near earth/luna L1 to 5 points : alien don't attack them really often, and it's kinda cheap if you build on earth ( because you have no mines )
Then you want small fleets able to destroy most of the aliens fleet, for me it's 9 battleships with heavy plasma battery mk2, 2 PD lasers and 2 small green/IR canons ( phasers are better but it probably works with arc lasers too ) and a decent drive ( you want something like at least 7 in both ratings )

[TargetLost]

How can you be in 2050 and not in space?
Well you need to build multiple stations at the same time to maybe still have a change but I think you lost that game especially if you have no mining stations on mars or anything that gives you resources.

I am in 2050 too and full red since years. So far the aliens keeps destroying my mines and I can't really grow my small fleet because of that.
I still have numerous spacestations and mineing on mars because whenever they destroy it I sure right away plant a new sbase.

Now they stepped up and attacked with a 27k fleet (2 motherships).
I can't face that force. So they come in destroy a station and then fly out again...
Although I have heavy defence on my stations it's too much ... it's destroyed before they ever scratch the fleet. If I can keep that fleet without resuplay after a battle I could crack them but currently that's impossible for me. Will have to wait on an oportunity.

[MarcCeras]

*sigh*
That is one of the main beginner mistakes I think. You can from time to time shoot at the Aliens, kill a Hydra, destroy a ship and then let them cool down a little bit. Rinse and Repeat. Or why do you think all this deception techs exist to build up your fleet slowly and steady? Sometimes I have the feeling everybody tries to rush through the game. ;-)
But KICK THE HORNETS NEST ONLY IF YOU ARE REALLY READY! As soon as the Meter is solid red, it is war! I got there after I nuked a 38 Army Stack of Alien Armies on earth in Brasilia, no surviors after 5 barrages. But I was allready very ready, got into one big fight with a Mothership and after that with another... they took out a few bases... but then they lost steam, sended smaller fleets with smaller ships, seems I was faster destroying their reinforcments. Sometimes a Dreadnought or a Battleship with Escorts shows up, but now I have over 40 Bases out there... and natural the Mercury MC Generation Bases evenly Peppered with "Research" Stations out there. Mercury is key to build up and research stuff also building more then one Skunkworks (better a lot more) and the Sucessor to speed up the Research. A % Bonus is a % Bonus and can double or tripple your Research output for ALL 3 slots at the same time, you can´t get a cheaper research boost. Also I read a lot that people don´t build Stations in Earth Orbit because they get snipped by enemy factions, as long as you stay under the MC Limit, it will happen only very seldom, especially if you resarch security techs that reduce the ability of enemy councilors. What the people totaly don´t get are the large additional bonuses you receive from the Research Moduls: Example Military Research: 5 Moduls give you a solid +0,3 to your Army Tech in every fight. And they give large additional bonuses to a lot of the priority points you need to get a country really up to speed.

[DarkestOnion]

Alien preventative solution : Stay under your Mission Control Hate Cape (80-100 MC, difficulty level dependent)

Alien active solution 1A: Ring Habs with 4-6 Layered Defense Arrays or 4 Battlestations (this will discourage alien attacks)

Alien active solution 1B : Place 1K-4K Fleets at each core Space Asset you need (backed up by those Layered Defense Arrays/Battlestations)

[Gros Babouin]

Originally posted by DarkestOnion:

Alien preventative solution : Stay under your Mission Control Hate Cape (80-100 MC, difficulty level dependent)

Alien active solution 1A: Ring Habs with 4-6 Layered Defense Arrays or 4 Battlestations (this will discourage alien attacks)

Alien active solution 1B : Place 1K-4K Fleets at each core Space Asset you need (backed up by those Layered Defense Arrays/Battlestations)

Did both, they just hammered it with bigger and bigger waves until it fell. Since it takes nearly 3000 boost to set up a station, I can't do 2 at the same time.

[BrowneHawk]

I find it interesting how this game can play differently for so many people. Goes to show how much is going on inside of it. Cool Game.

So you're in 2050 basically planet locked. It would be hard to give advice on how to break out of this scenario, unless you have played through it. I always like to offer insight or things I have learned before starting my own play session.

I can't tell you how to get out of the situation, but I can offer some insight onto where you went wrong.

1. You know this one already, you payed little attention to the hate meter. In my experience once you get 5 stars after 2035, its not going back down, bright red bar or not. You're at war. Prior to 2035 you can have up to 80 used MC before you see bar issues. Once you go over cap(80), if you say kill a few pro alien agents, thats a tick that will go up and wont go back down. So you can ride that hate line all the way up to 4 ticks and still not get revenge attacks, 5 stars is go time.

When you hear people say control MC growth this is basically what they are getting at, you grow enough to advance, make aliens dislike you slightly more, but not quite hate yet. So you can get up to over 150 MC before you even go total war.

2. Early space econ development. Getting into space, and getting your economy going is priority. The sooner you get mars mines up, the sooner you get research up on Mercury the better. This helps you get a stockpile going prior to total war. You also will have habs built already, so you can build point defense prior to war. Layered Point Defense minimum on space orbitals and ground. My pre invasion ground settlement will be 2 layered enough power for 6 of them and the mine, then I fill the extra spots with point defense. The aliens hits are random, so sometimes all they destroy will be cheap pd's then they get smoked by the layereds on the counter attack round. After a year or two, upgrade the other PD's to layered pds when you can afford it.

You basically want your mines and habs to have defenses set up before war even happens.

3. Early fleet power. I don't think another way exist. You need ships to fight the aliens with. If not they will roll through all your orbitals on earth, then go for the others. Then they will battle of attrition your land bases. You need to stuff these guys in the face sooner than later. You need to win against the initial 1k fleet that is patrolling orbit, They will send a retribution fleet with a mother ship, make sure to park at your best orbital, this fleet will come to fight you. Basically the body check phase of the game. Where you're telling the aliens, we have teeth. The retribution fleet is around 4k, you will need a station and around 1.5-2k fleet strength to win.

This seems to be enough to slow the aliens down a bit, and they will resort to sending ships off to die to do orbital bombardments. They will get lucky and you will rebuild habs, but they loose tons of ships and resources doing it. Example after my win against the mothership they went from 100k fleet power down to 50k after a few years of trying to orbital bombard.

You will have to deal with other 2-4k fleets after invasion, but you should be able to defend your earth, mars, merc orbitals from them.

So from my perspective your current game is skunked and you should at this point be formulating ideas on how to avoid the same bad situation.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by fil.plourde:

Did both, they just hammered it with bigger and bigger waves until it fell. Since it takes nearly 3000 boost to set up a station, I can't do 2 at the same time.

Ug... way too much boost cost, by midgame boost should be close to useless, i.e you won't be needing much of it. Rather than build orbital habs, try building outposts on asteroids and planets instead. Just ignore the orbitals. Go build some mines first, then build orbitals or the boost cost will kill you. And if the aliens blow up your mining outpost, well, at least the hate meter will go down.

The aliens have an economy system too, it might not be much but every trip you force them to take eats into their resources too, so spread out your bases as a last resort, make them spend fuel and ammo chasing you.

[cswiger]

You want to get a Shipyard and a Nanofactory running in every orbital region you control. Actually, having two Shipyards located in different orbits is a really good idea for the more important locations like Earth, Mars, and Mercury.

You won't need to keep using boost from Earth once you have the infrastructure to build locally using space resources. You can then turn extra boost into cash via Space Hotels and Space Hospitals.

[chetandy]

I'm curious to know if you ever got out of this situation. I'm in the same spot. My MC cap is 215, but I can't spend any of it because the aliens show up and blow everything up, whether it's an orbital or a base. I've noticed that if I don't put defenses at a base, the aliens will allow it to come up for a day, but then destroy it. If I do put defenses at the base, the aliens show up exactly one day before the base comes online and blow it up. It's insanely heartwrenching to spend thousands of boost to try and sneak one single base ANYWHERE (Mercury, Pluto, Mars - doesn't matter) and have it destroyed 179 days after you launch.

Back when I had bases, I would put multiple battle stations at them and the aliens would send a single ship with less than 200 power and bombard it to destroy it. I can't seem to defend any base worth crap. Everywhere I look I see people talking about defending bases with layered defense arrays, which are a tier below the battlestations. Are the battlestations bugged or something? (Yes, I have them powered) It's insanely frustrating to basically completely control Earth, but have absolutely zero ability to do anything meaningful in space. I have gone through this cycle for so long that it is actually the year 2100 at this point and I'm just not seeing any way out of it. It seems I can't lose, but I also can't win. Is that accurate? Is there any possible way of doing something with a hint of stealth that won't aggro at the most infuriating time possible?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by chetandy:

Everywhere I look I see people talking about defending bases with layered defense arrays, which are a tier below the battlestations. Are the battlestations bugged or something?

I would go a step further and say to defend surface habs with Point Defense Arrays.
The LDAs and Battlestations aren't bugged, they just aren't worth it on the ground. The lasers that the PDAs have are huge and powerful, and will destroy or disable most ships with ease. The LDAs and Battlestations come with larger, but not more powerful, lasers, which just doesn't really do anything worthwhile at the ranges that they need to engage.
And, with the shorter construction time and lower power consumption, they're faster to rebuild after being hit and are less likely to lose power from reactors getting hit.

Is there any possible way of doing something with a hint of stealth that won't aggro at the most infuriating time possible?

Look at the other existing human stations. They might have enough defense modules on them for them to be able to survive long enough to get some ships built, so if they do, you can go steal them with Control Space Asset or buy them after Contacting them.

[Zeky]

Originally posted by MarcCeras:

*sigh*
That is one of the main beginner mistakes I think. You can from time to time shoot at the Aliens, kill a Hydra, destroy a ship and then let them cool down a little bit. Rinse and Repeat. Or why do you think all this deception techs exist to build up your fleet slowly and steady? Sometimes I have the feeling everybody tries to rush through the game. ;-)
But KICK THE HORNETS NEST ONLY IF YOU ARE REALLY READY! As soon as the Meter is solid red, it is war! I got there after I nuked a 38 Army Stack of Alien Armies on earth in Brasilia, no surviors after 5 barrages. But I was allready very ready, got into one big fight with a Mothership and after that with another... they took out a few bases... but then they lost steam, sended smaller fleets with smaller ships, seems I was faster destroying their reinforcments. Sometimes a Dreadnought or a Battleship with Escorts shows up, but now I have over 40 Bases out there... and natural the Mercury MC Generation Bases evenly Peppered with "Research" Stations out there. Mercury is key to build up and research stuff also building more then one Skunkworks (better a lot more) and the Sucessor to speed up the Research. A % Bonus is a % Bonus and can double or tripple your Research output for ALL 3 slots at the same time, you can´t get a cheaper research boost. Also I read a lot that people don´t build Stations in Earth Orbit because they get snipped by enemy factions, as long as you stay under the MC Limit, it will happen only very seldom, especially if you resarch security techs that reduce the ability of enemy councilors. What the people totaly don´t get are the large additional bonuses you receive from the Research Moduls: Example Military Research: 5 Moduls give you a solid +0,3 to your Army Tech in every fight. And they give large additional bonuses to a lot of the priority points you need to get a country really up to speed.

That doesnt work for me, aliens start to land and form the aliens nation conquering all the neighbors and eventually they take your countries, and if you fight back the alien aggresion level rises to red and gets stuck game.

[DeMEMOri]

I'm in the same situation and I really wish for option to build ships on Earth. Come on, we launch rockets from Earth in 2020s, not building them in space, so why can't I build them on Earth in 2050s? With all these supertechnologies, the Earth gravitation is not problem at all.

[private1028]

@BrowneHawk I don't quite understand what the alien hate meter is or what it looks like. I got attacked in 2027 when I was just getting into space because I tried to eliminate the servants and the other factions before doing any global research. The aliens just parked a fleet of destroyers in LEO and wiped out my stations. Only the Servants have space assets now. I was playing Academy. My save is toast now. Probably should start just over and find out what this alien hate meter is.