What is a good anti-alien orbital bombardment fleet now?

[chrisddickey]

I know that orbital bombardment got nerfed a while ago, and a lot of the suggestions in the older guides and videos don't work anymore. So far I have mostly just been destroying alien space assets and leaving the ground bases alone except for the one in the Kepler belt that needs to be destroyed by a councilor and a lot of marines.
I would like to go around destroying the mining bases as well, but don't really want to dedicate a councilor full time to the task if I can help it. Is destroying 10 LDA mining alien bases possible / worth it anymore?
What sort of ships/fleets work?
Thanks

[Baron]

Following this thread because my current game has an alien base on Ceres that I intend to clear out soon, so I'm going to experiment and report back. I may not be able to get to that point until next week, though.

[Galroche]

honestly i don't bother with bombing ground base anymore, i feel like Assault with some marines is way more reliable, doesn't require big investment in tech or ship building cost and run no risk of unexpected damage (as long as you don't get attacked by alien fleet in the 5day but that's what the rest of your real ship are for).

though technically it's not an answer to the original question about good fleet setup for bombing and more an alternative, but still thought it was worth posting ^^

[nephilimnexus]

^ What he said. Dedicated marine transport cruisers arriving a day behind your strike fleet can do the job without losing any ships.

[Adanu]

If you want to take out alien bases, just assault with frigate marine fleets. Bombardment with anti ship defenses in place is not worth the expense.

[chrisddickey]

Originally posted by Adanu:

If you want to take out alien bases, just assault with frigate marine fleets. Bombardment with anti ship defenses in place is not worth the expense.

But does that not require a councilor accompany the marines? Or can Marines alone perform this again? And how many modules of elite marines is enough for a standard alien mining base?

[LorDC]

Originally posted by chrisddickey:

But does that not require a councilor accompany the marines? Or can Marines alone perform this again? And how many modules of elite marines is enough for a standard alien mining base?

No it doesn't. Marines can assault bases themselves. Although using councilor mission will add his command score to success chance.

[Adanu]

Originally posted by chrisddickey:

Originally posted by Adanu:

If you want to take out alien bases, just assault with frigate marine fleets. Bombardment with anti ship defenses in place is not worth the expense.

But does that not require a councilor accompany the marines? Or can Marines alone perform this again? And how many modules of elite marines is enough for a standard alien mining base?

I've been fighting the aliens for control of Jupiter for about three years now on and off, and every single marine fleet I've used to capture alien bases has not had a councillor. My councilors are too busy fighting a land war in africa, since pretty much every other faction is constantly trying to purge me off the continent.

Though It's slowly starting to get better and I might send my officer off to augment my efforts there soon.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Adanu:

Though It's slowly starting to get better and I might send my officer off to augment my efforts there soon.

Bad idea. Just add a colony ship - deploy a small base with repair dock so you would have unlimited marines.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Adanu:

Though It's slowly starting to get better and I might send my officer off to augment my efforts there soon.

Bad idea. Just add a colony ship - deploy a small base with repair dock so you would have unlimited marines.

And the ability to fairly quickly deploy some cheap Escorts loaded with marines.

[chrisddickey]

So once again, how many marines is NOT enough to clear a mining base off of a moon of Jupiter (exactly what I want to do). And how many IS enough?

I am thinking that using cheap/quick escorts with 2 marine units each is more cost efficient than using dreadnoughts full of marines, but have no idea how many I units of marines I would need.

[Tomruler]

Originally posted by chrisddickey:

So once again, how many marines is NOT enough to clear a mining base off of a moon of Jupiter (exactly what I want to do). And how many IS enough?

I am thinking that using cheap/quick escorts with 2 marine units each is more cost efficient than using dreadnoughts full of marines, but have no idea how many I units of marines I would need.

Do you see the military-looking symbol under the fighting power of a base? the smaller number is their base defense, the second is with their layered defense/battlestations added. For reference, 1 elite marine is 6 strength, so extrapolate that as you will.

[Tomruler]

I'm looking at combat powers in the 200s, so that's about 30-40 elite marine modules needed to crack the bases reliably in one go

[corisai]

Except really elite marines are 10 strength so keep researching ;)

[Tomruler]

Originally posted by corisai:

Except really elite marines are 10 strength so keep researching ;)

Which module is this? Looking on the wiki Elite Marine Modules only give 6

[Tomruler]

Now that's useful; clean out all the aliens in endgame with half as many tin cans of troops