How to destroy Hives?

[Mootilate]

Any tips for how to take out the Hive Nest at the sun? I am fully maxed Yellow tech and upgrades. But everything I am making is no good against the nest. And want to leave the solar system without having to keep going home every 30 mins to clean up annoying enemies.
I am quite enjoying the Dark Fog, but if I cant take out the enemies and stop them spawning then it just a non stop grind.
Some have said that you cant till the next upgrade. That seems out of character for these Devs as everything is usually in a great playable state.

[dhitch89]

This update is just the initial draft of combat, so it is incomplete in some respects, and yet it still took over a year.

^Anyway, you can destroy the space hives via hit-and-run tactics and such, particularly with higher tech weapons. It's just that until we get the added space expansion stuff in 2024, this inefficient method is all we've got.

[Mootilate]

Can someone elaborate on the hit and run technique.

[teron]

Research and build corvettes/destroyers, then send waves of them against the dark swarm hive while Icarus stays out of range.

Note it likely works best after you have destroyed all the dark swarm bases on planet in system, since that cuts off their source of matter to build stuff.

Though you do want to grab the techs at the bottom of the upgrade page that make units last longer and do more damage.

[Dragonmaster]

You can protect your planets by having polar ring of missile turrets on both poles with a signal tower. Once there are no relays on the planet enable all options on the turrets. They will shoot down the ship that would become the relay station (does not give much hive threat compared to if it did deploy as a relay station). Signal towers reach 4200m into space

[Regar]

i am currently shooting at the hive FROM the nearest planet with the "plasma" turret.

but most of the time the hive is too far from the planet but sometimes it comes into range.
that takes a lot of time and some work but after 2 "planetery flyby" there are holes in the hive fleets.

[Ghevd]

Starve them of matter by destroying all relays and ground bases in the system.

Then it's just a battle of attrition. Once you whittle their numbers down they cannot build new units without matter.

[Regar]

small update on my planet based solution:

the third "flyby" was really close and pulled all fog ships.
while the structural loses were high so was my progress.
no more fog ships in space.

[King]

Step 1: Starve the hive. This involves landing on all planets in the system and destroying the bases. Eventually the hive will run out of matter to generate new ships.

Step 2: Kill the hive fighters. You can use hit and run to fly by the ships and draw them away, or attack relays in orbit around planet to jump the threat level. either way, they will send space ships to attack you which will deplete their reserves.

Step 3: Kill the hive. Choose any ship combination you want, but I think mass destroyers will be best, 1-200, a full compliment if you have the resources for it preferably 4 space fleets.

Stay back from the hive about .2-.3 AU, however far away you need to be out of range of the defense turrets. Then bring out your fleets and click on the 'all fleets' in the top right. this brings them all out and puts them in deploy mode. You should see a flag icon by the fleet. here you can set them to auto to attack or left click the fleets to highlight the fleet in orange, this is command mode where you can now left click anywhere on the screen to send the ships to that location to fight. Pick a spot on the hive, preferably the turrets if you can see them, and click there. your ships will fly out and attack the area you designated. when too many get destroyed, right click on 'all fleets' to recall the ships to you so you can redeploy and repair the ships. Rinse and repeat this until the hive has no turrets left and you can fly in and have your ships tear the rest apart.

[Marakith]

As King says, I found I could sit at 0.25-0.30AU and dispatch the fleets without the hive attacking me depending on whether the outer ships have been destroyed. You just have to constantly re-adjust your position to stay at this safe range. You can also press the 1 or 2 keys rather than clicking the flags, and make sure you're in combat mode (Z). It took me multiple runs to make new ships and a fair few hundred fighters to do it, so make sure you've got a full hanger of fighters before setting off to save unnecessary repeat journeys, and good to have some extra in your inventory as well.
A factory back on the planet making new corvettes is ideal so you can go home, pick up, and set off again with minimal delay.
Once you're destroyed the outer craft and onto the hive itself I found it best to have only one fleet attacking or icarus runs out of energy and the fleets shut down - although I guess this wouldn't be an issue with white tech upgrades and faster regen, I only had green tech research done.

[fambaa]

Originally posted by Regar:

i am currently shooting at the hive FROM the nearest planet with the "plasma" turret.

but most of the time the hive is too far from the planet but sometimes it comes into range.
that takes a lot of time and some work but after 2 "planetery flyby" there are holes in the hive fleets.

What is the range on that? Ive lured enemy ships to my planet before when the hive was close but my missile turrets never shot at the hive. Maybe plasmacannons will idk, I will try to anitcipate its next passing and try to build as many turrets on my planet closest to its orbit and see what happens.

In regards to the question, the hive will always have energy so its defenses cannot be disabled. Its sentries are pretty strong they delete even destroyers rather quickly, so a good mix of corvettes and destroyers seems goo. Corvettes as distraction and destroyers do a little damage. But you want to get out of range recall and collect and attack with full fleets again. If you are just trickling in ships you do no damage at all.

All that given that you starved the hive completely of matter. Not even a single planetary base must be alive. I tested that. I am farming a single planetary base, and for the hive it is enough to rebuild ships. So I am depleting the hives matter by blasting every relay station I see so it has to replicate new ones, and thats costly I think.

[Chewtoy]

you need mecha shield lv 15-20.

white science, impossible to kill the hive without it.

Just look at this thing XD
https://i.imgur.com/vJ17SKs.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/cINRkY7.jpeg

thats a lv 12 hive, they go up to 20+

Difficulty 10, max settings.

Playing cat and mouse with Hive, you never win, you better tech up and get white cubes.

And be prepared for planetary bombardments when you launch solar sails.

[Andy]

What others are saying works for me:
1) Destroy everything on the planets in the system so the hive has no more materials
2) Fly by the hive at full speed and your destroyers will deploy and fight the hive's units, don't get Icarus too close to the hive, or you'll get blown up. If your energy is low, go back to a nearby planet and recharge. I'm playing on lower difficulty, but I still lose 100-150 destroyers taking on a bigger hive.
3) At a certain point, the hive will no longer shoot back, then you can move in closer. Icarus and your destroyers will blast the hive to smithereens.

[BraveCaperCat]

Nothing will actually work against them yet. Why? Because i am having an issue where the Space Hives regenerate a few seconds after i destroy them. There are 3 in my system and i want to get rid of them.

[dhitch89]

Originally posted by BraveCaperCat:

Nothing will actually work against them yet. Why? Because i am having an issue where the Space Hives regenerate a few seconds after i destroy them. There are 3 in my system and i want to get rid of them.

That might be because they still have great amounts of matter stored, which gives them a high regeneration rate. The same happens with the relays as well when you first attack them, from what I've seen/heard.

^But after a period of continued attack, that goes away as you force them to quickly eat up their reserves. Though, it could also be a bug admittedly

[SpaceRat]

Originally posted by Regar:

i am currently shooting at the hive FROM the nearest planet with the "plasma" turret.

but most of the time the hive is too far from the planet but sometimes it comes into range.
that takes a lot of time and some work but after 2 "planetery flyby" there are holes in the hive fleets.

How do you use the Plasma turret to target and shoot???