Destroying a dark fog base / hive

[MAKAIROSI]

I've no idea how to do that. I built missile turrets close to a dark fog base, but the enemies are endless. As soon as I destroy all of them, the same amount is respawned, seemingly out of nowhere. Meanwhile the base is getting XP and I'm assuming it's getting stronger. it was level 1 when I started, it's level 3 now.

I only managed to wipe 2 turrets, and I had 6 precision drones, 6 more in hangar, and 3-4 missile turrets firing on it.

What I wanted was pretty much to clean my home planet, and clear the base of its structures but only leave the main one to farm it (as others suggest). But with all my force I didn't even make a dent xD

So if I can't destroy a single base, I've no idea how to destroy the hive even xD

[aimozg]

> 3-4 missile turrets

Make it 30-40 and use signal towers (all turrets on the planet can fire into signal tower coverage).

And combat drones are useless until late game, IMO.

[CatOnMushroom]

Am sure it also has to to with your main DF settings, but missile turrets ain't that useful in the way you describe. They work better with signal towers, as you can place them anywhere on the planet and they use the signal tower as a relay with the target. I do the same tactic I used playing dune 2(classic) A wall of ["gun"] turrets, and build a new line in front of them to close in to the target.

[Edit: Laser turrets don't have to waste any (limited) resources. build, expand and remove the parts you do not need. Plug the hole for more energy or space to build. The difficulty/balance for now is, how much time do you want to invest in create a bubble or try to remove the DF completely]

[josmith7]

Leveling up your tech helps - as that makes turrets more destructive. But quantity has a quality all it's own -- hitting it with two dozen missile turrets is vastly more effective than hitting it with three or four.

Planetary bases have unlimited material, from their core mine, and the relay station overhead feeds them unlimited power. So you need to hit them with enough missiles (or whatever) to kill them faster than they can respawn. (Once you unlock signal towers throwing one of them up in range of the base will let every missile turret on your planet engage it simultaneously - which really helps get the firepower density needed to eliminate it)

If you have enough laser or gauss turrets nearby to handle the wave of enemies you could try adjusting your missile turrets to give highest priority to ground targets; that'll let them focus on killing the enemy buildings and leave the unending swarm of spawned fliers to your other defenses.

And finally, though I don't suggest this as early on as you are, if you target and destroy the relay station hovering over the base that cuts off its power. After about 90 seconds or so it exhausts its stored energy and its laser turrets and units manufacturing shut down -- so it can't regrow or respawn. Which is awesome -- but the reason I don't suggest doing that early is that it aggros the space hive and causes it to sent ships to lase your planet -- and you won't have defenses against those yet. (But once you do have those defenses killing relay stations is a great way to make killing a base easier and also kill the ships the space hive sends to punish you)


As for killing a space hive, at least initially, the key is to first kill all the bases in the system. That will deny it materials; so if you can keep it from building new bases eventually your space force (corvette & destroyer) attacks will run it out of defenders and you can finally kill it. But for the first hive you'll probably use up hundreds of your ships, possibly in multiple assaults, to wear it down to the point it is defeated.

[MAKAIROSI]

What about people saying you should "farm" DF bases for items? I'm assuming they mean the items I get when I kill ships? But should I do that? It seems better to clean up my home system and, if I need something like that, go to another system?

[Terraziel]

Until you are comfortable destroying the bases it's probably best not to worry about farming them, as you say you can always do that in another system. Obviously it all depends on what settings you are playing on, but early on i'd say they are a nice boost at best.

[josmith7]

Originally posted by MAKAIROSI:

What about people saying you should "farm" DF bases for items? I'm assuming they mean the items I get when I kill ships? But should I do that? It seems better to clean up my home system and, if I need something like that, go to another system?

Yes, farming is collecting (automatically with battlefield analysis bases) the items from killed units the base spawns. To farm you leave the base (and is relay station) intact so it can generate a constant stream of units for you to kill and scavenge.

This causes the base (and, at a slower rate, all Dark Fog in your game) to gain XP and level up. As it levels up more and more of the loot table[dsp-wiki.com] to become available to be dropped.

This loot can provide resources that aren't available on your home planet, a few that are only available from killing dark fog, or items that otherwise require large factories to produce at any reasonable rate.

But yeah, I'd wait and farm later in the game on some other world - unless you really need a resource (like titanium or silicon) and can't secure enough of another world yet to mine it there.