Gray Tempest (SPOILERS)

[Karina]

I unleashed gray tempest upon the galaxy accidently. Its year 73 and everyone is weak AF- my own fleet is 1400 (i use Bastion for defence against my single enemy). I kinda afraid that galaxy is doomed now lol- 34000 fleets fly around and murder everyone. Im a fine for now though. Will Fallen Empire awaken to end this crisis or we are on our own now?

[Jack Bright]

You ded

[Skeleton Knight]

You were warned that you must be prepared before using L-Gates (Paradox mentioned it many times). You doomed the galaxy and this is utterly your fault. Live with consequences.

[wolkenwand]

Lol, luckily my L-Cluster only contain super rare strategic resources that not available anywhere else except in the cluster

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by Skeleton Knight:

You were warned that you must be prepared before using L-Gates (Paradox mentioned it many times). You doomed the galaxy and this is utterly your fault. Live with consequences.

unless they mentioned it IN THE GAME, that doesn't mean anything.

[Rord64]

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

Originally posted by Skeleton Knight:

You were warned that you must be prepared before using L-Gates (Paradox mentioned it many times). You doomed the galaxy and this is utterly your fault. Live with consequences.

unless they mentioned it IN THE GAME, that doesn't mean anything.

How does that mean nothing?

[Spirit]

there are 3 outcomes
invaders (40%)
nothing (40%)
a space moth that is tameable (same mechanic as the either drake , leviathan DLC required with a chance of 20%)

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by Rord64:

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

unless they mentioned it IN THE GAME, that doesn't mean anything.

How does that mean nothing?

cause the expectation is that 90%+ of players don't use forums or read dev blogs.

[Meewec]

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

unless they mentioned it IN THE GAME, that doesn't mean anything.

True, but in a game with several things that have rng based outcomes you kinda need to expect that there is a bad outcome you can get

[Karina]

Originally posted by Meewec:

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

unless they mentioned it IN THE GAME, that doesn't mean anything.

True, but in a game with several things that have rng based outcomes you kinda need to expect that there is a bad outcome you can get

It said ingame that my empire will be the first one to explore L Cluster and exploit its resources. I even had Bastion station in system with L Gates just in case. Was not needed in the end- invaders cant access my L Gate.

[Karina]

Does anyone knows what best ship design against them? They like strike craft VERY much so im thinking lots pd destroyers. They also seems to be more effective against shields then armor so i will equip those destroyers with heavy armor and afterburners.

Something like this. Although i would rather swap armor for hull points, since they have no bonuses against hull, but some against armor. But i dont have access to those currently.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1394126640

[Terminal]

I have a game with a save right before opening the L-Cluster that I used specifically to test ship designs against them with.

The long and short of it is that there does not appear to be any kind of optimal *defensive* setup against them. Nanite weapons/ships/missiles are basically going to shred through your ships no matter what kind of focus you have; everything else failing evasion actually seems to be the best bet. Lots of swarm corvettes works reasonably well.

Optimal weapons setup appears to be antiarmor/hull, so basically energy weapon focus. Do not bother with strike craft, they just get bogged down trying to combat - ineffectually - Nanite strike craft. Nanite ships lack point defense, but their strike craft will intercept missiles and they have plenty of those, so don't bother with missiles either. Do not bother trying to use your own point defense, Nanite strike-craft and missiles are both too numerous and too difficult to shoot down. By the time you make any appreciable headway the battle will be over, so stick with line/artillery setups.

Also note, while fighting the Tempest fleets, do not send in anything you would mind having to replace, and assume in fact that you will have to replace your most expensive ships. The Nanite Motherships seem to like to prioritize Battleships and cruisers, and can and will one-shot them with their Titan-slot beam. That beam, combined with their weapons ignoring shields and having large amounts of armor penetration, also means that they are a big threat to Titans/Automated Dreadnought. For me at least, they seem able to reliably kill 17k health Titans every third engagement or so, which isn't great.

A single Nanite fleet with one Mothership and five Interceptors, approximating 20k fleet power, will typically cripple a 50k power fleet. You will win, but the cost in replacing all your ships will be inordinate.

tl;dr: Corvette Spam for the win. Again.

[cooltv27]

Originally posted by Recumen:

tl;dr: Corvette Spam for the win. Again.

as a fan of corvette spam, this upsets me greatly. corvettes are still way to powerful

[Revon]

Originally posted by Recumen:

I have a game with a save right before opening the L-Cluster that I used specifically to test ship designs against them with.

The long and short of it is that there does not appear to be any kind of optimal *defensive* setup against them. Nanite weapons/ships/missiles are basically going to shred through your ships no matter what kind of focus you have; everything else failing evasion actually seems to be the best bet. Lots of swarm corvettes works reasonably well.

Optimal weapons setup appears to be antiarmor/hull, so basically energy weapon focus. Do not bother with strike craft, they just get bogged down trying to combat - ineffectually - Nanite strike craft. Nanite ships lack point defense, but their strike craft will intercept missiles and they have plenty of those, so don't bother with missiles either. Do not bother trying to use your own point defense, Nanite strike-craft and missiles are both too numerous and too difficult to shoot down. By the time you make any appreciable headway the battle will be over, so stick with line/artillery setups.

Also note, while fighting the Tempest fleets, do not send in anything you would mind having to replace, and assume in fact that you will have to replace your most expensive ships. The Nanite Motherships seem to like to prioritize Battleships and cruisers, and can and will one-shot them with their Titan-slot beam. That beam, combined with their weapons ignoring shields and having large amounts of armor penetration, also means that they are a big threat to Titans/Automated Dreadnought. For me at least, they seem able to reliably kill 17k health Titans every third engagement or so, which isn't great.

A single Nanite fleet with one Mothership and five Interceptors, approximating 20k fleet power, will typically cripple a 50k power fleet. You will win, but the cost in replacing all your ships will be inordinate.

tl;dr: Corvette Spam for the win. Again.

Where exactly are you finding these 20K Gray Tempest fleets? All the Tempest fleets I find are 50K fleets... with a Mothership and 5 Interdictors. I can beat them with a Corvette Swarm of about 40K... but not without taking a lot of casualties. Admittedly, my ship design isn't great and I'm only now looking into replacing some armor with shields and changing up the weapon lineups.

What specific weapons do you use? I have basically all of them researched by now, and want to deal with these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ before the endgame starts and I have to fend off a crisis, so it would be really helpful to know the most useful ship design to use.

[Terminal]

Originally posted by Lord Revonworc:

Originally posted by Recumen:

Snipp

Where exactly are you finding these 20K Gray Tempest fleets? All the Tempest fleets I find are 50K fleets... with a Mothership and 5 Interdictors. I can beat them with a Corvette Swarm of about 40K... but not without taking a lot of casualties. Admittedly, my ship design isn't great and I'm only now looking into replacing some armor with shields and changing up the weapon lineups.

What specific weapons do you use? I have basically all of them researched by now, and want to deal with these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ before the endgame starts and I have to fend off a crisis, so it would be really helpful to know the most useful ship design to use.

It does seem I forgot to mention weapon loadouts, didn't I? Got caught up in defense setups I guess.

Like I said, don't bother with missiles or strike-craft, Nanite ships have far too many of their own strike craft for them to be helpful. Steer clear of disruptor weapons, lightning emitters, and arc emitters. Also steer clear of armor-penetration. You'll want a good mix of weapons with bonus damage against armor and hull. Don't go too heavy with plasma weapons since you still want to get through shields relatively quickly. I would recommend lasers and energy siphons, weighted more towards the former than the latter. See my last post for optimal defense measures, the nanite ships ignore shields and armor with most of their weapons so your setup there will not help you much no matter what kind of setup you use (hence evasion being suggested, hence corvette swarm).

My experience if that if you send in a more 'balanced' fleet, you'll get pretty much the same results. You'll win, but not without taking causualities, and more often than not they will be your expensive ships. Battleships and cruisers, titans if you have them. The Motherships can and will burn through even 17,000 hull points on a titan if your fleet AI lets them; it does not always happen but it happens frequently enough that I would consider it a bad, bad gamble. Made worse of course, since the Motherships seem to prioritize those ship classes as targets. Hence, corvette swarm. You'll still take pretty decent casualties, but the cost of replacing half a fleet of corvettes every battle should be less expensive than replacing your battleships and cruisers every battle.

As for the differences in fleet strength: My nanite fleets are getting significant fleet power buffs whenever I fight them. They are *initially* 20k in fleet power but generally jump up to 35k power whenever I engage them due to the fleet disparity buff (my test fleet is 50k in power), but beyond that I'm not sure what it could be. My crisis scaling in that game is set to 1.75, not sure if the Tempest is affected by that. It could be their fleet power upon spawning is based upon game-time; in which case 20k might be the lowest base fleet power they can spawn with since I opened the cluster in 2230. Our nanite fleets have the same composition of one Mothership with five interceptors, the Motherships typically possess fleet power equivalent to around 17,000 all on their own.

[Revon]

Originally posted by Recumen:

It does seem I forgot to mention weapon loadouts, didn't I? Got caught up in defense setups I guess.

Like I said, don't bother with missiles or strike-craft, Nanite ships have far too many of their own strike craft for them to be helpful. Steer clear of disruptor weapons, lightning emitters, and arc emitters. Also steer clear of armor-penetration. You'll want a good mix of weapons with bonus damage against armor and hull. Don't go too heavy with plasma weapons since you still want to get through shields relatively quickly. I would recommend lasers and energy siphons, weighted more towards the former than the latter. See my last post for optimal defense measures, the nanite ships ignore shields and armor with most of their weapons so your setup there will not help you much no matter what kind of setup you use (hence evasion being suggested, hence corvette swarm).

My experience if that if you send in a more 'balanced' fleet, you'll get pretty much the same results. You'll win, but not without taking causualities, and more often than not they will be your expensive ships. Battleships and cruisers, titans if you have them. The Motherships can and will burn through even 17,000 hull points on a titan if your fleet AI lets them; it does not always happen but it happens frequently enough that I would consider it a bad, bad gamble. Made worse of course, since the Motherships seem to prioritize those ship classes as targets. Hence, corvette swarm. You'll still take pretty decent casualties, but the cost of replacing half a fleet of corvettes every battle should be less expensive than replacing your battleships and cruisers every battle.

As for the differences in fleet strength: My nanite fleets are getting significant fleet power buffs whenever I fight them. They are *initially* 20k in fleet power but generally jump up to 35k power whenever I engage them due to the fleet disparity buff (my test fleet is 50k in power), but beyond that I'm not sure what it could be. My crisis scaling in that game is set to 1.75, not sure if the Tempest is affected by that. It could be their fleet power upon spawning is based upon game-time; in which case 20k might be the lowest base fleet power they can spawn with since I opened the cluster in 2230. Our nanite fleets have the same composition of one Mothership with five interceptors, the Motherships typically possess fleet power equivalent to around 17,000 all on their own.

You opened the L-Gates in 2230? That's insane. I didn't open them until about 2400, and then I only did it because another empire forced my hand.

I did some experimenting with my fleets since my last comment but before yours and, hoo boy. Turns out plasma is a TERRIBLE option against the Tempest. Tried outfitting my corvettes with them, and they couldn't get past the shields. They all died. I haven't actually used lasers with energy siphons yet, but given how the plasma went, I'm skeptical.

Thus far, my corvettes have been set up with torpedoes and disruptors, and I gotta say... of all the loadouts I've tried yet, nothing seems to have outperformed the torpedo/disruptor loadout. I mean, it basically ignores the ships defenses entirely. And, while I'm sure plenty of torpedos are being intercepted, I've looked at the battle analysis, and the torpedos still do so much damage that it doesn't seem to matter. As in, thetorpedos routinely take all of the interdictors at the first volley and destroys the mothership with the second so long as you've got third teir torpedoes and around 80 - 100 corvettes.

Of course, this all may be due to me accumulating an extra 200 years of tech past what you had. But I can still give the laser/energy siphon layout a shot and see how it fares.