I'm getting desperate, how do I defeat the Contingency?

[no one]

Hi all,

TL;DR: I've tried a few different ship designs and sizes but cannot find one good one that I can count on to crack the contingency's ships each time - what's a good fleet build to counter them?

I am at a bit of a loss here. Contingency has been ravaging along for +10 years now. I have a very large empire territory-wise (150 systems but only 12 colonies including 1 habitat) and they have spawned at the "western" border, right smack in the middle (next to an AE benevolent interventionists), and near the "eastern" border. I was Federation president (just me and my neighbor on the eastern border) when we started fighting the contingency in earnest - the Federation fleet and all of my fleets combined could take down a typical 100k roaming Contingency fleet (not without noteworthy losses though), however when I tried invading a machine world system I only was able to kill 3 of their battle ships and 7 of their destroyers (~30k fleet power) - the entire Federation fleet and all of my fleets were almost completely annihilated.

When this failed I tried a corvette swarm (scummy I know, but I'm getting desperate at this point) - spec'd for max evasion (90%) and maximum shields (two hyper shields) that my power gen allows for, and put a dragonscale armor in the last slot. Used gauss cannons, gamma lasers, and armored torpedoes. The whole swarm, ~100 corvettes, got effectively deleted before they got within range of the remaining 250k guard fleet.

My latest attempt has been to build a combined-arms fleet set to the ratio of 1 Battleship:2 Cruisers:3 Destroyers:4 Corvettes. Weapons include advanced strike craft, particle lance, armored torps, gauss cannons, plasma cannons, kinetic batteries, neutron launchers, and gamma lasers. Used shield capacitors and 5 hyper shields wherever I could (on larger ships with big guns this was not possible). I stopped building the fleet when it got near the command limit (150), and the fleet got its clock cleaned by one of the roaming fleets.

So now I'm trying to figure out, how do I spec and build my fleet to take out the contingency? They've burned down two of my colonies and my habitat, and will soon take down another colony. At the rate they're going, they're soon going to wipe out the awakened empire and sooner or later they're going to be on my capitol's door step.

Thanks a bunch in advance.

[no one]

Okay, so I've gone back to one of the earliest saves and slammed into one of the contingency bases after spec'ing all my fleets for max shields/disruptors/torps where available. Whittled off ~100k fleet and almost took down a 55k defense station. I'll call that an okay trade-off considering I hopped in with ~150k fleet. So the trick at the end of the day is to jump in right on top of them, or as close to on top as possible.

Battle is far from won, but I think I have the vague outline of a working strat. Thanks all for the tips, they have been massively helpful!

[no one]

Got another question -

So I've noticed that Contingency fleets will, upon eliminating all stations in a system, wait around until a constructor comes by and builds a station. After this it will select another target system and move on.

Well, one of the Contingency clusters had its constructor destroyed (I think by a near-by Awakened Empire). Will the Contingency respawn this constructor? This seems like a very easy way to get the Contingency to hit the breaks on its galactic conquest and I'm curious if it works indefinitely or only for a set time. Thanks again!

[Meewec]

i'm not sure how they've changed with 2.0 but i would imagine that the sterilization hubs would either spawn new consturctors or any planets they've taken over will be able to build them. the hubs are the key to breaking the contingency, they'll keep spawning fleets if they're not dealt with

[tomasoltis]

I think that evasion is priority, hit the 90 cap (afterburners?), if youre a militarist, use no retreat. Any spare energy should get you shields, if you cant use highest tier, just use something. If too low tier, use hull upgrades, because hull isnt as weak as armor v contingency.

[no one]

Meewec a écrit :

i'm not sure how they've changed with 2.0 but i would imagine that the sterilization hubs would either spawn new consturctors or any planets they've taken over will be able to build them. the hubs are the key to breaking the contingency, they'll keep spawning fleets if they're not dealt with

I'm certainly seeing the spawning of extra fleets in action. The cluster I've chosen to focus on does not have any colonies (the Contingency hasn't colonized any planets either). I'll keep whittling away and see what happens

[no one]

Great news, I've toppled one of the machine worlds (finally!) - the corvette swarm with Disruptors/Torps in combination with a few Arc Emitter battleships has worked out tremendously. Thanks a ton everyone!

[Meewec]

congrats, only "3" more to go

[BoydofZINJ]

With the ship management system it is easier to make a variety of ships. First, if you can scout the enemy... if the enemy has a ton of Missile defense - do not take missiles in the fight... change all your missile boats to something else.

Second, I have found that Railguns and Autocannons combined with Plasma hits hard. Railguns and Autocannons will tear up and destroy shields while plasma will destroy armor and hull. The trick is to find the best ratio. Once the shields are down the autocannons and railguns lose their luster and fire power. Likewise, Before shields are destroyed (and enemy shields are up) the Plasma weapons are lackluster.

Missile and torpedoes are a good mix - but if the enemy has enough point defense - then they are worthless. Likewise, if you have a ton of picketships that defend against missiles and the enemy has NONE... you are wasting a ton of firepower on nothing.

[The Bored Chairman]

Arc Emitters/ Lighting Conduit Bships or Torp/Disruptor Corvette spam. Bships prioritize other big ships, which are the primary threat in Contingency fleets, whereas Corvettes can dodge most of their fire.

Basically, you want to ignore as much of their defenses as possible. Their armor/shields are beastly, but their hull is mediocre and their ♥♥ is subpar too.

Shields and hull are what you want to put on your ships. Ignore armor completely.

[iFrame]

For fleet setup, seriously, go with Torp Corvettes, FULL Torp Corvettes. I kid you not, this is the current meta, if you intend to play to win. Go paradox forums, its all there. Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships, Titans, Lance, Plasma, Lasers and whatever else other players recommend, fark all that, they're useless as fark. Torp Corvettes with Disruptors, 2 Armor, 1 Shield and Afterburners. They build fast, reinforce fast, high disengagement so you can make a comeback, extremely cost effective, good evasion, force disparity bonus, no more armor mitigation so small weapons hit hard, extremely fast sublight speed especially with afterburners so your fleet respond asap to any threats(especially with FTL changes that made traversing extremely slow) and so much more.

Against a 240k milpower Contingency fleet, my 2 fleets of pure Torp Corvettes, 80k and 90k milpower easily defeat them with like 60k milpower survivors. My fleet has way weaker milpower(170k vs 240k) but crushed them Contingency fleets.

[no one]

TL;DR, how do I judge when the Cybrex will return?

So today I was able to crack another Machine World - took a long time, the Contingency kept moving around fleets and sending roamer fleets to guard the machine world every time I destroyed another fleet - a window opened during this "chaning of the guard" of sorts and I was able to nuke the planet before the next guard-patrol arrived. Two more machine worlds left but at this point the entire galaxy is in serious trouble. See this map (I'm at the bottom you can see where the Contingency spawned in the middle of my empire where all the small holes are, and where they spawned near my capitol, to the bottom right): http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1325957234

The entire "north" of the galaxy is joined in a single Federation, the "Sanguine Alliance" they call themselves. They have utterly failed to help defend their member in the inner arm of the galaxy (the "State of Bevir") from the Contingency when it first spawned inside said member's border. Now the Contingency controls that entire region of space and almost all of that empire's former territory, and the species is borderline extinct. Two of my neighbors, (the Alvothari and the Prime) have done a fantastic job at keeping the Contingency from building consistent territory (inner arm-left side) but they have been unable to punch through any of the 100k fleets. They (and myself) have also had to deal with a very annoying Corrupted Custodian empire. I was very fortunate to capture the one mostly-intact ring world the CC had. it controls a planet it captured from the Prime now, but it does not provide a fraction of the resources it once had, and decades later it has not been able rebuild it's fleet beyond 20k (easily beatable with my anti-Contingency loadouts now that I have the "Galactic Contenders" AP), so I don't think it will be giving us much more trouble for now.

At this point I think the "Northern" Contingency region might be too powerful for me to stop it personally and I might have no choice but to sit most of the cleansing out (at least up there) until the Cybrex spawn. But, based on the above map, how soon can I hope to see them come to our rescue?

As for loadout advice:

All-torp or mostly-torp loadout gets my fleet killed very fast. I cannot field enought of them to quickly pierce their armor and start doing damage to their hulls (though if I had the production- and resource collection-means I could see it being very powerful). A very successful strategy I've had so far is to do a mix or torp- and disruptor corvettes mixed with Arc Emitter/Carrier battleships. The AE/Carrier battleships dish out lots of punishment and I give them Flak to counter station fighter spawns. My biggest problem at this point is I do not have enough resource intake to keep up with production needs, and I also have found myself going past fleet cap which really hurts my ability to maintain large income streams as my fleet expands. (I see now that I should have done more colonization early on and worried less about mitigating research penalties).

I'm a little anxious about where things stand but I have to say, I almost gave up on this game but I am so glad I didn't, overcoming these challenges for the first time has been a lot of fun and very rewarding.

[no one]

Taken down the third world! Still a TON of Contingency fleets lurking around but I'm thinking I'll just take down all the machine worlds and then wait for the fleets to self-destruct when the 5th world is destroyed (they will self-destruct, right?)

[The Bored Chairman]

Eugen Bold a écrit :

Taken down the third world! Still a TON of Contingency fleets lurking around but I'm thinking I'll just take down all the machine worlds and then wait for the fleets to self-destruct when the 5th world is destroyed (they will self-destruct, right?)

I don't think they do, but I could be wrong. I've defeated the Contingency before (thanks to some help from FPhile and FS FEs), but the achievement didn't pop for defeating them (Does Not Compute). I have a feeling it was due to a rogue fleet camping somewhere. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find it before 2.0 came out, so I never got to finish that game.

[tomasoltis]

afaik they always spawn a new fleet for a new place to occupy, they dont move after that. You can just around them, focus on the main bases and win. They dont come to defend from nearby sectors, at least I havent seen so. They have T2 low tracking ♥♥, but their damage is just really high, so their particle lances are almsot on par with persition beams. Their damage is so high that the corvs survive only when not getting hit or plasma/lasers hit them.

Today I managed to kill some contingency fleets with generalist battleships, but I still lost 1 titan + 3 bships. I had 2 200 fleetpop fleets with about 200 corvettes. If on higher difficulty their ♥♥ is too strong, you can try equipping some corvettes with swarmer missiles. This will keep ♥♥ fixed on much harder missiles off your corvettes when the corvettes arent firing the torpedo since the cooldown is really long. I didnt try it, but it could help at least in theory. Also ... when their fleet comes and you see it, make sure you wait on the grav well.

[no one]

The Bored Chairman a écrit :

Eugen Bold a écrit :

Taken down the third world! Still a TON of Contingency fleets lurking around but I'm thinking I'll just take down all the machine worlds and then wait for the fleets to self-destruct when the 5th world is destroyed (they will self-destruct, right?)

I don't think they do, but I could be wrong. I've defeated the Contingency before (thanks to some help from FPhile and FS FEs), but the achievement didn't pop for defeating them (Does Not Compute). I have a feeling it was due to a rogue fleet camping somewhere. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find it before 2.0 came out, so I never got to finish that game.

Man I hope this is wrong, there are so, so many Contingency fleets out now. The've already wiped out two countries, including a major member of a different Federation. I'm nervous lol.