So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (Full Version)

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ardonquen -> So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/8/2015 8:01:46 AM)

Hey there!

I'm currently playing my second game. The Shakturi have turned up and are doing their 'Eruktah Refugees' thing. I'm looking for advice on how to deal with them. What's frustrating is they're basically inside of my borders!

How does it play out if you leave them alone? Will they attack me as soon as they gather some strength, or do they go after the Ancient Guardians or weaker factions first? In my previous game I invaded them as soon as they spawned, but their home planet has that ridiculous +200% empire wide tax modifier that made the game rather unchallenging afterwards.

So what should I do? Both times I've encountered them, it's felt far too early and they've spawned literally right next to me. Will I have enough time to gain enough tech to fight them mano a mano or will they start Hulk smashing at the earliest opportunity? They don't have any planets that they can colonize easily so in that respect they are contained, but... eh. It feels super cheesy and not very fun to wipe them out as soon as they arrive, but I don't feel like I'd do well against them if I let them fester for a while.

Halp!



feygan -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/8/2015 8:29:22 AM)

[img]http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/014/367/killwithfire.jpg[/img]



Bingeling -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/8/2015 12:05:00 PM)

Why not play stupid until they establish themselves and you are forced to fight them? You know that if you take them out now, it is "game over", so test yourself against their full force.



ardonquen -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/8/2015 5:19:55 PM)

The problem is it seems like it's game over no matter how I approach them. Either I invade them right now and it's gg, or I let them spawn worlds destroyers and it's gg. The galaxy is so undeveloped that I only have a military strength of 25,000-- and that's double what the empire in 2nd has. Kind of regretting enabling them; I might just delete them in the editor. =/

I like them as a concept, but it seems slightly poorly implemented-- especially since both times they've spawned literally inside of my borders.



CyclopsSlayer -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/8/2015 5:46:10 PM)

What Feygan said... :)

My Motto- If it moves, Kill it! If it doesn't move, Kill it Quick! It is being sneaky...


More seriously, avoid the triggers until you are ready, once you learn them. Focus on what you need along the way and avoid cute or secondary techs if you are playing for a Shakturi Victory.
BTW, one of my biggest foes in some Shakturi games was the damnable Ancients. Sealing me in, grabbing resources, and starting in my Shorts. Sure they eventually give you some toys, but until then they are just a thorn in your side.

These days I just turn the Shakturi off...



Aeson -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/8/2015 6:30:29 PM)

You cannot be sure how the war will go once they've built up. At the very least you may as well give it a shot, and if you're that concerned about it ruining your game, then make an extra save file at this point in the game so you can go back and edit them out if you decide you want to, or so you can try a new strategy for facing off against the Shakturi.

If you decide to let them grow while you tech up and prepare for a major war, I'd suggest picking a 'favorite' weapon line to absorb all your weapon research until it's either fully upgraded or at least on par with what the Shakturi have; fighters are a nice choice as you don't need to refit carriers to upgrade their fighters and you don't need to improve reactor technology to keep up with increasing weapon power demands, allowing you to focus your Energy and Construction research on shields, hyperdrives, and perhaps construction technology. If you don't already have it, it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick up Long Range Scanners and then build a couple stations or surveillance ships to allow you to watch what the Shakturi are doing in their area. Basically, work out a research plan and decide what exactly you want to get before the war or soon after the war starts; you can reallocate your research points by varying the lab ratios you have (if two thirds of your labs are weapons labs, then two thirds of your total research output before modifiers is going to go to weapons research; scrapping labs, building new labs, or changing station designs to alter the lab balance on the stations will allow you to modify this) if you feel you need to focus on pushing out research in a particular area more rapidly than you currently can.

Also pick a point where the technology you have begins to be acceptable to you for fighting the Shakturi, and begin a major military build up at that point (or sooner; you don't want to wait too long and have to build up your fleet while under assault) and perhaps don't bother upgrading existing ships beyond this point (depending on how much time you feel you have and how much money you can spare). A large active fleet of adequate ships is far better than a mid-size fleet of good ships which are mostly inactive because they're stuck waiting for refits, and as long as the old ships aren't too obsolete you'll gain more during a fleet build-up by building new ships than by upgrading old ships, especially if you choose to research the optional end-of-line upgrades to some of the intermediate components (e.g. the final upgrade of the Impact Assault Blaster), as the end-of-line upgrades extend the useful lifetime of ships without requiring the ships to be refitted and tend to be roughly on par with early versions of the successor component.

It may also be worth your while to sell technology to your less advanced neighbors to help fund a fleet build up even if they cannot afford to pay the full price for the technology, or perhaps give away technology to some of the same neighbors to help get them into a state where they could be somewhat useful as speedbumps for the Shakturi to fight. Don't do this with the insect races, though.



HerpInYourDerp -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/8/2015 6:30:52 PM)

You could always build up a boarding force beforehand and try and steal the planet destroyer before it warps out of the system. Then you can just pewpewpew their planet if you don't care for the +200% money bonus.



ardonquen -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/8/2015 10:19:25 PM)

Hello again guys, thanks for all the replies! There are some pretty good ideas you've had. I think I might try my luck taking them on... although for sure I'm going to create a backup save. :P

Looking at it, my technology situation isn't *that* bad, I suppose, although I'm missing key research like hyperdrive inhibitors and fighter bays. I'm hoping that their expansion options are so limited that they can't expand peacefully. Can I cheese free technology by offering to initiate trade sanctions against a faction's enemy, then immediately lifting them, and then rinsing and repeating? Seems like something the game would stop you doing, but... gotta ask!

Also, how should I design a ship to jack one of their world destroyers? I like the idea of stealing one and then immediately blowing their planet up. However, I have absolutely no experience with boarding pods, so I don't know what makes an effective ship for boarding. I can build up to size 500, so I'd be making something fast, tough and probably lightly armed. I've read that they're difficult to hold in one place. Perhaps I could incorporate a hyperdeny on one of my basic ship designs? My fleets already use lots of ion cannons.

What other ships do they spawn in? I reckon I could possibly have enough numbers to hold them in one place so long as they don't magic up a dozen size 1000 capital ships. Otherwise? Oh dear... :P

I would have taken one of the world destroyers that were left unconstructed in the galaxy, but they all spawned in bug space so I destroyed them all.

Thanks for the advice, guys!

EDIT: So we get some figures, I can bring about 75-100 attack ships to a fight (12k-15k firepower). Maybe up to 200 if I go into the red. For ground forces, 40 units of armor tops.



HerpInYourDerp -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/8/2015 11:04:38 PM)

You'll need a lot of firepower to quickly drop its shields down to below the 'shield penetration' threshold for boarding pods (effectively shields down completely), as well as probably gravity wells to stall reinforcements.
Either way, it'll be a case of pre-jumping into their homeworld system and then listening to the ancient's warning just after thry all arrive. Zerg tactics are very necessary, as they'll have a large contingent of ships sitting nearby, the super laser will one-shot single ships and it's also heavily armed aside from its super laser.

As for the design, the usual boarding ship mantra won't work if you're playing vanilla, mostly because I don't think you can use ion weapons against them as they spawn with tech lvl 7(6?) which should already give them maxed ion def. The most 'fool-proof' method would be hundreds of high dps ships each with just one or two pods, simply because you'll be losing a lot of them. Not very efficient resource-wise to say the least, but that shouldn't be too much of a concern if you're trying to pull this off.

Keep in mind if you do succeed that the planet destroyer will be pretty vulnerable for a bit, because you've taken out pretty much all of its shields, possibly even damaged a few components.



Aeson -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/9/2015 3:31:05 AM)

quote:

it's also heavily armed aside from its super laser.

If I'm not mistaken, Shakturi use the same planet killers as can be found incomplete and scattered around the galaxy; if that's the case, the armament aside from the Super Laser is merely 12 Titan Beams, 8 Plasma Thunderbolts, 12 Terminator Autocannons (which don't matter since ardonquen doesn't have fighters), 5 Advanced Fighter Bays, 1 Derasian Shockwave, and 4 High Power Tractor Beams. 5 Advanced Fighter Bays and 6 Terminator Autocannons is roughly a size-600 carrier; 12 Titan Beams, 8 Plasma Thunderbolts, 6 Terminator Autocannons, 1 Derasian Shockwave, and 4 High Power Tractor Beams is roughly size-equivalent to the armament I'd give a size-800 heavy battleship. For a ship that clocks in at 2829 size units, having offensive power (ignoring the super laser) comparable to a size-800 battleship and a size-600 carrier is not all that impressive. Its defenses are similarly unimpressive for its size, at only 18 Meridian Shields and 30 UltraDense Armor, which is roughly size-equivalent to what I'd put on a size-600 heavy battleship.

It's certainly still a problem for less advanced ships at size-500, but as long as we're ignoring the super laser I wouldn't call the planet killers particularly heavily armed, at least not for something as big as it is.

quote:

Also, how should I design a ship to jack one of their world destroyers?

As far as capturing a planet killer goes, I think it'll have ~800 boarding defense. I'd suggest bringing at least enough boarding pods to double that, and more would be preferable. Might also want to have a construction ship nearby on standby, just in case you need to make some significant repairs, but on the other hand planet killers come with 4 S2F4 RepairBot components, so you might not need the construction ship. If you have a save where you have access to a planet killer, you might want to load that up and use the editor to spawn in some planet killers and test various capture ship designs and capture fleet compositions that way. Blasters are a good choice for the DPS; missiles are another weapon type I'd consider due to their penalty against armor, which can help reduce the damage the target will take, but planet killers have 30 UltraDense Armor so you might not need to worry too much about damaging the target anyways. I'd generally stay away from torpedoes on capture ships simply because torpedoes have good anti-armor performance due to their high shot damage, and I'd stay away from phasers due to their combination of low DPS and good anti-armor performance, which is essentially the opposite of what you want on capture ships. Still, against planet killers, I don't know that I'd worry too much about anti-armor performance simply because the ship is so big that it's not terribly likely that you'll disable critical components like the command centers (of which planet killers carry two, both of which must be destroyed for the ship to be rendered inoperable) or the hyperdrive and it's not terribly likely that you'll deal enough damage to destroy the ship in the process of capturing it. Railguns and graviton weapons should be ignored on capture ships; you want to take down the shields, but those weapon types bypass shields.

Also be warned that planet killers carry 60 Ultra Dense Fuel Cells; refueling it from empty will require at least 6000 hydrogen, maybe 7200 if you've upgraded the fuel cells. You might want to keep a well-stocked Resupply Ship handy.



ardonquen -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/9/2015 5:20:47 AM)

Okay, last quick question: can you change unit behavior (e.g. 'retreat when shields at 20%') by any way other than redesigning the ship and then retrofitting the fleet? I decided to fight them, but I lost the battle because my ships kept running away instead of standing their ground.

Thanks!



Bingeling -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/9/2015 6:18:44 AM)

The "top left" values on the design screen can be changed at any time. The settings will apply to all ships using the design. So just click the design from the selection panel of the ship, and change the flee setting.



ardonquen -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/9/2015 8:12:56 AM)

Ah, that's excellent. Thanks!

So it looks like I might be okay after all. I managed to capture one of the wealthiest planets in the galaxy, so suddenly I have enough money to support like a dozen more fleets. My income cashflow is +400k even *without* the Shakturi's fancy-pants palace Meanwhile the 'Eruktah' have been busy invading their neighbors (peaceful wanderers my foot!), so I think it's time to get the cane out of the cupboard.

They could still come out of the closet as evil galaxy conquerors at any moment, however. What ships do they spawn when this happens? Hopefully my income and numbers are enough by now that I'll be clog their engines with the wreckage of my own ships!



ardonquen -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/10/2015 6:06:21 AM)

So the Shakturi blew their own homeworld up after I captured it... lol. Best part is I had like 700 ships sitting nearby (nice job intercepting, guys!) who then destroyed apparently all of their planet destroyers.

But seriously, really not enjoying this. Completely ruined what was turning into an interesting and fun game, and turned it into a stressful, spammy, tedious slog. I'm currently just throwing ships at their remaining planets so I can get this over with. Unfortunately for me, I set it so the victory conditions wouldn't apply until 80 years after the start date... D:

I am mega butthurt right now, and my vagina is overflowing with sand.

EDIT: Did it. Being given all the technology at the end was a neat touch, and I liked the final galactic history entry. And now to never touch the Shakturi storyline ever again. >____>



Icemania -> RE: So how should I deal with the Shakturi? (7/10/2015 2:41:54 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: ardonquen
And now to never touch the Shakturi storyline ever again. >____>

I felt that way early but these days play with the Shakturi in most games. The Shakturi add another dimension to the late game if you are finding it too easy to get ahead of the AI's and for further fun they've been buffed a bit in the AI Improvement Mod.

Also the other way to get their Planet Destroyers is to launch an invasion of their homeworld with overwhelming force and when conquered (assuming it's their last world) their Fleets flip allegiance.



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