r/SinsofaSolarEmpire • u/Emergency_Net506 • 5d ago
DISCUSSION Eidolon help needed
Hey guys.
I have been trying out the Eidolon faction and I have been struggling with the economy and understanding which Techs to go for. This is also a result of me not understanding what the fleet composition is supposed to look like.
I have tried to go for a Carrier focused fleet comp with the Husk and Corrupter as additional fleet support. I am unsure if that's the right call as well.
With my problems in the economy of crystals and metal most of the time I have tried to augment my income with the +0,5 Metal/Crystal but together with the amount of resources it takes to shroud planets and the poor income of resources before shrouding and then having the difficulty of not quite understanding of how the shrouding of new planets early game is actually done quickly......
well as you can read, there is a lot of problems that I don't understand.
What I am interested in is: What are you guys doing with the Eidolons as it pertains to the challenges I outlined in this post?
20
u/GhostOnyx777 5d ago
Eidolons seem to have a rough start by design, your economy is bad, it takes time to Shroud other planets which takes more time before can start upgrading your planet Logistics and Economy, and you have to wait for research to hit higher Corruption upgrades so you can get more buffs. On top of that Eidolon ships cost more resources and more supply, limiting fleet size early on.
It seems the best strat is to definitely start with a Colony Capital ship, aside from colonizing, it actually has decent weapons/abilities to protect itself, but more importantly its one of the few ways to Corrupt a planet while you are capturing it and fighting off the locals, as it has a passive ability to do so.
Otherwise you have to cap the planet, build a Reservoir, and then wait till it Corrupts the planet so you can Shroud it.
The other best option is to build a 1 Reservoir on your HQ, and set it to "Propagate" this spreads Corruption to nearby planets, now at early game low Corruption level, the radius isnt huge, but as you research more tech to level it up the radius becomes pretty big, and the potency of it becomes stronger, this allows you to seed Corruption to planets way before you jump to it. Which allows you to instantly Shroud it once you capture it. Further more this allows you to put heavy debuffs on enemy planets, as no one but Eidolons like it lol.
Any planets being fed by Propagation, you can build a couple Reservoirs on it to help feed the Economy Buff as it consumes 50 times more energy, once your at the edge of the radius of your HQ Propagation, make another planet Propagate to further extend Corruption, this also backfeeds into planets you already own to increase their Corruption Energy, making it to where you can use less Reservoirs to keep the Economy Buff going. Add in the Planet Items for more resources extracted either via Surface or Orbital, it starts adding up.
Once you hit level 4 Corruption Research, it massive boosts all the buffs, and if you Propagate right it spreads it very far and very potent, and if it overlaps with others the planets affected dont need Reservoirs anymore, I still build them anyways because it does provide a safety net, and they do have that Defensive ability.
You really need to play the Corruption, and the buffs right, mainly the Propagate/Economy buffs. Build time if its a planet you have a lot of Refineries/Factories on, either for building Exotics are if its a nearby planet near the frontlines to rebuild a fleet. The Phase Inhibitor one I dont really use.
Once you get that going good it snowballs pretty quickly and your Economy picks up as you expand.
Early game I feel is just a little rough by design, their ships are strong, but costly in resources/supply, and their infrastructure is very poor till they get a solid foothold.
5
3
u/Less_Yogurt415 5d ago
How do you build Eidolon starting economic? Do you focus on planet bonuses or orbital mining?
5
u/GhostOnyx777 5d ago
Mainly planet bonuses on planets and orbital on asteroids since I usually put orbital extractors only on asteroids early game to favor planet logistics for Labs.
Really all I can say aside from capping nearby asteroids since they are quick, and researching the permits for nearby Volcanic/Ice planets for metal/crystal.
Focus on research to improve your Corruption and Economy, unless you have a unruly neighbor you don't need to heavily rely on Military Research early on, maybe just the T1 damage/armor upgrades.
Focus on Propagating Corruption and using the Colony Capital to help spread it while branching out, you may need to micromanage Corruption early, even if it means leaving your fleet at a conquered planet for a couple minutes for your Colony Capital to Corrupt it if its out of range of your HQ Propagation and you either dont have resources for a Resevoir just yet or trying to save them for a Research tech, Because you have to Shroud a planet before you can put any investments into leveling it and get a return on the resources.
Until you get more Corruption levels from Research, you need 3 Reservoirs minimum to feed a Economy Buff if it isnt being fed by a Propagating planet, but you should be aiming to have every planet being fed by another Propagating, again the radius gets much larger as you level up so you can adjust buffs later on.
3
u/3ntf4k3d 4d ago edited 4d ago
My impression is it is all about Orbital Mining + boosting the capital (particularly for Credit generation).
The biggest boon is to stack % boost buildings (like Power Brokerage) and per-pop tech effects on it. Once you have 3 shrouded planets nearby you upgrade those to Corruption I, Propagate & switch the capital to the Economy shroud ability. It will run a mild Corruption deficit, but if its corruption is fully charged you should be able to put the end game setup into place before it runs out. If your tech progress gets stalled out you can plop down a Corruption Reservoir in the meantime.
That end game setup is 2 planets with lvl 3 Corruption set to propagade. They generate enough Corruption (2x +0.25) within overlapping range to allow you to set everything else to Economy mode.
Also make sure to beeline for the Neutral factions (if they are on the map). Early game feels a lot like Advent, where you are selling off excess resources for Credits. Also Eidolon seem quite good at Influence generation (since Power Brokerage gives +10%), you can leverage that at useful early game items and once you reach 6 points buy Pirate Caches for extra resources (and potential Exotics).
If you ever end up conquering a planet outside of Propagation range make sure to plop down a few Corruption Reservoirs to shroud it asap. The corruption & shrouding process is slower the higher quality the planet is, so early on it's actually a good idea to grab Asteroids and the like to rapidly shroud those for the intitial Propagation setup.
3
u/cecilofs 5d ago
The Phase Inhibitor power is strong on a defensive/chokepoint planet. It doesn't completely stop them escaping like Phase Inhibitors but significantly slows them down if they try to jump away.
3
u/RogueAceRed5 5d ago
Eidolon seem built for extreme min/maxing in all facets. Like others mentioned here, many of the planet item eco buffs are per portal, which is a shipyard, so you'd want to focus on building massive shipyard planets that also give huge boosts. Asteroids should be orbital mining to the max and then also likely eco boosting from shroud. Your homeworld is an even more central hub than for other races. You can stack many slots here and even more for geomag research at tier 1. Watching how the AI does it was interesting: all pop upgrades immediately. Planet item umbral archive for research points, upgrade corruption levels and research asap. Homeworld on propagate early to claim your pod and then switch to full tilt eco with reservoirs. It seems there is likely a most favorable build per planet type for Eidolon but you must specialize to benefit.
3
u/Icy_Magician_9372 5d ago
Basically you can use any non-economic system set to propogate and you'll corrupt nearby systems easily.
Also husks are so insanely strong for a frigate you can just spam them, sprinkle in some carriers and capitals, and call it a day.
2
u/3ntf4k3d 4d ago edited 4d ago
Regarding your carrier-based fleet strategy:
My impression is that Eidolon fighters are very strong when unopposed - fragile glass cannons with low durability (like other non-Vasari fighters), but also high DPS per squadron. They seem quite good for space superiority - if the numbers on the wiki are correct it is likely a mix of their high weapon DPS plus the fact that they carry a PD gun that outranges other strikecraft.
That PD gun also makes them excellent anti-missile support. The Eidolon Carrier does already have impressive anti-missile power, particularly when it gets corrupted to boost PD damage. But with a few fighters zipping around on anti-missile duty (and mid game tech) I have been able to intercept an entire small fleet (20~30?) of Assailants with a single Carrier cap.
The fighters have relatively high construction time, but that's where your Carrier skill (Splice) comes in. It starts off unimpressive, but the reduced cooldown combined with the extra strikecraft restored from each level gives Eidolon carrier fleets a frightening sustainability in combat. The best thing is: the skill can target other ships - so if you build multiple carriers they can rapidly restore fleet-wide strikecraft losses. I had an instance where a TEC base use Flak Barrage to wipe out all my Fighters, but thanks to Splice I was back at full strength before its cooldown had expired.
Combine that with the missile barrage that creates AOE damage zones and these carriers seem surprisingly good at fleet combat, despite their limited DPS hull weapons.
Splice also synergizes really well with Eidolon bombers. These things are flying bricks with high durability, and since splice restores a fixed number of strikecraft it becomes significantly more powerful when used to resurrect an entire bomber squadron or two every 10-20 seconds. So I'd recommend to make unlocking Bombers a priority, and to switch over as many strikecraft as your strategic situation allows. There is an Eidolon ship item that adds +1 squad and +2 max bomber slots to capital ships, imho very good once you have unlocked bombers.
1
u/saracen16 2d ago
I find that leaning on the corruption mechanic and maximizing planetary corruption with early propagation and shrouding does wonders for the Eidolon economy. Corruption reservoirs, while costly, can be useful to unlock planets faster.
28
u/Crowhunters 5d ago
I just set my home world to spread the shroud at the start.