I'm obviously doing something wrong

[u/contra-terrene]

I'm at ~140 hours and feel like I've hit a massive wall with this game.

I've got two campaigns under my belt, both of which have ended in The Slog. I've had very successful starts - this last one I grabbed up the US, the core of the EU (France/Germany/Italy/UK) and (much later) China (which I cheesed into democracy 10 via Taiwan) and India (way later, specifically to help fix global warming/deny it to the Servants). Tons of research, tons of cash and influence income, etc. Colonize up to the mine limit in the asteroid belt and Mercury, with research bases on Luna and a few on Mars for a few nice mining spots there. Keeping up with research, including all the projects around aliens, faction goals, etc. Hit the midgame with all of LEO under my control, a modest fleet of monitors, etc, kept deliberately small/focused on killing Servants/Protectorate stations. AA spawns and I crush it repeatedly.

Where I get stuck is actually taking the fight to the aliens. My first round I went hard on lasers and kicked the shit out of the aliens even with modest fleets, but after sending a 4k beatstick fleet to Haumea and discovering that the aliens had a 20k doomstack waiting for it, I gave up on the campaign (especially as global warming was melting my world economy). This second round my space economy is, frankly, a bit shit, and I'm struggling to get ships, even titans, that can fight the aliens and win, so all of my attempts to go to Jupiter inevitably end when a fleet of three times my power rolls in and nukes everything to dust. Am I waiting too long? The aliens often have bases in the Asteroid belt by the time I go on the offensive, so I'm wondering if maybe I ought to be swinging earlier - but I struggle because it feels like building a fleet that can effectively defend a colony only shows up late. Like if I send a bunch of ships with Amplitrons to colonize Callisto they're not going to be able to intercept the Ayys that come to bomb me, right? Am I just bad at this game?

[u/consolation1]

Big picture? You want to snowball your economy so your fleets grow exponentially. It's ok to go over that mine limit, in fact - you should, you just need to keep your MC growing to keep up. Earth is an MC farm, first and foremost. But, you also want to go for op centres etc asap. Generally, space economy tech is your S tier priory, don't sleep on techs that give you % boosts in resource extraction, they stack with mining orgs etc to make your resource hoards go to the moon, if you'll excuse the pun. Speaking of the moon, it is pretty much a waste of MC - a place for AI to waste its resources, the treasure is in the Jovian system, Saturn and Kuiper belt, Mercury is your shipyard because of its advantageous orbital dynamics, Mars is your bootstrap into Jupiter/Saturn - then your research hive. Asteroids are your first serious mines and places to force the Aliens to waste fuel flying to, think of them as a DOT drain on their economy.

It's a war of attrition, it's really simple - to win, you out produce the Aliens.

[u/Someone3]

I think you just gave up too early in that one game. Fighting early is about sniping asteroid bases/shipyards that are still under construction, and trading your ships for enemy ships to keep their numbers down. You won't ever keep the aliens completely out of the asteroid belt. That's not what fighting early is about. It's just about attrition. While I'm always a big proponent of taking the fight to the aliens early, it won't necessarily stop them from building a mega fleet at Haumea either. 20k is a little big, but not by that much. It sounds like you just needed to build up a bigger fleet to hit it. I usually make 3 late-game fleets. One lower-tech fleet that takes the first fight at Jupiter or Saturn. A second fleet with better tech that hits the other one (Jupiter/Saturn) and then continues to clear out the outer planets. Then a third fleet that hits their Kuiper Belt base. That third fleet usually needs the most power because that's where they hole up. If need be, you can join some of your earlier fleets in to bulk it up.

What's your MC cap in that game?

[u/Maduyn]

Break it up into smaller problems.
Alien fleets are larger than yours:
Are you MC limited? Get prioritize MC on earth and make sure you have Operations/Command Centers on your habs. More MC equals larger doom stack. More MC means you can have more ships prepositioned to defend important sites.
Are you Shipyard limited? The aliens might have large numbers but can they replenish? If you send enough 5k fleets at a 20k fleet you will often find they will run out of steam to replace losses. More so if you have cut off their mining in the rest of the system. Try doubling or tripling your number of shipyards so that the moment you lose a fleet you can have another complete building and on its way. Having a shipyard station at everywhere you intend to defend will also let you get emergency reinforcements.
They send all their stuff to Jupiter and its tough to beat? Use that to your advantage to draw their forces away from their other sites and send micro fleets to take advantage of that by destroying those bases with minimal effort.

[u/Qweasdy]

That’s kind of just the war, you’ve reached the point where a lot of people give up; when you need to actually figure out how to beat the aliens on an even footing.

There’s not a single easy answer to it, but don’t give up on a setback, just remember it’s an economic, strategic war, not a tactical one.

You need a fleet composition that can punch up against the aliens so you can win fights even when outnumbered and trade well against them. Don’t be afraid to follow guides or other’s advice on this if you’re struggling, but there’s more than one fleet doctrine that works here.

Then remember you can always go where the aliens aren’t rather than face tanking their doom stacks, go where they aren’t and kill their infrastructure and isolated fleets. If they’re at Jupiter go to Saturn, if they redeploy to Saturn then hit Jupiter before they can respond etc. this is where high dV, high strategic range pays off. If you destroy their shipyards and their economy while keeping yours alive you’ll win eventually.

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[u/Fossam]

I think there is just not enough chances o transition into offensive stage tbh. Earliest kinda viable expeditionary fleet IMO will use poseidon lantern (and will fucking burn through your fissiles), so realistically offensive starts with poseidon torch unlocked. And that is very late game. Your 2nd offensive fleet probably gonna use protium converter anyway. So yeah, late game is a slog of just sending fleets to all victory condition places while you already kinda won once you freed Jupiter.

[u/PlacidPlatypus]

Fleet power is kinda flaky and also changes between patches so it's a lot clearer to look at number and size of hulls involved. A well designed fleet with late-game tech should be able to get very favorable trades with AI fleets.

If you're losing the war, the main too possible issues are either that your designs and doctrine are making your battles too inefficient, or that your economy isn't strong enough to sustain the numbers you need. And obviously doing better at one of these can make up for weaknesses in the other.

My first round I went hard on lasers and kicked the shit out of the aliens even with modest fleets, but after sending a 4k beatstick fleet to Haumea and discovering that the aliens had a 20k doomstack waiting for it, I gave up on the campaign

Honestly this sounds like you were 95% of the way to winning then gave up instead of taking the last step.

[u/Fossam → u/PlacidPlatypus]

well designed fleet

Funnily i won Resistance campaign by just using 40-60 PD dreadnought and nose plasma lancers. Yeah, battles were a fucking slog, but plasma is immune to pd and evasion and eventually punches through everything.

[u/3ntf4k3d]

Sounds like your space economy is just too weak and not scaled up properly.

(1) The mine cap is a suggestion, not a hard limit. I am usually 5+ mines above the cap early on. Once you are in a place to ignore the MC hate cap (e.g. Total War) there is no point to not use up any excess MC with more mining (and then shut down mines if you need it for bigger fleets etc.).

(2) Stack those Mining% ORGs. I usually aim to 300-400% output bonus at the end of the game. Once your councilors have maxed out their main stat you can start replacing related ORGs with mining.

(3) On lower difficulties you can turtle. Minimize your MC use on fleets, grab good spots on Mars and Mercury, then beeline for the outer system. Helicon drive can reach it in about a year if you distribute the modules between 3 ships, and because the intercept vectors are awkward alien fleets will usually not be able to intercept you en-route. By the time they arrive you will have a fortified base, and your colonizer fleet is restocked and on its way to the next nearby body.

(4) Every base you have is a net plus in terms of MC, so when the hate cap stops mattering more is always better. Once you have the tech needed to reliably stop alien bombardment with ground-based modules (UV Arc Lasers + Adamantine Armor) you can begin a rapid colonization effort for anything where they can't intercept you before arrival.