Unlike most strategy games, the campaign doesn't seem to be designed to walk players through the game mechanics while holding their hands. The Dread Lords require a player to know how to deal with them, and a starting player simply won't. You'll have a much better experience if you play a few sandbox games to really learn the game, then tackle the campaign. Sandbox mode is what gives the game its replayability, many players never even bother with the campaign.

That being said, you need to rush several tech areas to even have a chance. Weapons, miniaturization, and logistics are most important. Once you are pretty well advanced, build fleets that have enough offensive power to at least triple the Dread Lord's defense + HP. If you have them spread over enough hulls, one fleet may have a chance at taking out a ship; bring at least two fleets, just in case.

If the Dread Lords get a ship out and start attacking, build a lure - a ship for them to chase, but fast enough to keep ahead of them once they start chasing it. One cargo hull with engines and life support can take a ship efffectively out of action without ever taking a shot at it.

Above all, the trick to beating Dread Lords is speed. The earlier you hit them, the easier it will be.

My advice - put as much research into miniturization and offensive weapons as you can. Keep in mind that they do indeed kill pretty much everything with one hit. Hit them early in the game, hit them hard, and hit them with the intent of totally eliminating them. The last thing you want is for them to stick around getting stronger.

thanks alot for the tips, they helped alot!

managed to make it out, went ahead with weapons research / bigger hulls / miniaturisation / logistics   and made two big enough fleets to kill them. It took me a couple hundred turns and i left the ship roeam the universe killing stuff while i was doing the research and leaving at least one ship on evry planet to counter the invasions. Its kinda weired having to make some ship design only to counter the dreadlords, ship design with only weapons and nothing else. Doesnt make for a very balanced fight. I prefer the rock, paper, scissor type of design one have to make when fighting the other races. Much more entertaining when looking at the fights.

One of the thing that i find not too great is the lack of immersion because of these dread lords. You have to research excessive tech to be able to beat them and then when you get to the next mission in the campaign, you get thrown back into stoneage and have to research evrything again. The problem is that you have no choice to madly techup to kill the dreadlords so that makes it impossible to have some continuity of the tech on the campaign (like you would see any rts would do. They would start low tech and slowly unlock all the tech the more you reach the end of the campaign. Thats smooth campaign progression! its broken with GCII, in part because of the dreadlords!).

Anyways, im gonna try to stick with the campaign and see if the dreadlords become too much of a game killer and if it does then ill stick to sandbox as suggested (by the way, i hope there is a way to keep the DL out of sandbox???)

Thanks again for the help evryone!

Cheers

Turn Mega Events off.  (DA/TA, not in DL)

But, as Willy says, they're not nearly as powerful in sandbox, so it's not even really necessary to turn off megas (or at least for that reason alone-there are plenty of other [more] valid reasons for one to choose from).

Just be glad that you are not getting the crap kicked out of you by the space chipmunk guys...

Well, the attacking force gets a bonus for having air superiority (which was supposed to be a flat value but might be a multiplier).

Really the main thing though, which you already seem to have noticed, is that the Dread Lords quite frequently attack with Mass Drivers.