Whytebio

Join Date 11/2009

How do you survive the dread lords?

Hey all,

There's an incoming rant, so skip down to the TL;DR if you're not interested in reading it.

So I looked back a few pages and couldn't really find anything on this.

The long and short of it is: whoever thought it'd be an awesome idea to bring in wtfpwn Dread Lord uber-ass-smasher ships with triple figure attack ratings when I've barely gotten out of the early game needs to be drowned.

I'd just colonised my 8th planet and, with the same pride of a father looking upon his newborn son, I smiled upon the galactic civlisations ranking where I saw myself as Number 1. Such a glorious, uplifting shot of juice into my secret meglomaniacal fantasies.

But, oh no, what is this? The "Dread Lords are coming!" screen?

My first reaction was: Who the fuck are the dread lords? And what's their f'n problem?

Are they like the Mongolian invasions from Total War?

A short answer would be: No.

A long answer would be: Heeeeeeeeeell no - you can actually fight and beat the mongols if you're as cunning as a Fox who won a contest of cunning. Against the dreadlords? Well, they're useful if your leader woke up one day and said to themselves "You know, I don't like having so many ships in my military and populated, money-making planets - I just wish there was some way to get rid of them all!' boom, dreadlords.

My first encounter with the self-titled Lords of Dread (or as I call them, the cheesy over powered assholes, or COPA for short) was between a medium-sized ship that I had outfitted with an ass-load of sensors, speed and life support. Called the class the Harbinger class (get it? because if another race saw them they were the "harbinger" of their doom? I know, pretty clever), it was just cruising around, minding its own business spying on people when some hideous purple thing moved up to it, zapped it with it death ray and pop, there went a bunch of bc down the drain. So my first encounter lasted all of 0.21 seconds.

However in those 0.21 seconds I got a look at the type of bling that the COPA's were sporting. Hmmm, yes, yes I see, massive fuck off beam lazers and a crap load of shields. Oh look at that - no armor. Right, lots of big rail cannons and stuff. So I built several dozen tiny ships each carrying a few mass drivers on them, parked them in the pathway of the incoming COPA's then went and fried myself some bacon in butter to celebrate (it's my Ketogenic diet, don't worry I'm not on heart-attack avenue). I didn't bother giving my ships shields or anything, because with the stupidly huge attack power of the COPA's ships, my ships would fall apart faster than a chair from IKEA anyway.

Then on my map some ugly purple fleet thing arrived. Oh good, they were here.

"Charge!!!!"

5 seconds later what was left of my dozens of ships was bouncing off the windscreen wipers of the dreadlords ships. Despite having no armor whatsoever or defense against mass drivers, the dreadlord ships took no damage at all! Nada, nothing. Ghandi ate more than what my ships did to them - and they were armed with the direct counter to their defenses! I might as well have given porky pig a sharp broom and thrown that pink motherfucker at the dreadlords ships for all the good it did.

Wtf?

"That's okay." I said to myself in my deep, smooth voice, "maybe I just need bigger guns! Or more of them."

After several minutes of building a new fleet of bigger ships with bigger guns, the flaming ruins of that venture was soon floating about space.

Oh, and the kicker? This was all caused by just 3 COPA escorts.

Just 3.

Three.Escorts.

The entire military of the most powerful civilisation took it up the ass from the three weakest ships of the very enemy they were designed to defeat.

Now, obviously, everything is in ruins. I've got no way of stopping these ships from pillaging and blowing everything up, which they are very happily doing...flying around whats left of my territory like some star-based internet troll eating everything. What was a fun game that was giving me the power fantasy I paid my $20 to experience has become a sigh-inducing chore of exhaustion, so naturally I'm starting again.

But I know that the Dreadknobs are just going to rear their ugly, snaggletoothed heads again at some point in a future game.

This bullshit isn't fun. It's like a DM bringing along a level 20 character in your lvl 5 D&D game, smashing your party apart with it and then going "Oh, but isn't the game much more tense now!" No douchebag it's not, the fun is ruined because you couldn't think of a better threat other than better stats. You want to make the game tense then have a faction go apeshit, get its allies together, and embark on a galactic-wide war of carnage, death and destruction that see's a back and forth war of unparalleled horror and brutality - that sounds like fun, not some cheap, lame "My stas r better than ur stats, pew-pew, u die".

TL;DR So. How do you beat them?

Just research the shit out of stuff and hope that the computer feels like being fair instead of cheating?

Help me here please. I just got the game the other night and I was having a lot of fun until this happened.

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Gaunathor

Join Date 04/2006

+170

My first reaction was: Who the fuck are the dread lords? And what's their f'n problem?

I take it you haven't read the manual, nor watched the game-intro, nor played the campaigns, and probably only played as the Terrans?

Okay, here is a extremely basic description of them: billions of years ago, there was a precursor race called the Arnor. They were the first sentient race in the universe, extremely powerful, who ruled a galaxy-wide empire. Over time, new sentient life began to appear, and there was a split between the Arnor. One faction wanted to exterminate new life on sight, while the other wanted to guide them. The first faction became known as the Dread Lords. They were the most powerful, but only few in number. The other faction retained the name Arnor. They were the most numerous, but less powerful. Eventually, the split turned into a civil war. The war raged on for millennia. Finally, the Dread Lords war on the verge of victory, when both sides simply vanished.

The campaign explains what happened, but you don't need to play it to find out. There is a tech called "Precursor History" in the tech tree of the Altarians and Drath. It too explains what happened. Plus, it gives a much more detailed explanation of who the Arnor are.

As for why they appeared in the sandbox-game, it's simple: Mega Event. The purpose of Mega Events is to intentionally unbalance the game. They are an option for advanced players who want to spice up the game, because it doesn't provide enough challenges for them anymore. For new players it's suggested to disable Mega Events. Learning the game as it is should be challenging enough. You can disable them in the Game Options at the start of a new game.

5 seconds later what was left of my dozens of ships was bouncing off the windscreen wipers of the dreadlords ships. Despite having no armor whatsoever or defense against mass drivers, the dreadlord ships took no damage at all!

You haven't said how high the shield-defence of the DL was, or the MD-damage of your ships (and even how many you had), so I can't tell, if that was okay or not. However, shields do help against mass drivers, but only up to the square-root of their strength. For example, if the shield had a normal strength of 16, it would only protect to a maximum of 4 against mass drivers (or missiles). This is the case for all off-type defences.

Just research the shit out of stuff and hope that the computer feels like being fair instead of cheating?

The computer doesn't cheat during combat. You are just not yet familiar with the rules and calculations. So here is a post by one of the devs, explaining how combat works.

Anyhow, your original strategy was going in the right direction (or at least one of the possible ones). You just need to improve it some more:

Research up to at least Enhanced Miniaturization (so you can fit more weapons on your ships), Enhanced Logistics (so you can fit more ships in a fleet), Impulse Drive (so you can get the passive speed-bonus), and to the end of the current weapon tech (so the weapon is as small as possible). If Mass Drivers aren't good enough, then research to the end of Pulse Cannons. They are slightly bigger, but do twice the damage.

Now the question is hull type. Small hulls would allow you to fit more weapons on board, but tiny hulls allow you to fit more ships in a fleet. I would go with tiny hulls, because they provide more targets for the DL, but it's up to you. In any case, full them up weapons only. You don't need anything else.

Build a couple of fleets with those ships (you'll need them), and prepare yourself to attack. The most important thing is, that you have to initiate the attack. Otherwise, you'll lose the fleet. So, you'll have to do some tricky manoeuvring, because the DL are bound to be faster than you. Get a lookout (a tiny hull full of sensors). That'll make thing a little easier.

If your fleets aren't strong enough yet, then keep on researching. However, whatever you do, protect your planets. Put some empty hulls in orbit. The DL ground troops are just as deadly as their ships.

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