Silvermist Swarm?

[peekingbob]

Hello all,

I'm new to the game and have recently encountered something disturbing...

i ramble a bit here so feel free to skip down to the list below

my game was going okay by my standards with a competitive level of territory an overwhelming advantage in military and research tech and mutual defense pacts with all of the non insectoid races. as i was commencing bug squishing with my allies the (SPOILER) appeared ( I've played several games but this is the first time I've gotten them to show thus far). i figured it wasn't a big deal and proceeded to make the bugs wish they never existed, then not a even a couple years later i find their military strength is on par with my own which nearly doubles the rest of the galaxy, right as i noticed this i received a silvermist warning to find 27(by my count) 1500 strength silvermists in a system on the other side of an empire near me. so i proceeded to end all wars with the bugs (through the use of a couple million credits and an agreement not to end the war with their allies).

1)how far do silvermists roam? i haven't been able to find much information on them in the forums or the galactopedia and fear there's nothing i can do to stop such an overwhelming number of them. the empire they spawned near has been throwing everything they have at them since the discovery and is only losing ground. they also are the only empire that can compare with my and the (SPOILER)'s strength(about 60% of my own )

2) do i have time to leave the (SPOILER) alone and expand my empire through conquest? or should i immediately attempt to exterminate them before they exponentially out grow me?

3) i would have liked to post screen shots with this but either the PrtScn button doesn't work with this game or it goes to a different folder...(or it doesn't work because my keyboard is a pos)

[2ndACR]

They roam all over the place. Major pain. Kill them ASAP.

Ion cannons are the weapon to use.

[ASHBERY76]

They are pretty easy to deal with..Just 10 destroyers packed with ion weapons is enough.

[Jeeves]

I found a design that works against a strength 22 size >700 silvermist with just one ship. The silvermist has speed of 27/72, my ship has speed 55. The ship has four ion cannons and a fighter bay, velocity shards, epsilon torpedos, and missiles. It also fortunately had eight enhanced armor since it got four armors chewed on the initial contact. What you must do is set the ship design to stance of standoff for both stronger and weaker AND "never retreat". Once your ship is being chased, it fires its ion cannons to slow the silvermist from 72 to 27, then its fighters and long range weapons peck away for about six months, with the silvermist trailing and approaching repeatedly. Without those ion cannons or with speed under 55 you will LOSE! Be certain that your excess energy available exceeds the average weapons energy usage by a good margin...

Lonnie Courtney Clay
p.s it helps to have at least 600 fuel, so you don't run out of gas in the middle of the fight...

[Ares106]

ORIGINAL: Jeeves
six months,

wow, forget about fuel the ship should run out of ammo!

[Nedrear]

ORIGINAL: Ares106

ORIGINAL: Jeeves
six months,

wow, forget about fuel the ship should run out of ammo!

It shots energy... sure no physical ammo involved apart of reactor energy. No out of ammo here.

[balto]

As I get better and better at this game, I find that for me, if I find Sivermist relatively early - I run from them and do not develop anything near them. They eat up so much resources and my time to fight them. In the later game when I have some mega-bad ass-ships, then I hit them with whole fleets.

Speaking of which, Jeeves, I do not doubt you, but that ship you speak of with just 4 Ion and its other weapons.., I am thinking you intensely micromanage the attack on the Silvermist. Because if left unattended for a few seconds, I am pretty sure a Silvermist would tear right through that relatively weak design. I think for the small Silvermists, it takes several ships with many Ions.., for two Silvermists.., man, like 10 ships.., they are very powerful.

[2ndACR]

Once found, I build a 1 shot soon to be discarded mist killer. Size 400, nothing but fuel, speed and ion guns. About 10 of those will do a number on them. Plus some shields/armor. But more speed the better. I go after them ASAP, before they get big. I have even gone into enemy territory to kill them. If really lucky, the Ancients will take care of them for me.

[peekingbob]

Thanks a lot for the input guys!

I've designed a new ion class frigate and produced about 40 of them so heres hoping it works out.

[Jeeves]

ORIGINAL: balto

As I get better and better at this game, I find that for me, if I find Sivermist relatively early - I run from them and do not develop anything near them. They eat up so much resources and my time to fight them. In the later game when I have some mega-bad ass-ships, then I hit them with whole fleets.

Speaking of which, Jeeves, I do not doubt you, but that ship you speak of with just 4 Ion and its other weapons.., I am thinking you intensely micromanage the attack on the Silvermist. Because if left unattended for a few seconds, I am pretty sure a Silvermist would tear right through that relatively weak design. I think for the small Silvermists, it takes several ships with many Ions.., for two Silvermists.., man, like 10 ships.., they are very powerful.

A pictures worth a thousand words...

[Jeeves]

Notice how long it took this guy to wear down the silvermist...

[Jeeves]

I misremembered the weapons mixm, thinking of the OTHER blasted one released by cowardly Ackdarians that wandered into my territory...

[balto]

That ship is really far far into the tech tree. So that is not a beginner ship. What do you use to fight Silvermist in the beginning when you have none of those techs or the ship size? That is why I run from them for almost the whole game, actually, I usually never confront them.

That ship you have despite its super advanced research.., I am pretty sure a Silvermist would eat that up without intense micro-management.., those things are just tooo powerful and most of your weapon power is not from Ions.

Also, this is an Exploration ship. I know they are just names, but is there a reason you are placing this design as an exploration ship? I love hearing other peoples tips and tricks - always learning.

[sbach2o]

Do I miss something, or is your little explorer lacking a repair bot?

Irony aside, don't you get into trouble with this design when it enters the territory of AI empires? Probably it isn't ever used for exploration, though, by that stage everything in the galaxy should be known?

Edit: I am beginning to see the logical hole in my questions. When there's nothing left to explore, how did a Silvermist get preserved? So this is an older infestation that you are just cleaning up, right? In that case, you really took time to prepare.

[Jeeves]

Hmm, look at the date. I start my galaxies young ( sept 2058) with all empires having tech level two. At the time that explorer was built, I did not have repair bot technology, since the Ikkuru failed to research their racial for me. The silvermist swarm was released by that same explorer opening up a ruins...

As an added note, this is not a recommended design, just the least design which could possibly (in my experience) go one on one with a silvermist and win...

Lonnie Courtney Clay
Edit : Actually, most of the damage to the silvermist came from the bombers out of its fighter bay...

[jpwrunyan]

I can't give any tips for advanced stage Silver Mists, but the *general* advice here seems a bit... heavy-handed.

All I needed for two mid-game swarms was a fleet of two destroyers, repair bots, and 6 ion cannons. I used advanced proton thrusters and thrust vectors with around 30 cruise speed. I had fusion drives. Basically, mid-level tech. My destroyers had two fuel cells because I don't care if the mists go into the AI empires because that just helps me win the game. Once you win, you don't have to worry about the mists anymore because the game is over. And my battles didn't last long enough that my ships ran out of fuel fighting the mists either. I didn't micromanage my ships. I just made sure they were adequate and then left them to it.

Maybe I was just lucky.