Fleet Saving Guide
Slippy's pr0game Guide
Chapter 1 - Fleet Saving
Fleet saving ... what is it ... and why would I do this?
Since the time has come for us where the first players are flying around with
fleets and recycling wrecked fleets
to take your resources away,
it's time we tackled the topic of fleet saving.
Fleet saving is one of the most important parts of pr0game.
That's why, as a player, if you don't have the ability to keep an eye on your resources,
you can send your fleet with all the resources that could potentially be stolen out into space, and it can't be attacked along the way,
because there are only two possible targets for attacks.
Planets and moons.
So while your ships are in flight, they can't be destroyed and your resources in the cargo hold can't be stolen. Great!
Now there's just one catch... eventually your fleet arrives at its destination... and that's exactly when it's vulnerable!
Because there are these nasty things called moons.
Moons can form from large debris fields and then sit next to a planet, offering the ability to build unique buildings on them.
One of these is the so-called sensor phalanx.
The sensor phalanx is a building that, for a small amount of deuterium, can detect all fleet movements to and from a planet (with one exception â more on that later).
So for a player with a sensor phalanx, there's the possibility to watch the movement of your fleet and time an attack precisely so that you can't save your fleet.
So what do I do about it?
That's what we're getting to now!
Step by step, we'll now go through the individual ways you can save your fleet, what advantages and disadvantages each method has, and how you can go about it.
So let's go through the whole thing chronologically, by time available.
Fleet Saving, How Do I Do It?
#1 No Moons in the Uni
Planet-to-planet deployment: Right now there are no moons yet in our universe. So... easy. Just send your fleet from one planet to another when you can't keep an eye on the game. Choose the ship speed so that you're back by the time the ships arrive, and everything's fine. There's not much to watch out for here, except that you should make sure you always save your fleet via deployment, since loaded resources get unloaded during a transport. So if you save via transport, your resources sit unprotected on one planet for half the flight time. That would obviously be bad. Bottom line: No moons = send your fleet via deployment from A to B, where B is the time you'll be back at your computer.
#2 Oh No. The Enemy Has a Moon, and I Don't
Now it gets interesting. If someone with a moon is nearby, they can keep an eye on all fleet movements flying to and from a planet. That's annoying. So is your fleet never safe then? No. Not really. There's still exactly one way to secure your fleet: return flights via deployment. If you send your fleet from Planet A to Planet B, your fleet is visible via phalanx... but not when you recall it. Return flights via deployment are not visible in the phalanx. Planet-to-planet deployment, return trip: As mentioned, fleets sent via deployment aren't visible on the return trip. So how do we use this?
Example Case
I'm Tim. I know I sleep from midnight to 8am. I'm a smart Tim and I know when I go to sleep, so I send my fleet 9h (!!!) before I go to sleep, via deployment from Planet A to Planet B. At some point, shortly before I go to sleep, e.g. at 23:41, I recall my fleet. Now my fleet is invisible between 23:41 and 8:41, and I'm back by the time my fleet arrives. I'm a smart Tim. Be like Tim. Note: If your enemy is a real bastard, they could theoretically phalanx your planet permanently, see when you recall your fleet, and then, by spying on your drive tech, calculate backward when your fleet will return. However, since phalanxing costs deuterium and requires being permanently watched, this is relatively unlikely. Bottom line: Send your fleet from Planet A to Planet B. Recall it after your desired save duration.
#3 Nice, I Have My Own Moons
Nice... we have our own moon... maybe even several... we've learned by now that only planets can be selected as phalanx targets. So... that makes it a lot easier for us to save our fleet. So how do we do this now...? Okay... let's first go through the methods you can use if you only have one moon. Moon to debris field: Before you go to bed, simply send your fleet with the resources from the planet to the moon. From the moon, as mentioned before, you send your fleet to a debris field. Yay... neither the debris field nor the moon can be selected as a phalanx target... so your fleet is invisible for the entire flight... NICE. There's only one weak point here: if you have a very experienced and ambitious enemy... they might be watching the debris fields near you. So if they see a small debris field near you disappear... that means a fleet has arrived at the debris field and is now on its way back. Damn... your planet can be spied on, the level of your drive tech read out... and your fleet's return time calculated. Fuck... all for nothing. What kind of crappy game would it be... if there wasn't a solution for everything..? So how do you make it harder for your enemy? There are a few ways to do this: 1. Fly to a different debris field every time. Never the same one. 2. Don't fly at 100% of your speed... vary your speed and fly slower (also saves deuterium). Then whoever's trying to screw you over has to guess the speed you're flying at, and you're safer. 3. Shadow-recs... wow... that sounds fancy... and it is, a little. Before you send your main fleet to a debris field, you send a recycler ahead that clears the debris field. During the recycler's flight time, you send your main fleet to the same debris field right behind it. So if the attacker sees the debris field disappear, they see what looks like your fleet, but it's actually just a single recycler. They intercept it... and they went through all that trouble for a recycler... what a chump. Your main fleet then just keeps calmly flying, even though the debris field is already gone... and then simply turns around, and everything's fine again... Nice. But watch out... if you have a real top-tier bastard nearby... they might briefly send a few espionage probes at your target debris field to inflate it. So if they see the debris field shrink by exactly a recycler's capacity... they'll know it was just a shadow-rec... they wait until the rest is cleared... follow behind... and you're screwed. So it's better to send a few more recyclers as shadow-recs. Easy =)
Moon to Colony
What else can't be selected as a phalanx target? Nothing! That's right! Nothing that can't be scanned. So how do we use this? You've colonized all your possible planets and can't colonize any more due to your Astrophysics level.. Perfect for the moon-to-colony save! You add a colony ship to your fleet.. send the fleet to any empty slot in the universe.. select "colonize" as the target, and your fleet heads off into the void! The fleet arrives at its destination.. you get a message saying you can't colonize any more planets.. and the fleet turns back around. Invisible from A to Z. Tada! The only thing you need to watch out for here is that you absolutely must not have a free planet slot.. otherwise all your planets get unloaded.. and your resources just sit there.. not cool.
Moon to Moon
No moon can be selected as a phalanx target. You send your fleet with resources from moon to moon.. via deployment, of course.. and voilĂ .. all good. =)
Moon Destruction:
Fuck.. now here comes the top-tier absolute menace from Screwville. You've picked a fight with a real heavyweight and made them pretty mad.
There's a way in the game to destroy moons.. along with everything on them: Death Stars. Death Stars can just wreck moons like that. This happens extremely rarely.. specifically
because
during a Death Star's destruction attack there's a chance that the so-called marble simply blows up... plus these damn things fly slower than grandma Erna in her
Prius, driving backward with 4 flat tires up a mountain. But.. it's possible. So what happens if your moon gets destroyed...?
If a moon that's the target of a fleet gets destroyed.. the damn things just fly to the planet instead. Fuck. Planets are visible in the phalanx. My fleet!!!! EVERYTHING RUINED. Yep. Can
happen.
What do you do about it? Hmm.. not much. You're screwed. If you've pissed off someone like that.. you really have a problem. The only thing that helps here is switching the moons you use to save your fleet from. Don't let
the enemy know where your fleet is.. switch it back and forth.. and hope your save-moon doesn't get wrecked. Otherwise you've got a problem.
But since we're playing in an x1 universe anyway.. and moon destruction requires Death Stars.. and the chances are high that they get destroyed in the process..
it's going to be a very, very long time before the first moons even get destroyed at all.
You probably won't even be playing that long anyway. And if you have been playing that long.. you won't need this guide anymore either.
EZ.
Cheers & XD TM
Slippy