The right time to crack open the L-cluster? (2024)

*27k actually. But yeah, the mother ship can be hard to kill. And they have tier 5 tech.

I think you should only need a couple of fleets that are at least 30-40k. After that, you should at least be able to open it and defend yourself properly. And after that, you can go in, and start encroaching on the home base. But you need more fleet power to take it all down. I don't know the minimum though. I think around 100k-150k at least, and plenty of corvettes/battleships made to hard counter.

I only opened L cluster once.
I had tier 5 weapons, battleships and all the late game stuff, including almost complete Dyson sphere.
Defeating nanite fleets was possible, but I couldn't do it without major losses. Motherships have a weapon bypassing all the defenses, huge range and max damage.
Wiping them was tedious and not worth rewards.

Point of releasing nanites is to let them do the dirty work for you, genociding other races. After that you blitz into their territory (need to have above 100k fleet), take out their control center, so all the nanite worlds become colonizeable.

01d55 said:

Nanite fleets are rated 2.5k strength and often punch above their listed power. IIRC their defense is shield biased. Their weapons include missiles and fighters, and their large ship carries a disruptor lance.

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Uh, I think you misplaced a decimal point there; the nanite mothership ALONE is 25k.

Martydi said:

In my recent game, I actually managed to almost get all the L-gate insights just from random anomalies far before I was ready to crack open the cluster and face the Gray Tempest. What tech level and fleet power do I need to have a good Chance of not dying horribly under nanite swarms?

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As for when to open them, it's a gamble. A shielded corvette swarm punches above its weight vs the Tempest, so you can hold the line with ~25k. But if you DON'T get the tempest, it'll pay off to open it earlier to get Gray/Dessanu Gifts/Dragons.

Nanite Fleets are around 20-25k. That's the least amount of firepower you need.

If you want to rescue the galaxy you need to block of the L-Gate in their cluster. Normally 2 fleets are there and if you are unlucky up to 3. So at least 75k worth of fleetpower. Build a starbase and block the entrance for an indefinite time.

Let the other AI empires fend for themselve with the fleets that went through.

Your loadout should be as much dps as possible - they use mostly fighters and have high hull. For example a destroyer with flaks and autocannons could work well (if you want to go specific).

Ah, open those gates as soon as possible. Unleashing the Gray Tempest upon an unsuspecting galaxy is priceless.

Build the heaviest bastions you can at any L-Gates in your territory and support them with neighbour shipyards and 20-25k fleets, same for vital chokepoints. You can use the same fleet to support several bastions if they are close, as long as they can reinforce and reach in time. You might take some casualties because of the one-shot main weapons. Plan for this in advance, and place starbases accordingly.

The sooner you have defensive infrastructure in place and open up the gates, the better.

You dont have to fortify all your territory though, just the main couple of strategic chokepoints. It is worth the risk to sacrifice some outlying systems, to see the galaxy burn down.

Dr. B said:

20-25k fleets

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Well, my strongest fleet is currently the Great Herald, with actual fleets being around 2.1k in strength, which I will have to disband some of because I went so over capacity upon unearthing the titan I am literally bleeding credits and alloys.

Archon87 said:

Unless you're playing Ironman, you can always save-scum as well. Open it as early as possible, then if you get the Tempest and are unprepared, just reload and don't open until you are prepared.

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Could do it with iron man as well, crack it open and eventually load the autosave and stop the opening before it is done.