Stay on Target

[IroN-AllActioN]

This trophy is becoming quite frustrating. Can't seem to get the colossus to fire at a planet whatsoever, they either send troops in or don't bother approaching planets at all and stay where they are. AI is horrendous with using it, I hope its something they've looked at patching in later versions.

 

Anyone who's done this achievement got any specific advise on how they did this?

 

 

[KennethMcCormick]

Unfortunately, it seems to rely a lot on RNG, and if you're as unlucky as I am, it will take quite a lot of tries (it took me ages to get this one, but also 1999 A.D., A Hump Like a Snow-Hill or even No Khan Do just because the enemy wouldn't spawn). And once you manage to get the right enemy in your galaxy, there's a little preparation and skill involved.

 

So basically what I did was play games on small maps, two FE, explore as much as I could to find them and see whether one had a colossus. Some would advise having a bigger map to meet more FE, but it implies more AI and more exploration. I think it's all good if you're going for other trophies at the same time, but if you're only gunning for this one, might as well play it super fast just to check on your FE "neighbours". Also, at first, I played full games when I met warlike or xenophobic FE, hoping they would build a colossus before or during wars, but I never saw it happen, even well into the 2600s.

 

What worked for me (we all have our different experiences, I expect):

- twice in many tries, I found a FE with a colossus. First time, nothing I did made the damn thing move, let alone try blowing one of my planets up. Second time, once I found the right FE, I stopped rushing and focused on the game, building my fleets, researching like mad, the usual. Conquered all the galaxy to make sure the FE wouldn't pick another enemy, or that a well meaning AI ally wouldn't steal the trophy from under my nose, built garrison* planets all around their empire, and slowly started pissing them off.

 

- started making back-up saves on USB and cloud when I felt we were nearing the awakening. Repeated the operation quite a few times, so that I got a save as near as possible.

 

- once it awoke, it was a cat and mouse, trial and error kind of game, with lots of reloads, trying to coax the AI into trying to pulverise one of my planets. I don't know if it had a real effect or if it only was wishful thinking, but I used my colossus on most of the FE's main planets. A lot of times, the colossus moved a little bit, sometimes as far as entering orbit for a short while, but it would leave right afterwards. The trick was to destroy all the fleets but one, and it seems like the colossus is tied to a specific one, which it will follow.

 

- at last, when the FE is well pissed off and decides to blow your nice fifteen fortresses military paradise to smithereens because you made it impregnable, you have to act fast and come in with all your might to shoot at it while it is using the planet destroying weapon, not during the warm up phase. Even then, first time I tried, it managed to teleport away in a blink (frustrating, much?), even though I had titans that were supposed to prevent that. What did it was having all my fleets sitting on a gateway leading to the one I built as close to the planet as possible, or at the closest transfer point in the neighbouring systems. Admirals had the speed boost, and my fleets used fast weapons made even faster through research (in the XXX/XL at the time). Made a backup save during warm up in case it tried its vanishing act once more, and let it rip as soon as I saw it shooting. This fight lasted like 3 seconds, including the protecting fleet.

 

TL;DR: find a FE with a colossus, antagonise them and, when you get them to use the damn thing, jump on them with overpowered rapid firing fleets and ensnaring titans.

 

Good luck!

 

*yes, I know, Kenny is building Garrison planets, pun not intended

Edited April 10, 2023 by KennethMcCormick
Fixed three typos

[LetThemEatCakeDX]

No sense in creating another thread so I'll share my experience here because I picked it up recently as well.

 

I ran with small galaxy, 1 FE, no other AI, no primitives, no crisis, high AI aggressiveness, 0.25x tech, 5x habitable worlds, minimum difficulty, blah blah blah. Importantly, I played with the Scion origin which alleviates a lot of stress. Being initially allied with the FE gives you vision in their territory, letting you check at the very start of the game if they spawned with a Colossus. If they didn't, reroll and try again. Secure a bait planet near them earlier rather than later so you can start building Strongholds there. It's less about boxing them and more about securing key chokepoints. You want to field fleets around their territory so they don't choose to send their ships elsewhere because they WILL try to choose the path of least resistance. Create fleets to hold onto these other stations - in my case, I had around 400k fleet power posted at the other two exits plus stations.

 

As far as the baiting is concerned, have your intercepting fleets parked with easy access to the bait planet, whether that's gateways or just being nearby. In my case, the planet was on the west end of the system, so I had a little under 500k(2 200k fleets and a group of as many Subspace Snare Titans as I could manage) ready to jump from the left side. Gateway or just rolling in naturally is fine, but based on my experience, I can't recommend Jump Drives because of the debuff. 200k fleets plugged every jump from the bait system EXCEPT one so they wouldn't get discouraged by my fleet power and try to keep going(I was in a scenario where the FE would take the system and immediately surrender). As far as fleet composition, I was using Artillery Battleship stacks with Cloud Lightning and Arc Emitters, but any setup should work as long as you're not splitting on repeatable tech or you can just be stronger than I was. Don't upgrade your Starbase in the bait system because you don't want to fight it in addition to the Colossus and accompanying fleet. Take the ascension perk that increases your damage to FEs obviously, Admirals that improve your damage output(fire rate, damage, etc.) When you're all set up and ready to pull the trigger, leave your bait planet unattended and make a cloud save. For me, the FE was Spiritual, so it was just a matter of cracking a holy world and watching where the Colossus went. I don't know if playing Fanatic Spiritualist helped with this part or if it's specific to Scion origin, but more often than not it was this flavor of FE(this setup is probably good for grabbing Deus Vult trophy too).

 

Now, things to watch out for. When the war happens, make some claims to prolong the war, but only on the side where your bait planets are so their fleets gravitate that way. Colossus will tether to an invading fleet. If that fleet doesn't go in the right direction, download your cloud save and reload. If it does, it may or may not start the firing sequence. If it does, great. Pause time and direct your intercepting fleets to focus the Colossus when the charge is around 75% finished or so. Turn on all edicts/policies that improve your damage, fire rate, weapon range, etc. This window isn't as tight as one might think, so don't worry if you mistime it because you SHOULD be able to get another shot. Our goal is to destroy the Colossus BEFORE it leaves orbit, which is easier said than done because any attacks that touch the accompanying fleet will stop the Colossus from firing, but there's a small window before it leaves completely. If the Colossus escapes, pause time immediately and quit to dashboard. If you don't get the trophy after destroying it and there's no trophy pop, don't wait too long, pause time and quit to dashboard. The trophy should pop immediately if you did it correctly. Do NOT Save and Quit. The next time you reload your save when you close the game this way, the Colossus should be in the middle of the firing sequence and you can try again. If the Colossus stops firing on the planet and just hangs out in the system, I've found that Save and Quit, then reloading jogs the AI's memory that they have a Colossus? Every time this happened and I reloaded, the Colossus went right back to the charging sequence. If anything goes SUPER wrong like your save snapshotting after the engagement or whatever, THEN is the time to redownload your cloud save and try from step 1.

 

Really annoying and volatile trophy, but I hope this helps anyone attempting it in the future.

[ShadowCalvariae]

On 1.10.2021 at 3:03 AM, dxmcake0 said:

No sense in creating another thread so I'll share my experience here because I picked it up recently as well.

 

I ran with small galaxy, 1 FE, no other AI, no primitives, no crisis, high AI aggressiveness, 0.25x tech, 5x habitable worlds, minimum difficulty, blah blah blah. Importantly, I played with the Scion origin which alleviates a lot of stress. Being initially allied with the FE gives you vision in their territory, letting you check at the very start of the game if they spawned with a Colossus. If they didn't, reroll and try again. Secure a bait planet near them earlier rather than later so you can start building Strongholds there. It's less about boxing them and more about securing key chokepoints. You want to field fleets around their territory so they don't choose to send their ships elsewhere because they WILL try to choose the path of least resistance. Create fleets to hold onto these other stations - in my case, I had around 400k fleet power posted at the other two exits plus stations.

 

As far as the baiting is concerned, have your intercepting fleets parked with easy access to the bait planet, whether that's gateways or just being nearby. In my case, the planet was on the west end of the system, so I had a little under 500k(2 200k fleets and a group of as many Subspace Snare Titans as I could manage) ready to jump from the left side. Gateway or just rolling in naturally is fine, but based on my experience, I can't recommend Jump Drives because of the debuff. 200k fleets plugged every jump from the bait system EXCEPT one so they wouldn't get discouraged by my fleet power and try to keep going(I was in a scenario where the FE would take the system and immediately surrender). As far as fleet composition, I was using Artillery Battleship stacks with Cloud Lightning and Arc Emitters, but any setup should work as long as you're not splitting on repeatable tech or you can just be stronger than I was. Don't upgrade your Starbase in the bait system because you don't want to fight it in addition to the Colossus and accompanying fleet. Take the ascension perk that increases your damage to FEs obviously, Admirals that improve your damage output(fire rate, damage, etc.) When you're all set up and ready to pull the trigger, leave your bait planet unattended and make a cloud save. For me, the FE was Spiritual, so it was just a matter of cracking a holy world and watching where the Colossus went. I don't know if playing Fanatic Spiritualist helped with this part or if it's specific to Scion origin, but more often than not it was this flavor of FE(this setup is probably good for grabbing Deus Vult trophy too).

 

Now, things to watch out for. When the war happens, make some claims to prolong the war, but only on the side where your bait planets are so their fleets gravitate that way. Colossus will tether to an invading fleet. If that fleet doesn't go in the right direction, download your cloud save and reload. If it does, it may or may not start the firing sequence. If it does, great. Pause time and direct your intercepting fleets to focus the Colossus when the charge is around 75% finished or so. Turn on all edicts/policies that improve your damage, fire rate, weapon range, etc. This window isn't as tight as one might think, so don't worry if you mistime it because you SHOULD be able to get another shot. Our goal is to destroy the Colossus BEFORE it leaves orbit, which is easier said than done because any attacks that touch the accompanying fleet will stop the Colossus from firing, but there's a small window before it leaves completely. If the Colossus escapes, pause time immediately and quit to dashboard. If you don't get the trophy after destroying it and there's no trophy pop, don't wait too long, pause time and quit to dashboard. The trophy should pop immediately if you did it correctly. Do NOT Save and Quit. The next time you reload your save when you close the game this way, the Colossus should be in the middle of the firing sequence and you can try again. If the Colossus stops firing on the planet and just hangs out in the system, I've found that Save and Quit, then reloading jogs the AI's memory that they have a Colossus? Every time this happened and I reloaded, the Colossus went right back to the charging sequence. If anything goes SUPER wrong like your save snapshotting after the engagement or whatever, THEN is the time to redownload your cloud save and try from step 1.

 

Really annoying and volatile trophy, but I hope this helps anyone attempting it in the future.

So much to do, would just be a lot easier to do this against ur friend in multiplayer. 

[KennethMcCormick]

12 hours ago, Eternal8Gaming said:

So much to do, would just be a lot easier to do this against ur friend in multiplayer. 

 

To the best of my knowledge, trophies in Stellaris only unlock on SP ironman.

[AvariceInc]

Have they done anything to the AI since then regarding Colossus ships? Tried this a year ago but couldn't ever quite make them move it at all and gave up. Any changes after a few expansions?

[acasser]

On 9/30/2021 at 8:03 PM, dxmcake0 said:

I ran with small galaxy, 1 FE, no other AI, no primitives, no crisis, high AI aggressiveness, 0.25x tech, 5x habitable worlds, minimum difficulty, blah blah blah. Importantly, I played with the Scion origin which alleviates a lot of stress. Being initially allied with the FE gives you vision in their territory, letting you check at the very start of the game if they spawned with a Colossus. If they didn't, reroll and try again. Secure a bait planet near them earlier rather than later so you can start building Strongholds there. It's less about boxing them and more about securing key chokepoints. You want to field fleets around their territory so they don't choose to send their ships elsewhere because they WILL try to choose the path of least resistance. Create fleets to hold onto these other stations - in my case, I had around 400k fleet power posted at the other two exits plus stations.

 

My apologies for the necro, but I have a question.

 

My intent is to use this suggestion to set up my galaxy to do this particular trophy.  (And maybe Humble Pie as well, if I can get that one to work as well.)  So I spent close to an hour this morning starting new game after new game with the paradigm above.  I finally gave up for the time being because I can't get the Fallen Empire to spawn with a Colossus.  I usually see an initial position where the FE has 2-3 fleets of ~95k power.  Many of those positions also include a single Titan ship.  But I've yet to see a Colossus spawn.

 

Am I doing something wrong, or is it simply that rare a spawn?  And thus requiring me to fight the RNG for lengthy periods of time hoping for that one lucky thing, the way I'll eventually have to for the Galaton, the Infinite Creation trophy, the Zroni precursor chain, et cetera?

[AvariceInc]

On 27/10/2022 at 9:14 PM, acasser said:

 

My apologies for the necro, but I have a question.

 

My intent is to use this suggestion to set up my galaxy to do this particular trophy.  (And maybe Humble Pie as well, if I can get that one to work as well.)  So I spent close to an hour this morning starting new game after new game with the paradigm above.  I finally gave up for the time being because I can't get the Fallen Empire to spawn with a Colossus.  I usually see an initial position where the FE has 2-3 fleets of ~95k power.  Many of those positions also include a single Titan ship.  But I've yet to see a Colossus spawn.

 

Am I doing something wrong, or is it simply that rare a spawn?  And thus requiring me to fight the RNG for lengthy periods of time hoping for that one lucky thing, the way I'll eventually have to for the Galaton, the Infinite Creation trophy, the Zroni precursor chain, et cetera?

 

It's rare but it should happen like maybe 10% of the time I think? For me at least but these two are the worst trophies ever really. I've tried both quite a few times and it's so RNG dependant, even if they spawn with a colossus they will NEVER use it if there is unsecured hyperlanes leading out of their territory and into yours, a system with a fortress world must literally be their only option out of their territory or the colossus will just idle there doing nothing or patrol around like a headless chicken and you won't have the fleets to block all of the routes if there are too many. I might give this another go with lowest possible hyperlane density soon and try to reroll the galaxy 1000 times for a perfect layout for that, I suspect that's the most important thing in getting this after seeing a few failed games where the AI would rather go around the whole galaxy instead of using the colossus.

 

Humble Pie you almost certainly cannot do against Fallen Empires because they will only enter Supremacist stance once awoken and you can only declare the "end threat" war which is a "total war" and not a humiliation war against them and pre-awakening the FEs don't ever seem to be in supremacist stance so no way to get it before that either. I got this trophy in a 1v1 galaxy against Fanatic Militarist / Authoritarian with Nationalistic Zeal / Warrior Culture civics. Then it is just about preparing the infra to quickly build fleets after staying far below their power, they 99% of the time must be the strongest non Fallen Empire AI empire in the galaxy to pick Supremacist. You also need to give them time to pick all the supremacy traditions, took 94 years in my game before they swapped to it.

 

Edit: This Thread is not about Humble Pie but since I wasted a lot of time trying to get this trophy in the exact same scenario along with Stay on Target, here's a tactic that was far quicker and actually is possible.

Edited October 29, 2022 by AvariceInc

[AvariceInc]

Finally got this trophy and my game looked like this in case anyone wants to see how the bait other people here described should look like. I had previously weakened them a lot in my independence war because there was no way I could have blocked all three of the paths out of Zosma/Sym against my overlords, the FE fleets start to scale so hard once you start building your own fleets so don't feel bad if you don't get the trophy in the first war against them. I also destroyed their colossus in the first war but they built a new one so if they spawn with a colossus they should probably always have the means to build another but not sure. For the second war they were a lot weaker and couldn't have taken any of the three massive 170k+ Citadels and one full 140k fleet stationed in each Havensky, Riadore and Dristmak, the only ways out of their own system or Zosma so their only option was to try to neutron sweep Zosma.