Infernal Onslaught - 1 Day In

This raid is hard for a lot of players, and in the first few hours it seemed nearly apocalyptic.  Kixeye ramped up the difficulty in a lot of different ways at once. The factors that went into this are:

• Three week turnaround instead of four (less time to prepare fleets)
• Longer range ballistics on the medium reaver ships
• New "Dragonbreath" weapon to deal with
• Larger ships in lower targets
• Ten set cap on bonuses

This happens a lot in raids, and players certainly are freaking out on Kixeye Forums, and on Battle Vortex, and also in sector comms.  Other players are giving the usual... "easy raid" comments.

I've been thinking about it a little more, and I think that with some practice, this raid is really an 'average' difficulty raid.  My opinion is that we were kinda of spoiled by the last two raids, where a decently built Engine Disruptor could result in just about a "free raid" for many players with matched ballistic or rocket ships.

I've said it in other places, Kixeye is a business, and they have to make money.  Raids seem to be their best option for that, and putting on free raids isn't a good business strategy for them.  They had to increase the difficulty, the problem is that they did it in many different ways simultaneously.

I don't have any secrets to making this an easy raid, but I'll share a few things I've been seeing & doing.

• Engine Disruptors still help, the scouts hurt a lot if they get right on you.  They also help slow them down to make your rockets more effective (if that's what you are using).
• I added a Microwave Dampener along with the engine disruptor to help with the longer range ballistics.
• Subs can be used occasionally... the last ship in a 44 is a good target for battery specs.  I use ECM & Cat specs to finish off the 41 & 43.

And some general raid advice:

• It's a 4 day raid - use it.  That's 96 hours, or almost like having 192 coins to repair.  Take advantage of as much of the time as you can.  Use the your playing breaks to repair as much as you can.  If you have multiple fleets or ships you could rotate in & out while you are playing, make sure you are repairing something as much of the time as possible.
• Find your sweet spot.  Don't just throw every fleet you have at something.  Experiment to find what works best for you and keep doing it.  Especially when your bonus is expended, try to find out what targets give you the best repair / point ratio.
• Watch other people who seem to be doing well.  Ask them what they are using.  Copy them if you can.

And my last recommendation... if you can't reach 10 million for the Nuclear Cruiser hull, at least go for the 4 million you'll need for the Impulse Launcher.  Raid weapons tend to take a long time before they are re-released.  Even without the reload bonus, I think Triton and Sea Scorpion (for example) would be nice hulls for carrying those Impulse Launchers.

Good luck!