Invasion

Official Invasion Discord: https://discord.gg/EA5hRSv

Invasion is one of the 4 existing game modes currently available in Starblast. Unlike other game modes, Invasion involves a team of up to 6 players fighting hordes of NPC Aliens. It's recommended to have 3-4 players as this balances the difficulty of the early waves and the later waves, although it has been beaten before with 2, 5 and 6 players.

Other differences include:

You can only join in the first two minutes before the first wave starts. During this period, no aliens spawn but players can break asteroids for points, rockets, and missiles.
Asteroids move when hit, and larger asteroids split into smaller-sized asteroids that move in different directions.
You can not buy Secondaries. However, you can obtain them by destroying Asteroids and killing aliens in specific waves.
The mines have no arming delay (you can fly up to a boss before you die and shove a mine in front of it and it will explode on contact)
The players in the team are not assigned the same color and instead retain their chosen ship color.

Structure

Aliens attack in waves of increasing difficulty. A few things to note:

Like normal, you start as a fly and upgrade from there.
Gems are finite - as the only source of gems is from aliens and asteroids, the number you can get is limited. Spend them wisely and try to not let gems spoil!
All the bosses and enemies have shield regeneration. Some aliens have high regeneration rates, and others barely regenerate any.
All ships have 3 extra lives, losing them all will give you the "Game Over" screen and remove you from the current game.
The aliens and the asteroids have a marker on the minimap/radar. The alien marker resembles the chicken. The asteroid is not very unique other than showing size and where it is moving.

Waves

Starting Period: The Starting Period is the only time players can join the invasion game. It lasts for 2 minutes. During this time the game will spawn asteroids around the sun. Asteroids will keep spawning during this period if the number of asteroids falls below 10 at any time. These asteroids have a chance to drop rockets and missiles but do not drop crystals. This period is also the only time in the invasion when the players get points for destroying asteroids. It's recommended to get the missiles.

Wave 1: When the first wave starts, the server locks to prevent any further joining. At 0:05 the game will start spawning 22 Green Chickens and 40 asteroids over the next ~40 seconds. The Green Chickens will drop 5 gems each while the asteroids drop a total of 200 gems. At 1:00 the game spawns 30 Green Chickens over the next minute. These also drop 5 gems each. When the timer hits 2:00 the game will spawn 5 Yellow Chickens over 20 seconds. The Yellow Chickens themselves drop 10 gems when killed and spawn 2 Green Chickens each. The spawned Green Chickens, however, do not drop any gems. A total of 510 gems are dropped this wave from all sources combined. However, no secondaries are dropped.

Wave 2: On the map, there are asteroids that randomly appear on the map with crystals, missiles, rockets, space mines, and heavy mines. Also, the enemies that appear are Chickens (Green level), Chickens (Yellow level), Crabs (Green level) and the boss Chicken (Purple level)(Splits into 6 Chickens (Yellow level) which then each split into 2 Chickens(Green level)) From all sources together you get 665 gems.

Wave 3: On the map, there randomly appear asteroids with crystals, missiles, rockets, and light mines. On the map, the enemies are Chickens (Yellow level)(Split into 2 Chickens (Green level)), Crab (Green level), Crab (Yellow level)(Splits into 2 Crabs (Green level)) and the boss Fortress (Yellow level)(Spawns 5 Crabs(Green level) every 25 seconds). A good strategy is to have one player make a small area out of mines before wave 4. From all sources you can get 1110 gems.

Wave 4: On the map, asteroids fly south at a high speed, but they do have a higher crystal drop rate than asteroids on previous waves. The enemies on this wave are Piranhas (Green level). No secondaries drop on this wave. From all sources you can get 1300 gems.

Wave 5: In the center of the map, there are asteroids that appear which drop crystals and attack pods and defense pods. The enemies in this wave are Candlesticks (Green level), Crabs (Red level)(Splits into 2 Crabs (Yellow level), Chickens (Red level)(Splits into 4 Chickens (Green level)), Piranhas (Yellow level)(Splits into 4 Piranha (Green Level)) and 2 boss Hirsutes (Yellow level), which each drop a Torpedo. From all sources you can get 1900 gems.

Wave 6: Asteroids in the middle that drop crystals and a variety of secondary weapons(Rockets, missiles, light mines and heavy mines). The enemies in this wave are Pointus (Green level), Pointus (Yellow level)(Drop rockets, missiles, light mines and heavy mines)(Splits into 2 Pointus(Green level)), Candlesticks (Yellow level), and the boss, which is a Saucer (Red level)(Spawns 4 Pointus every 30 seconds(Yellow level)). From all sources you can get 2140 gems.

Wave 7: Asteroids spawn at the center of the map that, but the asteroid density is much higher than in previous waves. They drop crystals, rockets, missiles, torpedos, light mines, and heavy mines. The enemies on this wave are Piranhas (Red level) (spawns 3 Piranhas upon death) (Yellow level) , Saucers (Yellow level)(Spawns 4 Pointus every 40 seconds(Green level)) and the boss, which is a Fortress (Red level)(Spawns 4 Crabs every 30 seconds(Red level)). From all sources you can get 2100 gems.

Wave 8: The asteroids spawn at the center of the map, and the asteroid density is much higher than wave 7. The asteroids drop crystals but no secondaries. The enemies on this wave are Piranhas (purple level) and Pointus (purple level). Two Piranha bosses will appear at the 1-minute mark, and 30 pointus spawn at the 2-minute mark. From all sources you can get 3080 gems.

Wave 9: The asteroids spawn at the center, but the asteroid density is much lower than the asteroid density of waves 7 or 8. These asteroids drop attack and defense pods. The enemies on this wave are Candlesticks (red level)(spawns 3 Candlesticks upon death) (green level), Forks (yellow level) (spawns 2 forks upon death) (green level), Piranhas (Red level) (spawns 3 Piranhas upon death) (yellow level), Pointus (yellow level) (spawns 2 Pointus upon death) (green level), Hirsutes (yellow level), and a Hirsute (red level). These enemies drop all types of secondary weapons (except for mining pods). From all sources you can get 3680 gems.

Wave 10: The asteroids spawn at the center of the map and the asteroid density is fairly low, they move down the map at somewhat high speeds (slower than wave 4), they drop all different secondaries including mining pods for some reason. The enemies on this wave are Crabs (red level), (spawns four Crabs upon death) (yellow level), Piranhas (red level) (spawns 2 Piranhas upon death) (yellow level), Hirsutes (yellow level), and the Final Boss(Spawns 2 Saucers every 90 seconds(Red level) which can then each spawn 4 Pointus every 30 seconds(Yellow level)). From all sources you can get 5150 gems.

Tips

Upgrading is tricky business - The slow, low amounts of crystals you get make decisions hard. Do you upgrade your stats to survive, or just upgrade to the next tier so you can upgrade that? Think and choose wisely. A tactic that has worked is staying as a group and upgrading to Aries via O-Defender, not upgrading at all until reaching Aries. This is the most reliable way of winning Invasion.

When attacking bosses stay fairly far away with RCS turned off, so you can dodge shots or ramming more easily. Be careful, and dodge as much as you can. Try to attack these as a group, and beware the enemies that are spawned upon their death. Also, do not attack bosses unless everyone agrees to attack, as this will greatly reduce the chances of anyone dying to the boss.

You want to get behind most of the normal enemies. Do this so they have to turn to either ram or shoot you. Some of them do not need to turn to shoot you, so be careful and watch how they are shooting. This is especially important with Hirsutes which do insane damage only if they are facing you. Upgrading speed and agility can help quite a lot at dodging and getting behind aliens but is usually not recommended.

Right after defeating the wave 2 boss, it may be a good idea to use a few rockets to quickly destroy the additional aliens that appear, as they are all clumped in one spot and can be deadly if not killed quickly.

At the start of wave 3, go to the star and camp there. Then start attacking the aliens when they start coming to you.

During wave 4, when there is an asteroid shower, move with the direction of the asteroids. They move downward, so you should move downward unless if you are collecting gems with a heavy ship. You generally do not want to be going upward and get smashed by one of the fast-moving ones. Try to follow the slower ones and kill them. To easily kill the Piranhas, dodge one of their charges by moving in a tight circle, then quickly shoot them. Move erratically, and don't misjudge their range. Since you are likely to have mines from the earlier waves, you can make a small area out of them which will insta kill them (just make sure you don't get blown out of it which will defeat the purpose of it), although this is not recommended as it's better to save them for later waves.

At the end of wave 7, destroy all asteroids before attacking the red fortress boss. This makes the start of wave 8 much easier with all the asteroids being at the center of the map since the wave 8 bosses spawn at the start and try to ram you. By not getting rammed into asteroids you take far less damage from them. Simply watch the radar and don't go near the boss.

Do not mine in wave 8 before the bosses spawn. This will disperse the asteroids and make fighting the two purple Piranhas much harder. After they spawn, it may be a good idea to drop some mines at one spot and camp there while you have two teammates(one for each boss) circle the bosses.

After defeating the wave 9 bosses, drop all mines in an area to encompass all team members. They provide protection against wave 10 as many aliens will be killed by the mines.

Shield regeneration is also a very important stat because you need to be able to recover health in between waves, and/or groups of enemies attacking you and getting shot or rammed by large ships.

Stay with your teammates. This is possibly the most important thing to do in Invasion, you and your teammates will quickly die without having each other for protection. However if one died and you're in a minefield that they created you can fight off the swarms until they make it back. It is a good idea to regroup when there are few asteroids left.

Before the ship tree change the A-speedster was highly effective when alone (now hard to get because Shadow X-2 is useless in this mode and the Aetos is not the greatest), there is no known proof of a winner like this. The Aries works well when alone as well. The current furthest wave anyone gotten to solo was wave 10.

You can use one of the faster ships from the earlier waves (when you're on them) and you have mines, you can go right to a boss and drop mines right at them and it will damage them :)

You can see the full tutorial here.

Aliens

Normal aliens

Green Chicken - Small ship with low HP, low damage, and a slow firing rate. Appears in waves 1, 2, 3, and 5.

Yellow Chicken - Decent HP and damage, and a decent firing rate. Appears in waves 1, 2, and 3.

Red Chicken - A slow ship with a large supply of HP, high damage, and fast fire rate. Appears in wave 5 only.

Purple Chicken - A large and slow ship with a huge stock of HP, damage and not a bad rate of fire. It is only seen in wave 2 and is the boss.

Green Crab - A fast ship with poor agility and low HP, low damage per shot, but a fast rate of fire. Appears in waves 2 and 3.

Yellow Crab - Fast ship with low agility, good HP, high damage, and a high rate of fire. Appears in waves 3, 5, and 10.

Red Crab - A fast ship with high health, massive damage, and a high rate of fire. Spawns normally in waves 5 and 10 and is also spawned by the boss in wave 7.

Green Piranha - An average speed ship with a ramming ability (like the Barracuda), but low HP. Appears in waves 4 and 5.

Yellow Piranha - A ship with average speed, a good amount of HP, and it rams the player. Appears in waves 5, 7, 9, and 10.

Red Piranha - A ship of high speed and high health that rams the player. Appears in waves 7, 9, and 10.

Purple Piranha - A ship with massive health, and like the other ships of its kind, it rams the player. A pair of them is the boss of wave 8, which is the only wave they are found in.

Green Candlestick - An extremely fast ship with high damage, low agility, and very low HP. Appears in waves 5 and 9.

Yellow Candlestick - An extremely fast ship with a fast fire rate, high damage, but low health. Appears in wave 6 only.

Red Candlestick - A fast, tiny, and mobile ship with very high damage and low HP. Appears in wave 9 only.

Green Pointu - A fast and mobile ship with good HP and poor damage, but a fast fire rate. Appears in waves 6 and 9. Can be spawned by the 2 mini bosses on wave 7.

Yellow Pointu - A fast and mobile ship with decent health and good damage. Spawns naturally in waves 6 and 9 and are spawned by Red Saucer spawns in wave 10.

Purple Pointu - A very fast ship having high health and a lot of damage. Appears in wave 8 only.

Yellow Hirsute -A big ship with lots of damage, HP and poor speed. They appear in waves 5, 9, and 10. Waves 5 and 9 each have a pair of them as bosses (Plus an additional Red Hirsute in wave 9) while wave 10 has 5 of them.

Red Hirsute - A slow ship with great damage, a high rate of fire and with a very large amount of HP. It appears in wave 9 only and is the strongest of the three bosses in the wave.

Yellow Saucer - A large-sized ship with high health, low speed, and a high damage pulse. They are found in wave 7 only in a pair as minibosses.

Red Saucer - A big ship with a huge amount of HP and damage, but it is slow. It also has a slow firing speed. It spawns in wave 6 normally and is the boss but these can also be spawned by the Purple Final boss in wave 10.

Yellow Fortress - A big ship with lots of HP. Its pulses are fairly high damage and it has a high rate of fire. Appears in wave 3 only and is the boss of the wave.

Red Fortress - A giant ship with a huge amount of HP, massive damage, and a fast rate of fire. Appears in wave 7 only and is the big boss of the wave.

Green Fork - A small, fast and mobile vehicle with high HP and damage. Appears in wave 9 only.

Yellow Fork - A small, fast and mobile ship that deals with an insane amount of damage. Appears in wave 9 only.

Purple Finalboss - The Final Boss of this game mode. It is a giant ship with insane damage but a low range and laser speed. It appears in wave 10 only near the end.

Secret aliens

in modding editor, you can spawn several different aliens that you cannot see in Vanilla Invasion. such as:

Red/purple Fork - A small ship with medium hp, an extreme amount of damage and a fast rate of fire. Was one of the alien that would attack bases in Vanilla team mode and ACW.

Purple Saucer - A giant ship with an insane amount of HP, an extreme amount of damage, and a moderate rate of fire.

Red Finalboss - A huge ship with an insane amount of health and damage. is a small red version of a normal final boss.

"Some weird new thingy" - A tiny agile ship with little amount of damage and a small amount of health.

Yes, this alien is literally called "Some weird new thingy".

This alien doesn't appear in any wave of invasion in any form, this is a secret alien you can see only in a modded game.