Who wants more single point static defenses?

I woudl DEFINATLY like the "flak cannon" to avoid getting swamped by enemy fighters.

Thats assuming the enemy fighters are in range of the static defense

Which would be why you bunch your structures together

Yes. Another one that is long range, slow firing but packs a real punch. Stops the seige frigate rush abit.

Particularly if the flak cannon has more range than the guass cannon, it's fairly easy to cover your base. Would also be interesting if it had a splash attack (like the Kol flak).

I actually want to see something thats able to counter planetary sieges.

Like planetary defences that are able to hit any ship that comes within sieging distance of the planet from any side.

I would make it weak tho and upgradable in research or upgrading the planet at a costly price. Balacne is key.

What if the missile platform by default has a so-so missile, but have the option to pay extra for a super missile able to deal a lot of damage. For each super missile you would pay and have to wait for it to be built.

I think the game also needs a 1 logistics point structure. It is annoying for planets to have an odd number cap for logistics when there is nothing that costs 1.

How about guns that can fire from the surface of the planet? Just make that something you can buy and upgrade in the planetary improvement menu.

i think that the planets should be able to get beam and missile upgrades that will shoot up at sieging ships...

we should have a defense 'station' which provides long range missiles and has its own flak and gauss cannons. An upgrade should be available to the gauss cannon to add a flak weapon to it.

The limiting factor to the station should be that its 5 or 6 tactical points and a absolute limit of one per system. And of course: COST

I don't think the developer is interested in balance testing yet. I'm sure there will be more of these kinds of things later on. Planetary defenses are one of my favorites, since it just makes sense.

Eh, not final balancing but definitely gross balancing -- read the FAQ about it: "Beta 2 is the single-player gameplay test for Sins. Most of the gameplay for Sins will be present for testing and balancing during this phase of the beta test."

YES! I think Planetary defenses need reworking. The current Guass platforms are all but useless.

A couple suggestions to prevent overpowering defenses:

1. Planet based defenses?
2. Upgradable Gun Platforms (more powerfun guns, missles, flak, etc.)
3. Fixed emplacements - i.e. orbital gun platforms which cover a specific targeting arc OR only allow platforms to be placed at jump entry points?

I don't think so. They're great if you put them up close to the enemies target... thats why I generally put 2 repairs, phase inhibitors, and then a mix of hangers and cannons all in a little bunch between the planet and the most likely jump gate. The hangars can take the attack to the enemy, and if the enemy uses anything but LRM frigates to engage teh gauss cannons can murder 'em! (especially with 2 repair platforms keeping them alive )

I wish there was a way for planets to be upgraded to fire counter missiles at the siege missiles coming in. Not enough to be invulnerable, but enough to stop a measly siege frigate attack.

Ya some sort of missle defense might be a neat idea. I suggested that in my Ion Cannon post (some ppl thought an ion/emp/ecm cannon might be too powerful) so perhaps a missle defense cannon would be useful?

Consider balance from a multi-player perspective rather than the current AI. You have to think about ways that players can (and will) abuse any type of structure or ship. It's tough. One advantage to specialized defenses (like anti-bomber flaks) is that if you overspecialize, players will adapt in a rock-paper-scissors fashion. The idea is to make none of the defenses the "best", but simply good for a specific situation.

While the defensive structures are fine for now, once real people get a crack at them they are not going to be up to snuff. The Gauss Cannons have a very limited range, this means that they can be avoided, or pounded to death by LRM Frigates, and Dreadnoughts, they are also defenseless against fighters. This isn't an issue yet because the computer doesn't bother doing these things, they mindlessly rush your chokepoint defenses and are blown apart. A human being won't do that. If you have managed to build a gauss cannon in an position where it can't be avoided, it will be killed from afar.

Hangars don't have this problem, however they use a very large number of tactical points, so any one planet will probably only have 8-12 squadrons, most attack forces will have about that many squadrons as well, along with a whole lot of other stuff. While high action planets will probably always need a sizable defensive fleet, the addition of flak and missile emplacements would go a long way towards making defensive structures more useful.

Adding a research tree for static defenses (several levels) would also let someone keep up with tech advanaces for other ships. Static defense should be able to occupy a primary fleet long enough to get some of your own ships to that location, and discourage mass-bomber tactics etc.

For planetary guns, to fire on siegers, did anyone else here play Legions of Iron? Terrible game, but the orbital weapon platforms that buzzed around the outer atmosphere to shoot at the sieging ships seems to be what some of you are wanting.

Hi,

I support the gist of this thread. The AI is not a challenging adversary, especially when it comes to defense, so any arguments that your defenses are currently effective are dubious.

Just think about how long it takes you to conquer an AI home planet with 16 or so gauss platforms clumped together. Do they even come close to destroying your battleships? They don't for me.

Many people have argued that it should be required to throw ships at a planet to defend it. This is a valid point. Assuming your defensive stations aren't totally useless, it is logical that you can defend a planet with a fleet somewhat weaker than the attacking fleet.

I would warn you guys up front that this developer has historically been resistant to wondrous ideas of new things. Chances are: it isn't going to happen. Not that I don't think it would be truly awesome if we had planets shooting antimatter missiles up from the surface, but the developer probably won't do it.

In order to maximize the chance of offering a suggestion that might matter, try to stick to concepts that are already present in the game.

I like BinaryAlgorithm's suggestion to add specialized defense platforms, like LRM platforms and flak platforms. This seems like a glaring omission to the game balance. Someone can send one Arcova to your system, find out where your defenses are, and send Perchiriens in at your weakest jump point. Then the Perchiriens just sit there and bomb your defenses unretaliated. They could also bring several fighters to kill your bombers, if you have hangar defenses. This is a balance issue.

LRM platforms would help defend against a load of Krosov Siege Frigates (maybe with a Kodiak or two thrown in for extra fodder). It's pretty easy to position, say, 20 Krosovs in a way that they aren't getting destroyed very fast, and by the time your fleets respond, you've lost the planet. Even if they aren't able to colonize it (they COULD with a well-positioned Protev, though), they'd wipe out your planetary improvements. This is an annoying hit and run tactic which exploits the weaknesses of the defense system.

Unless we have more effective static defenses, we'll need to resort to defending planets with ships. Due to the agility of having many, fast, agile frigates running around defending, this will mean the decline of the battleship in the game for anyone who wants to hang on to their planets. If you build battleships, there just aren't enough of them, and they aren't fast enough, to respond to attacks. It would be unfortunate to see the highly-competitive, top-of-the-ladder multiplayer battles being a delicate frigate-defense war (mostly Kodiaks and Perchiriens), with battleships hardly ever used.

People are totally forgeting that you have hangars. Hangars = fighters. Means you dont need flak cannons or any other fancy weapons. Fighters and Bombers can go anywhere in the system meaning its an effective defence against sieges or quick moving frigates that try to bypass the guass cannons.


My only concern atm is that as an attacking player , you are better off NOT engaging guass cannons as you hyper in and instead move your fleet past it to the other side of the grav well , and then pick off one guass at a time at max range. Since guass dont have mitigation , its beneficial to use the whole "gang up on one at a time micro".

Unfortunately , the AI automation of frigs will automatically just attack the guass head on , where many guass are within range. This results in the whole "need to micro every battle" conundrum which is what the devs are trying to avoid or atleast minimise.

A research option to add shields to gauss cannons would be nice.

Problem is having enough fighters to match the enemy's swarm. Its a balancing act, and a hard one. Without enough bombers, you don't have anything to engage the enemy with. Without enough fighters, even a few enemy fighters can ravage your force.

which is why an upgrade to give the gauss a additional flak turret would be great... it would simply become more effective/faster to destroy them head on with superior capital ships and such. This would at least damage my fleets and force me to consolidate or rotate 2 fleets in and out of action.

That's why I was thinking the flak defense should have an area of effect (normally flak bursts do sort of explode everywhere hoping to hit the fast ships). Strategic placement of these would mean that the attacker needs to be more cautious and it's harder to "swarm" someone. The missile platforms are simply there to make sure the attacker "can't hide" in a corner while his bombers pick off your defenses; perhaps rangeless homing missiles are more appropriate for this purpose.

My favorite method to defeat gauss "clumps" is 5+ trained sova carriers (lvl 5+). What you want to do is set the weapons mode to "weapons range" before you jump in. This will keep them in one place. They will set missile batteries which normally can hit the guass cannons (a trained Akkan with +20% range bonus helps; turn off autocast of abilities). Meanwhile, the fighters/bombers are busy doing their job with +30% armor/attack bonus from the sova abilities. If the group is at lvl 6, then you can quickly replace your ships during a losing battle and gain an edge. I find that 10 fighters and the rest bombers normally does the job quickly and easily. When the cannons are destroyed at a safe distance (or if they aren't at your jump point in significant quantity), simply move to bomb the planet directly. Rinse. Repeat.

One of the problems that's going to occur in multiplayer is the limited mobility of ships to get to an attack point, particularly cap ships. The problem is so bad as to warrant building factories near battlezones because it's faster than moving them on large maps sometimes when an attack occurs (!). Cap ships need speed upgrades.

Speaking of defenses, the AI getting wiped out by pirates (insurgency) is... sad. I also teamed up 9 of them against me and they never really threatened my main fleets, though through attrition they should have been able to beat me easily.