The obvious thing to do is give the planet itself defences such as nukes and what not to launch at bombarding ships.

The Vasira jump-gates allow you to get unit over faster, or am I wrong? If this is such a problem switch faction for a bit and see if it helps.

tbh a lot of what has been said has been very valid criticism.

The turrets are extremely exepnsive compared to the production of a MOBILE fleet that can destroy them.

On larger maps there is virtually no point in building defense - by the time you get there the enemy has either wiped out half the planet or moved on. And yes scouting is good - but what is 2 phase jumps when you have 20 planets and your 5/6 away!

currently the way the fleet cap scales and defenses are structured - it is actually a negative to expand... it will punish you for capturing more planets - 2000 supply ? in a multiplayer game if you split your forces up to defend your fleets can end up to small to cover the areas you own. THe idea that the guy with 10 planets has the same economic capabilties to field the same ships as me with 20 is ludicrous! and with buildings having no real affect at this level - fleets are my only defense.

now you will say that i will get to those techs faster - but because of the income decrease due to a larger fleet supply this isnt really the case - you lose so much resource that anything extra you gain will be minimal. the problem is that the size of the fleet you need to defend your empire as it grows is not proportional to the fleet cap increase.

im actually in a ffa game atm - i have taken over an entire star. however i cant succssesfully move from this star because there are several other powerful empires that
a) can defend any half fleet i send because they have big fleets too
if i send my whole fleet i get invaded by at least 2 others.
c) no matter how many defenses ihave there it wont cause them to be slowed enough to get anyone back to help

so basically im at a stalemate and am being disadvantaged because i have the biggest empire and the most space to cover. If i could succsesfully defend a planet (with a much smaller fleet) - even if its expensive then i could continue to expand and the fleet cap isnt an issue. with the way defenses are at the momment i cant really do this - i get no real advantage in a 1500 supply fleet battle - defense doesnt mean jack.

Yes, there should be people on planet fight back to ship who bombarding at them, I dont know, maybe not powerful, but it's should do fight back, not sitting duck and shoot me because I wont shoot you back.

defence is nerfed a little. I can have a fleet and many guass platforms (say 10) and a repair platform. But siege frigates en masse can destroy a maxxed out population quicker then I can destroy them. Siege frigates have to cost more to build, be weaker, and hit softer and take up a bigger logistics spot. They should be completely toast against any other space craft because, as i understand it, their weapons are for planets. I alt+missle platforms to focus on one siege frigate at a time while I summon a bigger force, and this is still too slow. You have to be able to field more ships without having to own so many planets. Maybe it should be researchable as in the betas (planetary upgrade). Otherwise ever game is really the same: grab as many planets as you can and start hitting the other guy. The AI must be really bad at playing itself since from med to big galaxies it expands far faster than we can . . . which means the other AI's must be idiots. You keep trying to defend yourself against the above mentioned AND pirates (who at the very begginig have hulls in excess of 1100 HP's, and you don't get to enjoy the other parts of the game like empire building and trade and diplomacy with other nations. I have tried 3 games so far after having started since beta 2 or 3, and so far I am a bigger fan of beta 4!!!

Ok guys, head check time.

Are you building good fleets? I got floored in a random huge with max hard ai after stalling out against a 200 light frigate army and losing an ally that I had lousy defensive options against, but there's something wrong if you're losing to ai on normal.

I routinely break fleets twice my size or better with minimal casualties, on defense it's not even effort. Try using TEC with two dunovs and a kol in both of your main fleets. Support them with 50ish frigates and cruisers, with the all important command and repair cruisers in to keep things around longer. Vasari are harder to keep together, but as advent, a guardian heavy fleet will last a very long time against superior forces. No all cobalt fleets. They don't work, which is why the ai isn't supposed to be killing anyone at normal...

You guys aren't losing your capital ships are you? Assassinate the high level opposition, keep yours alive. A level 10 capital ship is still the same fleet point usage, it's easily worth five level 1's. Buy the levels you can buy too, level 1 dunovs are worthless, level 3 dunovs in pairs give you near invincibility against the current ai fleets, two level 6 dunovs can last indefinitely against ten times their fleet point usage.

Another possibility is that you're forgetting to research. It's important. Even just 10% shields is 10% max to get through, 10% more regeneration, 10% more to fill up with a shield restore. With mitigation, it can be the difference between an easily killed ship and one with most of it's hull points left at the end of a fight.

^^^ I have trouble fielding fleets of 8 ships with 3 planets and 3 asteroids. Something is wrong there. and yes, I play on normal and am getting owned.

defense is *not* useless, you have to use it properly.

having looked at this from many sides, i feel i can safely say that the best idea so far is the PJI at both start and end of a lane = closed lane. it means that the issue of enemys jumping past outer planets to raid the interior is taken care of. since this is a very high end tech, and costs a fair amount, it dosent prevent raids throught most of the game, but rather provides a reason for defence in depth.

With this one limitation, the annoying commando seige friget moves go away, replaced with the more resonable raids on the perifery of an empire.

oh, and about the recall structure, the Visari have that already, its called the phase stabelizer. and a huge perk for them I might add.

Other think when people said more planet should mean more ship, while this is true when try to get them join soldier or army, but not a fleet, min 2 to 3 crew can pilot large ship with computer and robet aid! Beside more planet, more harder to control, taken planet over only throw back after you took over 15 or so, not every people or alien on thier world like this "united" of your empire, no matter what, unless you or your empire more kind or nice/help, not seftfish to them without ask them join your empire, but downside you make your loyal people in core planet angry at you for make them working harder to give or help world outside of empire or thier homeworld rather, if you get my draft.

I feel there's something wrong with defense and jump inhibitor too. An ennemy fleet shouldn't cross a choke point with lots of turrets and a correct defensive fleet and quietly walk in my deeper territories. What am I supposed to defend the most ? We should have the tools to defend strategic point and the attacker should take a risk to invade an ennemy territory. At least we need ways to trap him.

Also, why not add a powerfull but costly jump interdictor building that would close a phase line (it should be available when there's more that 1 phase line of course).

It work on small maps ONLY. Beyond small maps it's impossible to with this size of fleet you don't have enought fleets to cover even 3 star systems...

Having just given up on a game because of this very issue I'll chime in.

In a 6 player FFA I was dominating every aspect of the game. Then about 4 hours in the tide changed. I was constantly being attacked on all fronts by large fleets of 4-5 cap ships and 25 or so siege craft. Using my full fleet cap I was able to fend them off using choke points but it was impossible to go on the offensive at all.

If I left the defenses to defend, my planets would be bombed to rubble before any amount of defenses could kill the attackers. If I move in a fleet to defend, the second I have the advantage the enemy bugs out. If I chase them they just hop away so I can never do any real damage. If I then try to go on the offensive the AI attacks me from all sides. Again if I fall back they immediately do too. I had to spend 30 minutes hopping back and forth between two planets to kill 2 cap ships with my fleet of 5 because they had the TEC shield regen ship and only gave me a 10 second window to do damage each jump. That is extremely frustrating...

The defenses are unable to adequately defend your planets. There is no realistic way to force an attacker to hold in place so you can defeat them, the PJI are not nearly sufficient for that. Last you can't even chase someone back to their home planets as they will just keep retreating between two planets for hours. If you follow them deep enough you simply leave yourself open to attack from the other players instead.

I don't really like the idea to completly keep fleets from bypassing a planet, there should be a possibility to make deep strikes and suprise your enemy. Would rather see there was some risk involved in it, like reducing fleet effectivness the further into enemy territory you go. A deep strike could then pay off but could still be a big gamble if you get caught by some defences, which would be able to take care of the fleet because of the reduced efficiency.

Anyway for those who are having problems with the AI, just keep your defence fleets 1 jump away from your border worlds, since the AI always attacks with what it needs to take a planet, the attack force will be smaller then if you had your fleet there. The defences will then keep the enemy occupied until you can get there, you'll usually be able to do quite a lot of damage before he can manage to flee. Since they'll always flee when you jump in, your fleet won't get pinned down in case you get attacked on another front either. Just finished a 4 FFA with hard computers on a medium map using defence in this way. Hope that helps

Oh. I like #33's suggestion a percentage failure would be a great compromise... And the more you have in system, the higher the percentage is, with a limit.

I too think turrets are a little under strength.

No it's not.

Sometime I think choke point are silly, I mean Planet is 360" and everywhere, unless you cover your fleet 360 each planet, I guess it's choke point, I dont know why enemies have to jump in one path way, why not many path like it's could be on west side of planet or east side of planet, unless sun or star are in way of jump, in space there more room to get out or get in unlike on old way of battle fight on land here limited in earth. Limted one jump inhibitor? Space is very huge and easy to go anywhere up, down, under, right, left...in Middle age, it's easy to keep people safe inside the castiles' wall but hard to be attacker (unitll gun age, I guess) while in space it's hard to keep earth and moon safe while easy to destory.

How about a "frontlines" option to border planets? You would have a limited number of frontline slots indicated in the empire screen. Activating that option on a strategic planet of your choosing would buff defences with slightly more shield, hull and weapons range but it would cost you extra resources every second and it would take time to activate fully. That planet would have a visible "frontline" icon so that it'd be easier to manage.

The number of slots available could depend on the number of planets you own.

The minute your empire expands further and that planet is in the inner circle, the option would self-deactivate and no longer available to that planet. You would see a free slot available in the empire screen to use in another border planet (since this is real-time and you don't have time to lose).

It could be something to be researched via tech tree, adding more depth into the game and make up for a more reasonable defense where it's needed.

Lets just break the whole game while we're at it with dumb fan-submitted suggestions. Megaships, Dreadnoughts, even just a nice little I WIN button you can punch when you're tired of playing.

I should really get into multiplayer and wipe the floor with all you little whiners because the AI just isn't challenging me and since you all seem to have trouble even playing a 1v1 game I assume I'd just give you a humiliating loss that would compel you to uninstall the game in shame.


Forums: Defense is useless.

(Patch 1.04)

Forums: Offense is useless!

First of all, to those saying make PJI's stop phasing all together, what do you do about the novalith cannons that can bombard from afar? Personally I think those things were a REALLY bad idea. Remove the Novaliths, and PJI's can go back to blocking phase jumps. But as long as those Novaliths are around, creating phase stopping PJI's would result in games being simply a matter of who can tech faster and get the Novaliths up. Whoever gets them first, wins. Which would suck.

Make the novalith have to orbit a planet to kill it?

Eh, I don't know... superweapons are always touch and go.


Patch 1.1

Forums: Finally a freakin' balance.

Hi i was going to make my own post about the turrets too,but i found this.

I have to agree the TEC turrets do seem kinda useless,ive had a fleet of pirates come in and ignore the 6 turrets around my Trade Station and some would break off go for my planet and the rest after my Trade Station,its like they dont consider them a threat .

My crappy little frig's do more dmg than the useless turrets. I mean turrets are suppose to defend not act like pea shooters lol.

yes i did highlight the pirate ships and it seems the turrets dont even do anything to them.

Overall the turrets seem to be a waste of resorces .

BTW i dont expect the turrets to do 1 shot kills but at least make them more of a threat.


I like the game alot but the turrets need a dmg upgrade.

If you look at older logs this point was argued to DEATH!  :NOTSURE:  PJIs were always never quite right.

First they blocked all traffic, outgoing and ingoing.
a. not realistic in Multiplayer
b. Stalled the game if someone took a choke point
c. Uber Fleet of death only way to combat it

Second they locked traffic to systems you had control too
a. noncolonizable planetoids were open (an enemy could jump from your world to a magnetic cloud to your world)
b. With cannons there would be complaining that you couldn't reach it in time

Thirdly they now delay jumps
a. by too little
b. Not effective for defense due to fluxuating entry points (negates all defense)
c. If it is a delay it should slow enemy movement TO the planet and speed your movement from it.

As for Defense platforms, orginally thier range was up to the phase lane exit. If you clustered your defenses ANY fleet could be destroyed. All it took was a focused field of fire.
After the range got moved back it still didn't take that much to destroy a fleet. Now without any flak defense the cannons just get torn up by strike craft. But if a ship gets in the way a field of fire can kill it.

Hangers and shields are the way to go.  

The whole idea of immobile space defense turrets seems kinda silly to me. Thinking realisticly and practically, id doubt any race would defend a planet that is 360 degrees of open come and get me with a bunch of immobile turrets.

Defense is useless? i don't think we're playing the same game then... If anything, sins is a turtle's delight.

As for people avoiding systems, well, i don't seem to have that problem against multiple AIs, i just build 1 phase inhibitor as far from phase lanes closest to enemy territory, surround them with a bunch of gauss cannos (or whatever) 3/4 hangar bays with fighters only and 1 repair bay.

Unless you're dealing with bomber spam, this layout should hold out long enough for you to get your fleet into the systems and fight a damaged fleet. If you play with TEC, slap a shield generator and there's no much tehy can do against your planet