Defense 101

You defend with the turrets and fighter bases and a repair structure or two clustered close together. Then you add in a couple of ships clustered in with them. Hopefully put in ships that give bonuses to the whole bunch. You can't defend without ships against a large fleet.

also, make sure your research for turrent defense fire power is at the highest level. Takes out the smaller ship much faster if you tag team them with more than 2 turrents. Seige frigates will become a piece of cake. And whatever you do, take out the seige frigates first. The AI will have less incentives to pummel your planet/defense further after the seige crafts are gone.

You can't just defend against a fleet with defense structures. The game isn't really made to let a planet have as much capability to take out an opposing fleet as you would be able to warp in. Defense structures are support.

Perhaps you should keep your main fleet in a defensive location, and create a smaller expeditionary force when you have to travel a long ways from your planets.

As advent, I love to use the Hanger Defense and research the tech that gives you TWICE the number of ships in a hanger defense. I will often build 2 or 3 of these on each strategic planet.

I had the same difficulty at first Zer. Except for the superweapons, this is not really a game for turtles. I put 5 hangers on planets that are at the front or choke points, and scatter a few turrets around them in case an opponent thinks of attacking them. A repair bay extends the life of all buidings/ships greatly. But you should consider making a smaller fleet of ships to keep as a defensive fleet. Keep them in an area on or near areas your enemy might attack. Most planet defences only "stave off" attacks from fleets; they fall sooner or later, but a fleet might make it there to save it before then.

TEC and Vasari hangars hold 2 squadrons and Advent holds 3(not 4). But TEC and Vasari hangars take 4 slots, Advent takes 6.



Vasari turrets shoot Phase Missiles. Increasing their firepower would also use the same technology that you need to increase the firepower of so many other ships/strikecraft. Unlike TEC Gauss guns which have separate upgrades, and have shorter base range(6700 vs. 7500 for Advent/Vasari).

In the end with all upgrades, each faction's turrets have a different advantage:
TEC - More raw DPS(thanks to faster cool-down of Quick Gauss Capacitors)
Vasari - Phase Missiles and punching through shields
Advent - Longer range from the Precision Beam Focus tech(7500 -> 8400 after 3 levels)



You don't. Especially not as Vasari, who are offensively oriented. You must use your own fleet, or a smaller secondary defense fleet(with the side effect of reducing your "main" fleet's size) combined with orbital defenses.

Vasari are especially accustomed to defending with their fleet when they have to defend, since most of their tactical structures are actually pure fleet-support structures which do nothing on their own, like the Regeneration Bay, Nano Weapon Jammer, and Phase Stabilizer. Also, Hangar Defenses are more meant for adding a couple of extra squadrons to reinforce your defensive fleet, not fight the enemy on their own. The most they ever do on their own is take down a small/medium siege frigate rush or kill a passing scout.

Even the Vasari superweapon, the Kostura Cannon, is a support artillery gun for augmenting fleet attacks on enemy territory(and works best with carrier fleets). If there has to be any turtle strategy at all, than it's the Advent or TEC who'd be using it to build their anti-planet superweapons and then unleash a barrage of shots from behind their stronghold.

You have to leave a small defensive fleet behind if you go off romping somewhere.
I usually defend with at least one Cap Ship and support vessels. Leave it
in a choke point area where it can defend. Ships have a tendancy to move out and
engage the enemy on the preferry the gravity zone. If that happends, move you fleet
back in close to your planet where they can be supported by your defensive guns.

Also, two repair stations covering your main guns, one on the right and one on the left. I've heard that this is the best when you have 2 of them to support your def guns and fleet. Good luck

If I am not mistaken the defenses are there to only slow the enemy down not to destroy an invading fleet. That is why it is always good to have another fleet near your vital planets for them to quickly jump in and take them out.

my defense so far is 1 repair station the rest hanger bays. I start out with all bomber on most planets I'll end up with 16 bombers give or take. if I see the enemy using fighters and bombers I'll change it to 2 fighter and the rest bombers. They may not be the best defense but it works for me. Also it will take out any scouts or single ships that jump in, unless after they jump they just turn their ship and jump again. But I like it, it keep my enemy from scouting the rest of my planets. Also when you get attacked be sure to rebuilt any hanger that gets destroyed. i used this defence when i played vasari but it was on easy it still worked for me.

My current game is 3v1 me against 3 normal ai. 2 advent and 1 vasari and I am tec. at one point 2 of my enemies jumped in 2 pretty big fleets my bombers quickly took care of their siege frigates and held the rest of until 2 of my fleets arrive. Right now I have 4 fleets defending and trying to take the rest of the system.

Also IMO it is very fun watching a enemy scout ship and seeing like 16 squads of bomber close in, shoot their missiles and take it out. I enjoy watching the bombers at work.

I know you're not referring to my statement when I said there is Advent technology that will double the size of your hanger defense squadron, because it seems you might be dazed and confused.

The Advent technology does not give you more squadrons. Instead, it DOUBLES the size of each squadron. Understand?

i think alot of people haven't figured out how defense works in this game. i'll give you a primer of how i do it.

the first thing you have to realize is that the fastest way to move ships around in this game is to just keep fleet logistics open and build new ships where they are needed. therefore, any planet you wish to defend must have shipyards.

the most important defensive structures, in order

1. Frigate Factory
2. Repair Platform
3. Hangar Defense

there are no other defensive structures worth investing in to any significant degree. i almost never build turrets, they are too easily circumvented and have minimal firepower. i almost never build special defensive buildings (like the vasari anti-matter draining thing), they are too narrow and cost too much. i almost never build phase jump inhibitors, i will sometimes use them to try and set a trap but they are not generically useful for defense.

To use this defense you must do the following

1. Construct a cluster of 2-3 repair platforms with overlapping fields on the side of the grav well nearest the phase lane you expect to be attacked from. inside the repair zone construct 1-2 frigate factories and 1-2 hangar defenses. the factories are mandatory, the hangars are if you can afford them.

2. Keep a defensive response stockpile of fleet logistics and resources on hand to respond quickly to invading fleets. This will vary depending at what point in the game you are at, but generally its about 60 logistics, 2500 credits, 400 metal, 300 crystal.

3. When an enemy attacks your planet observe what ships are prominent in his fleet and build counter ships to those with your frigate factory. Hangar defenses are usually all fighters by default (to deal with LRM's, Sieges, and Bombers) but if you are being attacked by multiple cap ships or heavy cruisers do not hesitate to switch them to bombers. When the enemy attack has been repelled, scuttle the ships you built to defend with to get some resources back and get your fleet logistics back.

thats how you defend in this game. only ships under repair platforms are worth a damn, forget about the turrets.

7+2=14?
9+2=18?
Double means times two, not plus two. Which is what the advent hanger squadron increase tech does...adds 1 drone per level with two levels.

pji are the shiznit. They are there to make em pay for attacking with insufficient strength, and to attract early fire.

Without going into much detail, i use repair bays, turrets, hangers and nothing else (single player). I only expect my defenses to crush any pirate raid and merely delay a attack AI fleet.

What i tend to do is pick a direction to attack, neglect defenses in that area in favor of the ones on the other side of my territory. As i send my fleet away i begin building a second fleet that at first is a defense fleet located between my front line worlds.

This defense fleet will evolve depending on later conditions. For example, if i'm getting pounded on the home front it'll turn into a full fledge combat fleet with caps and all. If all is quite i leave a skeletal force made mostly of LRM's (left in 3 overlapping repair bay fields set to hold position) and send the rest off as either a secondary/flanking fleet or reinforcements for the main fleet.

I find this works well, you can get by with a much smaller fleet when defending within your culture supported by static defenses (including repair bays) and rapid reinforcements.

Thanks for all the help, guys.

I think I like the "frigate factory" defense best out of these suggestions, so I'll try that one first. I am just not impressed by turrets, and hangars alone don't cut it.

Later!

We must be playing different games then. On my game, the technology doubles the number of hanger ships.

turrets are good for protecting those key structures like frigate factories and hangers, the trick is to build your factories and hangers in a bunch so your turrets don't need to be spread out as much and you don't need as many of them. Remember while turrets do suck they're also very, very cheap.

Turrets will also force your enemy into going mostly LRMs or carriers to out range the turrets, this makes a defensive fleet of flak/defense vessels very strong.

I am bored so I felt like providing some screenshot to this conversation.

1. http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=squadl1ao9.png
The default max squadsize of a Advent bomber group. Each Advent hangar bay can host 3 squads, every other race's hangarbays can only host 2 squads but Advent have to pay 2 more tactical slots for each bay.

2. http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=technullsf8.png
Is this the tech that you are talking about? It provies one more ship in each hangarbay based squad, it does no double the number of availible ships in a squad. There is a capital ship ability that does that but only for the squads that are based on that particular ship and only for a short time.

3. http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=techl1lx4.png
As everyone can see it increases the number of ships in a hangar squad by one for each level with a max level of 2. that means that the total number of bombers that can be based on a upgraded advent hangar is 7 (see point 1.) + 2 (see point 2.) * 3 (see point 1.) = 27 and 7 * 3 = 21 on a default hangar. This is a increase of 28% of squad ships on a advent hangar, not a 200% increase like [MAGOG]Kruelgor seems to believe.

4. And here is some evidence straight from the game.
http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=squadl1ao9.png A squad with a level 1 "Skilled Hangar Anime"
http://img213.imageshack.us/my.php?image=squadl2zx8.png A squad with a level 2 "Skilled Hangar Anime"

Ok, all of this is great but I can not build more that 10-15 ships on any one planet. What is up with that>?

I'm new at the game, and I've been using the strategy of just keeping a defense fleet and an offense fleet. Often times, my defensive line comes down to an uncolonizable zone, so all I have is the fleet. The issue is that the AI just ignores my defense, and continues on to my planets. I don't do enough damage to get them to turn back, and they leave my frigates, which are busy attacking, in the dust. What do I do?

it isn't possible to blockade territory completely in this game, it is very easy to rush past defenders without taking too much damage. you cannot effectively restrict the movement of an enemy fleet without using certain cruisers and capital ship abilities that explicitly do this, just having basic attack frigates will never impede the movement of enemy ships.

the only viable way to manage defenses is to be able to place a counter-force of your own ships at a target your opponent actually wants to attack, like one of your larger colonies. this can be done by moving around an existing fleet already in your own territory or by the spontaneous defense fleet creation method that i outlined in my above post (basically keeping shipyards at all your important planets and building defenders when its relevant).

trust me, your opponent WILL retreat after sustaining too much damage attacking one of your colonies. you can choose to pursue him to try and wipe them out completely (phase jump inhibitors are very useful for pursuit) or you can just let him go and counter-attack one of his planets instead.

for your border colonies that aren't productive enough to be worth building shipyards and are too far to move a defending fleet to in time to save your best bet is really to just let them die and then rebuild. i often keep a colony frigate lurking, hidden, in a nearby system to my borderworlds to rebuild the base if and when it gets taken out.

Krugor, the skill description clearly states that it is +1 ships per squadron per level of the upgrade. Not more. Certainly not 100% increase.
And this also can be confirmed quite easy in the game (thanks Rasit).

Why are you constantly posting such wild claims on different topics when you obviously didn't put even 10 minutes reasearch time into it? And why with the really annoying attitude (like

"I know you're not referring to my statement when I said there is Advent technology that will double the size of your hanger defense squadron, because it seems you might be dazed and confused.

The Advent technology does not give you more squadrons. Instead, it DOUBLES the size of each squadron. Understand?")


On topic: Bunkering is baad, hmmkay? If defenses were strong enough to seriously stop an enemy fleet then defenses + own fleet would be unstoppable, reasulting in lots and lots of stalemates were the guy attacking the fortified enemy system would always lose.
Weak defense as it is is great to avoid bunkering and it keeps the gameplay flowing. Just keep a defenive fleet at home and all is fine

You're indeed playing a different game.

Skilled Hangar Anima adds 2 more drones per squadron. For Bombers, that's 7 + 2 = 9. For Fighters, that's 9 + 2 = 11. Not 14 and 18. As shown above.

Learn the difference between addition and multiplication or go back to your own fantasy game in your imagination.

I generally bottle up all of my structures with 2-3 hangers and a repair station. Then use the rest of the tactical slots for turrets. Hangers are safe and everything gets the repair station bonus. now just add about 10+ turrets (or whatever you can fit) around the structure. They may be weak individually, but enough will create a nice delay, maybe take out some pesky frigates, and allow you to get your own fleet back to wreak havok on the masses. Seriously, those turrets can be a problem.
Also I know this makes me an a$$ for manipulating the AI, but I offer my biggest enemy "planet vision" and "ship vision" as I'm in transit to my closest friendly world next to them. They see my world is deserted and will launch their fleet in return, knowing I can't see them since they didn't agree to the vision deals. I make sure my fleet is close enough to reach the planet before they are able and I wait..... until they show up..... (you can figure the rest out).

Many of you raise some interesting points for strategy. Thanks.

It's too bad that we are forced into playing a defensively weak approach. I wish this game had an option for setting defenses to whatever level you want. Personally I find it way to weak. Imagine what World War 2 would have looked like with such pathetically weak defenses...

I generally dont have any trouble defending my colonies. I use turrets, repair structures, and hangar defense - but usually just one or two hangars and repair bays. Turrets I will put about 5 or 6 in a colony, and rebuild them on the fly if they are being destroyed by an attack.

What I generally do is place 5 to 10 heavy combat cruisers at key colonies who act as a delaying force (along with the hangars and turrets), until my reactionary force can arrive. I keep a fleet of capitals (3 to 5 ships) at a central location that is within one or two jumps of my vulnerable colonies. Very important frontline colonies usually have at least 1 capital ship stationed there also.

If a colony gets attacked, I look at the fleet that is attacking, and if I need to I immediately send the reactionary force to that location. This way, you can have one group of capital ships defending several colonies, and it will free up your other capital ships for offensive/exploration duties.