There is nothing to do while turtling. There are cookie cutter economics, and...diplomacy? So the game is wide open to keep the action going. No action = death by boredom in Sins.

Yo man, what you will need is a couple of task forces in order to do your fighting on somebody elses planets and solar systems, this means building up your home fleet with enough units to defend your home turf but have enough also to detach and form in to smaller fleets or task forces for defending your colonies or crapping on your foes. This is one of the mean reasons that I really really like this game because the people that designed it stuck to real like naval planning, it is too simple of a game if all one had to do is crap out capital ships a dime a dozen without any limints or penalties, I hate games that even allow such unrealistic fleet build ups, remember, the more harder it is the sweeter the victory   

Yes, you are right. It's not double. I have no idea why I thought the technology description said double.

I stand corrected.

I've been meaning to write a post on Defense lately because I see many players using these items incorrectly.

The first thing you'll need to defend is to keep defense in mind when you are building your structures. This means clustering them together. I would recommend ignoring your mineral extractors if needed and keep your structures together.

Next do not build Defenses unless they will be defending with your fleet. Defenses on their own will lose to almost any force with a cap ship. So unless u are going to move your cap ship into that system and defend it, don't bother. It's a better use of resources to prepare the next system for attack by building ships and defenses there.

Next repair stations. This should be the first thing you build for defense. Then you put a group of turrets next to them, as close together as possible. Your goal is to make your enemy come into range of these weapons because each one is not very strong but a group of 4 or 5 can turn the tide of a battle.

Next build turrets. Your goal with turrets is not to spread them around your planet and create complete protection, you build a tight group of them and form a killzone. All your important stuff should be inside this zone.

Hangar Bases. Don't build these. Ever. They are simply not worth it. If you have to have strike craft, build cruiser carriers and keep them away from the battle. They look cool, attacking yoru enemy out of range sounds cool, but they do a pathetic amount of damage and the resources you spend building them can get you A LOT more firepower in other vessels.

That is defense. You can also use warp inhibitors and I think each race has anti matter boosters but I don't use them. Warp inhibitors have a short range so unless the enemy is jumping out right next to your base they are pretty useless. The antimatter booster could be very helpful but i've never seen it used. When you have 50 hvy cruisers tearing your stuff up I don't see it as very useful. Repair stations help a great deal though. I'd like to see a shield recharge station as well, for advent at least...

turrets do nothing, particularly when clustered. the main offensive ship in the game is the LRM frigate. These ships have much greater range than any of the turrets, even Gauss with full range upgrades. turrets are quite simply a horrible waste of resources because they will never fire a single relevant shot. the only thing they will ever shoot at are mismanaged ships that your negligent opponent is too dumb to maneuver out of range of the turrets if they accidentally stray into the kill zone.

hangar defenses are at least capable of engaging LRM frigates with fighter squadrons. you could certainly argue that a couple of Flak Frigate escorts neutralizes this very cheaply, but at least you're dealing with something slightly relevant at that point. Each Flak frigate in the enemy fleet is one less LRM frigate and thus reduces his firepower by that amount.

the only way to defend a system is by parking your own LRM frigates inside a repair bay zone. your LRMs will defeat several enemy LRMs every time because they are being constantly repaired. Your enemy will have to fire on the repair bays first before he can engage your ships and though you may lose your repair bays, they are easily replaced, and your enemy will lose many ships before he can inflict any damage whatever on yours.

there is no point to turrets. the only defense worth having is defense that can match the range of enemy LRM frigates. use your own LRMs to defend. if you have excess money/tactical slots you can add hangar defense.

there is no point to turrets. the only defense worth having is defense that can match the range of enemy LRM frigates. use your own LRMs to defend. if you have excess money/tactical slots you can add hangar defense.

If you have a fairly even fleets (attacker/defender) defenses like turrets and repair stations are your best bet to win the battle in my experience. If the enemy shows up with 30 LRM's and you've got nothing to counter them turrets won't make a lot of difference.

Even if all you do is watch your turrets get blown up by LRM you've bought yourself time. Hopefully during that time you're making units you need to win the battle.

If you replace turrets with hangars you don't get that time, the enemy rushes right in and blows up your frigate factory, or hangars, or whatever you're using to defend. Hangars to not keep the enemy at bay which is crucial in defense. The longer it takes for the enemy to clear out your system the more time you have to move the advantage to your side.

There is almost no point in defending a system without a decent fleet. If you don't have the ship to beat this fleet on yoru own without defense you should probably pull back and give him the victory, losing all your ships and then the planet isn't going to help you in the long run. Better to let him waste time blowing up yoru stuff and taking the planet while you regroup in the next system.

And it can be more useful to spread the turrest a bit over a very small area, so that their feilds of fire mainly overlap and they can still cover a decent area. I like forming a very small square, or a short line. Typically I just put them right around a repair station.

If the enemy is attacking you try giving a move order to the ship under attack and see if you can draw them in. Defense takes a lot of micro, attacking by comparison is fairly relaxed. You can use the turrets to your advantage, but placement is critical, you can't spread everythign out, turrets are only effective in groups. Again, this is all my experience.

A lot of food for thought here...

It appears hangers and turrets have their uses as they make the AI do something a little different.

My last game ( a whopping 2 vs. 1 at normal - weak I know   ) I was getting owned by a slow start plus culture (this I found surprising!) and each race had mega fleets on my corners with an occasinal foray up the middle at my home planet.

One thing I can add is I set my fleet at hold in the cover of the repair bay, turrets and hangers. Otherwise they ventured out and died a horrid, vacuumous death as the AI was positioned enticingly across the system. It was not much help but it delayed the inevitable for a bit...

Tumbler, don't misunderstand the point i was making. I was fairly explicit in stating that Repair Bays are the cornerstone of any defense strategy, and that what you ought to have parked inside the repair bay radius are frigate factories and LRMs.

Its totally optional to build the hangar defense, its just a place to put left over money. Hangars can at least destroy enemy LRM's that are parked at their maximum range. Thats something that a turret can never do. If you've already established your primary defense (Frigate Factories + Repair Bays) and are looking for additional ways to enhance your defenses you should build hangars, not turrets. The turrets will never do anything worthwhile. The hangars just might.

If your argument is that Turrets are a delaying tactic to buy you time to bring back your fleet for a counter-attack then you've got a flawed premise. I don't know why you would assume that Turrets delay the enemy. If the turret is near something that the opponent wants to destroy he will destroy it using LRMs and bombers, and the turret won't do anything. If the turret isn't near something he cares about it will be completely ignored as if it didn't exist. In either case your opponent won't ever waste his time destroying turrets. They'll be out-ranged and outmaneuvered, its like they don't exist.

These tactical interactions are the reason why I adamantly believe that only frigate factories and repair bays are adequate for defense. If you are attacked with LRM's you can build your own LRMs to trade shots (and win, since you'll have culture bonuses and repair bays), and if you have hangars with fighters those fighters will tear up the enemy LRMs unless there are flak frigates accompanying them. If you are attacked by bombers you can build Flak Frigates and destroy them easily, or if you had hangars with fighters you wouldn't even need to worry about bombers. If you are attacked by something that actually gets in range of the turrets, like light frigates, then your opponent has not launched an effective attack.

Sure you can. A handful of turrets and about 8 hangar bays (2:1 bombers/fighter) can hold, and in some cases completely wipe out, a fleet including a couple of capital ships. I guess late game (or in MP) that wouldn't work, but for the bulk of the game it's more than adequate against the AI.

16 strike craft squadrons can be all but completely neutralized by 6 or 7 Flak Frigates. If your enemy is prepared to assault a system, no amount of static defenses of any kind will repel him. It doesn't matter what stage of the game it is either, all of this tech is available early on (none of it is higher than tier 2). Must defend with ships that counter opponents ships, thats the only way.

A good defense against fleets that are on their way to your home world or deeper systems is to keep a secondary fleet of light carriers as defense and a few random defensive hangers around to augment them in each system. Make sure to include repair bays and they will fix your fighter squadrons also as they tool around your system. Now the enemy has to commit a good chunk of flak to counter. Make sure the carriers target cap ships and keep them on the far side of a system from where the enemy fleet phases in... their bombers can do a ton of damage on even the first pass... if they die after that who cares your going to jump out and set up on the far side of the next system. Considering a fleet that is headed for your home worlds will bypass most defenses on the way to avoid entanglment you just keep moving ahead of them and hitting the cap ships or big ships like cruisers.

If your bombers survive a pass or 2 they can still get all the way across the system and redock long before their fleet can get to you. If they phase in right behind you your bombers will still be attacking them as your carriers move all they way across the system and then phase to the next system to defend. Retool to fighters if they sprint lighter ships out to intercept the carriers. If they stop and engage one of your planets you can just park the carries safe out of the way and let the strike craft work in addition to whatever ships and random defense stuff you have around. If they have a ton of flak park the bomber groups on board till you have full forces... then launch and go for a cap ship again... with just a few passes you can kill lighter cap ships outright and take huge chunks out of even battleships. Even better as they try to retreat you can just jump in behind them over and over and whittle way more ships.

The amount of damage you can do can be disproportionate to the resources you commit making this fleet. Usually only effective on larger maps. Human enemy will change tactics or send a bigger fleet next time but the point was defense so you did what you intended if they delay or retreat for reinforcements. That lets you get a good counter fleet going. Consider targeting specific ships you know will be trouble then building a custom designed counter fleet at your home world to greet them.

OK that was way too long but you get the idea. Adapt it as you see fit.

i see al these long explenations about vasari being (worst) in defending with tactical stuff... (didnt read al of it tough)
reminds me... vasari have phase gates . right?

1. phase gates let u phase jump between planets that both have em
2. they bring RA
3. they are the best defensive choice in combination with PJI

as vasari u need a gate at each 1 planet so u can assist instantly when needed
the only downside is the (slow) phase jump speed, but then again its ALOT faster then going from planet 2 planet

counting up this fact.. i think vasari are the strongest defenders since they can phase jump from any friendly planet to another

b4 people start talking about.. and what if he destroys the gate??? well they wont if u do it right....., having the tech to see anyone and anything phase jump gives u plenty of time to react and get ready for a jump

b4 people start talking about.. and what if i dont have that tech?? well then u invested wrong OR the game didnt last long enough for you to get the tech, in this case the enemy fleet shouldnt be strong enough to knock out the gate b4 u can jump

and if they do?
well then u gotta surrender the planet and attack his home,
60% wil retreat to defend, giving you the advantage
30% wil keep on attacking (both empires wil die.. the one with biggest fleet wind after that)
10% wil leave saying you're a "fucking noob cheater who has no life and... well u can finish that sentence ... -.-"

the remaining 1% (remaining??? ... yes remaining... look the topic name
the remaining 1% wil never play sins again cuase they couldnt face it they lost.

there.... how phase gates rule the defense capabilities

Nothing damages static defenses and orbital structures like Bombers do. With all orbital buildings both tactical and logistical using VeryHeavy armor, the Phase Stabilizer/Phase Jump Inhibitor/Regeneration Bays/Frigate Factory/Defense Platforms you're using for buying time for and putting up and/or supporting a fleet defense, will all go down soon without even scratching the Bombers or their Cruiser Carriers who are camping out at the edge of the sector.

But Hangar Defenses can deploy Fighter Squadrons. Fighters are more effective and lethal against Bombers than even flak is, even if you count the cost & supply of fielding them vs. that of flak. What's more, they can defend all over the gravity well while flaks can only shoot them when they come in for attack runs. If the enemy brought along flaks themselves, it doesn't matter since the Fighters are playing defensive already and can just avoid the flak.

Although the Bomber alpha-strike may end up killing the Fighters' Hangars, their attack will be put off-line for the next ~2 minutes, helping the survival of the remaining structures until a fleet arrives. After the Bombers are down, the Fighters can attack LR Frigates until(and if) they get killed, and scramble to knock out scouts in between battles.



This is with the basic Phase Stabilizers you get at Tier 5. At Tier 7, just prior to Returning Armada, they get upgraded with Enhanced Tunneling so as to achieve faster speeds in phase space.



As long as the ships have entered phase space, they'll land safely whether the enemy kills the Phase Stabilizer or not. They'll blow up one rather expensive piece of equipment, but they won't survive to celebrate it.



This is Highly Attuned Sensors, a Tier 8 'super ability'. The tech level may not go that high, and of course you have Returning Armada on the same tier.

Still, the Vasari get the technology to see 1 jump away(Phase Space Monitoring) at Tier 1, and the tech to see 2 jumps away(Enhanced Sensors) at Tier 4. An enemy approaching your empire from 2 jumps away should be enough warning to initiate a Stabilizer jump provided your fleet is already at a Phase Stabilizer planet.

What a great post, Shadow_of_Light!

Agreed, very informative post!

Does the AI use "feint" tactics when attacking planets? I played against a Vasari Hard AI for the first time recently and it seemed like they would come in with a few ships to try and bait me to go on the defense..

i don't want to derail, but i'd just like to point out that in WW2 defense was pretty weak compared to offense. if you want to see a war where defense is stronger than offense, i'll refer you to world war 1.

Speaking for Single player games only.

Personally I think Phase Jump inhibitors are probably one of the most important defensive tools I can get.

The best possible situation in any battle is to be in a position of clear superiority. Be stronger than your enemy. Period. The computer, however, is smart. If presented with a situation where you are significantly stronger than them they will run. This means many of the fights you will be able to actually confront the computer will be ones where you are barely superior at best or you are attacking them at there last planet where they are forced to make a stand.

The only way to attack the AI in a position of clear superiority is with phase jump inhibitors. My general strategy is to never keep my fleet in my outer, defensive, worlds (after I have built defenses that is). They are always one jump out. A lot of times the comp will see this undefended planet (no ships at least) and warp in a fleet of their own.Once they have entered my gravity well I send my own fleet in. I don't want to do it too soon because I want them committed, trapped between escape and my orbital defenses.

Of course at this point they do try to run, and that's when they run into my 3 phase jump inhibitors. In my last game (6 player FFA) I have gotten 20 capital ship kills defensively with this method. Just focus fire on them when I warp in.

On to some other points. If I don't have a superiority fleet yet to set traps I use LRMs as my defense fleet. There range is good enough that they can hang out within my defenses. I will set up at least 3 hangers in planets that need serious defense. Generally I use fighters as they are more effective against frigates. If a cap ship shows up you are probably going to need some more ships to take it down anyways, also a single cap ship without support isn't a real threat against a well defended planet. He can't do much damage to your planet with bombardment alone, and to get to your hangars he will have to deal with your defensive turrets. So I set my static defenses up to deal with the smaller ships.

Now of course, like I said this is only against AI, real players will probably be much smarter than this.

I play this game for about two weeks. I defend my planets with as many defense hangars as the planet can support. With the right tecnology planets can support up to six hangars. 4 frighter hangars and 2 bomber hangars after that I build one or two repair platforms. In addition to the structures I build up to 20 Illuminator ships, create a fleet with them (so that they stay close together), place them near the repair platforms and say them "only defend local area"...
I am very succsessful with this strategy.

Please excuse my bad englisch.

Another useful tactic I learned when dealing with pirates involves Trade stations. I was in a 1 on 1 game and had taken several forward planet and built trade stations on them but little else to defend. I lost the pirate bidding and a fleet of pirates showed up and instead of attack my stuff they went after the trade ships. (For the most part) This helped me a lot over the game as each time the pirates showed up they would go after trade ships and I'd let my turrets pound them until my fleet arrived.

So if you're defending against pirates build a trade station. It worked for me, I'm not sure if it will everytime but it was really nice having them blow up free ships over and over while I knocked them out. Got my cap ship to level 6 this way!

I think it's important to distinguish between defending against a human player, and defending against a computer-player.

Granted, I haven't played games against computer-players of all difficulties, but their tacticts are certainly much more straight-forward than what a human might come up with.

Against a computer-player, you can more or less expect an attack on you planet to happen in a relatively straight line from the Phase entry-point and to your planet. If you choke that area with Turrets (pretty much as any faction), even capital-ships will be hurting a lot. 10-15 turrets clustered coverd by repair-facilities, with a few hangars thrown in CAN take down a capital-ship including a medium-sized escort-force, without needing to move your fleet. But you must have a huge cluster of defenses at the right point for this to work.

Naturally, any human player with half a brain will spot this defensive cluster, and sneak along the outside of the gravity-well to either attack from the back, or clear the defenses from the sides. Or he/she would attack with masses of long-range frigattes, and just wear down the defenses slowly but surely, from beyond the range of the turrets.

So against a human, you'd spread out your turrest much more...but this also reduces them from a real danger to a minor nuissance.

I would think that the best defensive structure for the Vasari is the Phase Stabiliser, coupled with the various research that allows you to phase-jump faster, and then ensuring that your planets have their health develloped up as far as possible...so you can get your strong, but numerically inferior, fleets to defensive positions as quickly as possible, while your planets manage to withstand the punishment.

Thats a pretty solid strategy, all said. The illuminators are effective against most ships and the fighters can protect your illuminators from enemy fighters attack runs. Keep em parked near the repair bays, and you've got a tough nut to crack.

That does work on Pirates, yes. I think a trade ship dying costs you some credits though, so it does have a cost.

Indeed. In WW2, and every since then for that matter, defense has meant attacking first.

Yeah, as everyone else said the defense structures are more there to hamper or aid your defense. You really need a main attacking fleet and another, maybe smaller, defensive fleet. Otherwise, like you said, it takes way to long to get back and they'll walk over your defenses. You also mentioned the light frigates took out your defenses. That is because the missle ships have a larger range than the turrents so they can safely take them out from a distance without suffering damage.