Counter strategies

Well, if the enemy is blowing your stuff up he isn't fighting your ships. That puts your ships on the advantage. Use this advantage to blow up his ships, then charge into his territory to do some damage of your own.

Against the AI, you can trounce a bombing strategy by placing a few defense turrets.

First things first.. If he's bombing a planet, get the ships doing that first. Siege frigates and cap ships are the only thing that can bomb your planets. Get those and it's safe. Or if it's going to be a while ( single cap ship ) chase the other ships. It depends on what they are bombing. Asteroids with no upgrades ? Let them bomb, I'll be busy killing expensive ships.. Planet with full upgrades ? Save that sucker first.

You're either thinking about pirate raids, or your enemy is using the 'by-pass' ( essentially jumping through your edge planets and attacking your core ). There are various theories on how to handle this.
1.) Jump Inhibitors on your edge planets work well, they keep them from jumping out.
2.) A reserve fleet is another good option. It helps defend the edge planets, but can jump back to defend or forward to attack. This is the best option.
3.) You can re-inforce with static defenses. Static defenses are the least useful against a human, since they can be picked off. BUT, they are the MOST useful against pirates because they never seem to attack the actual defenses. Some prefer turrets, some fighter bays. I use 5 fighter bays with the rest in turrets ( I max defenses at every planet ).

For pirate defense, personally I just use static defenses. For humans, I use everything.

Thanks for the helps.

The problem with turrets is that they have a range, and the enemy can go around them.

I do have a reserve fleet, so I guess I'll just use that.

I find that taking out all their planet bombers can take a while, because they don't lose any population, just the ships, but you do.

I fight the AI only, so I don't have to worry about human opponents.

Anyone have any counter to the Novalith prototype? What if a player drills down this track fast, half way through the game they have five cannons blasting planets off the map. How can you fight this in a single star map? In my last game, my game partner (thankful for me) had 8 Novalith cannons. No one stood a chance. His edge fleet was decent enough to hold off the invading forces.

If an enemy gets to where he has 8 cannons, you're probably screwed. However, the response once he starts getting them is twofold: first, scout him hard and find his cannon sites. Once they're found, you have some options. You can send in a whole fleet to start wiping out his cannons. If you're TEC, you can a force of about 40 scouts with the Timed Explosives upgrades to fly into his territory and start taking them out hit and run style. Whichever option you choose, make sure that you take out any military labs you come across as well, since he can't build additional cannons until he replaces the lost labs.

The best strategy against noviliths is a very aggessive one. Its simple...keep the pressure on them enough and dont let them build them. If your oponent builds several novaliths your fleet should be at an advantage (he spent alot of resources and research time to get them). Simply hit'em hard, hit'em often

Fighter bays work excellent for this.. use them. I find 5 works great ( all bombers ), with the rest in turrets. Also, a reserve fleet works great WITH static defenses. Fight close to the turrets and under cover of the strike craft. It's like having an extra Sova and a Kol or two.

8 Novaliths ?! Yeah, at that point you are hosed. The scout hit-n-run technique would work, as well as a full scale assault. The big problem is how he got so out of control in the first place. Novaliths take up huge amounts of credits not just to build ( 8k credits a pop, IIRC, times 8 cannons.. 64k credits ?! ), but research as well. You should have a huge fleet, or more planets. You can re-populate the planets, but thats a losing strategy unless you're just buying time. At this point, it's time for a do-or-die full on assault.

Fighters are way better vs Siege frigates than Bombers I believe.

Yes. Bombers are more for cruisers/caps/buildings.

I've used all fighters for a few games. They're fairly effective. I'm not to worried about caps bombing my planets (unless it's a Marza) when the AI has 5-6 bombers going at it. Recently I've been doing 1 bomber/1 fighter per hanger with mixed results. I'm going to switch it to 2 hangers 3 fighters 1 bomber.

Vs. AI you find an awful lot of frigs and carriers making fighters more ideal in many situations.

To bad there isn't a flak turrent...

So should I build all fighters with the carrier/shipbay?

Secondly, are there any maps, like unofficial ones, that emphasizes "choke points", where there are some crucial sectors (or one) to hold that is the only path to the enemy territory?

Are there any unofficial maps?

yeah, it's in the download section.

you probably don't want to download mine, though, because mine is based off the solar system. there are a lot with choke points, however.

I placed them in the right folder, but as soon as the game starts, it says that everyone is defeated and the space is blank.

you need to go to the galaxy folder (where you put it) and open the new map in notepad.
change the version number from "0" to "1"