Help Against Carriers

Well the new hangers in entrenchment have a really cool feature called phasic trap.  Within a certain radius all of the strike craft get stuck!

If you are playing normal Sins, then their sentinals are pretty good.  If they are TEC then build carriers, lots of carriers.  Fighters do a good job of fighting other fighters.

If you can protect assialiants with sentinals, their phase missles should take out the carriers.

Good Luck!

Only one thing u can do, more carriers.  Anyone telling you to build soemthing else fails at seeing the obvious.  Yes light frigates can kill carriers, yes flak can kill strike craft, but that's all those ships can do.  Carriers can kill almost everything else.  So you can either have a fleet that is useless at anything but 1 thing, or you can have a fleet that can multitask.

build hangar defense on the beseiged planet, take your closest protecteed frig factory and build 15-20 carriers en mass.  all fighter.  or if you have phase stabilizer and RA, then use that a couple times instead.  its how i usually build my fleet.  as a result, I end up with 50 or so lasuraks.

But again going carriers only won't help. IF you opponent already has the advantage over you you wont be able to out spam him and he will be able to diversify and make your carriers useless. It's realy a case by case situation were you need to take the right decision. And to do that your need to ahve accurate and up to date intel, so your scouts need to be active and scoutign the worlds of your enemy to know what labs he has, were are his factories, how many mines of each type he has. All that is important especialy the mine he has since it will influence his build choise and build rate as he might have to trade resorses around in order to get what he wants. And sometimes the best way to fight a carrier spammer is to no fight his spam, atleast not right away, not until your ready. In that time your best to run bass his fleet and try to cause more damage to him. Taking out a lab will take money and time to replace. Time in which he is no longer building carriers. Killing mines will slow his production down. Killing planets might not always be possible. Lots or choises and decisions to be made, but only with the rigth info will you make the right ones. However even makign the rigth choises wont garante you a victory. Your opponent might already be to far suppurior above you.

There was already a posting on this a few posts down... Carrier Spam Multiplayer

Thanks for the info.

I just want to clarify something,

This post isn't as much about the Carrier Spam,

but how to fight an opponent that takes his fleet and sets a path to fly circles around a planet.

It seems like a flaw in the game, since you can’t catch his carriers and and the strike craft clears out the system.

Not even a CAP ship has a chance.

I found the best strategy for this was to build a balanced fleet.   Of course, I don't play multiplayer and only play against CPU so I don't know how well this would work against human players.

If your opponent has a fleet of say, 10 carriers,  those ten carriers only have fighters/bombers as defense.   So my fleet would have 5-7 flak frigates, supported by 1 mothership, 3-5 carriers, a few light frigates and long range frigates to protect my own carriers.

Keep your tactics set to local area only, and destroy the fighters first.  Then launch your bombers and assault the carriers.

i thinks it might be a problem if the solution to the problem is just to make more of the same.. carriers are expansive, its counter arent.

Ah, I got you.  Well, I don't have a whole lot of online experience but I will tell you how one player beat me the other night without using carriers. 

I had a combined fleet of disciples and some drone hosts as well as a Radiance while he had a couple of capitals (One was the skiranta while the other I'm not sure) and a fleet of mostly assailants with a few skirmishers.  Now, at first, it was going back and forth.  In one battle, I took out just about all of his assailants in one battle but, unfortunately, lost my Radiance.  And I did have one time where I was running from him and just taking out assailants on the way out of the system since fighters will eat assailants up.

However, he probably noticed that I started to concentrate on building drone hosts and, so, all he built was skirmishers.  Basically, in our next fight he just overwhelmed my drone hosts (I had about 7 or 8 drone hosts, a new radiance and 6 - 7 disciples while he probably had 20+ skirmishers and his two capitals).  I was flying the drone hosts around my planet and even split them into two groups but he still was able to catch up and swarm them... basically because he had a good deal more skirmishers than I did drone hosts and, although I would take quite a few out while running, he was dwindling me done until I had to retreat.  Skirmishers are much faster than drone hosts and will catch them.  Once they do, they can slaughter them fairly well I will say.

I will say that my micro needs work (just started playing online) and that, in that last battle, the AI was not listening to me very well it seemed, even when I was yelling at it .  But still, carriers are slow and basic assault ships are meant to catch them and chew them up (which at 150% damage they seem to do well).  You can build a good deal more basic assault ships per each carrier the enemy has and can swarm them.

And a capital definitely has no chance against carriers as capitals are very slow.  To take out carriers you need fast ships... either strikecraft from your own carriers or these basic assault ships.

Build more carriers faster.

Multiplayer is carrier wars. Remember, once your opponent gets 20 carriers up on you no number of Frigates or Flak will save you.

Ignore this advice.  Killing the carrier works and having flak means the carrier fleet will be depeleted of AM.  Once AM is gone, the carriers are WORTHLESS.

My post is more a comment than an answers.  That's pretty lame if carriers can outrun other ships.  This game is simply awesome, but there is real room for improvement with carriers.  First, get rid of "light" carriers.  Second, make capital ship carriers house six or perhaps ten fighers.  It makes absolutely no sense that a capital ship carrier holds the same number of squadrons as a cruiser-carrier.

I really have no interest in playing online if it's simply carrier wars.  "Build more carriers faster" sounds like an incredibly boring undertaking.  And not much fun to watch, either.

Sins could take a lesson from the RL military.  A Carrier group consits of one carrier, and a fleet of warships.  It does not consist of twenty lone carriers.  And why is that?  Because they are hella expensive and vulnerable to attack from other warships.

Exactly, last night p robably made a few carrier spammers cry. All they had very carriers and once i toke out 30 light frigates i was chewing their 30-40 carrier soams as if they werent there. I had 3 cao 20 carriers of my own and a blanced fleet. Light frigates work and they work good. But you have to be smart about them. Againts me a carrier spam will get you a lost because light frigate are no impressed by carriers, in fact i would say that they laught at them.

Have a separate fleet of flak....use them to chase carriers...As long as u have balanced fleet u will cum out on top.

i hate carriers now, i was in a multiplayer game where my tec opponent made about 15 carriers.  me being tec made about 20 flak frigates, 12 carriers all with fighters, about 20 lrms, about 15 hoshikos, a dunov lvl 3 and a marza lvl 6.  i successfully destroyed all of the bombers quickly but nothing could keep up with the carriers and i happened to missile barrage them twicew and they still lived.  in entrenchment i think they rreally need to slow down carriers.  imho a ship that is big that holds fighters should not be able to outrun almost every type of frigate.

carriers cant out run anything.  ALL ships (except maybe colony caps) can catch up to carriers.

no u r right they can catch up but it his very hard to constantly keep firing upon them because they are too fast, they need to slow them down

its called gravity warhead

Also called demolition bots for TEC.

as far as i've relized from sins and this is a bad impression for someone who started on christmas is that carriers are too versitile. CARRIERS JUST RUN AROUND. I've gotten that happen to me. What i've relized is that if you match him in carriers then get 5 sentinals fill the carriers entirely with fightes and you can take out anything. Personally i think that vasari carriers are even teh best which helps a heck of a lot. Well strike craft are the best.

My favorite strategy is give up but you know that isn't always an option people like so my other favorite strategy is match the number of carriers in sentinals that takes care of that. His carriers running around needs to be fixed i get what you mean. Ships should be slowed down with strike craft launched by like 60%.

This is an issue i think sins staff should adress. Before the carriers had 2 strike craft the were so-so but when the 2 striek craft were added bam they became the most veritile unit ever and a versitile unit is spammed mostly because versitile normally means hard-impossible to counter. The game isn't down well. Advent i have to say the best way is to spam carriers back with fighters only. TEC maybe 5 flak with carriers with fighters Kol also has nice flak burst special that works pretty well excpecially fully upgraded with2 of them. BAM EVERY STIKE CRAFT IN AREA DIES. Vasari have probally the best flak so thats the most plausible ship along with carriers along with that. The thing is a running carrier can only die to something faster than it. SUCH AS STRIKE CRAFT. SEE TEH LOOP. Carriers are their own counter causing a very bad imbalance. A counterable one but an imbalance. Then it comes down to player skill at managing economy.

Hopefully this will get solved in entrenchment.

Lol ignorant people that don't botehr to read for me to reapead my self for their small brains.

Carrier do not need a speed nerf, they don't need any nerf at all, the only small nerf I would see possible is a tiny damage reduction in fighters, bombers. But not by much.

Vasary gravaty war head will slow down the carriers.

Tec Demolition bots will do it.

Advent it's more tricky but can be done with repulsion demands micro but if your good and tallented you can even prevent him from retreatign when your winning.

But the ultimate counter to carriers are light frigates. They have a use and a purpace now so use them. You your light frigates, diversity and balance your fleet and carriers become a negligable nuissance. The spam is dead if you die at teh hand of some numb spamming carriers then that only means you were just as numb if not more so then him for not having seen it comming and for not having contered it. You know people will spam carrier anticipate it.

Also an anti fighter skill that people forget about and that is even more powerfull then the Kols flak is Magnatise on the Dunov. Their no greater feeling then blowing up your enemies caps with the own fighter spams. Not to mention you gain air supremacy much much faster. But once againt magnatise does take more micro then flak burst.

also another simple way to beat circling carriers: split your force and go around each way.  they can't escape with ships behid them and in front.

EadTeas I think the problem is early on since carriers can be built right away. By the time you have those support ships and research their added abilities your enemy could have tons of carriers. Especially the gaurdian. Whoever says flak doesnt work is wrong imo. I use them all the time. Yeah 5 flaks will not defend against 20 carriers but 20 flak will and they are much cheaper. Balanced fleet is the way to go imo. I had one game where i destroyed 2900 strike craft and he never could defeat my fleet. But i could never catch his carriers and he had free roam of my planets. So this is a problem. They need to be slowed and strikecraft SHOULD NOT BUILD when enemy is present. I suggest that carriers get an all power to engines ability for short bursts of speed for antimatter. This will solve the running around in circles cheapness.

Ok, I am taking these stats right from the Sins Reference Sheet, which is very helpful to look at if you don't already have it.  And I'm guessing from some of the postings on here that many haven't...

As you can see, basic assault are much faster than carriers (or any other ship for that matter).  But, if you try to use your longe range ships or capitals to get them, you'll never catch up!  Strikecraft, scouts, basic assaults, anti-strikecraft, and heavy assaults are the only ships that really have a chance of catching up to them.  But, out of those, only strikecraft or basic assaults, and possibly heavy assaults, would be worth using.  Anti-strikecraft and scouts would hardly do damage to them.  Heavy assaults would do good damage but aren't nearly as fast as the basic assaults.

And cslaughlin, out of your mentioned mixed fleet, the only ships that could have caught up to the carriers were the flaks.  And those are not designed to fight carriers as they only do 25% damage to heavy armor!  If you had a group of basic assaults, you could have caught up and wrecked them!

And MindsEye, you are right about the abilities he mentioned being later game.  But he said "But the ultimate counter to carriers are light frigates."  Those require no tech and anyone can build them right away.  And, from your posting, I am guessing that you also didn't use light frigates to catch his carriers.  Running carriers around in circles would only be "cheap" if you couldn't catch them...

Basic assaults are cheap and great at fighting carriers.  Use them for this purpose!

What I think he was talking about is called Kiting.  The player is moving his ships around and pulling the attacking units farther out. Maybe one or two defending carriers die, meanwhile the attacker usually is pulled into an ambush.

If the carriers leave, or are so far away that they can't be reached focus on the strike craft.  Make sure their attack and defense are at least on par with the enemy and kill them.  Carriers are USELESS without their strike craft.  Once the strikecraft have been destroyed, then attack the carrier units with figthers.  Micro your fighter's attack so that they all attack ONE carrier at a time.  This way all strike craft that they enemy carrier units produce get intercepted before they get to your structures.

Then the enemy can jump out, or be harrassed.  Carriers build slower when they are under attack.  The quickest way to destroy strikecraft is to post flak where the units attack.  This way unless the other player is microing his attacking fighters, they will get chewed up.  Send your fighters to harrass the carrier units then.