Mass bomber defense

The best defense is to not commit to any one particular ship type. Bring a balanced fleet.

At the point you've reached, there is no "practical" option, it will be a fair pain in the ass to readjust  - the question now is one of speed. You might have to stop your offensive to adjust (I'm sure your defenses can handle their rather inflexable fleets while you rebuild), giving them some breathing room that you don't want to give them - which means their strat payed off.

Next time just make sure you've got at least a few carriers w/ some fighters handy to stop the bombers, and yes, you may want to consider having a Kol handy as well.

To summarize: All of your eggs in one basket = gambling. Sometimes you lose, and you have to pay up. Balanced fleets ftw.

At least, that's my opinion on things. Sorry if it's bleak

Edit: It also sounds like you were out numbered, in which case tactical withdrawal is a good option anyway.

Switching from HCs to carriers is not impractical, and fighters are the best defense against bombers, and will be more effective for the money than building light frigates and flaks. What you should do is keep up with what your opponent is building, especially if you're fleet is unbalanced. He starts pumping out carriers with bombers than you start pumping out fighters, and of course try and stop the production of those bomber carriers (destroy labs, factories, planet etc.). You got your ass handed to you because you were caught off-guard.

A kol is nice, but only if your opponent has 1 target. It maybe could have saved your marza, but it wont be able to defend your HCs. Plus if you're going to build 2 caps to start out with, why not get another Marza so you can take his HW twice as fast as with 1.

Well, you've already pointed out the proper responses: a Kol would take out quite a bunch of bombers in one go, but will most likely take heavy damage doing so. Flaks will take a very long time due to bad damage-ratio against bombers. Fighters are actually your best best, since they reduce the enemy bombers pretty fast, but they're easily countered by flak. Personally, I'd prefer a mix of all that. Always aim for a mix of units. Spamming one type for a limited time is legit, but don't rely on it, because sooner or later every remotely skilled opponent will get the appropriate counter. The best advice is: the moment you send your spammed fleet (i.e. HC in this case), start building (with rally point on your cap/fleet) the counter to the counter to your fleet (I hope it's not as confusing as it sounds).

In this example: you send a fleet of HC, catch your enemy with a dozen LRMs unaware, kill his fleet, ravage his HW - cool. But while you're going berserk in his grav wells, think: what will he do now in order to counter my push? Obviously, that'd be bombers against early HCs. Always try to think one step ahead, don't revel in your victory (one fight rarely wins a war), but plan for the counterstroke, because that's pretty sure to come.

great points!

yes, if I'd just converted to carriers after the initial 15 or so HCs, then things would have been much smoother.

yes, 2 marzas would have gotten me out of his hw grav well early.

yes, by all means I should have destroyed his fleet, then proceeded on to his next world (an ice planet).  I did send a scout there as I wiped out his fleet/fabricators.  I saw that he had 2 regenerators up, and a couple of frigate factories.  I thought because of the regen, better to destroy his infrastructure at his hw, while the marza bombed.  I *could* have sent half my HCs to his ice, to just take out the frig factories/labs/regens (not necessarily in that order, but probably, labs then regens, then factories, as his factories wouldnt be able to produce anything that could damage the HCs significantly, while in small numbers).  This might have been a sacrifice of those HCs, but I would have kept him out of the game, so that I could deal with his partner and while my own fleet was reinforced.

Yep...lesson learned.  Thanks for the thoughts!

You have to presume your enemy is getting bombers if you have heavy cruisers.   Often your opponent will have no other option whatsoever, so you know for a fact he will be getting bombers.  This makes it very predictable, and you really have only yourself to blame for being caught off guard.  Particularly when your army is mostly one type of unit, you have to be careful about staying one step ahead of your enemy.

In this case, you basically need carriers.  While Advent can get away with only the fighters from their capital ships if they have a Halcyon with TK push, everyone else will need fighters to clean up enemy bombers.  Flak just doesn't do the job fast enough.  A Kol is always a very good idea, but under ordinary circumstances Kols won't kill bombers.  The weakest bombers has 75 hp, and a level 1 Kol deals a measly 30 damage with flak burst.  Using flak burst, you can cut away a lot of hit points and enable your fighters to kill those bombers before they get a second pass - this is critical - but on its own flak burst won't kill a thing.  You need fighter backup.

Also, you could of tried making many LFs to kill off or route the Carriers. Of course, they'll take enormous casualties from the Bombers, but their higher Speed and anti-matter draining abilities might of helped a bit.

Hi RM

The HC tactic you had is fine as it gives you a meat shield. However you can't just got HC FTW.

Hohos are needed to keep the HC health up. Some fighters are needed to kill bombers (keep them docked if he has fighters and flak you don't want to engage). Flak is need to thin his fighters out. A few bombers of your own are also good as

1) You can use them on SB without taking actualy losses

2) They can chase down his HCs and caps etc...

3) They will get the attention of his fighters

So all up, your mistake was putting all of your eggs in one basket - every second or third ship should have been a carrier or flak or hoho to balance you out while still maintaining you HC wall. You would have lost some HC, but once those bombers went, he would have been in trouble...

Good analysis Hack.

I did recover though, and we won    interestingly, we had 2 feeders, one for each wing, which was really different from most of the 5v5s I've played.

Thanks

One other thought - unless a Vassari player was present or there were HEAPS of fighters to thin the bombers before they raped you, I'm not sure you could have saved the Marza

Eh, what about a Dunov with shield restore?  Excellent choice for a second cap if you want to try to get that Marza to survive till level 6.  It even has an anti-strike craft ability that doubles as a disabling ability!

Usually when I play TEC, I dont get the Marza until my 3rd Capitol Ship.  The Kol makes a better starting ship because early game it can take just about anything on, including early game swarms.  You just dont get the missile barrage up fast enough, plus the Marza has forward facing weaponry, making it best at assaulting single targets.  The second cap ship I go for is the Dunov.  Having a tough ship that can remove enemy antimatter and restore shields helps the TEC live longer.  Then I make a Marza, and after that the cap ships I get depend on the enemy.  I usually have more Kols than Marza's, but thats just me.

When playing as the TEC, it is absolutely cruicial to build a balanced fleet.  The TEC have mid range on just about everything, and their true power comes in the proper fleet balance they can have.  Usually I wait until my economy is up and running, then I hit building carriers (fighters or bombers depending on the situation), Kodiaks, Hoshikos, Orgovs, and LRMs.  I have found that flak frigates are only good in a long fight at taking out bombers, and in the time it takes for them to kill something the enemy will have already destroyed most of your fleet.  It is more important to build more Hoshiko's. which will make your fleet much more durable.  It really is all about balancing it all out with the TEC, having the Kodiaks serve as the shield, while the cap ships (and bombers in my fleet) serve as the sword, and the hoskikos serve as the Duct Tape.

What if your Egg is the basket?

People seem to be grossly underestimating the value of the Kol in this situation.  Flak burst is hands down the best anti-strikecraft tool in the game albeit with somewhat varying effectiveness depending on what race you are facing.  Against advent 2 level 3 flak bursts will destroy all bombers that are hit by them 1 level 3 burst will annihilate all the fighters.  You just have to do it a few more times if yours is level 2 or you are up against the tougher faction bombers.  But ultimately it should prevail, the only real limitation to it is the antimatter cost.  Add to that the Kol is hands down the toughest capital to focus fire kill particularly if it's being repaired and you have most of the solution to your strikecraft problems in one easy package.  You still should have some carriers with fighters to mop up, but the Kol can very quickly eliminate the large swarms before they do too much damage.

Key things to keep in mind when using the Kol.  If you are bring it out mid to late game in response to a bomber threat, you should pay to powerskill it to level 3 so that you have level 2 flakburst from the start.  Also it's autocast features are completely bass ackwards.  Finest hour is typically the only ability it has that I'd want it autocasting.  The other three all should be manually controlled to make best use of the Kol's relatively limited antimatter, espescially given that the autocast AI uses them poorly anyway.  Gauss cannon is relatively poor damage for it's enormous antimatter cost (get this last) I typically only use it when I have a lot of antimatter to spare to try and kill a fleeing opponent.  Shielding only needs to be used if your opponent is focus firing on the Kol (which generally isn't a good idea), and flak burst should also be manually controlled to maximize the number of strike craft in range when you fire it.  The key with flak burst is timing as they all swoop in.  It also helps to do things like keeping a few bombers near the Kol to lure the enemy fighters then flakburst them all down, and presto, your bombers are free to work.

The Kol is an incredibly effective solution to the strikecraft problem.  If playing advent the Halycon's telekinetic push will do a similar job but not quite as efficiently.  The Kortul's weapon jamming comes in a weak 3rd place by comparison as it's much more difficult to use since it only slows the enemy attack buying time for your fighters which might not be enough if you don't have sufficient fighters to kill off the bomber swarm before the Kortul is killed or runs out of antimatter.

The biggest mistake to avoid is thinking you can counter with the bomber swarm with just flaks.

I'd strongly disagree.  Flak burst is arguably the best, but definitely not hands down.  I personally think the Halcyon's telekinetic push is the most powerful by a decent margin.  First of all, TK push has a much larger area of effect, which is critical for protecting your entire fleet.  Secondly, flak burst only deals damage.  It won't stop bombers from attacking if you don't kill them first.  It's easy to say two bursts will kill anything, but this presumes your enemy is stupid enough to fly all his bombers overhead your level 5 Kol twice.  The Advent fighters are a bit of silly example because they're a special case.  Advent players know their fighters get blasted by a Kol and won't give you the chance to do so.  On the contrary, TK push will disable anything it doesn't kill.  This makes it easy for your fighters to pick off the bombers before they can deal damage, and is why I believe it's the strongest ability.

I'm not going to say flak burst is weak, but in a practical sense it won't deal with a problem on its own.  Smart players (ie, not AI's) won't fly their entire bomber fleet over your Kol and give you a beautiful target, but the larger effect of the Halcyon and it's longer term effect makes it more practical.

I agree with Darvin, it's much easier to defend your fleet with Push than with flak burst. Flak burst is the most effective when the battle is just beginning and the enemy strikecraft are bunched together traveling across the well. After they scatter it becomes much less effective due to its limited range, especially if your opponent is not focus firing on anything in particular. Flak burst is great at protecting your cap ships from bomber attack, but fighters and flak frigs will give you better coverage if your caps are not your enemies primary target.

Here's a thought.

Vengeance versus focused bomber attack. Does it work on strikecraft? Do they do enough damage for this to be effective against their health at lvl 3? Lets say you've got 3 caps. Mothership, Halo and a rapture. Enemy focuses their bombers on your mothership. You cast lvl3 vengeance on it just before the first wave attacks. You wait until theyve made a first pass and then telepush them. How much damage will they have taken? Will it be enough for fighters and flaks to clean them up no problem? I'll have to try that out.

That would work quite well.  They come in and attack the mothership with vengeance and then hit them with push while the mothership heals its shields.  I guess that would only work to knock out the fighters because I have seen twelve bombers knock out a cap's shields in one run, so you would take some serious hull damage and with thirty, you could go potentially go down to 1/2 health...  Now, of course you could regen your shields, but you would desperately need some guardians to shove everyone else away while you heal.  For this to be effective, you would likely need two or three motherships so you could not just die in the volley of fire that would surely be launched by the opponent who is bringing in his main fleet in next...  It would certainly kill the bombers though, but the carriers would likely not be under attack and as such would just rebuild without too much trouble...  

Flaks probably wouldn't be enough but having some fighters would be.  (I personally prefer a fighter to bomber ratio of 1:3 as fighters are useless unless against bombers which you won't find everywhere but you will find normal ships so the bombers are useful.)  You would need quite a few to defeat that sort of an onslaught as those things can demolish things when they focus their fire...  It would be very messy unless you had a lot of fighters or your own squad of bombers to knock out their carriers while they are rebuilding...  Simply put, fight fire with fire...

Oh and for the record...  Push is better due to its range.  Flak is more powerful at short range so if you had one for every two-three other caps you had it would be fine, but then your kodiaks would be doomed...

Where were your scouts when your enemy amassed that many bombers? lol you need to keep an eye out. ESPECIALY if youve spammed becuase that is risky anyways...

Who are you talking to?  If me, they were dead and I hadn't made more yet...

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Good point Derek06....that's the REAL missing element in that scenario with the HCs.  That and anticipating the counter.  Lately I've been anticipating AND scouting...makes for far fewer surprises 

Anticipating?  How do you go about that?  Do you just wait for a break in the action and then figure he has to be building now or what?

One of the problems here is that you had

1. No bomber defense

2. No support ships (A.k.a. Hoshiko's, Dunov's, etc.)

3. You had no strikecraft defense (even SOME fighters+flak would've helped)

So, try to balance things out more next time.

Koda0 (^)

Scouts are for finding out what your opponent is up to. Use em.

No, he said anticipating and scouting... I assumed he meant two different things and not just looking and saying, "Oh hey, look!  He has thirty bombers.  I wonder what I should build..."