Need a strat to take out a starbase..

Ogrov Torpedo frigates (or were they cruisers? :S) are used by TEC to destroy Starbases. they can bomb TEC or Advent Starbases outside their range, so you only need to defend them from strikecraft and enemy ships. Vasari SB is more difficult since it can move, but that just means they need some Hoshikos and possibly a Dunov as support.

Thanks for the info and appreciate the fast reply..

ogrovs are cruisers and lvl 4 research. they're probably the best thing in a game vs a starbase. quite satisfying to watch a dozen of these guys just rape that big, fat expensive enemy sb. advent equivalent, the adjudicator is also good, but more vs a whole cluster of defenses rather than one big target. and vasari of course get their offensive sb.

alternatively, bombers also work fairly nicely, though you'd also have to protect them from enemy fighters.

just, whatever you do: don't go near an enemy starbase unless you have a pretty large fleet. and never, EVER when it's a tec in mid-late game. (yes, I once was unattentive, didn't think it through and lost my main fleet to the red button)

The Vasari Starbase presents the highest threat.  The Advent base is only a real threat once it has its meteor control upgrade.  Without it, it's just a big fat sitting duck.  The TEC base is always a big fat sitting duck.  So long as you don't give it the opportunity to use the big red button, it's the least threatening starbase by far.

As has been mentioned, the Ogrov and a big fleet of bombers are your best course of action to take down a starbase.  If you can knock out the fighters, a TEC base becomes completely and utterly helpless at this point and it's just a matter of time before you bring it down.  It doesn't matter whether it has tens of thousands of credits of upgrades, it can't retaliate against your attackers.  The Advent starbase's meteor control gives it an extremely powerful attack with significant range (enough to retaliate against an Ogrov).  This is a very high level ability, but if you see meteors do not engage it and instead back off and use bombers.  If the Advent base doesn't have its meteor control, treat it like a TEC base.

The Vasari base is what causes problems.  No matter what you're using, it can chase after it and attack it.  Your standard responses - Ogrovs and Carriers - can both be killed very easily if you let the starbase overtake them.  A good way to beat this starbase is to play keep away with your carriers.  Just keep running away from the starbase while your bombers fight it.  This will not work if the enemy has a fleet helping the starbase.  The only other approach is sheer attrician; bring in an overkill of Ogrovs and slaughter the starbase as quickly as you can. 

All great info.. I ended up destroying it with a crap load of torpedo cruisers and flak.. Went down pretty fast..

Thanks

FOcused fire from a large fleet works as well, but that takes time to put that together

Ogrov spam all the way if you want an instant takedown. If you enjoy a clash of the titans, smuggling in an Orkulus can work, too.

I'm a little slow to recommend ogrovs. Sure, they're antistarbase....but only anti-starbase. They can only target buildings and are damn expensive to boot. I prefer bombers. The carrier can outrun an orkulus. The bombers can target the support structures (like a repair bay, always take out the repair bays before targeting a starbase, letting a unit with 6+ armor heal is just a baaaad thing for you the attacker).

The bombers can then take out an enemy capital ship if your opponent has one. You can switch to fighters at any point. You can keep fighters with the bombers so you have fighters to counter enemy fighters. (Outside of flak, the best answer to fighters is fighters).

Overall, I have a hard time picking a unit that takes up 12 ship slots and isn't versatile, when carriers take up 14 ship slots and are much more versitile.

Ogrovs make an excellent addition to your fleet when we you need to tear up some structures quickly (makes mince meat of repair platform/frigate factory comboes), so if you're on the offensive they're a good choice.  Plus they're nowhere near as weak as siege frigates, doing their job properly without blowing up whenever something sneezes at them.

I'd agree that if you want bulk you should go with the bomber, but Ogrovs work just fine if you don't need too many.  If you've got the game locked down and just need to get through a few heavily upgraded starbases buying twenty of them (yeah, I know that's a lot of fleet command) is a good way to do so.

I think Ogrovs are a bit pricey .

Losing three or four civic structures to Ogrovs is also very pricy.  It's all about how you use 'em.  Unlike siege frigates, they're actually tough enough to take some beating and get out alive, which is why they're useful.

Against the ai, I use 10 to 12 Ogrovs and direct my bombers and LRF (if it is an Orkulus) at the sb after the nearby repair bays are gone.  Sbs seem just as likely to target LRFs as Ogrovs.  You can position your caps between the ogrovs and the sb, the sb is gone before it can inflict much damage to anything.

Has anyone noticed if you postion mines at the missle cruiser's extreme range if will move closer to the sb to the clear patch?  That's what it appears to be doing in my current game.  The ai may have other reasons to close within the sbs range, but it seems if you leave a clear kill zone a little closer in front of the sb the ai missle cruisers move to it.  They avoid the mines but don't last long with an angry sb.

TEC anti-starbase strategy:

#1 - Ceilo Command Cruiser - before you even approach the SB with your main fleet.  Use the command cruiser ability to reduce the SB's damage output by 40%

#2 - Dunov Support Capital Ship - use the EMP blast ability.  It is a shield eraser and anti-matter drainer.  Dont believe the stats on this ability.  I think it says like 450 damage, but, it's waaaay more for some reason.  A lvl 3 hit of EMP blast will erase the shields of a fully upgraded starbase.  I'm talking 6000+ shields gone in one shot.

#3 - Orgov - Dont even attempt to kill a SB without 10 of these in your fleet.

Also, the Akkan - By the time SB's come into the picture, you should have the Akkan Battlecruiser in your fleet for the increased firing range.  The above strategy is even more deadly with increased 20% weapon range. 

Vasari anti-starbase strategy:

I'm not a Vasari player, but, it's another SB basically.  That's why Vasari dont have an anti-structure unit.  They gave the anti-structure units to Advent/TEC because the Vasari SB can move, so they (Advent/TEC) need away to kill it fast.  So, they dont give Vasari an anti-structure unit, BUT, they give the Vasari a research ability that gives their SB 40% decreased construction time in enemy territory, and the first weapon upgrade of a Vasari SB is an anti-structure weapon.  They really kept everything balanced, even in this 1st expansion.

Think about it, (1) Orgov is 1800 credits and 14 fleet.  So to get (10) of them, that's 18,000 credits and 140 fleet.  While the Vasari SB is like, 400 for the colony frigate, which is like 2 or 3 fleet, then I think another 2500 credits to build the SB, plus another 1800 for the anti-structure weapon upgrade, so that's only 4700 credits for a moving tank.  The downside is that you cant take the Vasari SB out of the grav well.

The more I play this game, the more I think it deserves to be atop the list of best strategy games of all time.  Yes, even better than Starcraft.

From a multiplayer perspective - very rarely if ever do TEC players use ogrovs in your average 'skilled' game to take out starbases because of the way people tech and play TEC. Carriers/hoshikos are 3 military labs where most TEC players stay in the midgame, and the next step in TEC is the switch to heavy cruiser at 5 labs, so there's no reason to be at 4 labs (unless for mass lrm upgrade, and mass lrm is pretty bad if scouted).

The best strategy with starbases is simply to keep scout frigates shift-moving through your enemy's territory. When the enemy tries to throw up a starbase, change your rally points, cancel any research, get extra LRMs and hoshikos, kill it while it's constructing. Once they get 2+ repair bays and a group of flak around the base, you're basically forced into getting an early carrier fleet of bombers to deal with it or you have to wait until their fleet gets out of position and your fleet can tank it. But if it costs 3000/400/400 to throw up a starbase, that's a 10 lrm advantage right there; go in and end it.

You should never, ever, ever engage a TEC starbase head on with LRMS/HCS unless:

-You have an Akkan with Armistice and are paying very close attention to when the red button starts

-You are absolutely sure he doesn't have 5 military labs (early game, but nobody builds argonev's early unless they're already down to 2-3 planetsand getting crushed).

The orkulus: as a rule of thumb, 30 bombers for a level 1 takes it out sufficiently quickly, plus 10 bombers for each health upgrade.

The advent starbase is not dangerous, just walk around it.

Later game, just trick your opponent into jumping his fleet to a different planet, then move in with your main force and kill the starbase with a bunch of bombers. Even a skeleton defence force has no problem killing ogrovs.

Main point: either early game, crush them with mass LRMs while they're constructing, mid game, ring around the rosie with bombers, late game, roll them with heavy cruisers while their fleet is away.

-RaptorJesus

Most things have already been mentioned. However, if there is an Akkan nearby, things can change. An Akkan with TU, can increase the range of a SB enough to take down your structure killers, especially if he also has the missle range upgrade. On the other hand: if you're the one with the Akkan with TU, you can even use the TEC Javelis LRF to kill a TEC or Advent SB, provided it doesn't have range upgrades or meteor control. If someone wants to get a SB quickly, you can use this strategy to kill it quickly with your fleet of LRM + Akkan.

Error.

18000 credits worth of Ogrovs deal 50 times more damage than 4700 credits worth Orkulus.
Play it once, see it isn't even close to what you think it is.
A fully offensively upgraded orky deals less damage than two ogrovs to a well developed starbase. And majority of that damage is not the crappy level 1 offensive upgrade but the level 2 phase missiles.

You're correct, 10 Orgov's deals tons more damage than 1 Orkulus.  Its just too bad Vasari cant build Orgovs.  Dude, can you read?  I clearly said: "Vasari anti-starbase strategy".  So, it's not about DPS output comparisons is it?  The point was, Orkulus is the anit-starbase unit for Vasari and it costs waaay cheaper than 10 Orgov's.

Stick to bombers. Can't go wrong with investing in carriers that can actually leave the grav well.

Bleh.

As Amish said, just make 40-50 Carriers filled with bombers and some flak frigs and you're set.

I gotta agree with Amish here (not that I ever disagreed with him)..

Bombers are awesome against SBs. Issues are flak and fighter and repair structures around the SB. If this is happening you need to look at counters.Dont be shy to repair them every once in a while, a whole fleet of chewed up bombers doesnt help. Recall them, repair them, reinforce them, then send em out in a whole wave to take out one structure, then pull them back.

Best advice if you hit a heavily defended SB is too look at locking down that system without getting bogged down. Take out the factories, stop him producing units if possible. Take out the repair bays, and ALWAYS be on the look out for fabricators, if you can stop your enemy building and reinforcing you can begin to chew away at the defences.

Be carefull though of spending too much time worrying about the SB system only, look for other ways around the SB, planet. If its a players HW and thier last planet, as long as you can effectively lock them in, and have second fleet, just keep them stagnate.

As advent, you can use the anti-structure (adjudicator) unit, but keep it in the middle of your fleet and keep guardians around to stop any fighters targeting this ship alone.

Vasari SB you need to micro around them, but again, bombers rule.

ADVENT and TEC SB - Get a vasari player to build and SB in enemy system. SLOWLY, walk it towards the enemy SB + defences and let it start to take out the structures around the SB first whilst upgrading the SB. Also, keep your fleet near to the SB. IF you can hit SB from both sides it helps too, as it means only one part of your attack is recieving direct fire.

But Always remember, you dont have to kill it, if you can go around it, or just take out the planet. Taking out mil labs too is always good as it limits the types of upgrades the SB can get.

Z axis I have had mixed results with, although some have said that there are loopholes in structures firing up and down through the Z axis. I havent worked out the glitch.....yet

Ok, thats news to me. Ive always noticed when attacking from the front and back seems more effective.

Why do starbases turn then to face fleets if there is no difference between front and rear?

probably to bring as many banks (max targets) to bear. Each bank can target 4 ships at a time, without getting the target bank/weapon damage research subject done. After that, the number goes up to 6 I think. Likely a SB turns because the want to try and get as many banks pointing at the enemy, so they can engage as many enemies as possible.

Either way, there is zero difference if the starbase is facing whatever side to the enemy.

The starbase has a fixed number of targettable enemies, wherever they are. I have seen Orky shoot at four or five targets directly in front of it, but I've never seen it shoot at more than that, even if there were targets in every possible direction at once.

I believe that the starbases just have a max number of targets they can shoot at and that it matters not where they are.
I may be wrong, but I sure as hell haven't seen a starbase shoot 16 targets just because they were in different directions.

Not trying to sound rude, but it's likely because the SB didn't have anything to its other sides. It may also be how the particle effects work, and there aren't really any emitters that face DIRECTLY to the left/right on the Orkulus.