Alright, if he's got phase stabilizers then changing fronts isn't going to help you, and if all his planets are starbased (how long has this game been going on? That's wickedly expensive) then bypassing won't do you any good either. If he's got a sizeable fleet on standby, your only real option is to take this thing on brute force with an overwhelming fleet. I think at this point your best option is to sit back and build a maximum-sized fleet of doom. Your empire is bigger, so you should be able to out-build him.
This would be an appropriate fleet:
- 150 illuminators OR 90 destras (900 command)
- 20 drone hosts (400 command)
- 3 Halcyon Carriers (all of them should have TK push, one should have energy amplification - 150 command)
- 3 Progenitor Motherships (all of them with shield restore - 150 command)
- 1 Radiance Battleship (detonate antimatter - 50 command)
- 20 defense vessels (80 command)
- 20 Iconus Guardian (140 command - if you go with illuminators, ensure you have repulsion)
- 10 Subjugators (40 command)
That's about a 2000 command fleet, and if you threw that at his starbase it would simply be overwhelmed. If you go the destra route, you'll be better at picking off that starbase, whereas the illuminators will hit harder against his fleet. Your fleet should be able to pound that starbase for well over 2000 damage per second, and even after armour and shield mitigation that should still be enough punch to take down the starbase.
For a more strike-craft based fleet, try this:
- 60 illuminators (360 command)
- 50 drone hosts (1000 command)
- 1 Rapture Battlecruiser (concentration aura, position it with your carriers - 50 command)
- 1 Progenitor Mothership (shield restore - 50 command)
- 3 Halcyon Carriers (all TK push, energy amplification not needed but nice to have - 150 command)
- 40 defense vessels (160 command)
- 20 Iconus Guardians (140 command - ensure you have repulsion)
- 10 subjugators (40 command)
Again, that's about 2000 command, and this one will hit very hard with about 150 squads of strike craft. Use repulse to keep his fleet off your tail (sacrifice a few guardians if necessary, use repulse to block the enemy's pursuit) and smack him hard with your bombers. If you have mostly bombers (120 squads, let's say) you're hitting for about the same amount of damage as the fleet above but you have a lot more mobility with those strike craft. On the flip side, you're a bit more fragile and don't have much tanking power.
If you hit with a sufficiently large fleet and punch out any of his planets, it should cause his entire empire to fold since his tiny economy won't be able to sustain those kinds of losses. Seriously, though, I'm surprised he can afford all this on a measly 6-planet empire. With an empire that small, labs and factories are probably taking up nearly half his logistics space.
