99% of what you just posted also applies to all competitive rts games, including the Starcraft series, which is like the holy grail of the genre

Actually capitalships are usually quite valueable against lone titans, especially the Dunov/Radiance/Kortul as they can drain titan antimatter. As bigger targets they are also more resistant to AoE attacks, making them better than frigates against all titans except the Coronata. I usually find it is the frigate fleet or bombers that often escort the titan that really kills them.

Again humans it is very much a skill to learn how to use capitalships correctly, since after mid game a 50 fleet supply cap cannot withstand the focus fire from a 400+ fleet supply force for very long, thus knowing when to seriously commit your capitalships into battle to use their abilities then withdraw to releative safety is crucial.

Again really it is the bombers that are the problem, the late game swarms you encounter cannot be run from unless you happen to be very lucky with a Halcyon/Kortul/Kol. 

That's news to me... I'm pretty sure it has all the rebellion stuff in there.

It might not be up to 1.52 though.

alright... I'll take a look.... I just got a new PC and don't have open office on it yet, so it'll be a bit.

I distinctly remember having to come up with some way of doing corvettes because they were the only frigate to be split between 6 factions instead of 3, until hours later I figured out the only difference was their special ability

EDIT: ok, so I did it right away... everything is there. Titans, corvettes,

Are you sure you didn't save the old link somewhere or something? I think I switched to a drop box share at the same time. anyhow, I might get any stat changes that happened between release and now into the sheet soon. I just found some extensions for Open Office that might solve a lot of the pain on updates. Would be simpler if Excel had a reasonable price

Your rhetoric keep circulating around words such as 'just' doing something. The enemy can't 'just' do anything. A starbase can't 'just' be destroyed. A starbase also can't 'just' be avoided since it will disrupt phase lanes and launch strike craft. The enemy can't 'just' build a number of anti-structure frigates and 'just' get them into range. The enemy can't 'just' build a huge fleet. The fleet defending your starbase won't 'just' happen to be somewhere else. The enemy won't 'just' have a Titan.

The game has a number of serious problems, but none of what you've mentioned are amongst them. It also sounds like you need to realize that orbital defenses and starbases aren't meant to stand alone, but instead are there to support your fleet.

I'll agree that massive amounts of bombers are a problem at the moment. However it hasn't always been this way.

You have to be smart and not let the AI get so far ahead. If they bring bombers, attack the carriers. Your only chance is to produce LFs faster than they can die or (if your factory at that world is gone) bring them in sizable groups. Be prepared for a counter attack though, that's a lot of fleet points you just freed up. Luckily, the direct counter to LFs are LRFs, and corvettes are good against LRFs, cheap to deploy, and don't take a lot of fleet. If the above doesn't at least show you how it can be done,  you're too far behind economically... new game.

Also, torpedo cruisers are supposed to take out starbases, that's why they exist

1. Build carriers.
2. Jump in
3. When in range of the starbase, retreat away from it. Take minor losses at best. When not in range sit back and wait until your bombers have blown it out of the sky

The phase effect of a starbase only happens if you jump away from the gravity well. It does remove a percentage of the CURRENT hull points of the affected ships. So if a ship only has 10 hull points remaining, it will still survive the jump. And it does remove antimatter.

None of this does make it necessary to NOT avoid the starbase, and it is quite easy in most gravity wells to ignore a non Vasari Starbase alltogether. You might be incapable of getting the planet for now, but it does not hinder you from happily flying arround it.

Only the smallest gravity wells bring incoming fleets into certain range of your starbase (if well placed) and that does only really help when you are TEC with BRB.(That did receive an unjustified nerf a while ago).

As Advent, dont even bother.... no human opponent which is not totally dumb will stay long enough in range of your Starbase to allow Meteor Storm to do more than superficial damage.

As for hangar bays on the Starbases... yes, they help. But they wont do much against a late game fleet..... just to few strike craft there.

Not to mention, that you have to give up other upgrades for it to be on maximal level.

Starbases were designed to fend of fleets consisting of Heavy Cruisers and Frigates..... a job they do quite well..... which is one of the reasons nobody uses heavy cruisers.

Last but not least, yes the Orkulus can be avoided, but unlike other starbases doing so requires permanent attention.... and you can send your fleet right circle and the Orky left circle arround the gravity well.... that makes space not deadly a premium at most planets.

It's great that you have no trouble against 3 AI. Are you playing Vasari with moving starbases and its ability to jump anywhere within their own empire in 1 big jump? Try playing as TEC against 3 AI, it's probably a lot harder then. I haven't tried that, I think 1:1 is already hard enough.

Advent defenses against AI are very good, with shields and many upgrades, once I destroyed like 10 level 6-8 Vasari capital ships and a supporting (though smaller) fleet with minor losses on my own (10 turrets and 2 hangars in exchnge for his capital ships lol). Without a starbase. Stupid AI thought from the total firepower he will win easily, well, he was absolutely wrong. I had no fleet in the vicinity (it was totally on the other front, I was like 10 jumps away) so I decided to do some testing, it was really funny.

Hard AI can be easily defeated even on smaller maps without building starbases if you play efficiently and punish the AI for every mistake he makes, like killing lone capital ships that he ordered to attack your world, or clearing small harassing fleets, after some time killing every small fleet makes a huge difference and takes away his resource advantage.

I must agree with GeomanNL, defenses are ridiculous in the game. A well upgraded starbase easily dies from a small fleet even without torpedo cruisers, it's range is stupidly short (can't even reach the krosovs at the other side of the planet, so good I have a starbase that costed me a fortune...). Turrets are even worse, and no defense is good against bombers (except the Vasari hangar bay, but thats only one race that hardly needs any more advantage), so basically I can defend my worlds against like 2-5 stripes of ships  (depending on composition), but if the attacker has some bombers my defenses are totally useless. Sounds totally legitimate.

Against humans I won't even say anything, as TEC or Advent it never helps to build defenses, and many times your starbase will be useless as your opponent will simply avoid it or use bombers to get it down, as it is defenseless against them and you can't stop his bombers.

Nothing helps against a late game fleet, especially bomber spam. Biggest problem is the current uselessness of the fighters (and if you have 14 fighter squad on your starbase your opponent will just laugh at you, because they are worthless and those 14 bomber squads that will lose some bombers while your starbase is defeated... not a major loss for the attacker), they either die too fast to flak or too slow to kill bombers in time. BRB is awesome, you only need to have a opponent who is either stupid, or is not paying attention to his fleet. Well, expecting this from a skilled player... So if he is not in range of the Argonev, and never will be, your Red Button was just a waste of money that cannot be gained back.

Against AI I never used the red button, but I guess it can solve the problem sometimes, eradicating the whole fleet of the AI in one moment making room for quick counterattack.

Just to validate that I know what I am talking about. Currently I am playing against 6 HARD AIs allied (can field 12000 in fleet supply) against me and have no problems of beating 2 vicious (4000 fleet supply with almost instant replacements). Vicious ais field their titans and super weapons well inside 20 min mark they have some research perks and not confirmed but i belive their titan gets auto lvl (similar to advent caps)

My advice would be split the fleet. Here is the deal AI is very very stupid. AI will always attack first thing that was build first not one that is build closest to where he jumps in. If you keep any ship even 1 corvette in gravity well he will chase it ignoring everything else until he kills it. Yes he might shoot at structures you have but he will do that only because they are in range by default he will move his ships toward his target. 

So try this:

Keep one or 2 carrier caps in gravity well he is attacking with fighter squadrons.

Remember when it gets damaged retreat repair in nearby grav well and jump back in. Switch them if necessary.

On hard any capital ship will do but above you need carriers because of bomber spam. Keep it inside your defences which as tec should consist of Starbase 4-5 repair bays and rest can be split into turrets or hangars. Make sure you build starbase first and then cluster your defences near but behind star base.

When AI comes near to attack your caps (you are using caps because of durability and free lvling you get by annihilating enemy fleet) move your cap ship away from starbase so he passes trough it. After his fleet surrounded starbase move your capital ship back between defences where repair bays are and circle it around his fleet and your star base. 

Unless your caps aren't ones with AM drain abilities (kortul, dunov, radiance) and have some points already in those abilities above strategy will not work if he attacks with titans. For titans best thing you can do besides drain it AM is to cluster turrets in a way around star base so that they are not affected by their AOE attacks at the same time.

AI always like to keep his fleet tightly clustered so those ogrows you are talking about (yes they will target structures but they will target star base) will come into the range of starbase weapons. Same will happen with carriers. I have not seen AI leave carrier portion of the fleet on edge of gravity well if he has capital ship or titan present.

What you must not forget is to scout. You have to see how many ships he plans to attack with so you bring those reinforcements if needed. And bombers are not as good as fighters against ogrows or starfish. Even better is fleet of corvettes nearby (20-30) Use those only if you think there is too many anti structure frigates as you will probably loose them all. 

On hard you should not have a problem but on higher lvls advent starfish causes in loosing structures only because it attacks 4 targets simultaneously. 

Your defences wont work first time .You will need some practice with it how to set them up and how to move your capitals but after a while you will realize that AI needs those bonuses he is getting to compensate for stupidity.... 

Shield mitigation negates dmg received.

So you have fleet that does 1000 dps.

Ship with 65% of shield mitigation will receive only 350 dps (-65%) .

And if ship had 20% shield mitigation it would receive 800 dps (-20%).  

Overlapping repair platforms should be main thing you build if you consider defences.

As TEC most of the time I completely ignore hangars . If I need to I rather keep 4 carrier frigates on the edge of gravity well away from fighting to complement those caps i have there to lvl up. 

Unless you are vasari. Vasari hangars with phasic traps are much more useful. As Vasari I replace repair platforms (keep 2 that overlap) with hangars and have about 10 overseers ready just in case. If you play vasari turrets with disruptor nanities upg are a must especially on higher lvls ais.

As advent 2 overlapping hangars with shield bestoval are enough with 3-4 repair platforms and rest invested with turrets with that turret research. As advent disruption matrix on starbase is very useful. 

This is awesome stuff (For killing the AI - how does it stack up against Humans?)

On my comment - yes. I don't understand how that means that Shield Mitigation makes focus firing inefficient. If you have a fleet that does 1000 dps, and you attack a fleet that does 1000 dps, if you focus fire yes SM will increase more quickly but you will be doing 350dps to one target. If both fleets have 10 ships and you attack each ship individually, you will initially do 80dps, and this will decrease to 35dps. You're still doing 10 times more damage focus firing.

As a matter of interest, would you submit  the game file recordings of games vs hard AIs so we get an idea of how you handle it? 

See that's what I have never understood. It stands to reason that you put your Starbases in the economic centre of your empire. You force the opponent to engage them or leave an industrial powerhouse at their back. And most of the upgrades support that (especially orbital command and docking booms). I don't get why you wouldn't invest in your defences so that priority was given to worlds which were worth more to you, that you had already invested a fair amount in. The dead asteroid at the chokepoint isn't worth as much as the desert planet next door, except in terms of position.  But the position is useless if the desert falls.

Shield mitigation doesn't peak based on damage. The rate depends on dps taken. But once it hits 65% it stays there. So until the ships are at maximum SM focus fire is inefficient.  Once they are there, it's more efficient TO focus fire. All focus firing from the beginning does is decrease the time until focus firing becomes efficient. So I really don't see the problem.

For example,  against the Vasari I had a fleet of LRMs and an Akkan. They had a battleship and a carrier capital,  plus a small escort of LF. By focus firing everything on the capitals, I was able to kill their fleet more quickly than they could kill me. My Akkan was equally levelled, but survived, while both capital ships were lost.

Yes I will do that I will start a game against 3 of them so it does not take to long and game is as a whole but in the meantime check this out.

It is skilled PvP by one of best players in SINS. As far as I know he doesn't play any more and version of the game is old but strategies are still valid. Keep in mind that MP SINS is far different beast of a game than SINS SP is,  

There are a lot of threads about shield mitigation below are just 2 ...

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/145982/page/1/

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/412669/page/1/

You are completely wrong 

Defences that are not used are a vaste of resources and endless sinkhole as if you have 20 planets you cannot defend all of them properly so it is better to defend choke points. AI is stupid he will never bypass that choke point.

Exception are TEC loyal with twin sb and double trade port upgrade which gives 10 credits per second per gravity well. But even then if you do it never invest in anything else but basic SB with twin trade upgrades. Same goes with TR but benefits are smaller. You can also build SB with trade ports in gravity wells to extend trade line. Hope you know what that means...