Arcen Games

General Category => AI War Classic => AI War Classic - Strategy Discussion => : soMe_RandoM May 05, 2011, 10:13:27 PM

: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: soMe_RandoM May 05, 2011, 10:13:27 PM
let this be list of all tactics and strategy used in AI war.
: Re: List Fleet tactics and Overall stradegy
: x4000 May 05, 2011, 10:18:09 PM
That's a pretty broad topic.

EDIT:  But, looking below, it's certainly turned into a surprisingly valuable and cool topic, very quickly. ;)
: Re: List Fleet tactics and Overall stradegy
: Orelius May 05, 2011, 10:25:22 PM
I think he's talking about general fleet micro styles that people use.
I'll begin.

Bait-and-Switch
A very common strategy.  Set up large defenses on one of your planets adjacent to one with a large number of ships on alert.  Take a large fleet and bring it into said adjacent planet.  Quickly withdraw all of your ships to your heavily defended world and watch the fireworks.

Teleport Luring
This strategy really only works if you have teleporting ships (teleport raiders are preferred).

So, you take a large stack (Preferably full caps) of teleport raiders and put them on a particularly nasty planet.  Pause the game, and select attack all the guard posts you can with the teleport raiders.  Wait a few seconds, pause the game again and scroll out very, very far across the map, well beyond the gravity well that normally impedes ship movement.  Most if not all of the enemy guard ships should be moving towards them.  If they aren't, put them closer to the guard ships.  Wait until said ships are getting close to your raiders, and then teleport them farther away.  The guards should still be following them.  At this point, feel free to try to snipe off particularly pesky ships, like guardians (but stay far away from heavy beam and electric guardians, they utterly annihilate teleport raiders), but in general, try to keep your stack of raiders alive.  Note that if the planet has sniper ships or ion cannons, this strategy will likely not work at all, as the teleport raiders would go down much too quickly.

Now that you've created this distraction, send in your main fleet to clean up the rest of the defenses while the rest of the ships are far away chasing the teleport raiders.  Hopefully you'll be able to destroy most of it without having to directly confront the guard ships.  Note that this doesn't always work, though.  Slower ships will still be left behind, though they won't be much of a problem for your fleet to deal with, hopefully.  I'm not entirely sure how AI ships respond to the gravity well, either, as I don't use this tactic often.
: Re: List Fleet tactics and Overall stradegy
: chemical_art May 05, 2011, 10:59:35 PM
with so much potential material, where does one begin? I'd best start with just a few.

Zerg Tactics
Some units are very tough for their price. Fighters and nenzul come to mind. These cheap ships provide such a good bang for their buck they should be part of all actions you do, whether it be offense or defense. If you have a cap of them and there are no AI offenses, send them out to AI worlds to kill units there, if only to prevent unit build up. The key is to accept that losing a cap is expected and frequent, but you should make sure to at least destroy a lot of AI as they go down.



Static vs Elastic Defense
Many defensive units protect one planet. These static defenses on a ship cap basis are cheap and powerful. They are also simple: Ultimately they prevent the enemy from hitting your command station and/or running to hit other friendly planets.  However, they are helpless to units with longer range and can't help out against that mega invasion happening next door. This is where elastic defense comes into play. This a broad tactic that uses fleets to cover multiple fronts at once. One example is to position a defense fleet several planets back from the front lines so that the fleet can timely arrive to defend 3 fronts. The key is not put all your defensive assets on just the frontline worlds, but to ensure there are several potential checks to the enemy hitting your homeworld.

Here is a completely fictional and erroneous account of why elastic works. Imagine the AI attacks with a fleet using 10 points. You have 20 points to distribute among four fronts. If you spread out the defense evenly, the 5 points of defense will fail to the AI 10 points. If you spend 3 points for every planet, then spend 8 points on a fleet that can defend any four of those planets, then your defense will win because now you have 11 points to the AI's 10 points.


: Re: List Fleet tactics and Overall stradegy
: soMe_RandoM May 05, 2011, 11:20:28 PM
Nuking Grounds
this strategy includes using a planet that has very little use (ex: 1 crystal) and using it as place where you place very heavy defenses where when AI attacks it for AI to break it they would need at lease over 5,000 ships. meaning when shields go down and nuke goes off you know that its been worth it (exception FF immune ships), or you could lead enemy into large contested but worthless planet and plant Nuke there to set off, when battle is lost. (at end of every game i feel i just need to nuke crap o AI home surrounding planets when free to do so)
: Re: List Fleet tactics and Overall stradegy
: Red Spot May 06, 2011, 01:03:34 PM
Gate-raiding
Well-known, but one of the most important strats in the game. I always keep my "wave-inlets" to a minimum and make sure that that planet/those planets have some additional support. Have a botnet golem at hand and you often can keep the planet defended with just that single unit.

Sniper-turret defence
Always ... ALWAYS .. build sniper turrets on your front-planets and the ones behind it. They by themselves can stop entire groups of raid-starships from ever getting near your home-planet .. when you do find one beating down your home-CC you already lost, so its important to be sure it never happens.

Neutral planet-buffers
Fronts that you dont want to be too bothered with are easy to maintain when you neuter the adjacent planets .. no more constantly having to clean it of build-up, must less of a 'stream' of hostilities, and no zombies that constantly feel like killing themselves.
Exo-waves can be guided, to the max, by neutering planets, which again makes defending against them fairly easy(in general, but often only a bit later in a game).

Alerting Home/Core planets
Never ever ever ever alert them. Where a normal, say mk3, planet may build up to near 1k of ships, core planets seem to get an extra 50% and those are all mk5 ships. Most golems become utterly useless against them and stopping constant waves of carriers that keep dumping 200 mk5 ships on your fronts tends to hurt in the long run.
Try and "blob" them once they have build-up and you'll quickly learn why I so favour transports.

Neutering "out of the way" planets
Want to ofset the AI? Easy, find some nice uninteresting planet, preferably with as many gates as possible .. and take out its CC. Doesnt matter if you leave the posts/Eye/etc. Any adjacent planet now goes on alert (and the planet itself as well if you leave an Eye/Special guard post) -> resulting is less build-up near your real fronts. Want to increase this "distant build-up"? Take the planet and see the adjacent AI planet go into overdrive (build the CC at the border of the planet with an FF over it, by the time AI does attack it and grind through the FF the damage has already been done and the AI planets have reinforced, which is a good thing for your other fronts). Just dont clean the adjacent planets of posts as they can "dump" less ships there after you do so.
: Re: List Fleet tactics and Overall stradegy
: Commiesalami May 07, 2011, 01:07:30 AM

Neutering "out of the way" planets
Want to ofset the AI? Easy, find some nice uninteresting planet, preferably with as many gates as possible .. and take out its CC. Doesnt matter if you leave the posts/Eye/etc. Any adjacent planet now goes on alert (and the planet itself as well if you leave an Eye/Special guard post) -> resulting is less build-up near your real fronts. Want to increase this "distant build-up"? Take the planet and see the adjacent AI planet go into overdrive (build the CC at the border of the planet with an FF over it, by the time AI does attack it and grind through the FF the damage has already been done and the AI planets have reinforced, which is a good thing for your other fronts). Just dont clean the adjacent planets of posts as they can "dump" less ships there after you do so.

This can be done a lot more easily with Spire Scouts of the proper mark
: Re: List Fleet tactics and Overall stradegy
: chemical_art May 09, 2011, 09:09:55 AM
Military stations:

These buildings are tough and disrupt enemy waves. By using combinations of turrets and units you can deal with any threats. All front line stations are assumed to have a shield generator. These tactics are based on placing the station on a wormhole you absolutely do not want the AI to get through unscathed.

Station alone? MK I's are a bit unstable, but certainly can deal all but long range units up to 25. A MK II can knock away all border aggression but bombards for at least 40 enemies units indefinitely. MK III can be on its own indefinitely with at least 70 units around period. The stations provide effective resistance for three times these unit amounts on their own but risk getting overwhelmed.

To slow down the enemy? 4 spider turrets placed on the four corner outskirts* of you system and 4 placed around your station's force field will slow any offensive. After being engine shot and translocated, enemy units are effectively out of commission for the battle. The longer you can drag out the battle, the more effective this can be. I place these 8 spider turrets on all my front line planets and their connected planets for this works in almost any situation. I like military stations for this more then logistic stations because they translocate away from the station so my own units can engage them piecemeal. Gravity turrets placed between the station and the wormhole but still within your station's shots can compliment each other well.

*Make sure the outskirt turrets are spider and not sniper turrets. Spider turrets are ignored by engineers, which is good because all your other buildings are clumped together so that the engineers are always under a shield generator as they repair/build. Eventually your spider turret will pop but a rebuilder will fix it then.

Want more firepower? Start building turrets around your station. Depending on the amount, you can counter most normal waves with this. The turrets will always be in range on the units attacking the station while ignoring other enemies who are translocated all over the place. Your station will boost their firepower, and as turrets pop your builders hidden in the shield bubble will start rebuilding new ones. By killing the enemy faster, you can deal with more total and therefore can last much longer. Lasers to counter bombers is a good start.

Forts: Forts really don't benefit particularly from military stations. On their own, a logistic station works much better then a military one. As you add in more turrets and other turrets the balance shifts back toward military stations but make sure then the defenses overlap and assist each other.


Exo-wave incoming? This is when you bring in your fleets who will enjoy a constant attack boost. While your defense chip away at the blobs, your fleets should focus remove those threats who can threaten the shield and station (try not to run into the whole blob if you can), then move on to other threats. If a counter fleet cannot arrive in time, let your defenses slow the enemy down as your rally to another location to make a stand. The wave will grind down as the units' engines are blown away and translocated. After two planets of this, most waves are just a mess and can be isolated easily.

: Re: List Fleet tactics and Overall stradegy
: Nypyren May 10, 2011, 01:52:13 AM
Warning: These could be considered exploits or bugs and may get patched out in the future.

Spirecraft Martyrs + Cloaker Starships = Invincible Tractor Beams (5.010)

This appears to be an easily exploitable bug.  Move at least one Martyr and Cloaker SS as a group.  When you're next to a bunch of enemies, toggle power on the cloaker(s).  The Martyrs will activate their tractor beams as soon as they become uncloaked.  Power-on the cloaker(s).  The Martyrs will now be cloaked WITH tractor beams active, and the enemy ships will not be able to fire at the Martyrs.

Hive Golem as Threat Repellent (5.010)

Monitor your borders for planets that the AI prefers to reinforce.  If you notice one planet quickly accumulating ships (and threat), plant a Hive golem on your neighboring planet, preferrably with a full load of wasps.

At least on normal difficulty, the firepower from the wasps prevents the AI from EVER actually bringing all of that threat through the wormhole, since your Wasp firepower will always be greater than whatever the AI has accumulated.

The firepower for wasps will probably be fixed sooner or later, but you can have fun with this tactic for now.

Spirecraft Penetrators to assassinate AI homeworlds (5.010)

If you have:
15-25 Xampite asteroids (typically 4-5 worlds' worth)
Cleared all Tachyon guardians out of the path to both AI homeworlds (or enough that Penetrators can make it through alive).
Killed all of the Core Shield Generators (assuming you have them enabled)

Then:
Build a cap of Spirecraft Penetrator Mk1s and send them to one AI homeworld.  Most core guard posts die in a single Penetrator Mk1 shot.  The home command stations die in two shots.  If you can get the penetrators out, that's great, otherwise let them die and build another full cap.  Repeat until both homeworlds are gone.  Use a cap of Pysite and Reptite Martyrs to deal with the massive amounts of core ships that will be freed by your attacks.

If you have Ebonite+ available, build Mk2 and Mk3 Penetrators from those to speed up the process.
: Re: List Fleet tactics and Overall stradegy
: Shrugging Khan May 10, 2011, 06:13:15 PM
I don't know who stickied this thread, but I sure hope they come back around to fix it's title.

Grammar and spelling senses...in AGONY!
: Re: List Fleet tactics and Overall stradegy
: x4000 May 10, 2011, 06:24:05 PM
I don't know who stickied this thread, but I sure hope they come back around to fix it's title.

Grammar and spelling senses...in AGONY!

Fixed it... ;)
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: soMe_RandoM May 13, 2011, 12:37:41 AM
Neinzul Enclave Star ship + super Cloak
basically you want enemy to attack you when you have overwhelming force.
Set Up: get few super cloakers and set them to rough cover an entire fleet of long range ships
once they get close to full cap, then ship start revealing them self since they can't be cloaked any more. so what happens is AI starts coming towards your fleet.
what happens, when you reach X amount ships, that can kill X amount ship only when at full cap or desired X, then this super cloaker allows for this as when X+1 happens enemy ship start coming towards you X+1 Army. the +1 is extra ship that need to not be can't be claoekd by super cloaker. so what happens is you ship build up to X then once they get Y>X then enemy comes meaning its automated attack.
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: superking May 13, 2011, 02:38:37 AM
Big Blob of Doom
This works best when you have resources coming in at a good rate; Move all your starships and fleetships into one huge fleet and bind them to ctrl-1, then blindly send them onto an enemy planet you want to clear. Upon entering the enemy planet, put the fleet on FRD and pay it no more attention; your factories should soon be churning you out a replacement doom blob.

In the rare case that your doom blob manages to clear the planet without your attention, roll all your reinforcements into the system and rebuild the doom blob fleet back up to its original strength and roll it into another system. Down this road, gaurenteed victory awaits!
: Re: List Fleet tactics and Overall stradegy
: Shrugging Khan May 13, 2011, 06:46:19 PM
Fixed it... ;)
I just wish someone had called me out on my own grammatical mistake before you got to quote it  ::)

Aaaaanyways, *my* preferred strategy: Stealth Commandos!

The easiest way is obviously just picking SSBss as starting bonus ships, then unlocking the higher mark levels. They are more than suited for raiding planet after planet worth of priority targets like EMP guardians, guard posts, data centres...as long as you do the footwork beforehand and take out all the tachyon guardians in the way (The SSBss can do it themselves, but it's usually safer to send something else), you can basically have your stealth sabotage strikes as far into enemy territory as you like - I often get carried away and stop only when I start to get deep-strike-counter-attacks. It requires no micromanagement aside from controlling the SSBss fleet itself, it can clean out heaps of planets while your conventional fleet sits back and intercepts and freed AI ships, and it's even fairly cheap on resources. Not so cheap on time, since you need to watch the stealth fleet pretty much constantly in order to power them up and down (attack orders themselves can be queued up very nicely), but if you play with zero AIP over time (as I do), that's no issue.

Alternatively to SSBss, you can just use ye olde transporters-plus-cloaker-SSs trick; although the level of micromanagement necessary to get it going that way is unquestionably a lot greater. In exchange, your maximum firepower and flexibility are increased a great deal. On the other hand, you might be vulnerable to ion cannons, trigger Eyes, and you might have your defences weakened because to draw to many ships to these commando activities. Cheaper on the knowledge, though.
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: soMe_RandoM May 19, 2011, 05:26:46 AM
Mega watt Super colliding super Defense
Strategy is basically when you have enough defenses to hold of an AI attack without needing fleet ships to support it, then you can move out, this requires you to wait for some time being passive, waiting until defenses on your home planet can withstand enemy attack it. once this happens you tend to be very aggressive, trying to take as many planets, as you can before AI wipes out your fleet. what tends to happen is you lose your fleet but defenses at home don't get destroyed meaning you can take more planets, more planets you have stronger your defenses get, i used this strategy against, doom core back in they 3.0 days, and Core use to only spawn few ships, now you basically have to do this strategy to survive an extra minute against doom core.
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: Argonic June 14, 2011, 03:49:18 PM
Big Blob of Doom
This works best when you have resources coming in at a good rate; Move all your starships and fleetships into one huge fleet and bind them to ctrl-1, then blindly send them onto an enemy planet you want to clear. Upon entering the enemy planet, put the fleet on FRD and pay it no more attention; your factories should soon be churning you out a replacement doom blob.

In the rare case that your doom blob manages to clear the planet without your attention, roll all your reinforcements into the system and rebuild the doom blob fleet back up to its original strength and roll it into another system. Down this road, gaurenteed victory awaits!

I use a strat called The Blob. It consists of every Mobile shield gen you can make (if you have that unit), engies, and everything else you can pile into it. Send them to a planet and group move them from post to post. Only time i ever really lost units is to Ion cannons. Its a mobile 160million or so shield that is constantly getting repaired. Just stop the blob in one place if you start to get hit hard and the engies will constantly repair the shield gens.
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: chemical_art June 28, 2011, 07:41:12 PM
Gravity turrets and beam cannons  intercept waves well. Since the wave comes from a single point, they can remain very close together for long periods of time allowing the cannons to cause full damage. Lightning turrets and other area attacks can use gravity turrets as well.
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: Bleek June 29, 2011, 03:05:53 AM
I've just seen this topic, very cool, not sure I'm going to be able to add to it though!  ??? ;D
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: chemical_art July 14, 2011, 10:32:05 AM
Military MK III stations as defensive tachyon warheads.

Finding rogue cloaked units on own planets is annoying. One either sweeps with units taking up precious micro or spends AIP to get the process done quickly. But with a MK III station you can be quick and AIP free. If at least one building slot is saved, a planet with an annoying amount of cloacked units can be upgraded to a MK III station temporarily so that all cloaked units can be exposed and removed. Once done, the station can go to its previous state.
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: chemical_art July 26, 2011, 09:36:24 PM
Turret niches:

These assume all turrets are available if desired.

To help provide a concise idea of a turret's strengths, and how to use it.

Basic: Anti missile frigate, general purpose cheap turret (in both resources and knowledge). Place between wormhole and command station.

Sniper: Maximum range instant damage. Super effective against raid starships, bombers, and melee craft. All these vessels somehow defeats your shield. Place on outskirts, unless using a single shield defense, then maybe place just outside the shield.

Spider:  Like sniper, so you can double your cap of that function. Also able to neutralize most fleetships in a single shot through engine damage. Due to cost, would suggest to always keeping them on outskirts for protection.

MLRS: Anti-fighter. Anti melee.  Can outrange most things. Ineffective against armored vessels.

Missile turret: Anti-bomber. Wide range of damage. Effective vs raid starships. Usually can cover the whole distance between wormhole and station with plenty of room to avoid passing attacks.

Laser: Anti-bomber. Anti-starship. Place where the enemy will be a while. Like wormholes or around station bubble.

Lightning: Localized attrition. The harder and longer the fight, the stronger they get. Always combine with gravity turrets or tractors.

Flak turrets: Short range. I use them exclusively at wormhole entries. The text doesn't explictly state it but I think they have AoE like grenades, or maybe an even shorter ranged version of it. with AoE they get much more powerful and can dispatch some units themselves.

Counter sniper: Never have used them. Ever.

Tractors: Can be placed at wormholes if mines aren't used much. Doesn't lose effectiveness under a shield if it can get units from outside bubble.

Gravity: Effective regardless of numbers, making it very handy as difficulty numbers go above 8. Doesn't lose effectiveness under a shield at all. Higher marks may provide a stronger benefit then first indicated as it's power increase is not as linear as other turrets.

Tachyons: I always invest in military stations, making these redundant. Can't comment.

Heavy beam cannons: Very effective if combined with gravity or tractors so as to maintain "bunchiness". Not enough in caps for my taste on their own, but if doing fallen spire then highly recommended.

: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: Clearbeard August 05, 2011, 04:03:59 PM

Sniper: Maximum range instant damage. Super effective against raid starships, bombers, and melee craft. All these vessels somehow defeats your shield. Place on outskirts, unless using a single shield defense, then maybe place just outside the shield.

Gravity: Effective regardless of numbers, making it very handy as difficulty numbers go above 8. Doesn't lose effectiveness under a shield at all. Higher marks may provide a stronger benefit then first indicated as it's power increase is not as linear as other turrets.

Tachyons: I always invest in military stations, making these redundant. Can't comment.


I've seen a few comments suggesting sniper turrets are good against raid starships.  Thing is, don't raid starships have good radar dampening, meaning sniper turrets seldom can engage them, especially if placed on the far edges of the system?

As for gravity turrets, higher marks are definitely improvements, with max speed reduced from 8-->4-->2 with each level, giving you 2 or 4 times as long to kill with your longer ranged turrets and ships.  Since relatively few ship types ignore grav effects compared to tractor beams, they're doubly useful.

Cloaked tachyons are good, regular ones, meh.  The level 1 ones are low hp and tend to get targeted early, but the cloaked version are superb.  Personally I prefer the stealth tachyon/logistics/grav turret combo to military stations, which are just too chaotic for my tastes.
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: chemical_art August 29, 2011, 11:42:49 AM

I've seen a few comments suggesting sniper turrets are good against raid starships.  Thing is, don't raid starships have good radar dampening, meaning sniper turrets seldom can engage them, especially if placed on the far edges of the system?


Raiders don't have radar dampening unless this has been added. But even if they do sniper turrets ignore it readily.

Snipers are best because they both pierce the raiders very heavy armor and can't be outrun in system.
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: aordy001 October 07, 2011, 08:11:25 AM
yess Ok Thank For you SoMuch info!  ??? ??? ???
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: Nodor March 31, 2012, 11:04:22 AM
Turret niches:
Counter sniper: Never have used them. Ever.


Counter sniper: This is how to shut down Sentinal Frigates and Sniper guardians.  Place 1 on important command stations and in turret balls.
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: Rainbowsand July 05, 2013, 09:08:42 PM
How to clear hundreds of high mark fleets in ai system with no unlocks
Raid tachyons ions and snipers
Sneak in cloaker ship, mobile builder, raider ship and reclamators
Have raider aggro everything and kite it to the edge
Build lots of mark 1 turrets and engies on the opposite, and tractors in the middle
While they slaughter these build a lots on the opposite
Rebuilders
Repeat
If you can get some sort of mass engine dmg in it improves efficiency

How to get huge high mark fleets with no unlocks
Abuse leech starships and mercenary parasites and dont suicide
Hack a mark 5 fabricator
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: undefind September 28, 2013, 05:17:46 AM
I am pretty new at this game, but I will share something that has worked very well for me.

Want to clear a high level planet without losing too many ships?

Set up:

1. Get ship caps for everything you have if possible (you need as many starships as you can get). You need a few Leech starships preferably at least MK II and as many leech type ships as you can. Riot ships fitted with long range guns and force fields are also recommended
2. Enter AI planet and select all ships and blob them together
3. Move the ships around the map with group move (Hold "G") marking a path that avoids incoming ships (if things get dicey and you notice your starships are all that's left, get your starships out of there. They take far too much time to rebuild.)

The result is a massive blob that engages a minimal amount of ships by avoiding the majority of other ships on the map. The leech type ships convert the frontline AI ships (the AI tends to halt in the face of these newly converted ships and targets them) and the Riot ships halt others. This makes it easier to place more distance between you and the massive amount of AI ships on the map.  If it works right, you can move your blob right on top of these ships to let your short range clean up the mess. Rinse/repeat.

This of course does not work when you are largely outclassed however, it does work on AI homeworlds exceptionally well and I like to use this strategy as an alternative to beachheading especially if deepstriking.

WARNING!!!
I just started a difficulty 8 map for the first time and have yet to try this out on that difficulty, but it works very well for the beginner scripts
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: keith.lamothe September 28, 2013, 12:19:09 PM
Yea, kiting + riots can be amazing.  Emphasizing parasite support is a smart idea too.  I imagine if you toss in a mobile space dock that could help, though probably only if the enemies leave you alone for a few seconds here and there (which may be unlikely).

You may find that the overall tactic doesn't work nearly as well in games where the AI gets Spire Blade Spawners, Tackle Drone Launchers, Zenith Bombards, etc.  True sniper stuff would hurt too, but you have a ready counter in the form of scout starships and so on.  And in theory you can counter the SBS's and TDL's with mkIII Riots with grav modules.

Then of course there's the Speed Racer AI Type, but you can't win 'em all ;)
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: undefind September 28, 2013, 03:37:57 PM
Yea, kiting + riots can be amazing.  Emphasizing parasite support is a smart idea too.  I imagine if you toss in a mobile space dock that could help, though probably only if the enemies leave you alone for a few seconds here and there (which may be unlikely).

You may find that the overall tactic doesn't work nearly as well in games where the AI gets Spire Blade Spawners, Tackle Drone Launchers, Zenith Bombards, etc.  True sniper stuff would hurt too, but you have a ready counter in the form of scout starships and so on.  And in theory you can counter the SBS's and TDL's with mkIII Riots with grav modules.

Then of course there's the Speed Racer AI Type, but you can't win 'em all ;)

Definitely not a sound tactic I agree, but given the right circumstances it does fantastic. I just tried it with Attritioners and Mini Forts. Worked AMAZINGLY! Attritioners for added damage and Forts for the healing (good tactic is to hold your ground until the 30 or so engineers finish the forts and you clear out the initial masses. Can get the forts up in just a few seconds). Then of course I got whooped on by 3 Exo waves, normal wave, and threat waves at the same time. Pretty sure the AI timed all those waves exactly to the tee. Man, this AI is ruthless...
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: Malkiel November 25, 2014, 02:01:35 PM
Fleet tactics are very dependant on unlocks for me. Particular favorites are:

Translocator ball sitting on path to my station dispersing enemy fleet
Same ball splitting up to cover all wormholes when they decide it's time to leave.

neinzul only space dock set to send all production into an enemy world on FRD- effective out to 2 hops from your territory.
If used adjacent to your territory, they will seek to use the healing thing when they get below 30%, conserving strength.

Spirecraft maw: keeps it's most dangerous attack while hiding under a human forcefield.

raid engine wormhole so close to your military station that the knockback puts the enemy behind it? keep a few dozen merc parasites there on attack move so they have someone to play with! A zenith medic frigate really helps here, as do paralyzers.

Protector Starship with the anti energy weapon piece to protect a hardened force field from bombers. If using a logi station on the front lines, go anti laser instead for raid starships!

Lightning torpedo Frigate + cloaker starship.. the frigates can't be cloaked, but the torpedoes can! Great when jumping in and out of a wormhole.

Speed building a MKIV HBC to clear nearly any amount of enemies so long as you have supply. (cleared 62 riot starships with this earlier today)

Sick of their etherjet kidnappings? Riot starship with shield and tractors, leech starships and parasites if you have them on your side of wormhole. Let panic ensue!

Setting auto kite to 1000 really does help (from Kahuna's guide) but reserve a control group for when you are chasing down a target (like a combat carrier guardian) and need the ships to have it turned off quickly lest shots get wasted on drones because ship is just out of range when you go to fire.

And my personal favorite: Using the Exodian Blade to cover a planet during the showdown devices, followed by ambushing the motherships with it right before they pass through a wormhole.

Mal's dirtiest trick: putting a few needler turret mark 2 in front of my static defenses to soak the initial enemy salvo. No other turret line gets 200*tier for armor, this will greatly boost survivability of even tractor turrets.
: Re: List of fleet tactics and overall strategies
: carldong November 27, 2015, 09:17:48 PM
You can actually kite many slow ships with a Fortress or Mini Fortress. Just be careful don't get caught by a blob of Bombers. Fortresses heal themselves even if the countdown is on: it just cannot repair other ships.

I use this tactic to clean up a planet with 400-500 threat in supply before I take it. Bring in 40 MkIII engineers and some Mobile Builders in a cloaked transport, and you should be able to put down a Fortress MkI under 10 seconds.

Beachhead if you like, build Spider Turrets if you like, just be careful of Bombers.

Works on 7 Diff Turtle MkIV world.

Notice: Mini Fortresses actually does 10 times more damage to Bombers than regular ones because they don't suffer that 0.01 multiplier. But it is still so pathetic that you'd better use them as a big MkI engineer that doesn't kill itself charging into the enemy trying to fix your Minefiled that fixes your giant 200-turret-blob at once. Treat its DPS as a bonus to its repairing ability: it is under Support tab anyway.

MFs are good if you have a huge combat engineering team like I do. OR when the AI gets Spire Maw. Lots of times my eng's just get eaten by them so I have to escort my Eng team. When I only have MkII engineers, I spare 20 of them into my combat eng team. 40 MkIIIs if I have them unlocked. Therefore, the majority of my planets only get one engineer to build stuff. I put MF's on frontline worlds, to fix turrets. Actually turrets do last longer, and Mini-Forts are seldom targeted by enemy (provided you keep the Bombers far far away).

Last note: A beachhead consisting of two MF, some gravs, some spiders, some Missiles, does not alert adjacent planets unless you put >49 of them there. You still get the one-cap-turret-without-multiplier DPS from Mini Forts, gathers scout intel, annoys the enemy, and not alerting them too much. A regular fortress by itself will alert adjacent planets, though. Of course, that beachhead is not particularly strong. Don't even try that on higher mark worlds. But they do spares you some engineers