Beachheading

[Kahuna]

Are you a defensive player (who uses MarkI ships till mid/end game(like me)) and want to capture a heavily defended AI planet? Is there an MRLS Guard Post and (Zombie/Laser) Guardians camping under a MarkIII Force Field? MarkIII Fort protected by Force Fields? Or just a lot of AI ships refusing to die (Tackle Drones tackling ships whose engines are blow up by Riots)?

No problem! Just build a beachhead like in the screenshot, destroy the AI Command Center, build your own CS in middle of the beachhead and build long range turrets to slowly (but surely) destroy the remaining ships and guard posts! MarkII Basic and Laser Turrets work too now that they have radar dampening (well I guess they did before too but now they're even better)! Don't forget to manually build the Harvesters! This saves time and ships.

Now you have captured the planet and your beachhead turrets are cleaning and defending the planet and you can use your fleet for something else!
BOOM! Problem Solved!

[Hearteater]

Unless something has changed, you can't actually use Missile Turrets on Fortresses as they actually have some kind of Counter Missile ability, even though it isn't listed.  I tried to do this against a Mark III Fortress on a homeworld once.  The fortress fired out counter shots eating all my missile turret's missiles .

[pheonix89]

Unless something has changed, you can't actually use Missile Turrets on Fortresses as they actually have some kind of Counter Missile ability, even though it isn't listed.  I tried to do this against a Mark III Fortress on a homeworld once.  The fortress fired out counter shots eating all my missile turret's missiles .

Seriously? Because that is complete and utter cheese if it's right. Sticking a hidden defense on and not listing it? Especially since the best way for champions to engage a fort would be with missile turrets. And yes they can survive doing it. Grab a Neinzul Destroyer or above and use it's radar dampening to avoid return fire.

[Diazo]

Unless something has changed, you can't actually use Missile Turrets on Fortresses as they actually have some kind of Counter Missile ability, even though it isn't listed.  I tried to do this against a Mark III Fortress on a homeworld once.  The fortress fired out counter shots eating all my missile turret's missiles .

Wait, what?

I'm sure I've had missile frigates attacking my fortress before.

Brb.

D.

edit: I don't have a setup to test in game but there is nothing in the data files (so abilities/immunities) that indicate fortresses counter missiles somehow.

edit the 2nd: Running a quick test with cheats, something has the counter missile ability at the AI home command station blob. Trying to find out what exactly does now.

[Hearteater]

See .  I've never tried it on a non-homeworld Fortress, and it was a Fortress III under two Core Force Fields alongside the Home Command Station.  So it could have been the Home Command Station, or even the Core Force Fields.  But the graphical effect appeared to be coming from the Fortress.

[keith.lamothe]

Does it happen with a fort that's all by itself?

[Cinth]

AI home command stations are immune to missile ammo

[Diazo]

Okay, I think it's the AI home command station providing the counter missile coverage.

I destroyed the fort and think I was still seeing counter-missiles going off.

I'd left CSGs enabled however so the frigates were supposed to be firing at an invulnerable structure so I'm not sure they were firing and being counter-missiled or just not firing.

D.

[LordStryker]

This thread introduced me to the beachheading idea.  Its great. I found myself having to build a Mk1, Mk2, and Mk3 force field in that order to set up my defense quickly (my Mk.3 FF with an engi group wasn't constructing fast enough before I was swarmed).  Works great for hacking planets as well.  I may need to reevaulate my research priorities as missle turrets become pretty important in this type of scenario.

[Kahuna]

Beachheads can also be used to destroy with MarkIII or Super Fortresses. You can build Mark>I Basic, Laser or HBC turrets to destroy them. The Fortress wont be able to destroy them because they have radar dampening. In addition to that you can build some Sniper and Missile Turrets to keep the planet clear. This also work against the Fortress King AI type.

Beachheading can also be used to slow down and weaken or even destroy CPAs and waves. If you're sure you know where the CPAs will come from and you have a nice choke point you can setup a beachhead in front of your whipping boy so the CPAs will have to go trough your beachhead before they reach your whipping boy and other planets.
If you have a nice choke point like in the first 2 images you can destroy the Warp Gate on the beachhead planet so even waves will have to go trough the beachhead before reaching the whipping boy. If there's no hostile wormholes all waves will becomes "CPAs" and spawn at the nearest Warp Gate. Correct me if I'm wrong. Spider and Mark II Gravitational Turrets would work very well with this kind of beachhead.

[Kahuna]

Beahheading to deal with Hybrids:

Beachheads are very useful vs Hybrids. Hybrids have a bad habit of always gathering on one of the planets adjacent to your planets until there's like 40 of them. In addition to the 40 Hybrids they will have a couple of hundreds of Mark II ships supporting them ("drones"). You don't want to let this happen. Beachheading the planet where the Hybrids gather will solve this problem. This will pretty much remove the hybrids from the game. The beachhead will destroy all hybrids and their drones without you needing to do anything. Simply build a ForceField and at least 15 of all Mark I turrets in a cone in front of it. Build these out of Wormhole GPs' range but close to your wormhole. Park 5 Engineers and 10 Remains Rebuilders under the Force Field. DO NOT destroy the AI Command Station on that planet. Simply neuter the planet.

[LordSloth]

So, beacheading. Other than full-sized Fortresses, do you have any suggestions for countering Zenith Bombards?

They outrange missile turrets, are immune to snipers. And they don't use a sniper-type or missile-type attack, so no countering that.

I don't mind putting up Fortresses, but I wouldn't mind a much cheaper solution.

VV: When beacheading.

[TechSY730]

So, beacheading. Other than full-sized Fortresses, do you have any suggestions for countering Zenith Bombards?

They outrange missile turrets, are immune to snipers. And they don't use a sniper-type or missile-type attack, so no countering that.

I don't mind putting up Fortresses, but I wouldn't mind a much cheaper solution.

Do you mean when beachheading, or in general?

Well, the Mk. II and Mk. III turrets have radar dampening. That may be enough to force the zombards into range to attack the turrets.
Zombards use anti-matter ammo, which means that they can't hit things immune to an anti-matter attack. Forcefields, including human ones, fall under that category, so there is that option as well. There is also the "distraction" technique for stalling for time for the beachhead stuff (especially for the forcefields) to go up. Swarm them with a somewhat cheap ship, like standard fighters. You should be able to build standard fighters fast enough to "clog" their targeting, increasing the chance of getting them to waste their alpha before they get in range of your stuff, buying you several more seconds.

[Histidine]

Enclaves might work, assuming their drones don't turn out to be too useless.

[Kahuna]

do you have any suggestions for countering Zenith Bombards?

Leaving Mark I Heavy Bomber Starship(s) on FRD on that planet should do the trick. V+click next to the ForceField where you Engineers camp. Don't FRD engineers or they will suicide. Heavy Bomber(s) will easily destroy Zombards and other long range ships and the Engineers will repair the Heavy Bomber(s). You can also build 2 Tractor Turrets and 5 Mark >= Basic or Laser turrets II next to each wormhole and the AI Command Station. Basic and Laser turrets have bonus vs Heavy so not only will they counter Zombards they will also counter Hybrids.

VV: When beacheading.

What does this mean?