Clearing Wormholes

[Phyrex]

What strategies do you use to clear a wormhole efficiently?

Please describe step by step how you scout, prepare for the offence, go in and how you secure your position afterwards.

[NickAragua]

The wormhole itself isn't terribly problematic, it's the stuff in the rest of the system.

So far, my tactic is simple. Mass everything I've got on my side of the wormhole, including a couple of engineers. Send in a few "Mark I" fighters just to get the enemy lightning turrets/mines/whatever to shoot off. Then, send everything in. Whatever the AI has on the other side doesn't really stand a chance against ~2000 ships jumping in at the same time.

Occasionally, my teammate (who has mobile builders) will put up a force field and some counter sniper turrets.

[Vaos]

Sending Zenith Mirrors only (Prereleases only) is also very effective at clearing wormhole defenses. Send your fleet a shortwhile after because the Mirrors are going to have an hard time with the Tractor beams though 

[x4000]

A lot of players who play on the upper difficulties are known for sending a lightning missile or two through the wormhole to detonate before the entirety of their fleets go through.  Can be helpful against well-entrenched high-level planets.  Otherwise, just sending a couple of fighters through to cook off the lightning turrets that might be waiting, immediately before sending through the rest of your fleet, can be a great idea.

[NeuroFuzzy]

If missiles/emps aren't available, and the portal has mines on the other side, then i find autoturrets great to send through first. Once all the mines are gone, you can send the rest of your fleet through. After that, on really hard planets, you can send a force field, a builder, and a repair station through. You'll be fortified at that spot for the rest of the assault, and if you can rush in and pick off their command station, they all charge at your heavily fortified position. Your ships can heal themselves when injured, the turrets built by the builder can do a lot of damage, and all the ships come to you - a great convenience

[Haagenti]

So far, my tactic is simple. Mass everything I've got on my side of the wormhole, including a couple of engineers. Send in a few "Mark I" fighters just to get the enemy lightning turrets/mines/whatever to shoot off. Then, send everything in. Whatever the AI has on the other side doesn't really stand a chance against ~2000 ships jumping in at the same time.

After a while (and possibly only on higher levels of AI) the AI builds enormous defenses on alerted III and IV planets which will involve a dozen or more of the hated and dreaded Lightning III turret, which have 400K hitpoints each. Sending in a bunch of fighters certainly helps against their first shot, but it is not always possible anymore to kill all of them before their second shot (not even with 2000 ships). And when the Lightning turrets start zapping, they zap your entire fleet at the same time. It wouldn't be the first time I lost an entire fleet to them.

Zenith Mirrors and Zenith Bombs can clear a wormhole, but if you don't have these, you need to use Missiles or suffer heavy losses. Missiles cost +2AI progress per shot and you need two to kill the turrets.

Whether the losses are better than the +4 AI depends on your economy and your time setting (how much time before each automatic AI increase), as these define the cost of rebuilding your losses.

[Spikey00]

W-what!?  No one yet has even mentioned about Raid/Leech Starships!? 

IMPOSSIBLE!