Dealing with AI Raid Starships

[Draxis]

How are you mean to stop these things?  They ignore shields, cannot be tractor beamed, move faster than most projectiles, take a lot of damage before going down, and can kill a command station in seconds.  If an incoming wave contained 2 tech II raid starships, how would you stop them before they one-shot the command station?  I can only think of graviton turrets.

[x4000]

Projectiles will increase speed when chasing ships. So anything anti-starship is good. That usually means swarms of fights, some dreadnoughts, etc. Against a mass of guys, these go down pretty quickly overall. I can't remember if they have infinite engines or not. If not, then spider turrets would be wicked. If so, then grav turrets as you say.

Hope that helps!

[quickstix]

Here are my methods.

1. Grav Turrets. These will work by slowing the enemy down, but make sure you kill the enemy before they get out of turret range. Comes with a knowledge cost.

2. Spider Turrets. This is Sniper Turret Upgrade. They work the same way, but inflict engine damage as well. Perfect for ships immune to tractor beams that like to invade your systems. The Spider Turrets will kill the engines of the Raid Starship, allowing you to deal with it in your own time. Captured Ion Cannons will do much the same thing. Whilst they won't instakill anything above their level, they still deal engine damage. There's another caputurable in the expansion that does high damage to starships as well (similar to an ion cannon), although the name escapes me at the moment. Something like a planetary mass driver I think.

3. Spiders. An advanced ship, spiders will deal engine damage to enemies. They're not as fast as Raid Starships though, so you'll need to use them in conjunction with something that will hold the Raid Starship in place, such as Grav Turrets or EMP Mines.

4. EMP Mines. They're an expansion only mine upgrade. Ships that run into EMP mines are temporarily disabled. Use that time do kill the starship, or disable the engines (such as with Spiders).

Spider Turrets are the most expensive, but can hit a ship anywhere on a planet, which makes them a decent, more general upgrade in any game and will work wonders against starships. However if you can get the job done at the wormhole, use the EMP Mines or Grav Turrets.

[Draxis]

Raid starships have infinite engine strength, so spiders and speed-bumps have no effect.  I tried with fighters at the wormhole, and the by the time their first shots were hitting, the starships were way out of range.  I tried with them at the station and they killed the starships, but not before the station went down.  A tech I raid starship needs to fire 4 times to kill a command station, tech II raid starships only need to fire 3 times.  Its a very narrow window, and unless you are expecting the attack and are well prepared for it beforehand, you dont stand a chance.

I will give the EMP mines a go.  If they dont work out, its tech II gravitons (which some juicy science-ship bait, so the starships dont just pop the grav turrets).