Early Game vs Shielded Fortress

[PlasmaChroma]

So I've had this happen in a couple games where I've really needed / wanted to take a system relatively near to my homeworld and find the AI has a nasty (I think up to T3 even) fortress, possibly even with a T2 shield sitting on top of it.

The problem at this point is I don't really have any fleet capability to deal with this.  My early game I tend to focus on unlocking economic and defensive tech (maybe this is my problem), so taking it out with even a full set of ships isn't really possible.  I suppose with multiple waves eventually the thing could be worn down through brute force, but that doesn't seem like the right idea.

The solution I've come up with is to destroy everything but the fortress, colonize the planet with support fleet in place, and then proceed to place a large pile of missile turrets a bit outside of the fortress range.  For the higher tier shielded variety I'll often consider getting the T2 missile turret just to speed things up.  Speed is sorta relative in this case, as even a large number of turrets are going to take a long time to dismantle the fort.

I'm fairly sure even building large numbers of missile turrets is going to end up being cheaper than (possibly multiple) fleet replacements.  What I'm curious about is how other people deal with these things early on.  Is unlocking some bomber tech immediately a better move?  I think in the late game it all just about evens out, but the start seems like I've really limited myself somehow?

[x4000]

For me, if I want to take a planet like that very early, then I skip the econ techs and go straight for the bombers and maybe even some bomber starships.  Load those into a transport, get some chaff ships around to take the fire off the bombers (fighters, etc), and maybe throw in some light starships to buff the bombers.  Fly in, unload the transports in a manner that lets me get at the fortress without my bombers getting shot TOO much, and then ream it.  Then go home, focus on econ, and come back and trash the rest of the stuff.

Alternatively, sending multiple waves of ships to take out a guard post at a time and then getting the fortress once I've built up some.  It's not as economically efficient, but it can be a viable way to take a planet like that while doing something else.

Or: more often than not, these days I tend to just ignore those planets until later.  I really like getting early econ techs as well, and so I'll do that, then take a few easy planets, and suddenly I have a rolling economy as well as a bunch of extra knowledge.  Then I come back and put the smack down, and having both higher-tech bombers AND multiple waves is fairly trivial.  I like to take 2-3 planets in the first 45 minutes, so then the bigger planets like that in my hinterland would be what I'd come back for next.

Welcome to the forums, by the way!

[keith.lamothe]

It's been a while so I may be forgetting something, but what about an EMP to disable the shield (and just about everything else) and sending in the bombers and whatnot to kill the fortress?

[x4000]

I mean, that works also.  But AIP cost.

[keith.lamothe]

I mean, that works also.  But AIP cost.

AIP?  You see, I don't think I've ever been very _good_ at this game

[x4000]

Hahaha.

[Nalgas]

There's so much stuff like that that they're just so useful for that I pretty much always unlock mk2 bombers with my starting knowledge in every single game I play.  They may not directly help get your economy going like some of the other options, but you can clear out that obnoxious stuff that much more quickly and easily...and then take the planet and its resources and knowledge for your economy.  I mean, you're pretty much guaranteed to run into multiple things they're good for right off the bat, whether it's a fortress nearby or stuff under shields or just clearing guard posts more quickly.  They make my life so much simpler.  Similarly, mk3/mk4 bombers are frequently one of my first unlocks when I find a factory later, just because of how ridiculously useful they are in so many situations like that, at least if I don't have some other ship type available in that particular game that's good at handling that sort of thing.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, bombers are a basically a given for unlocking in most games.  The strategy comes in picking when to unlock the Mk3's (and maybe the mk2's).

But not all games; when I play FS I often don't unlock any bonus/triangle ship types, I'm a capital ship kinda guy

[Nalgas]

But not all games; when I play FS I often don't unlock any bonus/triangle ship types, I'm a capital ship kinda guy

I actually find it even more useful than usual to unlock bombers while playing that, because of their bonus against heavy etc.  I do ignore a lot of the others, though.  I kept a ton of bombers around last time, along with whatever I could spare for mercenary bombers, too, because they're a good combination between fodder (to absorb hits to protect Spire ships) and extra damage (with their bonuses against the big stuff).

[Martyn van Buren]

Back to OP --- have you tried cutting off supply?  It depends on what kind of map you're playing and whether you ultimately want the worlds on the other side of the fortress, but if you pot-shot the command centre on that world and all of the ones bordering it the force field and the fortress will just power down and that'll be that.  If it's near your homeworld, it seems pretty likely you're going to want those planets anyway.

[Hearteater]

I've had no trouble killing Fortress very trivially, even early game (I'm going to eat these words, aren't I?).  Clear the system (don't even need to colonize), then bring in two Bomber Starships.  Against a Mark I Fortress I can basically go do other things while they destroy the Fortress.  It shouldn't matter if it is shielded since Starship Bombers should crush the shield just fine.  It'll just take longer.  You do need to be careful of reinforcements showing up that can actually hurt your starships.  Otherwise it takes almost 10 minutes for a Mark I Fortress to kill a Bomber Starship which is plenty of time to destroy it.

To effect a faster kill, a cap wave of Bombers behind a single Bomber Starship and the starship will tank* all of the Fortress's fire, leaving your cap of Bombers untouched.  I need to back off to repair the damaged Starship at most once.  Bring Mark II Bombers along and a Mark I Fortress feels like a slightly challenging guard post.  I've killed a Mark III Fortress with this very technique and lost zero ships to it.  No shield, but unless there is some odd feature of Shield+Fortress, I don't think it would be much harder.  I'd say toss in a Light Starship for the boost and you should have a sub-minute kill on a shielded Mark III Fortress even with only Mark II Bombers.

Assuming I did the math correct (I think I did since it matches my in-game experience), here's how long in seconds it takes a Bomber Starship and a various caps of Bombers to kill a Fortress:

		I	I+II	I+II+III
Fortress I		48	17	9
Fortress II		96	35	18
Fortress III		144	52	28

For reference, it takes a Fortress III 141 seconds to kill the Starship Bomber tanking it.  So bring at last Mark I and II Bombers and you can kill up to a Mark III Fortress before it kills your tank.

* I don't know if it is intended for the Starship to tank all 30+ shots from the Fortress despite lower health fleet ships being in range, but it certainly does.  Only leaving the Fortress's range appears to cause it to select new targets.  So just make sure the Starship is the first into range.  Maybe some AI ships should target based on lowest Time-to-Kill?

[Orelius]

Thing is, fortresses do very very little damage to polycrystal, which is the armor type that bombers, bomber starships, and some other ships like youngling tigers have.  So, in short, bombers are a hard counter against most heavy structures.

Usually, the problem is destroying the fortresses while attempting to fight off the rest of the ships on a planet.  A single fortress won't do much.  You wouldn't have this problem on mark I or II planets, but probably on the mark IVs that are usually farther away from your home planet.

[x4000]

Yep, that's pretty much it -- if you've isolated a fortress and have bombers or bomber starships in any numbers, you've already won.  If the fortress is dug in well, and/or you don't want to take the system but you want to kill the fortress -- well, that's when things get tricky!  But those are good numbers and strategies, glad you shared them Hearteater.