Endgame and carriers

[Ramsar]

I've reached the point where I'd like to start attacking the core planets around the AI homeworlds. However...

During my game I had to take a planet in the middle of AI territory to destroy its core generator. After that I left it behind. But now, both the mkIII planets adjacent to that neutral planet stay on alert (I thought they would go back to not alerted as is the case with planets adjacent to a planet you raid/neuter). This has as a consequence that they get reinforced every time and they both quickly reached the point where they are regularly spawning mkII-mkIII carriers. Due to this situation my threat level is very high and I continuously run the risk that they'd attack me and that I don't get back in time with the necessary forces to avoid a loss (the carriers' point of entry is only one-hop away from my home planet).

Is there any tactic to stop these planets from spawning these carriers on a regular basis (apart from completely neutering these planets)?

[x4000]

You'll want to at least partially neuter them -- each guard post you kill reduces the number of reinforcements that they receive there at any given reinforcement event.

EDIT: And also, if you wanted to spread the reinforcements around more in general, you could do something to put a bunch of other planets on alert, like destroying the command station on a useless AI world connected to a lot of other planets via wormholes.  They'll see that planet as a potential threat for the rest of the game, and will divert at least some reinforcement points there.  That might slow the rate of reinforcement at your carrier-laden planets quite a bit, if it's connected to enough worlds.  Though eventually those other worlds will start sending carriers, too -- not any faster overall, though.

[BobTheJanitor]

I believe planets only ever drop off alert status if there is an AI command station still alive on an adjacent world. If you kill that, even if you pull all your ships out afterward, the AI still keeps reinforcing there. After all, the humans killed their command station there, they have reason to be upset!

[Red Spot]

The nice thing about this is that you know where the CPAs will get most of their ships ..

[Ramsar]

Apparently I've let things come too far with those two planets and should have neutered them as soon as I alerted them. From the moment they started spawning carriers I was constantly defending against the carrier supported attacks and the normal attack waves and didn't have any time nor resources left to neuter them both or to do anything even remotely offensive.

While holding off two normal waves and clearing the remains of a carrier supported one, the AI slipped a carrier on to my home planet (how unsportsmanlike!). The carrier went straight to my home command station, waited patiently under my forcefield until it was destroyed by my turrets and fortress and then the 50+ released cutlasses started killing everything under the forcefield while the latter was being pounded by remaining enemy ships. Long story short => "You have lost" in enormous red letters flashing before my eyes 

P.S.: Is there an option to cease fire against carriers? If this had been the case I would've been able to let the carrier sit around until my relieve fleet arrived and maybe could have saved my game

P.P.S.: Now the game is marked 'Lost' in the high score table, but if I load a previous save and manage to play further, will the game status in the highscore change?

[Red Spot]

You can manually tell your turrets/ships to target something else, but you will have to keep a close eye on this.
Or you can turn them off, put them in low-power mode, which prevents them from firing.

I tend to target carriers first, with some grav-turrets they dont get far away from the gate, where I have lots of tractor-turrets, which again lock the fleetship in position so my defences can first take care of whatever isnt caught by the tractor-turrets.

This becomes more important when you get waves of 7k 'swarm' units, stopping 6 carriers takes a while, where having 7k tiny foes on a defensive planet is less problematic as having 6k tiny foes on the planet .. AND 1k on your homeplanet ... (no matter the balance in power, that 1k on your homeplanet is more important to take down than the 6k on a defensive planet).

However .. letting carriers slip past isnt a big issue .. as long as you have nothing there that can pop the carrier while you are not there supervising it.

[BobTheJanitor]

I just want to point out that carriers do have guns. They're not high powered guns, but if you just leave them to hang out they will start denting your pretty ships and turrets and so on.

If you think you've completely hosed yourself from being able to take out a planet and it's too full and spawning carriers, can I interest you in this MkI nuclear warhead? Only slightly used, one owner who just drove it to church on Sundays. It's the only way to be sure, you know.