Getting hammered by waves -- advice?

[RCIX]

In my game, i have alone planet that's got a single wormhole that recieves waves. I can't abandon it because it holds a rebel colony (which supplies me with these fabulous cure-all fleet ships called Resistance Frigates, and has me in a 100AIP headlock if i abandon it). I also desperately need all the energy i can get from these (to run the aforementioned cure-alls). I currently have a 25 lightning turrets and 4 beam cannons MkII there (that is, once i rebuild on it). Waves have the nasty habit of bypassing my defenses and doing a surgical strike on my home station (wouldn't be a problem except the Ai that waves me is a Mad bomber to it can pop my forcefield without much trouble). I also have a reasonable amount of turrets near my command station, but it doesn't seem to be enough. Anyone got suggestions?

[Mánagarmr]

I'm not exactly an expert, but unless the waves are HUGE (500-600+ ships), I'd go for a mined entrance, a fair amount (15-30) tractor turrets and surround it with MLRS and Basic turrets. Lightning turrets are unfortunately extremely weak as a defensive option due to the low amount of ships the AI usually send. They are very effective against the players, since we usually use 1000+ ships and the actual damage is therefore rather large, if individually low. The AI however, usually uses less ships.

Mines, preferrably area type, will cause that attrition, but at a much higher initial damage (more damage faster), and the majority of the raid should then be held in place by tractors and whittled down.

I'm at work atm, so can't test your savegame, but the above might work. The only thing I worry aobut is the potential instakill of your tractors if he has very large amounts of bombers. But it's at least an option.

[Ozymandiaz]

I have not had the opportunity to load the save, but would not a gate raiding be an option?

[XRsyst]

I'm playing against a Mad Bomber at the moment, so I feel your pain.  I found using the level 2 gav turrets the only thing that can really help against the autobomber spam, also a riot starship to blow everythings engines.

For what it's worth, when they kill your Command Station, you get 120 minutes of cloak on the rebel colony before it's decloaked, so losing your station isn't the end of the world, it starts a 120 minute counter until the end of the world   (I know this becuase last game I had a rebel colony in a dyson system, so every 90 minutes or so I would build a colony, then insta scrap it when it finished to reset the timer but no make Mr. Dyson super angry at me.)

[Lancefighter]

I've decided your problem is that you arent using engineers. I mean seriously, 0 of them in your entire empire?

Other than that ... minor issue.. you seem to have expanded very slowly across ... 13 hours of play. I would probaly have 8 or so worlds here, and it looks like youve lost a lot of AIP to 1/5min timer youve given yourself. Not really sure how you plan on winning this one..

[Rod Serling]

You've expanded very slowly, your had absolutely no damaging turrets defending your rebel colony planet, Heavy Beam turrets are great, but simply cannot down enough targets fast enough, they're for bigger targets, not many smaller ones. Put up some MLRS/Missile turrets, consolidate your fronts, stop spending your money on big things you wont use much (16 beam cannons, with an Ion MKII and an Orbital Mass Driver, WITH a planetary Shield Inhibitor all on one planet, even your home planet, is excessive when you don't have ANY ships, and you're obviously losing on the offensive front.

I agree with LanceFighter, I really don't see how you plan winning here. Your defending too much, and it's in the end crippling your defenses.
Admyae has 0 hostile wormholes, and yet has 15 Basic Turrets, 30 Missile Turrets, 15 MLRS turrets, and 5 Tractor Beams

Wasted energy, wasted ship cap.

Consolidate your resources for the next 90 minutes. Resources includes ship caps, push your fronts up to a more defensible location, don't worry about the rebel colony until you got about 20 minutes left on it, then send in a protection force and setup a command post, don't defend the command post once it's complete, let it fall.

Let yourself actually get ready for this fight.

[RCIX]

A tad bit harsh, but i assume you were trying to be friendly

Thanks for the tips, if i can regrip Sauo long enough (maybe leave Ticurdre for a while) i'll pump it up with defenses. No gate raiding as i haven't the ships to puncture an IV world and i'm afraid that they'd raid it cross-planet anyway.

My eventual goal is to take a few more planets to tech up my ships and build forces to strike one/both home worlds. Maybe i'll just try raiding that planet anyway (after i retake Sauo and Ticurdre)

The timer is no my fault: Black picked it along with all of the other settings :p

That's the thing: i move sloooowlllly.....

Thanks for the help guys!

[Lancefighter]

A tad bit harsh, but i assume you were trying to be friendly

Thanks for the tips, if i can regrip Sauo long enough (maybe leave Ticurdre for a while) i'll pump it up with defenses. No gate raiding as i haven't the ships to puncture an IV world and i'm afraid that they'd raid it cross-planet anyway.

My eventual goal is to take a few more planets to tech up my ships and build forces to strike one/both home worlds. Maybe i'll just try raiding that planet anyway (after i retake Sauo and Ticurdre)

The timer is no my fault: Black picked it along with all of the other settings :p

That's the thing: i move sloooowlllly.....

Thanks for the help guys!

youve got space planes - Mass em with a lightning warhead (and your own tachy drone..)(to kill tachys on the other side). Suicide only as many as you must to take down the warp gate...

[Rod Serling]

A tad bit harsh, but i assume you were trying to be friendly

Oh yes, lol, actually in re-reading that, I would think I was yelling at your practically, plus the completely unnecessary profanity, my apologies. I meant to only help.

You move slowly, but you move too slowly in this case (in my opinion). I consider myself as moving slowly, but this is a New York traffic jam

When I move slowly, I take out planets slowly, focusing on defenses in a few key locations, and I don't actually CAPTURE planets until I have a new set of good defensive key locations. I'll literally have 4-5 sectors of empty space before I take it up, but it's easier because I don't have to defend so much until I'm ready.

Maybe that tactic will help you later.

[RCIX]

Oh yes, lol, actually in re-reading that, I would think I was yelling at your practically, plus the completely unnecessary profanity, my apologies. I meant to only help.

no problem, apology accepted!

youve got space planes - Mass em with a lightning warhead (and your own tachy drone..)(to kill tachys on the other side). Suicide only as many as you must to take down the warp gate...

Didn't think of that! thanks to the advice, i might go with that (and maybe an EMP missile too once i get back on my feet)

Edit: i tried to paralyze the world then hit it with a missile, but it would seem that it's a homeworld gateway planet, so it has a core warehead interceptor and 2 warp gates. Grrr. it would be cheaper to just defend i think...

[Lancefighter]

Eh why are you worrying about the warhead interceptor? Ignore it. You want the warp gates dead - lightning kill the tachy drones near the wormhole, send in offline planes, move them near the warp gates  do some math and figure out exactly how many need to fire once to kill each gate, move the rest out of the way, *pause* tell just enough to online and give them the fire order on each gate, unpause, pause again (to make sure stuff is dead once they fire) issue orders to fix problems, or order away,....


I've done this before >.> I will mention of course, it was before the space plane nerf, back when it took 4 core astro planes to kill a warp gate 

[drum]

after playing a few games that ended up as brick walls due to my slacking i figured out that its not the buildup that requires all that much time (unless i'd messed up my resource production somehow), just the planning so i now spend a fair bit of time with the game paused while i devise my strategy. hopefully once i know what i'm doing better i wont need so much pause time but it does help me for the moment at least

not sure how that would work in a multiplayer game though

[RCIX]

Eh why are you worrying about the warhead interceptor? Ignore it. You want the warp gates dead - lightning kill the tachy drones near the wormhole, send in offline planes, move them near the warp gates  do some math and figure out exactly how many need to fire once to kill each gate, move the rest out of the way, *pause* tell just enough to online and give them the fire order on each gate, unpause, pause again (to make sure stuff is dead once they fire) issue orders to fix problems, or order away,....


I've done this before >.> I will mention of course, it was before the space plane nerf, back when it took 4 core astro planes to kill a warp gate  

At least one (and probably both) are under a force field and would get ripped to shreds by the plentiful core ships there.

I've decided your problem is that you arent using engineers. I mean seriously, 0 of them in your entire empire?

I happened to save shortly after my engineers got picked off -- i use a band of 4 gypsy engineers which help repair whatever planet needs it the most.

[Lancefighter]

well yeah, i keep 5+ hotkeyed as well, but I've always got 3-4 around my home planet for fixing stuff, as well as 1-2 at any border planet...

I suppose your using a ton of energy on those resistance frigates/bomber things, I never quite saw the use for them, especially with their high energy and resource cost.

Then again, I also never got above 500ish aip...

[Saan]

well yeah, i keep 5+ hotkeyed as well, but I've always got 3-4 around my home planet for fixing stuff, as well as 1-2 at any border planet...

I suppose your using a ton of energy on those resistance frigates/bomber things, I never quite saw the use for them, especially with their high energy and resource cost.

Then again, I also never got above 500ish aip...

The resistance frigates are monsters! give them a shot, they are expensive, but very very good.