Do i have to build defances in every system?

[OptiSTR]

just wondering, as i read somewhere that if i destroy a warp gate in a neighboring enemy system,
they will no raid me from there. So do i still have to place turrets and stuff?

[Kahuna]

You do need to know (and control (gate raiding)) where the AIs are going to attack (open the galaxy map and press W to see hostile wormholes) because that's where you're going to build your defenses. But you don't necessarily need to know when they attack. The purpose of defenses is to prevent and stop attacks if and when they occur. If you don't have defenses.. then obviously there are no defenses to prevent or stop attacks.. so you need to be prepared. You should not have undefended planets adjacent to AI planets. You should have 1-4 "whipping boys" where you take all the waves (whipping boy=a heavily defended planet where the AIs send their waves). I said 1-4 because that's the number that usually works. In most maps you must have more than 1 or 2 whipping boys because that's usually not enough to create a chokepoint. The AI will be able to go past the whipping boys. And 3-4 because that's the maximum number of whipping boys that will be able to stop waves and other attacks (CPAs..). You can only have a certain number of whipping boys because you will run out of Turrets and other defensive stuff so the defenses wont be strong enough to stop the attacks if you have 37 whipping boys. Obviously if a planet doesn't "take waves" it doesn't need as strong defenses. But even if a planet doesn't take waves it can still be hit by a CPA if the CPA fleet is able to past your whipping boys. That's why people build chokepoints. The purpose of whipping boys is to take the attacks and stop them.. and to protect the other planets.. and ultimately your Home Command Station.

If a planet doesn't take waves you can just build a Military Command Station (I recommend unlocking Mark IIs) and 6 or 10 of each turret. Often the Mark II Military Command Station is enough. That depends on how the planets are positioned. If your planet is next to an AI planet but is "closed from the rest of the galaxy" then it doesn't need defenses.


You should also have (Assault) Transports so you can quickly move around with your fleet and defend if you have to.

If a planet has something important like a "not hacked Advanced Factory" (You can hack Advanced Factories so you don't need to capture them) or a Zenith Power Generator you should build some defenses.

[Mánagarmr]

Kahuna: Our resident strategy lexicon.

[IIE16 Yoshi]

Is there a key binding to make all military ships in the system you're looking at mount up into transports automatically? Just a minor grievance having to zoom in and tell the deathball to fill each transport one at a time. I did manage to find and bind the unload command for the transports so I can do starcraft-style doomdrops on top of the closest guard post and go from there.

[RockyBst]

Alt + Right-click, auto-load transports.

[Winge]

Alt + Right-click, auto-load transports.

How did I not know this?  That would have saved me a lot of fiddling 

(those are tears of joy, btw)

[Shrugging Khan]

My strategy, in a nutshell:

If it's valuable, defend it.
If it's strategically relevant, defend it.
If it's expendable and strategically irrelevant, don't waste defences on it.

[Kahuna]

If it's expendable and strategically irrelevant, don't waste defences on it.

And
If it's expendable and strategically relevant, don't waste defences on it.
Leave an Assault Transport on stand down mode with Engineers, Rebuilders and a Colonoy Ship on the planet.

Although not that turrets have per planet caps it's not really possible to waste defences. It will cost energy and metal though.

[Shrugging Khan]

Yeah, my strategy just went out the window.

I guess now it's more like "Don't plant more turrets on that place than it can power, unless it's super duper important.".