Dealing with Eyes (and Forts)

[Zeba]

Sniepr turrets suffer damage reduction by force fields now? 

I just wasted a million units of crystal.

Move your forcefield around so it still covers your structures but uncovers your snipers. Or at least as many as you can.

[Shrugging Khan]

Haha...no cigar, I fear. My sniper turrets were all over the things the FF was supposed to cover.

Now they're all over the damned planet. It doesn't really make a difference where I place them after all...or does it?

[BobTheJanitor]

Snipers have a range that is effectively infinite. Actually it's 999,999,000 but since I don't think it's possible within the game for anything to get that far from anything else, treat them as infinite.

[chemical_art]

Haha...no cigar, I fear. My sniper turrets were all over the things the FF was supposed to cover.

Now they're all over the damned planet. It doesn't really make a difference where I place them after all...or does it?

For other turrets, you want to bunch them I (I think) so they help destroy ships quickly. But for snipers range doesn't matter, so by scattering them all over the planet you force the AI ships to waste a lot of time hunting them down. This works really well with logistical stations (further increases time), and not so much with military stations (because the ships get scattered, and if you have snipers scattered everywhere the ships redirect to knock out the weak, expensive snipers).

[Fleet]

Counter sniper turrets are turrets right? And how does the AI use turrets now? 

Thanks for the protip Techsy 

[keith.lamothe]

Hadn't noticed this thread until now, for some reason...

Snipers have a range that is effectively infinite. Actually it's 999,999,000 but since I don't think it's possible within the game for anything to get that far from anything else, treat them as infinite.

The game treats them as truly infinite, actually, the range value is just north of a special threshold value beyond which it doesn't even bother doing range checks or any of that sort of thing.

And snipers (turret or otherwise) can still be useful under an ff depending on your circumstances.  If the enemy has a huge sniper presence on a world, "under an ff" might be the only place such a unit could last

Also, if you really need to cover them without the damage reduction, a Riot Control Starship's shields can cover nearby units and don't apply the reduction.  The tradeoff is that the Riot's shields are waaaay weaker than a full-blow ff generator.  Shield Bearers and Spirecraft Shieldbearers are also useful for this, if you have access to them.

[Shrugging Khan]

I really don't think I ever used Snipers for offensive purposes. On worlds with Ion Cannons they're instant-killed anyways, and on those without I usually find fleet ships to bring more than enough firepower.

[Red Spot]

Also, if you really need to cover them without the damage reduction, a Riot Control Starship's shields can cover nearby units and don't apply the reduction.  The tradeoff is that the Riot's shields are waaaay weaker than a full-blow ff generator.  Shield Bearers and Spirecraft Shieldbearers are also useful for this, if you have access to them.

I just build them ¼ of a mm in front of FFs, when you get surprised or have to face a big wave of bombers I just move an FF a bit forward. All the good and none of the bad