Early game counters to bomber starships

[freykin]

Just started up my second game, and within 30 minutes I have lost to a bomber squad raid that has a bomber starship in it.  What's a good counter to them?  This is my first time running into them, so was completely unprepared for it.

[Blam Stokel]

I found that swarms of standard fighters are good against most capital ships, especially t2 fighters can make short work of any capital ship, even the bomber ones despite the advantages of their standard bomber brethren. I would recommend stocking up on fighters and cruisers to take it down.

[freykin]

Sounds like a good plan, I'll have to test it in my next game.

[x4000]

Blam's advice is spot on -- you need lots of Fighters against enemy Starships, and you'll want lots of Cruisers to take out their Bombers.  You were playing against the Mad Bomber AI Type, which has the Bomber Starships as a unique superweapon.  Be warned that as they get stronger, they get Mark II and then Mark III Bomber Starships, also.  They also send larger waves than many other AI types -- however, they hardly defend themselves at all, so as long as you aren't dying yourself (which is always an uphill battle with that AI type), you'll have a comparably easy time with their planets.  This is basically one of the "rusher" variants of AI.