keep dying due to starships!!

[goobie]

I'm still playing random easier, and boy it is insanely difficult.

I always start off well, and then as i started exploring adjacent planets, the AI suddenly sends weird starships like starship mark II ,
and even though i have lots of bombers and fighters (like maybe around 100) i still can't kill a single starship!

and there it goes..starships could even enter force fields! and turrets can't even hold it. Only one starship was needed
to destroy my energy/supply generators and finally wallop my command station -- THE END!

so whats going on?? how can i stop this from happening??

[TheDeadlyShoe]

It was probably a Raid Starship. They have huge amounts of armor, and are pretty much impossible to kill without specialized, high-power weapons like Heavy Beam Turrets or Siege Starships.  Fortunately, their firepower is strictly limited. 

[x4000]

You'll really get rolled by enemy starships if you don't have starships of your own -- but with your own starships in hand, it should go much better.  My suggestion is a siege starship in particular for this sort of case, as that will really chew through the high health of those sorts of enemy ships.

[HitmanN]

My favorite, especially when playing against Starfleet Commander AI's, is to use Heavy Beam Cannons and Grav Turrets in early game. Granted, there's a limit to how many HBC's you can have, so with multiple planets you'll need more than those. Grav Turrets are nice against Raid Starships though. Slows 'em down considerably, and if coupled with HBC's, you get lots of firepower focused on them. This way you can keep most of your fleet elsewhere and trust in your defenses being able to handle a few errand starships.

[Winter Born]

Yea I build the mk1 siege ss very early to counter AI starships,  later they become my offense cleanup crew

[goobie]

yes its a raid starship mark II.

oh..well i don't really know when i should be building starships though. they eat up too much resources for early game

so tahts the only way to go to defend myself?

[Lancefighter]

well, 'ultralight' of raid starships is countered by heavy beam cannons.. those are an option.

starships are generally your utility stuff - munitions boosting, raiding, blowing up big ships, blowing up more big ships, blowing big ships up, and other utility stuff.

[lanstro]

If you're getting a lot of raid starships then definitely put up a grav turret or three - will slow them right down

[TheDeadlyShoe]

slowing down raid starships is pointless. you either have something that deals enough damage to go through the armor or you sit there and wait half an hour for them to die.

[superking]

what counters raid starships at the moment? at 30,000 armour they seem to take minimal damage from everything except other raid starships, and combined with their missle immunity, this seems to make them more resilient than flagships..

[x4000]

what counters raid starships at the moment? at 30,000 armour they seem to take minimal damage from everything except other raid starships, and combined with their missle immunity, this seems to make them more resilient than flagships..

Siege starships, bomber starships, and raid starships. And heav beam cannons. Laser turrets are probabl ly decent, but I've not checked.

Goobie, you definitely have enough resources right at the start to build starships, at least one or two, without remotely harming your economy. You just can't quite build as many turrets.

[Malibu Stacey]

Build a mark I Siege (or 5) & park it just outside your home system force field on FRD. AI Sieges chew up my Raid Starships for fun so yours should be able to do the same to theirs.

[HitmanN]

slowing down raid starships is pointless. you either have something that deals enough damage to go through the armor or you sit there and wait half an hour for them to die.

I beg to differ. More time to shoot equals more total damage before they reach their target. The problem with Raid SS is that its only purpose is to kill your station and other home world goodies, and they can do so REALLY fast, so the longer you can keep them away, the more time you have to shoot at them without suffering damage to critical targets. At best the effectiveness of your defenses multiplies several times. Some weapons like Siege SS cannons also shoot so slow projectiles, that the Raids are at their target before they even reach them, unless you slow them down and give some time for the Sieges to hit them, so you're more likely to at least suffer some damage before they're down.

This of course holds more true in early game, when you simply can't overpower anything in an instant.

[goobie]

ahh yes...building bunch of starships made the AI's raid starships chicken out and tried running around my planet instead of shooting every base i had! that was a relief! i guess i really need to read up on strategies 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

If you don't have siege starships or heavy beam cannons or something,t hen all slowing down raid starships does is make for more fireworks.  You need something that actually hurts them before slowing them down is of any value. You arn't going to stop them reaching your forcefields if nothing you have goes through the armor, no matter how slow you make them. :p