Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

OK, so the other day I started a new game, using the latest incarnation of the Star Trek Mod (thanks, Atrocities!).

Again, I'm drawn in to this game like no other. The problems are always the same: not enough ships where I need them, and not enough minerals. But the gameplay is so compelling, I'm still captivated. My starting position was unfavorable, with several nearby systems having just asteroids and NO planets. But I'm going to do my best.

Usually I play a defensive game. I expand until I meet an enemy, and then hunker down and let the AI empires smash each other to bits. I begin defending my systems with one or two satellites. Then I switch to mines. But I find that the AI tends to build minesweepers in large numbers, nullifying my defense in a hurry.

Now I've decided to go all-out in satellite construction. I rarely build defense bases at warp points, because the frontier eventually moves on and the base becomes a floating toll booth. Satellites, at least, can be scooped up and redeployed.

And I rarely build weapon platforms, though in my current game I have a torpedo-armed Christopher Pike-class weapon platform that is doing quite a good job.

In my next game, I think I will forgo building mines entirely.

How do YOU defend warp points? Mines? Satellites? Bases? Do you station fleets at strategic points?

As an aside, let me add that one of the things that keeps SE4 so incredibly deep and fresh is the many new and cool technologies our wonderful modders have given us.

Thank you, guys!!!!

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

I tend to rely more on mobile defenses than static defenses. Unless you have only a few natural chokepoints into your empire, its hard to put adequate static defenses everywhere.

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

It's always fun to leave a few mines in a sector that lies along normal traffic lines (between planets, warp point to warp point, etc.). It won't stop a fleet fully equipped with mine sweepers, but it can be a nasty surprise for small groups of enemy reinforcements or enemy ships leaving the front to be repaired or resupplied.

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

Mines always for warp points, and maybe stations and sats once I have Wave Motion Guns.

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

My strategy is based (at least in part) by my own personal mod. Mainly (in this case) that I modded armor so that it's a viable choice instead of shields.

My usual staregy is to cover each WP with a shield-killing storm and station ships to guard. If I don't disable mines, I usually use those for a while in the beginning, to give me time to build and use training facilities.

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

The simplest way to make stock armor competitive with shields is to simply remove the weapon mounts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

That way, Normal armor with one or two emissive plates is better than shields vs mesons or long range APB, but weaker against point blank APBs, or WMGs and other high damage per hit weapons.

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

My defenses vary depending on the stage the game has reached when I need to place them. In stock, satellites can be built from day one, but tend to obsolete once your opponent has enough Point Defense to clear them. For mines, you need to research Construction and Mines first, but run into the minesweeper problem you mentioned. Bases need Ship Construction 5 to get a hull large enough to build a Shipyard Ship. Although bases can't move, you can send a SYS out to scrap obsolete ones, if need be.

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

Mines I just launch directly from planets.

Satellites I don't think I've ever used for anything but detecting cloaked ships yet.

I have used defense bases exactly once, in the 11-player free-for-all first round of the Race to SEV tournament. I was in the unpleasant position of being the most powerful empire and being at war with the second and third most powerful simultaneously. I closed warp points until one of my opponents had only one way to get to me and then stuck a giant fleet on that warp points to guard it while I dealt with my other enemy. The two front war lasted long enough that I had added about a dozen starbases to that garrison before I could finally start attacking on that front.

Most of the time my warp point defenses are handled entirely by mobile fleets.

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

Hmmm...I've been playing SEIV for a long time and I've NEVER built a warp-closing or warp-opening component. I've also never built a Wave Motion Gun.

That's just another example of how deep SEIV is. As many games as I've played, there are so many strategies and so many components I have never used.

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

I usually don't use "all systems connected" for solo games, so I've had a couple where I started off trapped in an isolated pocket of systems, and had to go after warp openers early on. I've designed closers, but don't think I've ever built one.

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

My intention was to make armor a viable replacement for shielding. To that end my (best, lvl 8)armor has 80kt structure, starting at level 4 armor becomes 'self-healing', not enough to help during battle, but after battle the armor plates will all regen (if any are left). Finally, I changed emissive armor so that it's no longer an armor and will negate (eventually at lvl 9) up to 40 damage.
Both to make it more useful in the late game, and to simulate that a well armored ship also armors it's internals as well.

It might sound over-powered but it's offset by the fact that crystal and other armor-skipping weapons become an extremely major threat. The Ionic Dispersor (engine killer), also becomes a major threat (shields block it, armor doesn't). Repairs can take longer due to large numbers of armor plates requiring replacement (if ships get stripped of armor in battle).

Personally I think it works out pretty well, and adds a bit more variety to the game. I got pretty tired of everyone only using shields all the time. It also made the (AI)crystal races into cannon fodder, with no one using armor their main weapon was practically useless.

Oh, and I wanted to keep weapon mounts....I like them too much. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

I like using Sats for warp defense. Once I get sat layers in enough numbers that I can pick up and/or deploy 100 in a single shot, they make for an amazing defense. At the very least, they'll deal heavy damage to a big fleet, and can take out medium to small fleets. No maintenance, easy to build and relatively easy to replace with newer versions. They make for a quick defense which I usually support with a fleet of ships and in areas where the border will maintain for a while I sometimes build fighter-launching bases, but that's usually only in locations that I have no intention of expanding for the forseeable future.

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

I always use "all systems connected." How do warp openers work? Can you pick the system where you want the other end to appear?

In my current STM game EVERYBODY except the Ferengi is at war with me, even though I'm ranked only 9th in a 20-empire game. Strangely enough, none of the other empires is at war with any other.

My biggest threat comes from the Kazon. I have been trying to keep them out of one particular system that they have been trying to take for at least a couple game-years. Hence my above question about defending warp points.

They've destroyed 3 of my 4 colonies in the system, but at last I've gone to a 50+ satellites/several light cruisers defense at my 2 vulnerable warp points. One warp point is backed up by a group of 140 shuttles (fighters) stationed over a nearby planet. So far I have been able to stop the Kazon multiple times. They have been sending forces as small as 1-2 ships and as large as 7 cruisers.

They are way ahead of me in weapon technology. I have spent a lot of effort developing atmosphere converters and gas colony technologies in an effort to make the best of the few usable systems I have.

The Bynar occupy a system on a choke point between the 2 halves of Federation territory. They have now declared war, so I am preparing a fleet of minesweepers to eliminate THEIR warp point defense so I can deal with them.

Some SEIV players have issues with the AI, but I've never had complaints about it. The AI is much more efficient than I am.

In my rush to get on to the next turn I often forget to give orders to planets or fleets. I spend lots of research points on things the AI never bothers with, so the AI usually has a big advantage in weaponry and ship design.

It all evens out. As long as the AI mimics a reasonable imitation of a sentient being, I'm happy. I think it does just fine.

To avoid starting another thread I'll ask another question:

Who out there uses resource bases? Resource satellites?

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

One tip for sat/WP defense, drop a shield killing storm over the WP and, depending on the size of the sats you have, stick ionic dispersers on (some/all of) your defense sats. Although unless your ships are armored it'd be best to keep them away. This works even better if your enemy uses cloaking devices, as he'll run out of supples fairly quickly. At that point, I'd recommend boarding and capturing as many as possible, send over a repair ship or three, load them into a pre-existing fleet (to give them some supplies), take them to a planet and either retrofit, or analyze them.

Re: Your WP defence: Mines, satellites or bases?
 

Yes, you can pick any system within the component's range. The only thing you can't control is where in the target system the warp point opens, but even that is predictable depending on the relative positions of the two systems.

At most ten warp points can be opened to or from the same system, and a System Gravitational Shield Facility will prevent them from opening in its system (requires Shields 10).I use both so rarely that I'll occaisionally forget that I have the option to use them.