Defending Planets
 

Obviously as you become spread out and massive fleets become necessary to go and whomp the bejezzus out of your enemies, it becomes increasingly difficult to defend all the planets behind you. How does everyone defend their planets without killing themselves with resources? The game I just played in no one had planet defenses at all, so I'm thinking of there is a good planet defense strategy, I'd be ahead of the game.

Obviously once you hit midgame or so mines are no longer a viable option as everyone who isn't a moron has huge sweeps. So what direction do you go?

Re: Defending Planets
 

Platforms are a good answer. With the mount's longer range on direct fire weapons, and a solid Point Defense presence, you can make the enemy pay for each planet.

Re: Defending Planets
 

In every game there are too many variables. Mines never go out of fashion. Space stations are real good. And you really need to go for strong points. But with stellar manipulation all bets are off.

Re: Defending Planets
 

Warp Point Openers. They let your fleets be anywhere in your empire in 2 or 3 turns.

Re: Defending Planets
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Then I must be a moron or a moronic.

Re: Defending Planets
 

You don't have huge sweeps? Don't you lose a ton of ships? I always have 5-10 mines above my planets to mess with people with no sweeps and usually quite a few mines on warp points to try to catch colony ships. I always take a dread maxed out with my highest sweepers with a fleet.

With the cargo bug, you can throw a good 160 mines above your homeworld, that can stop anything and usually even stops fleets with a lot of sweeps cuz they only plan for the 100 limit.

Re: Defending Planets
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What cargo bug? Does it allow you to put more then 100 mines in one sector? I've never been able to get more then 100 mines in one sector ever. Even with stock Gold. Something I should know about?

Re: Defending Planets
 

Yes, there's a bug, in my opinion. I shouldn't say it, but since it's unfair for some people to know and others not, I'll share it here.

On your homeworld build 99 mines and launch them. Then build as many mines as will fit into your cargo. Here's the key - DO NOT LAUNCH THEM UNTIL YOUR CARGO IS FULL!

So lets say you have 99 mines above your planet and your cargo is holding 70 mines. Now launch your mines.

The game makes a check FIRST (there's the bug) to make sure there aren't 100 mines, which there isn't, there's 99, so it launches all that are in your cargo. Now you have 169 mines above your planet.

You can do it on any planet, but your homeworld has the cargo space to put a hell of a lot into space.

- takr

Re: Defending Planets
 

I don't lose planets and don't lose ships because I don't get into wars.

It's like not having sex to not get STDs.

Anyways... I take the Thin Blue Line.

You can defend planets by setting up strong heavy fleets and planets optimized for constructing units/ships near the border or a gateway or gateways.

You can also destroy enemys quickly because the fleet is already mobilized!

Albeit that this is poor thinking, since there are million ways it can go wrong. But this one minimizes Micro Management IMHO.

Re: Defending Planets
 

My problem with defending planets is that it's a lot of time/resources/units to sit around and wait to do something. I have some bases in my sector, tons of satellites, mines, etc and in 150 turns not one of them have been used ever. All of the fighting has been me taking it to someone else. All of my temples with their great bonuses to fighting in my sectors have been worthless and have taken up space that I could have used for monoliths or something else of use. I think the best defense is a warp closer really. It's mobile, it can be retrofitted to an opener in a heartbeat, etc. Or, the ever popular 'doorway' ship with an opener and a closer with a repair bay on it.

- takr

Re: Defending Planets
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That has been fixed in 1.78.

Rollo

Re: Defending Planets
 

Well, with that fixed, mines are even less useful now because I know that if my sweeper can sweep 100, no minefield can hurt me. Glad to know it's fixed though. Thanks for the info. I haven't had a chance to upgrade yet.

- takr

Re: Defending Planets
 

I use satellites in the later parts of a game. As stated, mines become ineffective due to increased sweeping. Satellites however are harder to bypass especially if properly used.
And satellites are reusable.
Especially effective are satellites placed at a recieving warppoint. (one that ships jump to.)
And satellites can be built on ANY planet. As long as I can afford the minerals, I use any tiny/small or domed planet to churn out satellites and fighters. Put them in orbit for the future - once built they cost NOTHING. Any fleet that hits one of my back systems will encounter many satellites and massive fighter swarms! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Defending Planets
 

A few sattelites and a couple weapons platforms are also useful early game defensive preparations. They won't stop a bonified assault fleet, but they will keep the enemy from getting any easy victories. And they can be thrown up in a couple of turns and then fogotten because they don't cost any maint.

Geoschmo

Re: Defending Planets
 

Fighters and escorts are real good...
Why ecorts?
There cheap. Dont get hit much when against Base's and Dread's. about 15 of them armed with Class 3 or so CS Missiles are real good

Re: Defending Planets
 

The only real defense for your planets is your own fleet.

Mines can be a useful defense in the early game, and specialist warp-point defenses can help (satelites, bases, ship-capture and ram-ships). But in the end mobility (both strategic and tactical) is key.

All you can do, is keep the other guy honest. Make sure that you have enough mines and weapons platforms (or whatever) so that taking or glassing each planet requires a serious effort. What you'll never want to see is a handful of ships raiding "behind the lines" and blowing up loads of planets before you catch them.

Mark

Re: Defending Planets
 

"But in the end mobility (both strategic and tactical) is key."

Where would you draw the line in a QNP game?
You can have an unarmed destroyer with 20 MP, a slow, heavily armed gunboat destroyer, or anything in between.

Re: Defending Planets
 

One good place to draw the line is slightly above your opponent's speed. Being faster than the opponent gives a major advantage - being as fast as possible gives diminishing returns, especially because you cut other abilities to get that mobility. Also, if the line is set quite high, it may be worth cutting to a slower speed to gain ability. In QNP, especially for larger ships which take a lot to move, slow and strong ships are more appealing. For defensive ships too, they can be slower.

In Proportions, it may well be possible to build up a planet that is not worth attacking, in terms of the fleet casualties. One major cause of this is the very high capacities of non-domed colonies.

Even in the unmodded game, though (at least in Gold with drones and platform mounts), it is possible to build very powerful defensive planets that can stop an invasion fleet. But it's only possible to build a few such planets, and it comes at a large price which might be better spent elsewhere. On the other hand, being unpredictable is a major advantage in itself, and players usually don't expect to lose a large fleet to a planet.

PvK

Re: Defending Planets
 

I've never played a QNP (or any other modded game) with other humans, so I don't know about this. But the kind of speed arms race that PvK implies might happen sounds amusing.

He goes to speed 7, I up it to 8, he goes to 9... Where do we stop?

But I suppose that was the original question.