Defending Planets

[Undertakr]

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?

[Suicide Junkie]

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.

[Gozra]

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.

[Fyron]

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

[TerranC]

Originally posted by Undertakr:
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?

Then I must be a moron or a moronic.

[Undertakr]

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.

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Undertakr:
[QB]
With the cargo bug, you can throw a good 160 mines above your homeworld,QB]

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?

[Undertakr]

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

[TerranC]

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.

[Undertakr]

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