This continues my post about the silent destruction of a starbase. I wanted to reply to that topic with this, but the starbase topic directly relates to ideas on better starbase management, so I don't want to derail that. However, any further questions I have about this campaign (if any) will be posted here.To review, after they destroyed my starbase a second time, I followed them to one of their planets, and they jumped to another planet. I stayed behind, eliminated the stationary defenses and starbase, and then bombarded the planet. I waited a while to capture it, but the culture was too hostile, so after reinforcements arrived, I followed the fleet that jumped earlier. The planet they jumped to turned out to be their capital world and it was heavily defended (not surprised). I found myself facing overwhelming odds so I had to pull my forces back. In fact, I had to pull them all the way back to one of my worlds because they followed me back to the world I bombarded and then to the gas giant. So now my fleet is recovering by a world controlled by me (connected to the gas giant). I also have a starbase guarding the one lane leading to the gas giant. I want to improve my fleet effectiveness before returning. Any thoughts?The capital world defenses consisted of at least four hangars so I experienced a very thick cloud of SC activity. The enemy fleet that tore through my fleet and chased me away included several capital ships and cruisers, I think. After I get home from work, I can provide a more complete assessment of the enemy (ship types) if needed.How effective is the heavy cruiser? I have (or had) at least 20 of them. I have plans to construct another 20-30. I also plan to increase the number of carriers by 40-50 with an even distribution of fighter and bomber squadrons. I normally build LRM frigates, but didn’t this time. I read that they are effective against other frigates, but how do they fare against about cruisers and capital ships? I want to include torpedo cruisers, but I fear they will be destroyed before they can bring down the hangars.
LRMs do good against caps but cruisers are the anti-LRMs you might say. Still you have a good combo of Cruisers/LRMs/Carriers is a good start. Throw in some flak for the SCs will help.
Do your best to keep your starbase alive no matter the cost. If that means sending flak frigates into the area to act as meat shields, so be it. Make sure to have a few Hoshikos around your SB at all times as well.
I, for one, always avoid building starbases in neutral gravity wells like Gas Giants because they're difficult to repair effectively. In a neutral well, they can be repaired at most at a rate of 20 hull/sec: but if you have a SB on your own world with repair platforms you can repair it at a max rate of 60 hull/sec, which will nearly always be enough unless you're fighting Vicious with extremely huge fleets.
Always scout before you jump your primary combat fleet into an unknown gravity well! You usually don't want to engage in a battle you'll have to retreat from!
Flak effectively counter fighter strike craft. You might want 5-15 or so, depending on how many enemy SC there are - they'll rip fighters to shreds easily, and will do some damage against bombers as well.
You're TEC, so that affects things.
Heavy cruisers are good against all ship types, but are quite weak to bombers.
Since the AI is prone to building LF at all stages in the game, it's a good idea to have at least a few LRF (for you, LRM) in your arsenal. LRF are somewhat difficult to counter effectively, even by human players. Long range frigates do some of the most damage for their cost, against all enemy unit types, including cruisers, capital ships, and structures. Unless you're facing extremely powerful AIs like Cruel and Vicious, a fleet composed almost entirely of LRF can often win you the game.
If you like torpedo cruisers, don't be afraid to build them - they have such a large range that the AI will rarely be close enough to auto-attack them. If the rest of your fleet is in front, your torpedo cruisers should have no problem surviving.
Another way to easily have a very powerful fleet is to focus entirely on carriers with bombers (no fighters). Fighters are only really that effective against enemy bombers and don't do all that much damage; fighters die way too easily to enemy flak (even enemy AI flak) for me to build fighters past the beginning of the game. Bombers do much, much more damage against nearly everything, including enemy capital ships, structures, and heavy cruisers. As Darvin suggested in an earlier thread, a rule of thumb is that if you can build 100 bomber squadrons against the AI, you've won, because your fleet has so much firepower and even the hardest AIs have no idea how to deal with them.
Heavy cruisers are the only real good anti-LRM unit... that, and flak. but the AI doesn't know how to do that.
Thanks, Ryat and Wrath. Great advice!
Have some fighters (some recommend a 2 bomber to 1 fighter ratio) and leave them on hold position and have them move with the main fleet. This will help with the bombers that the AI does build.
No
Exactly. A Kol with Finest hour going can do 70 repair. Nigh unstoppable then.
There is a range. Just use the 'Tab' button on your keyboard and the purple ring centered around the repair platform will give you the range visually.
Thanks again.
On the fighter suggestion, I'll give that a shot. I didn't know there was an option for them to hold or fly in formation with the fleet.
On the question about bonuses offered by wells, I must have misread what he wrote. I guess he was talking about a faster rate available in friendly wells because of the repair structures versus a neutral well where repair structures are not available.
I knew the Finest Hours upgrade restored antimatter, but I didn't know it also repaired. Good to know.
I wonder how strong a starbase would be with two repair structures nearby (instead of one).
The repair ability from the repair platforms does not stack with other platforms. The Hoshiko ability is a different ability so it can stack.
Okay. I'm really glad you told me that. I would have spent time, resources, and a slot before discovering this.
Its still good to put several repair bays around a starbases. First of all never have just one repair bay by itself, having two greatly increases the endurance of both as they can heal each other. The more repair bays you have also reduces the chances of them running out of antimatter and thus unable to repair your starbase for a few critical seconds.
My typical defense set up for a front line planet is a starbase, 3-4 repair bays, 1-2 hangars and maybe a turret or two to fill up the slots, all clustered around each other with the repair bays and hangars behind the starbase and turrets.
Further, I advise that the Devs add custom map sharing to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.
Anything with a repair ability can repair anything else friendly with hull points, as long as it's within range.
A Hoshiko repairs things at a rate of 20 hull/second. With repair platform upgrades, the repair platform can repair things at a rate of 40 hull/second. Combined they can repair friendly starbases on friendly planets in range of both abilities to be repaired at a rate of 60 hull/second.
Flak counter enemy fighters much more efficiently than fighters counter other fighters. So yeah, just build flak yourself if you're trying to counter fighters.
I rarely use fighters mid-late game because, even if against the AI, fighters very quickly die to enemy flak. While it's nice to be able to kill enemy bombers with fighters of your own, if your fighters don't survive long enough, it doesn't work all that well.
One fighter squad costs 7 supply ish. Two flak cost 8 supply (except if Vasari - 10 supply then). I like the idea of building entirely flak and bombers - the flak will first decimate the enemy fighters and will then whittle down their bombers if you have enough flak. Flak might be more reliable in countering bombers even if they don't do quite as much damage against them as fighters do against bombers.
Have to agree with Wrath89 in using flak and bombers vs AI.
I know you are discussing TEC but I have more experience playing Vasari so I will comment from their side of the equation.
As a Vasari near the end of the game, I aim for roughly 100+ bomber squads at maybe an 8:1 bomber to fighter ratio with 30-40 flak. Rest of my fleet is 12-13 caps heavy on the Skirantra (though a couple of high level eggs are very devastating when used in tandem), 20 subverters, maybe a few overseers to help heal caps, and a boatload of assailants. I no longer even bother building enforcers or skirmishers. The former are fodder for bombers and the latter are too high a supply cost for what you get not to mention they always get targeted first. Though skirmishers have some place midgame if you are up against a vicious AI with oodles of hoshikos.
If I can get to this max fleet then the game is over regardless of difficulty level. Properly controlled the 20 or so subverters can absolutely stifle the AI who has no counter for their lockdown ability. Learning how to properly micro subverters is worth every penny. The skirantra repair clouds + eight or so overseers can keep up even a heavily focused fired capital ship long enough to get it out of the grav well. The long range ability of the assailants + the phase missile upgrades can do a lot of damage. But the core of this fleet is the bombers. They are without peer and merciless, unless they hit a phasic trap or run up against a high level Kol, in which case those targets die first to assailant spam. Coupled with a couple of high eggs and some subverters for shield disortion, such a fleet can reduce a maxed starbase with zero losses in like a minute.
So far, my re-refined fleet has been unstoppable. It re-took the planet that I bombarded earlier, jumped to the capital world and crushed everything with no losses. It is currently sweeping across the star system, taking more planets, and there have been no complications. The fleet consists of: 1 Akkan, 2 Kols, 2 Dunovs, and 2 Dreadnoughts. They are joined by 50 carriers with over 70 bomber squads and at least 20 fighter squads, 20 flak frigates, 20 LRM frigates, 20 heavy cruisers, and 20 medical cruisers. Finally I have 20 torpedo cruisers in a second fleet although their extra firepower, I found, was unnecessary, with the insane damage my bombers are doing. However, I'm still using the torpedo cruisers to knock out other structures while the bombers take down the priority targets. I've watched the bombers very quickly eliminate a starbase. It's amazing.
With two of the three enemy races eliminated, my remaining adversary continues to send ships into my star system. So I've been placing starbases around the sun and wormholes, by strategic locations, and planets that I don't consider strategic, but they continue to get hit for some reason.
I don't understand why Advent forces still protect the planets when they were defeated. Is the idea that when an AI is defeated, they just can't build any more, but their existing forces still defend?
I also keep seeing TEC rebels jump from another star system directly to a planet and attack my extractors and world. What's up with that?
Yes the autoattack function still operates even though the AI is defeated.
Its a TEC research ability called Insurrection. Game wise/lore they are rebels on that planet that take up arms against you.
Thanks Ryat. I was pulling my hair out. Right now, to counter this threat, I'm placing hangars if possible, and if not, I'm sending two carriers with 2 fighter squads and 2 bomber squads. Based on the low number and type of ships they're sending, I think they will be an effective counter. Trying it now.
Hangars work great.
I'm getting overwhelmed. Rebels keep attacking various worlds, I'm losing money because of upkeep, I think (trying to build more trade ports), and I have multiple fleets engaging me on two fronts in my star. I wish I had established better defenses much sooner.
I need a break (saving). This is stressing me out. My inexperience keeps getting me into trouble.
I learned a lot from this campaign. I ended up taking the fight to them and my last stand was around one of their planets, engaging multiple fleets, but they crushed me. Next campaign, I'll do a better job of fortifying my planets. I think I also need to create more smaller fleets for defensive purposes, as one of my friends suggested. I tend to rely on a single, super force.
The problem is that it takes hours to build up enough funds to a fleet as large as that, unless you're playing on a premade custom map with 10+ planets per player. I mean, the strategy works but takes so long to build up.
If you're building Kols you should be using them for Flak Burst, their main useful ability - and if that's what you're doing, you might not even need to build any flak frigates.
Marzas with Raze Planet can help you bomb out enemy planets much quicker, and are also extremely dangerous if you can get them to level 6 to use Missile Barrage, which the AI has no idea how to handle.
One hangar with bombers and one turret should be enough. Probably. You might need 2 turrets though. (turrets are extremely durable and wipe out planetary militia with ease) While building static defenses isn't all that efficient, in the late-game vs AI they can often be much more easily used than mobile ships which have to maneuver to defend the correct gravity well first. You probably shouldn't have any fighters in this situation: the attacking rebels often have a few flak frigates and will decimate fighters very quickly, but the rebels never have fighters, and often have heavy cruisers, so bombers are your best bet.
If I'm playing against a number of AIs (more than one on the harder settings) I always max out on trade ports on all logistics slots on all my worlds before fleeting up to build an offensive fleet.
Trade ports are essential if you're planning on building a large fleet.
A fortified starbase on one of your worlds (hull repair capabilities with repair platforms) will fight off nearly any enemy fleet, of all difficulties except sometimes Cruel or Vicious if you don't have defenders to kill bombers and antistructure enemy frigates.
Even if your entire offensive fleet gets destroyed it's possible to rebuild and attack, as long as you have a starbase at a choke point defending. Building up a fleet again would take a while, it's true, but it's certainly possible.
Great tip. That's good to know.
Wow, all of your logistic slots? What about military and civic labs or orbital refineries? In my new campaign, I'm trying to have a military lab, civic lab, trade port, and shield generator per planet with refineries in wells that contain a high number of resource drops.
Don't waste anything on the shield generator. They are useless. Also you only need 8 labs for military and civic each. Grouping them on asteroids or other poor trade areas is better as it allows you to increase trade ports on better worlds or trade routes (search for white line or trade line). Refineries are debatable in value.
After I have the bare minimum amount of logistics slots used for research labs, frigate factories, and culture centers, I fill every remaining logistics slot with trade ports. If I'm TEC I'll probably go for 8 civic labs though, for Pervasive Economy. (your coffers will virtually never run dry with that researched)
Putting each structure on each planet sounds nice balance-wise but doesn't really do much. Often my empire is a little clumped together and I carefully place all of my research labs on one planet (maxing out logistics) in order to allow for a longer trade chain (resulting in significantly more income) while also using all my slots efficiently.
https://www.sinsofasolarempire.wikia.com/wiki/Trade_Port
Refineries unfortunately cost a whole lot and rarely give back more effective income than a trade port. I think someone did a calculation and concluded that it would normally take 14 or 16 extractors total in all surrounding gravity wells to make a refinery worth it. (very very rarely worth the cost)
Shield generators only protect your planet from bombardment, and are often only needed at your front-line planet(s) - and even then, if you're facing the AI and aren't intentionally gimping yourself, you should have a starbase, which can be upgraded with Auxiliary Government or something similar to protect your planet from ownership loss by bombardment (bombing and Novaliths).
Right now, in my new campaign, I have three routes to my capital world. So I set up a starbase (with docking beams) by each connected world with 5 frigates ordered to hold position. I am now adding turrets, hangars, and a repair platform by each.
On the shield generator, I assumed it also protected you from the TEC and Advent super weapons.
I didn't realize there were "better worlds or trade routes." So as I come across new planets, I should look for a white line (as in a line of traffic that crosses the gravity well)? I've never seen that.
The part that got my attention was "longer trade chain." So assume planet A is connected to B, B is connected to C, and so on. If I create a trade port on planet A and planet B, but I don't create one on planet C, and then create one on planet D, is that going to negatively impact planet D's trade port? The link on trade ports provided mentioned a "continuous trade route" so I'm assuming planet D would be impacted. I also learned that multiple trade ports will stack which is awesome.
Thanks for the tip on refineries. I will still have to research orbital refinement in order to research bigger cargo holds and eventually a pervasive economy, but I will avoid actually building them now that I know that the juice is not worth the squeeze.
Do you only have 4 planets? That doesn't sound too good... unless you're playing in a really cramped map in which case it makes sense.
The general goal when defending against AI should be finding choke points cutting off enemy access to your other worlds, homeworld or not. Having to build 3 starbases is unfortunate, especially if you happen to be playing on random small: starbases are expensive.
If you have starbase, often you don't need turrets (starbases alone already do lots of damage) - if you do build turrets, make sure they're well within the range of the starbase so that enemy ships will come and be melted by the combined power of the SB and turrets, instead of being able to focus on attacking one thing at a time.
Only from TEC. The shield generator protects from bombardment. Advent's weapon creates culture and is not affected by the Shield Generator.
You have to hover your cursor over your credit display to see your trade route. The route is as long as your longest continuous chain of trade port(s): each additional planet in the trade chain increases the income from each trade port slightly. When you have a lot of trade ports (which you should), this adds up to a lot.
All trade ports give the same amount of income as all other trade ports, at one particular moment in the game. However, the income rate per trade port can be increased or decreased if you build a trade chain or break an existing trade chain.
There are no penalties, per se, for a break such as the one you described: it's just that you'd be missing out on a potentially greater trade port income rate.
Building a long trade chain and then stacking as many trade ports as possible into other logistics slots will nearly always give you more than enough funds to build a fleet and destroy the AIs.
I try to have all spare logistics slots filled with trade ports by around 40 minutes in.
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