Planetary Pickets

Frigates and Guns and Repair posts, oh my.

I was playing a small map today just against the computer, and thought of something that seems to work well for me.. I do the usual thing with building repair posts and stationary defenses to ward off pirates and siege groups, but I also found that if I post a few frigates at that planet it makes it about 300% more effective. Tricky part is figuring repair coverage for them and getting them to stay *in* it. Also I have to remember to turn auto-join fleet off, otherwise passing fleets have a tendency to scoop the pickets up.

This certainly won't stop a determined attack, but it seems to work well for those pesky siege groups and pirates, and is great when I need to call in reinforcements ASAP. Of course, in the long run, fleet upkeep would be a pain.. but I can cross that bridge when I come to it.

Thoughts?

strategy

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If you put the picket ships into a fleet of their own, you can set an engagement range for the fleet - local area will stop them moving too far from their position, while hold position will stop them from moving at all (this can be very dangerous against opponents who have a longer range, though).

Also, making them into a fleet should stop them being 'picked up' by other fleets moving through the system, I believe.

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I do this on *all* border planets. Works best if there is just one incoming phase lane.

Assuming one incoming phase lane I'll build 3 hanger bays (4 bombers, 2 fighers) closer to the planet.
Midrange at least 2, perhaps 3 overlapping repair bays.
One phase jump inhibitor.
Fill the rest in with gun platforms (usually 12+ since they are cheap).

Usually a token force of ships. Perhaps 1 or 2 Kodiaks and 4 or so LRMs.

This alone can hold off a pretty large fleet for quite some time.

2 great examples of how this works:

1) AI had a HUGE fleet, 100+ ships and I had a better equipped but smaller fleet and we were fighting back and forth between 2 systems. I'd go in and take out as much as I could and jump back and rebuild my losses. I did best if I could wait and let the AI come to me. When they would jump in I would force my fleet to stay in the range of the 3 repair bays. My cap ships would never lose much in terms of hit points. Shields would go down but they would stay at least 90% healthy. Smaller frigates would last longer then normal but would bite it but with 2 frigate factories in system they were easily replaced. I could sit there forever basically and let him come at me while I just slowly took him out. Of course the AI is too smart for that and would eventually retreat. I finally broke that deadlock by building a second fleet and starting taking out his outer worlds on the other side of the system and that pulled a lot of his fleet away and I eventually tore up his inner worlds.

2) In the same game I had finally took his homeworld but he still had a huge fleet. I quickly built up my "defense array" as above to defend. I took my whole fleet deeper in to take out the planets behind the homeworld. Well, I didn't leave any ships and while I was 2 jumps away he counter attacked with his huge fleet. I figured I'd let the planet fall so long as I can knock out the other 2 "behind" it and then I'd come back and take it back. I was tied up for about 10 minutes and the planet never fell. I checked in a couple times and the repair bays were keeping the gun platforms healed up. I finally got my fleet back and chased him off. I lost about half the platforms and 1 hanger bay but other then that it survived. Now in multiplayer perhaps it wouldn't have lasted as long but those overlapping repair bays really work.

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