There is nothing to do while turtling. There are cookie cutter economics, and...diplomacy? So the game is wide open to keep the action going. No action = death by boredom in Sins.

Yes, you are right. It's not double. I have no idea why I thought the technology description said double.

I stand corrected.

turrets do nothing, particularly when clustered. the main offensive ship in the game is the LRM frigate. These ships have much greater range than any of the turrets, even Gauss with full range upgrades. turrets are quite simply a horrible waste of resources because they will never fire a single relevant shot. the only thing they will ever shoot at are mismanaged ships that your negligent opponent is too dumb to maneuver out of range of the turrets if they accidentally stray into the kill zone.

hangar defenses are at least capable of engaging LRM frigates with fighter squadrons. you could certainly argue that a couple of Flak Frigate escorts neutralizes this very cheaply, but at least you're dealing with something slightly relevant at that point. Each Flak frigate in the enemy fleet is one less LRM frigate and thus reduces his firepower by that amount.

the only way to defend a system is by parking your own LRM frigates inside a repair bay zone. your LRMs will defeat several enemy LRMs every time because they are being constantly repaired. Your enemy will have to fire on the repair bays first before he can engage your ships and though you may lose your repair bays, they are easily replaced, and your enemy will lose many ships before he can inflict any damage whatever on yours.

there is no point to turrets. the only defense worth having is defense that can match the range of enemy LRM frigates. use your own LRMs to defend. if you have excess money/tactical slots you can add hangar defense.

A lot of food for thought here...

It appears hangers and turrets have their uses as they make the AI do something a little different.

My last game ( a whopping 2 vs. 1 at normal - weak I know   ) I was getting owned by a slow start plus culture (this I found surprising!) and each race had mega fleets on my corners with an occasinal foray up the middle at my home planet.

One thing I can add is I set my fleet at hold in the cover of the repair bay, turrets and hangers. Otherwise they ventured out and died a horrid, vacuumous death as the AI was positioned enticingly across the system. It was not much help but it delayed the inevitable for a bit...

Sure you can. A handful of turrets and about 8 hangar bays (2:1 bombers/fighter) can hold, and in some cases completely wipe out, a fleet including a couple of capital ships. I guess late game (or in MP) that wouldn't work, but for the bulk of the game it's more than adequate against the AI.

A good defense against fleets that are on their way to your home world or deeper systems is to keep a secondary fleet of light carriers as defense and a few random defensive hangers around to augment them in each system. Make sure to include repair bays and they will fix your fighter squadrons also as they tool around your system. Now the enemy has to commit a good chunk of flak to counter. Make sure the carriers target cap ships and keep them on the far side of a system from where the enemy fleet phases in... their bombers can do a ton of damage on even the first pass... if they die after that who cares your going to jump out and set up on the far side of the next system. Considering a fleet that is headed for your home worlds will bypass most defenses on the way to avoid entanglment you just keep moving ahead of them and hitting the cap ships or big ships like cruisers.

If your bombers survive a pass or 2 they can still get all the way across the system and redock long before their fleet can get to you. If they phase in right behind you your bombers will still be attacking them as your carriers move all they way across the system and then phase to the next system to defend. Retool to fighters if they sprint lighter ships out to intercept the carriers. If they stop and engage one of your planets you can just park the carries safe out of the way and let the strike craft work in addition to whatever ships and random defense stuff you have around. If they have a ton of flak park the bomber groups on board till you have full forces... then launch and go for a cap ship again... with just a few passes you can kill lighter cap ships outright and take huge chunks out of even battleships. Even better as they try to retreat you can just jump in behind them over and over and whittle way more ships.

The amount of damage you can do can be disproportionate to the resources you commit making this fleet. Usually only effective on larger maps. Human enemy will change tactics or send a bigger fleet next time but the point was defense so you did what you intended if they delay or retreat for reinforcements. That lets you get a good counter fleet going. Consider targeting specific ships you know will be trouble then building a custom designed counter fleet at your home world to greet them.

OK that was way too long but you get the idea. Adapt it as you see fit.

Nothing damages static defenses and orbital structures like Bombers do. With all orbital buildings both tactical and logistical using VeryHeavy armor, the Phase Stabilizer/Phase Jump Inhibitor/Regeneration Bays/Frigate Factory/Defense Platforms you're using for buying time for and putting up and/or supporting a fleet defense, will all go down soon without even scratching the Bombers or their Cruiser Carriers who are camping out at the edge of the sector.

But Hangar Defenses can deploy Fighter Squadrons. Fighters are more effective and lethal against Bombers than even flak is, even if you count the cost & supply of fielding them vs. that of flak. What's more, they can defend all over the gravity well while flaks can only shoot them when they come in for attack runs. If the enemy brought along flaks themselves, it doesn't matter since the Fighters are playing defensive already and can just avoid the flak.

Although the Bomber alpha-strike may end up killing the Fighters' Hangars, their attack will be put off-line for the next ~2 minutes, helping the survival of the remaining structures until a fleet arrives. After the Bombers are down, the Fighters can attack LR Frigates until(and if) they get killed, and scramble to knock out scouts in between battles.



This is with the basic Phase Stabilizers you get at Tier 5. At Tier 7, just prior to Returning Armada, they get upgraded with Enhanced Tunneling so as to achieve faster speeds in phase space.



As long as the ships have entered phase space, they'll land safely whether the enemy kills the Phase Stabilizer or not. They'll blow up one rather expensive piece of equipment, but they won't survive to celebrate it.



This is Highly Attuned Sensors, a Tier 8 'super ability'. The tech level may not go that high, and of course you have Returning Armada on the same tier.

Still, the Vasari get the technology to see 1 jump away(Phase Space Monitoring) at Tier 1, and the tech to see 2 jumps away(Enhanced Sensors) at Tier 4. An enemy approaching your empire from 2 jumps away should be enough warning to initiate a Stabilizer jump provided your fleet is already at a Phase Stabilizer planet.

Agreed, very informative post!

Does the AI use "feint" tactics when attacking planets? I played against a Vasari Hard AI for the first time recently and it seemed like they would come in with a few ships to try and bait me to go on the defense..

Speaking for Single player games only.

Personally I think Phase Jump inhibitors are probably one of the most important defensive tools I can get.

The best possible situation in any battle is to be in a position of clear superiority. Be stronger than your enemy. Period. The computer, however, is smart. If presented with a situation where you are significantly stronger than them they will run. This means many of the fights you will be able to actually confront the computer will be ones where you are barely superior at best or you are attacking them at there last planet where they are forced to make a stand.

The only way to attack the AI in a position of clear superiority is with phase jump inhibitors. My general strategy is to never keep my fleet in my outer, defensive, worlds (after I have built defenses that is). They are always one jump out. A lot of times the comp will see this undefended planet (no ships at least) and warp in a fleet of their own.Once they have entered my gravity well I send my own fleet in. I don't want to do it too soon because I want them committed, trapped between escape and my orbital defenses.

Of course at this point they do try to run, and that's when they run into my 3 phase jump inhibitors. In my last game (6 player FFA) I have gotten 20 capital ship kills defensively with this method. Just focus fire on them when I warp in.

On to some other points. If I don't have a superiority fleet yet to set traps I use LRMs as my defense fleet. There range is good enough that they can hang out within my defenses. I will set up at least 3 hangers in planets that need serious defense. Generally I use fighters as they are more effective against frigates. If a cap ship shows up you are probably going to need some more ships to take it down anyways, also a single cap ship without support isn't a real threat against a well defended planet. He can't do much damage to your planet with bombardment alone, and to get to your hangars he will have to deal with your defensive turrets. So I set my static defenses up to deal with the smaller ships.

Now of course, like I said this is only against AI, real players will probably be much smarter than this.

Another useful tactic I learned when dealing with pirates involves Trade stations. I was in a 1 on 1 game and had taken several forward planet and built trade stations on them but little else to defend. I lost the pirate bidding and a fleet of pirates showed up and instead of attack my stuff they went after the trade ships. (For the most part) This helped me a lot over the game as each time the pirates showed up they would go after trade ships and I'd let my turrets pound them until my fleet arrived.

So if you're defending against pirates build a trade station. It worked for me, I'm not sure if it will everytime but it was really nice having them blow up free ships over and over while I knocked them out. Got my cap ship to level 6 this way!

Thats a pretty solid strategy, all said. The illuminators are effective against most ships and the fighters can protect your illuminators from enemy fighters attack runs. Keep em parked near the repair bays, and you've got a tough nut to crack.

Indeed. In WW2, and every since then for that matter, defense has meant attacking first.