Well, my usual defensive pattern is a node, on the side of the planet nearer the phase lane, with the following:

1 phase jump inhibitor, if appropriate
2 repair centers, "flanking" the node
4 or more gauss cannons, in a wall or ring around the node
As many hangars as I can place inside that

Add in mobile forces as needed / appropriate.

End of phaseline. I guess.

Yeah if you cannot afford/get Hangars though Ron you may want to place those cannons forward more... I don't think you enjoyed me simply sitting outside of range waiting for you and blasting away with LRMS for fun.

By simply sitting outside I could wait for your mobile force to come to me, or just go around and leave going deeper... reinforcements changes the battle of course; but defenses should at least get to fire.

But thats me; my defense is 3-5 turrets up front; backed up by 2 repair bays later on; with 1 turret right next to the planet in the most obvious approach by siege frigates... just one turret can save a planet's life from pirates/heavy raids.

I have yet to field a Hangar in online play; I dedicate almost all of my tech and money to ships. Defenses are a teritiary consideration for me.

Which you could have avoided via discussion bribes etc. instead you had a fight with Happy over territory and you sicked a nasty pirate fleet on me.

You had a Dunov and some frigates... you were adding some over time; had your cannons been up front I would be getting shot as I ran past them as well as by your mobile forces; the LRMS would jump in out of range perhaps; but your mobiles can go straight at them with ease; while my sad front ships swing around; perhaps bypassing the system, but my siege frigates never would have gotten past alive and my LRMS would either run forward taking dammage or retreat entirely.

You could have evened the odds tremendously by placing your turrets/repair bay and ships in the forward position. You may have still lost the battle but it would have caused me MUCH more pain; and as a result I probablly wouldn't have jumped into that ice planet far above (the choke point of your empire for Happy) and beaten Happy into submission. Between my fleet being intact and at the choke point, and the massive bounty you placed by scuttling your empire; I took few casualties and sealed off your territory from Happy for my eventual colonization.

You threw me a victory; it would have been an even match between me and Happy if you had at least not scuttled everything; and it would have been much closer if your turrets had been front placed.

Regardless of the overall game; in that particular battle those turrets did absolutely Nothing. They didn't shoot my incoming forces; they didn't prevent my flanking; and they didn't prevent my siege frigates. You should place them as forward as possible, with a smaller or bigger reserve near your structures/planet as you feel apropriate.

And I meant to send said pirate fleet at Happy (I think -- for some reason I was too busy to take notes, maybe thats just a "here's where I went wrong" thing) -- I got my players screwed up, and was kinda stuck with it. Oh, and I suck at diplomacy, especially when I can't offer any incentives ("I'll give you 3 cobalts and my Dunov to leave!" "I'll give you 10K credits -- 1000 at a time, as I build them up -- to leave!"

Personally, I consider having ships jump into gauss cannon range at all a bug, as the devs stated intent in limiting the building range was to prevent that. As such, doing so would be exploiting a bug. Ergo, I tend not to do it / think about it that way, even when I should.





True -- I never got the hangar's researched to go behind them. A couple dozen bombers would have normally been enough to handle your LRM platforms.



Definitely!

Edit:

Oh, and my biggest problem, that I only just thought of, was that I'd played several games recently with, for lack of a better description, inferior players. I'd gotten into that mind set, and it probably lead me astray.

I dont think its an exploit Ron, and many ships will not be in range of the Gauss, besides they probablly need to be able to be that close otherwise I would build 1 Guass turret; maybe 2 tops.

Karma- I think you will find people are more interesting in killing the planet, especially if its undefended... even one guass turret near the planet can slow/save it from a siege frigate raid.

I myself like 3 smallish fleets each with 4 Siege frigates... I bypass defense systems and just rapidly exterminate 4 or 5 planets. The economic cripple this causes is enough to win you the game.

But then the cannons would be completely unavoidable short of full reverse and leaving the planet, since you'd be able to make a semicircle around the well exit. As it is now, I like being able to queue paths to skirt around the well and avoid them. Cannons are best used for defending specific areas, not blocking access to the entire well.

frankly a great tech would simply allow your ships to jump in farther away from the planet, essentially all grav wells would have 2 sizes and the larger size is unaccessable until you have the tech. That right there would be truly terrifying.

That being said I like how it is now; you will get shot at by the cannons but you do get around quickly and will take few casualties.