LOL! Even more amusing is that attacking fleet flees.

There is definet

There is definetly room for further investigation of this, but let me be the first to say thanks for actually engaging the community in open discussion on this. Your open candor is a breath of fresh air in the all to often abused and cynical gaming community.

I suppose that reducing Siege frigates HP by a noticeable amount should help. The problem with them is not their cost or damage in my opinion, but the fact that they can withstand 30s of defense turret fire. They're not a main force unit or even a front line unit. They should be more fragile.
That should pretty much kill the Siege frigate only strategy and force the player to add quite a few support ships to the bunch. And that needs more research, more ressource, in short, more strategy and less spamming.

Agree totally. The siege firepower is fine (it keeps offensive sieges from taking a lifetime to deplete significant colonies), but the durability of siege ships is the real issue. Let's make smart placement of defensive turrets more of a factor. Also, he's right, it would make those supporting ships a more attractive option.

Any homogenous "zerg" rush, in my opinion, weakens the over-all tactical complexity of a game (witness C&C3, which I love, but is all about the big gun rush).

Yea, I kinda think the siege frigates are overpowered as well having lost SEVERAL colonies to them in a long mid-size game again the AI. And this was with the TEC upgrade that let me see them coming 2 phase lines away. I lost quite a few outer colonies despite having defensive forces as the AI seemed to be spamming them. In fact, I was quite powerful at the time with 6 capital ships. Just my 2 cents.

I think it makes sense. Do you realize how hard it would be to defend a planet in RL space? *shrug*

I just thought I should note, I had my game set at easy difficulty. One enemy was set with the fortification AI, and the other with the researching AI. It may be an aspect of the difficulty level/personality.

Especially if this planet doesn't even have ground-to-space nukes as a last line of defense
#AHEM!# ....

I just started a game, within the first five minutes of the game I sent a scout ship to the closest planet and there was literally around 20-25 frigates from an enemy already there!

Luckily I had my scout ship retreat before he was killed, but man...I didn't have anything but one capital ship and a couple scout cruisers.

wow, day one and someone has already cried nerf!?!?!

*sigh* have a little more experience first. I admit the AI is a little sleazy to forgoe using a bigger fleet more of the time, but I like sleazy AI, makes my game more fun.
in any case the strategy is more than easily countered, like the devs say. just make sure to GUARD your REAR LINES. there are a LOT more uncolcables hanging around in release than there were in the beta. makes sneak attacks a pretty good viability

Maybe that is your strategic flaw. Don't have a "primary" fleet. It's harder to play with multiple, smaller fleets, but I quickly adapted to this AI strategy and won. Just like "real life", you can't defend everything, all the time.

He had a fleet with 2 caps and 10+ frigates, plus some planetary defenses, and the planet was still easily obliterated.

the thing about the siege run is either that it wont work on a planet worth the investment (unless you're caught completely with your pants down) or when it does work it wont make up for the investment the person put into it, so just hit them with a fleet while you defend with another.

jeez come on guys the siegecraft are not overpowered just build large enough fleet
to counter the siegecraft stay close to your main planets dont waste rescources on building defences early in game use them to build ships and upgrade military later in game you can build defences and lets yout fleet loose and the key word is here scout scout scout like blair said (i usually build 3 4 scouts)
greetz

Ala musical chairs. This is not a fun game mechanic. You should be able to capture a planet, defend that planet against counter-attack, then attack again. That is a successful strategic campaign. While I agree that there should be room for "special forces" attack, it should never be more effective (by many times) then a traditional attack. Otherwise, why have 9 or so other ships when one or two can get it all done?

Like some previous posters have said, I completely agree that the HP of siege frigates is waaaaaaaaaay to high. They should be one of the HP/Shield weakest units in the game, so that they perhaps even only appear in a system after the main fleet has taken out the space defenses. This would solve this problem entirely. You could still have a "special forces" siege spam attack, you would just be resigned to attacking lightly defended colonies (where you could knock out the planet before the defenses destroyer your hopefully HP nerfed ships).

I think the idea is that the game wants you to also think about using Fleets defensively. You cant just send all your ships gung-ho in attack as your defences can only repel small attacks.

Each race has a unique tactical building that help against the "siege rush".

The TEC have planetary shields. The Vasari have a weapon jammer (that should prevent them from bombing also), and the Advent have some sort of a disabler also.

Like was mentioned, the siege frigate damage has already been nerfed before release, and there are plenty of ways to survive it.

4 gauss turrets and 2 hangars is not a sufficient defense against much of anything. Also, make sure you upgrade emergency infrastructure to get your planets more hp.

Indeed, but the problem is no fleet of nearly ANY size can destroyer a siege spam before it kills your planet. If the targeted planet is your capital, you will very likely lose the game.

So once again, the "strategy" of defensive fleets fails to do anything.

None of that does anything for you in the early game when you get a siege frigate with two wep labs (I believe) when that stuff (which has a minor effect anyway) comes with 6+ labs. Perhaps we should not nerf the siege damage, but rather nerf their HP?

Likewise, the "early" game doesn't have 20 siege ship rushes against you. By the time numbers that large come into play, it's not difficult to have any of those specialized tactical buildings up.

For me, the matter is not "does siege spam strategy break balance" or "what is the best anti-siege spam defense" or the lack thereof.
It just doesn't make much sense that a bunch of siege frigs without any escort or support of any kind can take the heat for 5 min while turning a planet into cinders, or worse, just seat behind the planet where the turrets can't reach and stay out of harm.
Ever watched Starship Troopers? I'd be happy if planets could have anti-siege weapons. Something like multiple weapons with a high fire rate and low damage. That would be perfect against multiple weak opponents (like a bunch of siege frigates) without breaking the siege capital ships. The ground weapon effectiveness could depend on planet infrastructure or tech level or something.

Well, that's just my 2c.

A better defence structure would be a solution. I tend to like heavy defences though so I'm probably biased.

Its seems to me both that hangers and turrets and are for light defence and are easily dealt with. I know the response to this is going to be 'station fleets around planets' but heavy defence structures, hell even medium seem like a more practical and cost effective method.

Buffing existing turrets or adding heavier turrets may jeopardize the whole game balance. There ought to be a reasonable solution to the siege spam issue, if the next few days of MP game confirm that this *is* an issue.

12 siege frigs rushed my capital in the first 30 minutes. Fully upgraded, with two caps in the system and a ton of frig support. A number of turrets and hangers with bombers. Planet still died before I could kill off the sieges (in fact a number of sieges survived the death of the planet).

What's your "defense" for that?

Fleet? Check.
Caps? Check.
Turrets? Check.
Hangers? Check.
Emergency Upgrades? Check.

Result? Dead planet. 60% loss in alligence. 70% loss in all income. Game over.

You guys keep arguing that I am not defending properly. What you fail to recognize is that there is no defense against the current state of siege frigates (who tank like a cruiser).

I was thinking that there are two ways to go in my opinion a large space base, that would be manned or some sort of unmanned global orbital defence satellites, either way I think it should be very expensive but capable of taking on a capital ship or two with support fleets.

Again balance is an issue but presumably any advanced civilisation would have heavy defences, the light ones just don't seem up to it even if you beef them up.