vs the large, uasually overwelming battle fleets that go after planets... no they dont do much... expecially if your enemy is using lmfs... but if you have teched out your defence tree, a fully upgraded starbase+a pji in the back+ few repair bays+ a few hanger bays to provide flack and fighters... a few gauss cannons in front of the starbase just might force those anti-structure ships to either take out the gauss first, or take their fire if they go straight for the starbase/repair.

the best thing about point-defence turrets... is that they are usaually very low on a players to-kill list, and so if they are in the right spots, they can attack for a nice little while before they get taken out... And nothing sucks more than a meson hit on a capital ship the second your carriers warp in with 50 bombers.

I almost lost a capital ship to the pirate turrets when i was cleaning them out and not paying attention... so they can do some damage.

The devs gave the turrets some decent abilities in entrenchment. The vasari turret stops passive hull reintegration. The TEC cannon gets missiles at tier 4, and it's actually a nasty ability if in numbers of 10+. The advent get the most unique one. If you cluster turrets together, they do more damage based on how clustered and close to others they are.

Except for starbases, it's hard for me to argue that defenses can stand alone. There are upgrades for the defenses now, so these can stand on their own feet for some time, but fleets get so large that by later stages of the game, standard defenses don't cut it on their own. They WILL, however, serve as great and LETHAL support for a very upped starbase with a few repair bays near it. That much I will say, does work.

If a vasari turret has the said ability and shoots an enemy ship, that ship won't regenerate health on its own for a looooong time. Ships naturally regenerate health/shields slowly, like 1 hps and 1 sps. This ability takes that away. The ship will have to be sent to a repair bay if it's to be healed anytime soon.

the vasari turret also stops antimatter regeneration making it the most annoying turret in the game. the effect last for quite a long time.

In my defenses, strikecraft do most of the work (if a starbase is not present), turrets are there to protect the hangars, repair bays and tradeports. All my structures are built close to each other, so taking out the hangars requires the enemy to get in range of my turrets, and before they get anything done, my fighters have destroyed the enemy lrf's. Works pretty well against minor AI attacks and pirates, large attacks it slows down enough for my defense fleet to arrive.

I've no doubt that a human player would crack that defense with hardly trying