Novalith, Kostura or Deliverance Engine, is there any possibility to protect planet from this kind of bombardment attack? If yes (eg. planetary shield), how is it efficient?

The only protection is the planetary shield (TEC) against Novalith. There is no way to protect yourself against the others, but they are more fleet aids than planet killers. You would need a lot of Kotsuras to knock out all your structures, since it does fairly low damage - its notable feature is the shut down and phase node opening. And Deliverance Engine doesn't do damage at all, it just debuffs your fleet and buffs an enemy fleet if one is there. If you're playing a non-TEC race against a Novalith, just make sure you fully upgrade your planets' hp.

I'm Just adding to Annatar

If you actually see superweapons, that means you better either have a booming economy or a massive fleet. If SW's are out, that means big trouble that's going to be difficult to counter purely because of the logistics of getting to the superweapon to counter it.

Novaliths

If you're playing entrenchment, starbases have an ability (lower right hand corner on the box selection screen I believe where you upgrade the starbase) where it'll be called something along the lines of "undying allegiance". No matter what kind of damage is done to the gravity well, as long as the starbase stands, you will keep your planet, even at 0 health.

That's a very very expensive option. Won't always be prudent.

Vasari gets an upgrade in the first tier of the econ tree where planet health upgrades are 50% cheaper. That should help if you're Vasari.

Advent get up to 60% discounts on colonizing (with lvl 3 colonize on progenitor mothership). This isn't always the best option, because early game you don't really want to spend your resources on planet health (unless you're already in an early game fight somehow).

TEC scouts get a bomb ability they can use on buildings. It's in the third tier of the military tree. If somehow you can manage to get them back to the novalith, about 20 or so TEC scouts can destroy a novalith, or any other superweapon for that matter.

Kotsura

This one's probably the hardest to counter, but unless someone surprises you with 6-8 of these, I don't think you have much to worry about. The catch22 with the kotsura is it doesn't really do that much damage to a fleet. What is it? 250? 500? It has to go through Mitigation shielding, which really takes the oomph out of it. Especially if the kotsura user doesn't stagger fire them (fire one, mitigation shields go up, wait, mitigation shields go down, repeat). The Kotsura is much better at taking out buildings (except for starbases).

Most effective option is to split the fleet. The problem is that the Kotsura (which is the best superweapon imo) takes down the only thing that can destroy it. A fleet is the only thing that will ever destroy a Kotsura.

Deliverance Engine

This superweapon is much more of a tactical option for making the Advent fleet better. This goes in the complete opposite direction of the other two. Novaliths and Kotsuras destroy. DE's make the Advent fleet better. When you fire a DE, advent fleets get tougher (additional 6% mitigation) and get stronger (do 25% more damage). Not to mention the culture lingers.

Best option against the culture is to get media hubs/broadcast centers/etc. and place them pretty consistently throughout your empire. When you're fighting DE, this is actually the only time I've ever researched the tech in the culture tree that gives you 20%/40% resistance to enemy culture.

As long as you can keep consistently making your own culture you should be able to outlast the effects of the enemy culture (culture killing takes forever). You will need to destroy the DE eventually, but then again, that's what it's like with all super weapons.

Thanks very much for your valuable comments, my main concern was about Kotsura, as my whole fleet has already been completely wiped out already in two games on one planet, where I met with enemy fleet, due to some 8 or 10 Kotsura shots. And as it also stops all ships and structures abilities (eg. hull repair or shield restore) for some time, all my ships without movement have died including cap ships.

So this TEC planetary shield would be useless against this type of Kotsura weapon?

Than the only solution is to realize in advance, that some shots have been already fired out in my fleet planet direction and leave such a planets asap?

Or what is the possibility to mitigate effect of precisely this weapon?

Thanks for your reply.

If you know your enemy has kotsuras, you're going to want to keep your fleet near the edge of a gravity well and ready to jump. Yes. That much is true.

The kotsura does not damage planets, so you needn't worry about that. The shield generator will go down to kotsura shots, but then again, so will any building.

Here's the best option against a kotsura user: Take the fight to one of his planets. He can't use the Kotsuras there. As a matter of fact, Advent is the only race that can aim its superweapon at its own planet.

Shield Generators only counter the Novalith, but they can do a rather good job of mitigating the effects of such a shot, especially once you have researched Superior Planetary Shields. An unupgraded SG will mitigate 30% of planet bombing damage, one level of SPS increases this to 50%, and maxed SPS increases the mitigation to 80%, which would drop the Novalith's 3500 damage to 700.

Why bother? if you're seriously being novalithed, you've either been:

A. Surprised by a sudden attack of 8 novaliths and are unprepared.  You're basically dead.

B. Abundantly prepared, you have a starbase practically at every planet and have researched so no planet can be lost.

I ask why bother with the shield generator if you have starbases that are available earlier in the game and do a better job? Cost? If your enemy has novaliths, that means you are still alive, which means you better have a monster economy too, otherwise I'm not sure what you've been doing the entire time. 

Motion to have this thread put in the records as "Longest Title Ever".

I second that motion. Who thirds it?

Third.

motion passed.

All in Favor?

you have to have a vote first!

aye

all opposed?

none opposed. I think it passes now.

I oppose. I've seen four line titles before. Made a five line once, to illustrate a forum bug where long titles break the editing.

yea, but motion is still passed 4-1

Actually, it's 1 - 1 atm. A second is not the same as a vote. You can second a motion and vote against it. Done when you want to bring something to a vote, and kill it, rather than let it simmer.

Back on topic, I would say that building shields would be effective even if you had the upgrade for your starbase, because it protects your population.  A planet with 0 health has 0 population, even if it remains under your control, which means no income.

to ComradeYakov- it's now 2-1 in favor of the vote. I vote yes.

Nay

2-2

Yay

3-2

w00t!

Nay

Blast, 3-3 now.

YEY!

4-3

this is turning out to be really exciting!!