Counters: Summary of Counters to Various Ship Types

Add heavy cruisers and flak frigates; those are very effective counters.

Turrets don't qualify as a counter anymore than a starbase or minefield does; too easily avoided.

Support cruisers with disruption abilities, such as the Hoshiko, Guardian, Subverter, and even Subjugator perform quite well against them.  As a result, they can qualify as a counter even though they don't "damage" these units directly.

Like strike craft, turrets are not a capital ship counter in the sense that they're too easily avoided.

In practice each capital ship operates differently and preferred counters vary dramatically, so there's no universal rule to countering them.  Really, "countering" them is a matter of choking them with firepower, which means light frigates usually do a better job than other capital ships.

Scouts cannot attack bombers.  Flaks can.

I would consider adding capital ships with SC abilities as counters to SC in general...the best ways to generally deal with large swarms of bombers are TK Push, Jam Weapons, Flak Burst, etc. in conjunction with flak and fighters...

Turrets are arguably a counter against caps if you are talking about a cap ship sieging a planet (in which case it is possible the enemy cannot avoid the turrets since they have to be in range of the planet)...I think it is fair to say turrets are a good deterrent against caps laying siege (or at least force the siege to occur from a particular angle of attack)

Turrets are good at protecting SBs from capital ships (like Kortuls), but in general I think it is a hard argument to say turrets are true counters...

You may want to consider adding flak and SBs to your list...LFs are an important early game counter to flak, and bombers, LRFs, and ogrovs are considered suitable counters against SBs....

Since the title only says counters to ships and not ships that counter each other, I think structures must be considered fair game in the discussion. With that being the case, I would place hangers with Phasic Trap and Flak Cannons in the SC counter category as well.

LF counters Seige frigates and flak.

The Cap Ship Category depending on particular ship and abilities could be said to counter most everything.

I would argue that scouts and fighters are as good if not better at countering siege frigates as both have anti-light weaponry...I think the biggest reason why people prefer LFs over scouts is that LFs also counter flak/support (which may accompany a contingent of siege frigates)...

Actually, scouts counter siege frigates.  Faster, cheaper, and about the same damage as a LF when attacking light-armor type units.

No capital ship will counter a large force of damage-dealing frigates.  As I said, the way to kill them is to choke them with firepower.  If you can pelt them with enough damage, the capital ship will fall.  There are some good protection combos you can pull to mitigate this, but these are pretty universal.

Thanks all for your feedback and i have edited the summary to the best of what was effective in terms of dammage dealing.

The simplest answer is always the correct answer: Ockham's razor:

The argument of Planetary defense guns (structure)

ANSWER: Don't Build Them to Defend your planet against planet bombers:

This draws upon 2 premises. I have learned from [DT] tyr recordings to build any structures in 1 location and surround them with repair platforms. In all cases u don't need the Guns but at choke points and enemies headed your way with overwhelming odds, gun platforms (cheaply priced with 3000 hull ie advent) surrounded by repair platforms and a fleet awaiting the invader are your only option. Its all about choke points and how far your reinforcements are that requires they b available.

Again i believe im a noob in this game but i also believe desperate times calls for desperate measures. 18x5 dmg from 5 structures is equivalent or more than any regular cap dmg. Should a human player see your strategy and sit on the other side pounding your planet well make sure u have a alot of culture coming your way and culture temple there so when hes done bombing u he cant colonize u and should he approach u dig in near the repair structures while u wait for reinforcements or dog it out with strike/bomber craft war in the most cowardly manner possible away from each other. End game is your reinforcements arrive or hes and someone dies, or u die just for thinking u stood a chance in the first place.

nvm

Updates to be made or have been made:

Flak vs. Bomber is downgraded to great counter (yellow from red)

Heavy Cruiser vs. Light Frigate is downgraded to great counter (yellow from red)

https://www.sinsofasolarempire.wikia.com/wiki/File:Sins-Counters.jpg

Well done mikey39800. Though I would have made flak frigates a great counter of bombers rather then an excellent counter.

Why are LRF considered 'good' counters vs Heavy cruisers?

Yes you have no choice if you have pure spammed them ... but I always use the LRF to rip LFs, other LRM, caps, and some of the high threat support class (like for sure they are in charge of nailing subverters at range). I use caps and bombers, along with subverters or guardians or hoshikos to withstand or manipulate the enemy heavy cruisers. If fighting TEC I find that the hoshikos have to get pounded some otherwise the battle grinds on an reinforcements show up too fast. If vs Advent, guardians have to die or they use repulse to halt my heavies. Of vs Vasari, those damn subverters have to be atomized asap.

Am I missing something?

LRF will only beat heavy cruisers if you have support cruisers to disable the heavies, which is really more a matter of the support cruisers countering the heavy cruisers and the LRF are just bringing the firepower to the party.  In a straight shootout with relatively similar fleet size, heavies will win rather handily against LRF. 

Ok that is what I figured. I just never would consider LRF a counter usually to a heavy cruiser but then again I guess if protected by repulse or with subverter lockdown then yeah I can see it. But then again in a large fleet battle if the subverters have locked down his heavies then I usually would use the LRF to kill almost everything else while my bombers and caps hit the kodiaks. Usually my own heavies are too busy chomping on LRF to be bothered with anything else (except maybe carriers). I guess my philosophy here is to nullify the enemy dps as quick as possible.

I suppose I do need to work on a better balance of LF for support maybe (like to hit hoshikos), but since I mostly play Vasari I find myself usually never building skirmishers since they seem expensive for what you get. Besides they are the first things nuked against a likely LRF spam. I would rather go with kanraks and enforcers + flak to soak damage. But maybe that is just me.

I told myself that I wouldn't get bogged down with minutiae over this chart as the Whole Wide InterWeb will never completely agree with me, nor was the chart originally intended for anyone but myself. But dbkita has valid concerns over a detail that I feel is the most debate-able point of the entire chart. In short, I've spent a lot of time considering it.

First off, I completely agree with you dbkita. I was/am on the fence about including the blue arrow. As of now, I think LR frigates do 75% damage vs. heavy cruisers and don't have good survivability. The reasons I am choosing to include the disputed blue arrow are as follows:

A ) This is a personal quick reference chart designed to aid me in the heat of battle i.e. I use this strategy. No one else has to. I feel strongly enough to leave it in, but others are welcome to reproduce the chart and take it off or reject my assessment all together. Quantifiable data is different than defining the quality between words like "good" and "great". This makes my opinions easier to defend, which is why I even submitted this to the internet in the first place. Take any strategies offered from someone with a grain of salt, as they may not be good for you or even all situations.

B ) Heavy Cruisers are inherently difficult to counter based on their stats and I didn't want to chart their "invulnerability" because that helps nobody fend them off. On that token, Long Range Frigates do the same percentage vs. Support CR as they do heavies. I left this data off because of my intentional chart simplicity and also because their damage type isn't that good in the first place vs. cruisers and there are two counters already listed against support (Light Frigs and Heavies).

C ) Support cruiser abilities are useful in countering heavies, but my "disclaimer" negates the consideration of abilities on this chart. I also wanted ships/structures to be generally effective at killing or staving off the countered ship and there is more micro involved in Support Cruisers countering Heavies. For that reason, I chose to give the credit Darvin3 gave to the Support CR to the ones dealing the damage.

D ) The red arrow pointing from Heavy Cruiser to Long Range Frigate should also be an indicator of how effective the reverse counter should be.

E ) My little "disclaimer" on the chart says the rest. Use combinations. Use angles, speed, build time, resource cost, research, and individual race strengths to your advantage. Micro does wonders. Attacking fleet composition is also a huge difference when considering the scenario you mentioned. This counter may not be effective if outsmarted by a better counter or even just a well-balanced fleet.

Happy hunting and I hope the chart helps. I don't believe I'll be making any more adjustments. I hope it helps the Sins community which has made me a better strategist in this amazing piece of gaming. I'd love for it not to have flaws, but anything someone produces that isn't a recitation of cold numbers will be arguably accurate depending on the recipient.