Defense is useless.

from Sins Forums
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that all defense (except hangar defense) is useless. Turret platforms can't kill anything. They just get popped one by one. Phase inhibitors are mostly useless, too- all they do is slow them down by a few secondsG. I understand there were issues in beta, but seriously... I'm really, REALLY tired of people phase warping around the entire system with 200 ships, completely unhindered. And don't tell me about ion bolt- that is one ship for one race with a low range. Repair platforms are nice but what use is it when they can just go around?


Fixes:
1) Boost turret DPS. Not by much, but something that makes the 75 metal worth it. They have terrible range!
2) Change phase inhibitors. If it was my way, they'd completely stop jumping. I understand some people don't like that, so what do you suggest for a solution?
3) Give turrets a bonus against capitals. Capitals have so much HP that they can laugh off just about any number of turrets. A small buff in this area would do some good.


Who knows, maybe instead of meddling with defenses they should just make phase inhibitors stop jumping entirely. That'd be a big buff to defense. Atm though it is pointless because you can just go around it nomatter how well-defended a position is. That is stupid.
153,318 views 136 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Problem with having the phase jump inhibitors stop phase jumping enitrely is; someone could build one of those at every world and then a Novalith cannon at their homeworld. Then you will be complaining that because of the inhibitors, you can't destroy their Novalith cannon :p
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Defenses exist to delay and deter, not to bunker up a planet such that it's invincible. They were never meant to stop a moderately determined force, moreso just insurgents or small to medium pirate attacks, and give enemies something to occupy them until you can get reinforcements there to defend.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Defenses exist to delay and deter, not to bunker up a planet such that it's invincible. They were never meant to stop a moderately determined force, moreso just insurgents or small to medium pirate attacks, and give enemies something to occupy them until you can get reinforcements there to defend.


But, then why does it cost more than 3 capital ships to fully fortify a planet, if its never supposed to do anything else than delay a SMALL attack?

It should be more expensive to build a fleet that is equivalent to a fully fortified planet, due to the fact that the fleet is MOBILE and can attack anywhere and anything.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I agree defense are for delaying an attack my problem currently is playing on a much larger map. I get attacked from multiple front and since there is limited capships and fleet support I find my self geting pounded on one side while I can hold the rest of the battle fronts. As I expand it make it even harder to defend. Perhaps I'm missing some thing but this fleet cap needs to scale acording to map size.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
gah! PJI's need to use antimatter to auto cast a complete lock down for up to say 3 minutes maybe? then once they are out of antimatter they need to cool down and recharge.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Defenses exist to delay and deter, not to bunker up a planet such that it's invincible. They were never meant to stop a moderately determined force, moreso just insurgents or small to medium pirate attacks, and give enemies something to occupy them until you can get reinforcements there to defend.



Ok, i understand it, but they are very expensive, looking at their limited effect in the game.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

gah! PJI's need to use antimatter to auto cast a complete lock down for up to say 3 minutes maybe? then once they are out of antimatter they need to cool down and recharge.


I was thinking of something along those lines though more of a "pulsing" effect rather than a complete lockdown for such a period of time. During the "pulse" the area would be locked and nothing could get out but the pulse only lasts 10 or 20 seconds. If not a complete block to jumping it could at least add a substantial amount of time to it. Each pulse could cost anti-matter and, of course, there would have to be a suitable time frame between pulses to allow for a chance of escape. In order to prevent abuse it could be limited to one PJI per planet.

Anyway, just a few thoughts I had while reading this.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
I don't think the turrets are as bad as you are making them out to be. They are relatively inexpensive, medium damage, quite a bit of health, and a lot of armor. Three or four of them clustered around your economic structures will generally stop a medium level pirate attack without requiring any user attention at all.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Maybe the addition of suply lines, or something like supply lines working with culture. That force fleets to only jump at max of 2-4 jumps of planet that you hold.

So that force a more strategic, and i think beliable, kind of play.

At the current state above small maps the game is unplayable because botleneck... Due to the fleet cap and inutility of stablish any kind of defence on planets.

And about bunkerize planets. I think that it have to be possible, the only concern is try to balance the adequate resource value of build the defences. Also at the actual state to the game evade defences is very simple. So this onlu will affect planetary assaults.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
This..is why i put 50 turrets surrounding my planets, and 100 fighters..with lasers. Erm ok so the defense isnt great, no big deal, when the mod tools come out then you can mod yourself into a defensive grid that nobody could survive. Might be a bit boring afterwards though. *doh*.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I have to agree with the people saying that turrets are actually pretty good. I managed to take out a Marza with about 8 Gauss' firing at it. It took about a minute, but considering its a Cap ship, i'd say thats pretty good unassisted. Focus firing your defenses when its all you have is really the key to making them work until your fleet can make it there.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
i liek to think about it this way, im also kinda froustrated with this because i have 3 gateway planets that need to be protected within a galaxy in this game that im playing and theyre all completely fortified but the problem is that since the tec players and vasari playes keep attacking me there i cant risk moving my 3 fleets from those planets or they mite fall, i think the defenses should be improved or just give a planet more tactical points, or maybe they should make a new liek research tree thats just for planet defense and such, and in that tree u can maybe buy defense guns that are good against fighters and then theres a special gun that can put a round straight through a capitol ship but has a long recharge time, that kind of stuff u kno
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
All I really have to complaign about is turrets horrbile range... Some times pirates will just go on thier merry way to my Homeworld without being damaged by my Short range turrets... I usually like to leave most Planets unfortified and just have 1 Major choke point which is usually a Dead Asteroid and what not... I just want more range thats all :(
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
No we just like to offer our own opinion regardless of others ideas :)
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
I agree that defense should only buy you some time, so I think that the power of the defense systems is ok as it is now. But, I also agree that
a) It would be better if Phase Jump Inhibitors were more effective, so that an enemy fleet cannot just bypass my front line planets which are supposed to give me some time to bring in my fleet and
b) that the fleet cap limit should scale with map size or something
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
Maybe increase Inhibitor range more? I know it doesn't cover the entire system just a fairly large area :P
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
As far as turrets go they seem a little weak but Vasari Missile Towers & Full phase missile Tech - these combined probably make the best defense there is for planets ;).

Yeah their purpose is to buy time, get your fleet there to help.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
Defense is not useless...

The turrets and fighter platforms are not meant to destroy heavy assault forces with cap ships. Their main point is to delay the enemy so that reinforcements can arrive. For example, not 30 minutes ago, I was playing a game vs the cpu, and a huge assault with 5 capitals was launched on one of my planets that had no defence forces but five fighter platforms with interceptors and bombers, and six or so missile turrets. My missile turrets had been fully upgraded and were more than enough to put down their frigs and bombard ships that got too close. While they were trying to get past those, I warped in a fleet of long range missile frigs and went to town on their caps, destroying each one in about 15 seconds. The only reason my planet didn't fall was because I had defence in place. The moral of the story is that defence, if properly used, is veeeeeery helpful.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
Guess ima start playing with Vasari more :) And start fortifying every one of my Planrts instead of a choke point :P
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
a few less turrets and 1-2 more repair bays will actually be more effective than all turrets :p
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
have the phase inhibitors block all jumping only if you have also have a phase inhibitor at the destination. this would allow for attacking forces to retreat but not keep jumping deeper into your territory. It would also make occupying territory mean something.

Alternately create a new structure "phase gate" prevents jumping through a specific node heavy armor w/ just enough defenses to prevent someone from sending 1-3 light frigates around knocking them out.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
The best thing I've used turrents for isnt at planets its at asteroids. Since asteroids are hard to defend against seige frigates, what I usually do is use most of my tactical slots on turrents at my asteroids. Build like 8-10 per asteroid.

While they dont keep the asteroid from being 'killed' by seige frigates, they take a lot of time to kill and prevent the asteroid from being colonized until you can bring reinforcements to retake the asteroid back.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
I agree that the planetary defense elements are poor. I have one particular save game where there is basically a choke point asteroid that i have fortified with 8 or so gauss turrets and ~3 fighter bays. Plus I have a large fleet with about 5 cap ships (average level of 6), and 100 misc other ships in the gravity well.

the ai opponent jumps in with a fleet approximately 25% larger, same number of cap ships, and proceeds to wipe me out, taking perhaps 5% losses in the process. I have tried this scenario several times to see what i am doing wrong.

frankly, these 'tactical' battles are such a cluster f*** that is is difficult to really manage them as such.

In any case, I feel that at an absolute minimum the losses should be the same. But honestly I would think a reasonably fortified asteroid such as this should more than make up for the difference in fleet size.

as i said, i keep replaying this battle from a save point, but have yet to crack the puzzle. but when i watch the ineffectiveness of the planetary defenses during the battle, I really question some of the design decisions.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top

Defense is not useless...

I was playing a game vs the cpu...



There's your problem right there. Against the CPU defenses can be used effectively because you can trick the CPU to follow your ships into the heart of your turret clusters, greatly increasing the damage done to the enemy fleet.

If you are playing against a human player, the situation changes a lot. It's not difficult for someone to send a massive fleet past your fortified worlds and into the heart of your economically powerful, though relatively defenseless planets. Nor will a human player go where you want him to go.

Throw multiple defense lines into it, and suddenly it becomes even more complex and difficult to manage. The ability to phase jump in and out of a system is also too easy for an enemy fleet. By the time your fleet arrives to defend a planet, the enemy fleet is already on its way out of a planet's gravity well to safety.

I think we need to see real defense lines emerge rather than the pseudo defense lines that we imagine exist (but really don't) with the phase lanes.