fighting a starbase question

Unless the planet in question is an asteroid, there is always a region where your ships can exit phase space and be outside of the SB's range. For instance, if the SB is on one side of the phase lane, order your ships to execute their phase jump on the other side of the lane. You can also order your ships outside of the gravity well so they exit phase space outside of the other gravity well.

Right now, I can tell you that you're too heavy on capital ships - you can get away with this against the AI though. Credit for credit, frigates have better damage output than capital ships, especially long range frigates - the reason one fields any caps is to make use of their abilities.

An alternative to Ogrovs are Bomber strike craft. The AI is generally unable to deal with large numbers of Bombers and given that the AI's Fighters are suppressed/not too numerous, they can chew up the SB equally well.

If you want to make sure your ships run over as few mines as possible, set their engagement ranges to "Hold Position". This way, they will only engage targets that either enter their weapon range, or ones you ordered them to attack.

Those 35 Kodiak Heavy Cruisers will rip apart most frigates, but if the AI is fielding enough bombers of its own/you are not fielding many fighters/flak, they'll burn pretty quick.

Well Im most concerned about the enemy CS. I almost lost my entire fleet to a Radiance and a Revelation CS once. It was then that I learned that Cobalts are lousy fighters.

I do think that I am a bit heavy on the CS, but I figure that they can punch hard plus I have the resources anyways. 

Thanks for the "side of the phase line" tip, but in this case its positioned almost right in between the two so I dunno if Ill be able to phase to one side and avoid it.

And as I said, I plan to send it masses of scout frigates to clear the mines so they shouldnt be a problem. 

Generally, the AI's capitals will target enemy capitals first, so if you have a large number of long range frigates, simply order them to all focus their fire on one cap at a time while the capitals duke it out. IIRC, the damage modifier for the LRF damage type against the capital armor type is 75%, which is actually one of the higher modifiers (most other ships do 25% or 50% damage to capitals, Bombers to 75% as well, only other capitals do 100% against capitals).

There is a complete table of damage modifiers in the Strategy section, which basically will show you what counters what.

Edit: the thread containing that table is Combat Mechanics, one of the stickied threads.

Jump in from a different angle; starbases don't have enough weapon range to cover the entire gravity well.  It might be a bit of a shave on an asteroid, but on any larger gravity well this should be a non-issue.

You've got three Kols, so fighters and bombers should be a non-issue in the face of a well coordinated flak burst.  As for fleet power, the Advent AI won't be packing any Iconus-based combos so your TEC fleet should have no troubles exceeding them if you bring enough.

What levels are we talking about?  This makes a big difference.

Anyways, this is way too heavy on capital ships, particularly for TEC, and you have way too few hoshikos.  Given your current fleet size, you should have 3-6 capital ships.  That said, with 35 Kodiaks you should have no problems with the AI's fleet here.

Actually quite the opposite; capital ships have considerably less damage output and durability than an equivalent amount of resources invested in combat units.  If you have the cash, you should be bulking up your fleet size. Generally speaking, the level of your capital ships is more important than how many you have.  Particularly for TEC, a new capital ship will just drain valuable experience that could benefit your existing ships to get their highest-level abilities.

That is the problem. The enemy SB lies smack in the middle of where I would jump into and there is only one phase line into the gravwell. The other goes to my system's sun, which is why I need this planet to get anywhere. The range of the SB covers the only ways I can jump into the gravwell. But Ill experiment some more, see if there is one angle where I can jump in where Ill be somewhat safe, but for now it seems like they got all angles covered.

I plan on making more Hoshikos. They really helped me last time, when my Akkan, Kol, and eight Kodiaks and twelve Cobalts beat two Radiances, a Revelation, and five Destra Crusaders. But not without losing all my Cobalts, half of my Kodiaks, and almost lost my Kol.

I also plan on making at least 15 more Kodaiks.

Really? I didnt know that they didnt hit so hard.

Anyways, I want many CS there because they can take a lot of damage. My Idea is to use them to divert attention away from the Ogrovs as the Ogrovs pound the SB into oblivion. Even if I lose a few CS, I will still have defeated the SB, which will make my job a lot easier. If im lucky, then i can defeat the enemy fleet and the SB with my current force.

 

 

Heres the situation, in a picture:

 

Just pick one side or the other, jump in and fly out of the starbases range.  Use your fleet to guard your Ogrovs, and then blow up the starbase from long range.  You might lose a few little ships, but that is why they invented post mortem military commendations and promotions.

I did a bit of research and testing with some scouts-

Seems like if I jump to the right of the starbase, I can avoid the SB for a little bit, but I would have to veer away from the SB ASAP to avoid its wrath. 

If you move to the edge as far as you can go on your gravity well and on either edge and then jump in you should be out of SB range. Other thing is that if sb doesn't have spin and meteor upgrades you should be able to bypass sb without being wounded to heavily....... you could also build your own sb in their grav well and then build docking booms to replenish your hoshikas with antimatter. Ai is stupid and will attack first ship that jumps into grav well. 

If you have lvl 6 akan with armstice jump in engage ability bypass sb with your fleet and build your own sb. SB should be half build before armstice runs out...... 

Hell you could move directly to the sun and build sb there. Once one is operational if you build another 3 in cluster with previous one and arm them with docking booms they are impenetrable deffence for ai.... Just leave akkan in to extend their range and to try to kill your akkan ....

You still have considerable leeway to jump off center.  Once you arrive in the gravity well, just move away from the starbase.  You may take a few rounds of damage if this is an asteroid, but if you reposition quickly you shouldn't actually lose units.


Definitely; this is TEC's best unit.  Every faction has one special unit or bonus that really shines above everything else.  For TEC, it's the hoshiko.  For Advent, it's the Iconus.  For Vasari, it's phase missiles


You definitely want to use your capital ships now that you have them, but in terms of where you put your cash, you'd have been better off with Kodiaks, LRMs, Gardas, or Carriers to bolster your fleet.  If you pump up on these units, you can have overwhelming firepower that just melts away enemy fleets.

Capital ships are good damage absorbers early-game, but terrible damage absorbers late-game.  It's actually a universal concept in all RTS games; a small group of units loses to a single big unit, but a huge swarm of small units will defeat a small group of big units, even if the proportions are the same.


Then you're golden.  Set your units to "hold ground" behavior so they won't move unless you order them to, then manually command the battle to keep them away from the starbase.

Heres the latest intel on enemy strength and my fleet strength:

 

Do you think this is enough?

Perhaps but I can see you are bomber light. He has a LOT of Destras and Caps and very little flak. If I were you i'd add another 20 or so bomber squads.

SB's Caps and HCs are all weak to bombers and your enemy has lots of the latter. 

You:

500 command - capital ships
500 command - heavy cruisers
60 command - support cruisers
140 command - long range frigates
168 command - carrier cruisers
80 command - flak frigates

Total: ~1450

Opponent:

600 command - capital ships
340 command - heavy cruisers
148 command - support cruisers
84 command - long range frigates
380 command - carriers
20 command - flak
44 command - light frigates

Total: ~1600

 

We can ignore the Ogrovs and Adjudicators.  Keep your Ogrovs out of the fight and jump in to clean up the starbase once you have things under control.  You have two big threats here.  The first is his carrier force, and the second is his Progenitor/Iconus combo.  This is far more dangerous than the Radiance and Revelation you were talking about earlier. 

Because he vastly outnumbers you in strike craft, make sure you dock your bombers.  Use a staggered flak burst (manually time it) with your three Kols to thin out his numbers before launching your bombers.  As rowanlad suggests, more strike craft would be very useful.  Meanwhile, focus your combat units on knocking out his iconus guardians.  The AI probably won't use repulsion (and if it does, it won't use it very well) so this should be feasible.  Make sure you focus fire on specific targets; those five Progenitor Motherships will give his fleet massive shield regeneration so if your damage is spread out you won't even scratch his units.

The levels of the capital ships are always the wild cards, but if these were human-controlled fleets, I'd be betting money on the Advent player at this stage of the game.  He has to screw up for you to win.  Fortunately, the AI is absolutely terrible in combat, so you should still be able to squeek this off.

No one is mentioning EMP?

 

Use those EMP abilities in the center of their fleet and kill the light frigates off right from the start.  A drained advent fleet without light frigates can't replenish rapidly, no shield regeneration gives you a piece of cake for a victory with flak taking down the fighters and bombers fast.

 

If they've got level 3 EMP, that's 300 antimatter gone from most of their fleet right from the start.

So how many more light carriers are we talking about? Ever carrier holds two suadrons, so Im guessing another ten is enough? And more fighters or more bombers?

Anything else I need?

From your pictures i noticed you are playing distant stars mod ..... Right???

If so just get some of anti air fighters (Forgot the name) -fighters who have flak burst ability on them..... and you should be fine.

As with anything, there's a tradeoff.  More fighters will help you clear out the enemy bombers more easily.  More bombers will help you clear out their heavy cruisers more easily.  Personally, I'd go for a 25/75 fighter/bomber split, keeping my bombers docked in the early stage of the battle until my Kols get to work and clear the enemy strike craft, then launch my bombers afterwards.  With three Kols, you can afford to go light on fighters.

If you are using a mod, you need to say so, because that does change matters.  IIRC, DS capital ships are considerably more powerful than in the regular game, if not downright overpowered.

Yea, Im using the DS mod. I dont know if I should make more of the DS-exclusive gunships, because they say that they are good against strike craft, but idk if they are good against bombers. 

Not sure how they trade of against bomber but if you don't mind to reload last save you can always try and see how they fare.

And Darvin is right. DS caps are much more powerful and it boils down to how mush upgrades did you manage to research compared to enemy (hull, shield, weapons, AM regen) since every tier has at least 4 research upgrades..... Is in DS as well or not???, but do you have option for weapon shied negation research, If so that will benefit u a loty against those progens. 

But i still think your best option 4 sure victory is to jump in with sb constructor as well build sb and fight untill his fleet is killed near your sb. Just get rid of those starfish first.

Didn't play DS for a long time but again if I'm not mixing with some other mod there are fighters that disable abilities on enemy ships. Not sure if it is TEC or Vasari though.....

TEC have the EWS fighters, as you can see from my pic. Im thinking about devoting one of my Sova's to Gunships, one to EWS bombers, and one to fighters. 

Then Ill make 15 more light carriers, 9 of them w/ bombers, 6 with fighters. 

Im only level 3 with all my caps except for my Akkan, which is level 5, and one of my Kols, which is level 4, since the Advent are blocking off my "escape route" with other planets/galaxies, I cant do anything with them. I cant move my fleet until the Advent are gone because if I do, Im afraid the Advent will bring that fleet in and rip through my entire empire. My fleet is really my only line of defense. Its bad, I know, but I had no idea I would find such a huge Advent fleet waiting at the next planet in my system. 

Given a target the AI determines it can destroy easily, it will eventually send a fleet over that it thinks is sufficient to overcome the planetary defenses. What you can do is pull your fleet out one phase jump away to another one of your planets, but have them ready to jump back. Given time, the AI will send a scout in, see the fleet defending the planet is gone, and will try to take the planet by sending its fleet in. At that point, you can jump your own fleet back in to take on the AI fleet with home field advantage.

With that said, put up Phase Jump Inhibitors so as to deny the AI fleet a quick retreat should they decide they can't take on the combined firepower of the planet's defenses and your fleet. Once you reduce the AI fleet to floating wreckage, the AI has fewer ships available to cause you grief when you launch your own attack.

I would try what InfiniteVoid suggested.

 

Bait the AI into your next planet, and take down the fleet there.  Then move onto the starbase. 

 

And get as many strike craft as you can.  Bomber kill that floating hole!

 

 

 

Another trick is to use the Akkan level 6 ability when you get it.  Use right when your fleet jumps into the well, move away from the starbase, and pound it from afar once the timer expires. 

Research up to 6 level training to do this if you have the resources.... and put all your caps up to level 6.

 

This game roughly boils down to he who has the me SC wins. Sad statment but sadly true.

that is great option yes... lure him in, let him attack you...

Make heavy defenses with PJs at world that borders to his then retreat with your fleet 1 jump into core of your empire once ai attacks fight near your defenses and once he starts to retreat finish him as much as you can. Then folow him to his planets.

And another thing mix your EVS, Gunships, and Fighters throughout each  of your carriers just in case one dies....

the fact that you are playing the distant stars mod is incredibly important...

The way you would apporch the situation is so incredibly different than in regular sins that... almost impossible to compare.

 

If i were you, i would take the easy way out, buy myself 2 more marzas, (up them to lv 6), 2 more donovs (also up them to lv 6)... go in as far away from the sb as possible, popping off armistice if nessasary if thier starbase has those evil advent specials, go camp out on the side of the gravity well, the enemy fleet will react, pop off a flux field, as thier strike craft get into range, pop off your kol's lv3 flack bursts, (you DID get flack burst right??), wait for thier massive fleet to show up, have the kodiaks/bombers focus on the cap ships, use your donov's emp to drain their shields and antimatter to almost nothing, and fire off your 3 marza Missle barrages.  Dead enemy fleet. finish off the caps.  send the bombers after the starbase while your caps bomb the planet.

watch the preety nukes.