Assaulting planetary defenses

[Ankh]

Im having trouble killing off planetary defenses. Especially missile bases.

Im talking early in the game now around turn 50. (Ships armed with Laser/ClassI Shield/Nuclear Missiles)

Im trying to kill of an neighbour fast but when they get some planetary defenses up im stuck, I never seem to be able to break them.

I wait for new tech to be avaliable and build some new ships, but when they're done, my enemy has accuired tech as well and since planet defense uppgrade automatically im back to sqaure 0.

If I attack my task force cruble to dust before the missiles. And I get seriously slowed (been better off building colony ships).

Does anyone have any suggestion for any succesfully task forces to build to get the job done.

Missile Ships dont work since they dont do enough damage and are perfect targets for their's missile base. Sure they hit but usually run out of missiles during the fight and become sitting ducks.

Im experimenting with Carriers now but i cant seem to be able to protect them from missiles very well, point defence platform is pretty high in the tech tree.

Also one Question about carriers: Whats the difference between "System Control Ships" and "Interceptors" on Carriers?.

Last game it took me 210 turns to kill of a race with three systems all heavily defended with planetary defenses, I started my assault around turn 50.

Suggestions Please?

Ps: All gramma errors are belong to me!

[Crostoneman]

You need to build a sizable fleet consisting of point defence ships to defeat the missles heading towards your ships. Try to build some long range direct fire and some missle ships as mission ships and fill up the escort and picket rings with point defences. The point defence ships will at least try to shoot down those missles, but if they have missle armor, build more fleets in order to suceed in your quest to be the master.

[TrainWreck20]

Disclaimer: No planetary combat experience yet.

That said...I developed fighters with missile defense fairly early. Can you make missile defense fighters yet? The concept sounds cool, at least....

[Dracil]

Isn't there a bug where PD doesn't work properly with your ships unless they're moving or patrolling?

[Mellian]

I would say no, because i would think the Beta testers would of notice that bug and told them about it

-Mellian

[Spectrex]

@ Dracil: I don't know exactly what triggers the bug but there does indeed seem to be a bug with PD. Sometimes my ships will fire and destroy the incoming missiles while other times they'll just roll over and die...

Assaulting planetary defenses seems much more difficult than in MOO2 because the difference in weapons/armor in MOO3 is not very pronounced, so you never have situations where the beam bases miss you all the time or something. OTOH the planet can kill your ships at much greater ranges than you ships can fire.

I've found that swarming the planet with fighters is the best strategy. Your ships will generally start out of sensor range, especially early on, so you can launch waves of fighters with impunity. The planet will use its PD missiles and interceptors to destroy some but after those are expended it's defenseless against your fighters.

Of course, this is different if the enemy has defense bases... once I assaulted a system with 6 defense bases, as well as fighter, missile and beam bases, and my 40-ship fleet was destroyed in just under a minute.

[General Ludd]

Re: Assaulting planetary defenses

Originally posted by Ankh
Also one Question about carriers: Whats the difference between "System Control Ships" and "Interceptors" on Carriers?.

System Control Ships are offensive and will attack the enemy at long rang, Interceptors or defensive and will attack the enemy at short range, and intercept fighters/missles. (You can find descriptions for them in the tech matrix )

[Arnelos]

This (assaulting planetary defenses) has been my primary source of frustration of late.

The best strategy I've used so far is large carrier task forces with 2-3 cruiser-sized carriers surrounded by as many point defense craft as you can put in there (I typically use frigates, but I don't really know what I'm doing).

You keep that task force WELL out of range and let the point-defense craft shoot down any fighters or missiles sent at you by the planet. Then you let your OWN fighters do all of the dirty work.

Multiple carrier groups work best. I've tried combining this strategy with a missile task force and that works really well. Major vulnerability to an AI that thinks to build a quick-moving and powerful short-range attack task force, though. So I've built my own short-range fire task force I use to protect my carrier groups (but that means I have to run the combat myself, because the stupid AI will throw those short-range attackers to the wolves if the AI controls the combat )

As I said, however, this is currently my principle area of frustration. If someone has a tried and true strategy, I'm all ears. I've just seen that good carrier groups seem to be pretty effective thusfar, but I agree that planetary defenses are EXTREMELY hard to take on compared to other MoO games (it seems).

[Ankh]

Osweld: Thanx


Spectrex: Know what you mean same thing happens to me, my fleet just explodes and shatters to pieces within a minute.

I've been trying to build tons of small ships to be able to "absorb" all the missiles but it dosnt seem to work because Task forces seem to share hitpoins.

So when those missiles slam into my multiple small ship dealing 9000 points of damage they all get destroyed even though it was fewer missiles then ship. So that didnt work. Cant overwhelm them like this.


Arnelos: Iv'e been walking the same road as you, interceptors seems to be your best pick supported with point defence ships.

But alas sometimes you cant kill all missiles approaching so you task forces get destryed one at a time. And it takes fighters plenty of time to kill that planet off. A missile base and some support orbital stations can fire TONS of missiles against you.


Well i guess i have to assault planets with tons of ships i guess, guess it's ok because the AI seems unable to attack back anyway

[canamrock]

I've found that a good way to go about a planetary assault is a mix roughly like this:

5-6 large LRA vessels (chief damagers)
4-5 medium SRA vessels (funnel most of the early attacks)
2-4 point defense vessels (split between the SRA & LRA)
0-2 IF vessels
0-2 carriers
(The last two help draw fire from the SRA's, and can do major damage at higher tech levels)

This is a large fleet early on, but I haven't tried early rushes, so I'd say use that as a ratio to help manufacture a good planet handling fleet.

[Crostoneman]

Uhm, nuclear (or higher) missiles don't need to hit ships in order to do damage. The photon radiation from a nearby megaton blast can damage a group of ships around it.

The missile combat seems to be similar to the Honor Harringtin series. They try to kill ships by using old style nuclear missles or X-rays missles that blasts beams of X-ray all around to hit their weak points.

[PaulNAdhe]

How can you be building a fleet with multiple carriers at turn 50?

I'm at turn 100 and the only Starships I have are 5 scraggly assed Cruisers that are taking forever to get from their origin to a star 2 lanes over. And when they get there they'll probably only scare off the 3 frigate interlopers.

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong that I can't build good sized fleets at turn 100 when you guys are debating the merits of pickets, escorts and carriers at 50 turns.

[General Ludd]

Are you waiting for technology, PaulNAdhe?


I've been building attack ships since turn 25 in my game and have a squadron of first generation ships, and two squadrons of second generation ships in production at turn 45. (not to mention ground transports and a trained and sizeable ground troop reserve)

Or maybe you aren't colonizing very much, and don't have as many planets to spread the work over. It could depend on your race aswell. I'm playing with the Sakkra and have taken a very militaristic stance with my funding. Some races with slower prodution or other sorts of problems that they have to deal with might take longer to get a fleet.