Fleets and Fortress Worlds: advice?

[Hydro]

I just found out what many others have already discovered: attacking fortified planets is…painful.

It was late early game and I proudly deployed my first real CV group – 3 BCVs with 4 CLpd escorts and 2 or so scouts. They sported class 3 shields, medium to heavy titanium armor, and apx level 18 energy weapons for the PD and fighters. I also had a missile TF to help, which was a scratch force of mixed BC to CL missile boats with level 25+ physical torps. There were a total of about 18 ships, including transports.

My victim was a Klackon home world. I didn’t know how to check its defenses then (they had a missile, beam, and fighter bases). I attacked and watched as my missile volley and fighters decimated the 4 defending ships. It didn’t quite blow them apart but it was close. The fighters went to the home planet. Then the defending fighters and missile hit – yikes! The first to go were my transports – they melted like butter. Then the fighters made mincemeat of my missile TF – the nuke missile PD didn’t make a dent in them and didn’t seem to fire (I’d guess they went to the planet – what a waste). Next to go was my PD force and carriers – no PD seemed to make a dent in the fighters or missiles. All the while more volley of missiles were flying back and forth, to my loss.

I watched my last carrier die and really wished I could hit General Retreat. Shortly my last ships erupted into little sparkly lights.

I was bummed.

Then I noticed a swarm of green (my color) gnats heading to where my carrier had been. Then more sparkly lights as the nasty Klackon fighters died.

It turns out that while I was obsessing over my dead ships my fighters had destroyed the missile, beam, and fighter base and then returned to eliminate the fighters. So, I won!

I was even more surprised when I got the ground combat screen. I thought I’d watched my transports die. Maybe if you win you get ground combat anyway? That was more than a bit odd. Well, it took two turns but I finally won the ground combat – let’s hear it for armor and 6 attack factor.

In previous big battles in other games my PD made mincemeat of the fighters, but in this game it was ineffective and I don’t know why.

Plans for the future: In the next carrier TF I’ll put in a couple of short range BCs or BBs with ECCM. All ships will have at least a little beam PD. Basically, I think I need more direct fire and better fire control. I’ll have to accept the damage from the missiles I think (due to the evil PD bug) – heavy titanium armor on everything should help, as would class 4 or 5 shields (coming up shortly).

Any words of wisdom from those that have slugged it out on heavily defended worlds?

[Proteus_MST]

I´ve found it helpful,
to attack the Planet first.
As you can see and attack the Planet at once when you enter the Planet whereas the Planet normally at the Beginnign can´t see you, it is very efficient.

My Missiles are always a couple of latest Technology heaviest Rack available-Missiles, combined with a lot of PD-Nuclear missiles.

While the Heavy Missiles streak towards the Planet and normally enough of them hit to make the 6000 Damage to take out all Bases on the Planet, the Nuclear PDs often enough change their course enroute to intercept Fighters and Missiles which were started from the Planet to attack my Ships.

With this Tactics I seldom loose a Ship when I attack an enemy Planet.

Your observed inefficient PDs could be caused by the well known PD-Bug.
Most of the times it helps to have an armed Missile-Rack on Board of your PD-Ships.

For this reason my PD-Ships always carry at least one Nuclear Missile-PD-Rack with 10 Missiles. Sometimes I include even more of them, because the Missiles themselfes make very good PD-Weapons and on other occasions are good enough to supplement the Missile-Salvos which are fired by my I.F.-Ships.

[Hydro]

Actually, I found I can almost always sneak a nuclear PD on almost any ship. As I recall I made a point to sneak a few on my beam PD CLs, and a few on my carriers and missile chuckers. It didn’t seem to make much difference – I died anyway. It looked to me like the PD nukes were fired at the planet – not a good idea when nasty fighters are on the way.

I’ve left the attack to the AI. I’m pretty hopeless trying to control battles and gave up. Maybe I’ll try later. The AI does launch against ships first, then the planet. In this particular battle I got 2 volleys at the planet (one at the defending ships). It sounds like you’re advising me to get more missile ships, and I’ll certainly do that.

[velkoris]

If you leave your ships alone they will fire point defense missiles at primary targets - tell them to patrol or move first and they will usually save them up.

This is no gaurantee you won't get bitten by the point defense bug though, there is still a very good chance they will ignore the first volley of missiles in a combat, which when facing a fortified planet with 10 or more orbital missile fortresses means you will take crushing casualties.

[Hydro]

Can I do this if the AI controls my fleet? All the controls seem to be inoperative.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Hydro
Can I do this if the AI controls my fleet? All the controls seem to be inoperative.

Of course not,
therefore it is strong advisable to get accustomed to take control over your own ships when in Battle (at least in Battles around Planets).

The Captains of your Starships will be thankful, as more of them survive

[Harry Seldon]

Load up on PD ships with the workaround. The PD ships won't fire unless you put missles on them. I create TFs with BC class PD or larger. You'll still take damage but your larger ships will make it.

[Hydro]

More missile ships did the trick. I did notice one interesting thing, though: my advanced missiles will hit the planet (or anything else - including retargeting of the original target got destroyed, which is a nifty feature) BUT the defending missile base's missiles and fighters never saw me and never attacked. I'll have to look into it, but it seems like there is a range difference on missiles or on sensors. My missile/PD ship fleet sat at the very edge of the map and whacked bases, ships, and orbitals with impunity. I think one of my SR ships attached to the IF fleet as PD backup had x-ray sensors (or whatever it is called).

One annoying note is that while my missiles targeted his fighters, they seemingly only did so if their original target was destroyed (the missile/beam/fighter base). My fleets never went in for the kill and the last fighters were never destroyed - end of turn (draw). The next turn the ground forces landed without resistance, which was OK.

I'll have to experiment with controlling my own fleets. So far it has not been a happy experience when I try. I really dislike real-time games and this might be a psi barrier.

[dreadstar]

Originally posted by velkoris
If you leave your ships alone they will fire point defense missiles at primary targets - tell them to patrol or move first and they will usually save them up.

This is no gaurantee you won't get bitten by the point defense bug though, there is still a very good chance they will ignore the first volley of missiles in a combat, which when facing a fortified planet with 10 or more orbital missile fortresses means you will take crushing casualties.

I was just wondering that perhaps there's another way of looking at this PD bug, as we are calling it.

On small scale ship to ship battles, I've seen any Beam PD weapons I might have actually have some kind of function. Beam PD's are actually of a reletively short range, really. The longest of seen so far are Phaser PDs, which come in at 13187 Gm, Though I haven't seen all yet. Perhaps expecting them to stop everything that gets in may be a tad optomistic. Even Phalanx's on good ol' Human Earth Naval vessels aren't omnipotent.

Missiles, however, PD or otherwise, don't get a range value at all. So, I'm pressuming here that it's line of sight (you can see it, you can kill it). Thus, they can be fired at much longer ranged targets.

This reminds me very much of a Sci-Fi series of Books I've read. Anyone here read any of David Weber's Honor Harrington series? This is exactly the kind of thing they do there. The main Point Defenses are missiles, any beam PD's are mearly a last ditch defense. So, yes, perhaps all ships should have a couple of beam PD's, but any actual designated PD ships should be almost exclusively Missile ships.

JM2CW.

[bakalov]

Please, let somebody post a description , or a link to an existing one for the point defence bug .....

[CharlesBHoff]

At than America Cival site they found two cannonball hit each midair than destory thenself. Police man wear bullet restantive vest as passice protect as there is no way to stop
than bullet at short range from hitting you.

[william1664]

PD beams

"On small scale ship to ship battles, I've (not) seen any Beam PD weapons actually have some kind of function."

I rarely take casualties assulting systems. Load PD ships with Lightning Generator beam PD (thanks to someone who recommended them here). They attack in a white globe, and I can't even see my fleets when they're under attack by a cloud of missles or fighters for all the PD going off.

Hit systems with a pack of IF for the planet and as many more as you need for all the orbitals. The only casualties you'll take will come from defending IF or carrier fleets that get close enough to launch at you - and that's when you need the PD. But with this configuration of force I rarely get scratched.

[Harry Seldon]

Lightening field generator is good, but later on it's not powerful enough to stop a large volley of armored high tech missles. I still tend to load a few on my ships in addition to higher beam defence but you need missles on your ship, preferably a single rack with multiple missles, for PD to fire. I promise you, there is nothing worse than watching a shiny new fleet cruise into battle with enough firepower to level a star only to have it annialated(sp?) by a single planet's missle base.

My wife at times thinks I hate this game because I'll shatter the calm silence of the house with the occassional "Point defense. Point Defence! USE YOUR G** D*** POINT DEFENSE YOU STUPID SACKS OF S***! WHAT THE **** IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?"

If they'd fix PD, they'd make my house a happier home.

[Cabbagemeister]

The thing with the PD bug is that it only seems to ignore the first volley of missiles fired. So you havew to take one big hit, but after that your PD will work.

How does this apply to attacking planets? Well, it's like other people have said: shoot your missiles from outside the enemy's detection range. Shoot them at the planet, because you can see the planet from anywhere, even when they can't see you (duh, it's a planet). Since they can't see you, they have nothing to aim at except your missile volleys or fighter swarms (PD bug doesn't apply to planets), and so their first, unstoppably PD bug-aided missile volley will hit your missiles, not your ships.

Another advantage to doing it this way is that you will get to see any other enemy ships in the system as your missiles pass them by. You can then shoot a second volley of missiles at those ships from WAY outside their detection range. This is actually the strategy I use to attack Orion. If I just blockade the planet, the Orions TFs will come out to get me, and I'll shoot my missiles at the same time they shoot theirs. Boom, mutual destruction. But by assaulting the planet and thus using the "missile scouting" method, I can knock out the Orion task forces before they can see me and launch their PD bug-aided volley. So it's actually easier to attack their TFs AND their defended planets than it is to just attack the TFs.

[Harry Seldon]

I always try to attack the planet first but sometimes there's nothing there and I have to move my fleet in closer to find a target. This seems unfair because the AI will fire all its missles and fighters with no targets apparent when I watch the battle.

I have noticed that my TFs miss several volleys of missiles or don't start firing until it's WAY too late to stop them. I had a fleet of behemoths fly blissfully into a blistering wave of missles that reduced their ranks from eighteen to six. THEN they started firing. Way to go guys!