How do I get through the planet defenses?

[saturn]

I found a splinter colony being held as slave labor by another race.

I quickly despatched their fleets around the planet, but with 25 ships + troops, their missiles blew me away, and I couldn't get my troops anywhere near the planet.

How do I get through their missiles, fighter bases and beams?

-Saturn

[Mithyk]

Enough IF ships launching missiles will take the planet defenses out in a single volley. I've also had a lot of success launching fighters from the map edge and letting them deal with the problem. In any event, trying to close with the planet using LR or SR ships is the worst thing you can do.

[Proteus_MST]

Yep, IF and Carriers are doing the job.

And don´t forget to include enough Point Defenses to counter the single volley, the Planet wiill probably shoot at you, til his Missile Bases are silenced forever.

[saturn]

Pardon my total newbie-ness, but IF ships?
And what do carriers carry?

And while I'm at it, what do all the other ships do?

-Humbled and Humbly,
Saturn

[Mithyk]

Visit my website at www.mithyk.com/stationprime/ for some help. If you just started, check out the Getting Started Tutorial in the GAME section.

IF=Indirect Fire, missile ships.
Carrier=Fighter Carrier, they send out squads of fighters
LR=Long Range Attack
SR=Short-Range attack
PD=Point Defense, defend against missiles
Recon=Scouts, sensor ships, etc

Hrmm, that's the important ones....

[saturn]

And continuing in my quest for knowledge:
When I build a carrier, do I need to build fighters to go with it, or are they built along with the carrier?

[Proteus_MST]

You have to put them into the Carrier such as you do with Beam Weapons.
i.e. as long as you don´t use the "Autobuild"

When you open the Weapons Menu on the Ship Design screen, you are first shown the "Beam Weapons", but there are also tabs for "Missiles" and "Fighters" which lead to the menus where you can add missiles and fighters to your ship

[Eston3]

Speaking of missle defense, how many do you all recomend for planetside & and how much on DB's